Particle Physics on the Plains​ 2026

14 Nov 2026, 08:00 → 15 Nov 2026, 17:00 US/Central

2048 Malott Hall (University of Kansas)

Particle Physics on the Plains will be held on November 14-15, 2026, at the University of Kansas. The workshop facilitates a discussion about the latest results in particle phenomenology and theory among  particle theorists in the region.  The format will be in person.

Talks are intended to be mostly student/postdoc talks.  If there is room in the schedule, we will add faculty talks. Nevertheless, this is an excellent opportunity for faculty to keep up on research in the region and gather for lengthy discussions.

Abstract, student/postdoc lodging deadline: October 13, 2026  There are funds available to help support lodging for students and postdocs who give talks. To be eligible for these funds students/postdocs must register and submit a talk abstract by 11:59 pm CST October 13, 2026.  Preference will be given to regional theoretical particle physics students/postdocs. However, provided funds are available, we will support the lodging of additional students/postdocs. Further details are on the registration and lodging pages. To obtain lodging, abstracts and registration must be submitted by this date.

October 21, 2026 Deadline to make hotel reservation at the conference rate.

November 6, 2026 Registration for all participants closes at 11:59 CST.

COVID-19:  Information about COVID-19 regulations at KU can be found here: https://protect.ku.edu/

Lunch on Saturday and coffee breaks will be provided during the conference.

This workshop is supported in part by the Research Excellence Initiative of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas, the University of Kansas Office of Research, and the University of Kansas Department of Physics & Astronomy.

Previous year's website:  2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 (Part 1), 2022 (Part 2), 2023, 2024, 2025

Organizers: Terrance Figy, KC Kong, Ian Lewis (chair), Douglas McKay, John Ralston, Bathiya Samarakoon

 

Saturday 14 November

08:30 → 08:50 Registration

08:50 → 09:00 Logistics for PPP

Speaker: Ian Lewis (The University of Kansas)

09:00 → 10:30 Dark Matter

09:00 Producing the GeV Galactic Center Excess via Cosmic Ray-Dark Matter Scattering

We propose a novel mechanism for generating gamma rays from the Galactic Center via scattering of cosmic-ray protons off dark matter in the Milky Way halo, in contrast to conventional explanations based on dark matter annihilation.
We present two examples of this framework that produce an observable photon signal.
In the inelastic dark matter model, cosmic rays up-scatter a lighter dark matter particle, with the subsequent decay of the heavier particle yielding two photons.
In the elastic dark matter model, an energetic photon is directly produced in the final state of a 2-to-3 scattering process.
We show that, for a range of viable model parameters, this framework provides a fit to the observed Galactic Center gamma-ray excess spectrum comparable to those obtained from dark matter annihilation and millisecond pulsar models.
Our results open a new avenue for interpreting gamma-ray observations of the Galactic Center.

Speaker: Dr Deepak Sathyan

09:18 A Phase-Transition Portal to Enhanced Dark Matter Annihilation

We present a thermal dark matter (DM) scenario in which a phase transition after freeze-out changes both the DM spectrum and the dominant annihilation process, allowing an enhanced present-day annihilation rate with suppressed direct detection. The surviving relic differs in mass and composition from the original state. We find relic-compatible solutions with present-day annihilation rates more than an order of magnitude above the canonical thermal value, without tuning to a mediator resonance, while satisfying direct-detection bounds.

Speaker: Kairui Zhang (University of Oklahoma-Norman)

09:36 Supernova Bounds on Neutrinophilic Dark Matter

Supernova cooling has long been used to constrain physics beyond the Standard Model, typically including new mediators or dark matter particles that couple to protons or electrons. The large density of neutrinos inside supernovae also makes supernovae powerful laboratories to study non-standard neutrino interactions. In this work, we consider supernova production of dark matter that couples dominantly to neutrinos. We show that, for a wide range of unconstrained parameter space, neutrino annihilation within a supernova could copiously produce dark matter, at a large enough rate to cause noticeable anomalous cooling. We thus set novel constraints on dark matter-neutrino interactions based on the non-observation of such anomalously high cooling.

Speaker: Christopher Cappiello

09:54 Threading a Narrow Neutrino Needle through LZ

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has reported an event consistent with a $248$ keV nuclear recoil, with no accompanying lower-energy recoil events. In this talk, I present a framework in which the LZ observation has a neutrino origin. A scenario in which atmospheric neutrinos directly upscatter to a heavier neutral state would also produce a large number of neutral-current events, with much larger nuclear recoil energies, in large neutrino experiments. I show that this constraint can be evaded through a two-step process, $\nu\to N_1\to N_2$, in which atmospheric neutrinos within a narrow energy window first produce a nearly monoenergetic state $N_1$, which subsequently upscatters to a heavier state $N_2$ in LZ. For $N_2$ masses near $250$ MeV, scattering on xenon can be kinematically allowed while remaining forbidden on oxygen, carbon, and other relevant targets. We realize the required narrow $N_1$ spectrum through a parametric resonance induced by a dark-matter background, followed by $N_1\to N_2$ upscattering mediated by a vector boson in a gauged $U(1)_B$ model. The latter interaction can be much stronger than the weak interaction, allowing the neutrino floor to be lifted to an $\mathcal{O}(1)$ event rate at LZ.

Speaker: Dibya S. Chattopadhyay (Oklahoma State University)

10:12 Low-Energy Solar Neutrinos at XENONnT: Atomic Effects, Tensions, and New Physics

The XENONnT collaboration recently announced the detection of the lowest-energy $pp$ solar neutrinos to date, observed through scattering with atomically bound electrons. We discuss the important implications of this result for neutrino physics and for physics beyond the Standard Model. We place the measurement in the landscape of theoretical predictions and past experimental results. We show how the measurement, and the resulting tension with Standard Model expectations, depend strongly on the atomic response model used to describe elastic neutrino-electron scattering, and the level of $^{14}\text{C}$ contamination. Finally, in the context of physics beyond the Standard Model, we show that, in combination with Borexino’s results, XENONnT’s low-energy $pp$ neutrino measurement places leading constraints on quasi-Dirac neutrinos and neutrino lifetimes.

Speaker: Aparajitha Karthikeyan (University of Iowa)

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 → 12:30 Collider and Higgs

11:00 Welcome

Welcome to PPP

Speaker: Ian Lewis (The University of Kansas)

11:10 TBD

TBD

Speakers: Liantao Wang, Liantao Wang

11:35 Electroweak Restoration: SMEFT and HEFT

Colliders continue to push our understanding of electroweak (EW) interactions to ever higher energies. At high energies, many observables in the broken EW theory are expected to approach the unbroken theory. This is the electroweak restoration regime, where longitudinal gauge boson production corresponds to Goldstone boson production. As such, in this paper we investigate electroweak restoration in the context of linear and non-linear realizations of the EW symmetry in longitudinal di-boson production: $f\bar{f}'\rightarrow V_LV'_L$ and $f\bar{f}'\rightarrow V_Lh$, where $V_L,V'_L$ are longitudinal gauge bosons, $h$ is the Higgs boson, and $f,f'$ are SM fermions. For the linear beyond the SM (BSM) theory, we use the Standard Model Effective Theory (SMEFT), and for the non-linear BSM theory, we use Higgs Effective Field Theory (HEFT). We give a general discussion of these amplitudes and cross sections in the SM, SMEFT, and HEFT.
Using the Goldstone boson equivalence theorem, we derive a set of ratios among high energy $V_LV'_L$ and $V_Lh$ amplitudes that are expected to approach one in the SM and SMEFT. Through our explicit calculations, we show that these ratios do indeed approach one in the SM and dimension-6 SMEFT, but not necessarily HEFT.
Beyond the amplitudes, both theoretically and experimentally, we identify the cross section ratio of $W^\pm_LZ_L$ and $W^\pm_L h$ as a particularly promising observable to probe EW restoration and distinguish HEFT and SMEFT.
Using current LHC measurements as well as projections for $W^\pm_L h$ measurements, we project HL-LHC sensitivities to probing the linear vs. non-linear realizations of the EW symmetry.

Speaker: Ishmam Mahbub (University of Minnesota Twin Cities)

11:53 Higgs-Riched Scenarios at the LHC

Higgs final states are prime targets in the search for physics beyond the Standard Model. However, in the conventional picture, di-Higgs channel does not have outstanding power, because $SU(2)$ symmetry and the Goldstone Equivalence Theorem suggest equal rates for heavy-resonance decays into $hh$, $ZZ$, and $WW$ channel. In this talk, I will introduce the “Busy Higgs” mechanism, in which interactions involving higher powers of the Higgs field generate an EWSB enhancement that preferentially amplifies Higgs final states. This can make the Higgs channel leading discover of a scalar resonance, and at sufficiently high masses, motivate resonant tri-Higgs and four-Higgs searches.
I will discuss how this phenomenon actually arises naturally in 2HDM, without tuning the parameter space. Also, we provide a “Busy Fermion” scenario in a flavoron model, where the interactions responsible for the quark mass hierarchy can also enhance heavy-fermion decays into a Higgs boson and a quark.

Speaker: Peiran Li (University of Minnesota)

12:11 Indirect Searches for Z' Bosons at a Muon Collider

We probe a large set of models with extra neutral gauge bosons (Z') and corresponding extended gauge sectors at the future multi-TeV muon collider. Pair production cross-sections and asymmetries for hadronic and leptonic final states allow indirect searches for Z' bosons with masses well beyond the collision energy in the neutral-current process. Projections for detector performance show that semileptonically decaying tops provide an excellent probe of chiral asymmetries and considerably extend the mass reach beyond existing bounds and projections for the high-luminosity LHC, probing particular models with Z' masses over 100 TeV at a 10 TeV muon collider.

Speaker: Vivan Bhatt (University of Kansas)

12:30 → 14:00 Lunch

14:00 → 15:30 Neutrinos

14:00 Particle Transport for Neutrino Telescopes

Neutrino telescopes rely on accurate descriptions of particle production and propagation, from atmospheric cascades to the secondary particles detected in ice or water. This talk presents complementary analytical and Monte Carlo approaches to particle transport, highlighting how they can improve detector simulations and provide efficient estimates of neutrino effective areas. I will discuss an analytical treatment of muon propagation that reproduces Monte Carlo results to within 3%, offering a simple and practical way to estimate effective areas. Finally, I will turn to the remaining hurdles in achieving greater precision: quantifying the uncertainties in atmospheric-neutrino flux predictions, including those arising from cosmic-ray spectra, hadronic interactions, solar modulation, and geomagnetic effects. Together, these developments aim to improve both the efficiency and reliability of neutrino-telescope predictions, while identifying where better modeling and data are still needed.

Speaker: Stephan Meighen-Berger (University of Iowa)

14:18 Confronting Cosmic-Ray-Boosted Relic Neutrinos with the Cosmogenic Neutrino Flux

The cosmic neutrino background (C$\nu$B) is a population of neutrinos from the early universe that have not been detected. Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) can boost the relic neutrinos to higher energies accessible to neutrino telescopes, offering a potential route to observing the C$\nu$B. Several groups have calculated this flux of boosted C$\nu$B neutrinos; however, their predictions disagree by orders of magnitude. For our calculation we offer a self-consistent, data-driven approach where we use the most recent cosmic-ray data from the Pierre Auger Observatory with CRPropa to simulate the cosmogenic and boosted C$\nu$B fluxes together. We find that the boosted C$\nu$B flux lies several orders of magnitude below the cosmogenic neutrino flux, thus any hope of detection would require relic neutrino over-densities roughly $10^{9}$-$10^{10}$ times larger than current cosmological expectations. This makes the boosted C$\nu$B flux practically impossible to detect, even with future neutrino telescopes such as IceCube-Gen2; therefore, we must look towards other methods of detecting the C$\nu$B.

Speaker: Luke Kupari (University of Iowa)

14:36 Probing Scalar-Induced First-Order Phase Transitions with the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background

We investigate the possibility of probing a scalar-induced first-order phase transition (FOPT) inside core-collapse supernovae through the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). We consider a light scalar coupled to neutrinos that is produced and thermalised in the proto-neutron-star core. This leads to two distinct neutrino components: a prompt contribution from thermally produced scalars and a delayed, spectrally narrow contribution from the decay of coherent scalar excitations due to the FOPT. We study the resulting DSNB signal at Super-Kamiokande, Hyper-Kamiokande, and DUNE, finding a strong dependence on the neutrino mass ordering. The recent Super-Kamiokande data already constrain the scalar parameter space for inverted ordering and quasi-degenerate neutrino masses, while future detectors can significantly improve this sensitivity. Our results demonstrate that DSNB measurements can provide a novel probe of finite-temperature scalar dynamics in core-collapse supernovae.

Speaker: Sudipta Das (University of Iowa)

14:54 Exploring Quantumness at Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiments

The Leggett-Garg Inequality (LGI) offers a way to test for the violations of classicality in a system by studying how its measurements are correlated over time. Long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments provide some of the longest distances over which the quantum behavior of any system can be tested. In this talk, I will present a data-driven study of LGI violations using MINOS, NOvA, and T2K data, together with projections for DUNE. We include experimental uncertainties and compare the quantum predictions with classical expectations to quantify the statistical significance. Among these experiments, we find that T2K gives the most significant violation of classicality at the level of about $14\sigma$, while NOvA and DUNE also show a significance greater than $5\sigma$.

Speaker: Murshed Alam (Oklahoma State University)

15:12 SNAPPY, the First Successful Satellite Mission from Kansas and First Results from Space

Wichita State University, in collaboration with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, designed and produced a CubeSat. Its called SNAPPY (Solar Neutrino and Astro-Particle PhYsics). We Launched in May 2026 into a low earth orbit and are taking data over the North and South poles looking for neutrino backgrounds. We are at the stage of having automated daily satellite contacts and data downloads when the spacecraft is over Chile or Iceland. We have many first results including: the rate of neutrino backgrounds in space when in the holes in the earth’s magnetic field over the poles, the spectrum of gamma rays in space that interact with the detector, a galactic gamma ray burst measurement on Sep 3 2026 (GRB 260903A), and a reconstructed energy spectrum of the protons and electrons in space weather. SNAPPY is 5 months into a 2 year mission with possible extensions and will bring further results yet to come.

The SNAPPY (Solar Neutrino and Astro-Particle PhYsics) spacecraft, designed and operated by a collaboration led by Wichita State University, launched in May 2026 into a low earth orbit to take data over the North and South poles. The poles are outside the shielding effect of the Earth magnetic field and allow us to quantify background signals for a future neutrino detector in deep space using a double-pulse detection method. We will describe the SNAPPY spacecraft and its detector, discuss the path from launch to current stable operations, and the primary and secondary mission objectives. We will also show data from space that includes: the rate of neutrino backgrounds in space when in the holes in the earth’s magnetic field, the spectrum of gamma rays in space that interact with the detector, a galactic gamma ray burst measurement on Sep 3, 2026 (GRB 260903A), and a reconstructed energy spectrum of the protons and electrons in space weather. SNAPPY is 5 months into a 2-year mission with possible extensions and will bring further results yet to come.

Speaker: Brian Doty

15:30 → 16:00 Coffee Break

16:00 → 17:55 Early Universe

16:00 TBD

TBD

Speaker: Carlos E.M. Wagner

16:25 Cosmological Implications of Evaporating Primordial Black Holes

Primordial black holes (PBHs) provide a unique connection between early-Universe cosmology, gravity, and particle physics. Light PBHs evaporate through Hawking radiation, and those lighter than about a kiloton disappear before Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Nevertheless, their cosmological effects need not disappear with them. In this talk, I will discuss three examples of such persistent imprints, ranging from global and collective phenomena to local effects around individual PBHs. First, an abundant PBH population can induce an early matter-dominated era, during which fluctuations in the PBH distribution grow and overdense regions can collapse to form a new population of much heavier PBHs, potentially accompanied by a corresponding stochastic gravitational-wave background. Second, if PBHs are spatially biased and the particle composition of Hawking radiation differs from that of the background plasma, their evaporation can generate isocurvature perturbations, providing a way to constrain otherwise elusive light PBHs through CMB observations. Finally, Hawking particles can thermalize in the surrounding plasma and create local high-temperature hotspots. We show that cosmic expansion modifies their late-time cooling, with possible implications for local baryogenesis and dark-matter production. Together, these examples offer only a glimpse into the rich physics of PBHs.

Speaker: Dr TaeHun Kim (KIAS)

16:43 Constraints on Supermassive Primordial Black Holes from Early Reionization

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs), if formed in the early Universe, can significantly influence structure formation even when they account for only a small fraction of the dark matter. Due to their discrete nature, primordial SMBHs generate an additional contribution to the standard matter power spectrum, enhancing the abundance of dark matter halos and, consequently, the cosmic star formation rate. At the same time, accretion onto SMBHs can inject energy into the surrounding gas, heating it and thereby suppressing star formation. We study the interplay between these competing effects by modifying the matter power spectrum and incorporating SMBH accretion feedback, and investigate their consequences for star formation and the reionization history across a broad range of SMBH masses.

Speaker: Badal Bhalla (University of Utah)

17:01 Electroweak Supercooling and Gravitational-Wave Enhancement with a Weakly Coupled Light Scalar

We study how a weakly mixed light scalar modifies a first-order electroweak phase transition supported by a heavier scalar in an extension of the Standard Model Higgs sector. Using a one-loop finite-temperature potential and multifield tunnelling calculations, we identify a regime in which the light scalar develops a large condensate in the metastable phase. Although this condensate barely changes across the critical bubble, it modifies the potential experienced by the Higgs and heavier singlet fields, delaying nucleation and increasing supercooling. Comparisons with a decoupled spectator benchmark show substantial changes in transition dynamics despite nearly identical critical temperatures. In representative benchmarks, delayed percolation occurs closer to a minimum of the tunnelling action $S_3/T$, reducing $\beta / H$ and enhancing the gravitational-wave amplitude.

Speaker: Ankur Verma (University of South Dakota)

17:19 Holographic phase transition in a soft-wall model

Strongly coupled gauge theories arise naturally in physics beyond the Standard Model and may undergo a first-order deconfinement-to-confinement phase transition in the early universe. Such a transition can proceed through bubble nucleation and generate a stochastic gravitational wave background. In this talk, I will discuss this process from a holographic perspective using a soft-wall model, and possible ways to construct the full 5D bounce solution that controls the transition rate. This talk is based on forthcoming work.

Speaker: Arpon Paul (University of Minnesota)

17:37 Echoes of global cosmic strings

Spontaneous symmetry breaking of global symmetries in the early universe may leave behind topological defects known as cosmic strings. These strings continuously emit the symmetry’s pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson, which contributes to the dark matter density after it becomes non-relativistic. In the talk, I will discuss the numerical and analytical methods we developed to evaluate the density power spectrum induced by these relics and present the constraints on their mass and symmetry breaking scale, derived by comparison with various cosmological observables.

Speaker: Dr Antonios Kyriazis (University of Iowa)

Sunday 15 November

08:30 → 09:00 Registration

09:00 → 11:00 Collider, Amplitudes, Quantum Information

09:00 The Neutrino Flux and its Secondaries at The Muon Collider

Muon colliders offer a new path towards studying particle physics beyond the standard model at energy and intensity levels beyond our current limits. The low lifetime of muons makes them a natural choice for an intense neutrino beam study. We built MINT, a Monte Carlo simulation to model neutrino fluxes accounting for muon beam dynamics in the accelerators and the interaction region of the collider. We calculate secondary muons and neutrinos scattered upstream as well as outline how the large forward neutrino exposure can be used to search for new particles such as heavy neutral leptons.

Speaker: Ju-Yeol Choi (University of Iowa)

09:15 Neutrino Interactions in FCC-ee Detector Concepts During the Tera-Z Run

The Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee), a proposed electron-positron collider at CERN, is designed for precision studies of the electroweak sector, Higgs boson, and flavor physics due to its high luminosity. Its Tera-Z run will produce roughly $6 \times 10^{12}$ Z bosons on-shell, making it a strong and reliable neutrino source with well-defined energies. Although they are usually treated as missing energy, a small fraction of these neutrinos will interact with the detector itself. We present simulations of neutrino production across all Z decay channels and calculate the resulting interaction rates using neutrino-nucleus cross sections and the material composition of different leading FCC-ee detector concepts, such as CLD, IDEA, and ALLEGRO. Initial results indicate that several hundred neutrino interactions could occur per detector over the entirety of the Tera-Z run. We report progress toward refining these rates with neutrino event simulations in GENIE and more realistic detector geometries. We also assess the implications of neutrino interactions at future lepton colliders and the potential for dedicated instrumentation within FCC-ee detector concepts to capture these kinds of events.

Speaker: Sean Chisholm (University of Iowa)

09:30 Di-Higgs rate and trilinear coupling benchmarks of the real singlet scalar extension

Although the simplest extension to the Standard Model (SM), the real singlet scalar offers potential avenues for questions regarding electroweak (EW) baryogenesis due to its effects on the Higgs potential. Additionally, its relative simplicity makes it an advantageous model to analyze. As such, it is a worthwhile extension to pursue. For current LHC results as well as for the HL-LHC, and the HL-LHC and circular or linear $e^−e^+$ colliders, we find limits on di-Higgs rates and the Higgs trilinear coupling.

Speaker: Jacob Scott

09:45 Probing the Higgs Self-Coupling through Vector-Boson-Fusion Higgs-Pair Production.

The shape of the Higgs potential and the strength of the Higgs boson’s self-interaction remain central open questions following the discovery of the Higgs boson. Higgs-pair production offers sensitivity to the trilinear Higgs self-coupling, but in vector-boson fusion (VBF), the same final state is also sensitive to interactions between Higgs and electroweak gauge bosons and potentially to additional scalar particles. Consequently, a deviation in the HHjj rate or kinematic distributions cannot automatically be attributed to the Higgs self-coupling alone. This work develops and validates two extensions to VBFNLO: a three-parameter coupling-modifier description (κλ, κV , κ2V ) and a generic CP-even scalar X coupled to WW, ZZ, and HH. It proposes to compare their separate and combined effects, including resonance–continuum interference, to assess how alternative Higgs-sector dynamics can affect the interpretation of self-coupling measurements. The project combines reproducible generator validation, rate-matched benchmark comparisons, differential-observable studies, and carefully bounded statements about experimental relevance. The goal is to strengthen the theoretical interpretation of measurements used to constrain trilinear interaction.

Speaker: Tunde Kushimo (Wichita State University)

10:00 Saturation effects in diffractive deep inelastic scattering

We study the production of c and b quarks in photon-induced processes as a probe of gluon saturation, with a focus on the high-energy region accessible in ultra-peripheral collisions at the LHC. We compare predictions for inclusive and diffractive heavy quark production with and without saturation effects by using the nonlinear Balitsky-Kovchegov and the linear Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov equations for the evolution of the dipole amplitude. First, the theoretical predictions are shown to be consistent with previous measurements at HERA. Then we present our results for the LHC, which predict a significant difference between the model with saturation and the model without saturation in diffractive charm quark production with Pb targets. Furthermore, the percentage of diffractive charm quark production events is predicted to be approximately twice as large as predictions based on parton distribution functions and shadowing.

Speaker: Jarno Vierros (The University of Kansas (US))

10:15 Spurious-Pole-Free Amplitude Reconstruction without Explicit Pole Solutions

On-shell recursion determines constructible amplitudes from lower-point factorization data, but explicit evaluation at deformation poles can obscure their local structure. We develop an ordered reconstruction that avoids explicit pole solutions and keeps every retained contribution free of spurious poles. Each contribution supplies the current factorization deficit while remaining regular on all previously protected channels. The choice of an on-cut-equivalent numerator is not unique: different admissible choices change the deficits supplied by later contributions. Within a linear space of local rational functions containing the target amplitude and obeying the required boundary condition, we prove that every successive matching problem is consistent and that any sequence of exact admissible updates reaches the same amplitude after at most one update per channel–branch condition. We demonstrate the construction for six-gluon next-to-maximally-helicity-violating amplitudes using both all-line transverse and Britto–Cachazo–Feng–Witten deformations, without substituting deformation-pole solutions. We also apply the method to four- and five-point amplitudes with massive particles, showing how their spin-dependent factorization data can be assembled into local expressions. These examples connect the general consistency argument with explicit constructions in both massless and massive settings.

Speaker: Mr Zong-En Chen (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)

10:30 Scattering entanglement and spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Quantum entanglement offers a new perspective on the structure of particle scatterings and its connection to fundamental symmetries. In this talk, I will explore how spontaneous symmetry breaking affect the entanglement properties of scattering amplitudes. I will show how symmetry breaking changes the correlations between different degrees of freedom using simple models. Viewing the scattering as an effective quantum operation, we show that quantum entanglement may provide a complementary way to study symmetry breaking effects and potentially reveal its signatures in low energy scatterings.

Speaker: Rahul Muraleedharan (University of Oklahoma)

10:45 Non-stabilizerness and Entanglement as Quantum Computational Resource

We introduce the notion of non-stabilizerness, which, in addition to entanglement, serves as a resource that drives quantum computational advantage. We discuss the application of measures associated with non-stabilizerness to discriminate between the performance of various quantum optimization algorithms. This serves as a tractable, toy problem with lessons that could possibly be utilized for problems in particle physics.

Speaker: Gaurab Sedhain (University of Kansas)

09:00 → 11:00 Neutrinos, scalars, phase transitions

09:00 Scalar-Mediated Heavy Neutral Lepton Searches at Short-Baseline Neutrino Detectors

Heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) are hypothetical particles that could help explain the origin of neutrino masses. Their interactions with Standard Model particles are suppressed by small active–sterile mixing, but a scalar mediator can open additional production channels. In this work, we study HNL production through scalar production in meson decays and proton bremsstrahlung, followed by scalar decays to HNLs and their subsequent visible decays. We calculate the resulting signal yields at the DUNE, T2K, and Hyper-K near detectors, comparing the contributions of these production mechanisms with conventional mixing-induced HNL production. We examine how these additional production mechanisms change the inferred experimental reach relative to mixing-induced HNL production alone. We also recast existing fixed-target HNL limits under the scalar-portal model, accounting for the added scalar-mediated production. We map the projected sensitivities and revised constraints across the HNL and scalar masses, active–sterile mixing, and portal couplings, and identify where scalar-mediated production substantially changes the HNL parameter space that can be probed experimentally. The goal is to explore how non-minimal HNL models with scalar mediators could open up new possibilities and parameter spaces in combination with minimal model limit predictions.

Speaker: Yatharth Sirohi (University of Iowa)

09:15 Exploring Neutrino Interactions with Dark Matter

We examine the full effective neutrino potentials for a range of dark matter candidates and interaction scenarios. Incorporating constraints on the model parameters, we use these potentials to study high-energy neutrino flavor evolution through dark matter spikes. This framework allows us to explore how dense dark matter environments modify neutrino flavor composition and assess the resulting signatures as probes of dark matter spikes.

Speaker: Soumya Bonthu

09:30 A New Probe of Strongly-Interacting Dark Sector using Neutrino Telescopes

Dark matter and neutrinos are important topics in modern physics. We propose a new method for probing the dark sector through high energy neutrino scattering. Using a dark sector that behaves similarly to the Standard Model, we show that dark rho mesons can mediate interactions between high energy cosmic neutrinos and relic neutrinos left over from the Big Bang. We find that this method can probe a substantial portion of the parameter space, potentially accessible to future neutrino telescopes. Our results demonstrate a new approach to investigating both dark matter and neutrino physics with future detectors.

Speaker: Jose Padron (Washington University in Stl)

09:45 Is the Earth an ALP Factory?

The Earth may provide an interesting source for the production of axions. The crust and mantle portion contain heavy radionuclides, which can produce axions either via Compton or Primakoff scattering. We look at the detection capabilities of large-scale terrestrial neutrino detectors as well as satellite Compton telescopes in probing the axion-electron coupling $g_{aee}$ and the axion-photon coupling $g_{a\gamma \gamma}$.

Speaker: Anirudh Chandra Shekar (Texas A&M University)

10:00 Measurement of Decays from Cobalt-57 and Arsenic-71 for Applications in Neutrino Detection

Low-energy neutrino interactions can produce delayed double-pulse signatures through the population of nuclear excited states, potentially providing better means of distinguishing neutrino interactions from radiological backgrounds. Both $^{57}$Co and $^{71}$As exhibit similar signatures by decaying through excited states with half lives on the order of 100 ns. Studying these decays allows us to investigate time-correlated energy depositions in scintillation-based detectors without requiring an intense neutrino source. In this talk, we present ongoing experimental studies of $^{57}$Co and $^{71}$As, focusing on the identification and characterization of delayed double-pulse events. These measurements support the development and validation of detection techniques for low-energy neutrino/anti-neutrino interactions.

Speaker: Brooks Hartsock (Wichita State University)

10:15 Cosmic Colliders Revisited: Heavy Particle Production from Bubble Collisions and Its Implications

Collisions of ultra-relativistic bubble walls during a cosmological first-order phase transition can act as a “cosmic collider,” producing particles far heavier than the transition scale. Previous treatments model the process as the off-shell decay of the scalar background. This approach parametrically overestimates hard particle production and yields results that depend on the gauge and on the choice of field-space coordinates. We propose a gauge-invariant alternative, analogous to the partonic description of high-energy collisions: in the ultra-relativistic limit, the colliding walls pass through each other almost freely, and heavy particles arise from on-shell scatterings among the quanta that make up the Lorentz-contracted walls. We discuss how this revised picture of heavy scalar, fermion and vector production changes the predictions for dark matter, leptogenesis and gravitational waves.

Speaker: Pratyay Pal (Oklahoma State University)

10:30 Leptophilic Multi-Higgs Doublet Model and Baryogenesis at Muon Colliders: Part 1

The leptophilic multi-Higgs doublet model introduces two additional Higgs doublets whose heavy states can participate in generating the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. These states can have masses in the multi-TeV range, making a 10 TeV parton center-of-momentum collider well suited to searching for them. In this talk, the motivation for high-energy muon colliders and the baryogenesis mechanism of the Higgs Troika model will be discussed, with particular attention to a leptophilic realization of the model. The production of the additional heavy Higgs states at a muon collider will also be considered, with representative simulated cross sections presented for the relevant signal process.

Speaker: Brady Child (The University of Kansas)

10:45 Leptophilic Multi-Higgs Doublet Model and Baryogenesis at Muon Colliders: Part 2

The leptophilic multi-Higgs doublet model introduces two additional Higgs doublets whose heavy states can participate in generating the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. These states can have masses in the multi-TeV range, making a 10 TeV parton center-of-momentum collider well suited to searching for them. In this talk, signal selection, collider observables, and discovery/exclusion results for the Higgs Troika model will be discussed. The production of the additional heavy Higgs states and background events at a muon collider will also be considered, with representative simulated cross sections presented for the relevant signal process and kinematic distributions for backgrounds.

Speaker: Isabella Estes (University of Kansas)

11:00 → 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 → 13:20 Astroparticle & Quantum Sensing

11:30 Solar Constraints on HNL Mixing with Tau Neutrinos

The mixing of heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) with tau neutrinos remains far less constrained than their mixing with electron and muon neutrinos. In this talk, I will show how HNLs produced in the Sun can significantly improve existing constraints on HNL–$\nu_\tau$ mixing. HNLs can be produced through the scattering of tau neutrinos generated by neutrino oscillations in the solar interior. After escaping the Sun, HNLs can decay into a pair of $e^+ e^-$ and a $\nu_\tau$ in the heliosphere, where the charged decay products may be detected by orbiting spacecraft. Using electron data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, I will present new constraints on HNL mass and mixing that improve on existing terrestrial limits.

Speaker: Mr Samiur R. Mir (Oklahoma State University)

11:48 E pur si rotat: Axion magnetic resonance in the coherent magnetic field of the Milky Way

The axion coupling to the photon allows for axion-photon oscillations and is governed by the coupling and background magnetic field. In astrophysical settings these oscillations possess resonant behavior while traversing the plasma of both intra and intergalactic media. We demonstrate that a second type of resonant enhancement is possible which depends on the spatial variation $\dot{\Theta}$ of the transverse components of the coherent magnetic field with respect to the direction of propagation. This mimics a Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein (MSW)-like shift in the plasma resonance and affects the parameter space of axion and Axion-Like-Particle (ALP) detection from astrophysical sources. We investigate this effect for the various models of the coherent galactic magnetic field of the Milky Way and emphasize the need to consider the full structure of the galactic magnetic field for setting astrophysical limits on ALPs.

Speaker: Sai Charan Chandrasekar (PhD Student at Oklahoma State University)

12:06 A Stepping Stone Solution to the QCD Axion Isocurvature Problem

We propose a ''stepping stone'' realization of the varying Peccei Quinn (PQ) scale solution to the QCD axion isocurvature problem. In conventional implementations, suppressing isocurvature during high scale inflation requires a large inflationary PQ scale, while the subsequent evolution toward the much smaller late time vacuum can induce parametric resonance and nonthermal restoration of the PQ symmetry. We ameliorate this tension by introducing an intermediate PQ-breaking vacuum that is reached before the end of inflation, so that the later evolution to the present day PQ scale spans only a moderate hierarchy. The vacuum structure arises radiatively: a Yukawa coupling between the PQ scalar and PQ-charged fermions drives the quartic coupling negative at high scales while keeping it positive at lower scales. A positive dimension six operator then stabilizes a large field minimum, while the positive low energy quartic together with the quadratic terms generates the intermediate vacuum. We study two mechanisms in which the rolling inflaton removes the large field minimum, either by scanning a hidden non-Abelian gauge coupling or by directly scanning the Yukawa coupling. In both cases the PQ field is released toward the intermediate vacuum during inflation, after CMB modes have exited the horizon. We exhibit benchmark regions with subdominant backreaction on the inflationary sector and suppressed vacuum tunneling, and show that the construction permits substantially less hierarchical quartic and higher-dimensional couplings than conventional realizations that depend on a varying PQ scale. The underlying logic may have analogues for extra-dimensional or string axions, where the effective axion decay constant is controlled by geometric moduli, although realizing the required intermediate vacuum in a controlled modulus potential is nontrivial.

Speaker: Kunfeng Lyu

12:24 Ultrashort Gamma-Ray Burst Search in VERITAS Data

The existence of bursts of astrophysical gamma rays with durations less than tens of microseconds are essentially unprobed. It was recently proposed that the VERITAS array could detect such bursts with an appropriate analysis of its archival data. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of a search for these bursts and devise a data-analysis protocol to carry it out. We perform realistic air-shower and VERITAS-telescope simulations to accurately predict the images of sub-ten-microsecond gamma-ray bursts as seen in VERITAS. We propose discrimination criteria based on the properties of these images, optimized on a subset of the VERITAS data, and show that sufficient signal-background rejection efficiency is achievable.

Speaker: Ngan Nguyen (University Of Oklahoma)

12:42 Quantum Networks for Dark Matter

Quantum sensing has been used recently to try and detect new particle physics phenomena. Now, with prospects for real life quantum networks, a brief description of how they can be used to detect the dark matter around our galaxy will be provided.

Speaker: Miguel Angel Soto Alcaraz

13:00 Entanglement Protocol for Scalar-Mediated Forces

Light scalars are a well-motivated extension of the Standard Model and can mediate new interactions between matter at microscopic and mesoscopic distances. Inspired by proposals to test the quantum nature of gravity through gravitationally induced entanglement, we propose searching for such interactions using two adjacent matter-wave interferometers. Rather than relying on conventional force measurements, this approach probes the new interaction through the relative phase it imprints on the superposed states, which in turn generates quantum correlations between the two interferometers. We outline the parameter space such an experiment could access and discuss the competing requirements on interaction strength, coherence time, and spatial superposition size.

Speaker: Writasree Maitra (Department of Physics, Washington University in St. Louis)

13:20 → 13:30 Closing

Speaker: Ian Lewis (The University of Kansas)