Abstract: The optical appearance of a body compact enough to feature an unstable bound orbit, when surrounded by an accretion disk, is expected to be dominated by a luminous ring of radiation enclosing a central brightness depression typically known as the shadow. Despite observational limitations, the rough details of this picture have been now confirmed by the results of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration on the imaging of the M87 and Milky Way supermassive central objects. However, the precise characterization of both features-ring and shadow-depends on the interaction between the background geometry and the accretion disk, thus being a fertile playground to test our theories on the nature of compact objects and the gravitational field itself in the strong-field regime. In this work we use both features in order to test a continuous family of solutions interpolating between regular black holes and horizonless compact objects, which arise within the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld theory of gravity, a viable extension of Einstein's general relativity (GR). To this end we consider seven distinctive classes of such configurations (five black holes and two traversable wormholes) and study their optical appearances under illumination by a geometrically and optically thin accretion disk, emitting monochromatically with three analytic intensity profiles previously suggested in the literature. We build such images and consider the sub-ring structure created by light rays crossing the disk more than once and existing on top of the main ring of radiation. We discuss in detail the modifications as compared to their GR counterparts, the Lyapunov exponents of unstable nearly-bound orbits, as well as the differences between black hole and traversable wormholes for the three intensity profiles. In addition we use the claim by the EHT Collaboration on the radius of the bright ring acting (under proper calibrations) as a proxy for the radius of the shadow itself to explore the parameter space of our solutions compatible with such a result.

Abstract: The first observation of the B-s(0) -> (chi(c1)(3872) -> J/Psi pi(broken vertical bar) pi(-)) pi(broken vertical bar) pi(-) decay is reported using proton-proton collision data, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1, 2 and 6 fb(-1), collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13TeV, respectively. The ratio of branching fractions relative to the B-s(0) -> (Psi(2S) -> J/Psi pi(+) pi(-)) pi(+) pi(-) decay is measured to be [GRAPHICS] where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The mass spectrum of the pi(+) pi(-) system recoiling against the chi(c1)(3872) meson exhibits a large contribution from B-s(0) -> chi(c1)(3872) (integral(0)(980) -> pi(+) pi(-)) decays.

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.

Abstract: This paper investigates the Casimir energy modifications due to the Lorentz-violating CPT-even contribution in an extension of the scalar QED. We have considered the complex scalar field satisfying Dirichlet boundary conditions between two parallel plates separated by a small distance. An appropriate tensor parametrization allowed us to study the Casimir effect in three different configurations: isotropic, anisotropic parity-odd, and anisotropic parity-even. We have shown that the Lorentz-violating contributions can promote either an increase or a decrease in the Casimir energy evaluated in the isotropic configuration, depending on whether the violation parameters are taking as positive or negative values. On the other hand, for the anisotropic parity-even case the Casimir energy only decreases, while for the anisotropic parity-odd cases it only increases. Therefore, from these last two results it seems that the Casimir energy is sensitive to the parity of Lorentz-violating coefficients.

Abstract: The interpretation of present and future neutrino experiments requires accurate theoretical predictions for neutrino-nucleus scattering rates. Neutrino structure functions can be reliably evaluated in the deep-inelastic scattering regime within the perturbative QCD (pQCD) framework. At low momentum transfers (Q(2) less than or similar to few GeV2), inelastic structure functions are however affected by large uncertainties which distort event rate predictions for neutrino energies E-nu up to the TeV scale. Here we present a determination of neutrino inelastic structure functions valid for the complete range of energies relevant for phenomenology, from the GeV region entering oscillation analyses to the multi-EeV region accessible at neutrino telescopes. Our NNSF nu approach combines a machine-learning parametrisation of experimental data with pQCD calculations based on state-of-the-art analyses of proton and nuclear parton distributions (PDFs). We compare our determination to other calculations, in particular to the popular Bodek-Yang model. We provide updated predictions for inclusive cross sections for a range of energies and target nuclei, including those relevant for LHC far-forward neutrino experiments such as FASER nu, SND@LHC, and the Forward Physics Facility. The NNSF nu determination is made available as fast interpolation LHAPDF grids, and it can be accessed both through an independent driver code and directly interfaced to neutrino event generators such as GENIE.