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DOE OSTI2025

Physical interpretation of large Lorentz violation via Weyl semimetals

The physical intepretation of effective field theories of fundamental interactions incorporating large Lorentz violation is a long-standing challenge, known as the concordance problem. In condensed-matter physics, certain Weyl semimetals with emergent Lorentz invariance exhibit large Lorentz violation, thereby offering prospective laboratory analogues for exploration of this issue. We take advantage of the mathematical equivalence between the descriptions of large Lorentz violation in fundamental and condensed-matter physics to investigate the primary aspects of the concordance problem, which arise when the coefficients for Lorentz violation are large or the observer frame is highly boosted. Using thermodynamic arguments, we present a physical solution to the concordance problem and explore some implications.

Lorentz violation↗

DOE OSTI2025

Nonperturbative Lorentz violation and field quantization

Regimes of Lorentz-violating effective field theories are studied in which departures from Lorentz symmetry are nonperturbative. Within a free toy theory exhibiting Lorentz breakdown involving an operator of mass dimension three, it is shown that conventional methods suffice to achieve field quantization and Fock-space construction. However, the absence of an observer-invariant energy-positivity condition requires physical input beyond the free theory for the unambiguous identification of a ground state. An investigation of the role of thermodynamics in this context is instigated.

Ground state↗

DOE OSTI2025

Bounds on Lorentz Violation Parameters in the DUNE Experiment

The Standard Model (SM) has been highly successful in describing fundamental interactions, yet phenomena like neutrino oscillations point to physics beyond its framework. Among the proposed extensions, Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) stands out as a compelling possibility. Long-baseline neutrino experiments such as DUNE, with its 1300 km baseline, offer a promising setting to test LIV effects with high precision. In this work, we evaluate DUNE s sensitivity to LIV by analyzing event rates and oscillation probabilities using the GLoBES framework. A custom implementation of LIV parameters was employed to derive bounds on the aa and cc matrices, identifying the parameter values that lead to a 10% deviation from the standard oscillation probability. Our results show partial agreement with previous studies for the aa parameters, while deviations in the cc parameters highlight the impact of differing methodologies and sensitivities. These findings reinforce the relevance of LIV searches and motivate further theoretical and experimental efforts in this direction.

Cruz, Thiago. [Tech. Fed. Parana U.]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Bounds on Lorentz Invariance Violation from Muon Fluctuations at the Pierre Auger Observatory

Quantum gravity theories often modify spacetime symmetries. In particular, Lorentz invariance may be violated when approaching the Planck scale. Although the scales at which interactions occur in extensive air showers induced by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays in the atmosphere are many orders of magnitude below the Planck scale, these violations might still be observable. In this Letter, the fluctuations in the number of muons in the extensive air showers measured at the Pierre Auger Observatory are exploited, for the first time, to constrain Lorentz invariance violations. The bounds derived in the hadronic sector are the strongest ever obtained, and do not rely on assumptions about the mass composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The fluctuations in the number of muons constitute a new and powerful observable to further explore Lorentz invariance in a region of the parameter space not accessible to other observables.

Abdul Halim, A. [Adelaide U.] (ORCID:0000000312181↗

DOE OSTI2025

Flavor-changing Lorentz and CPT violation in muonic atoms

Flavor-changing signatures of Lorentz and CPT violation involving muon-electron conversions in muonic atoms are studied using effective field theory. Constraints on coefficients for Lorentz violation at parts in 10 -12 GeV −1 for flavor-changing electromagnetic muon decays and parts in 10 -13 GeV −2 for flavor-changing 4-point quark-lepton interactions are extracted using existing data from the SINDRUM II experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Estimates are provided for sensitivities attainable in the forthcoming experiments Mu2e at Fermilab and COMET at the Japan Proton Accelerator Complex.

Alan Kostelecký, V. [Indiana Univ., Bloomington, I↗

DOE OSTI2025

Learning broken symmetries with approximate invariance

Recognizing symmetries in data allows for significant boosts in neural network training, which is especially important where training data are limited. In many cases, however, the exact underlying symmetry is present only in an idealized dataset, and is broken in actual data, due to asymmetries in the detector, or varying response resolution as a function of particle momentum. Standard approaches, such as data augmentation or equivariant networks fail to represent the nature of the full, broken symmetry, effectively overconstraining the response of the neural network. We propose a learning model which balances the generality and asymptotic performance of unconstrained networks with the rapid learning of constrained networks. This is achieved through a dual-subnet structure, where one network is constrained by the symmetry and the other is not, along with a learned symmetry factor. In a simplified toy example that demonstrates violation of Lorentz invariance, our model learns as rapidly as symmetry constrained networks but escapes its performance limitations.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2026

Searches for nonstandard neutrino oscillations at neutrino telescopes with a TeV muon accelerator source

Muon accelerators, a potential technology for enabling O ( 10 TeV ) parton center of mass energy collisions, would also source an intense, collimated beam of neutrinos at TeV energies. The energy and size of this beam would be excellently matched as a source for existing and planned neutrino telescopes: gigaton-sized detectors of astrophysical neutrinos at and above TeV energies. In this paper, we introduce the technical considerations and scientific reach of pairing a muon accelerator source of neutrinos with a neutrino telescope detector, a combination we dub the “Neutrino Kaleidoscope.” In particular, such a pairing would enable searches for non-standard oscillations of the beam neutrinos as they traverse the earth between source and detector. These nonstandard neutrino oscillations could be sourced by Lorentz invariance violation, which a neutrino kaleidoscope could probe up to the Planck scale. Such a search would also have a reach on sterile neutrinos orders of magnitude beyond existing terrestrial limits. Finally, we touch on the nonoscillation physics case for a neutrino kaleidoscope.

Kamp, Nicholas W. [Harvard U.] (ORCID:000000019232↗

DOE OSTI2025

Neutrino Physics at a Muon Collider, and the Neutrino Kaleidoscope

Muon accelerators, a potential technology for enabling O(10 TeV) parton center of mass energy collisions, would also source an intense, collimated beam of neutrinos at TeV energies. There is currently a renewed effort to understand the possible scientific reach of such a neutrino beam in the context of neutrino physics. One possibility is the “Neutrino Kaleidoscope”: the pairing of a muon accelerator neutrino flux with a neutrino telescope detector. In particular, such a pairing would enable searches for non-standard oscillations of the beam neutrinos as they traverse the earth between source and detector. These non-standard neutrino oscillations could be sourced by Lorentz invariance violation, which a neutrino kaleidoscope could probe up to the quantum gravity-motivated Planck scale. Such a search would also have a reach on sterile neutrinos orders of magnitude beyond existing terrestrial limits. In this talk, I will introduce some of the exciting measurements being proposed with the neutrinos from a muon accelerator and then go into detail on the Neutrino Kaleidoscope concept (arxiv:2508.09249).

Putnam, Gray [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Bayesian Fit to NOvA Data Subsamples for Three Flavor Oscillation Analysis

NOvA (NuMI Off-Axis $\nu_e$ Appearance) is a long baseline neutrino experiment designed to measure the oscillation of muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos over a distance of 810 km. NOvA uses a near and far detector to observe $\nu_\mu$ disappearance and $\nu_e$ appearance of neutrinos produced by the NuMI beam at Fermilab. NOvA uses a Bayesian analysis framework in addition to its Frequentist method to measure neutrino oscillation parameters such as the mixing angles, mass ordering, and CP-violating phase. We report preliminary results of Bayesian fits to representative NOvA datasets. Comparison of fits to $\nu_\mu$ disappearance and $\nu_e$ appearance enables a cross-check of NOvA results with reactor $\bar{\nu_e}$ disappearance measurements. NOvA also searches for violation of Lorentz invariance by analyzing fits of forward horn current (FHC) versus reverse horn current (RHC) samples. The results validate and advance NOvA's contributions to precision measurements of neutrino properties.

Zhao, Larry [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2025

Relativistic spin precession in homogeneous background fields

The Bargmann-Michel-Telegdi equation, which describes the precession of the spin of a charged Dirac particle moving in a homogeneous electromagnetic field, is generalized to include also other homogeneous background fields. The treatment incorporates observable coefficients that govern operators of mass dimensions three through six in the underlying Dirac effective field theory. A relativistic formulation valid in arbitrary inertial frames is obtained. The results are applicable to searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model, including searches for Lorentz and CPT violation.

Ding, Yunhua [Ohio Wesleyan Univ., Delaware, OH (U↗

DOE OSTI2025

Optimizing entanglement and Bell inequality violation in top antitop events

A top quark and an antitop quark produced together at colliders have correlated spins. These spins constitute a quantum state that can exhibit entanglement and violate Bell’s inequality. In realistic collider experiments, most analyses allow the axes, as well the Lorentz frame, to vary event by event, thus introducing a dependence on the choice of event-dependent basis leading us to adopt “fictitious states,” rather than genuine quantum states. The basis dependence of fictitious states allows for an optimization procedure, which makes the usage of fictitious states advantageous in measuring entanglement and Bell inequality violation. In this work, we show analytically that the basis that diagonalizes the spin-spin correlations is optimal for maximizing spin correlations, entanglement, and Bell inequality violation. We show that the optimal basis is approximately the same as the fixed beam basis (or the rotated beam basis) near the t t ¯ production threshold, while it approaches the helicity basis far above threshold. Using this basis, we present the sensitivity for entanglement and Bell inequality violation in t t ¯ events at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and a future e + e − collider. Since observing Bell inequality violation appears to be quite challenging experimentally, and requires a large dataset in collider experiments, choosing the optimal basis is crucially important to observe Bell inequality violation. Our method and general approach are equally applicable to other systems beyond t t ¯ , including interactions beyond the Standard Model. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Cheng, Kun (ORCID:0000000249592997)↗

DOE OSTI2024

Effective theory tower for μ → e conversion

We present theoretical predictions for μ → e conversion rates using a tower of effective field theories connecting the UV to nuclear physics scales. The interactions in nuclei are described using a recently developed nonrelativistic effective theory (NRET) that organizes contributions according to bound nucleon and muon velocities, ${\overrightarrow{v}}_N$ and ${\overrightarrow{v}}_μ$, with |${\overrightarrow{v}}_N$| > |${\overrightarrow{v}}_μ$|. To facilitate the top-down matching, we enlarge the set of Lorentz covariant nucleon-level interactions mapped onto the NRET operators to include those mediated by tensor interactions, in addition to the scalar and vector interactions already considered previously, and then match NRET nonperturbatively onto the Weak Effective Theory (WET). At the scale μ ≈ 2 GeV WET is formulated in terms of u, d, s quarks, gluons and photons as the light degrees of freedom, along with the flavor-violating leptonic current. We retain contributions from WET operators up to dimension 7, which requires the full set of 26 NRET operators. The results are encoded in the open-source Python- and Mathematica-based software suite MuonBridge, which we make available to the theoretical and experimental communities interested in μ → e conversion.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Search for charged-lepton flavor violation in the production and decay of top quarks using trilepton final states in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ =13 TeV

A search is performed for charged-lepton flavor violating processes in top quark (𝑡) production and decay. The data were collected by the CMS experiment from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb −1 . The selected events are required to contain one opposite-sign electron-muon pair, a third charged lepton (electron or muon), and at least one jet of which no more than one is associated with a bottom quark. Boosted decision trees are used to distinguish signal from background, exploiting differences in the kinematics of the final states particles. The data are consistent with the standard model expectation. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are placed in the context of effective field theory on the Wilson coefficients, which range between 0.024–0.424 TeV −2 depending on the flavor of the associated light quark and the Lorentz structure of the interaction. These limits are converted to upper limits on branching fractions involving up (charm) quarks, 𝑡 → 𝑒⁢𝜇⁢𝑢 (𝑡 → 𝑒⁢𝜇⁢𝑐), of 0.032⁢(0.498) × 10 −6 , 0.022⁢(0.369) × 10 −6 , and 0.012⁢(0.216) × 10 −6 for tensorlike, vectorlike, and scalarlike interactions, respectively.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗