A bstract The measurement of the Higgs self-coupling is considered the next milestone in the study of the Higgs boson properties. At future e + e − facilities below the double Higgs production threshold, this is extracted from the Zh production cross-section, which is sensitive to the trilinear coupling at the one-loop level. At the same perturbative order, potential effects beyond the Standard Model (SM) may affect the Higgstrahlung rate and distort the self-coupling determination. We study the question focusing especially on contact interactions containing two electron and two top-quark fields. We conclude that, in the context of FCC-ee and its planned runs at different energies, eett interactions change the Higgs self-coupling sensitivity below the percent level. Even in the most pessimistic scenarios, we confirm a robust sensitivity of the order of 17% at the 1 σ confidence level under the assumption of otherwise SM-like Higgs couplings. A crucial role in these results is played by the measurement of fermion pair production above the Z resonance.

A bstract Open effective field theories provide a systematic framework for describing systems coupled to an environment, where dissipation, noise, and modified conservation laws naturally arise. Working within the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, we examine open extensions of three well-studied theories: the superfluid, Maxwell theory, and Einstein gravity. In gauge and gravitational theories, open terms that break advanced symmetries while preserving physical ones are not automatically consistent; they are allowed only if they lead to deformed identities among the equations of motion. We explicitly construct such a term in open gravity and show that it leads to a consistent deformation of the diffeomorphism identities.

A bstract We re-examine positivity bounds on the 2 → 2 scattering of identical massless real scalars with a novel perspective on how these bounds can be used to constrain the spectrum of UV theories. We propose that the entire space of consistent weakly-coupled (and generically non-supersymmetric) UV amplitudes is determined as a convex hull of the massive scalar amplitude and a one-parameter family of scalarless “extremal amplitudes” parameterized by the ratio of the masses of the two lightest massive states. Further, we propose that the extremal amplitudes can be constructed from a similar one-parameter set of maximally supersymmetric amplitudes, leading to the surprising possibility that the S-matrix bootstrap with maximal supersymmetry may be sufficient to determine the entire allowed space of four-point amplitudes! Finally, we show that minimal spectrum input reduces the allowed space of Wilson coefficients to small islands around the open string Dirac-Born-Infeld tree amplitude and the closed string Virasoro-Shapiro amplitude.

A bstract Based on a sample of (10087 ± 44) × 10 6 J / ψ events collected at the center-of-mass energy $$ \sqrt{s}=3.0969 $$ s = 3.0969 GeV with the BESIII detector, we search for the charmonium rare weak decay $$ J/\psi \to {\overline{D}}^0{\overline{K}}^{\ast 0}+\textrm{c}.\textrm{c}. $$ J / ψ → D ¯ 0 K ¯ ∗ 0 + c . c . . No significant signal is observed, and the upper limit on its decay branching fraction at the 90% confidence level is set as 1.4 × 10 − 7 , improving the sensitivity of the previous best limit by an order of magnitude.

A bstract Symmetric product orbifolds provide a controlled environment to explore generic features of gauge theory and holography. The tractability of these theories lies in the complete characterisation of their gauge structure through holomorphic covering maps. In this paper, we introduce a novel class of generalised covering maps, which define a universal family of interfaces between symmetric product orbifolds. These interfaces coincide with the holographic interfaces that were recently proposed as duals to AdS 2 branes in pure NSNS AdS 3 backgrounds. The new covering-map description enables efficient evaluation of interface correlators via a generalisation of the Lunin-Mathur method. To organise these computations, we derive a generalised Riemann-Hurwitz formula for interface coverings and introduce novel diagrammatic rules that systematically classify these maps. The new framework allows us to define a concrete grand-canonical ensemble that has the correct properties to compute correlation functions dual to open string scattering amplitudes. Using the generalised Riemann-Hurwitz formula, we explicitly show that the correlators of the ensemble structurally match string perturbation theory to all orders in the string coupling.

A bstract We analyse a class of SYK models whose Hamiltonian is the sum of two SYK Hamiltonians with different numbers of fermions q, $$ \overset{\sim }{q} $$ q ~ in each interaction. We consider both Euclidean and Lorentzian probes of the quantum system in the large N limit. In the strong coupling phase, the entropy provides a diagnostic of the thermal renormalisation group flow. Under certain conditions, two parametrically separated regimes of near-conformal behaviour emerge. The first reproduces the standard linear-in-temperature scaling characteristic of the single SYK model. The system then flows to another near-fixed point whose entropy scaling depends on the ratio $$ n=q/\overset{\sim }{q} $$ n = q / q ~ . For n < 3 / 2, the entropy exhibits anomalous, stronger-than-linear scaling in temperature. At n = 3 / 2, there is an additional logarithmic enhancement. Using conformal perturbation theory, we argue that in the infrared regime of the SYK model, there may exist disordered conformal operators with dimensions 1 < ∆ ≤ 3 / 2. In Lorentzian signature, we study the out-of-time-ordered correlator and show that these deformed theories exhibit near-maximal chaos in both regimes (when they exist). We comment on the relation between the anomalous scalings found here and those observed in certain near-extremal black holes in two and higher dimensions.

A bstract Building on the duality between Krylov complexity and geodesic length in Jackiw-Teitelboim and sine-dilaton gravity, we develop a precise holographic dictionary for quantities in the Krylov subspace of the double-scaled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model (DSSYK). First, we demonstrate that the growth rate of Krylov state complexity corresponds to the wormhole velocity, and show that its expectation value in coherent states serves as a boundary diagnostic of firewall-like structures via bulk reconstruction. We also delineate an alternative bulk description in terms of the proper momentum of an infalling particle at early times, establishing a threefold duality between the Krylov complexity growth rate, wormhole velocity, and proper momentum, with clear regimes of validity. Beyond the first moments, we argue that higher-order Krylov complexities capture connected bulk contributions encoded by replica wormholes, while the logarithmic variant probes the replica saddle structure. Finally, within a third-quantized setting incorporating baby universes, we show that the Krylov entropy equals the von Neumann entropy of the parent-geometry density matrix obtained after tracing out baby universes, thereby quantifying information flow into the baby universe sector. Together, these results elevate Krylov-space observables to sharp probes of bulk dynamics and topology in ensemble-averaged 2D gravity.

A bstract We consider supergravity theories with 8 supercharges in d = 6. We show that all the proposed anomaly free theories with unbounded number of massless modes are restricted to a finite subset and thus argue that there is an upper bound on the number of massless modes, consistent with the String Lamppost Principle.

A bstract We develop a systematic approach to the computation of gauge invariant quartic interactions between reducible massive and massless higher spin fields. Extending the BRST formulation of existing cubic results, we obtain a single constraint for each off-shell quartic vertex that ensures both the gauge invariance of the Lagrangian and formal closure of the gauge algebra at quartic order. A solution to these equations is presented. The general equation is then reduced to an on-shell version to reduce complexity. We find example solutions for the off-shell and on-shell quartic vertices in low spin examples relevant to the problem of black hole scattering.

A bstract I solve the equations of the low-energy limit of string theory to obtain a solution corresponding to a microcanonical ensemble of highly-excited superstrings. This “Superball of Strings” is a static, spherically symmetric “fuzzball” of BPS strings with a size set by a random walk scaling. The solution can be embedded in string theory in a significant part of parameter space. While the solution does not constitute a Lorentzian interpretation for a Euclidean, horizonless solution by Chen, Maldacena, and Witten, a few connections are noted. A singular extremal black hole and the Superball of Strings exist as Supergravity solutions with the same asymptotic boundary conditions; however, I argue that the latter describes generic BPS microstates.