In this paper, we discuss a novel top-down perspective on gauging parameters in quantum field theories (QFTs) by promoting them to partially dynamical fields. Through a generalized notion of symmetry theories, we explore the consequences of this promotion, revealing new topological defects, decompositions as well as generalized symmetry structures across various dimensions. We provide a systematic top-down derivation of symmetry theories for parameters and discuss how special types of branes, such as Euclidean branes and fluxbranes are related to gauging in the parameter space in QFTs. We illustrate our theoretical framework with two key examples: the modified instanton sum in 4D $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory and the gauging of gauge ranks in 3D ABJ(M) theories.

Theoretical studies on the memory-burden effect suggest that primordial black holes (PBHs) with masses smaller than ${10}^{15}$ grams may be viable dark matter candidates and, consequently, be potential sources of high-energy particles in the present Universe. In this paper, we investigate the evaporation of memory-burdened PBHs into high-energy gamma-rays. Differently from previous analyses, we account for the attenuation of gamma-rays caused by their interaction with background radiation at energies above ${10}^5\mathrm{GeV}$, as well as the secondary emission from the electromagnetic cascades generated during their propagation through extragalactic space. Performing a likelihood analysis with current gamma-ray data, we place new constraints on the parameter space of memory-burdened PBHs. Our results show that ultrahigh-energy diffuse gamma-ray observations set more restrictive bounds than high-energy neutrino data, particularly in scenarios with a strong memory-burden suppression of the PBH evaporation.

We evaluate the three-loop five-point pentagon-box-box massless integral family in the dimensional regularization scheme, via canonical differential equation. We use tools from computational algebraic geometry to enable the necessary integral reductions. The boundary values of the differential equation are determined analytically in the Euclidean region. To express the final result, we introduce a new representation of weight six functions in terms of one-fold integrals over the product of weight-three functions with weight-two kernels that are derived from the differential equation. Our work paves the way to the analytic computation of three-loop multileg Feynman integrals.

We introduce a novel parametrization of $B\to \pi \pi \ell \nu$ form factors relying on partial-wave decompositions and series expansions in suitable variables. We bound the expansion coefficients through unitarity and include left-hand cut contributions using established dispersive methods. The two-hadron line shapes are treated in a model-independent manner using Omnès functions, thus allowing for a data-driven determination of the expansion parameters. We study the underlying composition of the di-pion system in $B\to \pi \pi \ell \nu$ decays through fits to differential spectra of $B^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\ell }^{+}\nu$ measured by the Belle experiment. In contrast to previous works, we are able to study the full phase space and are not limited to certain kinematic regions. As a consequence, we extract branching fractions for the different partial waves of the di-pion system. We find $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to ({\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}{)}_S{\ell }^{+}\nu )={2.2}_{-1.0}^{+1.4}\times {10}^{-5}$, $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to ({\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}{)}_P{\ell }^{+}\nu )={19.6}_{-2.7}^{+2.8}\times {10}^{-5}$, and $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to ({\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}{)}_D{\ell }^{+}\nu )={3.5}_{-1.1}^{+1.3}\times {10}^{-5}$. In addition, we derive predictions for the thus far unobserved $B^{+}\to {\pi }^0{\pi }^0{\ell }^{+}\nu$ decay and obtain a sizable branching fraction of $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to {\pi }^0{\pi }^0{\ell }^{+}\nu )={2.9}_{-0.7}^{+0.9}\times {10}^{-5}$.

In light of the evidence for dynamical dark energy (DE) found from the most recent Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements, we perform a nonparametric, model-independent reconstruction of the DE density evolution. To do so, we develop and validate a new framework that reconstructs the DE density through a third-degree piecewise polynomial interpolation, allowing for direct constraints on its redshift evolution without assuming any specific functional form. The strength of our approach resides in the choice of directly reconstructing the DE density, which provides a more straightforward relation to the distances measured by BAO than the equation of state parameter. We investigate the constraining power of cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations combined with supernovae (SNe) and BAO measurements. In agreement with results from other works, we find a preference for deviations from $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$, with a significance of $2.4\sigma$ when using the Dark Energy Survey Year 5 (DESY5) SNe data, and $1.3\sigma$ with PantheonPlus. In all the cases we consider, the derived DE equation of state parameter presents evidence for phantom crossing. By investigating potential systematic effects in the low-redshift samples of DESY5 observations, we confirm that correcting for the offset in apparent magnitude with respect to PantheonPlus data, as suggested in previous studies, completely removes the tension. Furthermore, we assess the risk of potentially overfitting the data by changing the number of interpolation nodes. As expected, we find that with lesser nodes we get a smoother reconstructed behavior of the DE density, although with similar overall features. The pipeline developed in this work is ready to be used with future high-precision data to further investigate the evidence for a nonstandard background evolution.

Ultralight axions (ULAs) with masses ${10}^{-33}\lesssim m/\mathrm{eV}\lesssim {10}^{-12}$ are well motivated in string-inspired models and can be part or all of the dark energy or the dark matter in this range. Since the ULA field oscillates at a frequency $m$ that can be much larger than the expansion rate $H$, accurate and efficient calculation of cosmological observables requires an effective time averaged treatment. While these are well-established for $m\gg 10H_{\mathrm{eq}}$, the Hubble rate at matter radiation equality, here we extend and develop these techniques to cover the mass range ${10}^{-33}\lesssim m/\mathrm{eV}\lesssim {10}^{-18}$. We implement this technique in a full cosmological Boltzmann code (axiecamb) with numerical precision sufficiently accurate for current and next-generation cosmic microwave background, as well as large-scale structure data analysis. New effects including the time averaging of metric perturbations and hydrostatic equilibrium of the effective fluid result in many orders of magnitude improvements for power spectra accuracy over some previous treatments such as axioncamb in some extreme regions of parameter space and order unity changes of the ULA effects near $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ models. These improvements may impact the specific model parameters that have been suggested might resolve various tensions in $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ at a comparable level.

In gamma-ray astronomy and cosmic-ray physics, the continuous approximation of inverse Compton scattering (ICS) is widely adopted to model the evolution of electron energy. However, when the initial electron energy approaches $\sim 100\mathrm{TeV}$, the discrete nature of ICS becomes prominent, and the energy of evolved electrons should be considered as a broad distribution rather than a deterministic value. By simulating the evolution paths of individual electrons under ICS, we capture this discrete nature and demonstrate that when the electron injection spectrum exhibits a high-energy cutoff, the correct discrete treatment yields a higher cutoff energy in the evolved spectrum compared to the continuous approximation. Applying the discrete ICS treatment to interpret the gamma-ray spectrum of the Geminga pulsar halo measured by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC), we find that the inferred cutoff energy of the injection spectrum is correspondingly lower than that derived using the continuous approximation at a 95% confidence level. This suggests that the systematic bias introduced by the approximation has exceeded the measurement precision. We also expect the application of the discrete ICS correction in the peta electron volt (PeV) regime using the ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray source 1LHAASO $\mathrm{J}1954+2836\mathrm{u}$ as a case study, pointing out that adopting the continuous approximation may considerably overestimate the electron acceleration capability of the source.

Six-dimensional chiral gauged Einstein-Maxwell supergravity admits a two-parameter rotating dyonic string solution whose near horizon limit is the direct product of three-dimensional Anti-De Sitter space and a squashed three-sphere $S^3$. For a particular relation between the two parameters, the solution preserves $1/2$ supersymmetry. We determine the complete Kaluza-Klein spectrum of the theory around these ${\mathrm{AdS}}_3$ backgrounds. For the supersymmetric backgrounds, the states organize into infinite towers of long and short multiplets of $\mathrm{OSp}(2|2)$. In a certain limit of parameters, both the supersymmetric and the nonsupersymmetric spectra exhibit scale separation. In the latter case there are five topologically massive vectors and five scalars retaining finite masses with integer conformal dimensions, and in the supersymmetric case there are supersymmetric partners with half integer conformal dimensions, while all other masses diverge.

Cosmological scalar fields coupled to the Standard Model drive temporal variations in the fundamental constants that grow with redshift, positioning the early Universe as a powerful tool to study such models. We investigate the dynamics and phenomenology of coupled scalars from the early Universe to the present to consistently leverage the myriad searches for time-varying constants and the cosmological signatures of scalars’ gravitational effects. We compute the in-medium contribution from Standard Model particles to the scalar’s dynamics and identify only a limited range of couplings for which the scalar has an observable impact on the fundamental constants without either evolving before recombination or gravitating non-negligibly. We then extend existing laboratory and astrophysical bounds to the hyperlight scalar regime. We present joint limits from the early and late Universe, specializing to hyperlight, quadratically coupled scalars that modulate the mass of the electron or the strength of electromagnetism and make up a subcomponent of the dark matter today. Our dedicated analysis of observations of the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, and type Ia supernovae provides the most stringent constraints on quadratically coupled scalars with masses from ${10}^{-28.5}$ to $\sim {10}^{-31}\mathrm{eV}$, below which quasar absorption spectra yield stronger bounds. These results jointly limit hyperlight scalars that comprise a few percent of the current dark matter density to near- or subgravitational couplings to electrons or photons.

We investigate black hole quasinormal modes using the exact Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) method. We perform an analytic continuation from the horizon to infinity along the positive real axis of the radial coordinate and impose appropriate boundary conditions at these asymptotic positions. We clarify the role of previously overlooked logarithmic spirals of Stokes curves and branch cuts emerging from the horizon. We carefully reformulate the derivation of the quasinormal mode conditions using the exact WKB analysis, incorporating the contributions from these features into the calculation. We successfully derive correct results for both solvable model examples and the Schwarzschild spacetime. Our formulation enjoys straightforward extensions to other background geometries as well as a wide range of other physical systems.

Sudden violations of the slow-roll regime during inflation, a natural prediction of many UV-complete inflationary models, give rise to sharp features in the primordial power spectrum. At large scales, these features provide a unique window into the physics of inflation, with constraints primarily derived from cosmic microwave background observations of linearly evolved primordial fluctuations. However, on smaller scales, it is less clear whether primordial features would survive the late-time nonlinear cosmological evolution, as they are expected to be washed out by mode coupling. In this paper, we run dedicated $N$-body simulations to tackle this question. We demonstrate that, while oscillatorylike patterns are erased over time by nonlinearities, signatures of primordial sharp features can persist through the nonlinear regime of structure formation. Those take the form of a localized power enhancement or decrease in the matter power spectrum—whose amplitude and position can in principle be used to recover the scale of the primordial feature—and an oscillatory pattern in the halo mass function. While these findings highlight the power for constraining inflationary physics at small scales, they also show the challenges posed by potential degeneracies with other physical processes relevant in the nonlinear regime of structure formation such as noncold dark matter candidates. Our results open new avenues for probing inflationary physics in large scale structures and galactic physics and emphasize the need for refined theoretical tools to robustly constrain primordial features.

Using the full four-year SPTpol $500{\mathrm{deg}}^2$ dataset in both the 95 and 150 GHz frequency bands, we present measurements of the temperature and $E$-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as well as the $E$-mode polarization autopower spectrum ($EE$) and temperature-$E$-mode cross-power spectrum ($TE$) in the angular multipole range $50<\ell <8000$. We find the SPTpol dataset to be self-consistent, passing several internal consistency tests based on maps, frequency bands, bandpowers, and cosmological parameters. The full SPTpol dataset is well-fit by the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model, for which we find $H_0=70.48\pm 2.16\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m=0.271\pm 0.026$, when using only the SPTpol data and a Planck-based prior on the optical depth to reionization. The $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ parameter constraints are consistent across the 95 GHz-only, 150 GHz-only, $TE$-only, and $EE$-only data splits. Between the $\ell <1000$ and $\ell >1000$ data splits, the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ parameter constraints are borderline consistent at the $\sim 2\sigma$ level. This consistency improves when including a parameter $A_L$, the degree of lensing of the CMB inferred from the smearing of acoustic peaks. When marginalized over $A_L$, the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ parameter constraints from SPTpol are consistent with those from Planck. The power spectra presented here are the most sensitive measurements of the lensed CMB damping tail to date for roughly $\ell >1700$ in $TE$ and $\ell >2000$ in $EE$.

The solar steady emission in gamma rays is due to the interactions of Galactic cosmic rays with the solar atmosphere and with the low-energy solar photon field via inverse Compton scattering. The emission is sensitive to the magnetic field nearby the Sun and to the cosmic-ray transport in the magnetic field in the inner Solar System. Modeling the inverse Compton emission in the presence of a magnetic field is, therefore, crucial to better interpret the observations. In a previous work, we have presented a comprehensive calculation of the secondary productions due to the collision of cosmic rays with the solar atmosphere in the presence of magnetic fields. In this paper, we present a general approach to calculate the (anisotropic) inverse Compton scattering in a 3D Monte Carlo simulation, also in the presence of magnetic and electric fields. After a short review of the scattering process of photons with electrons, examples of inverse Compton emission are presented, including the predictions for the Sun.

Primordial gravitational waves could be non-Gaussian, just like primordial scalar perturbations. Although the tensor two-point function has thus-far remained elusive, the three-point function could, in principle, be large enough to be detected in cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization anisotropies. We perform a detailed analysis of tensor and mixed tensor-scalar non-Gaussianity through the Planck Public Release 4 bispectrum, placing constraints on 11 primordial templates, spanning various phenomenological and physical regimes including modifications to gravity, additional fields in inflation, and primordial magnetic fields. All analysis is performed using modern quasioptimal binned estimators and yields no evidence for tensor non-Gaussianity, with a maximum detection significance of $2\sigma$. Our constraints are derived primarily from large scales (except for tensor-scalar-scalar models) and benefit greatly from the inclusion of $B$-modes. Although we find some loss of information from binning, mask effects, and residual foreground contamination, our $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$ bounds improve over those of previous analyses by (20–700)%, with 6 of the 11 models being analyzed for the first time. Unlike for scalar non-Gaussianity, future low-noise experiments such as LiteBIRD, the Simons Observatory, and CMB-S4, will yield considerable improvement in tensor non-Gaussianity constraints.

In this paper, we propose an Alcock-Paczyński (AP) test to constrain cosmology using HII bubbles during the epoch of reionization. Similarly to cosmic voids, a stack of HII bubbles is spherically symmetric because ionizing fronts propagate isotropically on average (even if individual bubbles may not be spherical), making them standard spheres to be used in an AP test. Upcoming 21-cm observations, from the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), for instance, will contain tomographic information about HII regions during reionization. However, extracting the bubbles from this signal is made difficult because of instrumental noise and foreground systematics. Here, we use a neural network to reconstruct neutral-fraction boxes from the noisy 21-cm signal, from which we extract bubbles using a watershed algorithm. We then run the purely geometrical AP test on these stacks, showing that a SKA-like experiment will be able to constrain the product of the angular-diameter distance $D_{\mathrm{A}}$ and Hubble parameter $H$ at reionization redshifts with $\sim 2\%$ precision, robustly to astrophysical and cosmological uncertainties within the models tested here. This AP test, whether performed on 21-cm observations or other large surveys of ionized bubbles, will allow us to fill the knowledge gap about the expansion rate of our Universe at reionization redshifts.

Ultralight dark photon dark matter features distinctive cosmological and astrophysical signatures and is also supported by a burgeoning direct-detection program searching for its kinetic mixing with the ordinary photon over a wide mass range. Dark photons, however, cannot necessarily constitute the dark matter in all of this parameter space. In minimal models where the dark photon mass arises from a dark Higgs mechanism, early-Universe dynamics can easily breach the regime of validity of the low-energy effective theory for a massive vector field. In the process, the dark sector can collapse into a cosmic string network, precluding dark photons as viable dark matter. We establish the general conditions under which dark photon production avoids significant backreaction on the dark Higgs and identify regions of parameter space that naturally circumvent these constraints. After surveying implications for known dark photon production mechanisms, we propose novel models that set well-motivated experimental targets across much of the accessible parameter space. We also discuss complementary cosmological and astrophysical signatures that can probe the dark sector physics responsible for dark photon production.

The thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect (tSZ) is a sensitive probe of cosmology, as it traces the abundance of galaxy clusters and groups in the late-time Universe. Upcoming cosmic microwave background experiments such as the Simons Observatory (SO) and CMB-S4 will provide low-noise and high-resolution component-separated tSZ maps covering a large sky fraction. The tSZ signal is highly non-Gaussian; therefore, higher-order statistics are needed to optimally extract information from these maps. In this work, we study the cosmological constraining power of several tSZ statistics—Minkowski functionals (MFs), peaks, minima, and moments—that have yielded promising results in capturing non-Gaussian information from other cosmological data. Using a large suite of halo-model-based tSZ simulations with varying ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c$ and ${\sigma }_8$ (154 cosmologies and over 800,000 maps, each $10.5\times 10.5{\mathrm{deg}}^2$), we show that by combining these observables, we can achieve $\approx 29\times$ tighter constraints compared to using the tSZ power spectrum alone in an idealized noiseless case, with the MFs dominating the constraints. We show that much of the MF constraining power arises from halos below the detection threshold of cluster surveys, suggesting promising synergies with cluster-count analyses. Finally, we demonstrate that these statistics have the potential to deliver tight constraints even in the presence of noise. For example, using post-component-separation tSZ noise expected for SO, we obtain $\approx 1.6\times$ and $\approx 1.8\times$ tighter constraints than the power spectrum with MFs and all statistics combined, respectively. We show that the constraints from MFs approach the noiseless case for white-noise levels $\lesssim 1\mu \mathrm{K}\text{−}\mathrm{arcmin}$.

The Compton amplitude subtraction function is an essential component in work concerning both the proton radius puzzle and the proton-neutron mass difference. However, owing to the difficulty in determining the subtraction function, it remains a key source of uncertainty in these two contexts. Here, we use the Feynman-Hellmann method to determine this subtraction function directly from lattice QCD. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to control dominant discretization artifacts for this calculation, eliminating a major source of systematic error. This calculation is performed for a range of hard momentum scales, and three different sets of gauge configurations for pion masses about 400 MeV. Our results show good agreement with continuum OPE expectations. As such, this work paves the way for model-independent and precise determinations of the subtraction function over a wide range of kinematics.

The brightest cosmic gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever detected, GRB 221009A, was accompanied by photons of very high energies. These gamma rays may be used to test both the astrophysical models of the burst and our understanding of long-distance propagation of energetic photons, including potential new-physics effects. Here we present the observation of a photonlike air shower with the estimated primary energy of ${300}_{-38}^{+43}\mathrm{TeV}$, coincident (with the chance probability of $\sim 9\times {10}^{-3}$) with the GRB in its arrival direction and time. Making use of the upgraded Carpet-3 muon detector and new machine learning analysis, we estimate the probability that the primary was hadronic as $\sim 3\times {10}^{-4}$. This is the highest-energy event possibly associated with any GRB.

We present complete results for the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment $a_{\mu }$ in the short- and intermediate-distance window regions, which account for roughly 10% and 35% of the total HVP contribution to $a_{\mu }$, respectively. In particular, we perform lattice-QCD calculations for the isospin-symmetric connected and disconnected contributions, as well as corrections due to strong-isospin breaking. For the short-distance window observables, we investigate the so-called log-enhancement effects as well as the significant oscillations associated with staggered quarks in this region. For the dominant, isospin-symmetric light-quark-connected contribution, we obtain $a_{\mu }^{ll,\mathrm{SD}}(\mathrm{conn})=48.139(11{)}_{\mathrm{stat}}(91{)}_{\mathrm{syst}}[92{]}_{\text{total}}\times {10}^{-10}$ and $a_{\mu }^{ll,\mathrm{W}}(\mathrm{conn})=206.90(14{)}_{\mathrm{stat}}(61{)}_{\mathrm{syst}}[63{]}_{\text{total}}\times {10}^{-10}$. We use Bayesian model averaging to fully estimate the covariance matrix between the individual contributions. Our determinations of the complete window contributions are $a_{\mu }^{\mathrm{SD}}=69.05(1{)}_{\mathrm{stat}}(21{)}_{\mathrm{syst}}[21{]}_{\text{total}}\times {10}^{-10}$ and $a_{\mu }^{\mathrm{W}}=236.45(17{)}_{\mathrm{stat}}(83{)}_{\mathrm{syst}}[85{]}_{\text{total}}\times {10}^{-10}$. This work is part of our ongoing effort to compute all contributions to HVP with an overall uncertainty at the few-permille level.