arXiv subjects

Youpeng Wu

Publications and source records attributed to Youpeng Wu.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Production of lepton-flavor-violating scalars through resonant positive-muon annihilation on atomic electrons

We investigate an invisible lepton-flavor-violating scalar $\phi$ with exclusive $e-\mu$ couplings and study its resonant production via $\mu^+e^-\to\phi$ in fixed-target experiments. Since the effective center-of-mass energy is determined by the momentum of the initial-state bound electrons, atomic effects can significantly affect the resonance behavior. We therefore employ relativistic bound-state electron wave functions to calculate the production cross section and reveal a material-dependent broadening of the resonance lineshape. For the proposed HIAF experiment, fewer than one day of data taking ($6\times10^{10}$ MOT) can probe couplings at the $10^{-5}$ level at 90\% confidence level near resonance, demonstrating that high-intensity muon fixed-target experiments provide a powerful complementary probe of lepton-flavor violation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

PosterHarness: Turning Scientific Poster Generation into an Auditable Instruction-Following Benchmark

Text-rich image models can now design poster-scale layouts, but we lack ways to measure whether they honor scientific communication contracts: legible labels, prescribed aspect ratios, and -- above all -- abstaining from fabricated scientific figures. We present POSTERHARNESS, an auditable harness reframing poster generation as measurable instruction-following tasks, with a pilot benchmark and failure taxonomy. POSTERHARNESS uses a placeholder-first contract to separate two jobs models otherwise conflate. The model performs visual-summary design: typography, reading path, color, and background -- but never draws data-bearing figures. Every figure region must be an empty labeled placeholder; a deterministic compositor inserts real source-paper figures at detected coordinates. This makes properties measurable: placeholder count and ID accuracy, blankness, aspect-ratio compliance, abstention from synthesized graphics, public-text hygiene, and source-figure provenance -- with failures logged as explicit rejections, not hidden in plausible-looking output. We instantiate the harness on 12 papers (6 HEP, 6 AI/ML-adjacent) and report three findings. (i) A counterfactual probe shows the placeholder contract drives VLM-counted synthesized figures from 34 to 0 across three papers. (ii) A failure taxonomy identifies blocking contracts: placeholder geometry, placeholder QA, template critic, and public text. (iii) Comparison with Paper2Poster shows a trade-off: PosterHarness yields higher-resolution artifacts, lower white-canvas fraction, and stronger VLM visual preference; the deterministic baseline retains slightly more PosterQuiz-style information and runs faster. We report this as regime characterization, not a superiority claim. All artifacts, prompts, manifests, and audit scripts are released as a reusable evaluation component.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

Agentic Hybrid RAG for Evidence-Grounded Muon Collider Analysis

Muon collider research spans accelerator physics, detector instrumentation, and high-energy phenomenology, with relevant evidence scattered across a rapidly expanding and heterogeneous body of scientific literature. As high-energy physics (HEP) increasingly explores agent-assisted analysis workflows, efficiently locating, integrating, and verifying scientific evidence becomes an essential capability. While retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) offers a promising framework for scientific question answering, integrating agentic reasoning without compromising retrieval precision remains a key challenge. In this work, we present agentic hybrid RAG, an evidence-grounded RAG framework for muon collider research. The framework combines a hybrid retriever, integrating sparse lexical and dense semantic retrieval, with an agentic reasoning module for query decomposition, evidence expansion, and grounded answer generation. To enable systematic evaluation, we construct the first benchmark for retrieval-augmented scientific question answering in the muon collider domain, comprising a curated literature corpus together with dedicated retrieval and answer-generation benchmarks covering major detector and physics research topics. Extensive evaluation shows that hybrid retrieval provides the strongest retrieval backbone, while agentic reasoning is most effective for controlled evidence expansion and answer synthesis. Built on this principle, agentic hybrid RAG consistently outperforms representative retrieval and RAG baselines in retrieval effectiveness, answer quality, evidence coverage, and factual grounding. Together, the benchmark and framework provide a foundation for evidence-grounded scientific question answering and future HEP analysis agents operating over large-scale scientific literature.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

"Hadron-in-fat-jet'' AI Tagging to Detect Rare Decays Such as $W^{\pm}\to\pi^{\pm}\gamma$

We investigate a novel class of boosted-object signatures at the LHC, where a high-$p_{\text{T}}$ fat-jet contains an identifiable hadron or quarkonium state originating from rare or semi-exclusive decays. Unlike conventional boosted jet studies, which focus on multi-prong partonic substructure, our approach probes hybrid configurations such as $W^{\pm}\to\pi^{\pm}\gamma$, where a localized hadronic or quarkonium signal is embedded within a collimated jet. By fine-tuning the signature-oriented, pre-trained Sophon AI model optimized for large-radius jets, and combining it with an event-level BDT and a soft-drop-mass shape fit, we obtain an expected 95\% CL upper limit of ${\cal B}(W^{\pm}\to\pi^{\pm}\gamma)<2.78\times10^{-5}$ for $450\,\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ in our nominal setup. This study serves as a first proof-of-principle demonstration of the ``hadron-in-fat-jet'' paradigm; substantial gains in sensitivity are expected from improved trigger strategies, additional production channels, and dedicated taggers, while the methodology itself is broadly applicable to a wide range of rare Standard Model processes and searches for light or exotic resonances at present and future collider experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Prospects for studying the $WH\gamma$ process in $pp$ collisions at the LHC

The Standard Model of particle physics, though remarkably successful, leaves open several major questions that continue to motivate searches for new phenomena. Multiboson interactions involving the Higgs boson are of special interest as probes of the electroweak Lagrangian where potential new physics may be hiding. In this work, we present a study of the simultaneous production of a W boson, a Higgs bosons and a photon in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. Monte Carlo simulation is performed to model both the signal and the background processes, and detector effects are included according to CMS specifications. Boosted decision trees are employed to optimize the event selection and enhance signal-background discrimination. We estimate that with an integrated luminosity of 440~$\rm fb^{-1}$, the expected significance for the $WH\gamma$ process is 0.63$\sigma$, projected to reach 1.64$\sigma$ at the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Probing Cosmic Ray Composition and Muon-philic Dark Matter via Muon Tomography

This work presents a novel cosmic-ray scattering experiment employing a Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) muon tomography system. By introducing the scattering angle between incident and outgoing cosmic-ray tracks as a key observable, this approach enables simultaneous studies of secondary cosmic-ray composition and searching for new physics. During a 63-day campaign, 1.18 million cosmic ray scattering events were recorded and analyzed. By performing combined template fits to the observed angular distribution, particle abundances are measured -- for example, resolving the electron component at $\sim 2\%$ precision. Furthermore, constraints are established on elastic muon dark matter (DM) scattering cross-sections for muon-philic dark matter. At the $95\%$ confidence level, the limit reaches 1.61 $\times$ $10^{-17}$ $\rm{cm}^{2}$ for 1 GeV slow DM, demonstrating sensitivity limit to light muon-coupled slow DM, in scenarios where a strongly interacting dark matter component is captured and thermalized within the Earth, leading to large surface densities.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

Searching Quantum Entanglement in $p\ p\to Z\ Z$ process

Recent studies have shown that observing entangled particle states at a particle collider like Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and testing violation of Bell inequality in them can open up new research area for high energy physics study. We examine the presence of quantum entanglement in the $pp\to ZZ\to 4\ell$ process at leading order. We apply generally recognized method, quantum state tomography, to reconstruct spin density matrix of the joint $ZZ$ system, through which all the relevant observables can be obtained. The angular distribution of the final leptons are obtained from simulated events using Monte-Carlo program, which is used to reconstruct spin density matrix. Non-zero value of the lower bound of the concurrence is measured with simulated data. The numerical analysis shows that with the luminosity corresponding to LHC Run 2+3, entanglement can be probed at $2 \sigma$ level and up to 3.75$\sigma$ level for High-Luminosity LHC data ($3 \rm{ab}^{-1}$), revealing the possibility of finding quantum entanglement in real collider experiment.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Quantum Entanglement between gauge boson pairs at a Muon Collider

Quantum entanglement is one of significant physics phenomena that can be examined at a particle collider. A muon collider can provide a stage on which we can study substantial physics phenomenon, starting from the precision measurements of the Standard Model and beyond to the undiscovered area of physics. In this work, we present a through study of quantum entanglement in $\mu^+\mu^-\to ZZ$ events at a future muon collider. By fixing the spin density matrix, observables quantifying entanglement between $Z$ boson pairs can be measured. After systematic Monte-Carlo simulation and background analysis, we measure the value of entanglement variables and perform hypothesis testing against the non-entangled hypothesis, finally observing the entanglement of the $ZZ$ system up to $2$ significance level.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Testing Bell inequalities and probing quantum entanglement at CEPC

We study quantum entanglement and test violation of Bell-type inequality at the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), which is one of the most attractive future colliders. It's a promising particle collider designed to search new physics, make Standard Model (SM) precision measurements, and serving as a Higgs factory. Our study is based on a fast simulation of the $Z$ boson pair production from Higgs boson decay at $\sqrt{s} = 250$ GeV. The detector effects are also included in the simulation. The spin density matrix of the joint $ZZ$ system is parametrized using irreducible tensor operators and reconstructed from the spherical coordinates of the decay leptons. To test Bell inequalities, we construct observable quantities for the $H \to ZZ*$ process in CEPC by using the (Collins-Gisin-Linden-Massar-Popescu) CGLMP inequality, whose value is determined from the density matrix of the Z boson pairs. The sensitivity of the Bell inequality violation is observed with more than 1$\sigma$ and the presence of the quantum entanglement is probed with more than 2$\sigma$ confidence level.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Testing Bell inequalities and probing quantum entanglement at a muon collider

A muon collider represents a promising candidate for the next generation of particle physics experiments after the expected end of LHC operations in the early 2040s. Rare or hard-to-detect processes at the LHC, such as the production of multiple gauge bosons, become accessible at a TeV muon collider. We present here the prospects of detecting quantum entanglement and the violation of Bell inequalities in H to ZZ to 4l events at a potential future muon collider. We show that the spin density matrix of the Z boson pairs can be reconstructed using the kinematics of the charged leptons from the Z boson decays. Once the density matrix is determined, it is straightforward to obtain the expectation values of various Bell operators and test the quantum entanglement between the Z boson pair. Through a detailed study based on Monte-Carlo simulation, we show that the generalized CGLMP inequality can be maximally violated, and testing Bell inequalities could be established with high significance.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

A proposed PKU-Muon experiment for muon tomography and dark matter search

We propose here a set of new methods to directly detect light mass dark matter through its scattering with abundant atmospheric muons or accelerator beams. Firstly, we plan to use the free cosmic-ray muons interacting with dark matter in a volume surrounded by tracking detectors, to trace possible interaction between dark matter and muons. Secondly, we will interface our device with domestic or international muon beams. Due to much larger muon intensity and focused beam, we anticipate the detector can be made further compact and the resulting sensitivity on dark matter searches will be improved. Furthermore, we will measure precisely directional distributions of cosmic-ray muons, either at mountain or sea level, and the differences may reveal possible information of dark matter distributed near the earth. Specifically, our methods can have advantages over `exotic' dark matters which are either muon-philic or slowed down due to some mechanism, and sensitivity on dark matter and muon scattering cross section can reach as low as microbarn level.

hep-ex↗