Search

The stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) consists of an incoherent collection of waves from both astrophysical and cosmological sources. To distinguish the SGWB from noise, it is essential to verify its quadrupolar nature, exemplified by the cross-correlations among pairs of pulsars within a pulsar timing array, commonly referred to as the Hellings-Downs curve. We extend the concept of quadrupolar correlations to pairs of general gravitational wave detectors, classified by their antenna responses. This study involves space-based missions such as the laser interferometers LISA, Taiji, and TianQin, along with atom interferometers like AEDGE/MAGIS. We calculate modulations in their correlations due to orbital motions and relative orientations, which are characteristic markers for identifying the quadrupolar nature of the SGWB. Our findings identify optimal configurations for these missions, offer forecasts for the time needed to identify the quadrupolar nature of the SGWB, and are applicable to both space-space and space-terrestrial correlations., Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures

AI-based systems possess distinctive characteristics and introduce challenges in quality evaluation at the same time. Consequently, ensuring and validating AI software quality is of critical importance. In this paper, we present an effective AI software functional testing model to address this challenge. Specifically, we first present a comprehensive literature review of previous work, covering key facets of AI software testing processes. We then introduce a 3D classification model to systematically evaluate the image-based text extraction AI function, as well as test coverage criteria and complexity. To evaluate the performance of our proposed AI software quality test, we propose four evaluation metrics to cover different aspects. Finally, based on the proposed framework and defined metrics, a mobile Optical Character Recognition (OCR) case study is presented to demonstrate the framework's effectiveness and capability in assessing AI function quality.

Astrometric surveys offer us a method to search for elusive cosmic signatures, such as ultralight dark photon dark matter and gravitational waves, by observing the deflection to the apparent positions of the stars. The detection capabilities of such surveys rapidly decrease at low frequencies, because the signals become hardly distinguishable from the background motion of stars. In this work, we find that the background motion can be well described by a linear model over time, based on which we propose a linear background subtraction scheme. Compared to the conventional quadratic subtraction, the advantage of linear subtraction emerges within the frequency range below $6 \times 10^{-9}~{\rm Hz}$. Taking dark photons with purely gravitational interactions, dark photons with additional $U(1)_{B}$ or $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge interactions, and low-frequency gravitational waves as examples, we illustrate that the linear subtraction scheme can result in an enhancement of more than one order of magnitude in the exclusion limits of Gaia-like experiments in the low-frequency range., Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, accepted by APJ

We introduce a block encoding method for mapping discrete subgroups to qubits on a quantum computer. This method is applicable to general discrete groups, including crystal-like subgroups such as $\mathbb{BI}$ of $SU(2)$ and $\mathbb{V}$ of $SU(3)$. We detail the construction of primitive gates -- the inversion gate, the group multiplication gate, the trace gate, and the group Fourier gate -- utilizing this encoding method for $\mathbb{BT}$ and for the first time $\mathbb{BI}$ group. We also provide resource estimations to extract the gluon viscosity. The inversion gates for $\mathbb{BT}$ and $\mathbb{BI}$ are benchmarked on the $\texttt{Baiwang}$ quantum computer with estimated fidelities of $40^{+5}_{-4}\%$ and $4^{+5}_{-3}\%$ respectively., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has revolutionized our ability to study black holes by providing unprecedented spatial resolution and unveiling horizon-scale details. With advancements leading to the next-generation EHT, there is potential to probe even deeper into the black hole's dark region, especially the inner shadow characterized by low-intensity foreground emissions from the jet, thanks to a significant enhancement in dynamic range by two orders of magnitude. We demonstrate how such enhanced observations could transform supermassive black holes into powerful probes for detecting annihilating dark matter, which can form a dense profile in the vicinity of supermassive black holes, by examining the morphology of the black hole image., Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, references updated

The recent detection of gravitational waves from a binary merger involving a potential low-mass gap black hole (LMBH) by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration motivates investigations into mechanisms beyond conventional stellar evolution theories to account for their existence. We study a mechanism in which dark matter (DM), through its capture and accumulation inside main sequence stars, induces the formation of black holes within the mass range of $[3, 5]M_\odot$. We examine the distribution of these LMBHs as a function of galaxy halo mass, particularly when paired with neutron stars. This gives a distinct signature that can be tested with future gravitational wave observations. We find that a viable portion of the DM parameter space predicts a merger rate of such binaries consistent with LVK observations., Comment: 8 pages for main text, 7 pages for method, 3 figures

Dark photons, aside from constituting non-relativistic dark matter, can also be generated relativistically through the decay or annihilation of other dark matter candidates, contributing to a galactic dark photon background. The production of dark photons tends to favor specific polarization modes, determined by the microscopic coupling between dark matter and dark photons. We leverage data obtained from previous searches for dark photon dark matter using a superconducting radio-frequency cavity to explore galactic dark photon fluxes. The interplay of anisotropic directions and Earth's rotation introduces a diurnal modulation of signals within the cavities, manifesting distinct variation patterns for longitudinal and transverse modes. Our findings highlight the efficacy of superconducting radio-frequency cavities, characterized by significantly high-quality factors, as powerful telescopes for detecting galactic dark photons, unveiling a novel avenue in the indirect search for dark matter through multi-messenger astronomy., Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures

We simultaneously study gravitational waves (GWs) and free axions emitted from axionic string-wall networks in the early universe using advanced 3D lattice simulations. Our simulations start before the Peccei-Quinn phase transition and end with the destruction of string-wall networks below the QCD scale. The axion dark matter (DM) relic abundance radiated from string-wall networks are updated and refined for the scenarios of $N_{\rm DW}>1$. In this scenario, we observe that the GW spectrum is almost independent of the bias term and $N_{\rm DW}$, and $\Omega_{\rm GW}h^2\propto f^{1.29}(f^{-0.43})$ in the IR and middle-frequency regions. After considering the constraints from DM relic abundance, we found that the QCD axion model predicts undetectable GW emissions, and the axion-like particles model allows for a detectable GW signal in the nano-Hertz to the milli-Hertz frequency range corresponding to axion masses range from KeV to TeV. For $N_{\rm DW}=1$, the GW energy density appears undetectable for QCD axions and axion-like particles., Comment: 7+13 pages; cosmic simulations on axion dark matter are added

Electromagnetic resonant systems, such as cavities or LC circuits, have emerged as powerful detectors for probing ultralight boson dark matter and high-frequency gravitational waves. However, the limited resonant bandwidth of conventional single-mode resonators, imposed by quantum fluctuations, necessitates numerous scan steps to cover broad unexplored frequency regions. The incorporation of multiple auxiliary modes can realize a broadband detector while maintaining a substantial signal response. The broadened sensitive width can be on the same order as the resonant frequency, encompassing several orders of the source frequency for heterodyne detection, where a background cavity mode transitions into another. Consequently, our approach enables significantly deeper exploration of the parameter space within the same integration time compared to single-mode detection., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures

Very recently, several pulsar timing array collaborations, including CPTA, EPTA, and NANOGrav, reported their results from searches for an isotropic stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB), with each finding positive evidence for SGWB. In this work, we assessed the credibility of interpreting the Hellings-Downs correlated free-spectrum process of EPTA, PPTA, and NANOGrav as either the result of supermassive black hole binary mergers or various stochastic SGWB sources that originated in the early Universe, including first-order phase transitions, cosmic strings, domain walls, and large-amplitude curvature perturbations. Our observations show that the current new datasets do not display a strong preference for any specific SGWB source based on Bayesian analysis., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables

Atomic spin-wave (SW) memory is a building block for quantum repeater. However, due to decoherence caused by atomic motions and magnetic-field gradients, SW retrieval efficiency decays with storage time. Slow magnetic-field fluctuations (SMFFs) lead to shot-to-shot phase noises of SWs, but have not been considered in previous repeater protocols. Here, we develop a SW model including a homogeneous phase noise caused by SMFFs, and then reveal that such phase noise induces decoherence of single-excitation entanglement between two atomic ensembles in a repeater link. For verify this conclusion, we experimentally prepare single-excitation entanglement between two SWs in a cold atomic ensemble and observe entanglement decoherence induced by SMFFs. Limited by SMFFs, the evaluated lifetime of the single-excitation entanglement over a repeater link is ~135 ms, even if the link uses optical-lattice atoms as nodes. We then present an approach that may overcome such limitation and extend this lifetime to ~1.7 s., Comment: 31pages,9figures

Dark photons have emerged as promising candidates for dark matter, and their search is a top priority in particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. We report the first use of a tunable niobium superconducting radio-frequency cavity for a scan search of dark photon dark matter with innovative data analysis techniques. We mechanically adjusted the resonant frequency of a cavity submerged in liquid helium at a temperature of $2$ K, and scanned the dark photon mass over a frequency range of $1.37$ MHz centered at $1.3$ GHz. Our study leveraged the superconducting radio-frequency cavity's remarkably high quality factors of approximately $10^{10}$, resulting in the most stringent constraints to date on a substantial portion of the exclusion parameter space on the kinetic mixing coefficient $\epsilon$ between dark photons and electromagnetic photons, yielding a value of $\epsilon < 2.2 \times 10^{-16}$., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in PRL

Ultralight dark photons constitute a well-motivated candidate for dark matter. A coherent electromagnetic wave is expected to be induced by dark photons when coupled with Standard-Model photons through kinetic mixing mechanism, and should be spatially correlated within the de Broglie wavelength of dark photons. Here we report the first search for correlated dark-photon signals using a long-baseline network of 15 atomic magnetometers, which are situated in two separated meter-scale shield rooms with a distance of about 1700 km. Both the network's multiple sensors and the shields large size significantly enhance the expected dark-photon electromagnetic signals, and long-baseline measurements confidently reduce many local noise sources. Using this network, we constrain the kinetic mixing coefficient of dark photon dark matter over the mass range 4.1 feV-2.1 peV, which represents the most stringent constraints derived from any terrestrial experiments operating over the aforementioned mass range. Our prospect indicates that future data releases may go beyond the astrophysical constraints from the cosmic microwave background and the plasma heating., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10~TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work., Comment: 118 pages, 103 figures

We explore the possibility that domain wall networks generate the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) observed as a strong common power-law process in the Data Release-2 of Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. We find that a broad range of parameters, specifically wall tension around $\sigma_{\textrm{DW}} \sim (29-414 , \textrm{TeV})^3$ and wall-decay temperature within $T_d \sim 20-257 , \textrm{MeV}$, can explain this phenomenon at a $68\%$ credible level. Meanwhile, the same parameters could ease the Hubble tension if particles from these domain wall networks decay into dark radiation. We establish a direct analytical relationship, $\Omega_{\textrm{GW}}(f_p,T_0) h^2 \sim \Omega_{\textrm{rad}} h^2 ( \Omega_\nu \Delta N_{\textrm{eff}})^2$, to illustrate this coincidence, underlining its importance in the underlying physics and potential applicability to a wider range of models and data. Conversely, if the common power-law process is not attributed to domain wall networks, our findings impose tight limits on the wall tension and decay temperature., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

We present the explicit construction of the effective field theory (EFT) of standard model mass eigenstates. The EFT, which is invariant under $U(1)_{\text{e.m.}}\times SU(3)_c$, is constructed based on the on-shell method and Young Tableau technique. This EFT serves as a new formulation of the Higgs EFT (HEFT), which can describe the infrared effects of new physics at the electroweak symmetry-breaking phase with greater conciseness. The current HEFT operator basis has a clear physical interpretation, making it more accessible for research in phenomenology. A complete list of HEFT operator bases for any-point vertices up to any dimension could be provided, and three- and four-point bases are provided as examples. Additionally, this framework realized as a Mathematica program can be used to construct the EFT of any type of dark matter or particles with any spin.

We establish a systematic construction of the on-shell amplitude/operator basis for Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) in $D=4$ spacetime dimensions and with an arbitrary number of flavors $N_f$. For kinematic factors, we employ spinor-helicity variables to construct the soft blocks, which are local amplitudes satisfying the Adler's zero condition, as well as to take into account the reduction in the kinematic basis due to the Gram determinant, which arises at $O(p^{10})$ when the number of multiplicity $N$ in an amplitude becomes large: $N>D$. For flavor factors, we include group-theoretic relations at small $N_f$, $N_f\le N$, which decreases the flavor basis. The result is obtained by adapting the Young tensor method of constructing the operator basis for generic effective field theories to the case of non-linearly realized symmetries. Working in the massless quark limit, we present purely mesonic operators for both even- and odd-parity at $O(p^6)$ and $O(p^8)$ for $N=6$ and arbitrary $N_f$, and establish a direct correspondence between the amplitude basis and the operator basis. Furthermore, the redundancy due to the Gram determinant is studied at $O(p^{10})$ for $N=6, 8$ and 10., Comment: 44 pages, 14 tables

An axion cloud surrounding a supermassive black hole can be naturally produced through the superradiance process. Its existence can be examined by the axion induced birefringence effect. It predicts an oscillation of the electric vector position angle of linearly polarized radiations. Stringent constraints of the existence of the axion in a particular mass window has been obtained based on the recent Event Horizon Telescope measurement on M87$^\star$. The future Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations will be able to measure the vicinity of many supermassive black holes, thus it opens the possibility to search for the existence of axions in a wide mass regime. In this paper, we study how different black hole properties and accretion flows influence the signatures of the axion induced birefringence. We include the impacts of black hole inclination angles, spins, magnetic fields, plasma velocity distributions, the thickness of the accretion flows. We pay special attention to characterize the washout effects induced by the finite thickness of the accretion flows and the lensed photons. Based on this study, we give prospects on how to optimize the axion search using future VLBI observations, such as the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope, to further increase the sensitivity., Comment: 36 pages, 13 figures, published version in JCAP

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a large-scale collider facility that can serve as a factory of the Higgs, Z, and W bosons and is upgradable to run at the ttbar threshold. This document describes the latest CEPC nominal operation scenario and particle yields and updates the corresponding physics potential. A new detector concept is also briefly described. This submission is for consideration by the Snowmass process., Comment: Updated author list

We search for stochastic gravitational wave background emitted from cosmic strings using the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array data over 15 years. While we find that the common power-law excess revealed by several pulsar timing array experiments might be accounted for by the gravitational wave background from cosmic strings, the lack of the characteristic Hellings-Downs correlation cannot establish its physical origin yet. The constraints on the cosmic string model parameters are thus derived with conservative assumption that the common power-law excess is due to unknown background. Two representative cosmic string models with different loop distribution functions are considered. We obtain constraints on the dimensionless string tension parameter $G\mu<10^{-11}\sim10^{-10}$, which is more stringent by two orders of magnitude than that obtained by the high-frequency LIGO-Virgo experiment for one model, and less stringent for the other. The results provide the chance to test the Grand unified theories, with the spontaneous symmetry breaking scale of $U(1)$ being two-to-three orders of magnitude below $10^{16}$ GeV. The pulsar timing array experiments are thus quite complementary to the LIGO-Virgo experiment in probing the cosmic strings and the underlying beyond standard model physics in the early Universe., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. Comments welcome

The W Mass determination at the Tevatron CDF experiment reported a deviation from the SM expectation at 7$\sigma$ level. We discuss a few possible interpretations and their collider implications. We perform electroweak global fits under various frameworks and assumptions. We consider three types of electroweak global fits in the effective-field-theory framework: the $S$-$T$, the $S$-$T$-$\delta G_F$, and the eight-parameter flavor-universal one. We discuss the amounts of tensions between different $m_W$ measurements reflected in these fits and the corresponding shifts in central values of these parameters. With these electroweak fit pictures in hand, we present a few different classes of models and discuss their compatibility with these results. We find that while explaining the $m_W$ discrepancy, the single gauge boson extensions face strong LHC direct search constraints unless the $Z'$ is fermiophobic (leptophobic) which can be realized if extra vector fermions (leptons) mix with the SM fermions (leptons). Vector-like top partners can partially generate the needed shift to the electroweak observables. The compatibility with top squark is also studied in detail. We find non-degenerate top squark soft masses enhance the needed operator coefficients, enabling an allowed explanation compatible with current LHC measurements. Overall, more theory and experimental developments are highly in demand to reveal the physics behind this discrepancy., Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures. v2: minor corrections, updated references

Detection of a gravitational-wave signal of non-astrophysical origin would be a landmark discovery, potentially providing a significant clue to some of our most basic, big-picture scientific questions about the Universe. In this white paper, we survey the leading early-Universe mechanisms that may produce a detectable signal -- including inflation, phase transitions, topological defects, as well as primordial black holes -- and highlight the connections to fundamental physics. We review the complementarity with collider searches for new physics, and multimessenger probes of the large-scale structure of the Universe., Comment: contribution to Snowmass 2021; 3 figures, 67 pages