High Energy Physics - Experiment

Large backgrounds that can lead to hardware failures and the degradation of detector gain impact the track finding in the Belle II central drift chamber. These conditions lead to spatially non-uniform and time-dependent inefficiencies, which results in inactive regions and missing hits which challenges conventional tracking algorithms and necessitate the development of new track finding algorithms. In this work, we evaluate the performance of our previously developed unified graph neural network (GNN) based track-finding algorithm under realistic long-term detector ageing conditions. Track finding is formulated as a global relational clustering problem using object condensation, which enables the reconstruction of an unknown and variable number of tracks per event. Using a realistic full detector simulation incorporating beam-induced backgrounds, detector noise, and measured detector ageing effects, we evaluate the tracking performance and compare it to the current Belle II baseline reconstruction. We show that detector degradation can be treated as a domain shift in the observed hit patterns, rather than requiring a fundamentally new reconstruction strategy. After retraining on degraded detector conditions, the GNN-based approach limits the absolute track efficiency loss for uniformly displaced muons to 14%, compared to 28% for the baseline tracking, while maintaining a track purity of 96%. Under the same conditions, the baseline reconstruction achieves only 90% track purity. These results demonstrate that the unified GNN-based reconstruction provides increased robustness to irregular hit patterns and extended inactive regions, enabling stable tracking performance under long-term detector ageing at Belle II.

We propose metallic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a one-dimensional plasmon target for light dark matter (DM) direct detection. Unlike conventional gapless electronic targets, where DM primarily excites electron-hole pairs, the low-energy charge response of a metallic CNT is carried by a collective Luttinger-liquid mode. We compute the projected sensitivity for DM-electron scattering through heavy and light mediators, using benchmark thresholds motivated by quantum-capacitance-detector-like and superconducting-quasiparticle-amplifying-transmon-like readout. For an accumulated nanotube length $L_{\text{CNT}}=10^8{\rm m}$, corresponding to milligram-scale single-wall CNT targets, we find competitive reach in the keV--MeV mass range. In the light-mediator case, the projected sensitivity can probe the cosmologically motivated freeze-in benchmark at keV masses. We also show that the one-dimensional geometry of aligned CNTs induces sidereal-day modulation, providing a handle for distinguishing a DM signal from approximately time-independent sensor backgrounds. These results establish one-dimensional collective modes as a new target class for sub-MeV DM detection. Existing progress in scalable CNT synthesis and superconducting quasiparticle sensing provides a promising experimental foundation, while realizing the proposed detector will require dedicated development of CNT--superconductor coupling and plasmon-to-quasiparticle conversion.

ProtoDUNE-DP was the largest ever built Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) operating in Dual-Phase (DP) mode, with a liquid target and charge read-out placed in the gas. It had an active volume of $6\times6\times6$\,m$^3$ corresponding to an active mass of 300\,t (total LAr mass of 720\,t), constructed at the CERN Neutrino Platform and took data from 2019 to 2020 with cosmic muons. In ProtoDUNE-DP the electric drift field is oriented in the vertical direction, causing the electrons to drift vertically towards the anode at the top. The ionization charge is then extracted into the gaseous argon above the liquid surface, amplified by Townsend avalanches, and collected by the charge readout planes. The detector experienced significant technical problems affecting the long-term operation of the Charge Readout Planes, formed by the Large Electron Multipliers, but other critical segments demonstrated required performance including the delivery of -300 kV to the TPC cathode, verification of replaceable charge read-out electronics, and operation of the photon detection system. ProtoDUNE-DP experience resulted in improved designs of the Vertical Drift LArTPC.

In this work we demonstrate that a single transformer-based generative model can capture Standard Model structure spanning five decades of invariant mass, from the sub-GeV regime to the TeV continuum, a range that no single Monte Carlo sample covers. To achieve this we design \textsc{ShellFlow}, a Riemannian conditional flow matching model that, given the recorded event composition, generates each particle on its on-shell manifold. Its only physics priors are the on-shell condition and the invariant-mass formula. The model is trained on $\sim 10^{9}$ real $pp$ collision events from the ATLAS Open Data 13~TeV release and told nothing else. From a single training run, the model learns to reproduce all of the following: intra-particle kinematics, the dilepton resonances ($J/\psi$, $\Upsilon$, $Z$) at their PDG positions, the leptonic Weinberg angle, the $W$ and top-quark masses, and inter-particle correlations that enter no training objective. A substantial fraction of the Standard Model is thus learnable directly from recorded collision data.

We have performed hyperfine spectroscopy of two transitions in ground-state deuterium and searched for violations of CPT and Lorentz symmetry that would manifest as sidereal variations of the observed transition frequencies. Several nonrelativistic proton coefficients of the Standard-Model Extension framework have been addressed. The spin-independent coefficients with momentum power k=2,4 are constrained for the first time. Bounds on spin-dependent coefficients are improved by exploiting a sensitivity enhancement originating from the relative momenta of the nucleons in the deuteron. The best previous constraints by hydrogen maser measurements are surpassed by 4 and 14 orders of magnitude for coefficients with k=2 and 4, respectively.

As particle physics detectors grow in scale, High Energy Physics experiments must process ever-increasing data volumes. Level-1 trigger systems, implemented on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays and increasingly using neural-network algorithms, filter this data in real time. However, their proximity to the interaction point exposes them to radiation, which can corrupt outputs, stall processing pipelines, or damage hardware, with significant financial and scientific consequences. In this work, we present the first Register Transfer Level fault-injection study of a deployed Level-1 hardware neural-network trigger, GNN-ETM in the Belle II trigger system. We target three failure modes most consequential to a real-time trigger pipeline: deadlocks, timeouts, and packet-integrity violations. Through two complementary campaigns, we inject 1 442 840 Single-Event Upsets across 211 245 signals. We find a monitoring asymmetry in the existing verification infrastructure and propose inter-stage liveness monitoring as a more accurate alternative to output-only observation, showing that Mean Time To Failure estimates from the two approaches differ by up to 78.7%. The resulting per-stage data identifies the highest-priority hardening targets.

The violation of the charge-parity (CP) transformation symmetry, which although has been observed in plenty of pure meson decay processes, was only confirmed just very recently by the LHCb collaboration in the four-body decay of the heavy baryon $\Lambda_b^0$, $\Lambda_b^0\to p K^- \pi^+ \pi ^-$, through a comparison of the decay branching ratio with that of the CP-conjugate process. However, the detailed dynamics behind this CP asymmetry is obviously far from clear. In this paper, we propose a formalism for the full analysis of the decay angular correlations in four-body cascade decays of heavy hadrons which can provide more information about the CP violation in these decays. To illustrate this, we apply the decay angular correlation analysis of CP violation to another four-body decay channel that involve baryons, $B^0\to p\bar{p}K^+\pi^-$, which has also been investigated by the LHCb collaboration with no evidence of CP violation being found. Surprisingly, based on a simple assumption on the statistical errors, and with the event yield extracted inversely from the published data of LHCb, we obtain non-zero CP asymmetries of about $10\%$ corresponding to the decay angular correlations, which are considerably larger than the CPA asymmetries observed in the $\Lambda_b^0\to p K^- \pi^+ \pi ^-$ channel. We suggest our experimental colleagues to perform full decay angular correlation analyses of CP violation in four-body decays of heavy hadrons, including the above two decay channels.

This paper presents the first measurements of the azimuthal anisotropy coefficients $v_{n}$, which quantify the $n^{\mathrm{th}}$-order Fourier modulation of charged-particle azimuthal distributions, for $n=2$-4 in $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.36$ TeV $\mathrm{^{16}O}+\mathrm{^{16}O}$ and $\mathrm{^{20}Ne}+\mathrm{^{20}Ne}$ collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2025. The $v_{n}$ coefficients are measured as a function of transverse momentum ($p_{\mathrm{T}}$), collision centrality, and event multiplicity. They are extracted using two complementary methods: two-particle correlations with a template-fit subtraction of short-range non-flow contributions, and four-particle subevent cumulants, which intrinsically suppress non-flow effects and provide sensitivity to flow fluctuations. The results show a clear hierarchy $v_{2} > v_{3} > v_{4}$ and a non-monotonic dependence on $p_{\mathrm{T}}$, reaching a maximum around 2 GeV, consistent with trends observed in heavy-ion collisions. Detailed comparisons between the two collision systems reveal an enhanced $v_{2}$ in central $\mathrm{^{20}Ne}+\mathrm{^{20}Ne}$ collisions, consistent with theory expectations based on the predicted prolate deformation of neon nuclei, in contrast to the slightly tetrahedral structure predicted for oxygen. The four-particle cumulant results highlight strong event-by-event fluctuations and provide the greatest sensitivity to nuclear shape effects. These measurements can place new constraints on the initial geometry and the hydrodynamic response in light-ion collisions, offering valuable input for models of nuclear structure.

In this work, we first present a systematic investigation of the $T_{\bar{c}\bar{s}}$-type charmed-strange molecular tetraquark candidates composed of a $K^{(*)}$ meson and a $T$-doublet anticharmed meson using the one-boson-exchange model, which exhibit exotic flavor content $\bar{c}\bar{s} q q$. Our results suggest that the $K^* \bar D_1$ states with $I(J^P)=0(0^-,\,1^-)$ and the $K^* \bar D_2^*$ states with $I(J^P)=0(1^-,\,2^-)$ represent the most promising candidates of the $T_{\bar{c}\bar{s}}$-type charmed-strange molecular tetraquarks, while the coupled $K \bar D_1 / K^* \bar D_1 / K^* \bar D_2^*$ system with $I(J^P)=0(1^-)$ and the coupled $K \bar D_2^* / K^* \bar D_1 / K^* \bar D_2^*$ system with $I(J^P)=0(2^-)$ can only be regarded as the possible candidates of the $T_{\bar{c}\bar{s}}$-type charmed-strange molecular tetraquarks. We further extend our analysis to the $K^{(*)} {D}_1/K^{(*)} {D}_2^*$ systems, where our results suggest a series of $T_{c \bar s}$-type charmed-strange molecular tetraquark candidates. These findings provide a comprehensive picture of the molecular spectrum in the charmed-strange tetraquark sector composed of $S$-wave kaons and (anti-)charmed mesons in the $T$-doublet and can be tested in future experimental studies.

Reliable operation of high-power proton cyclotrons is a critical requirement for Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) and other large-scale applications. Beam tuning in such machines is traditionally performed manually, a process that can be slow, non-optimal, and difficult to execute in the presence of faults or changing conditions. To address this, we developed and deployed a machine learning (ML) based tuning framework on the Injector 2 cyclotron at PSI, chosen as an ideal testbed for high-power operation. The system combined a tailored reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm with real-time diagnostics and control, and incorporated accelerator-physics inspired adaptations such as an overshoot strategy that reduced magnetic field settling times by nearly a factor of six. Over an extensive 12-day operational test campaign, relatively long in the context of real-time ML experiments, the RL agent successfully tuned the machine across multiple operating points. For each investigated configuration, stable policies were obtained within a few hours of online training and subsequently demonstrated reliable low-loss operation during overnight evaluation runs. Crucially, the learned policy remained effective when transferred from low-current training to operation at beam currents up to 800 {\mu}A, demonstrating robust generalization under appropriately adapted operational constraints. These results constitute the first demonstration of RL-assisted tuning on a high-power cyclotron, with direct relevance to ADS-class drivers.

We introduce an anomaly-based framework to probe quark electric dipole moments in exclusive hadronic final states produced in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. Chern-Simons-induced anomalous couplings yield a clean T-odd asymmetry $A_T$ from interference between the Standard-Model amplitude and dipole-moment contributions. As an application, $\gamma^\ast\to K^+K^-\pi^0$ provides direct sensitivity to the strange-quark EDM $d_s$ in the chiral limit. The precision on $d_s$ can reach $\mathcal{O}(10^{-16})\,e\cdot\mathrm{cm}$ with existing CMD--3 data and $\mathcal{O}(10^{-18})\,e\cdot\mathrm{cm}$ using current $J/\psi$ samples at BESIII, improving the current direct constraint from hyperon EDM by two to three orders.

The Higgs boson decay to massive bottom quarks has the largest branching ratio. The decay is mainly induced by the bottom-quark Yukawa coupling with the decay rate calculated up to $O(\alpha_s^4)$ assuming the massless final-state bottom quark. The top-quark Yukawa coupling induced contribution starts at $O(\alpha_s^2)$, and exhibits logarithmic and power enhancements, making the perturbative expansion converge slowly, which is a feature not present in the hadronic Higgs boson decay. We present a calculation of such contributions at $O(\alpha_s^4)$ to the decay into massive bottom quarks in which the squared amplitudes contain two top-quark Yukawa couplings and the final state must include at least a bottom quark pair. We find that they increase the decay width, relative to the result up to $O(\alpha_s^3)$, by $0.4\%$, larger than the experimental precision at future lepton colliders, and reduce the scale dependence significantly down to $0.4\%$.

We study the impact of radiation on quantum systems defined by the spins of elementary fermion-antifermion pairs produced at colliders. We present predictions for several processes, showing that energetic final-state radiation can induce decoherence and significantly reduce the entanglement of quantum systems formed by elementary fermion pairs. We investigate the feasibility of observing this effect experimentally in exclusive samples with energetic radiation. A statistically significant signal can be obtained with current data in associated $pp \rightarrow t\bar{t}(g)$ production at the LHC and in $e^+e^- \rightarrow \tau^{+}\tau^{-}(\gamma)$ production at Belle 2. Future electron-positron colliders operated at the $Z$ pole or well above the $t\bar{t}$ production threshold will extend these prospects further.

We develop a novel model utilizing the forward $K^*$ production reaction off the nucleon, $\pi N \to K^* MB$, induced by a high-momentum $\pi$ beam, as a tool to study low-lying $Y^*$ resonances below and just above the $\bar{K}N$ threshold. Because conventional $K^- p$ scattering experiments face difficulties in directly accessing this kinematic region, the proposed reaction offers a valuable complementary approach for $Y^*$ spectroscopy. The constructed model is based on the one-meson exchange mechanism, which is known to dominate forward-angle production at high energies, and the half-off-shell scattering amplitudes from the ANL-Osaka dynamical coupled-channels models (Model A and Model B). We predict various observables, including differential cross sections and angular distributions. Our results demonstrate significant enhancements in the subthreshold region of the invariant mass spectra. Notably, we show that overlapping resonances, such as a potential new $3/2^+$ $\Sigma$ state and the well-established $\Sigma(1385)3/2^+$, can constitute a single peak in the $\pi\Lambda$ mass spectrum, indicating that the existence of previously unconfirmed subthreshold states cannot be ruled out by analyzing only the existing mass spectrum data. Furthermore, we find that angular distributions provide strong discriminatory power to disentangle such overlapping states through partial-wave interference effects, while the $t'$ and $\phi_M^*$ dependencies provide crucial constraints on the high-energy production mechanisms. Our predictions for these highly sensitive observables can facilitate high-statistics measurements, which are accessible at modern hadron facilities such as J-PARC, to unravel the $S=-1$ $Y^*$ mass spectrum.

The hadronic tensor molecule $\mathcal{M}=J/\psi J/\psi$ is investigated in the framework of QCD sum rule method. We evaluate its mass and current coupling using the two-point SR approach. Our result $m=(6290 \pm 50)~ \mathrm{MeV}$ for the mass of $\mathcal{M}$ indicates that it can decay to a pair of mesons $J/\psi J/\psi$. Apart from this dominant channel there are subdominant modes of the molecule $\mathcal{M}$ generated due to annihilation of constituent $\overline{c}c$ quarks to pairs of light quarks $ \overline{q}q$ and $\overline{s}s$. This mechanism launches processes $ \mathcal{M} \to D_{(s)}^{(\ast )+}D_{(s)}^{(\ast )-}$, $DD_{1}(2420)$, $ D_sD_{s1}(2460)$ and $D_{(s)}^{(\ast )0}\overline{D}_{(s)}^{(\ast )0}$. The decays of $\mathcal{M}$ are explored by applying technical tools of the three-point sum rule approach which is necessary to estimate strong couplings at $\mathcal{M}$-meson-meson vertices. Comparing the mass $m$ of the molecule $\mathcal{M}$ and its decay width $\Gamma[\mathcal{M}]=(149 \pm 21)~ \mathrm{MeV}$ with available experimental data, we discuss the molecule $\mathcal{M}$ as a possible candidate to the tensor resonance $X(6200)$.

Using the quantum field theory, we derive a Breit-Wigner-type formula for the $e^+ e^-$ annihilation into a vector meson and its antiparticle, and relate the formula parameters to observable quantities. The formula's soundness is checked by fitting the $e^+ e^- \to D^{\ast+}D^{\ast-}$ data published by the BESIII Collaboration in 2022.