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At least 55 records · Page 3

Celestial amplitudes from UV to IR

Celestial amplitudes represent 4D scattering of particles in boost, rather than the usual energy-momentum, eigenstates and hence are sensitive to both UV and IR physics. We show that known UV and IR properties of quantum gravity translate into powerful constraints on the analytic structure of celestial amplitudes. For example the soft UV behavior of quantum gravity is shown to imply that the exact four-particle scattering amplitude is meromorphic in the complex boost weight plane with poles confined to even integers on the negative real axis. Would-be poles on the positive real axis from UV asymptotics are shown to be erased by a flat space analog of the AdS resolution of the bulk point singularity. The residues of the poles on the negative axis are identified with operator coefficients in the IR effective action. Far along the real positive axis, the scattering is argued to grow exponentially according to the black hole area law. Exclusive amplitudes are shown to simply factorize into conformally hard and conformally soft factors. The soft factor contains all IR divergences and is given by a celestial current algebra correlator of Goldstone bosons from spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetries. The hard factor describes the scattering of hard particles together with the boost-eigenstate clouds of soft photons or gravitons required by asymptotic symmetries. These provide an IR safe S-matrix for the scattering of hard particles.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Soft phonon theorems

A variety of condensed matter systems describe gapless modes that can be interpreted as Nambu-Goldstone bosons of spontaneously broken Poincaré symmetry. In this paper we derive new soft theorems constraining the tree-level scattering of these degrees of freedom, as exhibited in solids, fluids, superfluids, and framids. These soft theorems are in one-to-one correspondence with various broken symmetries, including spacetime translations, Lorentz boosts, and, for the case of fluids, volume-preserving diffeomorphisms. We also implement a bootstrap in which the enhanced vanishing of amplitudes in the soft limit is taken as an input, thus sculpting out a subclass of exceptional solid, fluid, and framid theories.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Dynamical edge modes and entanglement in Maxwell theory

Abstract Previous work on black hole partition functions and entanglement entropy suggests the existence of “edge” degrees of freedom living on the (stretched) horizon. We identify a local and “shrinkable” boundary condition on the stretched horizon that gives rise to such degrees of freedom. They can be interpreted as the Goldstone bosons of gauge transformations supported on the boundary, with the electric field component normal to the boundary as their symplectic conjugate. Applying the covariant phase space formalism for manifolds with boundary, we show that both the symplectic form and Hamiltonian exhibit a bulk-edge split. We then show that the thermal edge partition function is that of a codimension-two ghost compact scalar living on the horizon. In the context of a de Sitter static patch, this agrees with the edge partition functions found by Anninos et al. in arbitrary dimensions. It also yields a 4D entanglement entropy consistent with the conformal anomaly. Generalizing to Proca theory, we find that the prescription of Donnelly and Wall reproduces existing results for its edge partition function, while its classical phase space does not exhibit a bulk-edge split.

Physics↗

A more natural composite Higgs model

Composite Higgs models provide an attractive solution to the hierarchy problem. However, many realistic models suffer from tuning problems in the Higgs potential. There are often large contributions from the UV dynamics of the composite resonances to the Higgs potential, and tuning between the quadratic term and the quartic term is required to separate the electroweak breaking scale and the compositeness scale. We consider a composite Higgs model based on the SU(6)/Sp(6) coset, where an enhanced symmetry on the fermion resonances can minimize the Higgs quadratic term. Moreover, a Higgs quartic term from the collective symmetry breaking of the little Higgs mechanism can be realized by the partial compositeness couplings between elementary Standard Model fermions and the composite operators, without introducing new elementary fields beyond the Standard Model and the composite sector. The model contains two Higgs doublets, as well as several additional pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons. To avoid tuning, the extra Higgs bosons are expected to be relatively light and may be probed in the future LHC runs. The deviations of the Higgs couplings and the weak gauge boson couplings also provide important tests as they are expected to be close to the current limits in this model.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The Lifshitz Regime and its Experimental Signals

We discuss the possibility of a Lifshitz regime, where the dispersion relation for Goldstone bosons and related fields has a minimum at nonzero momenta. Studies with the Functional Renormalization Group suggest that this occurs over a wide region in the plane of temperature and baryon chemical potential. Conversely, the FRG finds that the region in which fluctuations from a critical endpoint are significant is rather small. Here, we suggest that this is due generically to the narrowness of the tricritical region in the chiral limit. Even if particles are produced in thermal equilibrium, a dispersion relation which is non-monotonic in momenta produces what appears to be non-thermal behavior.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Effective field theory of anisotropic inflation and beyond

We develop an effective-field-theory (EFT) framework for inflation with various symmetry breaking pattern. As a prototype, we formulate anisotropic inflation from the perspective of EFT and construct an effective action of the Nambu-Goldstone bosons for the broken time translation and rotation symmetries. We also calculate the statistical anisotropy in the scalar two-point correlation function for concise examples of the effective action.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cosmological implications of axion-matter couplings

Axions and other light particles appear ubiquitously in physics beyond the Standard Model, with a variety of possible couplings to ordinary matter. Cosmology offers a unique probe of these particles as they can thermalize in the hot environment of the early universe for any such coupling. For sub-MeV particles, their entropy must leave a measurable cosmological signal, usually via the effective number of relativistic particles, N eff . Here, in this paper, we will revisit the cosmological constraints on the couplings of axions and other pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons to Standard Model fermions from thermalization below the electroweak scale, where these couplings are marginal and give contributions to the radiation density of ΔN eff > 0.027. We update the calculation of the production rates to eliminate unnecessary approximations and find that the cosmological bounds on these interactions are complementary to astrophysical constraints, e.g. from supernova SN 1987A. We additionally provide quantitative explanations for these bounds and their relationship.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Catastrogenesis: DM, GWs, and PBHs from ALP string-wall networks

Axion-like particles (ALPs), a compelling candidate for dark matter (DM), are the pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons of a spontaneously and explicitly broken global U(1) symmetry. When the symmetry breaking happens after inflation, the ALP cosmology predicts the formation of a string-wall network which must annihilate early enough, producing gravitational waves (GWs) and primordial black holes (PBHs), as well as non-relativistic ALPs. We call this processcatastrogenesis. We show that, under the generic assumption that the potential has several degenerate minima, GWs from string-wall annihilation at temperatures below 100 eV could be detected by future CMB and astrometry probes, for ALPs with mass from 10 -16 to 10 6 eV. In this case, structure formation could limit ALPs to constitute a fraction of the DM and the annihilation would produce mostly "stupendously large" PBHs. For larger annihilation temperatures, ALPs can constitute 100% of DM, and the annihilation could produce supermassive black holes with a mass of up to 10 9 M ⊙ as found at the center of large galaxies. Furthermore our model can solve two mysteries, the nature of the DM and the origin of these black holes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

High-quality composite Pati-Salam axion

We present a composite QCD axion model where the Peccei-Quinn symmetry emerges as a high-quality, accidental symmetry. The axion potential is only modified by eight-fermion, dimension-12 operators, which if present at the Planck scale, allow for axion dark matter from misalignment while solving the strong 𝐶⁢𝑃 problem. The model is an SU⁡(𝑁 𝑐 ) gauge theory with ten flavors where the Pati-Salam unified subgroup SO⁡(6) × SO⁡(4) ⊂ SU⁢(10)𝐿 and Sp⁡(10) ⊂ SU⁢(10) 𝑅 are weakly gauged. The dynamics breaks SU⁢(10) 𝐿 × SU⁢(10) 𝑅 → SU⁢(10) 𝑉 and the weakly gauged groups to U⁡(3) × U⁡(2) ⊃ SU⁢(3) 𝑐 × SU⁢(2) 𝐿 × U⁡(1) 𝑌 , with the QCD axion identified as one of the Nambu-Goldstone bosons. This axion has a relatively large coupling to photons while a residual $\bar{𝜃}$ eff may be just below the current limit on the neutron electric dipole moment. If the dimension-12 operators are present near the grand unified theory scale, they can cause domain wall networks to decay, allowing for axion dark matter even for the postinflationary scenario.

Gherghetta, Tony [University of Minnesota, Minneap↗

High-quality axion from exact SUSY chiral dynamics

We use supersymmetric chiral dynamics perturbed by anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking to obtain a high-quality, composite axion that solves the strong problem. The strong dynamics arises from a supersymmetric SU(10) chiral gauge theory with massless matter chiral superfields. This leads to a stable, nonsupersymmetric vacuum, calculated exactly, where a spontaneously broken global symmetry, identified with the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry, gives rise to a composite QCD axion. The chiral gauge theory also admits a discrete (or ) gauge symmetry that forbids PQ-violating operators up to dimension eight. An extension to an chiral gauge theory incorporates grand unification where the unification scale is identified with the PQ-breaking scale and PQ-violating operators are forbidden up to dimension 20. The supersymmetry breaking scale, near 100 TeV, ameliorates the Higgs hierarchy problem, while colored Nambu–Goldstone bosons may be detected at future colliders via decays to gluons or form heavy isotopes.

Gherghetta, Tony↗

First-principles prediction of the Landau parameter for Fermi liquids near the unitarity limit

This paper explores the behavior of systems of cold fermions as they approach unitary above the critical temperature. Symmetry arguments indicate that at unitarity the Fermi-liquid picture breaks down. As we move away from unitarity, by decreasing the scattering length, the dilaton, the Goldstone boson resulting from the spontaneous breaking of Schrodinger symmetry by the Fermi sea, becomes gapped. At energies below this gap, the interaction between quasiparticles will be dominated by dilaton exchange. Here, the dilaton mass can, in turn, be related via anomaly matching to the scattering length and contact parameter within the confines of a systematic expansion.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Cosmic birefringence test of the Hubble tension

A cosmic pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson has been proposed to resolve the four-sigma discrepancy between precision measurements of the expansion rate of the universe. We show this solution may also produce a cosmic birefringence (CB) signal in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB); observations of the CB power spectrum and cross-correlation with the CMB can independently confirm the presence of this new boson. In this work, we find significant new contributions to the CB signal, and show that future CMB experiments will greatly improve sensitivity to CB and Hubble tension scenarios.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Conserved currents in five-dimensional proposals for lattice chiral gauge theories

We apply the Grabowska-Kaplan framework, originally proposed for lattice chiral gauge theories, to QCD. We show that the resulting theory contains a conserved and gauge invariant singlet axial current, both on the lattice and in the continuum limit. This must give rise to a difference with QCD, with the simplest possibility being a superfluous Nambu-Goldstone boson in the physical spectrum not present in QCD. We find a similar unwanted conserved current in the recent “disk” formalism, this time limiting ourselves to the continuum formulation. A similar problem is expected when either of these formalisms is used for its original goal of constructing lattice chiral gauge theories. Finally we discuss a conjecture about the possible dynamics that might be associated with the unwanted conserved current and the fate of ‘t Hooft vertices. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Majorana neutrinos and dark matter from anomaly cancellation

We discuss a simple theory for neutrino masses where the total lepton number is a local gauge symmetry spontaneously broken below the multi-TeV scale. In this context, the neutrino masses are generated through the canonical seesaw mechanism and a Majorana dark matter candidate is predicted from anomaly cancellation. We discuss in great detail the dark matter annihilation channels and find out the upper bound on the symmetry-breaking scale using the cosmological bounds on the relic density. Since in this context the dark matter candidate has suppressed couplings to the Standard Model quarks, one can satisfy the direct detection bounds even if the dark matter mass is close to the electroweak scale. This theory predicts a light pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (the Majoron) associated to the mechanism of neutrino mass. We discuss briefly the properties of the Majoron and the impact of the big bang nucleosynthesis bounds. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons

Stable dark matter particles may arise as pseudo-Goldstone bosons from the confinement of dark quarks interacting via a non-Abelian gauge force. Their relic abundance is determined not by annihilations into visible particles but by dark pion number-changing processes within the dark sector, such as 3 π D → 2 π D . However, if the dark vector mesons ρ D are light enough for 3 π D → π D ρ D annihilations to be kinematically allowed, this process dominates and significantly delays freeze-out. As a result, the preferred dark matter mass scale increases and bounds from the Bullet Cluster can be evaded. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Cosmological dynamics of string theory axion strings

The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion may solve the strong CP problem and explain the dark matter (DM) abundance of our Universe. The axion was originally proposed to arise as the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of global U⁢(1) PQ Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry breaking, but axions also arise generically in string theory as zero modes of higher-dimensional gauge fields. In this work we show that string theory axions behave fundamentally differently from field theory axions in the early Universe. Field theory axions may form axion strings if the PQ phase transition takes place after inflation. In contrast, we show that string theory axions do not generically form axion strings. In special inflationary paradigms, such as D-brane inflation, string theory axion strings may form; however, their tension is parametrically larger than that of field theory axion strings. We then show that such QCD axion strings overproduce the DM abundance for all allowed QCD axion masses and are thus ruled out, except in scenarios with large warping. A loop-hole to this conclusion arises in the axiverse, where an axion string could be composed of multiple different axion mass eigenstates; a heavier eigenstate could collapse the network earlier, allowing for the QCD axion to produce the correct DM abundance and also generating observable gravitational wave signals.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Bootstrapping gauge theories

We consider asymptotically free gauge theories with gauge group S U ( N c ) and N f quarks with mass m q ≪ Λ QCD that undergo chiral symmetry breaking and confinement. We propose a bootstrap method to compute the S matrix of the pseudo-Goldstone bosons (pions) that dominate the low-energy physics. For the important case of N c = 3 , N f = 2 , a numerical implementation of the method gives the phase shifts of the S 0 , P 1 and S 2 waves in good agreement with experimental results. The method incorporates gauge theory information ( N c , N f , m q , Λ QCD ) by using the form-factor bootstrap recently proposed by Karateev, Kuhn and Penedones together with a finite energy version of the Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov (SVZ) sum rules. At low energy we impose constraints from chiral symmetry breaking. The only low-energy numerical inputs are the pion mass m π and the quark and gluon condensates. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

He, Yifei (ORCID:0000000213666157)↗

Power counting of the pion-dilaton effective field theory

Confining QCD-like theories close to the conformal window have a “walking” coupling. This is believed to lead to a light singlet scalar meson in the low-energy spectrum, a dilaton, which is the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson for the approximate scale symmetry. Extending chiral perturbation theory to include the dilaton requires a new small parameter to control the dilaton mass and its interactions. In our previous work we derived a systematic power counting for the dilaton couplings by matching the effective low-energy theory to the underlying theory using mild assumptions. In this paper we examine two alternative power countings which were proposed in the literature based on a phenomenological picture for the conformal transition. We find that one of these power countings fails, in fact, to generate a systematic expansion; the other coincides with the power counting we derived. We also point out that the so-called Δ -potential coincides with the tree-level potential of the former, invalid, power counting. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Golterman, Maarten (ORCID:0000000319830672)↗