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).

China

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

<p>We report the refined dark-photon exclusion bound from Dark SRF’s pathfinder run. Our new result is driven by improved theoretical modeling of frequency instability in high-quality resonant experiments. Our analysis leads to a constraint that is an order of magnitude stronger than previously reported (corresponding to a signal-to-noise ratio that is 4 orders of magnitude larger). This result represents the world-leading constraint on non-dark-matter dark photons over a wide range of masses below <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mn>6</mn><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi mathvariant="normal">μ</mi><mi>eV</mi></math> and translates to the best laboratory-based limit on the photon mass <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><msub><mrow><mi>m</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>γ</mi></mrow></msub><mo>&lt;</mo><mn>2.9</mn><mo>×</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>48</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi mathvariant="normal">g</mi></mrow></math>.</p>

Saarik Kalia

Zhen Liu

Bianca Giaccone

Oleksandr Melnychuk

Roman Pilipenko

Asher Berlin

Anson Hook

Sergey Belomestnykh

Crispin Contreras-Martinez

Daniil Frolov

Timergali Khabiboulline

Yuriy Pischalnikov

Sam Posen

Oleg Pronitchev

Vyacheslav Yakovlev

Anna Grassellino

Roni Harnik

Alexander Romanenko

Improved Dark Photon Sensitivity from a Superconducting-Radio-Frequency-Cavity Experiment

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)

We recursively construct tree-level electromagnetic and gravitational Compton amplitudes of higher-spin massive particles by the all-line transverse momentum shift. With three-point amplitude as input, we demonstrate that higher-point electromagnetic and gravitational Compton amplitudes are on-shell constructible up to spin $\textit{s}$ = 3/2 and $\textit{s}$ = 5/2, respectively, under the all-line transverse shift after imposing the current constraint condition. We unambiguously derive the four-point electromagnetic and gravitational Compton amplitudes for $\textit{s}$ ≤ 3/2 and $\textit{s}$ ≤ 5/2, which are uniquely determined by the on-shell recursion relation and are free from unphysical spurious poles. In addition, we explore amplitudes of spin-3/2 particles with non-minimal three-point interactions with photon, as well as $\textit{s}$ > 3/2 particles, and comment on their notable features. Our work furthers the understanding of on-shell methods for massive amplitudes, with hopes to shed light on physical observables in particle physics and higher-spin amplitudes relevant for Kerr black-hole scattering.

Switzerland

Yohei Ema

United States

Ting Gao

Wenqi Ke

Ishmam Mahbub

On-shell recursion relations for higher-spin Compton amplitudes

We study the physics potential of heavy QCD axions at high-energy muon colliders. Unlike typical axion-like particles, heavy QCD axions solve the strong CP problem with phenomenology driven by the anomalous gluon $$ \left( aG\overset{\sim }{G}\right) $$ couplings. Several ultraviolet scenarios are presented in which QCD axions with TeV-scale masses and decay constants arise consistently with a solution to both the strong CP problem and the axion quality problem. We perform a detailed collider analysis for both a 3 and 10 TeV muon collider, focusing on hadronic axion decays that gives rise to a dijet-resonance signature. Our projections for the axion discovery reach in the multi-TeV mass range demonstrate that a muon collider can significantly extend sensitivity to heavy QCD axions compared to existing experiments.

Ravneet Bedi

Tony Gherghetta

Soubhik Kumar

Peiran Li

Heavy QCD axions at high-energy muon colliders

We study the inelastic charmonium ( $ J/\psi $ , $ \psi(2S) $ ) and bottomonium ( $ \Upsilon(nS) $ ) photoproduction and fragmentation processes in $\textit{p}$-$\textit{p}$ and $ \rm Pb$ - $\rm Pb$ collisions at LHC energies, where the ultra-incoherent photon emission is included. Using the NRQCD factorization approach, an exact treatment is developed. This approach recovers the Weizsäcker-Williams approximation (WWA) near the $ Q^{2}\sim0 $ region, where the Martin-Ryskin and BCCKL methods are used to avoid double counting. We calculated the $ Q^{2} $ , $\textit{y}$, $\textit{z}$, $ \sqrt{s} $ , and $ p_{T} $ dependent and total cross sections. Inelastic photoproduction and fragmentation were observed to contribute to heavy quarkonium production, particularly at large $ p_{T} $ . In addition, the contribution of the ultra-incoherent photon channel, which increases rapidly with quarkonium mass, is significant and begins to dominate the photoproduction processes for large $ p_{T} $ . We also obtained the complete WWA validity scopes of inelastic heavy quarkonium photoproduction in heavy-ion collisions. The WWA had high accuracy at high energies and for $\rm Pb $ - $\rm Pb $ collisions. However, current photon spectra are derived beyond the WWA scope, and double counting can occur when considering different channels simultaneously.

Zhi-Lei Ma

Zhun Lu

Hao Liu

Li Zhang

Inelastic heavy quarkonium photoproduction in $\textit{p}$-$\textit{p}$ and Pb-Pb collisions at LHC energies * Supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12305092, 12233006, 12150013), the Xingdian Talent Support Program for Youth Project, and by the Yunnan Fundamental Research Projects (202401AU070206). Hao Liu is supported by the Scientific Research and Innovation Project of Postgraduate Students in the Academic Degree of YunNan University (KC-242410212)

We discuss the landscape of flavor physics at the Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC), based on the nominal luminosity outlined in its Technical Design Report. The CEPC is designed to operate in multiple modes to address a variety of tasks. At the $\textit{Z}$ pole, the expected production of 4 Tera $\textit{Z}$ bosons will provide unique and highly precise measurements of $\textit{Z}$ boson couplings, while the substantial number of boosted heavy-flavored quarks and leptons produced in clean $\textit{Z}$ decays will facilitate investigations into their flavor physics with unprecedented precision. We investigate the prospects of measuring various physics benchmarks and discuss their implications for particle theories and phenomenological models. Our studies indicate that, with its highlighted advantages and anticipated excellent detector performance, the CEPC can explore beauty and $\textit{τ}$ physics in ways that are superior to or complementary with the Belle II and Large-Hadron-Collider-beauty experiments, potentially enabling the detection of new physics at energy scales of 10 TeV and above. This potential also extends to the observation of yet-to-be-discovered rare and exotic processes, as well as testing fundamental principles such as lepton flavor universality, lepton and baryon number conservation, etc., making the CEPC a vibrant platform for flavor physics research. The $\textit{WW}$ threshold scan, Higgs-factory operation and top-pair productions of the CEPC further enhance its merits in this regard, especially for measuring the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements, and Flavor-Changing-Neutral-Current physics of Higgs boson and top quarks. We outline the requirements for detector performance and considerations for future development to achieve the anticipated scientific goals. The role of machine learning for innovative detector design and advanced reconstruction algorithms is also stressed. The CEPC flavor physics program not only develops new capabilities for exploring flavor physics beyond existing projects but also enriches the physics opportunities of this machine. It should be remarked that, given the richness of the CEPC flavor physics, this manuscript is not meant to be a comprehensive survey, but rather an investigation of representative cases. Uncovering the full potential of flavor physics at the CEPC will require further dedicated explorations in the future.

Xiaocong Ai

Wolfgang Altmannshofer

Peter Athron

Xiaozhi Bai

Lorenzo Calibbi

Germany

Lu Cao

Yuzhi Che

Chunhui Chen

Ji-Yuan Chen

Long Chen

Mingshui Chen

Shanzhen Chen

Xuan Chen

Shan Cheng

Cheng-Wei Chiang

Andreas Crivellin

Hanhua Cui

France

Olivier Deschamps

Sébastien Descotes-Genon

Xiaokang Du

Shuangshi Fang

Yu Gao

Yuanning Gao

Li-Sheng Geng

Pablo Goldenzweig

Jiayin Gu

Feng-Kun Guo

Yuchen Guo

Zhi-Hui Guo

Tao Han

Hong-Jian He

Jibo He

Miao He

Xiaogang He

Yanping Huang

Gino Isidori

Quan Ji

Jianfeng Jiang

Xu-Hui Jiang

Slovenia

Jernej F. Kamenik

Tsz Hong Kwok

Gang Li

Geng Li

Haibo Li

Haitao Li

Hengne Li

Honglei Li

Liang Li

Lingfeng Li

Qiang Li

Shu Li

Xiaomei Li

Xin-Qiang Li

Yiming Li

Yubo Li

Yuji Li

Zhao Li

Hao Liang

Zhijun Liang

Libo Liao

Zoltan Ligeti

Jia Liu

Jianbei Liu

Tao Liu

Yi Liu

Yong Liu

Xinchou Lou

Peng-Cheng Lu

Italy

Alberto Lusiani

Hong-Hao Ma

Kai Ma

Farvah Mahmoudi

Yajun Mao

Yaxian Mao

David Marzocca

Juan-Juan Niu

Soeren Prell

Huirong Qi

Sen Qian

Zhuoni Qian

Qin Qin

Ariel Rock

Jonathan L. Rosner

Manqi Ruan

Dingyu Shao

Chengping Shen

Xiaoyan Shen

Haoyu Shi

United Kingdom

Liaoshan Shi

Zong-Guo Si

Cristian Sierra

Huayang Song

Shufang Su

Wei Su

Zhijia Sun

Michele Tammaro

Dayong Wang

En Wang

Flavor physics at the CEPC: a general perspective * We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (12125507, 12047503, 12035008, 2211530479, 12475094, 12135006, 12075097, 12375086, 2022YFA1601903, 12061141007, 12375091, 12342502, 12235018, 12335003, 12105100, 12475106, 11961141015, 12188102, 12175245, 12205171, 12321005, tsqn202312052, 2024HWYQ-005, 12405121, 12447167, 12061141006, 12405102, 12125503,12305115, 12075213, 12335005, 12235008); the Chinese Academy of Sciences (YSBR-101, XDB34030000); the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFE0116900, 2023YFA1606703, 2022YFA1601901); the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023YFA1606300); the Excellent Postdoctoral Program of Jiangsu Province (2023ZB891); the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (202206193000001, 20220816094256002); the Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Henan Province (242300421046); the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation (JQ22002); the Area of Excellence (AoE/P-404/18-3) and the General Research Fund (16304321) (both grants are issued by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong S.A.R); the MOST National Key R&D Program (2023YFA1606303); the Shanghai Key Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University

The neutrino floor, a theoretical sensitivity limit for dark matter (DM) direct detection, is being redefined as the boundary of a dynamic ''neutrino fog,'' where neutrino signals become inevitable, obscuring DM detection due to statistical and systematic uncertainties. This study provides the first site-specific analysis of the neutrino floor at China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL), leveraging its unique geographic and environmental characteristics. We quantify how CJPL’s suppressed atmospheric neutrino flux (approximately 30% lower than that of Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS)) reshapes the neutrino floor, thereby enabling improved sensitivity to high-mass WIMPs (mass > 10 GeV). Using a gradient-based framework, we derive the CJPL’s neutrino floor and estimate the detection prospects for the PandaX-xT experiment. Our results demonstrate that a 500 tonne-year exposure with PandaX-xT could reach the floor, probing spin independent cross-sections down to $ \sigma_{n}\sim 3\times 10^{-49}\; {\rm{cm}}^2$ at a DM mass of 70 GeV/$\textit{c}$ $^{2}$.

Yingjie Fan

Xuewen Liu

Ning Zhou

Characterizing the CJPL’s site-specific neutrino floor as the neutrino fog boundary * Xuewen Liu is supported by the Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (2022KJ271). Ning Zhou is supported by National Science Foundation of China (12325505)

Large-scale organic liquid scintillator detectors are highly efficient in the detection of MeV-scale electron antineutrinos. These signal events can be detected through inverse beta decay on protons, which produce a positron accompanied by a neutron. A noteworthy background for antineutrinos coming from nuclear power reactors and from the depths of the Earth (geoneutrinos) is generated by ( $$\alpha ,\,n$$ ) reactions. In organic liquid scintillator detectors, $$\alpha $$ particles emitted from intrinsic contaminants such as $$^{238}$$ U, $$^{232}$$ Th, and $$^{210}$$ Pb/ $$^{210}$$ Po, can be captured on $$^{13}$$ C nuclei, followed by the emission of a MeV-scale neutron. Three distinct interaction mechanisms can produce prompt energy depositions preceding the delayed neutron capture, leading to a pair of events correlated in space and time within the detector. Thus, ( $$\alpha ,\,n$$ ) reactions represent an indistinguishable background in liquid scintillator-based antineutrino detectors, where their expected rate and energy spectrum are typically evaluated via Monte Carlo simulations. This work presents results from the open-source SaG4n software, used to calculate the expected energy depositions from the neutron and any associated de-excitation products. Also simulated is a detailed detector response to these interactions, using a dedicated Geant4-based simulation software from the JUNO experiment. An expected measurable $$^{13}$$ C $$(\alpha ,\,n)^{16}$$ O event rate and reconstructed prompt energy spectrum with associated uncertainties, are presented in the context of JUNO, however, the methods and results are applicable and relevant to other organic liquid scintillator neutrino detectors.

Thomas Adam

Kai Adamowicz

Pakistan

Shakeel Ahmad

Rizwan Ahmed

Sebastiano Aiello

Fengpeng An

Costas Andreopoulos

Giuseppe Andronico

Russia

Nikolay Anfimov

Vito Antonelli

Tatiana Antoshkina

João Athayde Marcondes de André

Didier Auguste

Weidong Bai

Nikita Balashov

Andrea Barresi

Davide Basilico

Eric Baussan

Marco Beretta

Antonio Bergnoli

Nikita Bessonov

Daniel Bick

Lukas Bieger

Svetlana Biktemerova

Thilo Birkenfeld

Simon Blyth

Anastasia Bolshakova

Mathieu Bongrand

Matteo Borghesi

Dominique Breton

Augusto Brigatti

Riccardo Brugnera

Riccardo Bruno

Marcel Büchner

Antonio Budano

Jose Busto

Anatael Cabrera

Barbara Caccianiga

Simulation of the background from $$^{13}$$ C $$(\alpha ,\,n)^{16}$$ O reaction in the JUNO scintillator