Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Constraining new physics from Higgs measurements with Lilith: update to LHC Run 2 results

  Sabine Kraml, Tran Quang Loc, Dao Thi Nhung, Le Duc Ninh

  SciPost Phys. 7, 052 (2019) · published 18 October 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Lilith is a public Python library for constraining new physics from Higgs signal strength measurements. We here present version 2.0 of Lilith together with an updated XML database which includes the current ATLAS and CMS Run 2 Higgs results for 36/fb. Both the code and the database were extended from the ordinary Gaussian approximation employed in Lilith-1.1 to using variable Gaussian and Poisson likelihoods. Moreover, Lilith can now make use of correlation matrices of arbitrary dimension. We provide detailed validations of the implemented experimental results as well as a status of global fits for reduced Higgs couplings, Two-Higgs-doublet models of Type I and Type II, and invisible Higgs decays. Lilith-2.0 is available on GitHub and ready to be used to constrain a wide class of new physics scenarios.

  47 citations

• AMS-02 antiprotons and dark matter: Trimmed hints and robust bounds

  Francesca Calore, Marco Cirelli, Laurent Derome, Yoann Genolini, David Maurin, Pierre Salati, Pasquale D. Serpico

  SciPost Phys. 12, 163 (2022) · published 18 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Based on 4 yr AMS-02 antiproton data, we present bounds on the dark matter (DM) annihilation cross section vs. mass for some representative final state channels. We use recent cosmic-ray propagation models, a realistic treatment of experimental and theoretical errors, and an updated calculation of input antiproton spectra based on a recent release of the PYTHIA code. We find that reported hints of a DM signal are statistically insignificant; an adequate treatment of errors is crucial for credible conclusions. Antiproton bounds on DM annihilation are among the most stringent ones, probing thermal DM up to the TeV scale. The dependence of the bounds upon propagation models and the DM halo profile is also quantified. A preliminary estimate reaches similar conclusions when applied to the 7 years AMS-02 dataset, but also suggests extra caution as for possible future claims of DM excesses.

  47 citations

• Quark-gluon tagging: Machine learning vs detector

  Gregor Kasieczka, Nicholas Kiefer, Tilman Plehn, Jennifer M. Thompson

  SciPost Phys. 6, 069 (2019) · published 18 June 2019 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Distinguishing quarks from gluons based on low-level detector output is one of the most challenging applications of multi-variate and machine learning techniques at the LHC. We first show the performance of our 4-vector-based LoLa tagger without and after considering detector effects. We then discuss two benchmark applications, mono-jet searches with a gluon-rich signal and di-jet resonances with a quark-rich signal. In both cases an immediate benefit compared to the standard event-level analysis exists.

  47 citations

• On Current-Squared Flows and ModMax Theories

  Christian Ferko, Liam Smith, Gabriele Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli

  SciPost Phys. 13, 012 (2022) · published 4 August 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We show that the recently introduced ModMax theory of electrodynamics and its Born-Infeld-like generalization are related by a flow equation driven by a quadratic combination of stress-energy tensors. The operator associated to this flow is a $4d$ analogue of the $T\bar{T}$ deformation in two dimensions. This result generalizes the observation that the ordinary Born-Infeld Lagrangian is related to the free Maxwell theory by a current-squared flow. As in that case, we show that no analogous relationship holds in any other dimension besides $d=4$. We also demonstrate that the $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric version of the ModMax-Born-Infeld theory obeys a related supercurrent-squared flow which is formulated directly in $\mathcal{N}=1$ superspace.

  47 citations

• Role of Sb in the superconducting kagome metal CsV$_3$Sb$_5$ revealed by its anisotropic compression

  Alexander A. Tsirlin, Pierre Fertey, Brenden R. Ortiz, Berina Klis, Valentino Merkl, Martin Dressel, Stephen D. Wilson, Ece Uykur

  SciPost Phys. 12, 049 (2022) · published 2 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Pressure evolution of the superconducting kagome metal CsV$_3$Sb$_5$ is studied with single-crystal x-ray diffraction and density-functional band-structure calculations. A highly anisotropic compression observed up to 5 GPa is ascribed to the fast shrinkage of the Cs-Sb distances and suppression of Cs rattling motion. This prevents Sb displacements required to stabilize the three-dimensional charge-density-wave (CDW) order and elucidates the disappearance of the CDW already at 2 GPa despite only minor changes in the electronic structure of the normal state. At higher pressures, vanadium bands still change only marginally, whereas antimony bands undergo a major reconstruction caused by the gradual formation of the interlayer Sb-Sb bonds. Our results exclude pressure tuning of vanadium kagome bands as the main mechanism for the non-trivial evolution of superconductivity in real-world kagome metals. Concurrently, we establish the central role of Sb atoms in the stabilization of a three-dimensional CDW and Fermi surface reconstruction.

  47 citations

• A symmetry algebra in double-scaled SYK

  Henry W. Lin, Douglas Stanford

  SciPost Phys. 15, 234 (2023) · published 8 December 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The double-scaled limit of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model takes the number of fermions and their interaction number to infinity in a coordinated way. In this limit, two entangled copies of the SYK model have a bulk description of sorts known as the "chord Hilbert space". We analyze a symmetry algebra acting on this Hilbert space, generated by the two Hamiltonians together with a two-sided operator known as the chord number. This algebra is a deformation of the JT gravitational algebra, and it contains a subalgebra that is a deformation of the $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ near-horizon symmetries. The subalgebra has finite-dimensional unitary representations corresponding to matter moving around in a discrete Einstein-Rosen bridge. In a semiclassical limit the discreteness disappears and the subalgebra simplifies to $\mathfrak{sl}_2$, but with a non-standard action on the boundary time coordinate. One can make the action of $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ algebra more standard at the cost of extending the boundary circle to include some "fake" portions. Such fake portions also accommodate certain subtle states that survive the semi-classical limit, despite oscillating on the scale of discreteness. We discuss applications of this algebra, including sub-maximal chaos, the traversable wormhole protocol, and a two-sided OPE.

  46 citations

• Time dependent variational principle for tree Tensor Networks

  Daniel Bauernfeind, Markus Aichhorn

  SciPost Phys. 8, 024 (2020) · published 7 February 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a generalization of the Time Dependent Variational Principle (TDVP) to any finite sized loop-free tensor network. The major advantage of TDVP is that it can be employed as long as a representation of the Hamiltonian in the same tensor network structure that encodes the state is available. Often, such a representation can be found also for long-range terms in the Hamiltonian. As an application we use TDVP for the Fork Tensor Product States tensor network for multi-orbital Anderson impurity models. We demonstrate that TDVP allows to account for off-diagonal hybridizations in the bath which are relevant when spin-orbit coupling effects are important, or when distortions of the crystal lattice are present.

  46 citations

• Hydrodynamics in lattice models with continuous non-Abelian symmetries

  Paolo Glorioso, Luca V. Delacrétaz, Xiao Chen, Rahul M. Nandkishore, Andrew Lucas

  SciPost Phys. 10, 015 (2021) · published 25 January 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We develop a systematic effective field theory of hydrodynamics for many-body systems on the lattice with global continuous non-Abelian symmetries. Models with continuous non-Abelian symmetries are ubiquitous in physics, arising in diverse settings ranging from hot nuclear matter to cold atomic gases and quantum spin chains. In every dimension and for every flavor symmetry group, the low energy theory is a set of coupled noisy diffusion equations. Independence of the physics on the choice of canonical or microcanonical ensemble is manifest in our hydrodynamic expansion, even though the ensemble choice causes an apparent shift in quasinormal mode spectra. We use our formalism to explain why flavor symmetry is qualitatively different from hydrodynamics with other non-Abelian conservation laws, including angular momentum and charge multipoles. As a significant application of our framework, we study spin and energy diffusion in classical one-dimensional SU(2)-invariant spin chains, including the Heisenberg model along with multiple generalizations. We argue based on both numerical simulations and our effective field theory framework that non-integrable spin chains on a lattice exhibit conventional spin diffusion, in contrast to some recent predictions that diffusion constants grow logarithmically at late times. We show that the apparent enhancement of diffusion is due to slow equilibration caused by (non-Abelian) hydrodynamic fluctuations.

  46 citations

• Blast from the past: Constraints on the dark sector from the BEBC WA66 beam dump experiment

  Giacomo Marocco, Subir Sarkar

  SciPost Phys. 10, 043 (2021) · published 19 February 2021 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We derive limits on millicharged dark states, as well as particles with electric or magnetic dipole moments, from the number of observed forward electron scattering events at the Big European Bubble Chamber in the 1982 CERN-WA-066 beam dump experiment. The dark states are produced by the 400~GeV proton beam primarily through the decays of mesons produced in the beam dump, and the lack of excess events places bounds extending up to GeV masses. These improve on bounds from all other experiments, in particular CHARM~II.

  46 citations

• Locally quasi-stationary states in noninteracting spin chains

  Maurizio Fagotti

  SciPost Phys. 8, 048 (2020) · published 27 March 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Locally quasi-stationary states (LQSS) were introduced as inhomogeneous generalisations of stationary states in integrable systems. Roughly speaking, LQSSs look like stationary states, but only locally. Despite their key role in hydrodynamic descriptions, an unambiguous definition of LQSSs was not given. By solving the dynamics in inhomogeneous noninteracting spin chains, we identify the set of LQSSs as a subspace that is invariant under time evolution, and we explicitly construct the latter in a generalised XY model. As a by-product, we exhibit an exact generalised hydrodynamic theory (including "quantum corrections").

  46 citations