Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• 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.

• Uncertainty in mean $X_{\rm max}$ from diffractive dissociation estimated using measurements of accelerator experiments

  Ken Ohashi, Hiroaki Menjo, Takashi Sako, Yoshitaka Itow

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 13, 018 (2023) · published 28 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Mass composition is important for understanding the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. However, interpretation of mass composition from air shower experiments is challenging, owing to significant uncertainty in hadronic interaction models adopted in air shower simulation. A particular source of uncertainty is diffractive dissociation, as its measurements in accelerator experiments demonstrated significant systematic uncertainty. In this research, we estimate the uncertainty in $\langle X_{\rm max}\rangle$ from the uncertainty of the measurement of diffractive dissociation by the ALICE experiment. The maximum uncertainty size of the entire air shower was estimated to be $^{+4.0}_{-5.6} \mathrm{g/cm^2}$ for air showers induced by $10^{17}$ eV proton, which is not negligible in the uncertainty of $\langle X_{\rm max}\rangle$ predictions.

• Stochastic representation of the quantum quartic oscillator

  Gennaro Tucci, Stefano De Nicola, Sascha Wald, Andrea Gambassi

  SciPost Phys. Core 6, 029 (2023) · published 14 April 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Recent experimental advances have inspired the development of theoretical tools to describe the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum systems. Among them an exact representation of quantum spin systems in terms of classical stochastic processes has been proposed. Here we provide first steps towards the extension of this stochastic approach to bosonic systems by considering the one-dimensional quantum quartic oscillator. We show how to exactly parameterize the time evolution of this prototypical model via the dynamics of a set of classical variables. We interpret these variables as stochastic processes, which allows us to propose a novel way to numerically simulate the time evolution of the system. We benchmark our findings by considering analytically solvable limits and providing alternative derivations of known results.

• Seven-dimensional super Yang-Mills at negative coupling

  Joseph A. Minahan, Usman Naseer, Charles Thull

  SciPost Phys. 14, 028 (2023) · published 6 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider the partition function for Euclidean $SU(N)$ super Yang-Mills on a squashed seven-sphere. We show that the localization locus of the partition function has instanton membrane solutions wrapping the six ``fixed" three-spheres on the $\mathbb{S}^7$. The ADHM variables of these instantons are fields living on the membrane world volume. We compute their contribution by localizing the resulting three-dimensional supersymmetric field theory. In the round-sphere limit the individual instanton contributions are singular, but the singularities cancel when adding the contributions of all six three-spheres. The full partition function on the ${\mathbb S}^7$ is well-defined even when the square of the effective Yang-Mills coupling is negative. We show for an $SU(2)$ gauge theory in this regime that the bare negative tension of the instanton membranes is canceled off by contributions from the instanton partition function, indicating the existence of tensionless membranes. We provide evidence that this phase is distinct from the usual weakly coupled super Yang-Mills and, in fact, is gravitational.

• Electronic structure of CeAuAl$_3$ using density functional theory

  André Deyerling, Marc A. Wilde, Christian Pfleiderer

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 11, 008 (2023) · published 5 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We studied the magnetic properties and electronic structure of $CeAuAl_3$ using density functional theory. This compound shows a large Sommerfeld coefficient, a Kondo temperature, ${T_K=4\,K}$ and antiferromagnetic order below ${T_N=1.1\,K}$. We calculated the magnetic groundstate of ${CeAuAl_3}$ and the magnetic anisotropy energies. Treating the 4f-electrons as localized with DFT+U we obtain a good match with the magnetic properties observed experimentally. We also report salient features of the electronic structure of ${CeAuAl_3}$, including features of the Fermi surface and associated quantum oscillatory spectra, when the 4f-electrons are treated either as localized or itinerant.

• A measurement of the proton plus helium spectrum of cosmic rays in the TeV region with HAWC

  Juan Carlos Arteaga-Velázquez on behalf of the HAWC collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 13, 015 (2023) · published 28 September 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  HAWC is an air-shower detector designed to study TeV gamma and cosmic rays. The observatory is composed of a 22000 $m^2$ array of 300 water Cherenkov tanks (4.5 m deep x 7.3 m diameter) with 4 photomultipliers (PMT) each. The instrument registers the number of hit PMTs, the timing information and the total charge at the PMTs during the event. From these data, shower observables such as the arrival direction, the core position at ground, the lateral age and the primary energy are estimated. In this work, we study the distribution of the shower age vs the primary energy of a sample of shower data collected by HAWC from June 2015 to June 2019 and employ a shower-age cut based on predictions of QGSJET-II-04 to separate a subsample of events dominated by H and He primaries. Using these data and a dedicated analysis, we reconstruct the cosmic ray spectrum of H+He from 6 to 158 TeV, which shows the presence of a softening at around 24 TeV with a statistical significance of 4.1$\sigma$.

• High-energy logarithmic corrections to the QCD component of same-sign W-pair production

  Jeppe R. Andersen, Bertrand Ducloué, Conor Elrick, Andreas Maier, Graeme Nail, Jennifer M. Smillie

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 129 (2022) · published 13 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We describe the calculation of the QCD contribution to same-sign $W$-pair production, $pp\to e^\pm \nu_e \mu^\pm \nu_\mu jj$, resumming all contributions scaling as $\alpha_W^4 \alpha_s^{2+k}\log^k(\hat s/p_\perp^2)$ [arXiv:2107.06818]. These leading logarithmic contributions are enhanced by typical cuts used for Vector Boson Scattering (VBS) studies. We show that while the cross sections are little affected by these corrections, other more exclusive observables relevant for experimental studies are affected more significantly.

• Status of DMRadio-50L and DMRadio-m$^3$

  Nicholas M. Rapidis

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 036 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Recent theoretical advancements have made the QCD axion a stronger dark matter candidate, especially in the sub-$\mu$eV range. While cavity haloscopes have made significant progress in excluding QCD axions in the 1-100 $\mu$ eV region, the 1 peV- 1 $\mu$eV region remains unexplored. The DMRadio program consists of a series of experiments designed to probe low mass axions. DMRadio-50L uses a 1 T average field toroidal magnet and a high-Q LC-oscillator with target sensitivity to axions of $g_{a\gamma\gamma} < 5 \times 10^{-15}\text{ GeV}^{-1}$between 5 kHz and 5 MHz. DMRadio-m$^3$ consists of a higher frequency LC-oscillator in a 4 T peak field solenoidal magnet with sensitivity to the DFSZ model of QCD axions between 30 MHz and 200 MHz. In this work, we present the status of DMRadio-50L and DMRadio-m$^3.$

• Electric conductivity in non-Hermitian holography

  Zhuo-Yu Xian, David Rodríguez Fernández, Zhaohui Chen, Yang Liu, René Meyer

  SciPost Phys. 16, 004 (2024) · published 5 January 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the phase structure and charge transport at finite temperature and chemical potential in the non-Hermitian $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric holographic model of [SciPost Phys. 9, 032 (2020)]. The non-Hermitian $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric deformation is realized by promoting the parameter of a global U(1) symmetry to a complex number. Depending on the strength of the deformation, we find three phases: stable $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric phase, unstable $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric phase, and an unstable $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry broken phase. In the three phases, the square of the condensate and also the spectral weight of the AC conductivity at zero frequency are, respectively, positive, negative, and complex. We check that the Ferrell-Glover-Tinkham sum rule for the AC conductivity holds in all the three phases. We also investigate a complexified U(1) rotor model with $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric deformation, derive its phase structure and condensation pattern, and find a zero frequency spectral weight analogous to the holographic model.

• Resonant spin Hall effect of light in random photonic arrays

  Federico Carlini, Nicolas Cherroret

  SciPost Phys. 14, 104 (2023) · published 10 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  It has been recently shown that the coherent component of light propagating in transversally disordered media, the so-called coherent mode, exhibits an optical spin Hall effect (SHE). In non-resonant materials, however, this phenomenon shows up at a spatial scale much larger than the mean free path, making its observation challenging due to the exponential attenuation of the coherent mode. Here, we show that in disordered photonic arrays exhibiting Mie resonances, the SHE on the contrary appears at a scale smaller than the mean free path if one operates in the close vicinity of the lowest transverse-magnetic resonance of the array. In combination with a weak measurement, this gives rise to a giant SHE that should be observable in optically-thin media. Furthermore, we show that by additionally exploiting the cooperative emission of a flash of light following the abrupt extinction of the incoming beam, one can achieve a time-dependent SHE, observable at large optical thickness as well.