High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

Abstract: We have examined the chemical freeze-out surface of the heavy-ion collision experiments within an interacting hadron resonance gas model. By considering repulsive interaction among hadrons in the mean-field level, we have suitably parameterized the freeze-out surface by fitting the yield data of mid-rapidity for the most central collision, for the collision energy available in AGS, RHIC (BES), and LHC programs. To suitably account for the repulsive interaction among mesons and (anti-) baryons, we have introduced phenomenological parameters $K_M$ and $K_B$ in the freeze-out parametrization. Although a finite value of these two parameters seem to be necessary to have an improved normalized \emph{chi-square}, the effect on the rest of the parameters like temperature and relevant chemical potentials seem to be within the standard variance.

Abstract: We present progress towards a unified framework enabling the simultaneous determination of the parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the proton, deuteron, and nuclei up to lead $(^{208}\rm{Pb})$. Our approach is based on the integration of the fitting framework underlying the nNNPDF3.0 determination of nuclear PDFs into that adopted for the NNPDF4.0 global analysis of proton PDFs. Our work paves the way toward a full integrated global analysis of non-perturbative QCD -- a key ingredient for the exploitation of the scientific potential of present and future nuclear and particle physics facilities such as the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).

Abstract: We present a new perspective on the study of the behavior of the strong coupling $\alpha_s(Q^2)$ -- the fundamental coupling underlying the interactions between quarks and gluons as described by the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) -- in the low-energy infrared (IR) regime. We rely on the NNSF$\nu$ determination of neutrino-nucleus structure functions valid for all values of $Q^2$ from the photoproduction to the high-energy region to define an effective charge following the the Gross-Llewellyn Smith (GLS) sum rule. As a validation, our predictions for the low-energy QCD effective charge are compared to experimental measurements provided by JLab.

Abstract: We study the reheating and leptogenesis in the case of a vector inflaton. We concentrate on particle production during the phase of oscillating background, especially gravitational production induced by the presence of non-minimal coupling imposed by an isotropic and homogeneous Universe. Including processes involving the exchange of graviton, we then extend our study to decay into fermions via direct or anomalous couplings. The necessity of non-minimal gravitational coupling and the gauge nature of couplings to fermions implies a much richer phenomenology than for a scalar inflaton.

Abstract: The Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) is a powerful tool to search for new physics in a model-independent way. We explore the synergies arising from different types of observables in a combined, global SMEFT fit. Specifically, we investigate the combination of top-quark measurements, $b\to s$ flavor changing neutral current transitions, $Z\to b \bar b$ and $Z\to c \bar c$, as well as Drell-Yan data from the LHC. We also examine the impact of Minimal Flavor Violation (MFV) as a flavor pattern in the global fit. We find that the combination of high-p$_T$ with flavor physics observables provides powerful synergies that significantly improve the fit and enable more precise tests of various SMEFT operators. By incorporating different observables, we are able to remove flat directions in the parameter space and infer on the flavor structure based on the MFV parameterization. In particular, we find that MFV significantly strengthens the constraints in comparison to a flavor-specific approach. Furthermore, our analysis yields a prediction for the dineutrino branching ratios ${\cal{B}}(B \to K^{(*)} \nu \bar \nu)$ within MFV, which can be tested experimentally at Belle II.

Abstract: This paper presents a comparative analysis of three distinct methods used to calculate the collisional energy loss of heavy quarks in Quark-Gluon Plasma. The study focuses on the calculation of the nuclear suppression factor of charm quarks in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{S_{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV. All three models are examined using the same numerical evolution based on the well-known Fokker-Planck equation by considering critical phenomena like a non-equilibrium state at the onset of heavy ion collision. The outcomes of each approach are compared with the latest data from ALICE and ATLAS experiments spanning from 2018 to 2022. This study aims to compare the degree of agreement between each approach and recently obtained experimental data, in the intermediate and high $P_T$ regions.

Abstract: We study decoherence effects and phase corrections in heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations (NNOs), based on quantum field theory with external wave packets. Decoherence damps the oscillation pattern, making it harder to resolve experimentally. Additionally, it enhances lepton number violation (LNV) for processes in symmetry-protected low-scale seesaw models by reducing the destructive interference between mass eigenstates. We discuss a novel time-independent shift in the phase and derive formulae for calculating decoherence effects and the phase shift in the relevant regimes, which are the no dispersion regime and transverse dispersion regime. We find that the phase shift can be neglected in the parameter region under consideration since it is small apart from parameter regions with large damping. In the oscillation formulae, decoherence can be included by an effective damping parameter. We discuss this parameter and present averaged results, which apply to simulations of NNOs in the dilepton-dijet channel at the HL-LHC. We show that including decoherence effects can dramatically change the theoretical prediction for the ratio of LNV over LNC events.

Abstract: Over the past years, there has been a sustained effort to systematically enhance our understanding of medium-induced emissions occurring in the quark-gluon plasma, driven by the ultimate goal of advancing our comprehension of jet quenching phenomena. To ensure meaningful comparisons between these new calculations and experimental data, it becomes crucial to model the interplay between the radiation process and the evolution of the medium parameters, typically described by a hydrodynamical simulation. This step presents particular challenges when dealing with calculations involving the resummation of multiple scatterings, which have been shown to be necessary for achieving an accurate description of the in-medium emission process. In this paper, we extend our numerical calculations of the fully-resummed gluon spectrum to account for longitudinally expanding media. This new implementation allows us to quantitatively assess the accuracy of previously proposed scaling laws that establish a correspondence between an expanding medium and a "static equivalent". Additionally, we show that such scaling laws yield significantly improved results when the static reference case is replaced by an expanding medium with the temperature following a simple power-law decay. Such correspondence will enable the application of numerical calculations of medium-induced energy loss in realistic evolving media for a broader range of phenomenological studies.

Abstract: We calculate the contribution from the $q \bar q g$ state production to the diffractive cross sections in deep inelastic scattering at high energy. The obtained cross section is finite by itself, and consists a part of the full next-to-leading order result for the diffractive structure functions. Our calculation for the diffractive structure functions is performed using exact kinematics, under the shockwave approximation of the scattering process. Once the calculation is completed, we show that the previously known behaviour at the high-$Q^2$ and large-$M_X^2$ regime can be extracted from our results by taking the appropriate limits. Furthermore, we discuss the steps required to obtain the complete next-to-leading order results for the structure functions in the color glass condensate (CGC) formalism, and the application of these results to phenomenology.