arXiv subjects

Danny van Dyk

Publications and source records attributed to Danny van Dyk.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

On soft contributions to the $B^-\to \gamma^*$ form factors

The photoleptonic decay $B^-\to \gamma \ell^-\bar{\nu}$ is the simplest low-energy process that probes the substructure of the $B$ meson, making it an excellent candidate to determine the parameters of $B$-meson light-cone distribution amplitudes from experimental data. More recently, the decay $B^-\to \gamma^*(\to \ell'^-\ell'^+)\ell^-\bar\nu$ has received attention as an alternative probe of these parameters. Both decays are described through a common set of hadronic form factors, which if computed within the framework of QCD factorization give rise to the sensitivity to the $B$-meson light-cone distribution amplitudes. Nevertheless, in this case the form factors still receive so-called soft contributions that can only be estimated but not rigorously computed. In this work, we provide results for the QCD factorization expressions for the form factors, including terms at next-to-leading power in the $b$ quark mass and in the photon energy. We further use these results to estimate the soft contributions within a light-cone sum rule setup. Finally, using numerical results obtained from a benchmark model of the light-cone distribution amplitudes, we show that the soft contributions are under significantly better theoretical control at a mildly spacelike photon virtuality.

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arXiv2025

Exploiting Perpendicular Momentum Distributions of Semileptonic Decays: $\bar{B}_s^0\to D_s^+\mu^-\bar\nu$ as a Case Study

We derive the differential distribution of semileptonic decays with respect to the perpendicular momentum component of the final state hadron. The benefits and shortfalls arising from measurements of these distributions are discussed. Our approach is illustrated on the LHCb measurement of the $\bar{B}_s^0\to D_s^+\mu^-\bar\nu$ decay distribution where the publicly available data by the LHCb experiment is used in an independent phenomenological analysis for the first time. We extract the CKM element $|V_{cb}|$ and information on the shape of the relevant hadronic form factors from the measurement of the binned rate in the perpendicular momentum component of the hadron.

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arXiv2025

Global Determination of $|V_{us}|$

In light of ongoing issues with the first-row unitarity test of the CKM matrix, we showcase a global fit to measurements of $K\to \ell \nu$, $K\to \pi\ell \nu$, $\tau \to K\nu$, and $\tau\to K\pi \nu$ decays for the first time. Fitting the semileptonic and 3-body $\tau$ decay data simultaneously becomes computationally feasible because we employ a simple form factor parametrisation for the $K\pi$ form factor that manifestly connects the semileptonic and pair-production regions. We find good agreement with the data and use our analyses to infer $|V_{us}|$ and the parameters for the $K\pi$ form factors. Our result for $|V_{us}|$ sits close to the results extracted from exclusive $K_{\ell 2}$ and somewhat above the $K_{\ell 3}$ decay and inclusive $\tau$ decay result. Moreover, our results for the $K\to \pi$ vector form factor at zero momentum transfer are compatible with lattice QCD determinations, despite not using lattice QCD inputs for this quantity in our fit of the hadronic matrix elements. We are further able to determine some of the pole parameters of the individual scalar and vector $K\pi$ resonances with masses below the $\tau$ mass. We caution that our results account only for short-distance electromagnetic corrections but not long-distance contributions; this is due to the lack of a consistent description of long-distance corrections to the $K\pi$ matrix elements both above and below threshold for an arbitrary model of the form factors.

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arXiv2025

Challenging $\bar{B}_{(s)}\to D_{(s)}^{(*)}$ Form Factors with the Heavy Quark Expansion

Recent publications by three lattice QCD collaborations have provided an unprecedented wealth of theoretical predictions for the $\bar{B}_q \to D_q^{(*)}$ form factors, for spectator flavours $q=u/d$ and $q=s$. We analyse these predictions within the framework of the heavy-quark expansion (HQE) to order $\alpha_s$, $1/m_b$, and $1/m_c^2$. For the first time, our analysis imposes unitarity bounds for all of the $\bar{B}_q^{(*)} \to D_q^{(*)}$ form factors; this includes newly identified tensor form factors arising in $\bar{B}_q^*\to D_q^{(*)}$. This enables us to treat all form factors in the same fashion. At the level of our present analysis, the inclusion of the tensor bounds is not yet constraining the HQE parameter space. We find the lattice QCD results to be well compatible with each other in a joint HQE fit as well as with QCD sum rule estimates that were used in previous HQE analyses. This is in contrast to the strong variability of the posterior predictions, in particular of the form factors ratios $R_0$ and $R_2$. Using the posterior distributions of our HQE analysis, we provide predictions for angular observables and LFU ratios in the $\bar{B}_q \to D_q^{(*)}\ell^-\bar{\nu}$ decays.

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arXiv2025

Communicating Likelihoods with Normalising Flows

We present a machine-learning-based workflow to model an unbinned likelihood from its samples. A key advancement over existing approaches is the validation of the learned likelihood using rigorous statistical tests of the joint distribution, such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of the joint distribution. Our method enables the reliable communication of experimental and phenomenological likelihoods for subsequent analyses. We demonstrate its effectiveness through three case studies in high-energy physics. To support broader adoption, we provide an open-source reference implementation, nabu.

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arXiv2024

Towards a Global Analysis of the $b\to c\bar{u} q$ Puzzle

We study the nonleptonic decays $\bar{B}_s^0 \to D_s^{(*)+} \pi^-$ and $\bar{B}^0 \to D^{(*)+} K^-$ within the Weak Effective Theory (WET) up to mass-dimension six. We revisit the calculation of the hadronic matrix elements within QCD Factorization including the full set of WET operators. We recalculate the two-particle contributions to the hard-scattering kernels at next-to-leading order in $\alpha_s$, confirming recent results in the literature. We also calculate the three-particle contributions at leading order in $\alpha_s$, clarifying the procedure, refining the SM results in the literature, and providing for the first time the complete set of contributions within the WET. We use these results to perform a global phenomenological study of the effective couplings, putting bounds on the size of the WET Wilson coefficients in four distinct fit models. The fits include constraints from the nonleptonic $B$-meson decay width, which we calculate at the leading order for the full set of WET operators for the first time. This study is the first one to account for simultaneous variation of up to six effective couplings. We identify two distinct modes in all fit models and discuss how future measurements can be used to distinguish between them.

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arXiv2024

A Simple Parametrisation of the Pion Form Factor

We discuss a novel and simple parametrisation of the pion vector form factor that transparently connects spacelike and timelike regions of the momentum transfer $q^2$. Our parametrisation employs the framework of conformal mapping and respects the known analyticity properties of the form factor, accounting explicitly for the $\rho(770)$-meson pole. The parametrisation manifestly fulfils the normalisation condition at $q^2 = 0$ as well as further restrictions at the pion production threshold and in the limit $|q^2| \to \infty$. In contrast to the widely used Omn\`es parametrisation, our approach does not use the pion-pion scattering phase shift as input. We confront the parametrisation with experimental data from $\pi H$ scattering and $\tau^- \to \pi^-\pi^0\nu$ decay. We already find a good description of the data with only five free parameters, which include the pole mass and decay width of the $\rho(770)$.

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arXiv2024

Constraining $|V_{cs}|$ and physics beyond the Standard Model from exclusive (semi)leptonic charm decays

We study the available data on exclusive leptonic and semileptonic $c\to s\ell^+\nu$ decays within the Standard Model and beyond. Our analysis accounts for theory correlations between the relevant hadronic matrix elements through application of dispersive bounds. We find that, within a global analysis, the dispersive bounds are generally well respected and only mildly affect the extraction of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element $|V_{cs}|$. Assuming Standard Model dynamics, we obtain $$ |V_{cs}| = 0.957 \pm 0.003\,, $$ which is compatible with the HFLAV/PDG reference value $|V_{cs}| = 0.975 \pm 0.006$ at the $2.7\,\sigma$ level. Our findings lead to significant deficits in the second-row and second-column unitarity relations of the CKM matrix. Allowing for beyond the SM contributions in the Weak Effective Theory, we find very strong constraints on potential (pseudo)scalar and tensor effects. However, the data still permits sizeable CP-violating right-handed currents.

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arXiv2024

Analysis of the $ψ(3770)$ resonance in line with unitarity and analyticity constraints

We study the inclusive and exclusive cross sections of $e^+e^-\to \text{hadrons}$ for center-of-mass energies between 3.70 GeV and 3.83 GeV to infer the mass, width, and couplings of the $ψ(3770)$ resonance. By using a coupled-channel K-matrix approach, we setup our analysis to respect unitarity and the analyticity properties of the underlying scattering amplitudes. We fit several models to the full dataset and identify our nominal results through a statistical model comparison. We find that, accounting for the interplay between the $ψ(2S)$ and the $ψ(3770)$, no further pole is required to describe the $ψ(3770)$ line shape. In particular we derive from the pole location $M_{ψ(3770)} = 3778.8 \pm 0.3$ MeV and $Γ_{ψ(3770)} = 25.0 \pm 0.5$ MeV. Moreover, we find the decay to $D^+D^-$ and $D^0\bar{D}^0$ to be consistent with isospin symmetry and derive an upper bound on the branching ratio $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3770) \to \textrm{non-}D\bar{D}) < 6\%$ at $90\%$ probability.

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arXiv2024

Constructing model-agnostic likelihoods, a method for the reinterpretation of particle physics results

Experimental High Energy Physics has entered an era of precision measurements. However, measurements of many of the accessible processes assume that the final states' underlying kinematic distribution is the same as the Standard Model prediction. This assumption introduces an implicit model-dependency into the measurement, rendering the reinterpretation of the experimental analysis complicated without reanalysing the underlying data. We present a novel reweighting method in order to perform reinterpretation of particle physics measurements. It makes use of reweighting the Standard Model templates according to kinematic signal distributions of alternative theoretical models, prior to performing the statistical analysis. The generality of this method allows us to perform statistical inference in the space of theoretical parameters, assuming different kinematic distributions, according to a beyond Standard Model prediction. We implement our method as an extension to the pyhf software and interface it with the EOS software, which allows us to perform flavor physics phenomenology studies. Furthermore, we argue that, beyond the pyhf or HistFactory likelihood specification, only minimal information is necessary to make a likelihood model-agnostic and hence easily reinterpretable. We showcase that publishing such likelihoods is crucial for a full exploitation of experimental results.

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arXiv2023

Dispersive bounds for local form factors in $Λ_b \to Λ$ transitions

We investigate the ten independent local form-factors relevant to the $b$-baryon decay $Λ_b \to Λ\ell^+\ell^-$, combining information of lattice QCD and dispersive bounds. We propose a novel parametrization of the form factors in terms of orthonormal polynomials that diagonalizes the form factor contributions to the dispersive bounds. This is a generalization of the unitarity bounds developed for meson-to-meson form-factors. In contrast to ad-hoc parametrizations of these form factors, our parametrization provides a degree of control of the form-factor uncertainties at large hadronic recoil. This is of phenomenological interest for theoretical predictions of, e.g., $Λ_b\to Λγ$ and $Λ_b\toΛ\ell^+\ell^-$ decay processes.

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arXiv2023

New determination of $|V_{ub}/V_{cb}|$ from $B_s^0\to \lbrace K^-, D_s^- \rbrace μ^+ν$

We update the full set of $\bar{B}_s\rightarrow K$ form factors using light-cone sum rules with an on-shell kaon. Our approach determines the relevant sum rule parameters -- the duality thresholds -- from a Bayesian fit for the first time. Using a modified version of the Boyd-Grinstein-Lebed parametrisation, we combine our sum rule results at low momentum transfer $q^2$ with more precise lattice QCD results at large $q^2$. We obtain a consistent description of the form factors in the full $q^2$ range. Applying these results to a recent LHCb measurement of branching ratios for the decays $B_s^0 \to \lbrace K^-, D_s^-\rbrace μ^+ν_μ$, we determine the ratio of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa elements $$ \notag \left|\frac{V_{ub}}{V_{cb}}\right|_{q^2<7\; \textrm{GeV}^2} = 0.0681\pm 0.0040 \quad \text{and} \quad \left|\frac{V_{ub}}{V_{cb}}\right|_{q^2>7 \;\textrm{GeV}^2} = 0.0801\pm 0.0047 \ , $$ which are mutually compatible at the $1.9σ$ level. We further comment on the sensitivity to Beyond the Standard Model effects through measurements of the shape of $B_s^0 \to K^- μ^+ν_μ$ decays, in light of recent limits on such effects from other exclusive $b\to u\ellν$ processes.

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arXiv2023

Maximising the physics potential of $B^\pm\to\pi^\pm\mu^+\mu^-$ decays

We present a method that maximises the experimental sensitivity to new physics contributions in $B^\pm\to\pi^\pm\mu^+\mu^-$ decays. This method relies on performing an unbinned maximum likelihood fit to both the measured dimuon $q^2$ distribution of $B^\pm\to\pi^\pm\mu^+\mu^-$ decays, and theory calculations at spacelike $q^2$, where QCD predictions are most reliable. We exploit the known analytic properties of the decay amplitude and employ a dispersion relation to describe the non-local hadronic contributions across spacelike and timelike $q^2$ regions. The fit stability and the sensitivity to new physics couplings and new sources of $CP$-violation are studied for current and future data-taking scenarios, with the LHCb experiment as an example. The proposed method offers a precise and reliable way to search for new physics in these decays.

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arXiv2023

Testable Likelihoods for Beyond-the-Standard Model Fits

Studying potential BSM effects at the precision frontier requires accurate transfer of information from low-energy measurements to high-energy BSM models. We propose to use normalising flows to construct likelihood functions that achieve this transfer. Likelihood functions constructed in this way provide the means to generate additional samples and admit a ``trivial'' goodness-of-fit test in form of a $χ^2$ test statistic. Here, we study a particular form of normalising flow, apply it to a multi-modal and non-Gaussian example, and quantify the accuracy of the likelihood function and its test statistic.

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arXiv2023

Toward a complete description of $b \to u \ell^- \barν$ decays within the Weak Effective Theory

We fit the available data on exclusive semileptonic $b\to u\ell^-\barν$ decays within the Standard Model and in the Weak Effective Theory. Assuming Standard Model dynamics, we find $|V_{ub}| = 3.59^{+0.13}_{-0.12} \times 10^{-3}$. Lifting this assumption, we obtain stringent constraints on the coefficients of the $ub\ellν$ sector of the Weak Effective Theory. Performing a Bayesian model comparison, we find that a beyond the Standard Model interpretation is favoured over a Standard Model interpretation of the available data. We provide a Gaussian mixture model that enables the efficient use of our fit results in subsequent analyses beyond the Standard Model, within and beyond the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory.

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arXiv2023

Dispersive Analysis of $B\to K^{(*)}$ and $B_s\to \phi$ Form Factors

We perform the first simultaneous dispersive analysis of the $B\to K$, $B\to K^*$, and $B_s\to \phi$ form factors. By means of an improved parametrization, we take into account the form factors' below-threshold branch cuts arising from on-shell $\bar{B}_s \pi^0$ and $\bar{B}_s \pi^0 \pi^0$ states, which so far have been ignored in the literature. In this way, we eliminate a source of hard-to-quantify systematic uncertainties. We provide machine-readable files to obtain the full set of the $\bar{B}\to \bar{K}^{(*)}$ and $\bar{B}_s\to \phi$ form factors in and beyond the entire semileptonic phase space.

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arXiv2023

Dispersion relations for $B^- \to \ell^- \barν_\ell \ell^{\prime-} \ell^{\prime+}$ form factors

Using dispersive methods, we study the $B \to γ^*$ form factors underlying the decay $B^- \to \ell^- \barν_\ell \ell^{\prime-} \ell^{\prime+}$. We discuss the ambiguity that arises from a separation of the full $B^- \to \ell^- \barν_\ell \ell^{\prime-} \ell^{\prime+}$ amplitude into a hadronic tensor and a final-state-radiation piece, including effects from nonvanishing lepton masses. For the eligibility of a dispersive treatment, we propose a decomposition of the hadronic part that leads to four form factors that are free of kinematic singularities. By establishing a set of dispersion relations, we then relate the $B \to γ^*$ form factors to the well-known $B \to V$, $V=ω(782),ρ(770)$, analogues. Using the combination of a series expansion in a conformal variable and a vector-meson-dominance ansatz to parameterize the $B \to γ^*$ form factors, we infer the values of the associated unknown parameters from the available input on $B \to V$. The phenomenological application of our formalism includes the determination of the branching ratios and forward-backward asymmetries of the process $B^- \to \ell^- \barν_\ell \ell^{\prime-} \ell^{\prime+}$ for the two lightest leptons.

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arXiv2022

50 Years of Quantum Chromodynamics

This paper presents a comprehensive review of both the theory and experimental successes of Quantum Chromodynamics, starting with its emergence as a well defined theory in 1972-73 and following developments and results up to the present day. Topics include a review of the earliest theoretical and experimental foundations; the fundamental constants of QCD; an introductory discussion of lattice QCD, the only known method for obtaining exact predictions from QCD; methods for approximating QCD, with special focus on effective field theories; QCD under extreme conditions; measurements and predictions of meson and baryon states; a special discussion of the structure of the nucleon; techniques for study of QCD at high energy, including treatment of jets and showers; measurements at colliders; weak decays and quark mixing; and a section on the future, which discusses new experimental facilities or upgrades currently funded. The paper is intended to provide a broad background for Ph.D. students and postdocs starting their career. Some contributions include personal accounts of how the ideas or experiments were developed.

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