Abstract: A study of the B+ -> (KSK+)-K-0 K-pi(+) and B+ -> (KSK+K+)-K-0 pi(-) decays is performed using proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV at the LHCb experiment. The (KSK)-K-0 pi invariant mass spectra from both decay modes reveal a rich content of charmonium resonances. New precise measurements of the eta(c) and eta(c)(2S) resonance parameters are performed and branching fraction measurements are obtained for B+ decays to eta(c), J/psi, eta(c)(2S) and chi(c1) resonances. In particular, the first observation and branching fraction measurement of B+ -> chi K-c0(0)pi(+) is reported as well as first measurements of the B+ -> (KK+K-)-K-0 pi(+) and B+ -> (KK+K+)-K-0 pi(-) branching fractions. Dalitz plot analyses of eta(c) -> (KSK)-K-0 pi and eta(c)(2S) -> (KSK)-K-0 pi decays are performed. A new measurement of the amplitude and phase of the K pi S-wave as functions of the K pi mass is performed, together with measurements of the K-0*(1430), K-0*(1950) and a(0)(1700) parameters. Finally, the branching fractions of chi(c1) decays to K* resonances are also measured.

Abstract: Searches for the rare hadronic decays B-0 -> p (p) over barp (p) over bar and B-s(0) -> p (p) over barp (p) over bar are performed using proton-proton collision data recorded by the LHCb experiment and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb-1. Significances of 9.3 sigma and 4.0 sigma, including statistical and systematic uncertainties, are obtained for the B-0 -> p (p) over barp (p) over bar and B-s(0) -> p (p) over barp (p) over bar signals, respectively. The branching fractions are measured relative to the topologically similar normalization decays B-0 -> J/psi(-> p (p) over bar )K*(0)(-> K+ pi(-) ) and B-s(0) -> J/psi(-> p (p) over bar )X phi(-> K+ K- ). The branching fractions are measured to be B(B-0 -> p (p) over barp (p) over bar) = (2.2 +/- 0.4 +/- 0.1 +/- 0.1) x 10(-8) and B(B-s(0) -> p (p) over barp (p) over bar) = (2.3 +/- 1.0 +/- 0.2 +/- 0.1) x 10(-8). In these measurements, the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, and the third one is due to the external branching fraction of the normalization channel.

Abstract: A search for CP violation in D-0 -> pi(-)pi(+)pi(0) decays is reported, using pp collision data collected by the LHCb experiment from 2015 to 2018 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6 fb(-1). An unbinned model-independent approach provides sensitivity to local CP violation within the two-dimensional phase space of the decay. The method is validated using the Cabibbo-favoured channel D-0 -> K-pi(+)pi(0) and background regions of the signal mode. The results are consistent with CP symmetry in this decay.

Abstract: Thermal dark matter models with particle chi masses below the electroweak scale can provide an explanation for the observed relic dark matter density. This would imply the existence of a new feeble interaction between the dark and ordinary matter. We report on a new search for the sub-GeV chi production through the interaction mediated by a new vector boson, called the dark photon A ' , in collisions of 100 GeV electrons with the active target of the NA64 experiment at the CERN SPS. With 9.37 x 10(11) electrons on target collected during 2016-2022 runs NA64 probes for the first time the well-motivated region of parameter space of benchmark thermal scalar and fermionic dark matter models. No evidence for dark matter production has been found. This allows us to set the most sensitive limits on the A ' couplings to photons for masses m(A ') less than or similar to 0.35 GeV, and to exclude scalar and Majorana dark matter with the chi – A ' coupling alpha(D) <= 0.1 for masses 0.001 less than or similar to m(chi) less than or similar to 0.1 GeV and 3m(chi) <= m(A ').

Abstract: The framed standard model (FSM), constructed to explain the empirical mass and mixing patterns (including CP phases) of quarks and leptons, in which it has done quite well, gives otherwise the same result as the standard model (SM) in almost all areas in particle physics where the SM has been successfully applied, except for a few specified deviations such as the W mass and the g-2 of muons, that is, just where experiment is showing departures from what SM predicts. It predicts further the existence of a hidden sector of particles some of which may function as dark matter. In this paper, we first note that the above results involve, surprisingly, the FSM undergoing a vacuum transition (VTR1) at a scale of around 17MeV, where the vacuum expectation values of the colour framons (framed vectors promoted into fields) which are all nonzero above that scale acquire some vanishing components below it. This implies that the metric pertaining to these vanishing components would vanish also. Important consequences should then ensue, but these occur mostly in the unknown hidden sector where empirical confirmation is hard at present to come by, but they give small reflections in the standard sector, some of which may have already been seen. However, one notes that if, going off at a tangent, one imagines colour to be embedded, Kaluza-Klein (KK) fashion, into a higher-dimensional space-time, then this VTR1 would cause 2 of the compactified dimensions to collapse. This might mean then that when the universe cooled to the corresponding temperature of 1011 K when it was about 10-3 s old, this VTR1 collapse would cause the three spatial dimensions of the universe to expand to compensate. The resultant expansion is estimated, using FSM parameters previously determined from particle physics, to be capable, when extrapolated backwards in time, of bringing the present universe back inside the then horizon, solving thus formally the horizon problem. Besides, VTR1 being a global phenomenon in the FSM, it would switch on and off automatically and simultaneously over all space, thus requiring seemingly no additional strategy for a graceful exit. However, this scenario has not been checked for consistency with other properties of the universe and is to be taken thus not as a candidate solution of the horizon problem but only as an observation from particle physics which might be of interest to cosmologists and experts in the early universe. For particle physicists also, it might serve as an indicator for how relevant this VTR1 can be, even if the KK assumption is not made.