Particle physics has an ambitious and broad global experimental programme for the coming decades. Large investments in building new facilities are already underway or under consideration. Scaling the present processing power and data storage needs by the foreseen increase in data rates in the next decade for HL-LHC is not sustainable within the current budgets. As a result, a more efficient usage of computing resources is required in order to realise the physics potential of future experiments. Software and computing are an integral part of experimental design, trigger and data acquisition, simulation, reconstruction, and analysis, as well as related theoretical predictions. A significant investment in computing and software is therefore critical. Advances in software and computing, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), will be key for solving these challenges. Making better use of new processing hardware such as graphical processing units (GPUs) or ARM chips is a growing trend. This forms part of a computing solution that makes efficient use of facilities and contributes to the reduction of the environmental footprint of HEP computing. The HEP community already provided a roadmap for software and computing for the last EPPSU, and this paper updates that, with a focus on the most resource critical parts of our data processing chain.

We measure the spin-density matrix elements (SDMEs) for the photoproduction of $\phi(1020)$ off of the proton in its decay to $K_S^0K_L^0$, using 105 pb$^{-1}$ of data collected with a linearly polarized photon beam using the GlueX experiment. The SDMEs are measured in nine bins of the squared four-momentum transfer $t$ in the range $-t=0.15-1.0$ GeV$^2$, providing the first measurement of their $t$-dependence for photon beam energies $E_\gamma = 8.2-8.8$ GeV. We confirm the dominance of Pomeron exchange in this region, and put constraints on the contribution of other Regge exchanges. We also find that helicity amplitudes where the helicity of the photon and the $\phi(1020)$ differ by two units are negligible.

The Large Particle Physics Laboratory Directors Group (LDG) established the Working Group on the Sustainability Assessment of Future Accelerators in 2024 with the mandate to develop guidelines and a list of key parameters for the assessment of the sustainability of future accelerators in particle physics. While focused on accelerator projects, much of the work will also be relevant to other current and future Research Infrastructures. The development and continuous update of such a framework aim to enable a coherent communication amongst scientists and adequately convey the information to a broader set of stakeholders. This document outlines the major findings and recommendations from the LDG Sustainability WG report - a summary of current best practices recommended to be adopted by new Research Infrastructures. The full report will be available in June 2025 at: https://ldg.web.cern.ch/working-groups/sustainability-assessment-of-accelerators. Not all of sustainability topics are addressed at the same level. The assessment process is complex, largely under development and a homogeneous evaluation of all the aspects deserves a strategy to be pursued over time.

This document is submitted as input to the European Strategy for Particle Physics Update (ESPPU). The U.S.-based Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) aims at understanding how the complex dynamics of confined quarks and gluons makes up nucleons, nuclei and all visible matter, and determines their macroscopic properties. In April 2024, the EIC project received approval for critical-decision 3A (CD-3A) allowing for Long-Lead Procurement, bringing its realization another step closer. The ePIC Collaboration was established in July 2022 around the realization of a general purpose detector at the EIC. The EIC is based in U.S.A. but is characterized as a genuine international project. In fact, a large group of European scientists is already involved in the EIC community: currently, about a quarter of the EIC User Group (consisting of over 1500 scientists) and 29% of the ePIC Collaboration (consisting of $\sim$1000 members) is based in Europe. This European involvement is not only an important driver of the EIC, but can also be beneficial to a number of related ongoing and planned particle physics experiments at CERN. In this document, the connections between the scientific questions addressed at CERN and at the EIC are outlined. The aim is to highlight how the many synergies between the CERN Particle Physics research and the EIC project will foster progress at the forefront of collider physics.

The search for dark matter is an exciting topic that is pursued in different communities over a wide range of masses and using a variety of experimental approaches. The result is a strongly correlated matrix of activities across Europe and beyond, both on the experimental and the theoretical side. We suggest to encourage and foster the collaboration of the involved institutions on technical, scientific and organisational level, in order to realise the synergies that are required to increase the impact of dark matter research and to cope with the increasing experiment sizes. The suggested network -- loosely titled "DMInfraNet" -- could be realised as a new initiative of the European strategy or be based on existing structures like iDMEu or DRD. The network can also serve as a nucleus for future joint funding proposals.

In this document we summarize the output of the US community planning exercises for particle physics that were performed between 2020 and 2023 and comment upon progress made since then towards our common scientific goals. This document leans heavily on the formal report of the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel and other recent US planning documents, often quoting them verbatim to retain the community consensus.

Using a sample of $(10087\pm44) \times 10^{6}$ $J/\psi$ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider, the first evidence for the doubly OZI-suppressed decay $\eta_{c} \to \omega\phi$ is reported with a significance of 4.0$\sigma$. The branching fraction of $\eta_{c} \to \omega\phi$ is measured to be $\mathcal{B}(\eta_{c} \to \omega\phi) = (3.86 \pm 0.92 \pm 0.62) \times 10^{-5}$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. This result provides valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of charmonium decays, particularly for processes such as $\eta_{c} \to VV$ (where $V$ represents a vector meson).

Experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have accumulated an unprecedented amount of data corresponding to a large variety of quantum states. Although searching for new particles beyond the Standard Model of particle physics remains a high priority for the LHC program, precision measurements of the physical processes predicted in the Standard Model continue to lead us to a deeper understanding of nature at high energies. We carry out detailed simulations for the process $pp \to \tau^+\tau^- X$ to perform quantum tomography and to measure the quantum entanglement and the Bell nonlocality of the $\tau^+\tau^-$ two qubit state, including both statistical and systematic uncertainties. By using advanced machine learning techniques for neutrino momentum reconstruction, we achieve precise measurements of the full spin density matrix, a critical advantage over previous studies limited by reconstruction challenges for missing momenta. Our analysis reveals a clear observation of Bell nonlocality with high statistical significance, surpassing 5$\sigma$, establishing $\tau^+ \tau^-$ as an ideal system for quantum information studies in high-energy collisions. Given its experimental feasibility and the high expected sensitivity for Bell nonlocality, we propose that $\tau^+ \tau^-$ should be regarded as the new benchmark system for quantum information studies at the LHC, complementing and extending the insights gained from the $t\bar{t}$ system.

We recently reported new results on the $\gamma^{(*)} + N(940)\frac{1}{2}^+ \to \Delta(1700)\frac{3}{2}^{-}$ transition form factors using a symmetry-preserving treatment of a vector$\,\otimes\,$vector contact interaction (SCI) within a coupled formalism based on the Dyson-Schwinger, Bethe-Salpeter, and Faddeev equations. In this work, we extend our investigation to the $\gamma^{(*)} + N(940)\frac{1}{2}^+ \to N(1520)\frac{3}{2}^{-}$ transition. Our computed transition form factors show reasonable agreement with experimental data at large photon virtualities. However, deviations emerge at low $Q^2$, where experimental results exhibit a sharper variation than theoretical predictions. This discrepancy is expected, as these continuum QCD analyses account only for the quark-core of baryons, while low photon virtualities are dominated by meson cloud effects. We anticipate that these analytical predictions, based on the simplified SCI framework, will serve as a valuable benchmark for more refined studies and QCD-based truncations that incorporate quark angular momentum and the contributions of scalar and vector diquarks.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have been prevalent in particle physics for over three decades, shaping many aspects of High Energy Physics (HEP) analyses. As AI's influence grows, it is essential for physicists $\unicode{x2013}$ as both researchers and informed citizens $\unicode{x2013}$ to critically examine its foundations, misconceptions, and impact. This paper explores AI definitions, examines how ML differs from traditional programming, and provides a brief review of AI/ML applications in HEP, highlighting promising trends such as Simulation-Based Inference, uncertainty-aware machine learning, and Fast ML for anomaly detection. Beyond physics, it also addresses the broader societal harms of AI systems, underscoring the need for responsible engagement. Finally, it stresses the importance of adapting research practices to an evolving AI landscape, ensuring that physicists not only benefit from the latest tools but also remain at the forefront of innovation.

We discuss a minimal renormalizable Pati-Salam theory based on the $SU(4)_{\rm C}\,\times\,SU(2)_{\rm L}\,\times\,SU(2)_{\rm R}$ gauge group, with unification scale Higgs multiplets taken as $SU(2)_{\rm L}$ and $SU(2)_{\rm R}$ doublets, which lead to neutrino Dirac picture. Although a number of scalar particles could be light, even lying at the LHC energies, the unification scale is hopelessly out of reach in any foreseeable future. Moreover, phase transition in the early Universe leads to the production of magnetic monopoles and domain walls, both incompatible with the standard cosmological model. A small explicit breaking of the discrete left-right symmetry allows the domain walls to decay, and in the process possibly sweep away the monopoles, analogously to the previously discussed case of $SU(5)$ grand unified theory. This leaves an important imprint of gravitational waves, within the reach of next generation searches, correlated with monopole detection and new light particles at collider energies. The theory has a dark matter candidate in the form of an inert scalar doublet, with a mass below TeV, which can further trigger electroweak baryogenesis.