Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• What charged cosmic rays tell us on dark matter

  Pierre Salati

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 067 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dark matter particles could be the major component of the haloes of galaxies. Their mutual annihilations or decays would produce an indirect signature under the form of high-energy cosmic-rays. The focus of this presentation is on antimatter species, a component so rare that any excess over the background should be easily detected. After a recap on Galactic propagation, I will discuss positrons, antiprotons and anti-nuclei. For each of these species, anomalies have been reported. The antiproton excess, for instance, is currently a hot topic. Alas, it does not resist a correct treatment of theoretical and data errors.

• Lepton flavour violation and neutrino masses

  Ana M. Teixeira

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 015 (2019) · published 19 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Neutrino oscillations provided the first evidence for the violation of flavour in the lepton sector, and established a clear need to consider extensions of the Standard Model. Many new phenomena can emerge from these New Physics (NP) constructions, among which processes violating lepton number and charged lepton flavour, all clear signals of New Physics. Following a short overview of the status of experimental searches, we comment on the prospects of several models of massive neutrinos, from minimal constructions to complete NP models, to the above mentioned observables.

• Dynamical spin-orbit-based spin transistor

  Fahriye N. Gürsoy, P. Reck, C. Gorini, K. Richter, I. Adagideli

  SciPost Phys. 14, 060 (2023) · published 4 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Spin-orbit interaction (SOI) has been a key tool to steer and manipulate spin-dependent transport properties in two-dimensional electron gases. Here we demonstrate how spin currents can be created and efficiently read out in nano- or mesoscale conductors with time-dependent and spatially inhomogeneous Rashba SOI. Invoking an underlying non-Abelian SU(2) gauge structure we show how time-periodic spin-orbit fields give rise to spin electric forces and enable the generation of pure spin currents of the order of several hundred nano-Amperes. In a complementary way, by combining gauge transformations with "hidden" Onsager relations, we exploit spatially inhomogeneous Rashba SOI to convert spin currents (back) into charge currents. In combining both concepts, we devise a spin transistor that integrates efficient spin current generation, by employing dynamical SOI, with its experimentally feasible detection via conversion into charge signals. We derive general expressions for the respective spin- and charge conductance, covering large parameter regimes of SOI strength and driving frequencies, far beyond usual adiabatic approaches such as the frozen scattering matrix approximation. We check our analytical expressions and approximations with full numerical spin-dependent transport simulations and demonstrate that the predictions hold true in a wide range from low to high driving frequencies.

• Exponential enhancement of dark matter freezeout abundance

  Bibhushan Shakya

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 070 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  A novel paradigm for thermal dark matter (DM), termed "bouncing dark matter", is presented. In canonical thermal DM scenarios, the DM abundance falls exponentially as the temperature drops below the mass of DM, until thermal freezeout occurs. This note explores a broader class of thermal DM models that are exceptions to this rule, where the DM abundance can deviate from the exponentially falling curve, and even rise exponentially, while in thermal equilibrium. Such scenarios can feature present day DM annihilation cross sections much larger than the canonical thermal target, improving the prospects for indirect detection of DM annihilation signals.

• W+c-jet production at the LHC with NNLO QCD accuracy

  Michal Czakon, Alexander Mitov, Mathieu Pellen, Rene Poncelet

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 035 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In these proceedings, we highlight some aspects of the recent computation of NNLO QCD corrections for W production in association with a charm jet at the LHC. The results are presented in the form of cross sections and differential distributions and are compared to ATLAS data.

• Precision magnetometry exploiting excited state quantum phase transitions

  Qian Wang, Ugo Marzolino

  SciPost Phys. 17, 043 (2024) · published 9 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Critical behaviour in phase transitions is a resource for enhanced precision metrology. The reason is that the function, known as Fisher information, is superextensive at critical points, and, at the same time, quantifies performances of metrological protocols. Therefore, preparing metrological probes at phase transitions provides enhanced precision in measuring the transition control parameter. We focus on the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model that exhibits excited state quantum phase transitions at different magnetic fields. Resting on the model spectral properties, we show broad peaks of the Fisher information, and propose efficient schemes for precision magnetometry. The Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model was first introduced for superconductivity and for nuclear systems, and recently realised in several condensed matter platforms. The above metrological schemes can be also exploited to measure microscopic properties of systems able to simulate the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model.

• Ergodic Archimedean dimers

  Henrik Schou Røising, Zhao Zhang

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 054 (2023) · published 11 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study perfect matchings, or close-packed dimer coverings, of finite sections of the eleven Archimedean lattices and give a constructive proof showing that any two perfect matchings can be transformed into each other using small sets of local ring-exchange moves. This result has direct consequences for formulating quantum dimer models with a resonating valence bond ground state, i.e., a superposition of all dimer coverings compatible with the boundary conditions. On five of the composite Archimedean lattices we supplement the sufficiency proof with translationally invariant reference configurations that prove the strict necessity of the sufficient terms with respect to ergodicity. We provide examples of and discuss frustration-free deformations of the quantum dimer models on two tripartite lattices.

• Brick wall quantum circuits with global fermionic symmetry

  Pietro Richelli, Kareljan Schoutens, Alberto Zorzato

  SciPost Phys. 17, 087 (2024) · published 23 September 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study brick wall quantum circuits enjoying a global fermionic symmetry. The constituent 2-qubit gate, and its fermionic symmetry, derive from a 2-particle scattering matrix in integrable, supersymmetric quantum field theory in 1+1 dimensions. Our 2-qubit gate, as a function of three free parameters, is of so-called free fermionic or matchgate form, allowing us to derive the spectral structure of both the brick wall unitary $U_F$ and its, non-trivial, Hamiltonian limit $H_{\gamma}$ in closed form. We find that the fermionic symmetry pins $H_{\gamma}$ to a surface of critical points, whereas breaking that symmetry leads to non-trivial topological phases. We briefly explore quench dynamics for this class of circuits.

• Low-energy neutron scattering on light nuclei and $^{19}$B as a $^{17}$B-$n$-$n$ three-body system in the unitary limit

  Jaume Carbonell, Emiko Hiyama, Rimantas Lazauskas, F. Miguel Marqués

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 3, 008 (2020) · published 24 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the evolution of the neutron-nucleus scattering length for the lightest nuclei. We show that, when increasing the number of neutrons in the target nucleus, the strong Pauli repulsion is weakened and the balance with the attractive nucleon-nucleon interaction results into a resonant virtual state in $^{18}$B. We describe $^{19}$B in terms of a $^{17}$B-$n$-$n$ three-body system where the two-body subsystems $^{17}$B-$n$ and $n$-$n$ are unbound (virtual) states close to the unitary limit. The energy of $^{19}$B ground state is well reproduced and two low-lying resonances are predicted. Their eventual link with the Efimov physics is discussed. This model can be extended to describe the recently discovered resonant states in $^{20,21}$B.

• Recent progress on two-loop massless pentabox integrals with one off-shell leg

  D. Canko, A. Kardos, C. G. Papadopoulos, A. V Smirnov, N. Syrrakos, C. Wever

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 037 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Analytic expressions in terms of polylogarithmic functions for all three families of planar two-loop five-point Master Integrals with one off-shell leg are presented. The Simplified Differential Equations approach is the only known way to fulfil this task due to its unique factorisation property of the symbols of the canonical differential equation. The results are relevant to the study of many $2\to 3$ scattering processes of interest at the LHC.