arXiv subjects

Z. Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Z. Chen.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2026

Sensitivity Projections for Low-Mass Dark Matter Annihilation with the IceCube Upgrade

The IceCube Upgrade, an extension designed to enhance the IceCube Neutrino Observatory's detection of neutrinos with energies between 1 GeV and 500 GeV, will markedly improve IceCube's sensitivity to low-mass dark matter scenarios. In this study, we present sensitivity projections for the IceCube Upgrade to neutrino fluxes arising from dark matter annihilation. In particular, we consider dark matter with masses between 3 GeV to 500 GeV from both the core of the Sun and the Galactic Center. These projections indicate that the IceCube Upgrade will enable stringent limits on dark matter in this parameter space, achieving leading sensitivities to some dark matter models with only three years of data taking.

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arXiv2026

Probing Late-Stage Hadronic Interactions at High Baryon Density via $K^{*0}$ Production in the RHIC Beam Energy Scan Program

A precision measurement of the $K^{*0}$ meson yield is reported in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 7.7,\; 11.5,\; 14.6,\; 19.6,$ and $27~\mathrm{GeV}$ using the high-statistics data sample collected by the STAR experiment during the Beam Energy Scan II (BES-II) program at RHIC. The transeverse momentum ($p_{T}$)-integrated yield ratios $(K^{*0} + \overline{K^{*0}})/(K^{+} + K^{-})$ in central collisions show a suppression relative to peripheral collisions at the $(1.7\text{-}3.6)\,σ$ level, while a thermal model without final-stage rescattering overpredicts this ratio with a deviation of $(6.9\text{-}8.2)\,σ$. These results indicate a loss of the measured $K^{*0}$ signal in central collisions due to re-scattering of its hadronic decay products in the hadronic phase. The $p_{T}$-integrated yield of charged kaons exhibits an approximate scaling with charged-particle multiplicity, independent of collision energy and system size. A similar trend is observed for the short-lived $K^{*0}$ resonance, although significant deviations emerge at lower energies. At BES energies, the $K^{*0}/K$ ratio shows stronger suppression than at the highest RHIC and LHC energies within a given multiplicity bin, particularly in central and mid-central collisions. This behavior is consistent with changes in the effective hadronic interaction cross section and is supported by transport model calculations, which indicate dominant meson-baryon interactions at lower energies and meson-meson interactions at higher energies.

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arXiv2026

CKM Beyond Channel Gain: Spatial Correlation Map Construction with Deep Learning

Channel knowledge map (CKM) is a promising technique to achieve environment-aware wireless communication and sensing. Constructing the complete CKM based on channel knowledge observations at sparse locations is a fundamental problem for CKM-enabled wireless networks. However, most existing works on CKM construction only consider the special type of CKM, i.e., the channel gain map (CGM), which only records the channel gain value for each location. In this paper, we consider the channel spatial correlation map (SCM) construction, which signifies the location-specific spatial correlation matrix for multi-antenna systems. Unlike CGM construction, constructing SCM poses significant challenges due to its extremely high-dimensional structure. To address this issue, we first decompose the high-dimensional SCM into lower-dimensional path gain map (PGM) and path angle map (PAM). Then we propose a deep learning model termed E-SRResNet for constructing high-quality SCM from sparse samples, which incorporates multi-head attention (MHA) mechanisms and multi-scale feature fusion (MSFF) to accurately model both local and global spatial relationships of channel parameters and complex nonlinear mappings. Furthermore, we preprocess the dataset to provide priors including line-of-sight (LoS) map, binary building map and base station (BS) map for the model to reconstruct SCM more accurately. Simulations conducted on the CKMImageNet dataset demonstrate that the proposed E-SRResNet achieves significant performance improvements over baseline methods. Moreover, the cosine similarity between the constructed SCM and the ground truth exceeds 0.8 in most regions, validating the effectiveness of the proposed construction method.

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arXiv2026

Neural posterior estimation of the neutrino direction in IceCube using transformer-encoded normalizing flows on the sphere

IceCube is a cubic-kilometer-scale neutrino detector located at the geographic South Pole. A precise directional reconstruction of IceCube neutrinos is vital for associations with astronomical objects. In this context, we discuss neural posterior estimation of the neutrino direction via a transformer encoder that maps to a normalizing flow on the 2-sphere. It achieves a new state-of-the-art angular resolution for the two main event morphologies in IceCube - tracks and showers - while being significantly faster than traditional B-spline-based likelihood reconstructions. All-sky scans can be performed within seconds rather than hours, and take constant computation time, regardless of whether the posterior extent is arc-minutes or spans the whole sky. We utilize a combination of $C^2$-smooth rational-quadratic splines, scale transformations and rotations to define a novel spherical normalizing-flow distribution whose parameters are predicted as a whole as the output of the transformer encoder. We test several structural choices diverting from the vanilla transformer architecture. In particular, we find dual residual streams, nonlinear QKV projection and a separate class token with its own cross-attention processing to boost test-time performance. The angular resolution for both showers and tracks improves substantially over the whole trained energy range from 100 GeV to 100 PeV. At 100 TeV deposited energy, for example, the median angular resolution improves by a factor of $1.3$ for throughgoing tracks, by a factor of $1.7$ for showers and by a factor of $2.5$ for starting tracks compared to state-of-the art likelihood reconstructions based on B-splines. While previous machine-learning (ML) efforts have managed to obtain competitive shower resolutions, this is the first time an ML-based method outperforms likelihood-based muon reconstructions above 100 GeV.

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arXiv2026

Improved measurements of the TeV-PeV extragalactic neutrino spectrum from joint analyses of IceCube tracks and cascades

The IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory has discovered the presence of a diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux at energies of TeV and beyond using neutrino induced muon tracks and cascade events from neutrino interactions. We present two analyses sensitive to neutrino events in the energy range \SI{1}{TeV} to \SI{10}{PeV}, using more than 10 years of IceCube data. Both analyses consistently reject a neutrino spectrum following a single power-law with significance $>4\,σ$ in favor of a broken power law. We describe the methods implemented in the two analyses, the spectral constraints obtained, and the validation of the robustness of the results. Additionally, we report the detection of a muon neutrino in the MESE sample with an energy of $11.4^{+2.46}_{-2.53} $\,\si{PeV}, the highest energy neutrino observed by IceCube to date. The results presented here show insights into the spectral shape of astrophysical neutrinos, which has important implications for inferring their production processes in a multi-messenger picture.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Evidence for a Spectral Break or Curvature in the Spectrum of Astrophysical Neutrinos from 5 TeV--10 PeV

We report improved measurements of the all flavor astrophysical neutrino spectrum with IceCube by combining complementary neutrino samples in two independent analyses. Both analyses show evidence of a harder spectrum at energies below $\sim$30~TeV compared to higher energies where the spectrum is well characterized by a power law. The spectrum is better described by a log parabola or a broken power law, the latter being the preferred model. Both, however, reject a single power law over an energy range 5~TeV-10~PeV with a significance $>4σ$, providing new constraints on properties of cosmic neutrino sources.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Evidence for Neutrino Emission from X-Ray-bright Active Galactic Nuclei with IceCube

Recently, IceCube reported neutrino emission from the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068. Using 13.1 years of IceCube data, we present a follow-up search for neutrino sources in the northern sky. NGC 1068 remains the most significant neutrino source among 110 preselected gamma-ray emitters while also being spatially compatible with the most significant location in the northern sky. Its energy spectrum is characterized by an unbroken power-law with spectral index $γ= 3.4 \pm 0.2$. Consistent with previous results, the observed neutrino flux exceeds its gamma-ray counterpart by at least two orders of magnitude. Motivated by this disparity and the high X-ray luminosity of the source, we selected 47 X-ray bright Seyfert galaxies from the Swift/BAT spectroscopic survey that were not included in the list of gamma-ray emitters. When testing this collection for neutrino emission, we observe a 3.3$σ$ excess from an ensemble of 11 sources, with NGC 1068 excluded from the sample. Our results strengthen the evidence that X-ray bright cores of active galactic nuclei are neutrino emitters.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Observation of charmonium sequential suppression in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

We report measurements of charmonium sequential suppression in Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm {NN}}}$ = 200 GeV with the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The inclusive yield ratio of $ψ$(2S) to J/$ψ$ as a function of transverse momentum is reported, along with the centrality dependence of the double ratio, defined as the $ψ$(2S) to J/$ψ$ ratio in heavy-ion collisions relative to that in $p$+$p$ collisions. In the 0-80% centrality class, the double ratio is found to be 0.41 $\pm$ 0.10 (stat) $\pm$ 0.03 (syst) $\pm$ 0.02 (ref), lower than unity with a significance of 5.6 standard deviations. This provides experimental evidence that $ψ$(2S) is significantly more suppressed than J/$ψ$ in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. This sequential suppression pattern seems to increase from peripheral to central collisions, but with no significant dependence on the transverse momentum.

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arXiv2026

Measurement of the branching fraction of $η\to μ^+ μ^-$ and search for $η\to e^+ e^-$

We analyze the decay of $η\rightarrow \ell^+\ell^-(\ell=e, μ)$ via $J/ψ\rightarrowγη'$ and $η'\rightarrowπ^+π^-η$, based on (10087 $\pm$ 44) $\times$ 10$^{6}$ $J/ψ$ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII storage rings. The branching fraction of $η\rightarrowμ^+ μ^-$ is measured to be $(5.8 \pm 1.0_{\rm stat} \pm 0.2_{\rm syst}) \times 10^{-6}$, which is consistent with the previous measurements and theoretical expectations. In addition, no significant $η\to e^+e^-$ signal is observed in the $e^+ e^-$ invariant mass spectrum, and an improved upper limit of ${\cal B}(η\to e^+ e^-) < 2.2 \times 10^{-7}$ is set at 90\% confidence level.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Multi-channel joint analysis of the exotic charmonium-like state $T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)$

This paper reports the first multi-channel joint analysis to identify the properties of the exotic charmonium-like state $T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)$ via the electron-positron annihilation process $e^{+}e^{-}\toπ^{+}T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}+c.c$. A partial wave analysis is performed simultaneously in three decay channels $T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}\to {D}^{*0}D^{*-}$, $π^{-}J/ψ$, and $π^{-}h_{c}$, based on data samples taken at $\sqrt{s}=4.395$ and $4.416\,\mathrm{GeV}$ with an integrated luminosity of $1598.9\,\mathrm{pb}^{-1}$ collected with the BESIII detector operating on the BEPCII collider. For the first time, the spin-parity of the $T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}$ is determined to be $J^{P}=1^{+}$ with a significance $11.7σ$. Pole positions are extracted on the Riemann sheets with three branch points in the complex energy plane. Furthermore, the relative branching fractions are obtained as $\mathcal{B}[T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}\toπ^{-}J/ψ]/\mathcal{B}[T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}\to{D}^{*0}D^{*-}]=(3.6\pm0.6\pm1.6)\times10^{-3}$ and $\mathcal{B}[T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}\toπ^{-}h_{c}]/\mathcal{B}[T_{c\bar{c}}(4020)^{-}\to{D}^{*0}D^{*-}]=(8.9\pm1.3\pm2.3)\times10^{-2}$, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second are systematic.

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arXiv2026

Experimental study of the reaction $Ξ^{0}n\rightarrowΛΛX$ using $Ξ^{0}$-nucleus scattering

Using $(10087\pm44)\times10^{6}$$J/ψ$ events collected with the BESIII detector operating at the BEPCII storage ring in $2009$, $2012$, $2018$, and $2019$, we perform a search for the reaction $Ξ^0n\rightarrowΛΛX$, where $X$ denotes any additional final particles. Given the highly suppressed phase space for producing extra pions, the $X$ consists of either nothing or a photon, corresponding to the processes $Ξ^0 n \rightarrow ΛΛ$ and $Ξ^{0}n\rightarrowΛΣ^0\rightarrowΛΛγ$. The $Ξ^0$ comes from the decay of $J/ψ\rightarrowΞ^0\barΞ^0$, while the neutron originates from material of the beam pipe. A signal is observed for the first time with a statistical significance of 6.4$σ$. The cross section for the reaction $Ξ^0+{^9\rm{Be}}\rightarrowΛ+Λ+X$ is measured to be $(43.6\pm10.5_{\text{stat}}\pm11.1_{\text{syst}})$ mb at $P_{Ξ^0}\approx0.818$ GeV/$c$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. No significant $H$-dibaryon signal is observed in the $ΛΛ$ final state.

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arXiv2026

Probing neutrino emission at GeV energies from compact binary mergers with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

The advent of multi-messenger astronomy has allowed for new types of source searches by neutrino detectors. We present the results of the search for 0.5-100 GeV astrophysical neutrinos detected with IceCube and emitted from compact binary mergers detected by the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA interferometers from their first run of observation (O1) to the end of the first part of the fourth (O4a). An innovative approach is used to lower the energy threshold to 0.5 GeV and to search for an excess of GeV neutrinos in time coincidence with astrophysical transient events. Furthermore, we use a statistical combination of all observations, a binomial test, to search for a subpopulation of neutrino emitters. No significant excess was found from the studied mergers, with a best post-trial $p$-value of $40\%$, and there is currently no hint of a population of GeV neutrino emitters found in the IceCube data (post-trial $p$-value = $81\%$).

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Observation of $ψ(3686)\to γη(1405)$ via $η(1405)\to f_0(980)π^0$

The decay $ψ(3686)\toγπ^+π^-π^0$ is studied using a sample of $(2712.4\pm14.3)\times10^6$ $ψ(3686)$ events collected with the BESIII detector. The decay $η(1405)\toπ^+π^-π^0$ is observed for the first time in $ψ(3686)$ decays via the intermediate state $f_0(980)$ and the product branching fraction $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3686)\toγη(1405))\times\mathcal{B}(η(1405)\to f_0(980)π^0)\times \mathcal{B}(f_0(980)\toπ^+π^-)$ is determined to be $(3.77\pm0.43\pm0.29)\times10^{-7}$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The isospin-violating decay of $ψ(3686)\toγf_1(1285)\toγf_0(980)π^0\toγπ^+π^-π^0$ has been observed with signal significance of $2.9σ$. And the branching fraction $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3686)\toγf_1(1285)\toγf_0(980)π^0\toγπ^+π^-π^0)$ is determined to be $ (7.36\pm2.25\pm2.26)\times 10^{-8}$. Since no $η_c$ signal is evident in either the $π^+π^-π^0$ or $f_0(980)π^0$ mass spectrum, upper limits are set to be $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3686)\toγη_c)\times\mathcal{B}(η_c\toπ^+π^-π^0)<3.09\times10^{-7}$ and $\mathcal{B}(ψ(3686)\toγη_c)\times\mathcal{B}(η_c\to f_0(980)π^0)\times\mathcal{B}(f_0(980)\toπ^+π^-)<7.97\times10^{-8}$ at 90\% confidence level, respectively.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Search for the electromagnetic Dalitz decays $χ_{cJ}\to e^{+}e^{-}ϕ$

Using a data sample of $(2.712 \pm 0.014)\times10^{9}$ $ψ(3686)$ events collected at $\sqrt{s}=3.686$ GeV by the BESIII detector, we search for the rare electromagnetic Dalitz decays $χ_{cJ}\to e^+e^-ϕ~(J=0,\,1,\,2)$ via the radiative transitions $ψ(3686)\toγχ_{cJ}$. No statistically significant $χ_{cJ}\to e^+e^-ϕ$ signals are observed. The upper limits on the branching fractions of $χ_{cJ}\to e^+e^-ϕ~(J=0,\,1,\,2)$, excluding the $ϕ$ resonance to $e^+e^-$ final states, are set to be $2.4\times10^{-7},~6.7\times10^{-7}$ and $4.1\times10^{-7}$ at 90\% confidence level, respectively. This is the first search for the electromagnetic Dalitz transition of P-wave charmonium $χ_{cJ}$ states to a light vector meson.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Deep Search for Joint Sources of Gravitational Waves and High-Energy Neutrinos with IceCube During the Third Observing Run of LIGO and Virgo

The discovery of joint sources of high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves has been a primary target for the LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and IceCube observatories. The joint detection of high-energy neutrinos and gravitational waves would provide insight into cosmic processes, from the dynamics of compact object mergers and stellar collapses to the mechanisms driving relativistic outflows. The joint detection of multiple cosmic messengers can also elevate the significance of the common observation even when some or all of the constituent messengers are sub-threshold, i.e. not significant enough to declare their detection individually. Using data from the LIGO, Virgo, and IceCube observatories, including sub-threshold events, we searched for common sources of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos during the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. Our search did not identify significant joint sources. We derive constraints on the rate densities of joint sources. Our results constrain the isotropic neutrino emission from gravitational-wave sources for very high values of the total energy emitted in neutrinos (> $10^{52} - 10^{54}$ erg).

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

Identification and Denoising of Radio Signals from Cosmic-Ray Air Showers using Convolutional Neural Networks

Radio pulses generated by cosmic-ray air showers can be used to reconstruct key properties like the energy and depth of the electromagnetic component of cosmic-ray air showers. Radio detection threshold, influenced by natural and anthropogenic radio background, can be reduced through various techniques. In this work, we demonstrate that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are an effective way to lower the threshold. We developed two CNNs: a classifier to distinguish radio signal waveforms from background noise and a denoiser to clean contaminated radio signals. Following the training and testing phases, we applied the networks to air-shower data triggered by scintillation detectors of the prototype station for the enhancement of IceTop, IceCube's surface array at the South Pole. Over a four-month period, we identified 554 cosmic-ray events in coincidence with IceTop, approximately five times more compared to a reference method based on a cut on the signal-to-noise ratio. Comparisons with IceTop measurements of the same air showers confirmed that the CNNs reliably identified cosmic-ray radio pulses and outperformed the reference method. Additionally, we find that CNNs reduce the false-positive rate of air-shower candidates and effectively denoise radio waveforms, thereby improving the accuracy of the power and arrival time reconstruction of radio pulses.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Energy Independence of the Collins Asymmetry in $p^{\uparrow}p$ Collisions

The STAR experiment reports new, high-precision measurements of the transverse single-spin asymmetries for $π^{\pm}$ within jets, namely the Collins asymmetries, from transversely polarized ${p^{\uparrow}p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 510 GeV. The energy-scaled distribution of jet transverse momentum, $x_{\mathrm{T}} = 2p_{\mathrm{T,jet}}/\sqrt s$, shows a remarkable consistency for Collins asymmetries of $π^{\pm}$ in jets between $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV and 510 GeV. This indicates that the Collins asymmetries are nearly energy independent with, at most, a very weak scale dependence in $p^{\uparrow}p$ collisions. These results extend to high-momentum scales ($Q^2 \leq 3400$ GeV$^2$) and enable unique tests of evolution and universality in the transverse-momentum-dependent formalism, thus providing important constraints for the Collins fragmentation functions.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Helicity amplitude and branching fraction measurement of $χ_{cJ} \rightarrow Λ\barΛ $

Utilizing $2712.4 \pm 14.3$ million $ψ(3686)$ events accumulated by the BESIII experiment, we perform a partial wave analysis of $ψ(3686)\rightarrowγχ_{cJ}\rightarrowγΛ\barΛ$ decay ($J=0,1,2$). The ratio of the helicity amplitudes with same (++) and opposite (+-) helicity for $χ_{c2}\rightarrowΛ\barΛ$ decay is determined for the first time to be $R_{χ_{c2}}=0.575 \pm 0.048 \pm 0.018 $, with a relative phase angle $ΔΦ_{χ_{c2}} = 0.37 \pm 0.15 \pm 0.05 $~rad. The parameters of the angular distribution of $χ_{c2}$ are determined to be $α_{χ_{c2}} = -0.211 \pm 0.100 \pm 0.050 $ and $β_{χ_{c2}} = -0.039 \pm 0.089 \pm 0.033 $, based on the distribution $dN / d\cosθ= 1 + α_{χ_{c2}} \cos^2θ+ β_{χ_{c2}} \cos^4θ$. The width of $χ_{c0}$ is determined to be $12.31 \pm 0.26 \pm 0.12 $~MeV. Additionally, the branching fractions for $χ_{cJ} \rightarrow Λ\barΛ$ are measured to be $(3.662 \pm 0.048 \pm 0.111) \times 10^{-4}$, $(1.182 \pm 0.026 \pm 0.042) \times 10^{-4}$, and $(1.704 \pm 0.035 \pm 0.057) \times 10^{-4}$ for $χ_{c0}$, $χ_{c1}$ and $χ_{c2}$, respectively, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic.

hep-ex↗