We perform for the first time a full study of spin correlations in inclusive production of WZ boson pairs at the LHC with leptonic decays in the presence of next-to-leading-order QCD corrections and of effects from a dimension-six operator in the Standard-Model effective field theory (SMEFT) modifying the electroweak triple-gauge coupling. We carry out the complete quantum-state tomography of the diboson system and relate its results to common purity and spin-entanglement markers, highlighting the sizeable impact of both QCD corrections and SMEFT insertions. Additionally, we show how a naïve truncation at dimension six in the SMEFT expansion of the spin-density matrix can lead to a cumbersome spin interpretation of the quantum-tomography results.

Italy

Giovanni Pelliccioli

Emanuele Re

SMEFT effects on spin correlations and entanglement at NLO QCD in diboson production at hadron colliders

We present a nonperturbative determination of the pion valence parton distribution function (PDF) moment ratios <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">⟨</mo><msup><mrow><mi>x</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mo stretchy="false">⟩</mo><mo>/</mo><mo stretchy="false">⟨</mo><mi>x</mi><mo stretchy="false">⟩</mo></mrow></math> up to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>n</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>6</mn></math>, using the gradient flow in lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD). As a testing ground, we employ SU(3) isosymmetric gauge configurations generated by the OpenLat initiative with a pseudoscalar mass of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><msub><mi>m</mi><mi>π</mi></msub><mo>≃</mo><mn>411</mn><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi>MeV</mi></math>. Our analysis uses four lattice spacings and a nonperturbatively improved action, enabling full control over the continuum extrapolation, and the limit of vanishing flow time, <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>t</mi><mo stretchy="false">→</mo><mn>0</mn></math>. The flowed ratios exhibit O(<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><msup><mi>a</mi><mn>2</mn></msup></math>) scaling across the ensembles, and the continuum-extrapolated results, matched to the <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mover accent="true"><mi>MS</mi><mo stretchy="true">¯</mo></mover></math> scheme at <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>μ</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>2</mn><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi>GeV</mi></math> using next-to-next-to-leading order matching coefficients, show only mild residual flow-time dependence. The resulting ratios, computed with a relatively small number of configurations, are consistent with phenomenological expectations for the pion’s valence distribution, with statistical uncertainties that are competitive with modern global fits. These findings demonstrate that the gradient flow provides an efficient and systematically improvable method to access partonic quantities from first principles. Future extensions of this work will target lighter pion masses toward the physical point, and applications to nucleon structure such as the proton PDFs and the gluon and sea-quark distributions.

Taiwan

Anthony Francis

Ireland

Patrick Fritzsch

United States

Rohith Karur

South Korea

Jangho Kim

Germany

Giovanni Pederiva

Dimitra A. Pefkou

Denmark

Antonio Rago

Andrea Shindler

André Walker-Loud

France

Savvas Zafeiropoulos

Moments of parton distribution functions of the pion from lattice QCD using gradient flow

Parton distribution functions (PDFs) are central to precision QCD phenomenology. Their Mellin moments can be computed on the lattice, but direct determinations using local operators, besides <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">⟨</mo><mi>x</mi><mo stretchy="false">⟩</mo></mrow></math>, face severe challenges from reduced hypercubic symmetry, limiting results to the lowest moments. A recently proposed method resolves these issues using gradient flow. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method by computing ratios of flavor nonsinglet pion PDF moments up to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo stretchy="false">⟨</mo><msup><mrow><mi>x</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>5</mn></mrow></msup><mo stretchy="false">⟩</mo></mrow></math> on four lattice spacings at <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><msub><mrow><mi>m</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>π</mi></mrow></msub><mo>≃</mo><mn>411</mn><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi>MeV</mi></mrow></math>. The moments and reconstructed PDF agree quantitatively with recent phenomenological extractions.

Robert V. Harlander

Jonas T. Kohnen

Gradient Flow for Parton Distribution Functions: First Application to the Pion

The expected precision at the FCC-ee on the product $$ \sigma \times \mathcal{B}\left(H\to b\overline{b},c\overline{c},s\overline{s}, gg\right) $$ of Higgs boson production cross sections times branching ratios of hadronic decays is presented. This study provides the first comprehensive determination of all major hadronic Higgs decay modes in a combined fit at future $\textit{e}$ $\textit{e}$ colliders, using both Higgs-strahlung ($\textit{ZH}$) and Vector boson fusion ( $$ \nu \overline{\nu}H $$ ) production processes, with a full treatment of interference effects in the $$ \nu \overline{\nu} jj $$ final state. It assumes four identical IDEA detectors collecting $\textit{e}$ $\textit{e}$ collisions at $$ \sqrt{s}=240 $$ and 365 GeV. The combination of all channels across both energies, with full covariance between production and decay modes, yields a production cross-section times branching-ratio precision at the percent to per-mil level for the dominant hadronic final states ( $$ b\overline{b} $$ , $$ c\overline{c} $$ , $\textit{gg}$). These results provide a comprehensive input to the determination of Higgs coupling projections at the FCC-ee, and they establish for the first time sensitivity to the rare decay $$ H\to s\overline{s} $$ , demonstrating that FCC-ee has the potential to provide evidence of the strange-quark Yukawa coupling.

Andrea Vecchio

Jan Eysermans

Loukas Gouskos

George Iakovidis

Alexis Maloizel

Giovanni Marchiori

Switzerland

Michele Selvaggi

Precision measurements of Higgs hadronic decay modes at the FCC-ee

We derive a general expression for the resummation of rapidity distributions for processes with a colorless final state, such as Drell-Yan or Higgs production, in the limit in which the center-of-mass energy goes on threshold, but with fixed rapidity of the Higgs or gauge boson in the partonic center-of-mass frame. The result is obtained by suitably generalizing the renormalization-group based approach to threshold resummation previously pursued by us. The ensuing expression is valid to all logarithmic orders but the resummation coefficients must be determined by comparing to fixed order results. We perform this comparison for the Drell-Yan process using the fixed-order next-to-next-to-leading (NNLO) result, thereby determining resummation coefficients up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy, for the quark-antiquark coefficient function in the quark nonsinglet channel. We provide a translation to direct QCD of a result for this resummation previously obtained using SCET methods, and we show that it agrees with our own.

Lorenzo Ros

Stefano Forte

Giovanni Ridolfi

Davide Tagliabue

Threshold resummation of rapidity distributions at fixed partonic rapidity

We derive threshold resummation of semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (SIDIS), by building upon previous results by some of us for the resummation of the Drell–Yan process at fixed rapidity, which is related to SIDIS by crossing. We consider both a double-soft limit, in which both the Bjorken and the fragmentation scaling variables tend to their threshold value, and single soft limits in which either of them does. We show that in the former limit only soft radiation contributes, and in the latter limit only collinear radiation, and we derive resummed expressions for the coefficient functions in all cases. We determine explicitly resummation coefficients in the nonsinglet channel up to next-to-next-to-leading log by comparing to recent fixed next-to-next-to-leading order results. Expanding out the single-soft resummation we reproduce recent next-to-leading power results.

Francesco Ventola

Threshold resummation of semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering

The positron annihilation into dark matter experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati has reported an excess of $$e^+e^-$$ final-state events from positron annihilation on fixed-target atomic electrons. While the global significance remains at the $$(1.77\pm 0.15)\,\sigma $$ level, the excess is centered around $$\sqrt{s} \sim 17\,\text {MeV}$$ , coinciding with the invariant mass at which anomalous $$e^+e^-$$ pair production has previously been observed in nuclear transitions from excited to ground states in $$^8$$ Be, $$^4$$ He and $$^{12}$$ C, thereby strengthening the case for a common underlying origin, possibly involving a hypothetical new $$X_{17}$$ boson. We discuss the significance of this independent accelerator-based evidence. Combining it with existing nuclear physics results, we obtain a value for the $$X_{17}$$ mass of $$m_{X_{17}}= 16.88 \pm 0.05\,\text {MeV}$$ , reducing the uncertainty from nuclear physics determinations by more than a factor of two, and mitigating the impact of poorly known correlations among their systematic errors.

Fernando Arias-Aragón

Giovanni Grilli di Cortona

Estonia

Enrico Nardi

Claudio Toni

Combined evidence for the $$X_{17}$$ boson after PADME results on resonant production in positron annihilation

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) started physics data taking on 26 August 2025. JUNO consists of a 20-kton liquid scintillator central detector, surrounded by a 35 kton water pool serving as a Cherenkov veto, and almost 1000 m$^{2}$ of plastic scintillator veto on top. The detector is located in a shallow underground laboratory with an overburden of 1800 m.w.e. This paper presents the performance results of the detector, extensively studied during the commissioning of the water phase, the subsequent liquid scintillator filling phase, and the first physics runs. The liquid scintillator achieved an attenuation length of 20.6 m at 430 nm, while the high coverage PMT system and scintillator together yielded about 1785 photoelectrons per MeV of energy deposit at the detector centre, measured using the 2.223 MeV $\textit{γ}$ from neutron captures on hydrogen with an Am-C calibration source. The reconstructed energy resolution is 3.4% for two 0.511 MeV $\textit{γ}$ at the detector centre and 2.9% for the 0.93 MeV quenched $^{214}$Po alpha decays from natural radioactive sources. The energy non-linearity is calibrated to better than 1%. Intrinsic contaminations of $^{238}$U and $^{232}$Th in the liquid scintillator are below 10$^{-16}$ g/g, assuming secular equilibrium. The water Cherenkov detector achieves a muon detection efficiency better than 99.9% for muons traversing the liquid scintillator volume. During the initial science runs, the data acquisition duty cycle exceeded 97.8%, demonstrating the excellent stability and readiness of JUNO for high-precision neutrino physics.

Chile

Angel Abusleme

Thomas Adam

Kai Adamowicz

China

David Adey

Pakistan

Shakeel Ahmad

Rizwan Ahmed

Finland

Timo Ahola

Sebastiano Aiello

Fengpeng An

Guangpeng An

United Kingdom

Costas Andreopoulos

Giuseppe Andronico

João Pedro Athayde Marcondes de André

Russia

Nikolay Anfimov

Vito Antonelli

Tatiana Antoshkina

Thailand

Burin Asavapibhop

Didier Auguste

Margherita Buizza Avanzini

Slovakia

Andrej Babic

Jingzhi Bai

Weidong Bai

Nikita Balashov

Roberto Barbera

Andrea Barresi

Davide Basilico

Eric Baussan

Beatrice Bellantonio

Marco Bellato

JeanLuc Beney

Marco Beretta

Antonio Bergnoli

Enrico Bernieri

Nikita Bessonov

David Biaré

Daniel Bick

Lukas Bieger

Svetlana Biktemerova

Thilo Birkenfeld

David Blum

Simon Blyth

Sara Boarin

Manuel Boehles

Anastasia Bolshakova

Mathieu Bongrand

Aurélie Bonhomme

Clément Bordereau

Matteo Borghesi

Augusto Brigatti

Timothee Brugiere

Riccardo Brugnera

Riccardo Bruno

Jonas Buchholz

Antonio Budano

Max Buesken

Mario Buscemi

Severino Bussino

Jose Busto

Ilya Butorov

Marcel Büchner

Anatael Cabrera

Barbara Caccianiga

Boshuai Cai

Hao Cai

Xiao Cai

Yanke Cai

Yi-zhou Cai

Zhiyan Cai

Stéphane Callier

Steven Calvez

Antonio Cammi

Agustin Campeny

Dechang Cai

Chuanya Cao

Dewen Cao

Guofu Cao

Jun Cao

Yaoqi Cao

Rossella Caruso

Aurelio Caslini

Cédric Cerna

Vanessa Cerrone

Daniele Cesini

Chi Chan

Jinfan Chang

Yun Chang

Milo Charavet

Tim Charissé

Auttakit Chatrabhuti

Chao Chen

Guoming Chen

Haitao Chen

Haotian Chen

Jiahui Chen

Jian Chen

Jing Chen

Junyou Chen

Lihao Chen

Mali Chen

Mingming Chen

Initial performance results of the JUNO detector * We acknowledge financial and institutional supportfrom the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National KeyR&D Program of China, the People's Government of Guangdong Province, and the Tsung–Dao Lee Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.We appreciate the contributions from the Institut Na-tional de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Partic-ules (IN2P3) in France, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy, the Fonds de la Recherche Sci-entifique (F.R.S.–FNRS) and the Institut Interuni-versitaire des Sciences Nucléaires (IISN) in Belgium, and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico eTecnológico (CNPq) in Brazil.We also acknowledge the support of the AgenciaNacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) and the ANID–Millennium Science Initiative Program (ICN2019044) in Chile; the European Structural and In-vestment Funds, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and the Charles University Research Center inthe Czech Republic; the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinsch-aft (DFG), the Helmholtz Association, and the Cluster ofExcellence PRISMA+ in Germany; and the Joint Insti-tute for Nuclear Research (JINR) and Lomonosov Mo-scow State University in Russia.We further thank the Slovak Research and Develop-ment Agency in the Slovak Republic, the National Science and Technology Council (NSCT) and MOE, China, the Program Management Unit for Hu-man Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation (PMU–B), Chulalongkorn University, and Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the United Kingdom, and the University of California atIrvine and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States

We achieve for the first time NNLO <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mi>QCD</mi><mo>+</mo><mi>NLO</mi></mrow></math> EW accuracy for doubly polarized <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>W</mi><mi>Z</mi></math> inclusive production at the LHC, in the case of fully leptonic decays. Additionally, we provide estimates for missing higher-order uncertainties in QCD associated with doubly polarized differential cross sections and joint polarization fractions, obtained both with standard scale variations and with a theory-nuisance-parameter approach. The study is carried out in the fiducial setup of a recent ATLAS analysis of Run-2 data.

Poland

Rene Poncelet

Precise predictions for joint polarization fractions in <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mi>W</mi><mi>Z</mi></math> production at the LHC

The semi-inclusive production of identified hadrons in deeply inelastic lepton scattering on polarized nucleons allows to probe the spin structure of the nucleon target in a more detailed level than through fully inclusive processes. We compute the NNLO QCD corrections to longitudinally polarized semi-inclusive deep inelastic processes mediated by electroweak neutral and charged currents. We present the first calculation of polarized electroweak structure functions in the Larin scheme up to NNLO. Additionally, we reformulate the finite scheme transformation to the $$ \overline{\textrm{MS}} $$ scheme in a quark flavour basis and identify issues in its assignment to partonic channels in previous calculations. Using our results we perform a detailed phenomenological study of polarized cross sections and of single and double spin asymmetries. We observe large electroweak effects, which need to be included in precision studies of polarized observables.

Leonardo Bonino

Thomas Gehrmann

Markus Löchner

Kay Schönwald

Giovanni Stagnitto

Polarized neutral and charged current semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering at NNLO in QCD