Metastable cosmic strings are broken at the start

(2026)

Authors:

Lorenzo Tranchedone, Ethan Carragher, Edward Hardy, Natálie Koscelanská van IJcken

Search for dark matter in association with a Higgs boson at the LHC: A model independent study

Nuclear Physics B 1022 (2026)

Authors:

S Baradia, S Bhattacharyya, A Datta, S Dutta, S Roy Chowdhury, S Sarkar

Abstract:

Astrophysical and cosmological observations strongly support the existence of Dark Matter (DM). In this study, we investigate the potential of the mono-Higgs plus missing transverse energy signature at the LHC to search for a fermionic DM candidate using the framework of Effective Field Theory. In our study, the DM interacts with the Standard Model (SM) via dimension-6 and dimension-7 effective operators involving the Higgs and the gauge bosons. Although our analysis is independent of any Ultra Violet complete dynamics of DM, such interactions can be realized in an extension of the SM where the gauge group is extended minimally by adding an extra U (1). Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) discriminators are used to estimate and optimize the signal sensitivity over the SM backgrounds, assuming an integrated luminosity of 3000fb−1 at s=14 TeV at the High Luminosity phase of the LHC (HL-LHC). In the most optimistic scenario, a significance exceeding 3 σ can be achieved for relic masses ranging from 90 to 300 GeV, which showcases the prospects of the search at the HL-LHC. This study provides a foundation for future explorations in this direction.

Recent Developments in Line Bundle Cohomology and Applications to String Phenomenology

Chapter in Nankai Symposium on Mathematical Dialogues, Springer Nature (2026) 79-92

Authors:

Callum Brodie, Andrei Constantin, James Gray, Andre Lukas, Fabian Ruehle

Abstract:

Vector bundle cohomology represents a key ingredient for string phenomenology, being associated with the massless spectrum arising in string compactifications on smooth compact manifolds. Although standard algorithmic techniques exist for performing cohomology calculations, they are laborious and ill-suited for scanning over large sets of string compactifications to find those most relevant to particle physics. In this article (based on the second author’s lecture at the Nankai Symposium, August 2021) we review some recent progress in deriving closed-form expressions for line bundle cohomology and discuss some applications to string phenomenology.

Stellar cooling limits on KK gravitons and dark dimensions

JHEP 03 (2026) 029

Authors:

Edward Hardy, Anton Sokolov, Henry Stubbs

Abstract:

Hydrodynamics with multiple charges and holography

Journal of High Energy Physics Springer 2025:12 (2025) 173

Authors:

Liam Gladden, Victor Ivo, Pavel K Kovtun, Andrei O Starinets

Abstract:

We establish the connection between thermodynamic and dynamical instabilities in relativistic hydrodynamics with multiple flavours of conserved U(1) charges. In theories with positive hydrodynamic entropy production, where the underlying perfect fluid has a positive speed of sound squared and satisfies the null energy condition, we show that hydrodynamic instabilities can arise only through negative diffusion coefficients associated with the U(1) charges. The onset of such instabilities is governed by the eigenvalues of the thermodynamic Hessian matrix, while the flavour-space polarisations of the unstable diffusion modes are determined by the corresponding eigenvectors. We illustrate this connection using strongly coupled 𝒩 = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at finite densities of the three U(1) R-charges. In the dual holographic description, the five-dimensional STU black brane exhibits unstable quasinormal modes precisely at the onset of thermodynamic instability. We derive analytic expressions for the R-charge diffusion coefficients in several representative cases, including the configuration with three equal chemical potentials.