Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Top quark mass corrections to single and double Higgs boson production in gluon fusion

  Joshua Davies

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 031 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this talk we discuss recent computations of the top quark mass dependence of QCD amplitudes describing Higgs boson production in gluon fusion. We compute terms in the expansion for a large top quark mass, which reduces the Feynman diagrams to products of massless integrals and massive tadpole integrals which contain the top mass dependence. In particular we discuss the real and virtual corrections to double Higgs production at NNLO, and the virtual corrections to single Higgs production at N3LO.

• Photon-ALP oscillations at CTA energies

  M. Kachelriess, J. Tjemsland

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 043 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Axions and axion-like-particles (ALPs) are well motivated beyond the standard model particles that can explain a variety of unsolved problems in physics, such as the strong CP problem and the nature of dark matter. These particles are characterised by their two-photon coupling, which leads to so-called photon-ALP oscillation as photons propagate through an external magnetic field. Such oscillations lead to characteristic signatures in the energy spectrum of high-energy photons from astrophysical sources, allowing us to probe the existence of ALPs and possibly dark matter. We review the signatures from ALPs in photon spectra and discuss a new method that can be used to directly search for the energy dependence of the oscillations. The focus is on photons at TeV-energies relevant for the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA).

• Abelian combinatorial gauge symmetry

  Hongji Yu, Dmitry Green, Andrei E. Ruckenstein, Claudio Chamon

  SciPost Phys. Core 7, 014 (2024) · published 26 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Combinatorial gauge symmetry is a principle that allows us to construct lattice gauge theories with two key and distinguishing properties: a) only one- and two-body interactions are needed; and b) the symmetry is exact rather than emergent in an effective or perturbative limit. The ground state exhibits topological order for a range of parameters. This paper is a generalization of the construction to any finite Abelian group. In addition to the general mathematical construction, we present a physical implementation in superconducting wire arrays, which offers a route to the experimental realization of lattice gauge theories with static Hamiltonians.

• Global fits of Dirac dark matter effective field theories

  Ankit Beniwal (On behalf of the GAMBIT Collaboration)

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 044 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this proceeding, we present results from a global fit of Dirac fermion dark matter (DM) effective field theory (EFT) based on arXiv:2106.02056 using the GAMBIT framework. Here we show results only for the dimension-6 operators that describe the interactions between a gauge-singlet Dirac fermion and Standard Model quarks. Our global fit combines the latest constraints from Planck, direct and indirect DM detection, and the LHC. For DM mass below 100 GeV, it is impossible to simultaneously satisfy all constraints while maintaining the EFT validity at high energies. For higher masses, however, large regions of parameter space remain viable where the EFT is valid and saturates the observed DM abundance.

• Towards two- and three-loop QCD corrections to the width difference in $B_s-\bar{B}_s$ mixing

  Vladyslav Shtabovenko

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 7, 025 (2022) · published 21 June 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work we address the issue of large perturbative uncertainties in the theory prediction for $\Delta \Gamma_s$, the width difference in the $B^0_s - \bar{B}^0_s$ mixing process. To this aim we complete important steps towards the full analytic result for the previously unknown Wilson coefficients from the matching between $|\Delta B|=1$ and $|\Delta B|=2$ effective Hamiltonians at next-to-next-leading order (NNLO) in the strong coupling constant. We provide a thorough discussion of technical and conceptual difficulties behind this computation and give an outlook regarding the availability of the new NNLO theory prediction for $\Delta \Gamma_s$.

• Quantum parameter estimation with many-body fermionic systems and application to the Hall effect

  Olivier Giraud, Mark-Oliver Goerbig, Daniel Braun

  SciPost Phys. 16, 085 (2024) · published 25 March 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We calculate the quantum Fisher information for a generic many-body fermionic system in a pure state depending on a parameter. We discuss the situations where the parameter is imprinted in the basis states, in the state coefficients, or both. In the case where the parameter dependence of coefficients results from a Hamiltonian evolution, we derive a particularly simple expression for the quantum Fisher information. We apply our findings to the quantum Hall effect, and evaluate the quantum Fisher information associated with the optimal measurement of the magnetic field for a system in the ground state of the effective Hamiltonian. The occupation of electron states with high momentum enforced by the Pauli principle leads to a "super-Heisenberg" scaling of the sensitivity with a power law that depends on the geometry of the sensor.

• Flavor deformations and supersymmetry enhancement in $4d$ $\mathcal{N}=2$ theories

  Usman Naseer, Charles Thull

  SciPost Phys. 13, 058 (2022) · published 21 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study $\mathcal{N}=2$ theories on four-dimensional manifolds that admit a Killing vector $v$ with isolated fixed points. It is possible to deform these theories by coupling position-dependent background fields to the flavor current multiplet. The partition function of the deformed theory only depends on the value of the background scalar fields at the fixed points of $v$. For a single adjoint hypermultiplet, the partition function becomes independent of the supergravity as well as the flavor background if the scalars attain special values at the fixed points. For these special values, supersymmetry at the fixed points enhances from the Donaldson-Witten twist to the Marcus twist or the Vafa-Witten twist of $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM. Our results explain the recently observed squashing independence of $\mathcal{N}=2^*$ theory on the squashed sphere and provide a new squashing independent point. Interpreted through the AGT-correspondence, this implies the $b$-independence of torus one-point functions of certain local operators in Liouville/Toda CFT. The position-dependent deformations imply relations between correlators of partially integrated operators in any $\mathcal{N}=2$ SCFT with flavor symmetries.

• Light thermal relics enabled by a second Higgs

  Johannes Herms, Sudip Jana, Vishnu P. K., Shaikh Saad

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 046 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Sub-GeV thermal relic dark matter typically requires the existence of a light mediator particle. We introduce the light two-Higgs-doublet portal, illustrated by a minimal UV-complete model for sub-GeV dark matter with kinematically forbidden annihilations into leptons. All new physics states in this scenario lie at or below the electroweak scale, affecting Higgs physics, the muon anomalous magnetic moment and potentially neutrino masses. Observation of radiative dark matter annihilation by future MeV gamma-ray telescopes would be key to unambiguously identify the scenario.

• Proton reconstruction with the Precision Proton Spectrometer (PPS) in Run 2 and the PPS at HL-LHC

  Fabrizio Ferro

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 8, 062 (2022) · published 12 July 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The Precision Proton Spectrometer (PPS) started operating in 2016 and has collected more than 110 fb$^{-1}$ of data over the course of the LHC Run 2, now fully available for physics analysis. This contribution covers the key features of the PPS alignment and optics calibration, which have been developed from scratch. The reconstructed proton distributions, the performance of the PPS simulation and finally the validation of the full reconstruction chain with physics data (dilepton events) are also illustrated.

• Symmetry energy in holographic QCD

  Lorenzo Bartolini, Sven Bjarke Gudnason

  SciPost Phys. 16, 156 (2024) · published 19 June 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the symmetry energy (SE), an important quantity in nuclear physics, in the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model and in a much simpler hard-wall model of holographic QCD. The SE is the energy contribution to the nucleus due to having an unequal number of neutrons and protons. Using a homogeneous Ansatz representing smeared instantons and quantizing their isospin, we extract the SE and the proton fraction assuming charge neutrality and beta-equilibrium, using quantization of the isospin zeromode. We also show the equivalence between our method adapted from solitons and the usual way of the isospin controlled by a chemical potential at the holographic boundary. We find that the SE can be well described in the WSS model if we allow for a larger 't Hooft coupling and lower Kaluza-Klein scale than is normally used in phenomenological fits.