An experiment for electron-hadron scattering at the LHC

Novel considerations are presented on the physics, apparatus and accelerator designs for a future, luminous, energy frontier electron-hadron (eh) scattering experiment at the LHC in the thirties for which key physics topics and their relation to the hadron-hadron HL-LHC physics programme are discussed. Demands are derived set by these physics topics on the design of the LHeC detector, a corresponding update of which is described. Optimisations on the accelerator design, especially the interaction region (IR), are presented. Initial accelerator considerations indicate that a common IR is possible to be built which alternately could serve eh and hh collisions while other experiments would stay on hh in either condition. A forward-backward symmetrised option of the LHeC detector is sketched which would permit extending the LHeC physics programme to also include aspects of hadron-hadron physics. The vision of a joint eh and hh physics experiment is shown to open new prospects for solving fundamental problems of high energy heavy-ion physics including the partonic structure of nuclei and the emergence of hydrodynamics in quantum field theory while the genuine TeV scale DIS physics is of unprecedented rank.

Four-mode squeezed states: two-field quantum systems and the symplectic group $$\mathrm {Sp}(4,{\mathbb {R}})$$

We construct the four-mode squeezed states and study their physical properties. These states describe two linearly-coupled quantum scalar fields, which makes them physically relevant in various contexts such as cosmology. They are shown to generalise the usual two-mode squeezed states of single-field systems, with additional transfers of quanta between the fields. To build them in the Fock space, we use the symplectic structure of the phase space. For this reason, we first present a pedagogical analysis of the symplectic group $$\mathrm {Sp}(4,{\mathbb {R}})$$ Sp ( 4 , R ) and its Lie algebra, from which we construct the four-mode squeezed states and discuss their structure. We also study the reduced single-field system obtained by tracing out one of the two fields. This procedure being easier in the phase space, it motivates the use of the Wigner function which we introduce as an alternative description of the state. It allows us to discuss environmental effects in the case of linear interactions. In particular, we find that there is always a range of interaction coupling for which decoherence occurs without substantially affecting the power spectra (hence the observables) of the system.

Performance of the ATLAS Level-1 topological trigger in Run 2

During LHC Run 2 (2015–2018) the ATLAS Level-1 topological trigger allowed efficient data-taking by the ATLAS experiment at luminosities up to 2.1$$\times $$ × 10$$^{34}$$ 34 cm$$^{-2}$$ - 2 s$$^{-1}$$ - 1 , which exceeds the design value by a factor of two. The system was installed in 2016 and operated in 2017 and 2018. It uses Field Programmable Gate Array processors to select interesting events by placing kinematic and angular requirements on electromagnetic clusters, jets, $$\tau $$ τ -leptons, muons and the missing transverse energy. It allowed to significantly improve the background event rejection and signal event acceptance, in particular for Higgs and B-physics processes.

Exploring new possibilities to discover a light pseudo-scalar at LHCb

We study the possibility of observing a light pseudo-scalar a at LHCb. We target the mass region $$2.5\,\mathrm{GeV}\lesssim m_a\lesssim 60\,\mathrm{GeV}$$ 2.5 GeV ≲ m a ≲ 60 GeV and various decay channels, some of which have never been considered before: muon pairs, tau pairs, D meson pairs, and di-photon. We interpret the results in the context of models of 4D Composite Higgs and Partial Compositeness in particular.

Aspects of the polynomial affine model of gravity in three dimensions

The polynomial affine gravity is a model that is built up without the explicit use of a metric tensor field. In this article we reformulate the three-dimensional model and, given the decomposition of the affine connection, we analyse the consistently truncated sectors. Using the cosmological ansatz for the connection, we scan the cosmological solutions on the truncated sectors. We discuss the emergence of different kinds of metrics.

On a structure of the one-loop divergences in 4D harmonic superspace sigma-model

We study the quantum structure of four-dimensional $${{\mathcal {N}}}=2$$ N = 2 superfield sigma-model formulated in harmonic superspace in terms of the omega-hypermultiplet superfield $$\omega $$ ω . The model is described by harmonic superfield sigma-model metric $$g_{ab}(\omega )$$ g ab ( ω ) and two potential-like superfields $$L^{++}_{a}(\omega )$$ L a + + ( ω ) and $$L^{(+4)}(\omega )$$ L ( + 4 ) ( ω ) . In bosonic component sector this model describes some hyper-Kähler manifold. The manifestly $${{\mathcal {N}}}=2$$ N = 2 supersymmetric covariant background-quantum splitting is constructed and the superfield proper-time technique is developed to calculate the one-loop effective action. The one-loop divergences of the superfield effective action are found for arbitrary $$g_{ab}(\omega ), L^{++}_{a}(\omega ), L^{(+4)}(\omega )$$ g ab ( ω ) , L a + + ( ω ) , L ( + 4 ) ( ω ) , where some specific analogy between the algebra of covariant derivatives in the sigma-model and the corresponding algebra in the $${{\mathcal {N}}}=2$$ N = 2 SYM theory is used. The component structure of divergences in the bosonic sector is discussed.

Hadron interactions for arbitrary energies and species, with applications to cosmic rays

The Pythia event generator is used in several contexts to study hadron and lepton interactions, notably $$\mathrm{p}\mathrm{p}$$ p p and $$\mathrm{p}{\bar{\mathrm{p}}}$$ p p ¯ collisions. In this article we extend the hadronic modelling to encompass the collision of a wide range of hadrons h with either a proton or a neutron, or with a simplified model of nuclear matter. To this end we model $$h\mathrm{p}$$ h p total and partial cross sections as a function of energy, and introduce new parton distribution functions for a wide range of hadrons, as required for a proper modelling of multiparton interactions. The potential usefulness of the framework is illustrated by a simple study of the evolution of cosmic rays in the atmosphere, and by an even simpler one of shower evolution in a solid detector material. The new code will be made available for future applications.

Impact of $$b \rightarrow s \ell \ell $$ anomalies on rare charm decays in non-universal $$Z'$$ models

In this work, we study the impact of $$b \rightarrow s \ell \ell $$ b → s ℓ ℓ , $$B_s - \bar{B_s}$$ B s - B s ¯ mixing and neutrino trident measurements on observables in decays induced by $$c \rightarrow u $$ c → u transition in the context of a non-universal $$Z'$$ Z ′ model which generates $$C^{\mathrm{NP}}_{9} <0$$ C 9 NP < 0 and $$C^{\mathrm{NP}}_9 = - \,C^{\mathrm{NP}}_{10} $$ C 9 NP = - C 10 NP new physics scenarios at the tree level. We inspect the effects on $$D^0 \rightarrow \pi ^0 \nu {\bar{\nu }}$$ D 0 → π 0 ν ν ¯ , $$D^+ \rightarrow \pi ^+ \nu {\bar{\nu }}$$ D + → π + ν ν ¯ and $$B_c \rightarrow B^+ \nu {\bar{\nu }} $$ B c → B + ν ν ¯ decays which are induced by the quark level transition $$c \rightarrow u \nu {\bar{\nu }}$$ c → u ν ν ¯ . The fact that the branching ratios of these decays are negligible in the standard model (SM) and the long distance effects are relatively smaller in comparison to their charged dileptons counterparts, they are considered to provide genuine null-tests of SM. Therefore the observation of these modes at the level of current as well as planned experimental sensitivities would imply unambiguous signature of new physics. Using the constraints on $$Z'$$ Z ′ couplings coming from a combined fit to $$b \rightarrow s \ell \ell $$ b → s ℓ ℓ , $$\varDelta M_s$$ Δ M s and neutrino trident data, we find that any meaningful enhancement over the SM value is ruled out in the considered framework. The same is true for $$D - {\bar{D}}$$ D - D ¯ mixing observable $$\varDelta M_D$$ Δ M D along with $$D^0 \rightarrow \mu ^+ \mu ^-$$ D 0 → μ + μ - and $$D^+ \rightarrow \pi ^+ \mu ^+ \mu ^-$$ D + → π + μ + μ - decay modes which are induced through $$c \rightarrow u \mu ^+ \mu ^-$$ c → u μ + μ - transition.