Research Interests and Publications

Research Interests

Our research interests are focused on Particle physics and Cosmology. We have made a series of influential and original work in various fields such as top quark physics, Higgs physics, early universe phase transition, baryon asymmetry, dark matter and quantum field theory methods. The main fields of research include:

1. Ultralight dark matter, gravitational wave physics

In recent years, both of cosmological observations and ground exploration experiments have greatly promoted the development of extremely weak coupling phenomena such as dark matter detection and gravitational waves. The pulsar timing array (PTA) observations look for gravitational waves of nanohertz frequencies by measuring the arrival times of radio pulses from many highly stable millisecond-pulsars in the Milky Way. We performed a search for the stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) from the first-order phase transition of the early universe using the Australia-based Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) data set. The phase transitions with temperatures of∼1–100 MeV can be effectively constrained by the PPTA data, which are within predictions from low-scale dark phase-transition models and cosmological first-order QCD phase transitions. This work also has been published in PRL with Editor’s Suggestion.

In 2019, the first-ever image of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) M87* by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) leads us to a new era of black hole physics. We proposed a novel way of detecting axions around SMBHs by using the polarimetric measurements of the EHT. Such particles can accumulate around a rotating black hole through the superradiance mechanism, forming an axion cloud. Related work has been published on PRL. In 2021, We developed detailed data analysis methods to constrain the axion-photon coupling. Embedding the axion-induced birefringence into the radiative transfer framework for the first time, we simulated a movie of black hole images with oscillating linear polarization orientations at each point of the sky plane. We further gave prospects on how future observations, e.g., the upcoming EHT observations with higher time cadence or the Next Generation EHT (ngEHT), can probe a much larger parameter space with more detailed data. This work has been published in Nature Astronomy. All these efforts would increase more potential scientific exploration applications to the FAST radio telescope and the square kilometer array (SKA) in the coming future.

In 2020, the direct dark matter detection experiment XENON1T reported an excess in their low energy electron recoil data, appearing between 2–3 keV. Our studies showed that the excess of XENON1T can be naturally explained by boosted dark matter with a prediction of daily modulation, which was Editor’s Suggestion on PRL and featured in the journal of the American Physical Society (APS) to the public.

2. Higgs Physics, electroweak symmetry breaking, CP violation

Higgs particle was first found through the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012, also known as God particle. In our classic paper “General Composite Higgs”, we proposed the most universal model framework of composite Higgs, which is cited 280 times till now. This work has illustrated the most crucial collider signal and was set as a reference model and cited many times by the LHC experimental group and experts from Review of Modern Physics. Meanwhile, he has discovered new symmetries such as maximum symmetry and trigonometric parity to solve the theoretical difficulties of the composite Higgs model. After the discovery of Higgs particles, we pointed out that the CP violation in the Higgs sector can explain the mystery of the origin of baryon asymmetry. We also proposed a new mechanism that satisfies the low-energy electric dipole moment experiment constraints, which provided an extremely key theoretical basis for the exploration of the phase transition in the early universe. All these four works have been published in PRL as the corresponding author.

3. Effective Field Theories based on scattering amplitude

Scattering is the most important and fundamental process in particle physics, which is formally a quantum transition between asymptotic states. It is natural to study the selection rules for transitions due to conservation laws, as practiced in theories of molecules, atoms, nuclei, as well as particle decays such as the Landau-Yang theorem. The selection rule in particle scattering due to angular momentum conservation is usually achieved by partial wave expansion, formulated for limited cases such as 2 to 2 scattering. It is therefore intriguing to apply the selection rule to generic scattering processes.

We derive the generalized partial wave expansion for N to M scattering amplitude in terms of spinor helicity variables. The basis amplitudes of the expansion with definite angular momentum j consist of the Poincaré Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. Moreover, we obtain a series of selection rules that restrict the anomalous dimension matrix of effective operators and how effective operators contribute to some 2 to N amplitudes at the loop level.

Publication Lists

  • Web of Inspirehep: authors/1019902
  • Selected Publications
  • "Stringent axion constraints with Event Horizon Telescope polarimetric measurements of M87^*", Yifan Chen, Yuxin Liu, Ru-Sen Lu, Yosuke Mizuno, Jing Shu, Xiao Xue, Qiang Yuan, Yue Zhao, Nature Astronomy, 17th March, 2022 (arXiv.2105.04572 ).
  • "High-precision search for dark photon dark matter with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array", Xiao Xue, Zi-Qing Xia, Xingjiang Zhu, Yue Zhao, Jing Shu, et al, Phys. Rev. Research 4, L012022 (2022).(arXiv:2112.07687)
  • "Constraining Cosmological Phase Transitions with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array", Xiao Xue, Ligong Bian, Jing Shu, Qiang Yuan, Xingjiang Zhu et al. Phys.Rev.Lett. 127 (2021) 25, 251303 (Editor’s suggestion, Featured in Physics) (arXiv:2110.03096)
  • "Partial Wave Amplitude Basis and Selection Rules in Effective Field Theories", Minyuan Jiang, Jing Shu, Ming-Lei Xiao, Yu-Hui Zheng, Phys.Rev.Lett. 126 (2021) 1, 011601(arXiv:2001.04481)
  • "Boosted Dark Matter Interpretation of the XENON1T Excess", Bartosz Fornal, Pearl Sandick, Jing Shu, Meng Su, Yue Zhao, Phys.Rev.Lett. 125 (2020) 16, 161804 (Editor’s suggestion, Featured in Physics) (arXiv:2006.11264)
  • "Generating a Higgs Quartic", Csaba Csáki, Cong-sen Guan, Teng Ma, Jing Shu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 124 (2020) 25, 251801 (arXiv:1904.03191)
  • "Emergence of Maximal Symmetry", Csaba Csáki, Teng Ma, Jing Shu, Jiang-Hao Yu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 124 (2020) 24, 241801 (arXiv:1810.07704)
  • "Probing Axions with Event Horizon Telescope Polarimetric Measurements", Yifan Chen, Jing Shu, Xiao Xue, Qiang Yuan, Yue Zhao, Phys.Rev.Lett. 124 (2020) 6, 061102 (arXiv:1905.02213)
  • "Trigonometric Parity for Composite Higgs Models", Csaba Csáki, Teng Ma, Jing Shu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 121 (2018) no.23, 231801 (arXiv:1709.08636)
  • "Maximally Symmetric Composite Higgs Models", Csaba Csaki, Teng Ma, Jing Shu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 119 (2017) no.13, 131803 (arXiv:1702.00405)
  • "Cancellations Between Two-Loop Contributions to the Electron Electric Dipole Moment with a CP-Violating Higgs Sector", Ligong Bian, Tao Liu, Jing Shu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 115 (2015) 021801 (arXiv:1411.6695)
  • "Impact of a CP Violating Higgs: from LHC to Baryogenesis", Jing Shu, Yue Zhang, Phys.Rev.Lett. 111 (2013) 091801 (arXiv:1304.0773)
  • "General Composite Higgs Models", David Marzocca, Marco Serone, Jing Shu, JHEP 1208 (2012) 013 (arXiv:1205.0770)
  • "Electroweak Beautygenesis: From b {\to} s CP-violation to the Cosmic Baryon Asymmetry", Tao Liu, Michael J. Ramsey-Musolf, Jing Shu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 108 (2012) 221301 (arXiv:1109.4145)
  • "Explorations of the Top Quark Forward-Backward Asymmetry at the Tevatron", Jing Shu, Tim M.P. Tait, Kai Wang, Phys.Rev. D 81 (2010) 034012 (arXiv:0911.3237)
  • "Axigluon as Possible Explanation for p anti-p ---> t anti-t Forward-Backward Asymmetry", Paul H. Frampton, Jing Shu, Kai Wang, Phys.Lett. B 683 (2010) 294-297 (arXiv:0911.2955)
  • "Topological Dark Matter", Hitoshi Murayama, Jing Shu, Phys. Lett. B 686 (2010) 162-165 (arXiv:0905.1720v1)
  • "Landau-Yang Theorem and Decays of a Z' Boson into Two Z Bosons", Wai-Yee Keung, Ian Low, Jing Shu, Phys.Rev.Lett. 101 (2008) 091802 (arXiv:0806.2864)