Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Comparison of $pp$ and $p \bar{p}$ differential elastic cross sections and observation of the exchange of a colorless $C$-odd gluonic compound

  C. Royon

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 138 (2022) · published 14 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We describe the discovery of the colorless $C$-odd gluonic compound, the odderon, by the D0 and TOTEM Collaborations by comparing elastic differential cross sections in $pp$ and $p \bar{p}$ interactions at high energies.

• The low-energy spectrum in DAMIC at SNOLAB

  Alvaro E. Chavarria

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 011 (2023) · published 3 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The DAMIC experiment employs large-area, thick charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to search for the interactions of low-mass dark matter particles in the galactic halo with silicon atoms in the CCD target. From 2017 to 2019, DAMIC collected data with a seven-CCD array (40-gram target) installed in the SNOLAB underground laboratory. We report dark-matter search results, including a conspicuous excess of events above the background model below 200$V_{ee}$, whose origin remains unknown. We present details of the published spectral analysis, and update on the deployment of skipper CCDs to perform a more precise measurement by early 2023.

• Theory of universal diode effect in three-terminal Josephson junctions

  Jorge Huamani Correa, Michał P. Nowak

  SciPost Phys. 17, 037 (2024) · published 7 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We theoretically study the superconducting diode effect in a three-terminal Josephson junction. The diode effect in superconducting systems is typically related to the presence of a difference in the critical currents for currents flowing in the opposite direction. We show that in multi-terminal systems this effect occurs naturally without the need of the presence of any spin interactions and is a result of the presence of a relative shift between the Andreev bound states carrying the supercurrent. On an example of a three-terminal junction, we demonstrate that the non-reciprocal current in one of the superconducting contacts can be induced by proper phase biasing of the other contacts, provided that there are at least two Andreev bound states in the system and the symmetry of the system is broken. This result is confirmed in numerical models describing the junctions in both the short- and long-regime. By optimizing the geometry of the junction, we show that the efficiency of the realized superconducting diode exceeds 35%. We relate our predictions to recent experiments on multi-terminal junctions, in which non-reciprocal supercurrents were observed.

• Dense Hopfield networks in the teacher-student setting

  Robin Thériault, Daniele Tantari

  SciPost Phys. 17, 040 (2024) · published 8 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dense Hopfield networks with $p$-body interactions are known for their feature to prototype transition and adversarial robustness. However, theoretical studies have been mostly concerned with their storage capacity. We derive the phase diagram of pattern retrieval in the teacher-student setting of $p$-body networks, finding ferromagnetic phases reminiscent of the prototype and feature learning regimes. On the Nishimori line, we find the critical amount of data necessary for pattern retrieval, and we show that the corresponding ferromagnetic transition coincides with the paramagnetic to spin-glass transition of $p$-body networks with random memories. Outside of the Nishimori line, we find that the student can tolerate extensive noise when it has a larger $p$ than the teacher. We derive a formula for the adversarial robustness of such a student at zero temperature, corroborating the positive correlation between number of parameters and robustness in large neural networks. Our model also clarifies why the prototype phase of $p$-body networks is adversarially robust.

• Measurements of Higgs-boson decays to leptons with the ATLAS detector

  Lara Katharina Schildgen on behalf of the ATLAS Collaboration

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 019 (2019) · published 19 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Since its discovery in 2012, the Higgs boson has served as an important probe for precision measurements of the Standard Model and for searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model. One major goal of the LHC is the precise measurement of the Higgs Yukawa couplings to fermions. The latest ATLAS results of measurements of the Higgs boson decaying to leptons are presented, namely the cross-section measurement of the Higgs boson decay to two tau leptons and the searches for the di-muon decay and lepton-flavour-violating decays of the Higgs boson.

• Measuring single-top-associated Higgs production at the HL-LHC

  Henning Bahl

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 010 (2022) · published 11 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Precision measurements of top-associated Higgs production are an important ingredient to unravel the $\mathcal{CP}$ nature of the Higgs boson. In this work, we constraint the $\mathcal{CP}$ nature of the top-Yukawa coupling taking into account all relevant inclusive and differential Higgs boson measurements. Based upon this fit, we show that it is crucial to disentangle single- and di-top-associated Higgs production for tightening indirect constraints on a $\mathcal{CP}$-odd top-Yukawa coupling in the future. In this context, we propose an analysis strategy for measuring $tH$ production at the HL-LHC without relying on assumptions about the Higgs $\mathcal{CP}$ character.

• Neutron production in ($\alpha$,n) reactions in SOURCES4

  Vitaly A. Kudryavtsev, Piotr Krawczun, Rayna Bocheva

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 018 (2023) · published 3 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Neutrons produced in spontaneous fission and ($\alpha,n$) reactions can induce background events in underground experiments looking for rare processes. A number of computer codes are available to calculate cross-sections of ($\alpha,n$) reactions, branching ratios to various states and neutron yields. SOURCES4 code has been used in this work to calculate neutron yields and energy spectra with input cross-sections and branching ratios taken from experimental data and models from EMPIRE2.19/3.2.3 and TALYS1.9 codes. A comparison of SOURCES4 calculations with experimental data from alpha beams and radioactive decay chains is presented.

• Escaping fronts in local quenches of a confining spin chain

  Anna Krasznai, Gábor Takács

  SciPost Phys. 16, 138 (2024) · published 29 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider local quenches from initial states generated by a single spin-flip in either the true or the false vacuum state of the confining quantum Ising spin chain in the ferromagnetic regime. Contrary to global quenches, where the light-cone behaviour is strongly suppressed, we find a significant light-cone signal propagating with a nonzero velocity besides the expected localised oscillating component. Combining an analytic representation of the initial state with a numerical description of the relevant excitations using the two-fermion approximation, we can construct the spectrum of post-quench excitations and their overlaps with the initial state, identifying the underlying mechanism. For confining quenches built upon the true vacuum, the propagating signal consists of superpositions of left and right-moving mesons escaping confinement. In contrast, for anti-confining quenches built upon the false vacuum it is composed of superpositions of left and right-moving bubbles which escape Wannier-Stark localisation.

• Exact first-order effect of interactions on the ground-state energy of harmonically-confined fermions

  Pierre Le Doussal, Naftali R. Smith, Nathan Argaman

  SciPost Phys. 17, 038 (2024) · published 7 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We consider a system of $N$ spinless fermions, interacting with each other via a power-law interaction $\epsilon/r^n$, and trapped in an external harmonic potential $V(r) = r^2/2$, in $d=1,2,3$ dimensions. For any $0 < n < d+2$, we obtain the ground-state energy $E_N$ of the system perturbatively in $\epsilon$, $E_{N}=E_{N}^{(0)}+\epsilon E_{N}^{(1)}+O(\epsilon^{2})$. We calculate $E_{N}^{(1)}$ exactly, assuming that $N$ is such that the "outer shell" is filled. For the case of $n=1$ (corresponding to a Coulomb interaction for $d=3$), we extract the $N \gg 1$ behavior of $E_{N}^{(1)}$, focusing on the corrections to the exchange term with respect to the leading-order term that is predicted from the local density approximation applied to the Thomas-Fermi approximate density distribution. The leading correction contains a logarithmic divergence, and is of particular importance in the context of density functional theory. We also study the effect of the interactions on the fermions' spatial density. Finally, we find that our result for $E_{N}^{(1)}$ significantly simplifies in the case where $n$ is even.

• The strong coupling from $e^+e^-\to$~hadrons

  Diogo Boito, Maarten Golterman, Alex Keshavarzi, Kim Maltman, Daiskuke Nomura, Santiago Peris, Thomas Teubner

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 1, 035 (2019) · published 21 February 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We use a new compilation of the hadronic $R$-ratio from available data for the process $e^+e^-\to$ hadrons below the charm mass to determine the strong coupling $\alpha_s$, using finite-energy sum rules. Quoting our results at the $\tau$ mass to facilitate comparison to the results obtained from similar analyses of hadronic $\tau$-decay data, we find $\alpha_s(m_\tau^2)=0.298\pm 0.016\pm 0.006$ in fixed-order perturbation theory, and $\alpha_s(m_\tau^2)=0.304\pm 0.018\pm 0.006$ in contour-improved perturbation theory, where the first error is statistical, and the second error combines various systematic effects. These values are in good agreement with a recent determination from the OPAL and ALEPH data for hadronic $\tau$ decays. We briefly compare the $R(s)$-based analysis with the $\tau$-based analysis.