Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Tau leptons as a tool to investigate the CP properties of the Higgs boson at CMS

  Andrea Cardini

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 019 (2025) · published 15 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Among the Higgs boson decay channels, the one to tau leptons can offer insight into the properties of the Higgs boson. The structure under CP symmetry of the tau Yukawa coupling was investigated in CMS by reconstructing the decay planes of the two tau leptons and measuring their angular separation. Tau decay planes are reconstructed depending on the studied decay channel to take advantage of the correlation between the tau lepton spin and the momenta of its decay products. Using the data collected during the LHC Run 2 data-taking period, the study revealed that the Yukawa coupling is largely dominated by a pure CP-even component. A pure CP-odd Yukawa coupling is excluded with a 99.7% confidence level allowing to constrain the allowed phase space for possible BSM scenarios.

• LFV searches by ATLAS and CMS experiments

  Luca Fiorini

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 020 (2025) · published 15 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The appearance of lepton-flavour-violating processes in LHC proton-proton collisions is one of the possible ways that new physics beyond the Standard Model could manifest itself. This proceeding summarizes the most recent searches for lepton-flavour-violating processes and tests of lepton flavour universality with the ATLAS and CMS detectors, using proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV.

• Exploring neutrino masses and mixing in the seesaw model with $L_e-L_\tau$ gauged symmetry

  Papia Panda, Mitesh Kumar Behera, Priya Mishra, Shivaramakrishna Singirala, Rukmani Mohanta

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 024 (2025) · published 15 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate neutrino phenomenology in the $U(1)_{L_e-L_\tau}$ gauge extension of the Standard Model with symmetry following the framework of type-(I+II) seesaw mechanism. For this, we have added three right handed neutrinos, one singlet and one scalar triplet in our model. We show that the model can successfully accommodate the observed neutrino oscillation data and consistent with the results from lepton flavor violation and neutrinoless double beta decay process.

• Renormalizable extension of the Abelian Higgs-Kibble model with a dim.6 derivative operator

  Daniele Binosi, Andrea Quadri

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 14, 019 (2023) · published 23 November 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We present a new approach to the consistent subtraction of a non power-counting renormalizable extension of the Abelian Higgs-Kibble (HK) model supplemented by a dim. 6 derivative-dependent operator controlled by the parameter $z$. A field-theoretic representation of the physical Higgs scalar by a gauge-invariant variable is used in order to formulate the theory by exploiting a novel differential equation, controlling the dependence of the quantized theory on $z$. These results pave the way to the consistent subtraction by a finite number of physical parameters of some non-power-counting renormalizable models possibly of direct relevance to the study of the Higgs potential at the LHC.

• What charged cosmic rays tell us on dark matter

  Pierre Salati

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 067 (2023) · published 5 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Dark matter particles could be the major component of the haloes of galaxies. Their mutual annihilations or decays would produce an indirect signature under the form of high-energy cosmic-rays. The focus of this presentation is on antimatter species, a component so rare that any excess over the background should be easily detected. After a recap on Galactic propagation, I will discuss positrons, antiprotons and anti-nuclei. For each of these species, anomalies have been reported. The antiproton excess, for instance, is currently a hot topic. Alas, it does not resist a correct treatment of theoretical and data errors.

• Probing $\delta_{CP}$ phase and charged lepton flavour violation with $A_4$ flavor symmetry and deviations to tri-bi-maximal mixing via $z_2 \times z_2$ invariant perturbation in the neutrino sector

  Gayatri Ghosh

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 025 (2025) · published 15 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this work, a flavour theory of a neutrino mass model based on $A_{4}$ symmetry is considered to explain the phenomenology of CP violation phase and charged lepton flavour violation. The spontaneous symmetry breaking of $A_{4}$ symmetry in this model leads to tribimaximal mixing in the neutrino sector at a leading order. $\mathrm{A} z_{2} × z_{2}$ invariant perturbations in this model is introduced in the neutrino sector which leads to testable predictions of $\theta_{13}$ and $\mathbf{C P}$ violation. We consider an effective theory with an $A_{4} × z_{2} × z_{2}$ symmetry, which after spontaneous symmetry breaking at high scale which is much higher than the electroweak scale leads to charged lepton flavour violation processes once the heavy Majorana neutrino mass degeneracy is lifted either by renormalization group effects or by a soft breaking of the $A_{4}$ symmetry.

• On the role of non-linear latent features in bipartite generative neural networks

  Tony Bonnaire, Giovanni Catania, Aurélien Decelle, Beatriz Seoane

  SciPost Phys. 19, 141 (2025) · published 1 December 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the phase diagram and memory retrieval capabilities of Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBMs), an archetypal model of bipartite energy-based neural networks, as a function of the prior distribution imposed on their hidden units—including binary, multi-state, and ReLU-like activations. Drawing connections to the Hopfield model and employing analytical tools from statistical physics of disordered systems, we explore how the architectural choices and activation functions shape the thermodynamic properties of these models. Our analysis reveals that standard RBMs with binary hidden nodes and extensive connectivity suffer from reduced critical capacity, limiting their effectiveness as associative memories. To address this, we examine several modifications, such as introducing local biases and adopting richer hidden unit priors. These adjustments restore ordered retrieval phases and markedly improve recall performance, even at finite temperatures. Our theoretical findings, supported by finite-size Monte Carlo simulations, highlight the importance of hidden unit design in enhancing the expressive power of RBMs.

• Background suppression in the COSINUS experiment: Active muon veto and radiopure materials selection

  M. Stukel, G. Angloher, Mukund Raghunath Bharadwaj, I. Dafinei , N. Di Marco, L. Einfalt, F. Ferroni, S. Fichtinger, A. Filipponi, T. Frank, M. Friedl, A. Fuss , Z. Ge, M. Heikinheimo, K. Huitu, M. Kellermann, R. Maji, M. Mancuso, L. Pagnanini, F. Petricca, S. Pirro, F. Pröbst, G. Profeta, A. Puiu, F. Reindl, K. Schäffner, J. Schieck, D. Schmiedmayer, C. Schwertner, M. Stahlberg, A. Stendahl, F. Wagner, S. Yue, V. Zema, Y. Zhu

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 12, 032 (2023) · published 4 July 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  For over twenty-five years the DAMA/LIBRA experiment has reported an annual modulation signal that is consistent with a dark matter explanation. This signal is, currently, in tension with the null results observed by other searches that utilize different target detectors. The COSINUS experiment will perform a model-independent cross-check of the DAMA/LIBRA result by using the same target material, NaI crystals, operated as scintillating calorimeters. By measuring both temperature and light the NaI crystals in COSINUS will be able to distinguish between electron and nuclear recoils on an event-by-event basis. However, background events induced by cosmic-rays, environmental radioactivity or the intrinsic contamination of the materials used in the crystal, shielding and infrastructure can pose an issue to any analysis and must be fully understood. We report on the status of the development of the simulation for an active water Cherenkov muon veto, as well as the results of the beginning radiogenic material screening.

• Measuring three-flavor neutrinos with FASER$\nu$ at the LHC

  Tomoko Ariga

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 028 (2025) · published 15 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  FASER$\nu$ at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to directly detect neutrinos from a collider for the first time and study their cross sections at TeV energies. To date, no such measurements have been made. In 2018, a pilot detector was installed and collected proton-proton collision data of 12.2 fb$^{-1}$ at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. We observed the first neutrino interaction candidates at the LHC, opening a new avenue for studying neutrinos from current and future high-energy colliders. During Run 3 of the LHC from 2022, we will deploy a neutrino detector with a target mass of 1.1 tons. We expect to collect $\sim$2,000 $\nu_e$, 6,000 $\nu_{\mu}$, and 40 $\nu_{\tau}$ interactions in the detector.

• Search for upward-going air showers with the fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

  Emanuele De Vito

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 029 (2025) · published 15 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The fluorescence detector (FD) of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to upward-going air showers for energies above $10^{17}$ eV. Given its operation time and wide field of view, the FD has the potential to support or constrain the recent "anomalous" observations by the ANITA detector, interpreted as upward-going air showers of unexplained nature. We have used 14 years of data collected by the FD to search for upward-going showers using a set of quality selection criteria defined using 10% of the full data sample. To distinguish candidates from false positives, calculate the exposure and obtain the expected background, dedicated simulations for signal (upward-going events) and background (downward-going events) have been performed. Results of the analysis after unblinding the data set are presented. Finally, the exposure and sensitivity for the specific scenario of a signal being ascribed to tau lepton decay are calculated and the corresponding upper limits are shown as a function of primary energy and in different zenith angle ranges.