Abstract: We present the results of a missing-energy search for light dark matter which has a new interaction with ordinary matter transmitted by a vector boson, called dark photon A'. For the first time, this search is performed with a positron beam by using the significantly enhanced production of A' in the resonant annihilation of positrons with atomic electrons of the target nuclei, followed by the invisible decay of A' into dark matter. No events were found in the signal region with (10.1 +/- 0.1) x 109 positrons on target with 100 GeV energy. This allowed us to set new exclusion limits that, relative to the collected statistics, prove the power of this experimental technique. This measurement is a crucial first step toward a future exploration program with positron beams, whose estimated sensitivity is here presented.

Abstract: We present the physics program of the Belle II experiment, located on the intensity frontier SuperKEKB e+e− collider. Belle II collected its first collisions in 2018, and is expected to operate for the next decade. It is anticipated to collect 50/ab of collision data over its lifetime. This book is the outcome of a joint effort of Belle II collaborators and theorists through the Belle II theory interface platform (B2TiP), an effort that commenced in 2014. The aim of B2TiP was to elucidate the potential impacts of the Belle II program, which includes a wide scope of physics topics: B physics, charm, tau, quarkonium, electroweak precision measurements and dark sector searches. It is composed of nine working groups (WGs), which are coordinated by teams of theorist and experimentalists conveners: Semileptonic and leptonic B decays, Radiative and Electroweak penguins, phi1 and phi2 (time-dependent CP violation) measurements, phi_3 measurements, Charmless hadronic B decay, Charm, Quarkonium(like), tau and low-multiplicity processes, new physics and global fit analyses. This book highlights “golden- and silver-channels”, i.e. those that would have the highest potential impact in the field. Theorists scrutinised the role of those measurements and estimated the respective theoretical uncertainties, achievable now as well as prospects for the future. Experimentalists investigated the expected improvements with the large dataset expected from Belle II, taking into account improved performance from the upgraded detector.

Abstract: We present the measurement of the intrinsic hadronic contamination at the CERN SPS H4 beamline configured to transport electrons and positrons at 100 GeV/c. The analysis, performed using data collected by the NA64-e experiment in 2022, is based on calorimetric measurements, exploiting the different interaction mechanisms of electrons and hadrons in the NA64 detector. We determined the contamination by comparing the results obtained using the nominal electron/positron beamline configuration with those from a dedicated setup, in which only hadrons impinged on the detector. We also obtained an estimate of the relative protons, antiprotons and pions yield by exploiting the different absorption probabilities of these particles in matter. We cross-checked our results with a dedicated Monte Carlo simulation for the hadron production at the primary T2 target, finding a good agreement with the experimental measurements.

Abstract: We present the first lattice study of pion-pion scattering with varying number of colors, N-c. We use lattice simulations with four degenerate quark flavors, N-f = 4, and N-c= 3 – 6. We focus on two scattering channels that do not involve vacuum diagrams. These correspond to two irreducible representations of the SU(4) flavor group: the fully symmetric one, SS, and the fully antisymmetric one, AA. The former is a repulsive channel equivalent to the isospin-2 channel of SU(2). By contrast, the latter is attractive and only exists for N-f >= 4. A representative state is (vertical bar D-s(+) pi(+)> – vertical bar D+ K+ >) /root 2. Using Lfischer's formalism, we extract the near-threshold scattering amplitude and we match our results to Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) at large N-c. For this, we compute the analytical U(N-f) ChPT prediction for two-pion scattering, and use the lattice results to constrain the N-c scaling of the relevant low-energy couplings.

Abstract: We present the first direct N-f = 2 lattice QCD computation of two- and three-pi(+) scattering quantities that includes an ensemble at the physical point. We study the quark mass dependence of the two-pion phase shift, and the three-particle interaction parameters. We also compare to phenomenology and chiral perturbation theory (ChPT). In the two-particle sector, we observe good agreement to the phenomenological fits in s- and d-wave, and obtain M(pi)a(0) = -0.0481(86) at the physical point from a direct computation. In the three-particle sector, we observe reasonable agreement at threshold to the leading order chiral expansion, i.e. a mildly attractive three-particle contact term. In contrast, we observe that the energy-dependent part of the three-particle quasilocal scattering quantity is not well described by leading order ChPT.