Search

Motivated by the recent anomalies in $b \to s \ell^+ \ell^-$ transitions, we explore a minimal $Z^\prime$ scenario, in which the $Z^\prime$ boson has a flavour-changing coupling to charm and top quarks and a flavour-conserving coupling to muons. It is found that such a $Z^\prime$ boson can explain the current $b \to s \ell^+ \ell^-$ anomalies, while satisfying other flavour and collider constraints simultaneously. The $Z^\prime$ boson can be as light as few hundreds GeV. In this case, the $t \to c \mu^+ \mu^-$ decay and the $tZ^\prime$ associated production at the LHC could provide sensitive probes of such a $Z^\prime$ boson. As a special feature, the $Z^\prime$ contributions to all rare $B$- and $K$-meson processes are controlled by one parameter. This results in interesting correlations among these processes, which could provide further insights into this scenario. In addition, an extended scenario, in which the $Z^\prime$ boson interacts with the $SU(2)_L$ fermion doublets with analogous couplings as in the minimal scenario, is also investigated., Comment: 40 pages, 13 figures, typos fixed, comments and references added

The updated measurements from the LHCb and SH0ES collaborations have respectively strengthened the deviations of the ratio $R_{K}$ in rare semi-leptonic $B$-meson decays and the present-day Hubble parameter $H_0$ in the Universe, implying tantalizing hints of new physics beyond the Standard Model. In this paper, we consider a simple flavor-specific two-Higgs-doublet model, where the long-standing $R_{K^{(*)}}$ anomalies can be addressed by a one-flavor right-handed neutrino. One of the intriguing predictions resulting from the parameter space for the $R_{K^{(*)}}$ resolution under flavor- and collider-physics constraints points toward a shift of the effective neutrino number, $\Delta N_{\rm eff}=N_{\rm eff}-N_{\rm eff}^{\rm SM}$, as favored to ease the $H_0$ tension. Depending on whether the neutrino is of Dirac or of Majorana type, we show that the resulting shift is $\Delta N_{\rm eff}\simeq 1.0$ for the former and $\Delta N_{\rm eff}\simeq 0.5$ for the latter case, respectively. While the Dirac case is disfavored by the CMB polarization measurements, the Majorana solution is consistent with the recent studies via a combined data set from various sources. Consequently, such a simple flavor-specific two-Higgs-doublet model provides a link between the $R_{K^{(*)}}$ anomalies and the $H_0$ tension, which in turn can be readily verified or falsified by the upcoming measurements., Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures; more discussions and references added, final version published in the journal

We investigate the potential for discovering new physics through the low-energy scattering processes $e^-p\to e^-(\mu^-)\Lambda_c$, which could be accessible in the forthcoming $ep$ scattering experiments once adapted to our proposed setups. In the framework of a general low-energy effective Lagrangian, we demonstrate that, compared with the conventional flavor-changing neutral-current weak decays of charmed hadrons and the dilepton productions at high-energy colliders, the low-energy scattering processes can provide more competitive potentials for hunting the underlying new physics. In some specific leptoquark models, we also show that promising event rates can be expected for both the scattering processes, and point out a possible way to distinguish the experimental signals due to the scalar leptoquarks from those of the vector ones., Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, and 6 tables; details of the amplitudes squared and further discussions added, final version to be published in PRD

We proceed to study the $CP$ asymmetry in the angular distributions of $\tau\to K_S\pi\nu_\tau$ decays within a general effective field theory framework including four-fermion operators up to dimension-six. It is found that, besides the commonly considered scalar-vector interference, the tensor-scalar interference can also produce a non-zero $CP$ asymmetry in the angular distributions. Bounds on the effective couplings of the non-standard scalar and tensor interactions are obtained under the combined constraints from the measured $CP$ asymmetries and the branching ratio of $\tau^-\to K_S\pi^-\nu_\tau$ decay, with $\mathrm{Im}[\hat{\epsilon}_S]=-0.008\pm0.027$ and $\mathrm{Im}[\hat{\epsilon}_T]=0.03\pm0.12$, at the scale $\mu_\tau=2~\mathrm{GeV}$ in the $\mathrm{\overline{MS}}$ scheme. Using the best-fit values, we also find that the distributions of the $CP$ asymmetries can deviate significantly from the SM expectation in almost the whole $K\pi$ invariant-mass region. Nevertheless, the current bounds are still plagued by large experimental uncertainties, but will be improved with more precise measurements from Belle II as well as the proposed Tera-Z and STCF facilities. Assuming further that the non-standard scalar and tensor interactions originate from a weakly-coupled heavy new physics well above the electroweak scale, the $SU(2)_L$ invariance of the resulting SMEFT Lagrangian would indicate that very strong limits on $\mathrm{Im}[\hat{\epsilon}_S]$ and $\mathrm{Im}[\hat{\epsilon}_T]$ could also be obtained from the neutron electric dipole moment and the $D^0-\bar{D}^0$ mixing. With the bounds from these processes taken into account, it is then found that, unless there exist extraordinary cancellations between the new physics contributions, neither the scalar nor the tensor interaction can produce any significant effects on the $CP$ asymmetries in the processes considered., Comment: 36 pages, 2 tables, and 6 figures; bounds on the NP parameters from other processes together with more discussions and references added, final version to be published in JHEP

In many real-world imitation learning tasks, the demonstrator and the learner have to act under different observation spaces. This situation brings significant obstacles to existing imitation learning approaches, since most of them learn policies under homogeneous observation spaces. On the other hand, previous studies under different observation spaces have strong assumptions that these two observation spaces coexist during the entire learning process. However, in reality, the observation coexistence will be limited due to the high cost of acquiring expert observations. In this work, we study this challenging problem with limited observation coexistence under heterogeneous observations: Heterogeneously Observable Imitation Learning (HOIL). We identify two underlying issues in HOIL: the dynamics mismatch and the support mismatch, and further propose the Importance Weighting with REjection (IWRE) algorithm based on importance weighting and learning with rejection to solve HOIL problems. Experimental results show that IWRE can solve various HOIL tasks, including the challenging tasks of transforming the vision-based demonstrations to random access memory (RAM)-based policies in the Atari domain, even with limited visual observations.

We provide a simple analysis of the big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) sensitivity to the light dark matter (DM) generated by the thermal freeze-in mechanism. It is shown that the ratio of the effective neutrino number shift $\Delta N_{\nu}$ over the DM relic density $\omega\equiv \Omega h^2$, denoted by $R_\chi\equiv\Delta N_\nu/\omega$, cancels the decaying particle mass and the feeble coupling, rendering therefore a simple visualization of $\Delta N_{\nu}$ at the BBN epoch in terms of the DM mass. This property drives one to conclude that the shift with a sensitivity of $\Delta N_{\nu}\simeq \mathcal{O}(0.1)$ cannot originate from a single warm DM under the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest constraints. For the cold-plus-warm DM scenarios where the Lyman-$\alpha$ constraints are diluted, the ratio $R_\chi$ can be potentially used to test the thermal freeze-in mechanism in generating a small warm component of DM and a possible excess at the level of $\Delta N_{\nu}\simeq \mathcal{O}(0.01)$., Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure; more discussions and references added, final version published in the journal

We present here a novel and testable mechanism for leptogenesis, which is characterized by a purely thermal generation of lepton asymmetry via scalar decay. Guided by the thermal mass matrix diagonalization in the finite-temperature regime, we propose a scenario in which the baryon asymmetry is formulated in terms of the masses and mixing from hierarchical Dirac neutrinos, as well as a vacuum scale accountable for the sub-eV neutrino masses. This allows a natural and direct link between the high-scale \textit{CP} asymmetry and the low-energy Dirac \textit{CP}-violating phase without involved model structures, and thus circumvents the haunting problem encountered in general leptogenesis scenarios. The mechanism can also be applied as a prototype for solving the baryon asymmetry problem to a broad class of well-motivated model buildings., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; more discussions and references added, final version published in the journal

In $B_c^- \to J/\psi (\to \mu^+ \mu^-)\tau^-\bar{\nu}_\tau$ decay, the three-momentum $\boldsymbol{p}_{\tau^-}$ cannot be determined accurately due to the decay products of $\tau^-$ inevitably include an undetected $\nu_{\tau}$. As a consequence, the angular distribution of this decay cannot be measured. In this work, we construct a {\it measurable} angular distribution by considering the subsequent decay $\tau^- \to \pi^- \nu_\tau$. The full cascade decay is $B_c^- \to J/\psi (\to \mu^+ \mu^-)\tau^- (\to \pi^- \nu_\tau)\bar{\nu}_\tau$, in which the three-momenta $\boldsymbol{p}_{\mu^+}$, $\boldsymbol{p}_{\mu^-}$, and $\boldsymbol{p}_{\pi^-}$ can be measured. The five-fold differential angular distribution containing all Lorentz structures of the new physics (NP) effective operators can be written in terms of twelve angular observables $\mathcal{I}_i (q^2, E_\pi)$. Integrating over the energy of pion $E_\pi$, we construct twelve normalized angular observables $\widehat{\mathcal{I}}_i(q^2)$ and two lepton-flavor-universality ratios $R(P_{L,T}^{J/\psi})(q^2)$. Based on the $B_c \to J/\psi$ form factors calculated by the latest lattice QCD and sum rule, we predict the $q^2$ distribution of all $\widehat{\mathcal{I}}_i$ and $R(P_{L,T}^{J/\psi})$ both within the Standard Model and in eight NP benchmark points. We find that the benchmark BP2 (corresponding to the hypothesis of tensor operator) has the greatest effect on all $\widehat{\mathcal{I}}_{i}$ and $R(P_{L,T}^{J/\psi})$, except $\widehat{\mathcal{I}}_{5}$. The ratios $R(P_{L,T}^{J/\psi})$ are more sensitive to the NP with pseudo-scalar operators than the $\widehat{\mathcal{I}}_{i}$. Finally, we discuss the symmetries in the angular observables and present a model-independent method to determine the existence of tensor operators., Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, matches to the version published in JHEP

With updated experimental data and improved theoretical calculations, several significant deviations are being observed between the Standard Model predictions and the experimental measurements of the branching ratios of $\bar{B}_{(s)}^0\to D_{(s)}^{(*)+} L^-$ decays, where $L$ is a light meson from the set $\{\pi,\rho,K^{(\ast)}\}$. Especially for the two channels $\bar{B}^0\to D^{+}K^-$ and $\bar{B}_{s}^0\to D_{s}^{+}\pi^-$, both of which are free of the weak annihilation contribution, the deviations observed can even reach 4-5$\sigma$. Here we exploit possible new-physics effects in these class-I non-leptonic $B$-meson decays within the framework of QCD factorization. Firstly, we perform a model-independent analysis of the effects from twenty linearly independent four-quark operators that can contribute, either directly or through operator mixing, to the quark-level $b\to c\bar{u} d(s)$ transitions. It is found that, under the combined constraints from the current experimental data, the deviations observed could be well explained at the $1\sigma$ level by the new-physics four-quark operators with $\gamma^{\mu}(1-\gamma_5)\otimes\gamma_{\mu} (1-\gamma_5)$ structure, and also at the $2\sigma$ level by the operators with $(1+\gamma_5)\otimes(1-\gamma_5)$ and $(1+\gamma_5)\otimes(1+\gamma_5)$ structures. However, the new-physics four-quark operators with other Dirac structures fail to provide a consistent interpretation, even at the $2\sigma$ level. Then, as two specific examples of model-dependent considerations, we discuss the case where the new-physics four-quark operators are generated by either a colorless charged gauge boson or a colorless charged scalar, with their masses fixed both at the $1$~TeV. Constraints on the effective coefficients describing the couplings of these mediators to the relevant quarks are obtained by fitting to the current experimental data., Comment: 49 pages, 21 figures, and 7 tables; v2: typos corrected, parts of the plots updated; v3: estimation of annihilation contributions and more discussions added, final version published in JHEP

In $\Lambda_b^0 \to \Lambda_c^+ (\to \Lambda^0 \pi^+) \tau^- \bar{\nu}_\tau $ decay, the solid angle of the final-state particle $\tau^-$ cannot be determined precisely since the decay products of the $\tau^-$ include an undetected $\nu_\tau$. Therefore, the angular distribution of this decay cannot be measured. In this work, we construct a {\it measurable} angular distribution by considering the subsequent decay $\tau^- \to \pi^- \nu_\tau$. The full cascade decay is $\Lambda_b^0 \to \Lambda_c^+ (\to \Lambda^0 \pi^+)\tau^- (\to \pi^- \nu_\tau)\bar{\nu}_\tau$. The three-momenta of the final-state particles $\Lambda^0$, $\pi^+$, and $\pi^-$ can be measured. Considering all Lorentz structures of the new physics (NP) effective operators and an unpolarized initial $\Lambda_b$ state, the five-fold differential angular distribution can be expressed in terms of ten angular observables ${\cal K}_i (q^2, E_\pi)$. By integrating over some of the five kinematic parameters, we define a number of observables, such as the $\Lambda_c$ spin polarization $P_{\Lambda_c}(q^2)$ and the forward-backward asymmetry of $\pi^-$ meson $A_{FB}(q^2)$, both of which can be represented by the angular observables $\widehat{{\cal K}}_i (q^2)$. We provide numerical results for the entire set of the angular observables $\widehat{{\cal K}}_i (q^2)$ and $\widehat{{\cal K}}_i$ both within the Standard Model and in some NP scenarios, which are a variety of best-fit solutions in seven different NP hypotheses. We find that the NP which can resolve the anomalies in $\bar{B} \to D^{(*)} \tau^- \bar{\nu}_\tau$ decays has obvious effects on the angular observables $\widehat{{\cal K}}_i (q^2)$, except $\widehat{{\cal K}}_{1ss} (q^2)$ and $\widehat{{\cal K}}_{1cc} (q^2)$., Comment: 36 pages, 2 figures, 5 tables, matches to the version published in JHEP

With the hypothesis of minimal flavor violation, we find that there exists a power-aligned relation between the Yukawa couplings of the two scalar doublets in the two-Higgs-doublet model with Hermitian Yukawa matrices. Within such a power-aligned framework, it is found that a simultaneous explanation of the anomalies observed in the electron and muon anomalous magnetic moments can be reached with TeV-scale quasi-degenerate Higgs masses, and the resulting parameter space is also phenomenologically safer under the B-physics, $Z$ and $\tau$ decay data, as well as the current LHC bounds. Furthermore, the flavor-universal power that enhances the charged-lepton Yukawa couplings prompts an interesting correlation between the two anomalies, which makes the model distinguishable from the (generalized) linearly aligned and the lepton-specific two-Higgs-doublet models that address the same anomalies but in a non-correlative manner, and hence testable by future precise measurements., Comment: v1: 23 pages, 2 figures; v2: more discussions and references added, final version published in the journal; v3: figure 2 updated by including the latest Fermilab Muon g-2 result, and the lower bound on the charged-Higgs mass changed from 1.4TeV to 1.7TeV, conclusion unchanged

We present a freeze-in realization of the Dirac neutrinogenesis in which the decaying particle that generates the lepton-number asymmetry is in thermal equilibrium. As the right-handed Dirac neutrinos are produced non-thermally, the lepton-number asymmetry is accumulated and partially converted to the baryon-number asymmetry via the rapid sphaleron transitions. The necessary CP-violating condition can be fulfilled by a purely thermal kinetic phase from the wavefunction correction in the lepton-doublet sector, which has been neglected in most leptogenesis-based setup. Furthermore, this condition necessitates a preferred flavor basis in which both the charged-lepton and neutrino Yukawa matrices are non-diagonal. To protect such a proper Yukawa structure from the basis transformations in flavor space prior to the electroweak gauge symmetry breaking, we can resort to a plethora of model buildings aimed at deciphering the non-trivial Yukawa structures. Interestingly, based on the well-known tri-bimaximal mixing with a minimal correction from the charged-lepton or neutrino sector, we find that a simultaneous explanation of the baryon-number asymmetry in the Universe and the low-energy neutrino oscillation observables can be attributed to the mixing angle and the CP-violating phase introduced in the minimal correction., Comment: 28 pages and 7 figures; more discussions and one figure added, final version published in the journal

In this work, we study the $CP$ asymmetry in the angular distribution of $\tau\to K_S\pi\nu_\tau$ decays, taking into account the known $CP$ violation in $K^0-\bar{K}^0$ mixing. It is pointed out for the first time that, once the well-measured $CP$ violation in the neutral kaon system is invoked, a non-zero $CP$ asymmetry would appear in the angular observable of the decays considered, even within the Standard Model. By employing the reciprocal basis, which is most convenient when a $K_{S(L)}$ is involved in the final state, the $CP$-violating angular observable is derived to be two times the product of the time-dependent $CP$ asymmetry in $K\to \pi^+\pi^-$ and the mean value of the angular distribution in $\tau^\pm\to K^0(\bar{K}^0)\pi^\pm\bar{\nu}_\tau(\nu_\tau)$ decays. Compared with the Belle results measured in four different bins of the $K\pi$ invariant mass, our predictions lie within the margins of these measurements, except for a $1.7~\sigma$ deviation for the lowest mass bin. While being below the current Belle detection sensitivity that is of $\mathcal{O}(10^{-3})$, our predictions are expected to be detectable at the Belle II experiment, where $\sqrt{70}$ times more sensitive results will be obtained with a $50~\text{ab}^{-1}$ data sample., Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, and 2 tables; minor corrections, final version published in the journal

We complete the calculation of the QCD penguin amplitude at next-to-next-to-leading order in the QCD factorization approach to non-leptonic B-meson decays. This provides the last missing piece in the computation of the QCD correction to direct CP asymmetries at leading power in the heavy-quark expansion., Comment: 45 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables. Expressions for the 2-loop hard-scattering kernels before and after the convolution with the light-meson LCDA are attached in electronic form to the source of the present submission

We report on the calculation of the two-loop penguin amplitudes in non-leptonic B decays in the framework of QCD factorization. We discuss the computation of this genuine two-loop, two-scale problem and provide details on the matching from QCD onto SCET, the evaluation of the master integrals, and the convolution of the hard scattering kernels with the light-cone distribution amplitude of the light meson. Preliminary results on the size of the two-loop correction are given., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to the 14th International Symposium on Radiative Corrections (RADCOR2019), 9-13 September 2019, Palais des Papes, Avignon, France

Motivated by the $2.8\sigma$ discrepancy observed between the BaBar measurement and the Standard Model prediction of the CP asymmetry in $\tau\to K_S\pi\nu_\tau$ decays, as well as the prospects of future measurements at Belle II, we revisit this observable in this paper. Firstly, we reproduce the known CP asymmetry due to $K^0 -\bar{K}^0$ mixing by means of the reciprocal basis, which is convenient when a $K_{S(L)}$ is involved in the final state. As the $K\pi$ tensor form factor plays a crucial role in generating a non-zero direct CP asymmetry that can arise only from the interference of vector and tensor operators, we then present a dispersive representation of this form factor, with its phase obtained in the context of chiral theory with resonances, which fulfills the requirements of unitarity and analyticity. Finally, the $\tau\to K_S\pi\nu_\tau$ decays are analyzed both within a model-independent low-energy effective theory framework and in a scalar leptoquark scenario. It is observed that the CP anomaly can be accommodated in the model-independent framework, even at the $1\sigma$ level, together with the constraint from the branching ratio of $\tau^-\to K_S\pi^-\nu_\tau$ decay; it can be, however, marginally reconciled only at the $2\sigma$ level, due to the specific relation between the scalar and tensor operators in the scalar leptoquark scenario. Once the combined constraints from the branching ratio and the decay spectrum of this decay are taken into account, these possibilities are however both excluded, even without exploiting further the stronger bounds from the (semi-)leptonic kaon decays under the assumption of lepton-flavour universality, as well as from the neutron electric dipole moment and $D-\bar{D}$ mixing under the assumption of $SU(2)$ invariance of the weak interactions., Comment: 41 pages, 8 figures, and 1 table; more references and discussions added, final version published in the journal

One of the key issues for imitation learning lies in making policy learned from limited samples to generalize well in the whole state-action space. This problem is much more severe in high-dimensional state environments, such as game playing with raw pixel inputs. Under this situation, even state-of-the-art adversary-based imitation learning algorithms fail. Through empirical studies, we find that the main cause lies in the failure of training a powerful discriminator to generate meaningful rewards in high-dimensional environments. Although it seems that dimensionality reduction can help, a straightforward application of off-the-shelf methods cannot achieve good performance. In this work, we show in theory that the balance between dimensionality reduction and discriminative training is essential for effective learning. To achieve this target, we propose HashReward, which utilizes the idea of supervised hashing to realize such an ideal balance. Experimental results show that HashReward could outperform state-of-the-art methods for a large gap under the challenging high-dimensional environments., Comment: Accepted by AAMAS-2021

We implement a symmetry violation guideline into a two-Higgs-doublet model embedded with three right-handed neutrinos, and exploit the generic Yukawa structures of the model via a hypothetical symmetry restoration of a global $U_Q(1)^3\times U_L(1)^3$ symmetry. We then apply a mass-powered parametrization to construct the phenomenologically motivated Yukawa interactions, which enables us to incorporate correlatively the neutrino mass, dark matter, as well as the lepton-flavor universality violations in $R_{K^{(*)}}$ and $R_{D^{(*)}}$. Specifically, two atmospheric-scale neutrino masses are generated by a low-scale seesaw mechanism, while the much lighter one, being of $\mathcal{O}(10^{-6})~{\rm eV}$, is fixed by a $7.1~{\rm keV}$ sterile neutrino dark matter produced primordially by the freeze-in mechanism. On the other hand, the neutrino and the charged-lepton mass hierarchies encoded in the mass-powered textures can naturally account for the $R_{K^{(*)}}$ and the $R_{D^{(*)}}$ anomalies, respectively. As a further application, a milder discrepancy of the muon $g-2$ is observed, which has also been implied by the recently refined lattice results., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; formulation of the model refined, and several references added, final version published in the journal

In this paper, motivated by the observation that the Standard Model predictions are now above the experimental data for the mass difference $\Delta M_{s(d)}$, we perform a detailed study of $B_{s(d)}-\bar{B}_{s(d)}$ mixing and $B_s\to\mu^+\mu^-$ decay in the $\mathbb{Z}_3$-invariant NMSSM with non-minimal flavour violation, using the recently developed procedure based on the Flavour Expansion Theorem, with which one can perform a purely algebraic mass-insertion expansion of an amplitude written in the mass eigenstate basis without performing any diagrammatic calculations in the interaction/flavour basis. Specifically, we consider the finite orders of mass insertions for neutralinos but the general orders for squarks and charginos, under two sets of assumptions for the squark flavour structures (\textit{i.e.}, while the flavour-conserving off-diagonal element $\delta_{33}^\text{LR}$ is kept in both of these two sectors, only the flavour-violating off-diagonal elements $\delta_{23}^\text{LL}$ and $\delta_{i3}^\text{RR}$ ($i=1,2$) are kept in the \text{LL} and \text{RR} sectors, respectively). Our analytic results are then expressed directly in terms of the initial Lagrangian parameters in the interaction/flavour basis, making it easy to impose the experimental bounds on them. It is found numerically that the NMSSM effects with the above two assumptions for the squark flavour structures can accommodate the observed deviation for $\Delta M_{s(d)}$, while complying with the experimental constraints from the branching ratios of $B_s\to \mu^+ \mu^-$ and $B\to X_s\gamma$ decays., Comment: 48 pages, 7 figures, and 2 tables; More discussions and references added, final version to be published in JHEP