MIT Center for Theoretical Physics – a Leinweber Institute

Charge-dependent directed flow provides a sensitive probe of early electromagnetic fields and baryon stopping in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Recent STAR measurements show a centrality-dependent sign change in the directed flow splitting (the difference between the directed flow of protons and antiprotons), indicating that electromagnetic effects alone are not sufficient to describe this observable and that the baryon stopping $-$ in particular the component of the stopped proton distribution that is odd in rapidity and odd under reflection in the impact parameter direction $-$ must also be included. We develop a semi-analytic hydrodynamic framework that combines spectator-induced electromagnetic fields with a Glauber-based description of baryon stopping, built upon an analytic solution for the background hydrodynamic flow due to Gubser together with the simplifying assumption of a constant electrical conductivity. For Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV, we find that baryon stopping gives a positive contribution to the directed flow splitting that decreases for more peripheral collisions, while electromagnetic fields give a negative contribution that is larger for more peripheral collisions. The competition between these two effects naturally reproduces the observed sign change in Au+Au collisions as a function of centrality, describes the observed rapidity dependence in the $50$--$80%$ centrality interval, and reproduces trends seen in U+U collisions. Although the simplifying assumptions that we have made regarding the analytic background and constant conductivity limit our ability to make quantitative comparisons, our model provides a transparent explanation of how transported baryon number and spectator-induced electromagnetic fields jointly shape charge-dependent directed flow.

Recent progress in collider physics has reformulated phenomenological questions in terms of detector correlation functions and advanced their theoretical understanding. These advances have primarily focused on correlators of the average null energy operator, $mathcal{E}(vec{n})$, known as energy correlators. However, colliders have access to a much broader class of detector operators, $mathcal{E}^n_R(vec{n})$, which measure powers of the energy on a subset of hadrons $R$, such as charged hadrons. These generalized detectors are generically not infrared and collinear safe, and their description requires nonperturbative matching between the hadronic detectors measured in the infrared and the partonic detectors used in ultraviolet calculations. We develop a framework for computing their multi-point correlation functions. We introduce universal nonperturbative matching coefficients, termed "detector functions", that implement this infrared-ultraviolet matching. For the $mathcal{E}_R^n$ operators studied here, these coefficients are represented by energy-weighted moments of single- and multi-hadron fragmentation functions. We present their renormalization group structure, derive QCD factorization theorems for the projected correlators, and compute jet functions through next-to-leading order. In the fixed-coupling pure Yang-Mills limit, we derive the light-ray OPE of hadronic detectors and connect it to the QCD factorization framework. We also identify universal nonperturbative power corrections generated by soft radiation, which are enhanced in the collinear limit and can substantially modify the perturbative angular scaling. A parton shower study finds qualitative agreement with the predicted perturbative and nonperturbative scaling behaviors. Our work significantly broadens the space of detector operators under theoretical control, with potential phenomenological applications.

Motivated by searches for weak coherent drives, we formulate repeated quantum sensing with a fixed shot budget as an asymmetric composite hypothesis test. Taking Rabi sensing as a concrete example, we benchmark detection power, sensitivity, and Type-II error exponents in the resonant case with unknown signal amplitude and phase. We compare non-adaptive population and transverse readouts with a myopic Bayesian policy that selects each projective axis by maximizing the expected information gain in one step. The common decision statistic is a log Bayes factor, with a policy specific threshold calibrated under the null to enforce a common Type-I error. A weak signal expansion shows that population readout is phase independent but quadratic in amplitude, giving $n^{-1/4}$ sensitivity, whereas transverse readout is linear in amplitude and permits $n^{-1/2}$ sensitivity without adaptation, but is phase-dependent. In Monte Carlo pseudoexperiments, the adaptive policy exploits posterior information about the unknown direction to guide subsequent readouts; its sensitivity is consistent with $n^{-1/2}$ over the simulated large $n$ range and, at the largest simulated shot counts, outperforms the fixed transverse schedules. Its phase-averaged effective Type-II exponent also exceeds the non-adaptive references over the simulated range. These results demonstrate the finite budget value of exploiting nuisance parameter information under calibrated false positive control.

The kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect is a sensitive probe of the free-electron momentum field, tapping into spatial correlations relevant for both large-scale cosmology and smaller-scale astrophysics. Precision kSZ measurements will provide a robust channel for constraining inflationary physics and equivalence principle violation, while simultaneously characterizing the small-scale gas distribution and associated baryonic feedback. However, robust kSZ measurement for cosmological applications is challenging, as the primary source of large-scale information is convolved with unknown small-scale dynamics in a degenerate combination. In this paper we address this challenge using the Effective Field Theory (EFT) framework that provides a principled way of treating the effects of small-scale dynamics on large scale-structure. Extracting the kSZ signal can be reformulated as a measurement of the one-loop galaxy-galaxy-electron momentum bispectrum. We compute here a pure dark matter version of this bispectrum in EFT and compare it to simulations. We derive the EFT counterterms that capture small-scale backreaction and find that two of them acquire a transverse direction. One transverse counterterm gets generated entirely by the vorticity of the velocity field. Our computation of the bispectrum dipole agrees with simulation data to $5%$ up to $k_{rm max}=0.23~iM$, which is significantly larger than the reach of tree level theory, which breaks down beyond $k_{rm max}=0.07~iM$ (at redshift $z=0.5$). For the bispectrum computed with the projected momentum field, relevant to measuring the kSZ field, we find a similar $k_{rm max}$, and make the first detection of the transverse counterterms from simulations. Our results suggest that one-loop bispectrum computations can play an important role in advancing kSZ cosmology.