arXiv subjects

Qing-Hong Cao

Publications and source records attributed to Qing-Hong Cao.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Symmetry Breaking as Quantum Gate: Entropy and Weak Mixing Angle

We establish a correspondence between two independent entropic probes -- the variation of R\'{e}nyi mutual information (RMI) across the electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) transition and the stabilizer R\'enyi entropy (SRE) -- in tree-level $2\to 2$ elastic scatterings. After angular averaging, the RMI (helicity basis) and the SRE (fixed beam basis) exhibit identical dependence on $\sin^2\theta_W$ within each neutral-current channel. We trace this correspondence to a common physical origin that it's the Yukawa mass insertion acts as a $-\mathrm{i}Y$ quantum gate in chirality space. Minimizing entropies across all processes yields $\sin^2\theta_W$ values matching purely axial vector-like couplings in $Z$ boson exchanged channel.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Exponentially improved quantum simulation of scalar QFT

Quantum simulations of scalar quantum field theories (QFT) provide important benchmarks for demonstrating quantum advantage. We revisit digitization in the occupation basis, which is typically hindered by unfavorable circuit depth scaling. We present an approach that achieves exponential reductions in circuit depth and significantly mitigates Trotter errors by diagonalizing field operators prior to their decomposition into Pauli strings. Focusing on a scalar QFT in 2+1 dimensions, we show that this method substantially reduces circuit depth and CNOT gate counts for time evolution. Using the Lorentzian energy-energy correlator as a benchmark observable, we find parameter regimes in which occupation-basis digitization converges more rapidly with respect to local truncation than the amplitude-basis approach of Jordan, Lee, and Preskill. These results provide both algorithmic advances and phenomenological benchmarks for studies of light-ray observables on near-term quantum devices.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

PRBench: End-to-end Paper Reproduction in Physics Research

AI agents powered by large language models exhibit strong reasoning and problem-solving capabilities, enabling them to assist scientific research tasks such as formula derivation and code generation. However, whether these agents can reliably perform end-to-end reproduction from real scientific papers remains an open question. We introduce PRBench, a benchmark of 30 expert-curated tasks spanning 11 subfields of physics. Each task requires an agent to comprehend the methodology of a published paper, implement the corresponding algorithms from scratch, and produce quantitative results matching the original publication. Agents are provided only with the task instruction and paper content, and operate in a sandboxed execution environment. All tasks are contributed by domain experts from over 20 research groups at the School of Physics, Peking University, each grounded in a real published paper and validated through end-to-end reproduction with verified ground-truth results and detailed scoring rubrics. Using an agentified assessment pipeline, we evaluate a set of coding agents on PRBench and analyze their capabilities across key dimensions of scientific reasoning and execution. The best-performing agent, OpenAI Codex powered by GPT-5.3-Codex, achieves a mean overall score of 34%. All agents exhibit a zero end-to-end callback success rate, with particularly poor performance in data accuracy and code correctness. We further identify systematic failure modes, including errors in formula implementation, inability to debug numerical simulations, and fabrication of output data. Overall, PRBench provides a rigorous benchmark for evaluating progress toward autonomous scientific research.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2026

An End-to-end Architecture for Collider Physics and Beyond

We present, to our knowledge, the first language-driven agent system capable of executing end-to-end collider phenomenology tasks, instantiated within a decoupled, domain-agnostic architecture for autonomous High-Energy Physics phenomenology. Guided only by natural-language prompts supplemented with standard physics notation, ColliderAgent carries out workflows from a theoretical Lagrangian to final phenomenological outputs without relying on package-specific code. In this framework, a hierarchical multi-agent reasoning layer is coupled to Magnus, a unified execution backend for phenomenological calculations and simulation toolchains. We validate the system on representative literature reproductions spanning leptoquark and axion-like-particle scenarios, higher-dimensional effective operators, parton-level and detector-level analyses, and large-scale parameter scans leading to exclusion limits. These results point to a route toward more automated, scalable, and reproducible research in collider physics, cosmology, and physics more broadly.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Probing CP Violation through Vector Boson Fusion at High-Energy Muon Colliders

We investigate CP-violating effects in electroweak interactions at future high-energy muon colliders within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) framework. Focusing on four dimension-six CP-odd operators -- $ \mathcal{O}_{\widetilde{W}}, \mathcal{O}_{H\widetilde{W}}, \mathcal{O}_{H\widetilde{W}B}, \mathcal{O}_{H\widetilde{B}}$ -- we analyze vector boson fusion production of $W$ and Higgs bosons using CP-odd observables and their asymmetries. With detailed simulations including parton showering, hadronization, and detector effects, we derive exclusion sensitivities through a binned likelihood analysis. For example, at $\sqrt{s} = 3$ TeV with 2 ab$^{-1}$, the coefficient $C_{\widetilde{W}}$ can be constrained at the $\mathcal{O}(0.02)$ level, improving to $\mathcal{O}(0.008)$ at 10 TeV with 2 ab$^{-1}$, and $\mathcal{O}(0.003)$ with 10 ab$^{-1}$. These results significantly surpass current LHC and projected ILC sensitivities, demonstrating the unique potential of high-energy muon colliders to provide direct and model-independent probes of CP violation in the electroweak sector.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Can we live in a baby universe formed by a delayed first-order phase transition?

We examine the idea that our universe began as a baby universe and show that this is feasible in a gauged $U(1)_{B-L}$ extension of the Standard Model with the classically conformal principle. For the first time, we define a measure to describe the probability that we reside in a baby universe, and find that it can be close to 1 in a considerable portion of the parameter space. The framework is consistent with current cosmological data, and it predicts the existence of a heavy neutral gauge boson, which could be detected at colliders, thereby offering a direct link between early-universe dynamics and experimentally testable signatures at the TeV scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Berry phase in axion physics, SM global structure, and generalized symmetries

We investigate the Berry phase arising from axion-photon and axion-fermion interactions. The effective Hamiltonians in both systems share the same form, enabling a unified description of the Berry phase and providing a novel perspective on axion experiments. We conceptually propose a new photon-ring experiment for axion detection. Furthermore, we demonstrate that measuring the axion-induced Berry phase offers a unique method for probing the global structure of the Standard Model gauge group and axion-related generalized symmetries.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Effective Field Theory Description of Light Dilaton

Dilatons, the CP-even pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons arising from spontaneous scale symmetry breaking, offer a compelling alternative to axion-like particles (ALPs) yet lack a comprehensive low-energy framework. We address this by constructing a systematic effective field theory (EFT) for the dilaton based on a manifestly scale-invariant regularization scheme. This approach derives universal linear couplings to the trace anomaly while preserving consistent renormalization group evolution. We establish a hierarchical EFT tower connecting the ultraviolet conformal sector to the infrared, encompassing the dilaton-extended SMEFT, low-energy EFT up to dimension-7, and a chiral Lagrangian describing meson and baryon interactions. We perform a comprehensive phenomenological analysis across two distinct mass regimes, where dilaton manifests as either conventional particle or wave-like particle. For MeV-scale dilatons behaving as conventional particles, we obtain constraints from LHC production, semi-invisible $B$- and $K$-meson decays, and supernova cooling. For ultralight dilatons acting as dark matter, we project sensitivities for atomic clocks and atom interferometers. This unified EFT framework would pave the way for extended phenomenological studies across the full mass spectrum of the light dilaton.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Unveiling Light-Quark Yukawa Flavor Structure via Dihadron Fragmentation at Lepton Colliders

Directly probing light-quark Yukawa couplings and their flavor structure remains a major challenge due to their smallness and overwhelming QCD backgrounds. In this Letter, we propose a theoretical framework to access these couplings at lepton colliders through transverse spin dependent azimuthal modulations in dihadron fragmentation. These modulations arise from the interference between Higgs mediated and standard model amplitudes in $e^-e^+\to q\bar{q}Z$, producing angular structures that are linearly sensitive to the Yukawa couplings $y_q$, in contrast to conventional observables that scale as $y_q^2$. By combining channels with an identified accompanying single hadron, $h^\prime=\pi^\pm,K^\pm$, and $p/\bar{p}$, this approach cleanly disentangles the up- and down-quark Yukawa contributions, yielding typical limits at the $\mathcal{O}(10^{-4}\sim 10^{-3})$ level and establishing fragmentation dynamics as a novel and complementary probe of the Higgs flavor structure.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Detailed balance in large language model-driven agents

Large language model (LLM)-driven agents are emerging as a powerful new paradigm for solving complex problems. Despite the empirical success of these practices, a theoretical framework to understand and unify their macroscopic dynamics remains lacking. This Letter proposes a method based on the least action principle to estimate the underlying generative directionality of LLMs embedded within agents. By experimentally measuring the transition probabilities between LLM-generated states, we statistically discover a detailed balance in LLM-generated transitions, indicating that LLM generation may not be achieved by generally learning rule sets and strategies, but rather by implicitly learning a class of underlying potential functions that may transcend different LLM architectures and prompt templates. To our knowledge, this is the first discovery of a macroscopic physical law in LLM generative dynamics that does not depend on specific model details. This work is an attempt to establish a macroscopic dynamics theory of complex AI systems, aiming to elevate the study of AI agents from a collection of engineering practices to a science built on effective measurements that are predictable and quantifiable.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

Scalable Quantum State Preparation via Large-Language-Model-Driven Discovery

Efficient quantum state preparation remains a central challenge in first-principles quantum simulations of dynamics in quantum field theories, where the Hilbert space is intrinsically infinite-dimensional. Here, we introduce a large language model (LLM)-assisted framework for quantum-circuit design that systematically scales state-preparation circuits to large lattice volumes. Applied to a 1+1d XY spin chain, the LLM autonomously discovers a compact 4-parameter circuit that captures boundary-induced symmetry breaking with sub-percent energy deviation, enabling successful validation on the \texttt{Zuchongzhi} quantum processor. Guided by this insight, we extend the framework to 2+1d quantum field theories, where scalable variational ansätze have remained elusive. For a scalar field theory, the search yields a symmetry-preserving, 3-parameter shallow-depth ansatz whose optimized parameters converge to size-independent constants for lattices $n \ge 4$, providing, to our knowledge, the first scalable ansatz for this class of 2+1d models. Our results establish a practical route toward AI-assisted, human-guided discovery in quantum simulation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Collins-type fragmentation energy correlator in semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton-hadron scattering

We initiate a systematic study of fragmentation energy correlators (FECs), which generalize traditional fragmentation functions and encode non-perturbative information about transverse dynamics in parton fragmentation processes. We define boost-invariant, non-perturbative FECs and derive a corresponding collinear factorization formula. A spin decomposition of the FECs is carried out, analogous to that of transverse-momentum-dependent fragmentation functions. In this work we focus particularly on the Collins-type quark FEC, which is sensitive to chiral symmetry breaking and characterizes the azimuthal asymmetry in the fragmentation of a transversely polarized quark. We perform a next-to-leading-order calculation of the corresponding hard coefficient in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering for the quark non-singlet component, thereby validating the consistency of our theoretical framework.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Multi-step phase transition and gravitational wave from general $\mathbb{Z}_2$ scalar extensions

Multi-step phase transition provides a paradigm in which a broken symmetry during phase transition can be restored, enriching the phenomena of both dark matter and baryon asymmetry. We study the dynamics of the multi-step phase transition in the standard model extension with additional isospin $N$-plet scalar field $Φ_2$ under a discrete $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry. We find that the multi-step phase transition could be triggered if there is a moderately large coupling between the Higgs and the $Φ_2$ and this coupling is required to be larger as the mass of the $Φ_2$ and/or isospin increase. The first-order phase transition at the first (second) step can be realized by the thermal loop (tree-level barrier) effects. Thus it is more likely that a detectable spectrum of gravitational waves can be produced at the second step of the phase transition.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Iterated Agent for Symbolic Regression

Symbolic regression (SR), the automated discovery of mathematical expressions from data, is a cornerstone of scientific inquiry. However, it is often hindered by the combinatorial explosion of the search space and a tendency to overfit. Popular methods, rooted in genetic programming, explore this space syntactically, often yielding overly complex, uninterpretable models. This paper introduces IdeaSearchFitter, a framework that employs Large Language Models (LLMs) as semantic operators within an evolutionary search. By generating candidate expressions guided by natural-language rationales, our method biases discovery towards models that are not only accurate but also conceptually coherent and interpretable. We demonstrate IdeaSearchFitter's efficacy across diverse challenges: it achieves competitive, noise-robust performance on the Feynman Symbolic Regression Database (FSReD), outperforming several strong baselines; discovers mechanistically aligned models with good accuracy-complexity trade-offs on real-world data; and derives compact, physically-motivated parametrizations for Parton Distribution Functions in a frontier high-energy physics application. IdeaSearchFitter is a specialized module within our broader iterated agent framework, IdeaSearch, which is publicly available at https://www.ideasearch.cn/.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2025

Probing Quark Electromagnetic Properties via Entangled Quark Pairs in Fragmentation Hadrons at Lepton Colliders

Electromagnetic dipole interactions of light quarks induce distinct spin correlations in quark pairs produced at lepton colliders, favoring entangled spin-triplet state aligned along the $\hat{z}$ axis or spin-singlet state. These correlations lead to unique $\cos(\phi_1-\phi_2)$ azimuthal asymmetries in inclusive $\pi^+\pi^-$-dihadron pair production and in back-to-back hadron pairs ($\pi\pi,K\pi,KK$), which are absent in the SM. Using published Belle and BaBar measurements together with projected sensitivities based on ratios of azimuthal asymmetries, we demonstrate that these measurements provide significant constraints on light-quark dipole couplings, with a reduced dependence on poorly known nonperturbative fragmentation functions and free from contamination by other new physics effects. This approach offers a clean and novel probe of light-quark dipole interactions in collider experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

First Constraint on Axion-Photon Coupling $g_γ$ from Neutron Star Observations

We propose a novel method to detect axions which uniquely depends on the dimensionless axion-photon coupling $g_γ$, independent of the suppressive axion decay constant $f_a$. Using neutron star PSR B1919+21 data from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, we derive the first constraint $|g_γ|<0.93$ at $1σ$ confidence level for ultra-light axions ($m_a < 10^{-11}$ eV).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

PHYBench: Holistic Evaluation of Physical Perception and Reasoning in Large Language Models

Current benchmarks for evaluating the reasoning capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) face significant limitations: task oversimplification, data contamination, and flawed evaluation items. These deficiencies necessitate more rigorous assessment methods. To address these limitations, we introduce PHYBench, a benchmark of 500 original physics problems ranging from high school to Physics Olympiad difficulty. PHYBench addresses data contamination through original content and employs a systematic curation pipeline to eliminate flawed items. Evaluations show that PHYBench activates more tokens and provides stronger differentiation between reasoning models compared to other baselines like AIME 2024, OlympiadBench and GPQA. Even the best-performing model, Gemini 2.5 Pro, achieves only 36.9% accuracy compared to human experts' 61.9%. To further enhance evaluation precision, we introduce the Expression Edit Distance (EED) Score for mathematical expression assessment, which improves sample efficiency by 204% over binary scoring. Moreover, PHYBench effectively elicits multi-step and multi-condition reasoning, providing a platform for examining models' reasoning robustness, preferences, and deficiencies. The benchmark results and dataset are publicly available at https://www.phybench.cn/.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

Bridging the Dimensional Chasm: Uncover Layer-wise Dimensional Reduction in Transformers through Token Correlation

The geometric evolution of token representations in large language models (LLMs) presents a fundamental paradox: while human language inherently organizes semantic information in low-dimensional spaces ($\sim 10^1$ dimensions), modern LLMs employ high-dimensional embeddings ($\sim 10^3$ dimensions) processed through Transformer architectures. To resolve this paradox, this work bridges this conceptual gap by developing a geometric framework that tracks token dynamics across Transformers layers. Through layer-wise analysis of intrinsic dimensions across multiple architectures, we reveal an expansion-contraction pattern where tokens diffuse to a "working space" and then progressively project onto lower-dimensional submanifolds. Our finding implies a negative correlation between the working space dimension and parameter-sensitive performance of the LLMs, and indicates that effective models tend to compress tokens into approximately 10-dimensional submanifolds, closely resembling human semantic spaces. This work not only advances LLM interpretability by reframing Transformers layers as projectors that mediate between high-dimensional computation and low-dimensional semantics, but also provides practical tools for model diagnostics that do not rely on task-specific evaluations.

cs.CL↗