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At least 1,225 records · Page 68

Dark matter or regular matter in neutron stars? How to tell the difference from the coalescence of compact objects

The mirror twin Higgs model is a candidate for (strongly-interacting) complex dark matter, which mirrors SM interactions with heavier quark masses. A consequence of this model are mirror neutron stars—exotic stars made entirely of mirror matter, which are significantly smaller than neutron stars and electromagnetically dark. This makes mergers of two mirror neutron stars detectable and distinguishable in gravitational wave observations, but can we observationally distinguish between regular neutron stars and those that may contain some mirror matter? This is the question we study in this paper, focusing on two possible realizations of mirror matter coupled to standard model matter within a compact object: (i) mirror matter captured by a neutron star and (ii) mirror neutron star-neutron star coalescences. Regarding (i), here we find that (nonrotating) mirror-matter-admixed neutron stars no longer have a single mass-radius sequence, but rather exist in a two-dimensional mass-radius plane. Regarding (ii), we find that binary systems with mirror neutron stars would span a much wider range of chirp masses and completely different binary Love relations, allowing merger remnants to be very light black holes. The implications of this are that gravitational wave observations with advanced LIGO and Virgo, and x-ray observations with NICER, could detect or constrain the existence of mirror matter through searches with wider model and parameter priors.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Operator product expansion for radial lattice quantization of 3D ϕ 4 theory

At its critical point, the three-dimensional lattice Ising model is described by a conformal field theory (CFT), the 3D Ising CFT. Instead of carrying out simulations on Euclidean lattices, we use the quantum finite elements method to implement radially quantized critical ϕ 4 theory on simplicial lattices approaching R × S 2 . Computing the four-point function of identical scalars, we demonstrate the power of radial quantization by the accurate determination of the scaling dimensions Δ ε and Δ T as well as ratios of the operator product expansion coefficients f σ σ ε and f σ σ T of the first spin-0 and spin-2 primary operators ε and T of the 3D Ising CFT. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Embedding space approach to Lorentzian CFT amplitudes and causal spherical functions

Conformal field theory in a Minkowski setting is discussed in an embedding space approach, paying special attention to causality constraints for four-point amplitudes. The physics of dilatation and Lorentz boost is emphasized in specifying the noncompact maximal Abelian subgroup of S O ( d , 2 ) . Reduction of a conformal field theory four-point amplitudes as functions of cross ratios is shown to be equivalent to enforcing H bi-invariance, i.e., F ( h g h ′ ) = F ( g ) , with g ∈ S O ( d , 2 ) and H an appropriate subgroup. Causality is imposed by introducing appropriate semigroups. Causal zonal spherical functions are constructed, making contact with Minkowski conformal blocks introduced previously. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Agarwal, Pulkit (ORCID:0000000346581691)↗

Factors influencing quantum evaporation of helium from polar semiconductors from first principles

While there is much indirect evidence for the existence of dark matter (DM), to date it has evaded detection. Current efforts focus on DM masses over ~GeV—to push the sensitivity of DM searches to lower masses, new DM targets and detection schemes are needed. In this work, we focus on the latter—a novel detection scheme recently proposed to detect 10–100 meV phonons in polar target materials. Previous work showed that well-motivated models of DM can interact with polar semiconductors to produce an athermal population of phonons. This new sensing scheme proposes that these phonons then facilitate quantum evaporation of 3 He from a van der Waals film deposited on the target material. However, a fundamental understanding of the underlying process is still unclear, with several uncertainties related to the precise rate of evaporation and how it can be controlled. In this work, we use ab initio density functional theory calculations to compare the adsorption energies of helium atoms on a polar target material, sodium iodide, to understand the underlying evaporation physics. We explore the role of surface termination, monolayer coverage, and elemental species on the rate of He evaporation from the target material. Using this, we discuss the optimal target features for He-evaporation experiments and their range of tunability through chemical and physical modifications such as applied field and surface termination.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Mixed warm dark matter constraints using Milky Way satellite galaxy counts

Warm dark matter has been strongly constrained in recent years as the sole component of dark matter. However, a less-explored alternative is that dark matter consists of a mixture of warm and cold dark matter (MWDM). In this work, we use observations of Milky Way satellite galaxies to constrain MWDM scenarios where the formation of small-scale structure is suppressed either by generic thermal relic warm dark matter or a sterile neutrino produced through the Shi-Fuller mechanism. To achieve this, we model satellite galaxies by combining numerical simulations with semianalytical models for the subhalo population, and use a galaxy-halo connection model to match galaxies onto dark matter subhalos. By comparing the number of satellites predicted by MWDM models to the observed satellite population from the Dark Energy Survey and Pan-STARRS1, we constrain the fraction of warm dark matter, f WDM , as a function of its mass, m WDM . We exclude dark matter being composed entirely of thermal relic warm dark matter with m WDM ≤ 6.6 keV at a posterior ratio of 10 ∶ 1 , consistent with previous works. However, we find that warm dark matter with smaller mass is allowed when mixed with cold dark matter, and that the f WDM constraints strengthen with decreasing m WDM until they plateau at f WDM ≲ 0.45 for m WDM ≲ 1.5 keV . Likewise, in the case of a sterile neutrino with mass of 7 keV produced through the Shi-Fuller mechanism, we exclude a fraction of f ν s ≲ 0.45 , independent of mixing angle. Our results extend constraints on MWDM to a region of parameter space that has been relatively unconstrained with previous analysis.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Precision string phenomenology

Calabi-Yau compactifications of the E 8 × E 8 heterotic string provide a promising route to recovering the four-dimensional particle physics described by the Standard Model. While the topology of the Calabi-Yau space determines the overall matter content in the low-energy effective field theory, further details of the compactification geometry are needed to calculate the normalized physical couplings and masses of elementary particles. In this work, we present numerical computations of physical Yukawa couplings in a number of heterotic models in the standard embedding and demonstrate the existence of natural hierarchies, a coveted feature in string model building. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Berglund, Per (ORCID:0000000316754133)↗

Lorentzian OPE inversion formula: A geometric perspective

We give a new perspective on the Lorentzian operator product expansion inversion formula [S. Caron-Huot, Analyticity in spin in conformal theories, .; D. Simmons-Duffin, D. Stanford, and E. Witten, A spacetime derivation of the Lorentzian OPE inversion formula, .], building on [P. Agarwal , companion paper, Embedding space approach to Lorentzian CFT amplitudes and causal spherical functions, .]. We introduce an “auxiliary” fourpoint function that can be related to the traditionally defined ones via a Radon transform. The Mellin amplitudes associated with this auxiliary function can be shown to be equivalent to the conventional partial wave amplitudes. This has the intuitive geometrical meaning of a generalization of the projection-slice theorem. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Agarwal, Pulkit (ORCID:0000000346581691)↗

Efficient Ground-State Cooling of Large Trapped-Ion Chains with an Electromagnetically-Induced-Transparency Tripod Scheme

Here, we report the electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) cooling of a large trapped 171 Yb + ion chain to the quantum ground state. Unlike conventional EIT cooling, we engage a four-level tripod structure and achieve fast sub-Doppler cooling over all motional modes. We observe simultaneous ground-state cooling across the complete transverse mode spectrum of up to 40 ions, occupying a bandwidth of over 3 MHz. The cooling time is observed to be less than 300 μ s , independent of the number of ions. Such efficient cooling across the entire spectrum is essential for high-fidelity quantum operations using trapped ion crystals for quantum simulators or quantum computers.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Neutron Star Equation of State in Light of GW190814

The observation of gravitational waves from an asymmetric binary opens the possibility for heavy neutron stars, but these pose challenges to models of the neutron star equation of state. Here, we construct heavy neutron stars by introducing nontrivial structure in the speed of sound sourced by deconfined QCD matter, which cannot be well recovered by spectral representations. Their moment of inertia, Love number, and quadrupole moment are very small, so a tenfold increase in sensitivity may be needed to test this possibility with gravitational waves, which is feasible with third generation detectors.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Phonon-Assisted Ballistic Current from First-Principles Calculations

The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) refers to current generation due to illumination by light in a homogeneous bulk material lacking inversion symmetry. In addition to the intensively studied shift current, the ballistic current, which originates from asymmetric carrier generation due to scattering processes, also constitutes an important contribution to the overall kinetic model of the BPVE. In this Letter, we use a perturbative approach to derive a formula for the ballistic current resulting from the intrinsic electron-phonon scattering in a form amenable to first-principles calculation. We then implement the theory and calculate the ballistic current of the prototypical BPVE material BaTiO 3 using quantum-mechanical density functional theory. The magnitude of the ballistic current is comparable to that of the shift current, and the total spectrum (shift plus ballistic) agrees well with the experimentally measured photocurrents. Furthermore, we show that the ballistic current is sensitive to structural change, which could benefit future photovoltaic materials design.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Charge Density Waves and Electronic Properties of Superconducting Kagome Metals

We report that kagome metals AV 3 Sb 5 (A = K, Rb, and Cs) exhibit intriguing superconductivity below 0.9 ~ 2.5 K, a charge density wave (CDW) transition around 80 ~ 100 K, and $\mathbb{Z}$ 2 topological surface states. The nature of the CDW phase and its relation to superconductivity remains elusive. In this work, we investigate the electronic and structural properties of CDW by first-principles calculations. We reveal an inverse Star of David deformation as the 2 x 2 x 2 CDW ground state of the kagome lattice. The kagome lattice shows softening breathing-phonon modes, indicating the structural instability. However, electrons play an essential role in the CDW transition via Fermi surface nesting and van Hove singularity. The inverse Star of David structure agrees with recent experiments by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The CDW phase inherits the nontrivial $\mathbb{Z}$ 2 -type topological band structure. Further, we find that the electron-phonon coupling is too weak to account for the superconductivity T c in all three materials. It implies the existence of unconventional pairing of these kagome metals. Our results provide essential knowledge toward understanding the superconductivity and topology in kagome metals.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Urca Cooling in Neutron Star Crusts and Oceans: Effects of Nuclear Excitations

We report the excited-state structure of atomic nuclei can modify nuclear processes in stellar environments. In this Letter, we study the influence of nuclear excitations on Urca cooling (repeated back-and-forth β decay and electron capture in a pair of nuclear isotopes) in the crust and ocean of neutron stars. We provide for the first time an expression for Urca process neutrino luminosity which accounts for a thermal Boltzmann distribution of excited states in both members of an Urca pair. We use our new formula with state-of-the-art nuclear structure inputs to compute neutrino luminosities of candidate Urca cooling pairs. Our nuclear inputs consist of the latest experimental data supplemented with calculations using the projected shell model. We show that, in contrast to previous results that only consider the ground states of both nuclei in the pair, our calculated neutrino luminosities for different Urca pairs vary sensitively with the environment temperature and can be radically different from those obtained in the one-transition approximation. We find that nuclear excitations can lead to an enhancement in total Urca neutrino luminosities in the accreted neutron star crust by about 5 times as compared with the previous Urca results, which is expected to cause significant observational effects.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

From Hydrodynamics to Jet Quenching, Coalescence, and Hadron Cascade: A Coupled Approach to Solving the $R_{AA}Ⓧv_{2}$ Puzzle

Hydrodynamics and jet quenching are responsible for the elliptic flow $v_{2}$ and suppression of large transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) hadrons, respectively, two of the most important phenomena leading to the discovery of a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. A consistent description of the hadron suppression factor $R_{AA}$ and $v_{2}$, especially at intermediate $p_{T}$, however, remains a challenge. We solve this long-standing $R_{AA}Ⓧv_{2}$ puzzle by including quark coalescence for hadronization and final state hadron cascade in the coupled linear Boltzmann transport-hydro model that combines concurrent jet transport and hydrodynamic evolution of the bulk medium. We illustrate that quark coalescence and hadron cascade, two keys to solving the puzzle, also lead to a splitting of $v_{2}$ for pions, kaons, and protons in the intermediate $p_{T}$ region. We demonstrate for the first time that experimental data on $R_{AA}, v_{2}$, and their hadron flavor dependence from low to intermediate and high $p_{T}$ in high-energy heavy-ion collisions can be understood within this coupled framework.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Finding Structure in the Speed of Sound of Supranuclear Matter from Binary Love Relations

Analyses that connect observations of neutron stars with nuclear-matter properties can rely on equation-of-state insensitive relations. We show that the slope of the binary Love relations (between the tidal deformabilities of binary neutron stars) encodes the baryon density at which the speed of sound rapidly changes. Twin stars lead to relations that present a signature “hill,” “drop,” and “swoosh” due to the second (mass-radius) stable branch, requiring a new description of the binary Love relations. Together, these features can reveal new properties and phases of nuclear matter.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Direct Observation of Enhanced Electron-Phonon Coupling in Copper Nanoparticles in the Warm-Dense Matter Regime

Warm-dense matter (WDM) is a highly-excited state that lies at the confluence of solids, plasmas, and liquids and that cannot be described by equilibrium theories. The transient nature of this state when created in a laboratory, as well as the difficulties in probing the strongly-coupled interactions between the electrons and the ions, make it challenging to develop a complete understanding of matter in this regime. Here in this work, by exciting isolated ~8 nm nanoparticles with a femtosecond laser below the ablation threshold, we create uniformly-excited WDM. We then use photoelectron spectroscopy to track the instantaneous electron temperature and directly extract the strongest electron-ion coupling observed experimentally to date. By directly comparing with state-of-the-art theories, we confirm that the superheated nanoparticles lie at the boundary between hot solids and plasmas, with associated strong electron-ion coupling. This is evidenced both by the fast energy loss of electrons to ions, as well as a strong modulation of the electron temperature by acoustic oscillations in the nanoparticle. This work demonstrates a new route for experimental exploration and theoretical validation of the exotic properties of WDM.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗