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.

China

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

This study investigates the ultraviolet realization of semileptonic four-fermion operator $ O_{ledq}^{\alpha \beta 11} $ that incorporates Majorana dark matter (DM) in both lepton-flavor-conserving (LFC) and lepton-flavor-violating (LFV) scenarios at the one-loop level via box diagram, thereby effectively alleviating the lower bounds on the new physics scale. In addition, we investigate the interplay between model-independent constraints on the Wilson coefficients and DM direct detection, relic density, and collider searches in the context of fermion portal DM model with two mediators. We found that both the projected future constraint on the LFC Wilson coefficient $ C_{ledq}^{2211}/\Lambda^2 \lt $ $ (12.3\; \text{TeV})^{-2} $ from the measurements of neutrino non-standard interaction in the next-generation neutrino oscillation experiments, and the LFV constraint $ C_{ledq}^{1211}/\Lambda^2 \lt \left(2.2\times 10^3\; \text{TeV} \right)^{-2} $ from ongoing charged-lepton-flavor-violation searches, provide a complementary exploration of the parameter space encompassing the DM and scalar masses. With a colored mediator mass of approximately $ 2\; \text{TeV} $ , the sensitivity of the indirect constraints on the four-fermion operator can surpass those of collider searches and DM direct detection, in scenarios where the masses of the DM and scalar are close. By ensuring the correct DM relic density, however, we find that the collider searches and DM direct detection are more sensitive to the electroweak-scale DM and scalar than indirect constraints.

Yuxuan He

Gang Li

Jia Liu

Xiao-Ping Wang

Xiang Zhao

Lepton flavor of four-fermion operator and fermion portal dark matter * Gang Li and Xiang Zhao are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12347105, 12505127), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2024A1515012668). The work of Jia Liu is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (12235001, 12475103) and State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology (NPT2025ZX11). The work of Xiao-Ping Wang is supported by National Science Foundation of China (12375095) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

In the type-I two-Higgs-doublet model, the pseudoscalar $\textit{A}$ can act as a long-lived particle (LLP) for sufficiently large values of tan $\textit{β}$. At the LHC, the $\textit{A}$ particles are predominantly produced in pairs through $\textit{pp}$ → $\textit{W}$ /$\textit{Z}$ → $\textit{H}$ /$\textit{H A}$, with subsequent decays $\textit{H}$ /$\textit{H}$ → $\textit{W}$ /$\textit{Z A}$. For the mass range of our interest, 10 GeV ≲ $\textit{m}$ ≲ 100 GeV, the pseudoscalar $\textit{A}$ typically decays into a pair of bottom quarks after traveling a macroscopic distance from its production point, giving rise to displaced-vertex (DV) signatures inside the inner detector. We perform Monte Carlo simulations of signal events with DVs plus jets, and assess the discovery prospects of $\textit{A}$ as an LLP at the ATLAS and CMS experiments. Our findings show that a substantial portion of the parameter space with $\textit{m}$ > 10 GeV has already been excluded by LHC Run-2 data, while the high-luminosity LHC will be able to probe broader regions.

Lei Wang

Zeren Wang

Haotian Xu

Probing a long-lived pseudoscalar in type-I 2HDM with displaced vertices and jets at the LHC

Several possible excesses around $ 95 $ GeV hint at an additional light scalar beyond the Standard Model. We examine the capability of the Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC) to test this hypothesis in the Higgs-strahlung channel $ e^{+}e^{-} \to ZS $ with $ Z \to\mu^{+}\mu^{-} $ and $ S \to\tau^{+}\tau^{-} $ . A full detector simulation shows that the optimal center-of-mass energy for studying the 95 GeV light scalar is 210 GeV. A deep neural network classifier reduces the luminosity required for discovery by half. At $ L = 20\; \mathrm{ab}^{-1} $ , the $ 5\sigma $ sensitivity of the CEPC to the signal strength $ \mu_{\tau\tau}^{ZS} $ reaches 0.016 and 0.020 for $ \sqrt{s} = 210 $ GeV and 240 GeV, respectively. The corresponding thresholds for a 5% precision measurement are $ \mu_{\tau\tau}^{ZS} \gt 0.10 $ and $ \gt 0.12 $ . At $ \sqrt{s}=210 $ GeV (240 GeV), the $ 5\sigma $ coverage of all N2HDM-Flipped samples with $ \chi^2_{h_{95}} \lt 7.82 $ requires $ L=800\ \mathrm{fb}^{-1} $ (1.22 $ \mathrm{ab}^{-1} $ ). These results establish a 210 GeV run, augmented by machine-learning selection, as the most efficient strategy to confirm or refute the 95 GeV excess at future lepton colliders.

Yabo Dong

Manqi Ruan

Kun Wang

Haijun Yang

Jingya Zhu

Testing a 95 GeV Scalar at the CEPC with Machine Learning * This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 12275066 and by the startup research funds of Henan University. The work of K. Wang was also supported by the Open Project of the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Cosmology under Grant No. 22DZ2229013-3. The work of M. Ruan was also supported by the National Key Program for S&T Research and Development under Contract No. 2024YFA1610603. The work of H. Yang was also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. W2441004.

Electroweak (EW) amplitudes in the gauge-Goldstone five-component formalism have a distinctive property: gauge symmetry is imprinted in the amplitudes, manifested as the massive Ward identity (MWI) $ k^M{\cal{M}}_M=0 $ . In this study, we used the HELAS package to numerically study gauge symmetry in EW amplitudes. First, we directly tested gauge symmetry by examining the MWI of amplitudes. Second, we modified the couplings within a vertex and among vertices to check if and how the MWI changes. Third, we tested gauge symmetry by considering the couplings modified by operators from the standard model effective field theory (SMEFT). Similar to the standard model, there are relations between different couplings that are protected by gauge symmetry. We observed that, if we modify the couplings to deviate from the relations, the MWI is violated. In contrast, the MWI is restored when the relations between couplings reduce to those in the SMEFT.

Wang-Fa Li

Junmou Chen

Qian-Jiu Wang

Zhao-Huan Yu

Numerical study on the gauge symmetry of electroweak amplitudes * Junmou Chen is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (12205118), Wang-Fa Li, Qian-Jiu Wang, and Zhao-Huan Yu are supported by the Guangzhou Science and Technology Planning Project (2024A04J4026)

We study the electromagnetic form factors of electrically neutral dark-sector particles in this paper. Concretely speaking, we focus on the operators that can lead to interactions of fermionic dark states with the Standard-Model (SM) photon, including both dimension-5 (the magnetic and electric dipole moments) and dimension-6 (the anapole moment and charge radius) operators. Correspondingly, instead of the SM-photon form factors, we employ hypercharge gauge-field form factors that can induce additional couplings to the SM $\textit{Z}$-boson. Utilizing the mono-photon production channel at future linear electron-positron colliders, the International Linear Collider (ILC) and the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), we demonstrate that tuning beam polarization allows for simultaneous enhancement of signal-event rates and suppression of dominant SM background events, i.e. neutrino-induced processes, and hence improvement of sensitivity reach. Our analysis reveals that ILC and CLIC can probe electromagnetic form factors of dark-sector particles up to about two orders of magnitude beyond existing experimental limits. We also estimate, at the order-of-magnitude level, the validity range of the effective-field-theory (EFT) approach we adopt, finding that for the dimension-5 operators the EFT remains valid in most of the parameter regions to which the ILC and CLIC can be sensitive, while it breaks down in the entire sensitivity region for the dimension-6 operators.

Zhong Zhang

Yu Zhang

Yunlan Ji

Probing dark-state electromagnetic form factors at future linear electron-positron colliders with polarized beams

In a supersymmetry scenario with R-parity violation (RPV), neutralinos with GeV-scale mass, which are necessarily bino-like, are allowed by all constraints and can be produced in association with a baryon in $\textit{B}$-meson decays via certain $$ \overline{U}\overline{D}\overline{D} $$ operators. In this work, we investigate this scenario with two non-vanishing RPV couplings at the low-energy scale. With one RPV coupling governing the neutralino production rate and another determining its lifetime, this scenario can lead to observable signals with displaced-vertex signatures in the tracking volume of $\textit{B}$-factories. To maximize the sensitivity to such signals, we develop a new partial-reconstruction technique that yields high efficiency and utilizes most of the decays of relatively heavy, long-lived particles, achieving much better sensitivity than standard full reconstruction. We consider potential background sources and devise selection criteria to suppress their event yields to very low levels. Using a parameterized model of the detector, we estimate in detail the displaced-vertex reconstruction efficiency as a function of neutralino lifetime and mass. For squark masses beyond the LHC limits, we calculate the signal sensitivity of Belle II, showing that the experiment can probe the RPV couplings well beyond the present bounds, obtained from searches for dinucleon decays, baryon-antibaryon oscillations, and $\textit{B}$ → $\textit{p}$ + missing.

Israel

Emilie Bertholet

Chile

Claudio Dib

Sara Gandelman

Juan Helo

Germany

Valery Lyubovitskij

India

Minakshi Nayak

Nicolás Neill

Abner Soffer

Searching for long-lived light neutralinos from $\textit{B}$-meson decays with baryonic R-parity violation at Belle II

We study light neutralinos $$ \left({\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0\right) $$ with masses ranging from 10 GeV to several hundred GeV within the framework of R-parity-violating (RPV) supersymmetry. These light neutralinos can be long-lived, decaying with a macroscopic displacement (order cm) inside the LHC main detectors. Complementing previous works on the subject, here we focus on their production through the electroweak pair production of left-chiral sleptons $$ \left({\tilde{e}}_L\right) $$ , with the signal process $\textit{pp}$ → $$ {\tilde{e}}_L^{+}{\tilde{e}}_L^{-} $$ → $$ {e}^{+}{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0{e}^{-}{\overset{\sim }{\chi}}_1^0 $$ . In contrast to the previous study with a singly produced slepton, where the RPV coupling $$ {\lambda}_{111}^{\prime } $$ induces $\textit{both}$ the production and decay of the light neutralino, in our scenario the production proceeds through Drell-Yan-like processes that are essentially independent of RPV couplings. Correspondingly, we implement a displaced-vertex search strategy for which our numerical analysis shows that the high-luminosity LHC can probe $$ {\lambda}_{111}^{\prime } $$ values up to three orders of magnitude smaller, and neutralino masses up to about four times larger than those accessible in the previously studied single-slepton production scenario.

Giovanna Cottin

Fabián Hernández-Pinto

Probing light neutralinos from pair-produced sleptons with displaced vertices at the high-luminosity LHC

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2025)238

Spain

Rebeca Beltrán

Julian Günther

Martin Hirsch

Italy

Arsenii Titov

Erratum to: Heavy neutral leptons and top quarks in effective field theory

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.

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)