We study the effective bosonic string that describes confining flux tubes in three-dimensional SU(N) Yang--Mills theories. Although the low-energy properties are universal and well described by the Nambu--Got\=o action, the subtle dependence on the gauge group is embedded in a series of corrections, which remain undetermined, appearing in the expansion around the limit of an infinitely long string. We extract the first two of these corrections from a set of high-precision Monte Carlo simulations of Polyakov loop correlators at finite temperatures close to the deconfinement transition. We present and compare the results of new lattice simulations for theories with N=3 and N=6 color charges, along with an improved estimate for the N=2 case, discussing the approach to the large-N limit. We show that our results are compatible with analytical bounds derived from the S-matrix bootstrap approach. Additionally, we present a new test of the Svetitsky--Yaffe conjecture for the SU(3) theory in three dimensions, showing that our results for the correlator of Polyakov loops perfectly agree with the predictions obtained using a conformal perturbation approach to the two-dimensional three-state Potts model

We present our calculation of the isospin-violating part of the hadronic vacuum polarisation (HVP) contribution to muon $(g-2)$ in lattice QCD at the $SU(3)_{\mathrm{f}}$ symmetric point. The computation of the contributing fully connected diagrams with one internal photon as well as the computation of the only (mass) counterterm are shown. The latter is determined from the charged-neutral kaon mass splitting. We employ coordinate-space methods and a photon propagator which is regulated \`a la Pauli-Villars with a cutoff scale $\Lambda$ well below the lattice cutoff. This regularization makes it possible for us to do crosschecks of individual contributions with calculations in the continuum. Our continuum extrapolated results show little to no dependence on $\Lambda$. This makes our final limit $\Lambda \rightarrow \infty$ straightforward.

We examine how plasma excitations affect the heavy-quark diffusion coefficient in 2+1 dimensional and Glasma-like plasmas, akin to the pre-equilibrium matter describing relativistic heavy-ion collisions at early times. We find that the transport coefficient $2\kappa$ transverse to and $\kappa_z$ along the beam direction display a qualitatively different evolution. We attribute this to the underlying excitation spectra of these systems, thus providing evidence for the existence of non-perturbative properties in the spectrum. This is accomplished by first reconstructing the diffusion coefficients using gauge-fixed correlation functions, which accurately reproduces the time evolution of $2\kappa$ and $\kappa_z$. We then modify these excitation spectra to study the impact of their non-perturbative features on the transport coefficients. In particular, we find evidence for a novel transport peak in the low-frequency spectrum that is crucial for heavy-quark diffusion. We also demonstrate that gluonic excitations are broad while scalar excitations associated with $\kappa_z$ are narrow and strongly enhanced at low momenta. Our findings indicate that the large values and dynamical properties of transport coefficients in the Glasma could originate from genuinely non-perturbative features in the spectrum.

I consider the long-standing issue of the hermicity of the Dirac equation in curved spacetime metrics. Instead of imposing hermiticity by adding ad hoc terms, I renormalize the field by a scaling function, which is related to the determinant of the metric, and then regularize the renormalized field on a discrete lattice. I found that, for time-independent and diagonal metrics such as the Rindler, de~Sitter, and anti-de~Sitter metrics, the Dirac equation returns a hermitian or pseudohermitian ($\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric) Hamiltonian when properly regularized on the lattice. Notably, the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry is unbroken in the pseudohermitian cases, assuring a real energy spectrum with unitary time evolution. Conversely, considering a more general class of time-dependent metrics, which includes the Weyl metric, the Dirac equation returns a nonhermitian Hamiltonian with nonunitary time evolution. Arguably, this nonhermicity is physical, with the time dependence of the metric corresponding to local nonhermitian processes on the lattice and nonunitary growth or decay of the time evolution of the field. This suggests a duality between nonhermitian gain and loss phenomena and spacetime contractions and expansions. This metric-induced nonhermiticity unveils an unexpected connection between spacetime metric and nonhermitian phases of matter.

Within $Z^\prime$ models, neutral meson mixing severely constrains beyond the Standard Model (SM) effects in flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) processes. However, in certain regions of the $Z^\prime$ parameter space, the contributions to meson mixing observables become negligibly small even for large $Z^\prime$ couplings. While this a priori allows for significant new physics (NP) effects in FCNC decays, we discuss how large $Z^\prime$ couplings in one neutral meson sector can generate effects in meson mixing observables of other neutral mesons, through correlations stemming from $\text{SU(2)}_L$ gauge invariance and through Renormalization Group (RG) effects in the SM Effective Field Theory~(SMEFT). This is illustrated with the example of $B_s^0-\bar B_s^0$ mixing, which in the presence of both left- and right-handed $Z^\prime bs$ couplings $\Delta_L^{bs}$ and $\Delta_R^{bs}$ remains SM-like for $\Delta_R^{bs}\approx 0.1\,\Delta_L^{bs}$. We show that in this case, large $Z^\prime bs$ couplings generate effects in $D$ and $K$ meson mixing observables, but that the $D$ and $K$ mixing constraints and the relation between $\Delta_R^{bs}$ and $\Delta_L^{bs}$ are fully compatible with a lepton flavour universality~(LFU) conserving explanation of the most recent $b\to s\ell^+\ell^-$ experimental data without violating other constraints like $e^+ e^-\to\ell^+\ell^-$ scattering. Assuming LFU, invariance under the $\text{SU(2)}_L$ gauge symmetry leads then to correlated effects in $b\to s\nu\bar\nu$ observables presently studied intensively by the Belle~II experiment, which allow to probe the $Z^\prime$ parameter space that is opened up by the vanishing NP contributions to $B_s^0-\bar B_s^0$ mixing. In this scenario the suppression of $B\to K(K^*)\mu^+\mu^-$ branching ratios implies {\em uniquely} enhancements of $B\to K(K^*)\nu\bar\nu$ branching ratios up to $20\%$.

A new dark matter candidate is proposed that arises as the lightest baryon from a confining $SU(N)$ gauge theory which equilibrates with the Standard Model only through electroweak interactions. Surprisingly, this candidate can be as light as a few GeV. The lower bound arises from the intersection of two competing requirements: i) the equilibration sector of the model must be sufficiently heavy, at least several TeV, to avoid bounds from colliders, and ii) the lightest dark meson (that may be the dark $\eta'$, $\sigma$, or the lightest glueball) has suppressed interactions with the SM, and must decay before BBN. The low energy dark sector consists of one flavor that is electrically neutral and an almost electroweak singlet. The dark matter candidate is the lightest baryon consisting of $N$ of these light flavors leading to a highly suppressed elastic scattering rate with the SM. The equilibration sector consists of vector-like dark quarks that transform under the electroweak group, ensuring that the dark sector can reach thermal equilibrium with the SM in the early Universe. The lightest dark meson lifetimes vary between $10^{-3} \lesssim c \tau \lesssim 10^7$~meters, providing an outstanding target for LHC production and experimental detection. We delineate the interplay between the lifetime of the light mesons, the suppressed direct detection cross section of the lightest baryon, and the scale of equilibration sector that can be probed at the LHC.

Evidences of vortical effects have been recently found by experiments in heavy ion collisions, instigating new insights into the phase diagram of quantum chromodynamics. Considering the effect of rotations, lattice QCD data shows that the temperatures for deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration should increase with real angular velocity, and the dominant effects are related to gluonic degrees of freedom. These findings could be essential for quark models in rotating systems that lack gluonic interactions, which predicts the decreasing of the chiral temperature transition with the angular velocity. To address this issue properly, in this work we apply the two-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model to explore the phase diagram in a rotating rigid cylinder with constant angular velocity in the mean field approximation. To circumvent the absence of gluons, we propose the application of an effective coupling dependent of the angular velocity, fitted to match the pseudocritical temperature of chiral phase transition in the model through lattice QCD data. Our results indicate that the running coupling induces the enhancement of the chiral condensate as a function of angular velocity, strengthening the breaking of chiral symmetry, an effect previously dubbed as chiral vortical catalysis. For the chiral susceptibility we observe stronger fluctuations around the transition temperature when we consider the running coupling. The phase diagram is affected by these findings shifting the critical end point (CEP) to higher temperatures and chemical potentials.

Within the method of parity-projected QCD sum rules, we study the mass spectra of light hybrid baryons with $I(J^{P})=1/2(1/2^{\pm}), 3/2(1/2^{\pm}), 1/2(3/2^{\pm}), 3/2(3/2^{\pm})$ by constructing the local $qqqg$ interpolating currents. We calculate the correlation functions up to dimension eight condensates at the leading order of $\alpha_{s}$. The stable QCD Lapalce sum rules can be established for the positive-parity $N_{1/2^+}, \Delta_{3/2^+}, \Delta_{1/2^+}$ and negative-parity $N_{1/2^-}, N_{3/2^-}, \Delta_{1/2^-}$ channels to extract their mass spectra. The lowest-lying hybrid baryons are predicted to be the negative-parity $N_{1/2^-}$ state around 2.28 GeV and $\Delta_{1/2^-}$ state around 2.64 GeV. These hybrid baryons mainly decay into conventional baryon plus meson final states. We propose to search for the light hybrid baryons through the $\chi_{cJ}/\Upsilon$ decays via the three-gluon emission mechanism in BESIII and BelleII experiments. Our studies of the light hybrid baryons will be useful for understanding the excited baryon spectrum and the behavior of gluonic degrees of freedom in QCD.

Using a symmetry-preserving treatment of a vector $\times$ vector contact interaction (SCI) at nonzero temperature, we compute the screening masses of flavour-SU(3) ground-state $J^P=0^\pm$, $1^\pm$ mesons, and $J^P=1/2^\pm$, $3/2^\pm$ baryons. We find that all correlation channels allowed at $T=0$ persist when the temperature increases, even above the QCD phase transition. The results for mesons qualitatively agree with those obtained from the contemporary lattice-regularised quantum chromodynamics (lQCD) simulations. One of the most remarkable features is that each parity-partner-pair degenerates when $T>T_c$, with $T_c$ being the critical temperature. For each pair, the screening mass of the negative parity meson increases monotonously with temperature. In contrast, the screening mass of the meson with positive parity is almost invariant on the domain $T\lesssim T_c/2$; when $T$ gets close to $T_c$, it decreases but soon increases again and finally degenerates with its parity partner, which signals the restoration of chiral symmetry. We also find that the $T$-dependent behaviours of baryon screening masses are quite similar to those of the mesons. For baryons, the dynamical, nonpointlike diquark correlations play a crucial role in the screening mass evolution. We further calculate the evolution of the fraction of each kind of diquark within baryons respective to temperature. We observe that, at high temperatures, only $J=0$ scalar and pseudoscalar diquark correlations can survive within $J^P=1/2^\pm$ baryons.

Understanding the Page curve and resolving the black hole information puzzle in terms of the entanglement dynamics of black holes has been a key question in fundamental physics. In principle, the current quantum computing can provide insights into the entanglement dynamics of black holes within some simplified models. In this regard, we utilize quantum computers to investigate the entropy of Hawking radiation using the qubit transport model, a toy qubit model of black hole evaporation. Specifically, we implement the quantum simulation of the scrambling dynamics in black holes using an efficient random unitary circuit. Furthermore, we employ the swap-based many-body interference protocol for the first time and the randomized measurement protocol to measure the entanglement entropy of Hawking radiation qubits in IBM's superconducting quantum computers. Our findings indicate that while both entanglement entropy measurement protocols accurately estimate the R\'enyi entropy in numerical simulation, the randomized measurement protocol has a particular advantage over the swap-based many-body interference protocol in IBM's superconducting quantum computers. Finally, by incorporating quantum error mitigation techniques, we establish that the current quantum computers are robust tools for measuring the entanglement entropy of complex quantum systems and can probe black hole dynamics within simplified toy qubit models.