<p>We introduce generalized pinning fields in conformal field theory that model a large class of critical impurities at large distance, enriching the familiar universality classes. We provide a rigorous definition of such defects as certain unbounded operators on the Hilbert space and prove that when inserted on codimension-one surfaces they factorize the spacetime into two halves. The factorization channels are further constrained by symmetries in the bulk. As a corollary, we solve such critical impurities in the 2D minimal models and establish the factorization phenomena previously observed for localized mass deformations in the 3D <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi mathvariant="normal">O</mi><mo stretchy="false">(</mo><mi>N</mi><mo stretchy="false">)</mo></math> model.</p>

United States

Fedor K. Popov

Yifan Wang

Factorizing Defects from Generalized Pinning Fields

We study $ \cos2\phi $ azimuthal asymmetry in doubly longitudinally polarized proton-proton Drell-Yan collisions within the transverse momentum dependent factorization framework. The asymmetry arises from the convolution of the longitudinal transversity distribution $ h_{1L}^{\perp} $ for both protons. Using the Bacchetta-Delcarro-Pisano-Radici-Signori parameterization for the nonperturbative Sudakov form factor and the Wandzura-Wilczek approximation for collinear $ h_{1L}^{\perp} $ , we predict the double spin asymmetry $ A_{LL}^{\cos2\phi} $ at RHIC and NICA kinematics. Our results demonstrate sensitivity to sea quark distributions, with the asymmetry reaching up to 25% for maximal sea quark contributions. These predictions highlight the potential of polarized Drell-Yan measurements to probe sea quark dynamics and advance our understanding of nucleon structures.

China

Hui Li

Ting Hu

Liang-Liang Liu

Xiao-Yu Wang

Zhun Lu

Asymmetry ${{\boldsymbol A}_{\boldsymbol{LL}}^{\bf\cos2\boldsymbol\phi}} $ in the polarized proton-proton Drell-Yan process within TMD factorization * Hui Li is supported by Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province (202203021222224) and Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Normal University (JCYJ2023021). Xiao-Yu Wang is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (242300421377, 232300421140)

We propose a search strategy at the HL-LHC for a new neutral particle $\textit{X}$ that couples to $\textit{W}$-bosons, using the process $ p p \to W^{\pm} X (\to W^{+} W^{-}) $ with a tri-$\textit{W}$-boson final state. Focusing on events with two same-sign leptonic $\textit{W}$-boson decays into muons and a hadronically decaying $\textit{W}$-boson, our method leverages the enhanced signal-to-background discrimination achieved through a machine-learning-based multivariate analysis. Using the heavy photophobic axion-like particle (ALP) as a benchmark, we evaluate the discovery sensitivities on both production cross section times branching ratio $ \sigma(p p \to W^{\pm} X) \times \text{Br}(X \to W^{+} W^{-}) $ and the coupling $ g_{aWW} $ for particle mass over a wide range of 170–3000 GeV at the HL-LHC with center-of-mass energy $ \sqrt{s} = 14 \, \text{ TeV} $ and integrated luminosity $ {\cal{L}} = 3 \, \text{ab}^{-1} $ . Our results show significant improvements in discovery sensitivity, particularly for masses above 300 GeV, compared to existing limits derived from CMS analyses of Standard Model (SM) tri-$\textit{W}$-boson production at $ \sqrt{s} = 13 \, \text{ TeV} $ . This study demonstrates the potential of advanced selection techniques in probing the coupling of new particles to $\textit{W}$-bosons and highlights the HL-LHC's capability to explore physics beyond the SM.

Ying-nan Mao

Kechen Wang

Yiheng Xiong

Sensitivities of new resonance couplings to $\textit{W}$-bosons at the LHC * Ying-nan Mao and Yihen Xiong are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12205227). Kechen Wang is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11905162), the Excellent Young Talents Program of the Wuhan University of Technology (40122102), and the research program of the Wuhan University of Technology (2020IB024). 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

We study an $\textit{O}$($\textit{N}$) invariant surface defect in the Wilson-Fisher conformal field theory (CFT) in $\textit{d}$ = 4 – $\textit{ϵ}$ dimensions. This defect is defined by mass deformation on a two-dimensional surface that generates localized disorder and is conjectured to factorize into a pair of ordinary boundary conditions in $\textit{d}$ = 3. We determine defect CFT data associated with the lightest $\textit{O}$($\textit{N}$) singlet and vector operators up to the third order in the $\textit{ϵ}$-expansion, find agreements with results from numerical methods and provide support for the factorization proposal in $\textit{d}$ = 3. Along the way, we observe surprising non-renormalization properties for surface anomalous dimensions and operator-product-expansion coefficients in the $\textit{ϵ}$-expansion. We also analyze the full conformal anomalies for the surface defect.

Oleksandr Diatlyk

Zimo Sun

Surprises in the ordinary: $\textit{O}$($\textit{N}$) invariant surface defect in the $\textit{ϵ}$-expansion

The production of heavy-quark (HQ) jets is a new area that addresses the mass effect of jet quenching in heavy-ion physics. This paper presents a theoretical study of HQ jet yield suppression in Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and focuses on the energy loss of HQ jets produced by different mechanisms. The $\textit{p+p}$ baseline is provided by the generator simulation of high-energy reactions of particles (SHERPA), and the jet-medium interactions are described by the SHELL transport model, which considers the elastic and inelastic partonic energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). In $\textit{p+p}$ collisions, our numerical results indicate that the HQ jets from gluon splitting ( $ g \rightarrow Q $ -jet) are the dominant contribution at high $ p_T $ , displaying more dispersive structures than the HQ-initiated ( $ Q \rightarrow Q $ -jet). In nucleus-nucleus collisions, our calculations were consistent with the inclusive and b-jet $ R_{AA} $ recently measured by the ATLAS collaboration, revealing a remarkable manifestation of the mass effect of jet energy loss. As a result of the dispersive substructure, the $ g \rightarrow Q $ -jet loses more energy than the $ Q \rightarrow Q $ -jet in the QGP. Due to the significant contribution of $ g \rightarrow c $ -jet, the $ R_{AA} $ of $\textit{c}$-jet is comparable or even smaller than that of inclusive jet. To experimentally distinguish the $ g \rightarrow Q $ -jet and $ Q \rightarrow Q $ -jet, we propose event selection strategies based on their topological features and test their performances. By isolating the $ c \rightarrow c $ -jet, $ b \rightarrow b $ -jet, and the jets initiated by heavy quarks, we predicted that the order of their $ R_{AA} $ are in line with the mass hierarchy of energy loss. Future measurements on the $ R_{AA} $ of $ Q \rightarrow Q $ -jet and $ g \rightarrow Q $ -jet will provide a unique opportunity for testing the flavor/mass dependence of energy loss at the jet level.

Sa Wang

Shuang Li

Yao Li

Ben-Wei Zhang

Enke Wang

Probing the mass effect of heavy quark jets in high-energy nuclear collisions * Supported by the MajorProject of Basic and Applied Basic Research of Guangdong Province, China (2020B0301030008, 2023A1515011460), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11935007, 12035007, 12247127, 12375137). Sa Wang is supported by the Open Foundation of Key Laboratory of Quark and Lepton Physics (MOE) (QLPL2023P01) and the Talent Scientific Star-up Foundation of the China Three Gorges University, China (CTGU) (2024RCKJ013)

Motivated by understanding the scattering of gravitons and their superpartners from extended ( , )-strings in type IIB string theory via AdS/CFT, we study an integrated two-point function of stress tensor multiplet operators in the presence of a half-BPS line defect in $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 4 SU( ) super-Yang-Mills theory. We determine this integrated correlator at the five lowest non-trivial orders in $$ 1/\sqrt{N} $$ at fixed Yang-Mills coupling and angle. Our calculations are performed explicitly when the line defect is a Wilson line, in which case we find a finite number of perturbative contributions at each order in $$ 1/\sqrt{N} $$ , as well as instanton contributions. Using SL(2, ) transformations, our results can also be applied to Wilson-’t Hooft line defects dual to extended ( , )-strings in the bulk. We analyze features of these integrated correlators in the weak coupling expansion by comparing with open-closed amplitudes of type IIB string theory on AdS × S , as well as in its flat space limit. We predict new higher-derivative interaction vertices on the D1-brane and, more generally, on ( , )-strings.

Silviu Pufu

Victor Rodriguez

Scattering from (

We introduce an effective field theory (EFT) for conformal impurity by considering a pair of transversely displaced impurities and integrating out modes with mass inversely proportional to the separation distance. This EFT captures the universal signature of the impurity seen by a heavy local operator. We focus on the case of conformal boundaries and derive universal formulas from this EFT for the boundary structure constants at high energy. We point out that the more familiar thermal EFT for conformal field theory is a special case of this EFT with distinguished conformal boundaries. We also derive, for general conformal impurities, nonpositivity and convexitylike constraints on the Casimir energy which determines the leading EFT coefficient.

Himanshu Khanchandani

Effective Field Theory of Conformal Boundaries

For any unitary conformal field theory in two dimensions with the central charge c, we prove that, if there is a nontrivial primary operator whose conformal dimension ∆ vanishes in some limit on the conformal manifold, the Zamolodchikov distance t to the limit is infinite, the approach to this limit is exponential ∆ = exp(−αt + O(1)), and the decay rate obeys the universal bounds c −1/2 ≤ α ≤ 1. In the limit, we also find that an infinite tower of primary operators emerges without a gap above the vacuum and that the conformal field theory becomes locally a tensor product of a sigma-model in the large radius limit and a compact theory. As a corollary, we establish a part of the Distance Conjecture about gravitational theories in three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space. In particular, our bounds on α indicate that the emergence of exponentially light states is inevitable as the moduli field corresponding to t rolls beyond the Planck scale along the steepest path and that this phenomenon can begin already at the curvature scale of the bulk geometry. We also comment on implications of our bounds for gravity in asymptotically flat spacetime by taking the flat space limit and compare with the Sharpened Distance Conjecture.

Japan

Hirosi Ooguri

Universal bounds on CFT Distance Conjecture

We study the operator algebra of extended conformal defects in more than two spacetime dimensions. Such algebra structure encodes the combined effect of multiple impurities on physical observables at long distances as well as the interactions among the impurities. These features are formalized by a fusion product which we define for a pair of defects, after isolating divergences that capture the effective potential between the defects, which generalizes the usual Casimir energy. We discuss general properties of the corresponding fusion algebra and contrast with the more familiar cases that involve topological defects. We also describe the relation to a different defect setup in the shape of a wedge. We provide explicit examples to illustrate these properties using line defects and interfaces in the Wilson-Fisher CFT and the Gross-Neveu(-Yukawa) CFT and determine the defect fusion data thereof.

Fedor Popov

Defect fusion and Casimir energy in higher dimensions

We investigate finite-temperature observables in three-dimensional large N critical vector models taking into account the effects suppressed by   <math> <mfrac> <mn>1</mn> <mi>N</mi> </mfrac> </math>  $$ \frac{1}{N} $$ . Such subleading contributions are captured by the fluctuations of the Hubbard-Stratonovich auxiliary field which need to be handled with care due to a subtle divergence structure which we clarify. The examples we consider include the scalar O(N) model, the Gross-Neveu model, the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model and the massless Chern-Simons Quantum Electrodynamics. We present explicit results for the free energy density to the subleading order in   <math> <mfrac> <mn>1</mn> <mi>N</mi> </mfrac> </math>  $$ \frac{1}{N} $$ , which captures the thermal one-point function of the stress-energy tensor to this order. We also include the dependence on a chemical potential. We determine the Wilson coefficient in the thermal effective action that is sensitive to global symmetry for the first time directly in interacting CFTs, which produces a symmetry-resolved asymptotic density of states. We further provide a formula from diagrammatics for the one-point functions of general single-trace higher-spin currents. We observe that in most cases considered, these subleading effects lift the apparent degeneracies between observables in different models at infinite N, while in special cases the discrepancies only start to appear at the next-to-subleading order.