High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

Abstract: The three kinds of parameter degeneracy in neutrino oscillation, the intrinsic, sign and octant degeneracy, form an eight-fold degeneracy. The nature of this eight-fold degeneracy can be visualized on the ($\sin^22\theta_{13}$, $1/\sin^2\theta_{23}$)-plane, through quadratic curves defined by $P(\nu_\mu\to\nu_e)=$ const. and $P(\bar{\nu}_\mu\to\bar{\nu}_e)=$ const., along with a straight line $P(\nu_\mu\to\nu_\mu)=$ const. After $\theta_{13}$ was determined by reactor neutrino experiments, the intrinsic degeneracy in $\theta_{13}$ transforms into an alternative octant degeneracy in $\theta_{23}$, which can potentially be resolved by incorporating the value of $P(\nu_\mu\to\nu_\mu)$. In this paper, we analytically discuss whether this octant parameter degeneracy is resolved or persists in the future long baseline accelerator neutrino experiments, such as T2HK, DUNE, T2HKK and ESS$\nu$SB. It is found that the energy spectra near the first oscillation maximum are effective in resolving the octant degeneracy, whereas those near the second oscillation maximum are not.

Abstract: The production mechanisms of charmonium states in both hadronic and heavy-ion collisions hold great significance for investigating the hot and dense QCD matter. Studying charmonium polarization in ultra-relativistic collisions can also provide insights into the underlying production mechanisms. With this motivation, we explore the $J/\psi$ and $\psi$(2S) polarization in proton+proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7, 8, and 13 TeV using a pQCD-inspired Monte-Carlo event generator called PYTHIA8. This work considers reconstructed quarkonia through their dimuons decay channel in the ALICE forward rapidity acceptance range of $2.5 < y_{\mu \mu} < 4$. Further, we calculate the polarization parameters $\lambda_{\theta}$, $\lambda_{\phi}$, $\lambda_{\theta \phi}$ from the polar and azimuthal angular distributions of the dimuons in helicity and Collins-Soper frames. This study presents a comprehensive measurement of the polarization parameters as a function of transverse momentum, charged-particle multiplicity, and rapidity at the LHC energies. Our findings of charmonium polarization are in qualitative agreement with the corresponding experimental data.

Abstract: In this work, we first study the mass spectra of the $\Omega_{c}^{(*)}{D}_s^{(*)}$-type doubly charmed molecular pentaquark candidates, where the one-boson-exchange model is adopted by considering both the $S$-$D$ wave mixing effect and the coupled channel effect. Our findings indicate that the $\Omega_{c}{D}_s^*$ state with $J^P={1}/{2}^{-}$, the $\Omega_{c}^*{D}_s^*$ state with $J^P={1}/{2}^{-}$, and the $\Omega_{c}^*{D}_s^*$ state with $J^P={3}/{2}^{-}$ can be considered as the most promising doubly charmed molecular pentaquark candidates, and the $\Omega_{c}{D}_s$ state with $J^P={1}/{2}^{-}$, the $\Omega_{c}^*{D}_s$ state with $J^P={3}/{2}^{-}$, and the $\Omega_{c}{D}_s^*$ state with $J^P={3}/{2}^{-}$ are the possible doubly charmed molecular pentaquark candidates. Furthermore, we further explore the radiative decays and the magnetic moments of the most promising doubly charmed molecular pentaquark candidates in the constituent quark model. As a crucial aspect of spectroscopy, the information of the radiative decays and the magnetic moments can provide the valuable clues to reflect their inner structures. With the accumulation of higher statistical data at the Large Hadron Collider, we propose that the LHCb Collaboration should focus on the problem of searching for these predicted doubly charmed molecular pentaquark candidates containing most strange quarks in the coming years.

Abstract: We explore the phenomenology of QCD axion and axion-like particle (ALP) dark matter production via misalignment during inflationary reheating. We investigate scenarios involving inflaton oscillating in a generic potential $\sim \phi^n$, considering inflaton decay and annihilation for reheating. For low reheating temperatures, the parameter space leading to the correct relic abundance can be enlarged beyond the standard case. Depending on the type of inflaton-matter couplings and the value of $n$, we find that certain parts of the extended parameter space are already constrained by ADMX, CAPP, and MUSE experiments. Future Haloscope experiments are expected to impose stringent constraints. We highlight the potential to utilize axion experiments in constraining the dynamics of reheating.

Abstract: We propose a new numerical method for $3+1$D glasma simulation using Milne coordinates. We formulate the classical Yang-Mills field and $3$D classical color current on a lattice at the initial proper time, specified as a moment just before the collision of the two nuclei. By solving the evolution equations, we extract observables of the $3$D glasma at later times. We demonstrate the efficiency of our method in terms of numerical cost and apply it to the central collisions of Au-Au. We also discuss possible further improvements of our method.

Abstract: In this paper, we would like to compute the muon anomalous precession frequency through solving the wave functions of the Dirac equations straightforwardly. The precession of a (anti-)muon with an anomalous magnetic momentum term is calculated together with the quantum corrections. Lorentz violation terms up to the lowest non-trivial order is introduced, and their effects on anomalous precession are evaluated perturbatively.

Abstract: In this work, we evaluated the widths of the pionic and radiative transitions from the $T_{c\bar{s}0}^{+}(2900)$ to the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ in the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ molecular frame and the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ charmed-strange meson frame. Our estimations demonstrate that the transition widths in the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ molecular frame are much larger than those in the the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ charmed-strange meson frame. Specifically, the ratio of the widths of $\Gamma(T_{c\bar{s}0}^{+}(2900)\to D_{s1}^{+} \pi^{0})$ and $\Gamma(T_{c\bar{s}0}^{+}(2900)\to D^{+(0)}K^{0(+)})$ is estimated to be around 0.1 in the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ charmed-strange meson frame, whereas the lower limit of this ratio is 0.67 in the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$ molecular frame. Thus, the aforementioned ratio could be employed as a tool for testing the nature of the $D_{s1}^{+}(2460)$.

Abstract: We calculate the one-loop quark box diagrams relevant to polarized and unpolarized Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering by introducing an off-forward momentum $l^\mu$ as an infrared regulator. This regularization approach allows us to reveal the poles associated with the chiral anomaly in the polarized scenario, as well as the trace anomaly in the unpolarized case. We provide an interpretation of our findings in the context of pertinent Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs). Furthermore, we discuss the implications of these poles on the QCD factorization pertaining to Compton amplitudes.

Abstract: In a non-standard cosmological scenario, heavy, long-lived particles, which we call moduli, dominate the energy density prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) may be produced non-thermally from moduli decays. The final relic abundance then depends on additional parameters such as the branching ratio of moduli to WIMPs and the modulus mass. This is of interest for WIMP candidates, such as a bino-like neutralino, where thermal production in standard cosmology leads to an overdensity. Previous works have shown that the correct dark matter (DM) relic density can then still be obtained if the moduli, with mass less than $10^{7}$ GeV, decay to WIMPs with a branching ratio of less than $10^{-4}$. This upper bound could easily be violated once higher order corrections, involving final states with more than two particles, are included. We compute the branching ratios of three- and four-body decays of a modulus into final states involving two DM particles for general couplings. We then apply these expressions to sparticle production within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with neutralino DM. We find that this upper bound on the branching ratio can be satisfied in simplified models through an appropriate choice of as yet undetermined couplings. However, in the MSSM, it requires sparticle masses to be very close to half the modulus mass, in contrast to the idea of weak-scale supersymmetry.

Abstract: Measurements of W-boson production at the LHC have reached percent-level precision and impose challenging demands on theoretical predictions. Such predictions directly limit the precision of measurements of fundamental quantities such as the W-boson mass and the weak mixing angle. A dominant source of uncertainty in predictions is from higher-order QCD effects. We present a calculation of W-boson production at the level of $\alpha_s^3$ at fixed order and including transverse-momentum resummation. We further show predictions for a direct comparison with low-pileup ATLAS transverse-momentum and fiducial cross-section measurements at $\sqrt{s}=5.02\text{ TeV}$. We discuss in detail the impact of modern PDFs. Our calculation including the matching to W+jet production at NNLO will be publicly available the upcoming CuTe-MCFM release and allows for theory-data comparison at the state-of-the-art level.

Abstract: We formulate scalar field theories coupled non-conformally to gravity in a manifestly frame-independent fashion. Physical quantities such as the $S$-matrix should be invariant under field redefinitions, and hence are represented by the geometry of the target space. This elegant geometric formulation, however, is obscured when considering the coupling to gravity because of the redundancy associated with the Weyl transformation. The well-known example is the Higgs inflation, where the target space of Higgs is flat in the Jordan frame but is curved in the Einstein frame. Furthermore, one can even show that any geometry of O$(N)$ nonlinear $\sigma$ models can be flattened by an appropriate Weyl transformation. In this letter, we extend the notion of the target space by including the conformal mode of the metric, and show that the extended geometry provides a compact formulation that is manifestly Weyl-transformation/field-redefinition invariant. We estimate the scale of the perturbative unitarity violation from the two-to-two scattering amplitudes based on this formalism.

Abstract: We investigate the proposal that the rise with energy of the ratio of the exclusive photo-production cross-sections of vector mesons $\Psi(2s)$ and $J/\Psi$ can serve as an indicator for the presence of high gluon densities and associated non-linear high energy evolution; we study this proposal for both photoproduction on a proton and a lead nucleus. While previous studies were based on unintegrated gluon distributions subject to linear (Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov) and non-linear (Balitsky-Kovchegov) evolution equations, the current study is based on the Golec-Biernat W\"usthoff (GBW) and Bartels Golec-Biernat Kowalski (BGK) models, which allow assessing more directly the relevance of non-linear corrections for the description of the energy dependence of the photoproduction cross-section. We find that the rise of the ratio is directly related to the presence of a node in the $\Psi(2s)$ wave function and only manifests itself for the complete non-linear models, while it is absent for their linearized versions. We further provide predictions based on leading order collinear factorization and examine to which extent such an approach can mimic a ratio rising with energy. We also provide a description of recent ALICE data on the energy dependence of the photonuclear $J/\Psi$ production cross-section and give predictions for the energy dependence of the ratio of $\Psi(2s)$ and $J/\Psi$ photoproduction cross-sections for both scattering on a proton and a lead nucleus.