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The ESO public survey VISTA Variables in the V\'ia L\'actea (VVV) surveyed the inner Galactic bulge and the adjacent southern Galactic disk from $2009-2015$. Upon its conclusion, the complementary VVV eXtended (VVVX) survey has expanded both the temporal as well as spatial coverage of the original VVV area, widening it from $562$ to $1700$ sq. deg., as well as providing additional epochs in $JHK_{\rm s}$ filters from $2016-2023$. With the completion of VVVX observations during the first semester of 2023, we present here the observing strategy, a description of data quality and access, and the legacy of VVVX. VVVX took $\sim 2000$ hours, covering about 4% of the sky in the bulge and southern disk. VVVX covered most of the gaps left between the VVV and the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) areas and extended the VVV time baseline in the obscured regions affected by high extinction and hence hidden from optical observations. VVVX provides a deep $JHK_{\rm s}$ catalogue of $\gtrsim 1.5\times10^9$ point sources, as well as a $K_{\rm s}$ band catalogue of $\sim 10^7$ variable sources. Within the existing VVV area, we produced a $5D$ map of the surveyed region by combining positions, distances, and proper motions of well-understood distance indicators such as red clump stars, RR Lyrae, and Cepheid variables. In March 2023 we successfully finished the VVVX survey observations that started in 2016, an accomplishment for ESO Paranal Observatory upon 4200 hours of observations for VVV+VVVX. The VVV+VVVX catalogues complement those from the Gaia mission at low Galactic latitudes and provide spectroscopic targets for the forthcoming ESO high-multiplex spectrographs MOONS and 4MOST., Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures (+ appendix). Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics in section 14: Catalogs and data

Recent near-IR Surveys have discovered a number of new bulge globular cluster (GC) candidates that need to be further investigated. Our main objective is to use public data from the Gaia Mission, VVV, 2MASS and WISE in order to measure the physical parameters of Minni48, a new candidate GC located in the inner bulge of the Galaxy at l=359.35 deg, b=2.79 deg. Even though there is a bright foreground star contaminating the field, the cluster appears quite bright in near- and mid-IR images. We obtain deep decontaminated optical and near-IR colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) for this cluster. The heliocentric cluster distance is determined from the red clump (RC) and the red giant branch (RGB) tip magnitudes in the near-IR CMD, while the cluster metallicity is estimated from the RGB slope and the fit to theoretical isochrones. The GC size is found to be r = 6' +/- 1', while reddening and extinction values are E(J-Ks)=0.60 +/- 0.05 mag, A_G=3.23 +/- 0.10 mag, A_Ks=0.45 +/- 0.05 mag. The resulting mean Gaia proper motions are PMRA=-3.5 +/- 0.5 mas/yr, PMDEC=-6.0 +/- 0.5 mas/yr. The IR magnitude of the RC yields an accurate distance modulus estimate of (m-M)_0=14.61 mag, equivalent to a distance D=8.4 +/- 1.0 kpc. This is consistent with the optical distance estimate: (m-M)_0=14.67 mag, D=8.6 +/- 1.0 kpc, and with the RGB tip distance: (m-M)_0=14.45 mag, D=7.8 +/- 1.0 kpc. The derived metallicity is [Fe/H]=-0.20 +/- 0.30 dex. A good fit to the PARSEC stellar isochrones is obtained in all CMDs using Age = 10 +/- 2 Gyr. The total absolute magnitude of this GC is estimated to be M_Ks= -9.04 +/- 0.66 mag. Based on its position, kinematics, metallicity and age, we conclude that Minni48 is a genuine GC, similar to other well known metal-rich bulge GCs. It is located at a projected Galactocentric angular distance of 2.9 deg, equivalent to 0.4 kpc, being one of the closest GCs to the Galactic centre., Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures. Abridged abstract. Accepted for publication in the Astronomy & Astrophysics

This is the third out of five chapters of the final report [1] of the Workshop on Physics at HL-LHC, and perspectives on HE-LHC [2]. It is devoted to the study of the potential, in the search for Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics, of the High Luminosity (HL) phase of the LHC, defined as $3~\mathrm{ab}^{-1}$ of data taken at a centre-of-mass energy of $14~\mathrm{TeV}$, and of a possible future upgrade, the High Energy (HE) LHC, defined as $15~\mathrm{ab}^{-1}$ of data at a centre-of-mass energy of $27~\mathrm{TeV}$. We consider a large variety of new physics models, both in a simplified model fashion and in a more model-dependent one. A long list of contributions from the theory and experimental (ATLAS, CMS, LHCb) communities have been collected and merged together to give a complete, wide, and consistent view of future prospects for BSM physics at the considered colliders. On top of the usual standard candles, such as supersymmetric simplified models and resonances, considered for the evaluation of future collider potentials, this report contains results on dark matter and dark sectors, long lived particles, leptoquarks, sterile neutrinos, axion-like particles, heavy scalars, vector-like quarks, and more. Particular attention is placed, especially in the study of the HL-LHC prospects, to the detector upgrades, the assessment of the future systematic uncertainties, and new experimental techniques. The general conclusion is that the HL-LHC, on top of allowing to extend the present LHC mass and coupling reach by $20-50\%$ on most new physics scenarios, will also be able to constrain, and potentially discover, new physics that is presently unconstrained. Moreover, compared to the HL-LHC, the reach in most observables will generally more than double at the HE-LHC, which may represent a good candidate future facility for a final test of TeV-scale new physics., Comment: Report from Working Group 3 on the Physics of the HL-LHC, and Perspectives at the HE-LHC; v2: final version updated with the latest contributions and summaries; 239 pages + refs; v3: typos and character misprint in Fig. 7.2 fixed; v4: added one missing author

Motivated by a solution to the strong CP problem we propose a model where a new heavy neutral CP-even Higgs boson couples to vector-like quarks enhancing its production cross section whose dominant decays are into weak bosons. The masses of the vector-like quarks are generated through interactions with a singlet scalar field charged under a broken global $U(1)$ symmetry providing a solution to the strong CP problem by means of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism. The diboson excess observed by the ATLAS Collaboration is discussed as the new heavy Higgs boson is a candidate to explain a possible signal in this channel. We also show that the 14 TeV LHC is capable of discovering this heavy Higgs with masses up to 1 TeV in the $H\to ZZ\to \ell^+\ell^-\ell^{\prime +}\ell^{\prime -}$ search channel using boosted decision trees to better discriminate between signals and backgrounds and to tame systematic uncertainties in the background rates., Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, just a correction in Table I

In this paper, the possibility to have new physics is considered at the scale of the electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) in a completely new framework. A new non-standard minimal chiral fermion extension of the Standard Model (SM) which renders the complete model free from anomalies is included. The new fermionic matter coupled with scalar leptoquaks (SLQ) developing new signals for exotic fermions that could be evaluated in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Analysis based on the cross-section final states shows that the channels $D_{-1/3}\overline{D}_{-1/3}\rightarrow jj+\notin$ and $D_{-1/3}\overline{D}_{-1/3}\rightarrow 2l^{-}2l^{+}+jj$ have an apparent narrow window $M_{D_{-1/3}}\sim 240- 300$ GeV still allowed by direct and indirect constraints and then interesting for analysis to the new run of the LHC.

We present a new model based on the SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) symmetry, in which there is a new consistent set of chiral fermion fields that renders the model free from anomalies. The new fermions do not share the usual family structure of the Standard Model and some of them have exotic electric charges, as the quarks X and Y with electric charge 5/3 and -4/3, respectively. Interestingly, the model contains a new heavy neutral lepton which may be a dark matter candidate. Two Higgs doublets are present in our construction, so that two CP even scalars are present in the model particle spectrum. One of them is similar to Standard Model Higgs boson, while the other one couples mainly with the new exotic fermions. We performed a discovery analysis showing that the 8 TeV LHC can find the Y quark from single and pair production with masses from 300 GeV up to ~ 750 GeV. We also show that the new spectrum does not contribute significantly to the oblique EW parameters, and that dangerous flavor changing neutral currents are suppressed. Characteristic signatures from the other new fermions in the model are also commented., Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, new section added, accepted for publication in JHEP

We investigate the nature of 14 embedded clusters (ECs) related to a group of four H II regions Sh2-235, Sh2-233, Sh2-232, and Sh2-231 in the giant molecular cloud G174 + 2.5. Projected towards the Galactic anticentre, these objects are a possible example of the collect and collapse scenario. We derive astrophysical parameters (age, reddening, distance, core and cluster radii) for the ECs and investigate the relationship among their parameters. Parameters are derived with field decontaminated 2MASS colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) and stellar radial density profiles (RDPs). The CMDs of these young clusters are characterised by a poorly-populated main sequence and a significant number of pre-main sequence stars, affected by differential reddening. The ECs are KKC 11, FSR 784, Sh2-235 E2, Sh2-235 Cluster, Sh2-233SE Cluster, BDSB 73, Sh2-235B Cluster, BDSB 72, BDSB 71, Sh2-232 IR, PCS 2, and the newly found clusters CBB 1 and CBB 2. We were able to derive fundamental parameters for all ECs in the sample. Structural parameters are derived for FSR 784, Sh2-235 Cluster and Sh2-235E2., Comment: 14 pages and 15 figures; MNRAS 2011