We study classical background electric fields and the Schwinger effect in de Sitter space. We show that a constant electric field in de Sitter requires the photon to have a tachyonic mass proportional to the Hubble scale. This has physical implications for the induced Schwinger current that affect its IR behaviour. To study this, we recompute the Schwinger current in de Sitter space for charged fermions and minimally coupled scalars, imposing a physically consistent renormalization condition. We find a $\textit{finite and positive}$ Schwinger current even in the massless limit. This is in contrast to previous calculations in the literature, which found a negative IR divergence. We also obtain the first result for the Schwinger current of a non-minimally coupled scalar, including the conformally coupled case, which we find exhibits behaviour very similar to that of the fermion current. Our results may have physical implications for both magnetogenesis and inflationary dark matter production.

Spain

Mar Bastero-Gil

Portugal

Paulo B. Ferraz

António Torres Manso

Slovenia

Italy

Lorenzo Ubaldi

Roberto Vega-Morales

Schwinger current in de Sitter space * This work has been partially supported by Junta de Andalucía Projects P21-00199 and A-FQM-472-UGR20 (FEDER funds); SRA (10.13039/501100011033) and ERDF (PID2022-139466NB-C21) (R.V.M.); PID2022-140831NB-I00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER, UE (M.B.G., A.T.M.); by FCT CERN (10.54499/2024.00252.CERN) (M.B.G., A.T.M., P.F.); FCT Grant No. SFRH/BD/151475/2021 and 10.54499/SFRH/BD/151475/2021 (P.F.). LU is supported by the Slovenian Research Agency under research core funding No. P1-0035 and by research grants J1-60026 and J1-4389. This article is based upon work from COST Action COSMIC WISPers CA21106, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). R.V.M. thanks the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics (MITP) of the Cluster of Excellence PRISMA$^{+}$ (Project ID 390831469) for its hospitality and partial support during the completion of this work

We analyze how NA64$\textit{μ}$ can contribute to the global SMEFT program demonstrating that it can probe two effective four-lepton operators completely unbounded so far and break one of the current flat directions. Furthermore, we also study an extension of SMEFT that includes fermion singlets of the SM gauge group in the low energy field content. This effective field theory, usually dubbed $\textit{ν}$SMEFT, is well motivated by the observation of light neutrino masses and leptonic mixing. We find that NA64$\textit{μ}$ can constrain three unbounded four-fermion operators of the $\textit{ν}$SMEFT. We derive the current bounds on these operators and compute the future sensitivity.

Switzerland

Paolo Crivelli

Josu Hernández-García

Jacobo López-Pavón

Víctor Martín Lozano

Laura Molina Bueno

First bounds on effective muon interactions using the NA64$\textit{μ}$ experiment at CERN

We present a systematic analysis of the Higgs signal strengths at 125 GeV and 95 GeV in a non-supersymmetric $ U(1)_X $ model with vector-like fermions ( $ U(1)_X $ VLFM). This framework extends the Standard Model (SM) by introducing an additional $ U(1)_X $ gauge symmetry, three right-handed neutrinos, two singlet Higgs fields ($\textit{ϕ}$ and $\textit{S}$), and one generation of vector-like quarks and leptons. The scalar fields mix in the neutral CP-even sector, yielding two Higgs-like states around 95 GeV and 125 GeV. We perform a $ \chi^2 $ analysis that combines the Higgs signal strength measurements at 125 GeV from ATLAS and CMS, including the $ \gamma\gamma $ , $ WW^* $ , $ ZZ^* $ , $ b\bar{b} $ , and $ \tau\bar{\tau} $ channels, together with the 95 GeV excesses observed in the diphoton and $ b\bar{b} $ final states reported by CMS and LEP. Our results indicate that the $ U(1)_X $ VLFM successfully reproduces the observed signal strengths of the 125 GeV Higgs while simultaneously explaining the 95 GeV excess. The parameters $ g_X $ , $ g_{YX} $ , $ v_S $ , $ v_P $ , and the new Yukawa couplings play a crucial role in achieving this consistency.

China

Rong-Zhi Sun

Shu-Min Zhao

Meng-Zi Cao

Song Gao

Xing-Xing Dong

Higgs Bosons at 95 and 125 GeV in the $\textit{U}$(1) $\textit{X}$ VLFM * Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) (2075074), Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (A2023201040, A2022201022, A2022201017, A2023201041), Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Education Department (QN2022173), the Project of the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (202408130113). This work is also supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) through the project UID/00777/2025 (https://doi.org/ 10.54499/UID/00777/2025)

The internal structure of the light scalar state $ a_0(1450) $ has not been definitively determined; it may comprise multiple possible configurations. Among these, it may be regarded as a $ q\bar{q} $ state. Based on this possibility, we use QCD light-cone sum rules to study the semileptonic decay process $ D \to a_0(1450)\ell \nu_\ell $ with $ \ell=(e, \mu) $ and to test this hypothesis. First, we construct two twist-2 light-cone distribution-amplitude schemes based on the light-cone harmonic-oscillator model, and present their moments $ \langle\xi^{n}\rangle |_{\mu} $ and Gegenbauer moments $ a_{n}(\mu) $ at $ \mu_0=1\; {\rm{GeV}} $ and $ \mu_k= 1.4\; {\rm{GeV}} $ for $ n=(1,3,5) $ . In the large-recoil region, we obtain the transition form factors (TFFs): $ f_+^{({\rm{S}}1)}(0) = $ $ 0.836_{-0.119}^{+0.116} $ , $ f_+^{({\rm{S}}2)}(0)=0.767_{-0.105}^{+0.106} $ , and $ f_-(0)=0.630_{-0.077}^{+0.078} $ . A simplified series expansion $ z(q^2, t) $ is used to extrapolate the TFFs to the entire physical $ q^2 $ region. For $ q^2=10^{-5} \; {\rm{GeV}}^2 $ , we compute the angular distribution of the differential decay width ${{\rm d}\Gamma}/{{\rm d}\cos\theta_\ell }$ over the range $ \cos\theta_\ell \in [-1,1] $ . Subsequently, we obtain the differential decay widths and branching fractions for $ D^0 \to a_0(1450)^- \ell^+ \nu_\ell $ and $ D^- \to a_0(1450)^0 \ell^- \bar{\nu}_\ell $ , with branching fractions of order $ 10^{-6} $ . Finally, we analyze three angular observables for the semileptonic decay process $ D^- \to a_0(1450)^0 \ell^- \bar{\nu}_\ell $ : the forward–backward asymmetry $ {\cal{A}}_{\rm{FB}} $ , the lepton polarization asymmetry $ {\cal{A}}_{\lambda_\ell} $ , and the $ q^2 $ -differential flat term $ {\cal{F}}_{\rm{H}} $ .

Ya-Lin Song

Yin-Long Yang

Ye Cao

Xue Zheng

Hai-Bing Fu

Searching the possibility of $\textit{a}$ $_{0}$(1450) scalar state being a q q state structure via charmed meson semileptonic decays * Supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12265010), and the Guizhou Provincial Department of Science and Technology (MS[2025]219, CXTD[2025]030)

We evaluate discovery prospects for photophobic axion-like particles (ALPs) in the $\textit{WWjj}$ final state at the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC; $\sqrt{s}=14\ {\rm{TeV}}$ , ${\cal{L}}=3\ {\rm{ab}}^{-1}$ ). In the photophobic limit ( $g_{a\gamma\gamma}=0$ ), ALPs couple to electroweak gauge bosons and are produced in association with two jets ( $ pp\to jj\ a $ ) via both $\textit{s}$-channel electroweak exchange and vector boson fusion (VBF)–like topologies, followed by $a\to W^+W^-$ decay. We target the different-flavour dilepton mode $W^+W^- \to e^\pm\mu^\mp\nu \bar{\nu}$ with two jets and moderate missing transverse momentum. The analysis employs a two-step strategy: initial preselection that defines the signal-like final state, followed by a multivariate analysis (MVA) trained on dijet and dileptonic-$\textit{WW}$ kinematics from both the $\textit{s}$-channel and VBF-like production mechanisms to separate signal from background; the MVA threshold is optimized independently at each $m_a$ . We present 2$\textit{σ}$ and 5$\textit{σ}$ discovery sensitivities for the ALP–$\textit{W}$ coupling $g_{aWW}$ across the 170–4000 GeV mass range. For $260\ {\rm{GeV}}\le m_a\le1500\ {\rm{GeV}}$ , the 2$\textit{σ}$ (5$\textit{σ}$) sensitivity is approximately flat around $ 0.61(0.76)\ {\rm{TeV}}^{-1}$ . At large masses/couplings, the mapping between an experimental rate and a single EFT parameter $g_{aWW}$ can become UV sensitive, and we treat the extreme high-mass/high-coupling corner as an extrapolation; therefore, we also report model-independent discovery thresholds for the fiducial quantity $ \sigma(pp\to jj\ a)\times\rm{Br}(a\to W^+W^-) $ over the same mass range to enable reinterpretation for other models. These results indicate that the $WWjj$ topology offers competitive and complementary sensitivity to heavy photophobic ALPs at the HL-LHC.

Jiaojiao Feng

Ying-nan Mao

Kechen Wang

Discovery prospects for photophobic axion-like particles in the $\textit{WWjj}$ final state at the High-Luminosity LHC * Jiaojiao Feng and Kechen Wang are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11905162), the Excellent Young Talents Program of the Wuhan University of Technology (40122102, 40122103) and the research program of the Wuhan University of Technology (2020IB024, 104972025KFYjc0101). Ying-nan Mao is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12205227). The simulation and analysis work of this article was completed with the computational cluster provided by the Theoretical Physics Group at the Department of Physics, School of Physics and Mechanics, Wuhan University of Technology

The recently developed “imaging-by-smashing” technique has emerged as a powerful approach to connect final-state collective flow phenomena in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions with the intrinsic structure of the colliding nuclei. While most efforts have focused on constraining nuclear shape properties such as deformation and triaxiality, less attention has been given to the neutron skin, primarily in heavy nuclei such as $$^{208}$$ Pb. In this work, a novel study of the neutron-skin thickness in $$^{48}$$ Ca is presented, based on comparative analyses of $$^{48}$$ Ca+ $$^{48}$$ Ca and $$^{40}$$ Ca+ $$^{40}$$ Ca collisions at $$\sqrt{s_\textrm{NN}}=5.02$$ TeV. Simulations within the AMPT framework are employed to investigate the impact of varying neutron-skin thicknesses $$\Delta r_{np}$$ for $$^{48}$$ Ca on collective flow observables, including anisotropic flow coefficients and mean transverse momentum ( $$[p_\textrm{T}]$$ ) fluctuations. The triangular flow $$v_3$$ , quadrangular flow $$v_4$$ , as well as the variance and skewness of $$[p_\textrm{T}]$$ fluctuations, display notable sensitivity to $$\Delta r_{np}$$ . These findings indicate that calcium-isotope runs at the LHC could provide an independent and complementary approach to constraining $$\Delta r_{np}$$ , with the potential to help resolve the current tension between PREX and CREX measurements.

Denmark

Andreas Vitsos

Leonora Soranzo

Emil Nielsen

You Zhou

Characterizing the neutron skin of $$^{48}$$ Ca through collective flow at the CERN large hadron collider

The interference between amplitudes corresponding to different intermediate resonances plays an important role in generating large CP asymmetries in the phase space in multi-body decays of bottom and charmed mesons. In this study, we examine the CP violation in the decay channel $ {\overline{B}}^{0}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}\pi^{0} $ in the phase-space region where the intermediate resonances $ \overline{K}^{*}(892)^{0} $ and $ {\overline{K}^{*}_{0}(700)} $ dominate. In particular, the forward-backward asymmetry (FBA) and the CP asymmetry induced by FBA (FB-CPA), which are closely related to the interference effects between the two aforementioned resonances, are investigated. The nontrivial correlation between FBA and FB-CPA is analyzed. The analysis indicates that FB-CPAs around the resonance $ \overline{K}^{*}(892)^{0} $ can be as large as approximately 35%, which can be potentially accessible by Belle and Belle-II collaborations in the near future.

Jian-Yu Yang

Yu-Jie Zhao

Jing-Juan Qi

Zhen-Hua Zhang

The forward-backward asymmetry induced CP asymmetry in ${{\overline{B}}^{0}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}\pi^{0}}$ in phase space around the resonances ${{\overline{K}}^{*}(892)^{0}}$ and ${{\overline{K}}^{*}_{0}(700)}$ * Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (12475096, 12405115, 12192261) and Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department (22A0319)

<p>Single-field freeze-in dark matter barely leaves observable footprints in dark matter direct detection, collider, or fixed-target experiments, which can be altered in the two-field context. In this work, we consider sequential freeze-in dark matter through signals of a dark photon mediator with a mass range of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><msub><mrow><mi>m</mi></mrow><mrow><msup><mrow><mi>A</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>′</mo></mrow></msup></mrow></msub><mo>∼</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup><mi>–</mi><mn>10</mn><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi>GeV</mi></mrow></math> covered by the proposed SHiP experiment. We show that the dark charge is fixed to be <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><msup><mi>e</mi><mo>′</mo></msup><mo>∼</mo><mn>1.3</mn><mo>×</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>12</mn></mrow></msup></math> and the mixing parameter is restricted to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>11</mn></mrow></msup><mo>≤</mo><mi>ε</mi><mo>&lt;</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>8</mn></mrow></msup><mi>–</mi><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>7.5</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math>, as a result of the out-of-equilibrium condition of dark photon and the observed relic abundance of dark matter. Within this <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>ε</mi></math> region, the 5-yr (15-yr) data of the proton bremsstrahlung process for the dark photon, assuming vector meson (dipole) dominance, excludes <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>ε</mi><mo>≥</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>8.5</mn></mrow></msup><mo stretchy="false">(</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>7.9</mn></mrow></msup><mo stretchy="false">)</mo></math> at 90% confidence level, implying only a narrow region of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>ε</mi></math> close to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mo>∼</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>11</mn></mrow></msup></math> left for alternative tests.</p>

Xinyue Yin

Sibo Zheng

Illuminating sequential freeze-in dark matter with dark photon signal at the CERN SHiP experiment

<p>We employ the Zubarev approach of the statistical operator to investigate the enhancement of the low-<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><msub><mi>p</mi><mi>T</mi></msub></math> region of pion spectra, introducing an effective pion chemical potential, to describe the overpopulation of low-energy pion states. We test a corresponding freeze-out approach by analyzing the transverse-momentum spectra of identified particles measured recently with high precision by the ALICE Collaboration in <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mrow><mi>Pb</mi><mo>+</mo><mi>Pb</mi></mrow></math> collisions at CERN LHC. A blast-wave model and a blast-wave-based particle generator, coupled to a hadronic transport model, are utilized. Bayesian inference methods are applied to extract the most probable sets of thermodynamic parameters at the chemical freeze-out hypersurface. Both models for the overpopulated pion states, the hadronic transport model and the thermal model with a nonzero pion chemical potential, provide a satisfactory description of the observed pion spectra. However, both approaches contain approximations which can be improved within a systematic nonequilibrium approach. We demonstrate that the introduction of a nonequilibrium pion chemical potential offers an efficient alternative to the conventional explanation of the low-<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><msub><mi>p</mi><mi>T</mi></msub></math> enhancement, typically attributed to resonance decays with subsequent thermalization. A similar discussion also holds for the kaon spectra.</p>

Poland

Oleksandr Vitiuk

Germany

David Blaschke

Benjamin Dönigus

Gerd Röpke

Nonequilibrium phenomenology of identified particle spectra in heavy-ion collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is a fundamental theory describing quark interactions. Thus far, various quark models based on QCD have been widely used to study the properties of hadrons, including their structures and mass spectra. However, unlike quantum electrodynamics and Bohr's model of the hydrogen atom, a direct classical analogy is lacking for hadronic structures. This paper presents a classical interpretation of the nonrelativistic quark potential model, providing a more intuitive and visualizable description of strong interactions through the quantitative formulation of color charge and color flux. In addition, we establish the relationship between meson mass and its structural radius in the nonrelativistic framework and estimate key parameters of our model using available data from $ \eta_b(1S) $ and $ \Upsilon(1S) $ . Subsequently, we extend this relationship to a broader range of excited meson states and obtain their structural radii, which show good agreement with the root mean square radius or charge radius predicted by QCD calculations.

Zhiguang Tan

Youneng Guo

Shengjie Wang

Hua Zheng

Classical interpretation of nonrelativistic quark potential model: Color charge definition and meson mass-radius relationship * Supported in part by the Department of Education (21A0541) and Natural Science Foundation (2025JJ50382) of Hunan province, China