SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 91 (2025) ·
published 7 March 2025
|
· pdf
These lecture notes, prepared for the 2024 XQCD PhD, provide an introduction to the analytic structure of an equation of state near a second-order phase transition and its most prominent landmark: the Yang-Lee edge singularity. In addition to discussing general properties, the notes review recent theoretical progress in locating the QCD critical point by tracking the trajectory of the Yang-Lee edge singularity.
Athanasia-Konstantina Angelopoulou, Anh Dung Le, Stéphane Munier
SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 92 (2025) ·
published 12 March 2025
|
· pdf
We review the factorization of the $S$-matrix elements in the context of particle scattering off an external field, which can serve as a model for the field of a large nucleus. The factorization takes the form of a convolution of light cone wave functions describing the physical incoming and outgoing states in terms of bare partons, and products of Wilson lines. The latter represent the interaction between the bare partons and the external field. Specializing to elastic scattering amplitudes of onia at very high energies, we introduce the color dipole model, which formulates the calculation of the modulus-squared of the wave functions in quantum chromodynamics with the help of a branching random walk, and the scattering amplitudes as observables on this classical stochastic process. Methods developed for general branching processes produce analytical formulas for the asymptotics of such observables, and thus enable one to derive exact large-rapidity expressions for onium-nucleus cross sections, from which electron-nucleus cross sections may be inferred.
SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 38 (2022) ·
published 31 January 2022
|
· pdf
Les Houches 2021 lectures on dark matter effective field theory (short course). The aim of these two lectures is to calculate the DM-nucleus cross section for a simple example, and then generalize to the treatment of general effective interactions of spin-1/2 DM. Relativistic local operators, the heavy-DM effective theory, the chiral effective Lagrangian, and nuclear effective operators are briefly discussed.
Carlo Maccaferri, Fabio Marino, Beniamino Valsesia
SciPost Phys. Lect. Notes 90 (2025) ·
published 29 January 2025
|
· pdf
These are lecture notes of the introductory String Theory course held by one of the authors for the master program of Theoretical Physics at Turin University. The world-sheet approach to String Theory is pedagogically introduced in the framework of the bosonic string and of the superstring.
