Jon Butterworth, Sabine Kraml, Harrison Prosper
et al.
Data from particle physics experiments are unique and are often the result of a very large investment of resources. Given the potential scientific impact of these data, which goes far beyond the immediate priorities of the experimental collaborations that obtain them, it is imperative that the collaborations and the wider particle physics community publish and preserve sufficient information to ensure that this impact can be realised, now and into the future. The information to be published and preserved includes the algorithms, statistical information, simulations and the recorded data. This publication and preservation requires significant resources, and should be a strategic priority with commensurate planning and resource allocation from the earliest stages of future facilities and experiments.
Abstract We generated synthetic equiaxed grain structures using computer graphics software to explore the relationship between various grain size determination methods and true three-dimensional (3D) grain diameters. Mirroring grain measurement techniques, the synthetic 3D grain structures are imaged as 2D micrographs which are measured to yield 1D grain size parameters. Synthetic grain structures provide data at a mass scale and permit exploration of both polished and fractured surface micrographs, revealing one-to-one correspondence between exposed 2D grain cross-sections and individual 3D grains. Analysis of this correspondence yielded a procedure to approximate 3D equiaxed grain size and volume distributions based on the mode of the 2D fractograph grain size distribution. The 3D approximation procedure is shown to be less susceptible to different imaging conditions that affect small, undiscernible grains compared to the standard planimetric and linear intercept methods, which by design also tend to underestimate the 3D grain diameter. The procedure requires larger sample sizes to lower variance and a deeper analysis which could become more practical with machine learning (ML) models for grain boundary segmentation, which synthetic grain structures can help train. This work lays the foundation for analyzing other grain distributions such as columnar and composite grains in similar depth.
We discuss the impact of eligible top-quark pair production differential cross-section measurements at the LHC with a collision energy of 13 TeV on the parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the proton as well as the impact of approximate next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (aN$^3$LO) QCD corrections combined with next-to-leading order (NLO) electroweak (EW) corrections on $t\bar t$ observables. We illustrate the effects on the gluon PDF at large $x$ from an optimal baseline selection of data in NNLO global fits, and show comparisons between the theory prediction for $t\bar t$ total and differential cross sections at aN$^3$LO QCD combined with NLO EW and recent measurements from the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the LHC.
Machine learning methods have a long history of applications in high energy physics (HEP). Recently, there is a growing interest in exploiting these methods to reconstruct particle signatures from raw detector data. In order to benefit from modern deep learning algorithms that were initially designed for computer vision or natural language processing tasks, it is common practice to transform HEP data into images or sequences. Conversely, graph neural networks (GNNs), which operate on graph data composed of elements with a set of features and their pairwise connections, provide an alternative way of incorporating weight sharing, local connectivity, and specialized domain knowledge. Particle physics data, such as the hits in a tracking detector, can generally be represented as graphs, making the use of GNNs natural. In this chapter, we recapitulate the mathematical formalism of GNNs and highlight aspects to consider when designing these networks for HEP data, including graph construction, model architectures, learning objectives, and graph pooling. We also review promising applications of GNNs for particle tracking and reconstruction in HEP and summarize the outlook for their deployment in current and future experiments.
Events with isolated leptons and missing energy in the final state are known to be signatures of new physics phenomena at high energy collider physics facilities. Standard model (SM) sources of isolated trilepton final states include gauge boson pair production such as WZ and W gamma^{*}, and t-bar t production. Symbol gamma^* represents a virtual photon. Our new contribution is the demonstration that bottom and charm meson decays, b to l X and c to l X$, produce isolated lepton (l) events that can overwhelm the effects of other processes. We compute contributions from a wide range of SM heavy flavor processes. In all these cases, one or more of the final observed isolated leptons comes from a heavy flavor decay. We propose new cuts to control the heavy flavor backgrounds in the specific case of chargino plus neutralino pair production in supersymmetric models.
Our knowledge of flavour dynamics has undergone a `quantum jump' since just before the turn of the millenium: direct CP violation has been firmly established in $K_L \to ππ$ decays in 1999; the first CP asymmetry outside $K_L$ decays has been discovered in 2001 in $B_d \to ψK_S$, followed by $B_d \to π^+π^-$, $η^{\prime}K_S$ and $B \to K^{\pm}π^{\mp}$ establishing direct CP violation also in the beauty sector. Counterintuitive, yet central features of quantum mechanics like meson-antimeson oscillations and EPR correlations have been crucial in making such effects observable. The CKM dynamics of the Standard Model (SM) of HEP allow a description of CP insensitive and sensitive $B$, $K$ and $D$ transitions that is impressively consistent even on the quantitative level. We know now that at least the lion's share of the observed CP violation is provided by the SM. Yet these novel successes do not invalidate the theoretical arguments for it being incomplete. We have also more direct evidence for New Physics, namely neutrino oscillations, the observed baryon number of the Universe, dark matter and dark energy. While the New Physics anticipated at the TeV scale is not likely to shed any light on the SM's mysteries of flavour, detailed and comprehensive studies of heavy flavour transitions will be essential in diagnosing salient features of that New Physics. Strategic principles for such studies are outlined.
Under the assumption that all the gauge groups in supersymmetric theories unify at the fundamental scale, the numbers and the mass scales of messenger quarks and leptons, as well as the beta-function coefficient of the sector for dynamical supersymmetry breaking are constrained depending on various gauge mediation mechanisms. For this, we use one-loop renormalization group equations and draw constraints on the scales in each gauge mediation model.
Two particular classes of axion models are presented, each one yielding a lower bound on the axion decay constant, based though on different considerations. In the first class only some, and not all, of the right-handed quarks have PQ charges, whereas in the second one the left-handed sector of the same quarks is taken into account as well. In the first case we find that bounds coming from astrophysics are significantly relaxed compared with those for the DFSZ. As for the second class, the astrophysical constraints proved to be less severe (with one exception), than those coming from FCNC processes.
This is the second in a series of two papers. While in Paper I we derive semiclassical Boltzmann transport equations and study their flow terms, here we address the collision terms. We use a model Lagrangean, in which fermions couple to scalars through Yukawa interactions and approximate the self-energies by the one-loop expressions. This approximation already contains important aspects of thermalization and scatterings required for quantitative studies of transport in plasmas. We compute the CP-violating contributions to both the scalar and the fermionic collision term.
We discuss how the results of recent measurements on the spectra of quasars are predicted by the non-perturbative solution of String Theory proposed in hep-th/0207195.
We show that soft supersymmetry breaking terms involving the heavy sneutrinos can lead to sneutrino-antisneutrino mixing and to new sources of CP violation, which are present even if a single generation is considered. These terms are naturally present in supersymmetric versions of leptogenesis scenarios, and they induce indirect CP violation in the decays of the heavy sneutrinos, eventually generating a baryon asymmetry. This new contribution can be comparable to or even dominate over the asymmetry produced in traditional leptogenesis scenarios.