The Schwinger effect, a non-perturbative mechanism for particle production in strong fields, plays a crucial role in understanding quantum vacuum decay and high-energy phenomena, including heavy-ion collisions (HIC). Although holographic quantum chromodynamics (QCD) models have been widely used to study this effect, most treatments assume isotropy or consider only a single type of anisotropy, neglecting the interplay between spatial and magnetic anisotropies that arise in realistic HIC scenarios. A unified framework accounting for both anisotropies is needed to accurately model particle production. We investigate the Schwinger effect in a twice anisotropic holographic QCD model incorporating both spatial and magnetic anisotropies. Using the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, we compute the total potential of a particle-antiparticle pair to quantify how these anisotropies influence pair production. Our results show that the magnetic field (parameterized by $c_B$ and $q_3$ ) enhances the Schwinger effect by lowering and narrowing the potential barrier, while increasing spatial anisotropy (controlled by $\nu$ ) suppresses the process by raising and widening the barrier. These findings demonstrate that magnetic and spatial anisotropies exert competing effects on particle production, emphasizing the necessity of treating both concurrently in holographic models. This work advances the theoretical description of the Schwinger effect in anisotropic environments, with implications for understanding non-equilibrium dynamics in HIC and other strongly coupled systems.

China

Wen-Bin Chang

Defu Hou

Schwinger effect in a twice anisotropic holographic model * Defu Hou's research is supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFA1604900). Additionally, Defu Hou receives partial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (12435009, 12275104). Wen-Bin Chang is supported by the Ph.D. Research Startup Project at Hubei Minzu University (RZ2500000857)

We perform a comparative phase space analysis of the light mass Galileon model and standard quintessence in the context of late-time cosmic acceleration. Focusing on a spatially flat FLRW background, we consider a cubic Galileon interaction supplemented by a scalar potential and examine three representative choices of the potential: a generalized cosh potential, a simple cosh potential, and a linear potential. By introducing suitable dimensionless variables, the cosmological field equations are reformulated as an autonomous dynamical system, allowing a systematic investigation of the stationary points and their stability properties. For the light mass Galileon scenario, we find that although the phase space admits scalar field dominated solutions, all critical points are of saddle type for the potentials considered. In particular, no stable late-time accelerating attractor emerges, even in the presence of de-Sitter like configurations. In contrast, the quintessence limit admits stable de-Sitter attractors for cosh potentials, providing a viable description of the observed late-time acceleration. Our results highlight a key qualitative distinction between Galileon and quintessence cosmologies and indicate that, within the light mass Galileon framework, the higher-order Galileon interactions may be required to realize a stable accelerating Universe.

Kazakhstan

India

Mohd Shahalam

Galileon versus quintessence: a comparative phase space analysis and late-time cosmic relevance

<p>We propose nucleon energy correlators (NECs) as a novel framework to probe electroweak light-quark dipole operators in deep inelastic scattering with an unpolarized nucleon. These operators encode chirality-flipping interactions, whose effects are usually quadratically suppressed in unpolarized cross sections. We construct a chiral-odd quark NEC that accesses quark transverse spin via azimuthal angle asymmetries in the energy flow of the target fragmentation region. These asymmetries serve as clean and powerful observables, enabling linear constraints on the quark dipole couplings. Unlike existing methods, our approach requires neither polarized nucleon beams nor final-state hadron identification, relying instead on fully inclusive calorimetric measurements. This Letter establishes one of the first applications of energy correlator observables to new physics searches and opens a promising direction for precision studies of chirality-flipping effects at electron-ion colliders.</p>

Yingsheng Huang

Xuan-Bo Tong

Hao-Lin Wang

Nucleon Energy Correlators as a Probe of Light-Quark Dipole Operators at the Electron-Ion Collider

A line of first-order phase transitions is conjectured in the phase diagram of Quantum Chromodynamics at non-zero baryon density. If this is the case, numerical simulations of neutron star mergers suggest that various regions of the stars may cross this line multiple times. This results in the nucleation of bubbles of the preferred phase, which subsequently expand and collide. The resulting gravitational wave spectrum is highly sensitive to the velocity of the bubble walls. We use holography to perform the first microscopic simulation of bubble dynamics in a theory that qualitatively mirrors the expected phase diagram of Quantum Chromodynamics. We determine the wall velocity in the metastable regions and we compare it to theoretical estimates. We discuss implications for gravitational wave production.

Spain

Yago Bea

Italy

Mauro Giliberti

David Mateos

France

Mikel Sanchez-Garitaonandia

Belgium

Alexandre Serantes

Portugal

Miguel Zilhão

Bubble dynamics in a QCD-like phase diagram

The QCD axion remains one of the most compelling solutions to the strong CP problem. Meanwhile, the type-I seesaw mechanism offers an elegant explanation for the lightness of the observed neutrino masses; however, its extremely heavy Majorana states place it far beyond experimental reach. Low-scale alternatives such as the inverse seesaw improve testability but typically lack a strong theoretical motivation. In this paper we bridge this gap by showing that gauging the discrete symmetry $\textit{ℤ}$ × $\textit{ℤ}$ — motivated by the internal structure of the Standard Model — naturally yields a QCD axion with a high-quality Peccei-Quinn symmetry solving the strong CP problem, while simultaneously enforcing the field content and hierarchy required for a natural inverse seesaw. The resulting model is highly predictive and has the potential to be fully tested by future experiments. Beyond addressing the strong CP problem and the origin of neutrino masses, our scenario also contains a viable dark-matter candidate and offers potential mechanisms for generating the baryon asymmetry of the Universe.

Japan

Yannis Georis

Jie Sheng

Salvador Urrea

Tsutomu Yanagida

Testable inverse seesaw motivated from a high quality QCD axion

Decay of a scalar condensate via interactions with (quasi-)particles is of interest to many fields in physics, including cosmology. In cosmology, the decay of an inflaton condensate leads to the production of daughter particles and reheating of the Universe. In computing the decay rate, two quantum field theoretic approaches can be found in the literature: one is based on parametric resonance of mode functions of the daughter particle; another is based on the $\textit{S}$-matrix of a coherent state and Feynman-diagrammatic perturbation theory. We modify the latter from the previous literature in a way that manifests what we are computing and does not include unwanted Feynman diagrams. We notice the equivalence of these two approaches and demonstrate it by explicitly computing the decay rate at lower orders in the double expansion of the amplitude of coherent oscillation (or narrow resonance) and velocity of the daughter particle.

Poland

Ayuki Kamada

Kodai Sakurai

Decay of a scalar condensate in two different approaches

<p>We explore an unusual symmetry in a field theory on a specific (<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></math>)-dimensional curved spacetime, which has an interesting interpretation as an approximate asymptotic Weyl symmetry. Unlike the conventional Weyl symmetry, the boundary term under the variation plays a crucial role in understanding for its anomaly. After converting a two-dimensional field theory on curved spacetime to an inhomogeneous field theory, we obtain the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor. Then, we show the existence of an Unruh-like effect in the bubble wall expansion at the zero temperature.</p>

O-Kab Kwon

Jeongwon Ho

Sang-Heon Yi

Sang-A Park

Asymptotic Weyl symmetry and its anomaly in a curved spacetime

This paper investigates the existence of cosmological black holes by analyzing the properties of trapping horizons in detail, based on Hayward’s formalism of future outer and past inner trapping horizons, in several dynamical spacetimes embedded in an expanding universe. Through a detailed examination of the McVittie, Culetu, and Sultana–Dyer metrics, as well as the generalized Glass–Mashhoon solution, we evaluate the existence and characteristics of trapping horizons and energy conditions. The Glass–Mashhoon solution provides an analytical model for spherical stellar collapse. However, it is shown that, as long as certain conditions are satisfied, it lacks suitable future outer trapping horizons, meaning it does not represent a cosmological black hole. As a result, the McVittie class of solutions also fails to describe a cosmological black hole. Conversely, the Culetu and Sultana–Dyer spacetimes can describe a cosmological black hole in the matter-dominated early universe, provided that the relevant energy conditions are satisfied.

Iran

Mahdi Esfandiar

Fatimah Shojai

Omid Jamshidi

Soran Zoorasna

Cosmological black hole candidates: a detailed analysis of McVittie, Culetu, Sultana–Dyer, and Glass–Mashhoon spacetimes

We investigate the bound-state equations (BSEs) in two-dimensional QCD in the $ N_{\rm{c}}\to \infty$ limit, viewed from both the infinite momentum frame (IMF) and the finite momentum frame (FMF). The BSE of a meson in the original 't Hooft model, $\textit{viz.}$, spinor QCD$_{2}$ containing only fermionc quarks, has been extensively studied in literature. In this work, we focus on the BSEs pertaining to two types of ''exotic'' hadrons, a ''tetraquark'' which is composed of a bosonic quark and bosonic antiquark, and a ''baryon'' which is composed of a bosonic antiquark and a fermionic quark. Utilizing the Hamiltonian approach, we derive the corresponding BSEs for both types of ''exotic'' hadrons, from the perspectives of the light-front and equal-time quantization, and confirm the known results. The recently available BSEs for ''tetraquark'' in FMF has also been recovered with the aid of the diagrammatic approach. For the first time we also present the BSEs of a ''baryon'' in FMF in the extended 't Hooft model. By solving various BSEs numerically, we obtain the mass spectra pertaining to ''tetraquark'' and ''baryon'' and the corresponding bound-state wave functions of the lowest-lying states. It is numerically demonstrated that, when a ''tetraquark'' or ''baryon'' is continuously boosted, the forward-moving component of the bound-state wave function approaches the corresponding light-cone wave function, while the backward-moving component fades away.

Xiaolin Li

Yu Jia

Ying Li

Zhewen Mo

Solving bound-state equations in QCD$_{2}$ with bosonic and fermionic quarks * Supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China (12475090, 11925506, 12435004) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong province (ZR2022ZD26). The work of Zhewen Mo is also supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12347145, 12347105)

In this study, we investigate the possibility of enhancing the di-jet resonance searches by tagging the final state radiation (FSR) jet using an event-level deep neural network. It is found that solely relying on the 4-momenta of the leading three jets allows the algorithm to achieve good discriminating power that can identify the hardest FSR jet in the signal while rejecting other soft jets. Once the invariant mass is corrected with the tagged FSR jet, the mass resolution of the signal is greatly enhanced, and the sensitivity of the search is also improved by more than 10%. By crafting the input variables carefully, the algorithm introduces minimal mass sculpting for the background, and its applicability extends to a broad mass range. This work proves that FSR jet tagging can potentially enhance di-jet resonance searches, suiting various stages of the physics programmes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC).

Bingxuan Liu

Yuxuan Shen

Yuanshunzi Sui

Enhancing di-jet resonance searches via a final-state radiation jet tagging algorithm * Bingxuan Liu is supported by Shenzhen Campus of the Sun Yat-sen University under project 74140-12255011, and by the Young Scientists Fund (C Class) of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12405122). Both Yuxuan Shen and Yuanshunzi Sui are supported by College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training Plan Program