Abstract: Tau neutrinos are the least studied particle in the standard model. This whitepaper discusses the current and expected upcoming status of tau neutrino physics with attention to the broad experimental and theoretical landscape spanning long-baseline, beam-dump, collider, and astrophysical experiments. This whitepaper was prepared as a part of the NuTau2021 Workshop.

Abstract: Particles beyond the Standard Model (SM) can generically have lifetimes that are long compared to SM particles at the weak scale. When produced at experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, these long-lived particles (LLPs) can decay far from the interaction vertex of the primary proton-proton collision. Such LLP signatures are distinct from those of promptly decaying particles that are targeted by the majority of searches for new physics at the LHC, often requiring customized techniques to identify, for example, significantly displaced decay vertices, tracks with atypical properties, and short track segments. Given their non-standard nature, a comprehensive overview of LLP signatures at the LHC is beneficial to ensure that possible avenues of the discovery of new physics are not overlooked. Here we report on the joint work of a community of theorists and experimentalists with the ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb experiments-as well as those working on dedicated experiments such as MoEDAL, milliQan, MATHUSLA, CODEX-b, and FASER-to survey the current state of LLP searches at the LHC, and to chart a path for the development of LLP searches into the future, both in the upcoming Run 3 and at the high-luminosity LHC. The work is organized around the current and future potential capabilities of LHC experiments to generally discover new LLPs, and takes a signature-based approach to surveying classes of models that give rise to LLPs rather than emphasizing any particular theory motivation. We develop a set of simplified models; assess the coverage of current searches; document known, often unexpected backgrounds; explore the capabilities of proposed detector upgrades; provide recommendations for the presentation of search results; and look towards the newest frontiers, namely high-multiplicity 'dark showers', highlighting opportunities for expanding the LHC reach for these signals.

Abstract: Newer lattice results indicate that, in the Landau gauge at low spacelike momenta, the gluon propagator and the ghost dressing function are finite non-zero. This leads to a definition of the QCD running coupling, in a specific scheme, that goes to zero at low spacelike momenta. We construct a running coupling which fulfills these conditions, and at the same time reproduces to a high precision the perturbative behavior at high momenta. The coupling is constructed in such a way that it reflects qualitatively correctly the holomorphic (analytic) behavior of spacelike observables in the complex plane of the squared momenta, as dictated by the general principles of quantum field theories. Further, we require the coupling to reproduce correctly the nonstrange semihadronic decay rate of tau lepton which is the best measured low-momentum QCD observable with small higher-twist effects. Subsequent application of the Borel sum rules to the V + A spectral functions of tau lepton decays, as measured by OPAL Collaboration, determines the values of the gluon condensate and of the V + A six-dimensional condensate, and reproduces the data to a significantly higher precision than the usual (MS) over bar running coupling.