arXiv subjects

Lingfeng Li

Publications and source records attributed to Lingfeng Li.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Constraints on photon mass and dark photon from the Jovian magnetic field

The Jovian magnetic field, being the strongest and largest planetary one in the solar system, could offer us new insights into possible microscopic scale new physics, such as a non-zero mass of the Standard Model (SM) photon or a light dark photon kinetically mixing with the SM photon. We employ the immense data set from the latest Juno mission, which provides us unprecedented information about the magnetic field of the gas giant, together with a more rigorous statistical approach compared to the literature, to set strong constraints on the dark photon mass and kinetic mixing parameter, as well as the SM photon mass. The constraint on the dark photon parameters is independent of whether dark photon is (part of) dark matter or not, and serves as the most stringent one in a certain regime of the parameter space.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

From Optimal Observables to Machine Learning: an Effective-Field-Theory Analysis of $e^+e^- \to W^+W^-$ at Future Lepton Colliders

We apply machine-learning techniques to the effective-field-theory analysis of the $e^+e^- \to W^+W^-$ processes at future lepton colliders, and demonstrate their advantages in comparison with conventional methods, such as optimal observables. Compared to traditional algorithms, we show that simulation-based inference methods are more robust to detector effects and backgrounds, and could in principle produce unbiased results with sufficient Monte Carlo simulation samples that accurately describe experiments. This is crucial for the analyses at future lepton colliders given the outstanding precision of the $e^+e^- \to W^+W^-$ measurement ($\sim 10^{-4}$ in terms of anomalous triple gauge couplings or even better) that can be reached. Our framework can be generalized to other effective-field-theory analyses, such as the one of $e^+e^- \to t\bar{t}$ or similar processes at muon colliders.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks Meet Variational Shape Compactness Priors for Image Segmentation

Shape compactness is a key geometrical property to describe interesting regions in many image segmentation tasks. In this paper, we propose two novel algorithms to solve the introduced image segmentation problem that incorporates a shape-compactness prior. Existing algorithms for such a problem often suffer from computational inefficiency, difficulty in reaching a local minimum, and the need to fine-tune the hyperparameters. To address these issues, we propose a novel optimization model along with its equivalent primal-dual model and introduce a new optimization algorithm based on primal-dual threshold dynamics (PD-TD). Additionally, we relax the solution constraint and propose another novel primal-dual soft threshold-dynamics algorithm (PD-STD) to achieve superior performance. Based on the variational explanation of the sigmoid layer, the proposed PD-STD algorithm can be integrated into Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to enforce compact regions as image segmentation results. Compared to existing deep learning methods, extensive experiments demonstrated that the proposed algorithms outperformed state-of-the-art algorithms in numerical efficiency and effectiveness, especially while applying to the popular networks of DeepLabV3 and IrisParseNet with higher IoU, dice, and compactness metrics on noisy Iris datasets. In particular, the proposed algorithms significantly improve IoU by 20% training on a highly noisy image dataset.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2024

Dark showers from Z-dark Z' mixing

We discuss dark shower signals at the LHC from a dark QCD sector, containing GeV-scale dark pions. The portal with the Standard Model is given by the mixing of the Z boson with a dark Z' coupled to the dark quarks. Both mass and kinetic mixings are included, but the mass mixing is the essential ingredient, as it is the one mediating visible decays of the long-lived dark pions. We focus especially on the possibility that the dark Z' is lighter than the Z. Indirect constraints are dominated by electroweak precision tests, which we thoroughly discuss, showing that both Z-pole and low-energy observables are important. We then recast CMS and LHCb searches for displaced dimuon resonances to dark shower signals initiated by the production of on-shell Z or Z', where the visible signature is left by a dark pion decaying to $μ^+ μ^-$. We demonstrate how dark shower topologies have already tested new parameter space in Run 2, reaching better sensitivity on a light dark Z' compared to the flavor-changing decays of B mesons, which can produce a single dark pion at a time, and the electroweak precision tests.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

The Physics potential of the CEPC. Prepared for the US Snowmass Community Planning Exercise (Snowmass 2021)

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a large-scale collider facility that can serve as a factory of the Higgs, Z, and W bosons and is upgradable to run at the ttbar threshold. This document describes the latest CEPC nominal operation scenario and particle yields and updates the corresponding physics potential. A new detector concept is also briefly described. This submission is for consideration by the Snowmass process.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

BP-DeepONet: A new method for cuffless blood pressure estimation using the physcis-informed DeepONet

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death worldwide, with blood pressure serving as a crucial indicator. Arterial blood pressure (ABP) waveforms provide continuous pressure measurements throughout the cardiac cycle and offer valuable diagnostic insights. Consequently, there is a significant demand for non-invasive and cuff-less methods to measure ABP waveforms continuously. Accurate prediction of ABP waveforms can also improve the estimation of mean blood pressure, an essential cardiovascular health characteristic. This study proposes a novel framework based on the physics-informed DeepONet approach to predict ABP waveforms. Unlike previous methods, our approach requires the predicted ABP waveforms to satisfy the Navier-Stokes equation with a time-periodic condition and a Windkessel boundary condition. Notably, our framework is the first to predict ABP waveforms continuously, both with location and time, within the part of the artery that is being simulated. Furthermore, our method only requires ground truth data at the outlet boundary and can handle periodic conditions with varying periods. Incorporating the Windkessel boundary condition in our solution allows for generating natural physical reflection waves, which closely resemble measurements observed in real-world cases. Moreover, accurately estimating the hyper-parameters in the Navier-Stokes equation for our simulations poses a significant challenge. To overcome this obstacle, we introduce the concept of meta-learning, enabling the neural networks to learn these parameters during the training process.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

New inflationary probes of axion dark matter

If a light axion is present during inflation and becomes part of dark matter afterwards, its quantum fluctuations contribute to dark matter isocurvature. In this article, we introduce a whole new suite of cosmological observables for axion isocurvature, which could help test the presence of axions, as well as its coupling to the inflaton and other heavy spectator fields during inflation such as the radial mode of the Peccei-Quinn field. They include correlated clock signals in the curvature and isocurvature spectra, and mixed cosmological-collider non-Gaussianities involving both curvature and isocurvature fluctuations with shapes and running unconstrained by the current data analyses. Taking into account of the existing strong constraints on axion isocurvature fluctuations from the CMB, these novel signals could still be sizable and potentially observable. In some models, the signals, if observed, could even help us significantly narrow down the range of the inflationary Hubble scale, a crucial parameter difficult to be determined in general, independent of the tensor mode.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

The Hubble Constant in the Axi-Higgs Universe

The $Λ$CDM model provides an excellent fit to the CMB data. However, a statistically significant tension emerges when its determination of the Hubble constant $H_0$ is compared to the local distance-redshift measurements. The axi-Higgs model, which couples an ultralight axion to the Higgs field, offers a specific variation of the $Λ$CDM model. It relaxes the $H_0$ tension as well as explains the $^7$Li puzzle in Big-Bang nucleosynthesis, the clustering $S_8$ tension with the weak-lensing data, and the observed isotropic cosmic birefringence in CMB. In this paper, we demonstrate how the $H_0$ and $S_8$ tensions can be relaxed simultaneously, by correlating the axion impacts on the early and late universe. In a benchmark scenario ($m=2 \times 10^{-30}$ eV) selected for experimental tests soon, the analysis combining the CMB+BAO+WL+SN data yields $H_0 = 69.9 \pm 1.5$ km/s/Mpc and $S_8 = 0.8045 \pm 0.0096$. Combining this (excluding the SN (supernovae) part) with the local distance-redshift measurements yields $H_0 = 72.42 \pm 0.76$ km/s/Mpc, while $S_8$ is slightly more suppressed.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Opening up a window on the postinflationary QCD axion

The QCD axion cosmology depends crucially on whether the QCD axion is present during inflation or not. We point out that contrary to the standard criterion, the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry could remain unbroken during inflation, even when the axion decay constant, $f_a$, is (much) above the inflationary Hubble scale, $H_I$. This is achieved through the heavy-lifting of the PQ scalar field due to its leading non-renormalizable interaction with the inflaton, encoded in a high-dimensional operator which respects the approximate shift symmetry of the inflaton. The mechanism opens up a new window for the post-inflationary QCD axion and significantly enlarges the parameter space, in which the QCD axion dark matter with $f_a > H_I$ could be compatible with high-scale inflation and free from constraints on axion isocurvature perturbations. There also exist non-derivative couplings, which still keep the inflaton shift symmetry breaking under control, to achieve the heavy-lifting of the PQ field during inflation. Additionally, by introducing an early matter domination era, more parameter space of high $f_a$ could yield the observed DM abundance.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Searching for Heavy Neutral Leptons at A Future Muon Collider

As the planning stages for a high energy muon collider enter a more concrete era, an important question arises as to what new physics could be uncovered. A TeV-scale muon collider is also a vector boson fusion (VBF) factory with a very clean background, and as such it is a promising environment to look for new physics that couples to the electroweak (EW) sector. In this paper, we explore the ability of a future TeV-scale muon collider to search for Majorana and Dirac Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) produced via EW bosons. Employing a model-independent, conservative approach, we present an estimation of the production and decay rate of HNLs over a mass range between 200 GeV and 9.5 TeV in two benchmark collider proposals with $\sqrt{s}=3,\,10$ TeV, as well as an estimation of the dominant Standard Model (SM) background. We find that exclusion limits for the mixing between the HNLs and SM neutrinos can be as low as $\mathcal{O}(10^{-6})$. Additionally, we demonstrate that a TeV-scale muon collider allows for the ability to discriminate between Majorana and Dirac type HNLs for a large range of mixing values.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Prospects for $B^0_{(s)}\toπ^0π^0$ and $B^0_{(s)}\toηη$ modes and corresponding $CP$ asymmetries at Tera-$Z$

The physics potential of measuring $B^0_{(s)}\toπ^0π^0$ and $B^0_{(s)}\toηη$ decays via four-photon final states at Tera-$Z$ phase of CEPC or FCC-ee is investigated in this paper. We propose an electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) with both high energy resolution and excellent separation power to efficiently reconstruct $π^0$ and $η$ from hadronic final states with high photon multiplicity. The resulting $B$-meson mass resolution is approximately 30 MeV, allowing 3 $σ$ separation between $B^0$ and $B_s^0$. With the assistance of the $b$-jet tagging, the relative sensitivities to $B^0\toπ^0π^0$, $B^0_s\toπ^0π^0$, $B^0\toηη$, and $B^0_s\toηη$ signal strengths at Tera-$Z$ are projected as 0.45%, 4.5%, 18%, and 0.95%, respectively. Their dependence on various detector performances is also discussed. In addition, $B^0\toπ^0π^0$ and its two isospin-related modes are paid special attention due to their roles in the determination of the CKM angle $α$ ($ϕ_2$). The anticipated precisions of their branching-ratio and $CP$-asymmetry measurements at Tera-$Z$ are evaluated. We show that the measurement of the time-integrated $B^0\toπ^0π^0$ $CP$ asymmetry at Tera-$Z$ is complementary to $B$-factory ones. The precision on $α$ combining $Z$- and $B$-factory results reaches $0.4^\circ$, lower than the systematic uncertainties attached to isospin breaking.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Testing Lepton Flavor Universality at Future $Z$ Factories

As one of the hypothetical principles in the Standard Model (SM), lepton flavor universality (LFU) should be tested with a precision as high as possible such that the physics violating this principle can be fully examined. The run of $Z$ factory at a future $e^+e^-$ collider such as CEPC or FCC-$ee$ provides a great opportunity to perform this task because of the large statistics and high reconstruction efficiencies for $b$-hadrons at $Z$ pole. In this paper, we present a systematic study on the LFU test in the future $Z$ factories. The goal is three-fold. Firstly, we study the sensitivities of measuring the LFU-violating observables of $b\to c τν$, $i.e.$, $R_{J/ψ}$, $R_{D_s}$, $R_{D_s^\ast}$ and $R_{Λ_c}$, where $τ$ decays muonically. For this purpose, we develop the strategies for event reconstruction, based on the track information significantly. Secondly, we explore the sensitivity robustness against detector performance and its potential improvement with the message of event shape or beyond the $b$-hadron decays. A picture is drawn on the variation of analysis sensitivities with the detector tracking resolution and soft photon detectability, and the impact of Fox-Wolfram moments is studied on the measurement of relevant flavor events. Finally, we interpret the projected sensitivities in the SM effective field theory, by combining the LFU tests of $b\to c τν$ and the measurements of $b\to s τ^+τ^-$ and $b\to s \barν ν$. We show that the limits on the LFU-violating energy scale can be pushed up to $\sim \mathcal{O} (10)$~TeV for $\lesssim \mathcal O(1)$ Wilson coefficients at Tera-$Z$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

$W$-Boson Mass, Electroweak Precision Tests and SMEFT

Recently the CDF collaboration at the Tevatron reported a significant discrepancy between the direct measurement of the $W$-boson mass and its Standard Model (SM) prediction based on electroweak precision tests (EWPTs). In this paper we explore the potential origin of this discrepancy from physics beyond the SM. Explicitly, we work on a set of six-dimensional operators in the SM effective field theory (SMEFT) which are relevant to the EWPTs. By fitting to the data, we demonstrate that an upward shift in $m_W$ is driven by the operator $\mathcal{O}_{T}=\frac{1}{2}(H^{\dagger}\overset{\text{$\leftrightarrow$}}{D}_μH)^2$ with a coefficient $c_T ({\rm TeV}/Λ)^2 \gtrsim 0.01$. This suggests that the new physics scale favored by the CDF data should be multiple TeV for tree-level effects and sub TeV for loop-level effects. One simple example is to introduce a hypercharge-free electroweak triplet scalar which can raise the $c_T$ value at tree level. We also study the potential to further test the relevant SMEFT by measuring Higgs-coupling, $m_W$ and other EWPTs at future circular $e^-e^+$ colliders.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Electroweak ALP Searches at a Muon Collider

A high-energy muon collider with center-of-mass energy around and above 10 TeV is also a vector boson fusion (VBF) machine, due to the significant virtual electroweak (EW) gauge boson content of high-energy muon beams. This feature, together with the clean environment, makes it an ideal collider to search for TeV-scale axion-like particles (ALP) coupling to Standard Model EW gauge bosons, which current and other future colliders have limited sensitivities to. We present detailed analyses of heavy ALP searches in both the VBF and associated production channels at a muon collider with different running benchmarks. We also show projected constraints on the ALP couplings in the effective field theory, including an operator with its coefficient not determined by the mixed Peccei-Quinn anomaly. We demonstrate that a muon collider could probe new ALP parameter space and push the sensitivities of the couplings between the ALP and EW gauge bosons by one order of magnitude compared to HL-LHC. The projected limits and search strategies for ALPs could also be applied to other types of resonances coupling to EW gauge bosons.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Structure Regularized Attentive Network for Automatic Femoral Head Necrosis Diagnosis and Localization

In recent years, several works have adopted the convolutional neural network (CNN) to diagnose the avascular necrosis of the femoral head (AVNFH) based on X-ray images or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, due to the tissue overlap, X-ray images are difficult to provide fine-grained features for early diagnosis. MRI, on the other hand, has a long imaging time, is more expensive, making it impractical in mass screening. Computed tomography (CT) shows layer-wise tissues, is faster to image, and is less costly than MRI. However, to our knowledge, there is no work on CT-based automated diagnosis of AVNFH. In this work, we collected and labeled a large-scale dataset for AVNFH ranking. In addition, existing end-to-end CNNs only yields the classification result and are difficult to provide more information for doctors in diagnosis. To address this issue, we propose the structure regularized attentive network (SRANet), which is able to highlight the necrotic regions during classification based on patch attention. SRANet extracts features in chunks of images, obtains weight via the attention mechanism to aggregate the features, and constrains them by a structural regularizer with prior knowledge to improve the generalization. SRANet was evaluated on our AVNFH-CT dataset. Experimental results show that SRANet is superior to CNNs for AVNFH classification, moreover, it can localize lesions and provide more information to assist doctors in diagnosis. Our codes are made public at https://github.com/tomas-lilingfeng/SRANet.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2022

Jupiter missions as probes of dark matter

Jupiter, the fascinating largest planet in the solar system, has been visited by nine spacecraft, which have collected a significant amount of data about Jovian properties. In this paper, we show that one type of the in situ measurements on the relativistic electron fluxes could be used to probe dark matter (DM) and dark mediator between the dark sector and our visible world. Jupiter, with its immense weight and cool core, could be an ideal capturer for DM with masses around the GeV scale. The captured DM particles could annihilate into long-lived dark mediators such as dark photons, which subsequently decay into electrons and positrons outside Jupiter. The charged particles, trapped by the Jovian magnetic field, have been measured in Jupiter missions such as the Galileo probe and the Juno orbiter. We use the data available to set upper bounds on the cross section of DM scattering off nucleons, $σ_{χn}$, for dark mediators with lifetime of order ${\cal O}(0.1-1)$s. The results show that data from Jupiter missions already probe regions in the parameter space un- or under-explored by existing DM searches, e.g., constrain $σ_{χn}$ of order $(10^{-40} - 10^{-38})$ cm$^2$ for 1 GeV DM dominantly annihilating into $e^+e^-$ through dark mediators. This study serves as an example and an initial step to explore the full physics potential of the large planetary datasets from Jupiter missions. We also outline several other potential directions related to secondary products of electrons, positron signals and solar axions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Analysis of $B_s\toϕν\barν$ at CEPC

The rare $b\to sν\barν$ decays are sensitive to contributions of new physics (NP) and helpful to resolve the puzzle of multiple $B$ flavor anomalies. In this work, we propose to study the $b\to sν\barν$ transition at a future lepton collider operating at the $Z$ pole through the $B_s \to ϕν\barν$ decay. Using the $B_s\toϕ$ decay form factors from lattice simulations, we first update the SM prediction of BR($B_s \to ϕν\barν)_{\mathrm{SM}}=(9.93\pm 0.72)\times 10^{-6}$ and the corresponding $ϕ$ longitudinal polarization fraction $F_{L,{\mathrm{SM}}}=0.53\pm 0.04$. Our analysis uses the full CEPC simulation samples with a net statistic of $\mathcal{O}(10^9)$ $Z$ decays. Precise $ϕ$ and $B_s$ reconstructions are used to suppress backgrounds. The results show that BR($B_s \to ϕν\barν)$ can be measured with a statistical uncertainty of $\mathcal{O}(\%)$ and an $S/B$ ratio of $\mathcal{O}(1)$ at the CEPC. The quality measures for the event reconstruction are also derived. By combining the measurement of BR($B_s \to ϕν\barν)$ and $F_L$, the constraints on the effective theory couplings at low energy are given.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Priori Error Estimate of Deep Mixed Residual Method for Elliptic PDEs

In this work, we derive a priori error estimate of the mixed residual method when solving some elliptic PDEs. Our work is the first theoretical study of this method. We prove that the neural network solutions will converge if we increase the training samples and network size without any constraint on the ratio of training samples to the network size. Besides, our results suggest that the mixed residual method can recover high order derivatives better than the deep Ritz method, which has also been verified by our numerical experiments.

math.NA↗