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1. First Measurement of ${\nu }_e$ and ${\nu }_{\mu }$ Interaction Cross Sections at the LHC with FASER’s Emulsion Detector

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.021802  

   Abraham, Roshan Mammen; Anders, John; Antel, Claire; Ariga, Akitaka; Ariga, Tomoko; Atkinson, Jeremy; Bernlochner, Florian U; Boeckh, Tobias; Boyd, Jamie; Brenner, Lydia; et al (July 2024, Physical Review Letters)

   The first results of the study of high-energy electron neutrino ( ${\nu }_e$) and muon neutrino ( ${\nu }_{\mu }$) charged-current interactions in the $\mathrm{FASER}\nu$emulsion-tungsten detector of the FASER experiment at the LHC are presented. A 128.8 kg subset of the $\mathrm{FASER}\nu$volume was analyzed after exposure to $9.5{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$of $\sqrt{s}=13.6\mathrm{TeV}$ $pp$data. Four (eight) ${\nu }_e$( ${\nu }_{\mu }$) interaction candidate events are observed with a statistical significance of $5.2\sigma$( $5.7\sigma$). This is the first direct observation of ${\nu }_e$interactions at a particle collider and includes the highest-energy ${\nu }_e$and ${\nu }_{\mu }$ever detected from an artificial source. The interaction cross section per nucleon $\sigma /E_{\nu }$is measured over an energy range of 560–1740 GeV (520–1760 GeV) for ${\nu }_e$( ${\nu }_{\mu }$) to be $\left({1.2}_{-0.7}^{+0.8}\right)\times {10}^{-38}{\mathrm{cm}}^2{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$[ $(0.5\pm 0.2)\times {10}^{-38}{\mathrm{cm}}^2{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$], consistent with standard model predictions. These are the first measurements of neutrino interaction cross sections in those energy ranges. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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2. Measurement of Energy Correlators inside Jets and Determination of the Strong Coupling ${\alpha }_S\left(m_Z\right)$

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.071903  

   Hayrapetyan, A; Tumasyan, A; Adam, W; Andrejkovic, J W; Bergauer, T; Chatterjee, S; Damanakis, K; Dragicevic, M; Hussain, P S; Jeitler, M; et al (August 2024, Physical Review Letters)

   Energy correlators that describe energy-weighted distances between two or three particles in a hadronic jet are measured using an event sample of $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $36.3{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The measured distributions are consistent with the trends in the simulation that reveal two key features of the strong interaction: confinement and asymptotic freedom. By comparing the ratio of the measured three- and two-particle energy correlator distributions with theoretical calculations that resum collinear emissions at approximate next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy matched to a next-to-leading-order calculation, the strong coupling is determined at the $Z$boson mass: ${\alpha }_S\left(m_Z\right)=0.1229_{-0.0050}^{+0.0040}$, the most precise ${\alpha }_S\left(m_Z\right)$value obtained using jet substructure observables. © 2024 CERN, for the CMS Collaboration2024CERN 

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3. First Search for Dark-Trident Processes Using the MicroBooNE Detector

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.241801  

   Abratenko, P; Alterkait, O; Andrade_Aldana, D; Arellano, L; Asaadi, J; Ashkenazi, A; Balasubramanian, S; Baller, B; Barr, G; Barrow, D; et al (June 2024, Physical Review Letters)

   We present a first search for dark-trident scattering in a neutrino beam using a dataset corresponding to $7.2\times {10}^{20}$protons on target taken with the MicroBooNE detector at Fermilab. Proton interactions in the neutrino target at the main injector produce ${\pi }^0$and $\eta$mesons, which could decay into dark-matter (DM) particles mediated via a dark photon $A^{\prime }$. A convolutional neural network is trained to identify interactions of the DM particles in the liquid-argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) exploiting its imagelike reconstruction capability. In the absence of a DM signal, we provide limits at the 90% confidence level on the squared kinematic mixing parameter ${ϵ}^2$as a function of the dark-photon mass in the range $10\le M_{A^{\prime }}\le 400\mathrm{MeV}$. The limits cover previously unconstrained parameter space for the production of fermion or scalar DM particles $\chi$for two benchmark models with mass ratios $M_{\chi }/M_{A^{\prime }}=0.6$and 2 and for dark fine-structure constants $0.1\le {\alpha }_D\le 1$. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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4. Inhomogeneous energy injection in the 21-cm power spectrum: Sensitivity to dark matter decay

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.043015  

   Sun, Yitian; Foster, Joshua W; Liu, Hongwan; Muñoz, Julian B; Slatyer, Tracy R (February 2025, Physical Review D)

   The 21-cm signal provides a novel avenue to measure the thermal state of the Universe during cosmic dawn and reionization (redshifts $z\sim 5–30$), and thus to probe energy injection from decaying or annihilating dark matter (DM). These DM processes are inherently inhomogeneous: both decay and annihilation are density-dependent, and furthermore, the fraction of injected energy that is deposited at each point depends on the gas ionization and density, leading to further anisotropies in absorption and propagation. In this work, we develop a new framework for modeling the impact of spatially inhomogeneous energy injection and deposition during cosmic dawn, accounting for ionization and baryon density dependence, as well as the attenuation of propagating photons. We showcase how this first completely inhomogeneous treatment affects the predicted 21-cm power spectrum in the presence of exotic sources of energy injection, and forecast the constraints that upcoming HERA measurements of the 21-cm power spectrum will set on DM decays to photons and to electron/positron pairs. These projected constraints considerably surpass those derived from CMB and Lyman- $\alpha$measurements, and for decays to electron/positron pairs they exceed all existing constraints in the sub-GeV mass range, reaching lifetimes of $\sim {10}^{28}\mathrm{s}$. Our analysis demonstrates the unprecedented sensitivity of 21-cm cosmology to exotic sources of energy injection during the cosmic dark ages. Our code, 21cm, includes all these effects and is publicly available in an accompanying release. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

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5. Search for a ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ resonance in four-muon final states at Belle II

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.112015  

   Adachi, I; Adamczyk, K; Aggarwal, L; Ahmed, H; Aihara, H; Akopov, N; Aloisio, A; Anh_Ky, N; Asner, D M; Atmacan, H; et al (June 2024, Physical Review D)

   We report on a search for a resonance $X$decaying to a pair of muons in $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}X$events in the $0.212–9.000\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$mass range, using $178{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$of data collected by the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB collider at a center of mass energy of 10.58 GeV. The analysis probes two different models of $X$beyond the standard model: a $Z^{\prime }$vector boson in the $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$model and a muonphilic scalar. We observe no evidence for a signal and set exclusion limits at the 90% confidence level on the products of cross section and branching fraction for these processes, ranging from 0.046 fb to 0.97 fb for the $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$model and from 0.055 fb to 1.3 fb for the muonphilic scalar model. For masses below $6\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$, the corresponding constraints on the couplings of these processes to the standard model range from 0.0008 to 0.039 for the $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$model and from 0.0018 to 0.040 for the muonphilic scalar model. These are the first constraints on the muonphilic scalar from a dedicated search. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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