We present cosmology results from a blinded joint analysis of cosmic shear, ${\xi }_{\pm }(\vartheta )$, galaxy-galaxy weak lensing, $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }(R)$, and projected galaxy clustering, $w_{\mathrm{p}}(R)$, measured from the Hyper Suprime-Cam three-year (HSC-Y3) shape catalog and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR11 spectroscopic galaxy catalog—a $3\times 2\mathrm{pt}$ cosmology analysis. We define luminosity-cut, and therefore nearly volume-limited, samples of SDSS galaxies to serve as the tracers of $w_{\mathrm{p}}$ and as the lens samples for $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }$ in three spectroscopic redshift bins spanning the range $0.15<z<0.7$. For the ${\xi }_{\pm }$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }$ measurements, we use a single sample of about seven million source galaxies over $416{\mathrm{deg}}^2$, selected from HSC-Y3 based on having photometric redshifts (photo-$z$) greater than 0.75. The deep, high-quality HSC-Y3 data enable significant detections of the $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }$ signals, with integrated signal-to-noise ratio $S/N\sim 24$ in the range $3\le R/[h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}]\le 30$ over the three lens samples. ${\xi }_{\pm }$ has $S/N\sim 19$ in the range $8^{\prime }\le \vartheta \le 50^{\prime }$ and ${30}^{\prime }\le \vartheta \le 150^{\prime }$ for ${\xi }_{+}$ and ${\xi }_{-}$, respectively. For cosmological parameter inference, we use the dark emulator package, combined with a halo occupation distribution prescription for the relation between galaxies and halos, to model $w_{\mathrm{p}}$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }$ down to quasinonlinear scales, and we estimate cosmological parameters after marginalizing over nuisance parameters. In our baseline analysis we employ an uninformative flat prior of the residual photo-$z$ error, given by $\mathrm{\Pi }(\mathrm{\Delta }{z}_{\mathrm{ph}})=\mathcal{U}(-1,1)$, to model a residual bias in the mean redshift of HSC source galaxies. Comparing the relative lensing amplitudes for $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }$ in the three redshift bins and for ${\xi }_{\pm }$ with the single HSC source galaxy sample allows us to calibrate the photo-$z$ parameter $\mathrm{\Delta }{z}_{\mathrm{ph}}$ to the precision of $\sigma (\mathrm{\Delta }{z}_{\mathrm{ph}})\simeq 0.09$. With these methods, we obtain a robust constraint on the cosmological parameters for the flat $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model: $S_8={\sigma }_8({\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{m}}/0.3{)}^{0.5}={0.763}_{-0.036}^{+0.040}$, or the best-constrained parameter given by $S_8^{\prime }={\sigma }_8({\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{m}}/0.3{)}^{0.22}=0.721\pm 0.028$, determined with about 4% fractional precision. Based on multidimensional tension metrics, HSC-Y3 data exhibits about $2.5\sigma$ tension with the cosmological constraint inferred by Planck for the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model, and hints at a nonzero residual photo-$z$ bias implying that the true mean redshift of the HSC galaxies at $z\gtrsim 0.75$ is higher than that implied by the original photo-$z$ estimates.

Previous studies based on Bayesian methods have shown that the constraints on cosmological parameters from the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) full-shape data using the effective field theory of large-scale structures (EFTofLSS) depend on the choice of prior on the EFT nuisance parameters. In this work, we explore this prior dependence by adopting a frequentist approach based on the profile likelihood method, which is inherently independent of priors, considering data from BOSS, eBOSS and Planck. We find that the priors on the EFT parameters in the Bayesian inference are informative and that prior volume effects are important. This is reflected in shifts of the posterior mean compared to the maximum likelihood estimate by up to $1.0\sigma$ ($1.6\sigma$) and in a widening of intervals informed from frequentist compared to Bayesian intervals by factors of up to 1.9 (1.6) for BOSS (eBOSS) in the baseline configuration, while the constraints from Planck are unchanged. Our frequentist confidence intervals give no indication of a tension between BOSS/eBOSS and Planck. However, we find that the profile likelihood prefers extreme values of the EFT parameters, highlighting the importance of combining Bayesian and frequentist approaches for a fully nuanced cosmological inference. We show that the improved statistical power of future data will reconcile the constraints from frequentist and Bayesian inference using the EFTofLSS.

We propose that the cascade decay ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_b\to D(\to K^{+}{\pi }^{-})N(\to p{\pi }^{-})$ may serve as the discovery channel for baryonic $CP$ violation. This decay chain is contributed by, dominantly, the amplitudes with the intermediate $D$ state as $D^0$ or ${\overline{D}}^0$. The large weak phase between the two kinds of amplitudes suggests the possibility of significant $CP$ violation. While the presence of undetermined strong phases may complicate the dependence of $CP$ asymmetry, our phenomenological analysis demonstrates that $CP$ violation remains prominent across a broad range of strong phases. The mechanism also applies to similar decay modes such as ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_b\to D(\to K^{+}{K}^{-})\mathrm{\Lambda }$. Considering the anticipated luminosity of LHCb, we conclude that these decay channels offer a promising opportunity to uncover $CP$ violation in the baryon sector.

Starting with the two-derivative limit of $D=2$ string theory, we explore the space of $T$-duality invariant ${\alpha }^{\prime }$ corrections, a space that contains a point representing the fully ${\alpha }^{\prime }$-corrected classical string theory. Using a parametrization introduced by Gasperini and Veneziano we obtain black hole solutions in this theory space. We prove that the dual of a solution with a regular horizon must have a curvature singularity. We find regions in the theory space where the black hole is deformed while preserving the horizon and the singularity, and regions where no black hole appears to exist. Furthermore, we find subregions in this theory space, probably not containing string theory, in which the black hole geometry exhibits a horizon leading to an interior that, having no singularity in the metric, curvature or dilaton, is a regular cosmology.

What does it mean for a boundary condition to be symmetric with respect to a noninvertible global symmetry? We discuss two possible definitions in $1+1\mathrm{D}$ QFTs and lattice models. On the one hand, we call a boundary weakly symmetric if the symmetry defects can terminate topologically on it, leading to conserved operators for the Hamiltonian on an interval (in the open string channel). On the other hand, we call a boundary strongly symmetric if the corresponding boundary state is an eigenstate of the symmetry operators (in the closed string channel). These two notions of symmetric boundaries are equivalent for invertible symmetries, but bifurcate for noninvertible symmetries. We discuss the relation to anomalies, where we observe that it is sometimes possible to gauge a noninvertible symmetry in a generalized sense even though it is incompatible with a trivially gapped phase. The analysis of symmetric boundaries further leads to constraints on bulk and boundary renormalization group flows. In $2+1\mathrm{D}$, we study the action of noninvertible condensation defects on the boundaries of $U(1)$ gauge theory and several TQFTs. Starting from the Dirichlet boundary of free Maxwell theory, the noninvertible symmetries generate infinitely many boundary conditions that are neither Dirichlet nor Neumann.

Earth can act as a transducer to convert ultralight bosonic dark matter (axions and hidden photons) into an oscillating magnetic field with a characteristic pattern across its surface. Here we describe the first results of a dedicated experiment, the Search for Noninteracting Particles Experimental Hunt, that aims to detect such dark-matter-induced magnetic-field patterns by performing correlated measurements with a network of magnetometers in relatively quiet magnetic environments (in the wilderness far from human-generated magnetic noise). Our experiment constrains parameter space describing hidden-photon and axion dark matter with Compton frequencies in the 0.5–5.0 Hz range. Limits on the kinetic-mixing parameter for hidden-photon dark matter represent the best experimental bounds to date in this frequency range.

Geometric transitions between Calabi-Yau manifolds have proven to be a powerful tool in exploring the intricate and interconnected vacuum structure of string compactifications. However, their role in $\mathcal{N}=1$, four-dimensional string compactifications remains relatively unexplored. In this work we present a novel proposal for transitioning the background geometry (including NS5-branes and holomorphic, slope-stable vector bundles) of four-dimensional, $\mathcal{N}=1$ heterotic string compactifications through a conifold transition connecting Calabi-Yau threefolds. Our proposal is geometric in nature but informed by the heterotic effective theory. Central to this study is a description of how the cotangent bundles of the deformation and resolution manifolds in the conifold can be connected by an apparent small instanton transition with a 5-brane wrapping the small resolution curves. We show that by a “pair creation” process 5-branes can be generated simultaneously in the gauge and gravitational sectors and used to describe a coupled minimal change in the manifold and gauge sector. This observation leads us to propose dualities for 5-branes and gauge bundles in heterotic conifolds which we then confirm at the level of spectrum in large classes of examples. While the 5-brane duality is novel, we observe that the bundle correspondence has appeared before in the target space duality exhibited by (0, 2) gauged linear sigma models. Thus our work provides a geometric explanation of (0, 2) target space duality.

Terminal velocity reached by bubble walls in first-order phase transitions is an important parameter determining both primordial gravitational wave spectrum and the production of baryon asymmetry in models of electroweak baryogenesis. We developed a numerical code to study the real-time evolution of expanding bubbles and investigate how their walls reach stationary states. Our results agree with profiles obtained within the so-called bag model with very good accuracy; however, not all such solutions are stable and realized in dynamical systems. Depending on the exact shape of the potential there is always a range of wall velocities where no steady-state solutions exist. This behavior in deflagrations was explained by hydrodynamical obstruction where solutions that would heat the plasma outside the wall above the critical temperature and cause local symmetry restoration are forbidden. For even more affected hybrid solutions causes are less straightforward. However, we provide a simple numerical fit allowing one to verify if a solution with a given velocity is allowed simply by computing the ratio of the nucleation temperature to the critical one for the potential in question.

In this paper, we report the first measurement of CNO solar neutrinos by Borexino that uses the correlated integrated directionality (CID) method, exploiting the subdominant Cherenkov light in the liquid scintillator detector. The directional information of the solar origin of the neutrinos is preserved by the early Cherenkov photons from the neutrino scattered electrons and is used to discriminate between signal and background. The directional information is independent from the spectral information on which the previous CNO solar neutrino measurements by Borexino were based, except for the selection of the energy region of interest. While the CNO spectral analysis could only be applied on the Phase-III dataset, the directional analysis can use the complete Borexino data taking period from 2007 to 2021. The absence of CNO neutrinos has been rejected with $>5\sigma$ posterior probability using the Bayesian statistics. The directional CNO measurement is obtained without an external constraint on the ${}^{210}\mathrm{Bi}$ contamination of the liquid scintillator, which was applied in the spectral analysis approach. The final and the most precise CNO measurement of Borexino is then obtained by combining the new CID-based CNO result with an improved spectral fit of the Phase-III dataset. Including the statistical and the systematic errors, the extracted CNO interaction rate is $R(\mathrm{CNO})={6.7}_{-0.8}^{+1.2}\mathrm{cpd}/100\mathrm{tonnes}$. Taking into account the neutrino flavor conversion, the resulting CNO neutrino flux at Earth is ${\mathrm{\Phi }}_{\mathrm{CNO}}={6.7}_{-0.8}^{+1.2}\times {10}^8{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, which is found to be in agreement with the high metallicity standard solar models. This outcome, combined with the ${}^7\mathrm{Be}$ and ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ fluxes measurements previously obtained by Borexino, can be used to disfavor the low metallicity SSM B16-AGSS09met model at $3.2\sigma$ CL, assuming the SSM B16-GS98 high metallicity model to be true. Also, the sum of C and N abundances in the solar core with respect to the H abundance is evaluated with improved precision, resulting in ${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{CN}}={5.81}_{-0.94}^{+1.22}\times {10}^{-4}$, which is compatible with the high metallicity scenario and exhibits a $2\sigma$ tension with the low metallicity case. The results described in this work reinforce the role of directional Cherenkov light in large-scale liquid scintillator detectors and open up new avenues for the next-generation liquid scintillator or hybrid neutrino experiments. A particular relevance is expected for the latter detectors, which aim to combine the advantages from both Cherenkov-based and scintillation-based detection techniques.

Ray tracing plays a vital role in black hole imaging, modeling the emission mechanisms of pulsars, and deriving signatures from physics beyond the Standard Model. In this work we focus on one specific application of ray tracing, namely, predicting radio signals generated from the resonant conversion of axion dark matter in the strongly magnetized plasma surrounding neutron stars. The production and propagation of low-energy photons in these environments are sensitive to both the anisotropic response of the background plasma and curved spacetime; here, we employ a fully covariant framework capable of treating both effects. We implement this both via forward and backward ray tracing. In forward ray tracing, photons are sampled at the point of emission and propagated to infinity, whilst in the backward-tracing approach, photons are traced backwards from an image plane to the point of production. We explore various approximations adopted in prior work, quantifying the importance of gravity, plasma anisotropy, the neutron star mass and radius, and imposing the proper kinematic matching of the resonance. Finally, using a more realistic model for the charge distribution of magnetar magnetospheres, we revisit the sensitivity of current and future radio and sub-mm telescopes to spectral lines emanating from the Galactic Center magnetar, showing such observations may extend sensitivity to axion masses $m_a\sim \mathcal{O}(\mathrm{few})\times {10}^{-3}\mathrm{eV}$, potentially even probing parameter space of the QCD axion.

We propose extensions of the anti-$k_t$ and Cambridge/Aachen hierarchical jet clustering algorithms that are designed to retain the exact jet kinematics of these algorithms, while providing an infrared-and-collinear-safe definition of jet flavor at any fixed order in perturbation theory. Central to our approach is a new technique called interleaved flavor neutralization (IFN), whereby the treatment of flavor is integrated with, but distinct from, the kinematic clustering. IFN allows flavor information to be meaningfully accessed at each stage of the clustering sequence, which enables a consistent assignment of flavor both to individual jets and to their substructure. We validate the IFN approach using a dedicated framework for fixed-order tests of infrared and collinear safety, which also reveals unanticipated issues in earlier approaches to flavored jet clustering. We briefly explore the phenomenological impact of IFN with anti-$k_t$ jets for benchmark tasks at the Large Hadron Collider.

We measure the three-dimensional cross-power spectrum of galaxy density and intrinsic alignment (IA) fields for the first time from the spectroscopic and imaging data of SDSS-III BOSS galaxies, for each of the four samples in the redshift range $0.2<z<0.75$. In the measurement we use the power-spectrum estimator, developed in our previous work, to take into account the line-of-sight dependent projection of galaxy shapes onto the sky coordinate and the $E/B$-mode decomposition of the spin-2 shape field. Our method achieves a significant detection of the $E$-mode power spectrum with the total signal-to-noise ratio comparable with that of the quadrupole moment of the galaxy density power spectrum, while the measured $B$-mode power spectra are consistent with a null signal to within the statistical errors for all the galaxy samples. We also show that, compared to the previous results based on the two-dimensional projected correlation function, our method improves the precision of the linear shape bias parameter estimation by up to a factor of two thanks to the three-dimensional information. By performing a joint analysis of the galaxy density and IA power spectra in the linear regime, we constrain the isotropic and anisotropic local primordial non-Gaussianities (PNGs) parameters, $f_{\mathrm{NL}}^{s=0}$ and $f_{\mathrm{NL}}^{s=2}$, simultaneously, where the two types of PNGs induce characteristic scale-dependent biases at very large scales in the density and IA power spectra, respectively. We do not find any significant detection for both PNGs; the constraints $f_{\mathrm{NL}}^{s=0}=57_{-29}^{+30}$ and $f_{\mathrm{NL}}^{s=2}=-67_{-269}^{+285}$ (68% credible interval), respectively. Our method paves the way for using the IA power spectrum as a cosmological probe for current and future galaxy surveys.

Using simple, intuitive arguments, we discuss the expected accuracy with which astrophysical parameters can be extracted from an observed gravitational wave signal. The observation of a chirplike signal in the data allows for measurement of the component masses and aligned spins, while measurement in three or more detectors enables good localization. The ability to measure additional features in the observed signal—the existence or absence of power in (i) the second gravitational wave polarization, (ii) higher gravitational wave multipoles or (iii) spin-induced orbital precession—provide new information which can be used to significantly improve the accuracy of parameter measurement. We introduce the simple-pe algorithm which uses these methods to generate rapid parameter estimation results for binary mergers. We present results from a set of simulations, to illustrate the method, and compare results from simple-pe with measurements from full parameter estimation routines. The simple-pe routine is able to provide initial parameter estimates in a matter of CPU minutes, which could be used in real-time alerts and also as input to significantly accelerate detailed parameter estimation routines.

We study a possibility of constraining isotropic cosmic birefringence with help of cosmic microwave background polarization data in the presence of polarization angle miscalibration without relying on any assumptions about the Galactic foreground angular power spectra and in particular, on the correlation between their E- and B-modes. For this purpose, we propose a new analysis framework based on a generalized parametric component separation approach, which accounts simultaneously on the presence of Galactic foregrounds, relevant instrumental effects, and external priors. We find that upcoming multifrequency cosmic microwave background (CMB) data with appropriate calibration priors will allow producing an instrumental-effect-corrected and foreground-cleaned CMB map, which can be used to estimate the isotropic birefringence angle and the tensor-to-scalar ratio, accounting on statistical and systematic uncertainties incurred during the entire procedure. In particular, in the case of a Simons Observatory-like, three small aperture telescopes, we derive an uncertainty on the birefringence angle of $\sigma ({\beta }_b)=0.07°$ (0.1°), assuming the standard cosmology and calibration priors for all (one) frequency channels with the precision of $\sigma ({\alpha }_i)=0.1°$ as aimed at by the near future ground-based multifrequency experiments. This implies that these experiments could confirm or disprove the recently detected value of ${\beta }_b=0.35°$ with a significance between 3 and $5\sigma$. We furthermore explore the impact of precision of the calibration priors and of foreground complexity on our results and discuss requirements on the calibration precision. In addition, we also investigate constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, which can be derived in the presence of isotropic birefringence and/or polarization angle miscalibration. We find that the proposed method allows setting constraints on $r$ in such cases, even if no prior is available, and with only a minor increase of the final uncertainty as compared to cases without these effects.

Inclusive hadronic decays of the $\tau$ lepton are very interesting from the phenomenological point of view since they give access to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements $V_{ud}$ and $V_{us}$. In this paper, for the first time, by employing the method of [M. Hansen, A. Lupo, and N. Tantalo, Phys. Rev. D 99, 094508 (2019)] for hadronic smeared spectral densities, we compute on the lattice the inclusive decay rate of the processes $\tau \to X_{ud}{\nu }_{\tau }$, where $X_{ud}$ is a generic hadronic state with $\overline{u}d$ flavor quantum numbers. Our computation, which avoids any recourse to operator product expansion and/or perturbative approximations, is carried out in isospin symmetric $N_f=2+1+1$ lattice QCD at physical quark masses, using ensembles produced by the Extended Twisted Mass Collaboration at three lattice spacings and two volumes. All uncertainties, except for isospin breaking effects, are taken into account and a result with a subpercent error is obtained for $|V_{ud}|$, which is nicely consistent with the current world average. These findings validate our approach and also motivate the inclusion of isospin breaking corrections and its extension to the inclusive decay $\tau \to X_{us}{\nu }_{\tau }$, paving the way toward a high-precision first-principles determination of $|V_{us}|$ and $|V_{ud}|$ from inclusive $\tau$ decay.

We give details of our study as to whether high-energy gluon showers inside a QCD medium can be treated as a sequence of individual splitting processes $g\to gg$, or whether there is significant quantum overlap between where one splitting ends and the next begins (neglecting effects that can be absorbed into an effective value of the jet-quenching parameter $\widehat{q}$ that characterizes the medium). The study is carried out by imagining in-medium gluon-shower development in the simplest theoretical situation, which includes imagining a very large, static, homogeneous medium and taking the large $N_{\mathrm{c}}$ limit. Along the way, we also show how in-medium shower evolution can be written in terms of a “net” splitting rate $[d\mathrm{\Gamma }/dx{]}_{\mathrm{net}}$, and we provide a moderately simple analytic fit to our numerical results for the overlap effects included in that rate, which we hope may be of use to others wishing to study possible consequences of overlapping splittings.

In holographic duality an eternal Anti-de Sitter black hole is described by two copies of the boundary Conformal Field Theory in the thermal field double state. In this paper we provide explicit constructions in the boundary theory of infalling time evolutions which can take bulk observers behind the horizon. The constructions also help to illuminate the boundary emergence of the black hole horizons, the interiors, and the associated causal structure. A key element is the emergence, in the large $N$ limit of the boundary theory, of a type ${\mathrm{III}}_1$ von Neumann algebraic structure from the type I boundary operator algebra and the half-sided modular translation structure associated with it.

In holographic duality an eternal anti–de Sitter black hole is described by two copies of the boundary conformal field theory in the thermal field double state. This identification has many puzzles, including the boundary descriptions of the event horizons, the interiors of the black hole, and the singularities. Compounding these mysteries is the fact that, while there is no interaction between the conformal field theories, observers from them can fall into the black hole and interact. We address these issues in this paper. In particular, we (i) present a boundary formulation of a class of in-falling bulk observers; (ii) present an argument that a sharp bulk event horizon can only emerge in the infinite $N$ limit of the boundary theory; (iii) give an explicit construction in the boundary theory of an evolution operator for a bulk in-falling observer, making manifest the boundary emergence of the black hole horizons, the interiors, and the associated causal structure. A byproduct is a concept called causal connectability, which is a criterion for any two quantum systems (which do not need to have a known gravity dual) to have an emergent sharp horizon structure.

We discuss the nonlinear corrections entering in the calculation of the primordial black hole abundance from the nonlinear radiation transfer function and the determination of the true physical horizon crossing. We show that the current standard techniques to calculate the abundance of primordial black holes suffer from uncertainties and argue that the primordial black hole abundance may be much smaller than what routinely considered. This would imply, among other consequences, that the interpretation of the recent pulsar timing arrays data from scalar-induced gravitational waves may not be ruled out because of an overproduction of primordial black holes.

We calculate the effect of gravitational lensing on the parity-odd power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization induced by axionlike particles (ALPs). Several recent works have reported a tantalizing hint of cosmic birefringence, a rotation of the linear polarization plane of CMB, which ALPs can explain. In future CMB observations, we can measure cosmic birefringence more precisely to get insight into ALPs. We find that the lensing effect is necessary to fit the observed $EB$ power spectrum induced by cosmic birefringence in future CMB observations, including Simons Observatory and CMB-S4. We also show that the estimated ALPs parameters are biased if we ignore the lensing effect. Therefore, the lensing correction to the parity-odd power spectra must be included in future high-resolution CMB experiments.