We investigate the collider signatures of a maximally flavor-violating $ U(1)_{L_\mu-L_\tau} $ model, where a new gauge boson $ Z^\prime $ and scalar triplets induce lepton flavor-changing interactions in the $\textit{μ}$-$\textit{τ}$ sector. Focusing on four-lepton final states at multi-TeV lepton colliders, we conduct a detailed analysis of cross sections, asymmetries, and polarization effects. We show that the signal cross section is highly sensitive to $ m_{Z^\prime} $ and the effective parameters $ \tilde{g}/m_{Z^\prime} $ , whereas it remains largely insensitive to the triplet Yukawa couplings within the phenomenologically allowed region. The forward-backward asymmetry exhibits a characteristic monotonic dependence on $ m_{Z^\prime} $ , and beam polarization can significantly suppress the Standard Model backgrounds while enhancing new physics contributions. We find that, in the phenomenologically allowed parameter space, the predicted observables remain highly sensitive to the underlying model parameters. These results show that multi-lepton final states are powerful probes of the $ U(1)_{L\mu - L_\tau} $ framework and can offer valuable guidance for future searches at muon and electron-positron colliders.

China

Jianing Qin

Fei Huang

Honglei Li

Zhi-Long Han

Jin Sun

Collider probes of four-lepton final states in maximally flavor-violating ${U(1)_{L_\mu-L_\tau}} $ model * Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (12505112, 11805081), Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation (ZR2024QA138, ZR2022MA056) and State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, University of Jinan Disciplinary Cross-Convergence Construction Project 2024 (XKJC- 202404) and Jin Sun is supported by IBS under the project code, (IBS-R018-D1)

We investigate thermal photon production in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) under strong magnetic fields using a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) framework. We employ relativistic ideal fluid dynamics under the non-resistive approximation by adopting the Bjorken flow model with power-law decaying magnetic fields $ \mathbf{B}(\tau) = \mathbf{B}_0 (\tau_0/\tau)^a $ , span> $\textit{a}$ controls the decay rate, $ B_0 = \sqrt{\sigma} T_0^2 $ , and $\textit{σ}$ characterizes the initial field strength. The resulting QGP temperature evolution exhibits distinct $\textit{a}$- and $\textit{σ}$-dependent behaviors. Thermal photon production rates are calculated for three dominant processes: Compton scattering with $ q\bar{q} $ annihilation (C+A), bremsstrahlung (Brems), and $ q\bar{q} $ annihilation with additional scattering (A+S). These rates are integrated over the space-time volume to obtain the photon transverse momentum $ (p_T) $ spectrum. Our results demonstrate that increasing $\textit{a}$ enhances photon yields across all $ p_T $ , with $ a \to \infty $ (super-fast decay) providing an upper bound. For $ a = 2/3 $ , a larger $\textit{σ}$ suppresses yields through accelerated cooling, whereas for $ a \to \infty $ , a larger $\textit{σ}$ enhances yields via prolonged thermal emission. Low- $ p_T $ photons receive significant contributions from all QGP evolution stages, while high- $ p_T $ photons originate predominantly from early times. The central rapidity region $ (y=0) $ dominates the total yield. This work extends the photon yield studies to the MHD regime under strong magnetic fields, clarifying the magnetic field effects on QGP electromagnetic signatures and establishing foundations for future investigations of magnetization and dissipative phenomena.

Jie Xiong

Xiang Fan

Jing Jing

Weishan Yang

Duan She

Ze-Fang Jiang

Thermal photon emission from quark-gluon plasma: 1+1D magnetohydrodynamics results * Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (12305138). Duan She's research is funded by the Startup Research Fund of Henan Academy of Sciences (231820058) and the 2024 Henan Province International Science and Technology Cooperation Projects (242102521068)

We investigated the effect of an isospin chemical potential ( $ \mu_{I} $ ) within the quark-meson model, which approximates quantum chromodynamics (QCD) by modeling low-energy phenomena such as chiral symmetry breaking and phase structure under varying conditions of temperature and chemical potential. Using the functional renormalization group (FRG) flow equations, we calculated the phase diagram in the chiral limit within the two-flavor quark-meson model in a finite $ \mu_{I} $ with $\textit{ρ}$ vector meson interactions. Fluctuation effects significantly decrease the critical chemical potential from the mean-field (MF) value $\mu_{I,{\rm MF}} \gt m_\rho$ to a lower value at which the $\textit{ρ}$ vector meson condensates alongside the chiral condensate once the isospin chemical potential exceeds the critical value $ \mu_{I}^{{\rm{crit}}} $ . This $\textit{ρ}$ condensation was investigated numerically for different meson coupling strengths. The $\textit{ρ}$ meson dominated region is delineated from other phases by a second-order phase transition at lower $ \mu_{I} $ and a first-order transition at slightly higher $ \mu_{I} $ .

Mohammed Osman

Defu Hou

Wentao Wang

United States

Hui Zhang

Functional renormalization group study of $\textit{ρ}$ meson condensate at a finite isospin chemical potential in the quark meson model * Supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFA1604900). This work is also partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (12435009, 12275104). Hui Zhang acknowledges the financial support from the Guangdong Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research (2020B0301030008) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12047523, 12105107)

A model for the nuclear medium modification of parton densities is presented. The approach is based on a global analysis of available deep inelastic scattering data for different nuclear targets within the rescaling model, combined with the effects of Fermi motion. The scale dependence is implemented through the DGLAP-evolved quark and gluon densities in a proton derived analytically at the leading order of QCD coupling. By fitting the rescaling parameters to experimental data on the ratio $F_2^A(x,Q^2)/F_2^{A^\prime}(x,Q^2) $ for several nuclear targets $\textit{A}$ and $\textit{A}$', we obtain predictions for nuclear parton distributions, even for unmeasured nuclei. The effects of nuclear modifications are investigated with respect to the mass number $\textit{A}$. We highlight distinct shadowing and antishadowing behaviors for gluons and quarks.

Russia

A.V. Kotikov

A.V. Lipatov

A simple model for nuclear modification of parton distribution functions * This research has been carried out at the expense of the Russian Science Foundation grant 25-22-00066, https://rscf.ru/en/project/25-22-00066/

Off-shell characteristics of pion generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (TMDs) are examined within the framework of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. In our previous studies, we separately investigated the properties of on-shell pion GPDs and light-front wave functions. Comparing the differences between on-shell and off-shell pion GPDs is particularly intriguing becuase it enables us to explore the effects associated with off-shellness. The absence of crossing symmetry causes the moments of GPDs to incorporate odd powers of the skewness parameter, resulting in new off-shell form factors. Through our calculations, we derived correction functions that account for modifications in pion GPDs attributed to off-shell effects. Unlike their on-shell counterparts, certain properties break down in the off-shell scenario; for example, symmetry properties and polynomiality conditions may no longer hold. In addition, we evaluate off-shell TMDs and compare them with their on-shell equivalents while also investigating their dependence on $ {\boldsymbol{k}}_{\perp} $ .

Jin-Li Zhang

Off-shell modifications of pion generalized parton distributions and transverse momentum dependent parton distributions * Supported by the Scientific Research Foundation of Nanjing Institute of Technology (YKJ202352) and the General Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (25KJD140001)

Inspired by the observation of the ${\eta}_{t}$ meson at the LHC and the promising prospect of the ${\eta}_{t}$ meson available at the approaching HL-LHC, branching ratios for the ${\eta}_{t}$ ${\to}$ $f\bar{f}$ , $gg$ , ${\gamma}{\gamma}$ , $W^{+}W^{-}$ , $Z^{0}Z^{0}$ , $Z^{0}{\gamma}$ , and $Z^{0}H$ decays are roughly estimated. It is found that tens of opposite-charge dilepton events from the ${\eta}_{t}$ ${\to}$ $W^{+}W^{-}$ decay and hundreds of events from the ${\eta}_{t}$ ${\to}$ $Z^{0}H$ ${\to}$ ${\ell}^{+}{\ell}^{-}H$ decay using the single $Z^{0}$ boson tagging method are expected to be accessible. This estimation provides a reference for future experimental study on the ${\eta}_{t}$ meson.

Yueling Yang

Bingbing Yang

Jiazhi Li

Zhaojie Lü

Junfeng Sun

Searching for the toponium ${{\boldsymbol\eta}_{\boldsymbol t}}$ with the ${{\boldsymbol\eta}_{\boldsymbol t}}$ ${\boldsymbol\to}$ ${{\boldsymbol W}^{\bf +}{\boldsymbol W}^{\bf -}}$ decay * Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12275068, 12275067), the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFA1606000), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (252300421491, 242300420250), and the Science and Technology R&D Program Joint Fund Project of Henan Province (225200810030), as well as the Science and Technology Innovation Leading Talent Support Program of Henan Province (254200510039)

We investigate the discovery prospects of a leptophilic gauge boson $ Z_\ell $ at future $ e^+e^- $ colliders, focusing on a comparative study of the Circular Electron–Positron Collider (CEPC) and the International Linear Collider (ILC). Such a state naturally arises from an additional $ U(1)'_\ell $ gauge symmetry, under which quarks remain neutral while all leptons carry a universal charge, motivated by neutrino oscillations and scenarios of physics beyond the Standard Model. As a clean benchmark, we study the process $ e^+e^- \to \mu^+\mu^- $ , including realistic effects of initial-state radiation and beamstrahlung. Our results indicate that the CEPC, with its very high luminosity at $ \sqrt{s}=240 $ GeV, can probe couplings down to $ g_\ell \approx 10^{-3} $ for $ Z_\ell $ masses up to about 220 GeV. The ILC extends the sensitivity to heavier states in the multi-hundred GeV range through its higher $ \sqrt{s} $ stages. These findings demonstrate the strong complementarity of circular and linear colliders in exploring purely leptophilic interactions.

S.O. Kara

Discovery prospects for a leptophilic gauge boson Z$_{ℓ}$ at CEPC and ILC

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is designed to operate at key center-of-mass energies: 91.2 GeV as a $\textit{Z}$ factory for precision $\textit{Z}$ boson studies, ≈ 160 GeV at the threshold for $\textit{W}$ boson pair production, and 240 GeV as a Higgs factory for copious Higgs boson production. It can be upgraded to 360 GeV (CEPC-360 GeV) for enabling top quark-antiquark ( $ t\bar{t}$ ) pair production. Beyond enabling high-precision measurements of the Standard Model (SM), CEPC-360 GeV is uniquely positioned to perform searches for new physics beyond the SM (BSM), serving as a valuable complement to hadron colliders. This paper presents a sensitivity study on the direct pair production of staus and smuons at the CEPC with $ \sqrt{s}$ = 360 GeV, conducted via full Monte Carlo simulation. Under the assumptions of 1.0 ab$^{−1}$ integrated luminosity and a flat 5% systematic uncertainty, CEPC-360 GeV could potentially discover the combined production of left-handed and right-handed staus up to a mass of 170 GeV (if they exist) or up to 169 for pure left-handed staus and 162 GeV for pure right-handed staus. For direct smuon production, the discovery potential reaches up to 178 GeV under the same conditions.

Feng Lyu

Jiarong Yuan

Huajie Cheng

Jianxiong Wang

Rabia Hameed

Da Xu

Xuai Zhuang

Search potential for direct slepton pair production at the CEPC with ${ \sqrt{\boldsymbol s}}$ = 360 GeV * Supported by the State Key Program of National Natural Science of China (2018YFA0404000, 12135013)

Heavy Majorana neutrinos ($\textit{N}$) are predicted in many models of physics beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we explore the production and detection prospects of TeV-scale heavy neutrinos ( $ m_N \gtrsim 1 $ TeV) at a future 3 TeV Compact Linear Collider (CLIC). We focus on two distinct decay topologies: (i) $ N \to \ell^\pm W^\mp $ with hadronic $\textit{W}$ boson decay, leading to a final state with one charged lepton and a hadronic fat jet $ J_W $ ; and (ii) $ N \to \nu h $ with subsequent Higgs decay $ h \to b\bar{b} $ , yielding a Higgs-tagged fat jet $ J_h $ and $\not {E}_T$ . Based on comprehensive detector-level simulations and background analysis, we present both $ 2\sigma $ exclusion limits and $ 5\sigma $ discovery reaches in the $ m_N $ – $ |V_{\ell N}|^2 $ plane. We further extract 95% confidence level upper limits on the mixing parameter $ |V_{\ell N}|^2 $ and perform a detailed comparison with existing constraints from direct searches at future colliders and indirect global fits. Our findings demonstrate that a 3 TeV CLIC can improve the sensitivity to $ |V_{\ell N}|^2 $ by about two orders of magnitude compared with the projected reaches of future hadron colliders while remaining competitive with other CLIC search channels.

Yao-Bei Liu

Jing-Wei Lian

Searches for heavy neutrinos at a 3 TeV CLIC in fat jet final states * Yao-Bei Liu is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, China (252300421988), Jing-Wei Lian is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12447140) and the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, China (252300421771)

One-loop contributions for the decay process $ H^{\pm} \rightarrow W^{\pm}Z $ within the Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (THDM) are computed in the general $ {\cal{R}}_{\xi} $ gauge, and its phenomenological applications at future muon–TeV colliders are investigated. Analytic results are confirmed by several consistency tests, including those of $\textit{ξ}$-independence, renormalization-scale stability, and the ultraviolet finiteness of the one-loop amplitude. We first perform an updated parameter scan of the Type-X THDM in phenomenological studies. The production of charged Higgs boson pairs at future muon–TeV colliders is then investigated through two processes: $ \mu^+\mu^- \rightarrow H^+H^- \rightarrow W^{\pm}W^{\mp}Zh $ and $ \mu^+\mu^- \rightarrow \gamma\gamma \rightarrow H^+H^- \rightarrow W^{\pm}W^{\mp}Zh $ . Both signal events and their significance are evaluated considering the corresponding Standard Model backgrounds. We find that the signal significances can exceed $ 5\sigma $ at several benchmark points in the viable parameter space of the Type-X THDM.

Vietnam

Dzung Tri Tran

Quang Hoang-Minh Pham

Khoa Ngo-Thanh Ho

Khiem Hong Phan

One-loop expressions for ${H^\pm \rightarrow W^\pm Z} $ and their implications at muon-TeV colliders * This research is funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) (103.01-2023.16)