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

This work investigates the use of linear Paul traps as quantum sensors for detecting megahertz gravitational waves. Single-ion configurations exploit graviton-photon conversion in the presence of external magnetic fields, while two-ion systems use relative-motion excitations, which do not require magnets, to distinguish gravitational waves from axion dark matter. Furthermore, we show that entanglement of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>N</mi></math> vibrational qubits enhances the signal probability by a factor of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><msup><mi>N</mi><mn>2</mn></msup></math>, improving sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit.

Japan

Ryoto Takai

Probing high-frequency gravitational waves with entangled vibrational qubits in linear Paul traps

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) started physics data taking on 26 August 2025. JUNO consists of a 20-kton liquid scintillator central detector, surrounded by a 35 kton water pool serving as a Cherenkov veto, and almost 1000 m$^{2}$ of plastic scintillator veto on top. The detector is located in a shallow underground laboratory with an overburden of 1800 m.w.e. This paper presents the performance results of the detector, extensively studied during the commissioning of the water phase, the subsequent liquid scintillator filling phase, and the first physics runs. The liquid scintillator achieved an attenuation length of 20.6 m at 430 nm, while the high coverage PMT system and scintillator together yielded about 1785 photoelectrons per MeV of energy deposit at the detector centre, measured using the 2.223 MeV $\textit{γ}$ from neutron captures on hydrogen with an Am-C calibration source. The reconstructed energy resolution is 3.4% for two 0.511 MeV $\textit{γ}$ at the detector centre and 2.9% for the 0.93 MeV quenched $^{214}$Po alpha decays from natural radioactive sources. The energy non-linearity is calibrated to better than 1%. Intrinsic contaminations of $^{238}$U and $^{232}$Th in the liquid scintillator are below 10$^{-16}$ g/g, assuming secular equilibrium. The water Cherenkov detector achieves a muon detection efficiency better than 99.9% for muons traversing the liquid scintillator volume. During the initial science runs, the data acquisition duty cycle exceeded 97.8%, demonstrating the excellent stability and readiness of JUNO for high-precision neutrino physics.

Chile

Angel Abusleme

France

Thomas Adam

Germany

Kai Adamowicz

China

David Adey

Pakistan

Shakeel Ahmad

Rizwan Ahmed

Finland

Timo Ahola

Sebastiano Aiello

Fengpeng An

Guangpeng An

United Kingdom

Costas Andreopoulos

Giuseppe Andronico

João Pedro Athayde Marcondes de André

Russia

Nikolay Anfimov

Vito Antonelli

Tatiana Antoshkina

Thailand

Burin Asavapibhop

Didier Auguste

Margherita Buizza Avanzini

Slovakia

Andrej Babic

Jingzhi Bai

Weidong Bai

Nikita Balashov

Roberto Barbera

Andrea Barresi

Davide Basilico

Eric Baussan

Beatrice Bellantonio

Marco Bellato

JeanLuc Beney

Marco Beretta

Antonio Bergnoli

Enrico Bernieri

Nikita Bessonov

David Biaré

Daniel Bick

Lukas Bieger

Svetlana Biktemerova

Thilo Birkenfeld

David Blum

Simon Blyth

Sara Boarin

Manuel Boehles

Anastasia Bolshakova

Mathieu Bongrand

Aurélie Bonhomme

Clément Bordereau

Matteo Borghesi

Augusto Brigatti

Timothee Brugiere

Riccardo Brugnera

Riccardo Bruno

Jonas Buchholz

Antonio Budano

Max Buesken

Mario Buscemi

Severino Bussino

Jose Busto

Ilya Butorov

Marcel Büchner

Anatael Cabrera

Barbara Caccianiga

Boshuai Cai

Hao Cai

Xiao Cai

Yanke Cai

Yi-zhou Cai

Zhiyan Cai

Stéphane Callier

Steven Calvez

Antonio Cammi

Agustin Campeny

Dechang Cai

Chuanya Cao

Dewen Cao

Guofu Cao

Jun Cao

Yaoqi Cao

Rossella Caruso

Aurelio Caslini

Cédric Cerna

Vanessa Cerrone

Daniele Cesini

Chi Chan

Jinfan Chang

Yun Chang

Milo Charavet

Tim Charissé

Auttakit Chatrabhuti

Chao Chen

Guoming Chen

Haitao Chen

Haotian Chen

Jiahui Chen

Jian Chen

Jing Chen

Junyou Chen

Lihao Chen

Mali Chen

Mingming Chen

Initial performance results of the JUNO detector * We acknowledge financial and institutional supportfrom the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National KeyR&D Program of China, the People's Government of Guangdong Province, and the Tsung–Dao Lee Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.We appreciate the contributions from the Institut Na-tional de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Partic-ules (IN2P3) in France, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy, the Fonds de la Recherche Sci-entifique (F.R.S.–FNRS) and the Institut Interuni-versitaire des Sciences Nucléaires (IISN) in Belgium, and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico eTecnológico (CNPq) in Brazil.We also acknowledge the support of the AgenciaNacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) and the ANID–Millennium Science Initiative Program (ICN2019044) in Chile; the European Structural and In-vestment Funds, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and the Charles University Research Center inthe Czech Republic; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinsch-aft (DFG), the Helmholtz Association, and the Cluster ofExcellence PRISMA+ in Germany; and the Joint Insti-tute for Nuclear Research (JINR) and Lomonosov Mo-scow State University in Russia.We further thank the Slovak Research and Develop-ment Agency in the Slovak Republic, the National Science and Technology Council (NSCT) and MOE, China, the Program Management Unit for Hu-man Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation (PMU–B), Chulalongkorn University, and Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the United Kingdom, and the University of California atIrvine and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States

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)

We present a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation of muon-induced backgrounds for the Colorado Underground Research Institute, a shallow-underground facility with <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo>≈</mo><mn>415</mn><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi mathvariant="normal">meter water equivalent</mi></mrow></math> overburden. Using coupled mute and geant4 frameworks, we characterize the production and transport of muon-induced secondaries through site-specific rock compositions and geometries, establishing a proof of concept for high-precision, end-to-end simulations. Our simulations employ angular-dependent muon energy distributions, which improve secondary flux accuracy. For the Subatomic Particle Hideout and Cryolab I research spaces, we predict total muon-induced neutron fluxes of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">(</mo><mn>8.52</mn><mo>±</mo><mn>1.3</mn><msub><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>sys</mi></mrow></msub><mo stretchy="false">)</mo><mo>×</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>3</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math> and <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">(</mo><mn>8.86</mn><mo>±</mo><mn>1.6</mn><msub><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>sys</mi></mrow></msub><mo stretchy="false">)</mo><mo>×</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>3</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math>, respectively. Electromagnetic backgrounds are expected to dominate the total flux, with <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>γ</mi></math>-ray components of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">(</mo><mn>5.54</mn><mo>±</mo><mn>0.7</mn><msub><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>sys</mi></mrow></msub><mo stretchy="false">)</mo><mo>×</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math> and <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">(</mo><mn>6.51</mn><mo>±</mo><mn>1.0</mn><msub><mrow><mn>6</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>sys</mi></mrow></msub><mo stretchy="false">)</mo><mo>×</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math> for the Subatomic Particle Hideout and Cryolab I facilities, respectively. Additionally, we develop a depth-intensity relation to predict the muon-induced neutron flux as a function of facility depth, which is consistent with measurements across a broad range of underground depths. These results provide quantitative background predictions for experimental design and sensitivity projections at shallow- and deep-underground facilities. They further demonstrate that local geology and overburden geometry influence muon-induced secondary yields and energy spectra, emphasizing the need for site-specific simulations for accurate underground background characterization. Therefore, the simulation framework has been made publicly available for the broader low-background physics community to enable meaningful interfacility comparisons.

United States

Dakota K. Keblbeck

Eric Mayotte

Uwe Greife

Kyle G. Leach

Wouter Van De Pontseele

Caitlyn Stone-Whitehead

Luke Wanner

Grace Wagner

Simulation of muon-induced backgrounds for the Colorado Underground Research Institute

In this work, we investigate the resonance structures in the $ \Sigma(1/2^-) $ system from both three-quark and five-quark perspectives within the framework of the chiral quark model. An accurate few-body computational approach, the Gaussian expansion method, is employed to construct the orbital wave functions of multiquark states. To reduce the model dependence on parameters, we fit two sets of parameters to check the stability of the results. The calculations show that our results remain stable despite changes in the parameters. In the three-quark calculations, two $ \Sigma(1/2^-) $ states are obtained with energies around 1.8 GeV, which are good candidates for the experimentally observed $ \Sigma(1750) $ and $ \Sigma(1900) $ . In the five-quark configuration, several stable resonance states are identified, including $ \Sigma \pi $ , $ N \bar{K} $ , and $ N \bar{K}^{*} $ . These resonance states survive the channel-coupling calculations under the complex-scaling framework and manifest as stable structures. Our results support the existence of a two-pole structure for the $ \Sigma(1/2^-) $ system, predominantly composed of $ \Sigma \pi $ and $ N \bar{K} $ configurations, analogous to the well-known $ \Lambda(1380) $ - $ \Lambda(1405) $ ( $ \Sigma \pi $ - $ N \bar{K} $ ) system. On the other hand, although the energy of the $ N \bar{K}^{*} $ configuration is close to that of $ \Sigma(1750) $ and $ \Sigma(1900) $ , the obtained width is not consistent with the experimental values. This suggests that the $ N \bar{K}^{*} $ state needs to mix with three-quark components to better explain the experimental $ \Sigma(1750) $ and $ \Sigma(1900) $ states. According to our decay width calculations, the predicted two resonance states are primarily composed of $ \Sigma \pi $ and $ N \bar{K} $ , with their main decay channel being $ \Lambda \pi $ . Therefore, we encourage experimental groups to search for the predicted two-pole structure of the $ \Sigma(1/2^-) $ system in the invariant mass spectrum of $ \Lambda \pi $ .

Yu Yao

Xuejie Liu

Xiaoyun Chen

Yuheng Wu

Jialun Ping

Yue Tan

Qi Huang

Investigation of resonances in the Σ(1/2$^{–}$) system based on the chiral quark model * Supported partly by the National Science Foundation of China (12205249, 12305087). Yue Tan is supported by the Funding for School-Level Research Projects of Yancheng Institute of Technology (xjr2022039) and the Qinglan Project Fund of Jiangsu Province. Qi Huang is supported by the Start-up Funds of Nanjing Normal University (184080H201B20)

Based on $ (10087\pm 44)\times10^{6} $ $ J/\psi $ events collected with the BESIII detector, we search for the lepton number violating decay $ J/\psi \to K^+K^+e^-e^- + c.c. $ for the first time. The upper limit on the branching fraction of this decay is set to $ 2.1 \times 10^{-9} $ at the 90% confidence level with a frequentist method. This is the first search for $ J/\psi $ decays with a lepton number change by two, offering valuable insights into the underlying physical processes.

M. Ablikim

M.N. Achasov

Sweden

P. Adlarson

X.C. Ai

R. Aliberti

A. Amoroso

Q. An

Y. Bai

O. Bakina

Y. Ban

H.R. Bao

Poland

V. Batozskaya

Mongolia

K. Begzsuren

N. Berger

M. Berlowski

M.B. Bertani

D. Bettoni

F. Bianchi

E. Bianco

A. Bortone

I. Boyko

R.A. Briere

A. Brueggemann

H. Cai

M.H. Cai

X. Cai

A. Calcaterra

G.F. Cao

N. Cao

Türkiye

S.A. Cetin

X.Y. Chai

J.F. Chang

T.T. Chang

G.R. Che

Y.Z. Che

C.H. Chen

G. Chen

H.S. Chen

H.Y. Chen

M.L. Chen

S.J. Chen

S.L. Chen

S.M. Chen

T. Chen

X.R. Chen

X.T. Chen

Search for the lepton number violating process ${{\boldsymbol J}/{\boldsymbol\psi }{\bf\to}{\boldsymbol K}^{\bf +}{\boldsymbol K}^{\bf +}{\boldsymbol e}^{\bf -}{\boldsymbol e}^{\bf -}{\bf +}{\boldsymbol {c.c.}}}$ * This work is supported in part by National Key R&D Program of China under Contracts Nos. 2023YFA1606000, 2023YFA1606704; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Contracts Nos. 12035009, 11635010, 11935015, 11935016, 11935018, 12025502, 12035013, 12061131003, 12192260, 12192261, 12192262, 12192263, 12192264, 12192265, 12221005, 12225509, 12235017, 12361141819; the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Large-Scale Scientific Facility Program; CAS under Contract No. YSBR-101; 100 Talents Program of CAS; The Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (INPAC) and Shanghai Key Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology; German Research Foundation DFG under Contract No. FOR5327; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation under Contracts Nos. 2021.0174, 2021.0299; Ministry of Development of Turkey under Contract No. DPT2006K-120470; National Research Foundation of Korea under Contract No. NRF-2022R1A2C1092335; National Science and Technology fund of Mongolia; National Science Research and Innovation Fund (NSRF) via the Program Management Unit for Human Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation of Thailand under Contract No. B50G670107; Polish National Science Centre under Contract No. 2024/53/B/ST2/00975; Swedish Research Council under Contract No. 2019.04595; U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-05ER41374