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1. Solar neutrinos and ${\nu }_2$ visible decays to ${\nu }_1$

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.013003  

   de_Gouvêa, André; Weill, Jean; Sen, Manibrata (January 2024, Physical Review D)

   Experimental bounds on the neutrino lifetime depend on the nature of the neutrinos and the details of the potentially new physics responsible for neutrino decay. In the case where the decays involve active neutrinos in the final state, the neutrino masses also qualitatively impact how these manifest themselves experimentally. In order to further understand the impact of nonzero neutrino masses, we explore how observations of solar neutrinos constrain a very simple toy model. We assume that neutrinos are Dirac fermions and there is a new massless scalar that couples to neutrinos such that a heavy neutrino— ${\nu }_2$with mass $m_2$—can decay into a lighter neutrino— ${\nu }_1$with mass $m_1$—and a massless scalar. We find that the constraints on the new physics coupling depend, sometimes significantly, on the ratio of the daughter-to-parent neutrino masses and that, for large-enough values of the new physics coupling, the “dark side” of the solar neutrino parameter space— ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{12}\sim 0.7$—provides a reasonable fit to solar neutrino data, if only ${}^8\mathrm{B}$or ${}^7\mathrm{Be}$neutrino data alone are considered, but no allowed region is found in the combined analysis. Our results generalize to other neutrino-decay scenarios, including those that mediate ${\nu }_2\to {\nu }_1{\overline{\nu }}_3{\nu }_3$when the neutrino mass ordering is inverted mass and $m_2>m_1\gg m_3$, the mass of ${\nu }_3$. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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2. Anomalies in Hadronic $B$ Decays

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.211802  

   Berthiaume, Raphaël; Bhattacharya, Bhubanjyoti; Boumris, Rida; Jean, Alexandre; Kumbhakar, Suman; London, David (November 2024, Physical Review Letters)

   In this Letter, we perform fits to $B\to PP$decays, where $B=\{B^0,B^{+},B_s^0\}$and the pseudoscalar $P=\{\pi ,K\}$, under the assumption of flavor SU(3) symmetry [ ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$]. Although the fits to $\mathrm{\Delta }S=0$or $\mathrm{\Delta }S=1$decays individually are good, the combined fit is very poor: there is a $3.6\sigma$disagreement with the ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$limit of the standard model ( ${\mathrm{SM}}_{{\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_{\mathrm{F}}}$). One can remove this discrepancy by adding ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$-breaking effects, but 1000% ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$breaking is required. The above results are rigorous, group theoretically—no dynamical assumptions have been made. When one adds an assumption motivated by QCD factorization, the discrepancy with the ${\mathrm{SM}}_{{\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_{\mathrm{F}}}$grows to $4.4\sigma$. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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3. Anomalies in hadronic $B$ decays: An update

   https://doi.org/10.1103/5jp1-7cfw  

   Bhattacharya, Bhubanjyoti; Bouchard, Marianne; Hudy, Luke; Jean, Alexandre; London, David; MacKenzie, Christopher (September 2025, Physical Review D)

   Recently, $B\to PP$decays ( $B=\{B^0,B^{+},B_s^0\}$, $P=\{\pi ,K\}$) were analyzed under the assumption of flavor SU(3) symmetry ( ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$). Although the individual fits to $\mathrm{\Delta }S=0$or $\mathrm{\Delta }S=1$decays are good, it was found that the combined fit is very poor: there is a $3.6\sigma$disagreement with the ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$limit of the standard model ( ${\mathrm{SM}}_{{\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F}$). One can remove this discrepancy by adding ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$-breaking effects, but 1000% ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$breaking is required. In this paper, we extend this analysis to include decays in which there is an $\eta$and/or ${\eta }^{\prime }$meson in the final state. We now find that the combined fit exhibits a $4.1\sigma$discrepancy with the ${\mathrm{SM}}_{{\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F}$, and 1000% ${\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F$-breaking effects are still required to explain the data. These results are rigorous, group-theoretically—no theoretical assumptions have been made. But when one adds some theoretical input motivated by QCD factorization, the discrepancy with the ${\mathrm{SM}}_{{\mathrm{SU}\left(3\right)}_F}$grows to $4.9\sigma$. 

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4. Low leakage current in heteroepitaxial ${\mathrm{Al}}_{0.7}{\mathrm{Sc}}_{0.3}\mathrm{N}$ ferroelectric films on $\mathrm{Ga}\mathrm{N}$

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.23.014036  

   Yazawa, Keisuke; Evans, Charles; Dickey, Elizabeth C; Tellekamp, M Brooks; Brennecka, Geoff L; Zakutayev, Andriy (January 2025, Physical Review Applied)

   Wurtzite $(\mathrm{Al},\mathrm{Sc})\mathrm{N}$ferroelectrics are attractive for microelectronics applications due to their chemical and structural compatibility with wurtzite semiconductors, such as $\mathrm{Ga}\mathrm{N}$and $(\mathrm{Al},\mathrm{Ga})\mathrm{N}$. However, the leakage current in epitaxial stacks reported to date should be reduced for reliable device operation. Here, we demonstrate low leakage current in epitaxial ${\mathrm{Al}}_{0.7}{\mathrm{Sc}}_{0.3}\mathrm{N}$films on $\mathrm{Ga}\mathrm{N}$with well-saturated ferroelectric hysteresis loops that are orders of magnitude lower (i.e., 0.07 A ${\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$) than previously reported films (1–19 A ${\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$) having similar or better structural characteristics. We also show that, for these high-quality epitaxial $(\mathrm{Al},\mathrm{Sc})\mathrm{N}$films, structural quality (edge and screw dislocations), as measured by diffraction techniques, is not the dominant contributor to leakage. Instead, the small leakage in our films is limited by thermionic emission across the interfaces, which is distinct from the large leakage due to trap-mediated bulk transport in the previously reported $(\mathrm{Al},\mathrm{Sc})\mathrm{N}$films. To support this conclusion, we show that ${\mathrm{Al}}_{0.7}{\mathrm{Sc}}_{0.3}\mathrm{N}$on lattice-matched ${\mathrm{In}}_{0.18}{\mathrm{Ga}}_{0.82}\mathrm{N}$buffers with improved structural characteristics but higher interface roughness exhibit increased leakage characteristics. This demonstration of low leakage current in heteroepitaxial $(\mathrm{Al},\mathrm{Sc})\mathrm{N}$films and understanding of the importance of interface barrier and surface roughness can guide further efforts toward improving the reliability of wurtzite ferroelectric devices. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

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5. Observation of $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ Hyperon Local Polarization in $p$ -Pb Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=8.16\mathrm{TeV}$

   https://doi.org/10.1103/6ywq-gm61  

   Hayrapetyan, A; Tumasyan, A; Adam, W; Andrejkovic, J W; Benato, L; Bergauer, T; Chatterjee, S; Damanakis, K; Dragicevic, M; Hussain, P S; et al (September 2025, Physical Review Letters)

   The polarization of the $\mathrm{\Lambda }$and $\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}$hyperons along the beam direction has been measured in proton-lead ( $p\text{-Pb}$) collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 8.16 TeV. The data were obtained with the CMS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of $186.0\pm 6.5{\mathrm{nb}}^{-1}$. A significant azimuthal dependence of the hyperon polarization, characterized by the second-order Fourier sine coefficient $P_{z,\mathrm{s}2}$, is observed. The $P_{z,\mathrm{s}2}$values decrease as a function of charged particle multiplicity, but increase with transverse momentum. A hydrodynamic model that describes the observed $P_{z,\mathrm{s}2}$values in nucleus-nucleus collisions by introducing vorticity effects does not reproduce either the sign or the magnitude of the $p\text{-Pb}$results. These observations pose a challenge to the current theoretical implementation of spin polarization in heavy ion collisions and offer new insights into the origin of spin polarization in hadronic collisions at LHC energies. 

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