The ADAMOS (Axion Daily Modulation Searches) project aims to explore the nature of dark matter (DM) through a novel axion haloscope experiment. We propose to construct a fixed-frequency cavity resonator operating at 20 GHz at the University of Hamburg, using an innovative "thin-shell" design that preserves a large detection volume at high frequencies. The experiment will be installed in an existing 14 T superconducting magnet and connected to a highly sensitive RF chain with continuous in situ calibration to eliminate temperature-dependent gain drifts, constituting an essential improvement based on lessons learned from previous attempts. ADAMOS will conduct simultaneous searches for three classes of axion signals: (1) conventional cold DM axions, (2) relativistic axions from axion quark nugget annihilations exhibiting daily modulations, and (3) transient enhancements from streaming DM. By targeting this unexplored frequency regime with a robust, calibrated, and versatile setup, ADAMOS will open new discovery channels in a previously unexplored region of the dark sector.

A search for charged lepton flavour violation in $\tau \to 3\mu$ decays is performed in $pp$ collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV using ATLAS data collected between 2016 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 $\text{fb}^{-1}$. The search focuses on the electroweak $W \to \tau\nu$ production channel. Data are collected using two-muon and three-muon triggers and a multivariate analysis is used to separate the signal from the background. An unbinned likelihood fit is then performed to the resulting three-muon invariant mass spectrum and the data are found to be compatible with the background-only hypothesis. The observed (expected) limit on the branching ratio $B(\tau\to3\mu)$ is found to be $8.7\times 10^{-8}$ ($7.5\times 10^{-8}$) at $90\%$ CL.

Accurate clustering of electromagnetic energy deposits is essential for reconstructing photons and electrons in modern hadron collider experiments, where boosted topologies and pileup cause overlapping showers and ambiguous energy assignment. We present deep learning-based clustering approaches that reconstruct particle energy and position directly from calorimeter readout. The study includes a two-step strategy in which candidate seed windows are identified and then jointly processed via distance-weighted message passing or attention mechanism and a single-step graph transformer, ClusTEX, which performs candidate selection and reconstruction in one inference stage. ClusTEX uses a novel positional encoding scheme that separates local coordinates within the graph from global detector coordinates, enabling efficient, geometry-aware inference. Models are trained on GEANT4 simulations of a simplified (toy) and an ECAL-inspired topology with an explicit $\eta-\phi$ dependence. Performance is evaluated using efficiency, energy and position resolutions and splitting rate - reconstruction of two objects for a single photon. In the toy calorimeter, attention-based interactions improve the reconstruction of overlapping showers relative to both the standard algorithm and distance-driven message passing, while maintaining performance on isolated photons and reducing splitting without multi-pass inference. For boosted $\pi^0\to\gamma\gamma$, the attention-based model retains di-photon mass reconstruction capability, where the standard algorithm becomes inefficient. In the ECAL-inspired topology, ClusTEX provides the best overall performance, yielding improved energy resolution and reduced splitting compared to two-step approaches and the standard algorithm. It also remains robust under localized detector failures, showing improved stability and partial recovery of energy in non-responsive channels.

We report the first observation of the decay $D_s^+ \to \pi^+\pi^0\pi^0\eta$ in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 7.33 fb$^{-1}$, collected in $e^+e^-$ collisions by the BESIII detector at center-of-mass energies between 4.128 and 4.226 GeV. An unexpectedly large branching fraction $\mathcal{B}( D_s^+ \to a_0(980)^+ f_0(500), a_0(980)^+ \to \pi^+\eta, f_0(500)\to \pi^0\pi^0) = (0.98 \pm 0.16_{\rm{stat.}} \pm 0.22_{\rm{syst.}})\%$ is measured with a significance exceeding $10\sigma$, offering new constraints on the internal structure of light scalar mesons. The dominant intermediate process is $D_s^+ \to a_1(1260)^+\eta, a_1(1260)^+\to \rho(770)^+\pi^0$ with a branching fraction of $(1.77 \pm 0.21_{\rm stat.} \pm 0.12_{\rm syst.})\%$. The isospin symmetry has been validated to the decays of $a_1(1260)^+\to \rho(770)^0\pi^+$ and $a_1(1260)^+\to \rho(770)^+\pi^0$. Moreover, the measured $\mathcal{B}(D_s^+\to \pi^+\pi^0\pi^0\eta|_{\rm{non}-\eta^\prime})=(2.97 \pm 0.23_{\rm stat.} \pm 0.14_{\rm sys.})$ reduces the undetected $D_s^+ \to \eta X$ decay branching fractions to (0.1 $\pm$ 3.1)\%.

A combination of measurements sensitive to anomalous quartic electroweak gauge boson couplings is presented using proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV at the LHC. Contributing analyses include measurements of vector-boson scattering in numerous final states as well as a tri-boson measurement. The combined measurement is used to constrain anomalous electroweak boson quartic self-couplings that result from dimension-8 operators in the Éboli model using an effective field theory. Results are presented as 68% and 95% confidence level intervals parameterised by one or two Wilson coefficients, both with and without unitarity constraints applied. Theoretical bounds from unitarity and positivity are overlaid where relevant. Confidence intervals obtained from simultaneous profiled fits to all Wilson coefficients are also presented.

This article reports the measurement of the transverse-momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) differential production cross section of B$^0$ mesons in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13.6$ TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN LHC. For the first time, the B$^0$ production cross section is measured at midrapidity ($|y|<0.5$) down to $p_{\rm T}=1~\mathrm{GeV}/c$ at LHC energies. The B$^0$ mesons and their charge conjugates were reconstructed via the B$^{0}\to$D$^{-}\pi^+$ decay channel, followed by the D$^-\to$K$^+\pi^-\pi^-$ decay. The measured $p_{\rm T}$-differential production cross section is described within uncertainties by state-of-the-art models based on perturbative quantum-chromodynamics calculations. Its rapidity dependence is also studied by computing the $p_{\rm T}$-differential ratios between the ALICE measurement and the one of B$^+$ mesons performed by the LHCb Collaboration at forward rapidity. The B$^0$ production cross section per unit of rapidity at midrapidity is ${\rm d}\sigma({\rm B^0})/{\rm d} y|_{|y|<0.5} = 24.2 \pm 1.4~(\text{stat.}) \pm 2.6~(\text{syst.})_{-0.3}^{+0.2}~(\text{extrap.})~\mu{\rm b}$.

The meV mass range has emerged as a focal point in axion physics, where advances in theory, cosmology, astrophysics, and experimental techniques converge. Axions in this mass range are theoretically well motivated, can arise in ultraviolet-complete models, and can have significant cosmological impacts as dark matter or dark radiation. In parallel, their efficient production in stellar and supernova environments provides powerful astrophysical probes. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of meV axions across these domains, highlighting both established results and open questions. We discuss the theoretical underpinnings of meV axions, their cosmological and astrophysical signatures, and the diverse experimental strategies -- ranging from helioscopes and haloscopes to quasiparticle systems and large-volume Cherenkov detectors -- that aim to explore this regime. The convergence of these approaches emphasizes the pivotal role of the meV mass range for axion discovery in the coming years, identifying meV axions as a key probe for testing beyond-Standard-Model physics. This review document is the direct outcome of the discussions at the dedicated workshop "The meV Mass Axion Frontier: Challenges and Opportunities", held at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (IT) on 27--28 October 2025, and organized by the EU funded COST Action "Cosmic WISPers in the Dark Universe: Theory, astrophysics, and experiments" (CA21106, this https URL). Its aim is to provide an overview of current efforts in meV axion research, their motivations, and the research goals that animate the community involved in this search.

We present the first lattice QCD determination of the $\Xi_b \to \Xi$ vector, axial-vector, and tensor form factors, which are relevant for the theory of rare decays including $\Xi_b \to \Xi \ell^+\ell^-$ and $\Xi_b \to \Xi \gamma$. The calculation is performed with 2+1 flavors of domain-wall fermions at three different lattice spacings and pion masses in the range from approximately 430 to 230 MeV. The bottom quark is implemented using an anisotropic clover action. Three-point functions with a wide range of source-sink separations and model averaging are used to extract the ground-state contributions. We fit the dependence of the form factors on the momentum transfer, the pion mass, and the lattice spacing using modified $z$ expansions that account for subthreshold branch cuts, and apply dispersive bounds and asymptotic-behavior constraints to achieve controlled uncertainties in the full semileptonic kinematic region. Using our form factor results, we present Standard-Model predictions for the $\Xi_b^- \to \Xi^- \gamma$ and $\Xi_b^- \to \Xi^- \mu^+\mu^-$ branching fractions and two angular observables.

The Higgs boson decay to massive bottom quarks has the largest branching ratio. The decay is mainly induced by the bottom-quark Yukawa coupling with the decay rate calculated up to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^4)$ assuming the massless final-state bottom quark. The top-quark Yukawa coupling induced contribution starts at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^2)$, and exhibits logarithmic and power enhancements, making the perturbative expansion converge slowly. We present a calculation of such contributions at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^4)$ to the decay into massive bottom quarks in which the squared amplitudes contain two top-quark Yukawa couplings. We find that they increase the decay width, relative to the result up to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^3)$, by $0.4\%$, larger than the experimental precision at future lepton colliders, and reduce the scale dependence significantly down to $0.4\%$.

We present our recent investigation on doubly bottom and bottom-strange tetraquarks in the isoscalar channel in search of a possible tetraquark bound state. The calculations are performed on four ensembles with dynamical quark fields up to the charm quark generated by the MILC Collaboration with various lattice spacings. Two volumes have been used to account for finite volume effects. Overlap action has been employed to calculate light and strange quark propagators and NRQCD formulation is utilized for heavy bottom quarks. Finite volume energy has been calculated using the variational method followed by rigorous scattering amplitude analysis à la Lüscher. We find strong evidence for a deeply bound state in the doubly bottom tetraquark channel, but no conclusive evidence for the existence of a bottom-strange tetraquark.

Finite Feynman integrals have been advocated as the optimal components for constructing a basis of master integrals in multiloop calculations, due to their improved analytic and numerical properties. In this paper, we show how the Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) is particularly well suited for systematically identifying finite integrals, as it makes the origin of infrared and threshold singularities fully transparent at the integrand level. This clear separation of singular and non-singular contributions enables a more efficient strategy for isolating and promoting finite integrals, thereby streamlining both reduction and numerical evaluation. We present a new strategy based on numerator and raised propagator Ansätze that provides results similar to other methods, although in a clearer and compact way. While this construction and other approaches establish a robust foundation, they often produce integrands that exhibit a rapid growth in the ultraviolet (UV) regime. To mitigate this bad UV behaviour, we introduce a generalized set of integrands fully defined within LTD. This new set is inherently infrared-finite and frequently free of threshold singularities, offering a more versatile framework for high-order calculations.

We study the performance of the Particle Transformer (ParT) for jet flavor tagging using ILD full simulation events (1M jets) as well as fast simulation samples (10M and 1M jets). We perform 3-category ($b/c/d$), 6-category ($b/c/d/u/s/g$), and 11-category trainings (including quark--antiquark separation), incorporating multivariate hadron particle identification information from $dE/dx$ and time-of-flight. For $b$/$c$ tagging, we observe a factor of 5--10 improvement over previous BDT-based taggers, and we obtain reasonable performance for strange tagging and quark/antiquark separation. The 10M-jet fast simulation study indicates that further gains are possible with higher training statistics.

The color-octet (CO) mechanism is a cornerstone of non-relativistic QCD, yet its long-distance matrix elements remain limited, preventing stringent tests of the theory. We demonstrate that the Artru-Collins asymmetry in hadronic decays of the $P$-wave bottomonium state $\chi_{b2}$ provides a direct probe of CO dynamics. The asymmetry arises exclusively from the CO decay channel, whereas the color-singlet (CS) contribution affects only the unpolarized rate, so that a nonzero signal constitutes unambiguous evidence of the CO mechanism. This observable provides a novel way to extract the ratio $\rho_8$ between CO and CS matrix elements. Focusing on $e^+e^-\to\Upsilon(2S)\to\gamma\,\chi_{b2}$ at Belle, we show that the asymmetric beam configuration preserves the asymmetry in the laboratory frame and avoids the strong suppression present in the center-of-mass frame. With the Belle II dataset, $\rho_8$ could be determined with sufficient precision to address the long-standing discrepancy between the lattice calculations and phenomenological determinations.

In this talk, we present novel methods to investigate light-quark dipole interactions at colliders. Our approach includes: (1) measuring azimuthal asymmetries of a collinear dihadron in semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton scattering off an unpolarized proton target at the Electron-Ion Collider, and (2) utilizing azimuthal asymmetries of dihadron $(h_1 h_2)$ produced in association with an additional hadron $h^\prime$ at lepton colliders. These asymmetries provide a unique means to observe transversely polarized quarks, which arise from quantum interference and are exclusively sensitive to dipole interactions at the leading power of the new physics scale. Consequently, they exhibit a linear dependence on the dipole couplings, free from contamination by other new physics effects. This approach has the potential to significantly strengthen current constraints by one to two orders of magnitude. By combining all possible channels of $h^\prime$, this novel approach enables the disentanglement of the up- and down-quark dipole moments. Additionally, by controlling the electron's longitudinal polarization and the center-of-mass energy, it separates the contributions mediated by photon and weak boson. Furthermore, it allows for a simultaneous determination of both real and imaginary parts of the dipole couplings, offering a new avenue for investigating potential $CP$-violating effects at high energies.

We investigate the impact of phenomenological prescriptions in the Collins-Soper-Sterman (CSS) approach for global extractions of Transverse Momentum Distributions (TMDs). We show that fits to low-energy Drell-Yan data with different choices of $b_*$ prescription yield equally good agreement with data and similar TMDs at small partonic transverse momentum. In contrast, sizable differences emerge at intermediate transverse momentum region, significantly affecting the predictions for high-energy Drell-Yan processes. Our results demonstrate that the $b_*$ prescription represents an intrinsic source of theoretical uncertainty in the CSS approach, introducing systematic effects that influence TMD extractions and their interpretation. At the same time, our analysis emphasizes the interplay between data at different energy scales in assessing the effect of phenomenological prescriptions in TMD fits adopting the CSS framework.

We systematically investigate the electromagnetic properties of exotic states whose internal structures remain uncertain and for which different models have been proposed. In this work, we focus on the magnetic dipole moments of hidden-charm pentaquark states using QCD light-cone sum rules with four distinct interpolating currents. The analysis accounts for contributions from both light and charm quark sectors, as well as higher-dimensional operators, ensuring convergence of the operator product expansion and dominance of the ground-state pole. Our results demonstrate a strong dependence of the magnetic moments on the internal quark configurations and spin alignments, revealing substantial variations among the different currents despite identical quark content and quantum numbers. Comparisons with existing studies indicate that while molecular-type predictions show general agreement, compact configurations yield markedly different values, including significant differences in sign and magnitude. These findings therefore underscore the sensitivity of electromagnetic observables to the internal structure of exotic hadrons and highlight their potential as probes to discriminate between competing structural models for spin-parity assignments and underlying quark dynamics.

We present a comprehensive global analysis of Energy-Energy Correlation (EEC) data in electron-positron annihilation into hadrons, spanning a wide range of center-of-mass energies ($7.7\,\,\text{GeV}\!\leq\!\sqrt{s}\!\leq\! 91.2\,\,\text{GeV})$. In the back-to-back (two-jet) region, we resum to all orders the logarithmically-enhanced contributions up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (N$^3$LL) accuracy. The resummed results are consistently matched to fixed-order calculations up to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_S^3)$. Our resummation formalism also incorporates dominant heavy-quark mass effects and models non-perturbative power corrections by means of an analytic dispersive approach. A simultaneous fit yields an excellent description of experimental data across all energies, enabling a precise determination of the strong coupling, $\alpha_S(m_Z^2) = 0.119 \pm 0.002$, as well as the non-perturbative parameters, including those characterizing the Collins--Soper evolution kernel. Our analysis includes, for the first time in a global fit, datasets from the ALEPH and AMY collaborations.

We report measurements of the ratios of branching fractions ${\cal R}(D^{(*)+}) = \frac{{\cal B}(\overline{B}{}^0 \to D^{(*)+} \,\tau^- \, \overline{\nu}_\tau)}{{\cal B}(\overline{B}{}^0 \to D^{(*)+} \, \ell^- \, \overline{\nu}_\ell)}$, where $\ell$ denotes either an electron or a muon. These ratios test the universality of the charged-current weak interaction. The results are based on a $365\, \mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ data sample collected with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB $e^+e^-$ collider, which operates at a center-of-mass energy corresponding to the $\Upsilon(4S)$ resonance, just above the threshold for $B\overline{B}{}$ production. Signal candidates are reconstructed by selecting events in which the companion $B$ meson from the $\Upsilon(4S) \to B\overline{B}{}$ decay is identified in semileptonic modes. The $\tau$ lepton is reconstructed via its leptonic decays. We obtain ${\cal R}(D^+) = 0.418 \pm 0.074 ~({\mathrm{stat}}) \pm 0.051 ~({\mathrm{syst}})$ and ${\cal R}(D^{*+}) = 0.306 \pm 0.034 ~({\mathrm{stat}}) \pm 0.018 ~({\mathrm{syst}})$, which are consistent with world average values. Accounting for the correlation between them, these values differ from the Standard Model expectation by a collective significance of $1.7$ standard deviations.

In this paper, we present a first quantitative test of detected light signals produced in a pulsed neutron source run in a small vertical drift LArTPC at the CERN neutrino platform ColdBox test facility. The ColdBox cryostat, detectors, neutron sources, and particle interactions are modeled and simulated using Fluka. A good agreement is found in the detected number of photoelectrons, with values below 650 photoelectrons in both data and simulation, for all four X-ARAPUCA photodetectors on the cathode in the LArTPC. A time constant is also fitted from the neutron-beam-off light signal spectrum and found consistent between data and MC. Several important systematic effects are discussed and serve as guides for future runs at larger LArTPCs.

This study employs QCD sum rules to predict the masses and residues of spin-$\frac {3}{2} $ doubly heavy baryons including two heavy quarks (c and/or b) and one light quark, specifically focusing on $ \Xi_{cc}^*$, $ \Xi_{bc}^*$, $ \Xi_{bb}^*$, $ \Omega_{cc}^*$, $ \Omega_{bc}^*$ and $ \Omega_{bb}^*$. Our study provides results for the ground state ($1S$), first orbital excitation ($1P$), and the first radial excitation ($2S$), within a consistent theoretical framework. In addition to mass spectra, we provide residue calculations as well. The calculated residues are essential for estimating the decay widths and branching ratios of these baryons at different decay channels. Our analysis incorporates nonperturbative QCD effects through operators up to dimension ten, leading to improved precision in the mass and residue calculations. These predictions offer crucial guidance for ongoing and future experimental searches, particularly in light of the current lack of empirical data for the ground and excited states, and provide a basis for comparison with future experimental data.

Transfer learning (TL) is used to extrapolate the physics information encoded in a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) trained on synthetic neutrino-carbon inclusive scattering data to related processes such as neutrino-argon and antineutrino-carbon interactions. We investigate how much of the underlying lepton-nucleus dynamics is shared across different targets and processes. We also assess the effectiveness of TL when training data is obtained from a different neutrino-nucleus interaction model. Our results show that TL not only reproduces key features of lepton kinematics, including the quasielastic and $\Delta$-resonance peaks, but also significantly outperforms generative models trained from scratch. Using data sets of 10,000 and 100,000 events, we find that TL maintains high accuracy even with limited statistics. Our findings demonstrate that TL provides a well-motivated and efficient framework for modeling (anti)neutrino-nucleus interactions and for constructing next-generation neutrino-scattering event generators, particularly valuable when experimental data are sparse.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment aims to detect rare interactions between dark matter particles and xenon. Although the detector is designed to be the most sensitive to GeV/$c^2$--TeV/$c^2$ Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), it is also capable of measuring low-energy ionization signals down to a single electron that may be produced by scatters of sub-GeV/$c^2$ dark matter. The major challenge in exploiting this sensitivity is to understand and suppress the ionization background in the few-electron regime. We report a characterization of the delayed electron backgrounds following energy depositions in the LZ detector under different detector conditions. In addition, we quantify the probability for photons to be emitted in coincidence with electron emission from the high voltage grids. We then demonstrate that spontaneous grid electron emission can be identified and rejected with a high efficiency using a coincident photon tag, which provides a tool to improve the sensitivity of future dark matter searches.

We introduce optimal transport (OT) as a physics-based intermediate event representation for weakly supervised anomaly detection. With only $0.5\%$ injection of resonant signals in the LHC Olympics benchmark datasets, the OT-augmented feature set achieves nearly twice the significance improvement of standard high-level observables provided in the benchmark, while end-to-end deep learning on low-level four-momenta struggles in the low-signal regime. The gains persist across signal types and classifiers, underscoring the value of structured representations in machine learning for anomaly detection.

A hybrid dual-readout calorimeter concept, comprising both electromagnetic and hadronic sections, has recently been proposed to meet the performance requirements of experiments at future e$^{+}$e$^{-}$ colliders. The front compartment consists of a homogeneous electromagnetic calorimeter made of high-density crystals, each coupled to a pair of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) providing the simultaneous readout of scintillation and Cherenkov light. To efficiently detect Cherenkov photons in the presence of dominant scintillation signals, an optical filter is placed in front of one of the two SiPMs to suppress photons in the wavelength region corresponding to that of scintillation emission. In this study, PWO, BGO, and BSO crystals with different dimensions were tested to measure their scintillation light yield and decay time, as well as their transmission and emission spectra. A set of $\sim 100~\rm \mu m$-thick optical filters was also characterized by measuring their transmittance curves. The experimental results were used to model and estimate the expected filter performance in attenuating scintillation light for the various crystals. The performance of each filter was experimentally validated by measuring the crystal light output with and without the filter using a $^{22}$Na radioactive source and a LYSO:Ce crystal, confirming the accuracy of the calculations. The results show that interference filters are unsuitable for this application because their transmittance strongly depends on the photon incidence angle. Conversely, two absorptive long-pass filters with cutoff wavelengths around 590 nm were found to block more than 99% of the scintillation light from PWO crystals, satisfying the calorimeter specifications.