Papers

Dark matter deficient galaxies provide a direct way to test whether baryons and dark matter can become sufficiently separated during galaxy evolution. We formulate a Dark Matter-Baryon Separability condition based on the relative incorporation efficiencies of the two components, requiring the final dark matter to baryon ratio to fall below an observationally defined threshold. Applied to high speed collisions, this condition constrains dark matter baryon momentum transfer cross section, interacting dark matter fraction and the efficiency of gravitational recapture. The same framework gives us bounds on the abundance and cooling time of dissipative dark matter, and on the integrated escape rate of ultralight fuzzy dark matter from shallow or tidally disturbed potentials. These results show how dark matter deficient galaxies can complement cosmological and laboratory probes by constraining late time dark matter interactions, dissipation and halo stability.

From the gauge/gravity duality, it was predicted that there exists a nontrivial double scaling limit of the plane wave matrix model (the BMN matrix model), which describes the type IIA little string theory (LST) on $R\times S^5$. We show on the gauge theory side that such a limit indeed exists for the partition function and in a certain 1/4 BPS sector of the matrix model, and consequently derive an eigenvalue integral, which is expected to describe the 1/4 BPS sector of LST.

Exclusive heavy quarkonium photoproduction probes the proton's gluonic structure from near-threshold (fixed-spin exchanges, gravitational form factors) to high energies (reggeized dynamics). We construct a holographic QCD amplitude that resums the even spin-$j$ gluonic exchanges, with the spin-2 input fixed by lattice QCD GFFs. The new framework describes the $J/\psi$ cross section from JLab to HERA energies in a unified manner. It explains why the spin-2 exchange model for GFF extraction near threshold is not a controlled approximation and suggests how to improve it.

We study the free Maxwell field on the planar patch of four-dimensional de Sitter spacetime ($dS_4$). We review its bulk canonical quantization in the Bunch-Davies vacuum, and we give a representation-theoretic viewpoint by studying the transformation properties of single-particle states under infinitesimal dS transformations. By taking the late-time limit, we identify two late-time operators with scaling dimensions $\Delta=1$ (leading) and $\Delta=2$ (subleading). We introduce CFT-inspired inner products invariant under the dS group ($SO(4,1)$) for states created by late-time operators acting on the Bunch-Davies vacuum. We explain how the unitary discrete series representations of $SO(4,1)$ associated with the photon are furnished by both operators, in contrast with the Maxwell field on $AdS$ where the $\Delta=1$ operator corresponds to a non-normalizable mode. We also explain how the corresponding discrete series representations of $SO(4,1)$ split into a direct sum of representations corresponding to two helicities $+1$ and $-1$. This is achieved by taking advantage of the dS invariance of the self-dual and anti-self-dual sectors of the photon field strength. In our outlook, we draw inspiration from a recent proposal for the microscopic description of $dS_4$ higher-spin gravity where conformal gauge fields in 3 dimensions play a central role, and we investigate a possible connection of the $\Delta=1$ late-time operator with a conformal spin-1 gauge field in 3 dimensions.

We compute the leading quantum gravity correction to the correlation function of two maximal giant gravitons and two light supergravitons in the stress tensor multiplet in the supergravity limit of $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM theory. By viewing the giant gravitons as a zero-dimensional defect, we employ the defect version of the AdS unitarity method to reconstruct the one-loop correction from the known tree-level correlators. We obtain the one-loop result in closed form in both Mellin and position space. We also extract the quantum correction to the anomalous dimension of operators describing a bound state of a giant graviton and a light supergraviton at the leading conformal twist in the defect channel OPE.

We develop a quantum-tomographic framework for determining whether possible CP-odd effects in $t\bar t$ events originate in production, in decay, or in both. In the narrow-width approximation, the process $I\to t\bar t\to b\ell^+\nu\,\bar b\ell^-\bar\nu$ factorises into a production density matrix and top and antitop decay density matrices. We extend the standard tomography procedure to a general anomalous $Wtb$ vertex and derive the corresponding angular distributions. Polar-angle distributions retain their usual tomographic form, up to modifications of the spin-analysing powers, and can therefore be used to reconstruct the production density matrix and test its CP properties. By contrast, dedicated azimuthal observables involving the $b$–lepton decay planes contain characteristic sine modulations that provide linear probes of possible new CP-violating interactions in the decay vertex. Combining the two classes of observables gives a systematic strategy for separating sources of CP violation in production and in decay. We illustrate the resulting angular signatures for representative $t\bar t$ production scenarios at hadron and lepton colliders.

We investigate how possible new CP-violating top-quark interactions are encoded in the quantum state of a produced $t\bar t$ pair. We derive analytic expressions for the production density matrix in several benchmark channels relevant to hadron, lepton and photon colliders. In a common spin basis, we identify two characteristic CP-odd structures in the Fano–Bloch decomposition: a difference between the top and antitop polarisation vectors and an antisymmetric component of the spin-correlation matrix. We construct observables that directly probe these structures and study how quantum information measures, including discord, concurrence, magic and trace distance, respond to CP-even and CP-odd SMEFT contributions. Finally, using current measurements and future collider projections, we assess the sensitivity of these observables to possible new sources of CP violation in top-quark production. This establishes the production-level framework whose experimental reconstruction is developed in a companion paper.

In this paper, we present the 1-loop calculation of the three-point function $\langle TJJ \rangle$ of the stress-energy tensor and two insertions of $SO(3)$ global currents, using a 3d toy model for holographic cosmology. By applying the holographic dictionary that relates these QFT $n$-point functions to cosmological correlators, together with the $Sl(2,\mathbb{Z})$ duality that maps the electric Noether current to a magnetic vortex current dual to cosmological magnetic monopoles, we relate the $\langle TJJ \rangle$ correlator to the cross-correlations between metric perturbations and the bulk magnetic monopole field, specifically mapping to the non-Gaussianities $\langle \xi \tilde{A} \tilde{A} \rangle$ and $\langle \gamma \tilde{A} \tilde{A} \rangle$. We calculate the semi-local contact terms necessary to achieve the exact factorization of the cosmological correlators in the squeezed limit, $p_1 \to 0$. Finally, we evaluate the effective non-linear parameters, showing that the scalar-monopole cross-correlation vanishes at leading order, $f_{NL}^{\xi \tilde{A} \tilde{A}} = 0$, while the tensor-monopole cross-correlation yields a non-zero $f_{NL}^{\gamma\tilde A\tilde A}$. These results respect the expected amplitude hierarchy of the non-Gaussian correlators, while pointing at new directions in which holographic cosmology can be tested experimentally.

We generalize the notion of quantum reference frames (QRFs) to cases where the frame does not necessarily correspond to a tensor factor subsystem, but to a covariant quantum instrument. This unlocks a variety of physical applications: "frames of labeling" for indistinguishable particles, suggesting explanations for the symmetrization postulate and the absence of parastatistics, and yielding a transparent description of the entanglement of bosons and fermions; and relational clocks reproducing the Schrödinger equation exactly even when all subsystems are interacting or when there are frequency superselection sectors. Our work generalizes the perspective-neutral approach to QRFs pioneered by Höhn and co-authors, which we reconstruct from a simple operational scenario. We give a resource-theoretic grounding of this framework, and show how the notion of completely covariant operations explains the relevance of the charge-zero sector and the pure-state transformation behavior across perspectives. This also suggests operational clarifications of some aspects of constraint quantization, e.g. of the meaning of constraint equations such as $C|\psi\rangle=0$. Some of our results, such as our generalization of relationalization maps to instruments, apply more broadly to other QRF frameworks too, and they contribute to bridging the gap between operational quantum information theory and the internal QRF research program.

Operator scrambling is commonly diagnosed by the growth of out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs), yet a general symmetry principle underlying their effective dynamics has remained elusive. For Brownian or short-time-correlated large-$N$ Majorana systems, we develop a symmetry-based effective field theory for operator scrambling, organized by a strong-to-weak U(1) symmetry breaking in operator space. The key observation is that, in the noninteracting fermion limit, the four-fold Keldysh contour representation of an OTOC admits an emergent strong U(1) symmetry in a doubled Hilbert-space description, even when the original system has no ordinary conserved quantity. The associated slow mode is the phase of the strong-charge creation operator, whose conjugate density is identified with the local operator size. Generic interactions explicitly break the strong symmetry and generate a mass term at lowest order for the would-be Goldstone mode, thereby converting diffusive operator spreading into chaotic growth. We further show that higher-order symmetry breaking terms are tightly constrained by an emergent duality that combines time reversal with contour permutation. This duality fixes the effective action up to quadratic order in the response field, relates the multiplicative noise strength directly to the Lyapunov exponent, and makes the positivity of the Lyapunov exponent a consequence of convergence of the real-time path integral. The resulting OTOC dynamics is governed by a noisy FKPP equation, which captures within a unified framework the early-time exponential growth, ballistic propagation, nonlinear saturation, and stochastic front broadening of operator scrambling. We verify this construction in a Brownian SYK chain, where a direct saddle-point expansion reproduces the symmetry-based effective action. Our results reveal a symmetry origin of operator-size hydrodynamics and scrambling.

The Gelfand–Yaglom formula equates the one-loop determinant of a Schrödinger operator with Dirichlet boundary conditions to the solution of an initial value problem. Following a suggestion by Polyakov, we provide a new diagrammatic proof of this formula as a direct application of the Feynman Tree Theorem. By cutting the one-loop determinant, we re-express it as a sum of tree diagrams. These trees explicitly encode the solution to the Gelfand–Yaglom initial value problem. We extend this diagrammatic framework to general boundary conditions and comment on a potential generalization to quantum field theory.

Dual-resonance models realize crossing symmetry, Regge behavior and infinitely many resonances in a compact analytic form but their canonical tree-level realizations fall short of genuine S-matrix unitarity. Here we explicitly construct fully unitary dual-resonance amplitudes distinct from the conventional worldsheet construction. The zero-width resonance towers are promoted into a physical absorptive spectrum that retains their characteristic crossing and Regge organization, while unitarizing the amplitude through a mechanism distinct from standard eikonalization. The resulting S-matrices are also local and analytic, and can contain controllable second-sheet Regge trajectories as well as substantial inelasticity. More broadly, our construction opens up a new route to charting the space of consistent strongly coupled S-matrices.

We study resonant solutions of the Heun equation and its confluent limits that arise in the Nekrasov-Shatashvili (NS) limit of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ gauge theories with fundamental hypermultiplets. At the resonant loci $2a/\hbar\in\mathbb{Z}$ in the Coulomb branch parameter $a$, the Floquet multipliers coalesce and the instanton expansions of the bulk and surface defect NS functions develop poles of increasing order. We derive blow-up equations involving exclusively NS functions and use them to resum these singular expansions. The resulting resummed bulk and surface defect NS functions reveal the analytic structure of the gauge-theoretic solutions near the resonant loci, including the branch structure of the accessory parameter and of the Floquet solutions that is obscured by the term-by-term instanton expansion. At resonance, the resummed accessory parameters and suitably normalized defect wavefunctions admit finite limits that describe periodic or antiperiodic solutions at the edges of spectral gaps and allow us to construct their logarithmic companions. We then identify distinct nested mass loci governing gap closure and semisimple resonant monodromy. On the larger locus the band-edge accessory parameters coalesce, while on the smaller locus two independent resonant (anti)periodic Floquet solutions survive. We develop the general resummation procedure for $N_f=(n_0,n_1)$ theories with $n_i\leq 2$ $(i=0,1)$, and demonstrate it explicitly for the $N_f=(1,1)$ theory.

We initiate a bootstrap program that relates ultraviolet data, encoded in the thermal OPE, to infrared observables, namely, the low-frequency behavior and quasinormal modes. Starting from KMS-symmetric completions of individual thermal OPE blocks, which play the role of thermal Polyakov blocks, we construct their Fourier transform, yielding an asymptotic expansion of retarded thermal correlators valid at any spatial momentum. We use these results to derive inversion formulae and connect thermal OPE data to the analytic structure of retarded correlators in the complex frequency plane. Under the assumption of meromorphicity, the inversion formulae express OPE coefficients in terms of the quasinormal-mode frequencies, leading to nontrivial sum rules, constraints on the quasinormal spectrum, and its asymptotics at large spatial momentum. We illustrate these results in free theories, two-dimensional CFTs, the large-$N$ limit and $\varepsilon$-expansion of the $\mathrm{O}(N)$ model, and the $R$-current correlator of strongly coupled $\mathcal N = 4$ SYM at zero spatial momentum. As a byproduct, we derive universal asymptotic formulae for thermal OPE coefficients of heavy operators, resolving their dependence on spin and extending previous results at zero spatial separation. We test these formulae in the three-dimensional Ising CFT, finding good agreement between the resulting truncated correlators and Monte Carlo data.

We prove that the Carrollian limit of bosonic supergravity remains finite after including the four-derivative terms arising from the $\alpha'$-corrections, and we explicitly construct the effective action. We also establish a universal criterion to determine the finiteness of higher-curvature contributions given by powers of the Riemann tensor, ${\rm Riem}_1 \cdots {\rm Riem}_N$, with $N>1$. As applications of this criterion, we prove that the purely gravitational $\alpha'^2$- and $\alpha'^3$-corrections admit a finite Carrollian limit, derive their explicit contributions to the action, and show that the terms proportional to $\zeta(3)$ do not contribute to the Carrollian bosonic supergravity at order $\alpha'^3$.

Consistency with global flavor anomalies requires the presence of Chern-Simons terms in holographic models of QCD. Such terms are analyzed in a setup arising in the holographic V-QCD model, where chiral symmetry breaking is implemented through the condensation of a complex scalar field, the tachyon. Using the superconnection formalism, the Tachyon-Chern-Simons terms are constructed explicitly in the general case, where the tachyon is any complex matrix in flavor space. This general case covers, among other things, backgrounds where different quark flavors have different masses. These new results are used to analyze the structure of the baryon solutions in the presence of nonzero quark masses. Expressions for the baryon number current and the total baryon number are found, and the baryon number is shown to be equal to the topological instanton number of the baryon solution. The effective four-dimensional pion action is analyzed and is shown to reproduce the chiral Lagrangian, including the Skyrme and Wess-Zumino-Witten terms.

We develop the perturbation theory of ten and eleven-dimensional supergravities on a large class of Kaluza-Klein backgrounds including familiar AdS examples such as AdS$_5\times S^5$, but also more general manifolds such as black hole geometries. Employing ${\rm E}_{6(6)}$ exceptional field theory with the backgrounds characterized by a generalized Scherk-Schwarz ansatz, we determine the first order field equations for the fluctuations that are gauge invariant under linearized generalized diffeomorphisms. We then present the details of the Higgs mechanism for all fields including spin-2 for the subset of backgrounds in which higher-form gauge fields vanish. We use a recently established machinery based on homotopy transfer that allows one to separate the fields into gauge invariant physical modes and pure gauge unphysical modes to all orders in perturbation theory. Finally, as a first application for backgrounds with higher-form gauge fields switched on, we analyze part of the spectrum of ten-dimensional Kaluza-Klein modes of type IIB supergravity around a Kerr-Newman AdS$_5$ black hole that in the near horizon limit becomes a fibered product of AdS$_2$ and a squashed three-sphere.

We develop a neural network bootstrap framework for reconstructing partition functions of two-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) based on modular invariance and the Cardy condition, which are recast as crossing equations for four-point correlators. For torus partition functions, we use the twist-field representation in the symmetric-orbifold description to map modular S-invariance to four-point crossing and focus on the diagonal kinematics of four insertions on a line. For annulus partition functions, we formulate open/closed channel duality as crossing symmetry for mixed four-point functions of defect-changing operators in interface CFT. In both cases, the reconstruction problem is formulated in the anchored-bootstrap form, where the crossing constraints are supplemented by minimal spectral input (a gap) and anchor data. We solve this under-determined problem by using lightweight feed-forward neural networks to parametrise the correlators and their corresponding partition functions. A key ingredient of this approach is the spectral bias of the neural networks in the lazy training regime, which selects specific crossing-symmetric configurations. This reformulation unifies standard modular and annulus constraints in two dimensions with the anchored neural approach for CFT correlators, providing a new way to reconstruct full partition functions from sparse data with remarkable accuracy.

At microscopic scales the linear response of thermal states of large-$N$ CFTs is governed by a thermal operator product expansion (OPE), while at large scales response is governed by collective excitations known as quasinormal modes (QNM). We show that the OPE and QNM representations of the retarded correlator in mixed time and spatial momentum coordinates have an overlapping region of convergence in the complex time plane, giving a map between OPE and QNM data. We show that large-overtone QNM asymptotics are related to OPE singularities, while low-overtone QNM data appear in analytic continuation from short to large times. Using this approach we obtain new analytic results for QNM asymptotics, and numerically obtain low-overtone QNMs from OPE data for the Schwarzschild-AdS$_5$ black brane. We further show that the OPE spectrum is intimately related to QNM data through a set of sum rules which we derive in Mellin space. Finally, using the lightcone OPE, we argue that stress tensor correlators at large spatial momentum thermalise slower as the conformal collider bounds approach saturation. This work points to a new thermal bootstrap programme where OPE and QNM data constrain each other.

This paper argues that the geometry-first and symmetry-first formulations of gauge theory are not equivalent. They differ in three respects. First, the geometry-first formulation—in which gauge groups arise as automorphism groups of structured fundamental vector bundles—admits fewer theories when its generating structures are restricted to finite tensorial data. Charged theories with additive structure group $\mathbb{R}$ have no such presentation. Second, even when a symmetry-first theory has a geometry-first presentation, its principal bundle and matter bundles do not determine which structured vector bundles generated the gauge group. Third, the natural functor from geometry-first generating objects to principal bundles with matter is faithful but neither essentially surjective nor full. Essential surjectivity fails for the diagonal quotient of the Standard Model gauge group on what I call `the classical menu', and for the additive-$\mathbb{R}$ examples on every finite tensorial menu. Fullness fails for a real oriented fibre $\mathbb{R}^{2m}$: the principal-bundle category admits the outer automorphism of $SO(2m)$ induced by an improper orthogonal map, but no structure-preserving fibre map induces it.

We study the island formula and Page curve for the asymptotically flat eternal and quasi-stationary evaporating black hole solutions within the dimensionally reduced Einstein-Hilbert (DREH) model. In this model, the four-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert action reduces to a two-dimensional dilaton gravity, on top of which the quantum corrections can be incorporated via the Polyakov-Liouville (PL) action for a two-dimensional conformal field theory with a large central charge $c$. This gravity model arises from the s-wave approximation of four-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert gravity and provides a fully gravitational setting in which we study the islands, i.e., we will not require a non-gravitational bath region to collect the radiation, instead it lives in the black hole spacetime itself. The fine-grained entropy of Hawking radiation in the eternal and evaporating black holes within the DREH model was derived using the island rule in \cite{djordjevic2022eternal, djordevic2025evaporating}. The island rule is based on the replica method using the Euclidean gravitational path integral. In this work, we complement the Euclidean approach by providing a Lorentzian prescription for the generalized entropy $S_{\text{gen}}$, in the island formula without invoking the replica trick to compute $S_{\text{gen}}$. The generalized entropy is shown to coincide with Wald-like Noether charge of the combined DREH-PL action. Using this generalized entropy, we determine the quantum extremal surface, the Page time, and the Page curve for the eternal and the evaporating black hole. We conclude with a discussion of the possible extension to the full four-dimensional geometry incorporating vacuum polarization corrections.

Although anyon condensation is a standard mechanism for relating topological orders, anyon condensation in symmetry-enriched topological (SET) phases is more intricate because the condensate must also be compatible with the global symmetry. We study symmetry-preserving anyon condensation in SET phases described by the enlarged Hu-Geer-Wu (HGW) string-net model with multifusion-category input data. We show that a $G$-preserving condensation is characterized by a compatible grading of the input multifusion category, and that this grading constructs the multifusion-category input of the child SET phase. To make this construction concrete, we consider the case where the relevant data come from a finite group extension $E$ of $G$ by $N$: an $E$-graded fusion category induces a $G$-SET input by passing to the quotient symmetry $G$, and the resulting input naturally carries a compatible $N$-grading that implements the further condensation inside the SET phase while preserving $G$. We illustrate the construction using three quantum-double examples: the trivial extension $\mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2$, the non-Abelian semidirect product $S_3$, and the nontrivial central extension $\mathbb{Z}_4$. The $\mathbb{Z}_4$ example further shows that symmetry fractionalized anyons do not obstruct symmetry-preserving condensation once the condensate is treated as a physical coherent state.

We consider a cosmological first-order phase transition in which bubbles of true vacuum nucleate during inflation but do not collide and percolate until the Universe has entered the radiation-dominated era. If the collisions take place soon after the end of inflation, the size of these bubbles can be significantly greater than the Hubble length. This has two important consequences for the gravitational waves produced by the bubble collisions: First, as the peak frequency is determined by the comoving bubble radius, it can be well below the MHz frequencies typical for bubble collisions at the end of inflation. Second, when comparing collisions beginning at the same time, the amplitude of the gravitational waves is greatly enhanced relative to Hubble-sized and smaller bubbles. Together, these two effects mean that gravitational waves produced by super-Hubble bubbles soon after the end of inflation can be within the observable frequency and amplitude ranges of LIGO and NANOGrav, as well as LISA and other future gravitational wave experiments. We demonstrate this with a simple illustrative model.

We revisit the derivation of the diffraction integral, which is an approximate evaluation of the Kirchhoff integral, widely used in the literature for phenomenological applications in gravitational lensing. We propose a systematic approach to evaluate the Kirchhoff integral within a beyond-eikonal expansion, carefully tracking all approximations involved in its standard derivation. In this framework, we recover the usual diffraction integral as the leading contribution, together with a correction term that is typically small in realistic lensing scenarios. We further show that our evaluation of the Kirchhoff integral is equivalent to a beyond-eikonal expansion of wave propagation, after summing over all geometric-optics images. This result clarifies the physical origin of diffraction in gravitational lensing and demonstrates that diffraction effects and beyond-eikonal corrections are not distinct phenomena, but rather different but equivalent descriptions of the same underlying physics.

We use Krylov complexity as a typical diagnostic of quantum many body dynamics in the context of BMN matrix model at large mass gap. We calculate several physical entities, for example, the moments and return amplitudes at large mass deformation. We calculate them for both spread complexity of states as well as Krylov growth of operators in the matrix model. We propose a general expression for the moments at any given order $n$. We also discuss orthogonal polynomials for spread as well as operator Krylov complexity. In the context of the Krylov operator growth we further compute the spectral function and the density of states. A careful analysis of the spectral function near the resonance reveals various IR divergences in addition to the physical collective modes. These collective modes appear to be exceptionally stable due to large mass gap. On the other hand, the UV of the theory appears to be extremely damped due to higher scattering rates. We carefully diagnose these IR divergences near resonance which reveals that these collective modes are in fact non-propagating and should be thought of as diffusion modes or relaxation modes with infinite relaxation time. We also calculate the Krylov variance and Krylov entropy for the matrix model and in particular at early time. The linear early time growth of the Krylov entropy confirms the onset of quantum chaos in the matrix model at large mass gap.

Helicity-dependent, or polarised, parton distribution functions describe the longitudinal polarisation of quarks, antiquarks, and gluons inside a polarised nucleon. They encode how the spin of a fast-moving proton or neutron is shared among its partonic constituents and are therefore central to the modern understanding of nucleon spin structure in Quantum Chromodynamics. Helicity PDFs are extracted from global QCD analyses of polarised hard-scattering data, including inclusive deep-inelastic scattering, semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering, and polarised proton-proton collisions. This article reviews the definition and physical interpretation of polarised PDFs, the perturbative QCD framework used to determine them, the experimental observables that constrain the different parton flavours, and the statistical methodology of global analyses. The state of the art in polarised PDF determination is presented, together with the impact expected from future measurements at the Electron-Ion Collider.

Hydrodynamics provides a universal description of many-body systems at long wavelengths. Its long-lived collective excitations, known as hydrodynamic modes, admit long-wavelength expansions whose convergence is encoded in the analytic structure of retarded correlators of conserved quantities in thermal equilibrium. We show that a boost can change which nonhydrodynamic singularity limits such an expansion. In the large-boost limit, the relevant singularity originates in the large-momentum, near-light-cone region of the rest-frame spectrum. After factoring out the Lorentz-factor growth, the rescaled convergence scale is controlled by the microscopic spectral structure of the theory. We explicitly demonstrate this in two examples: relaxation-time kinetic theory and holography.

It was previously shown that the stress-tensor sector of the OPE, together with the KMS condition, fixes holographic thermal two-point functions at vanishing spatial separation. We extend this construction to nonzero spatial separation, where the KMS condition leaves a residual ambiguity that depends only on the spatial separation. We show that this ambiguity is fixed by the zero-frequency bulk wave equation, which can be solved analytically in terms of Heun functions. This gives an efficient method for computing thermal coefficients of double-trace operators resolved by spin. We also study the Lorentzian analytic structure of the resulting correlator and show that complex bulk-cone singularities which appear at spacelike separation in the stress-tensor sector do not persist in the full two-point function; they are resolved by the double-trace contribution.

When fermions are taken to be anti-periodic along a spacelike $S^1$ in $AdS_4$, certain ground states of the supergravity theory are described by AdS-soliton-like spacetimes. We study these geometries within the purely dilatonic STU model obtained from the compactification of M-theory on $S^7$ in the presence of non-trivial gauge fields. The resulting configurations define a rich family of everywhere regular supersymmetric vacua that holographically describe strongly coupled “confining” gauge theories in three dimensions. We provide a complete characterization of the moduli space of supersymmetric solutions in terms of the vacuum expectation values of the dimension-one operators of the truncation.

What are the minimal requirements for a physically reasonable mathematical model for quantum theory or a potential extension? In addressing this question, rather than relying on the generalized probabilistic theories or other usual approaches, we propose a reset based on the following fundamental features: transition probabilities, which are typical of quantum theory, and continuous reversible dynamical processes (e.g., represented by a Lie group), which play the same crucial role in classical as well as in quantum physics. In doing so, we get back to the very elementary transition probability space framework originally introduced by Bogdan Mielnik in 1968 and combine it with the continuous reversibility condition. The primary class of valid spaces arises from the irreducible atomic JBW algebras, which encompass the irreducible atomic von Neumann algebras and the Jordan matrix algebras. The von Neumann algebras represent the model of common quantum theory. Beyond these, there is a non-standard valid space, where the exceptional Lie group $E_6$ acts transitively. While $E_6$ has been proposed as a candidate for internal symmetries in particle physics, we highlight that this model deviates from standard quantum theory in critical ways. Specifically, it fails to guarantee the existence of post-measurement states in all situations. Though the above postulates are powerful, they still allow for some physically meaningless models. A further feature of quantum theory (the correspondence between the pure states and the minimal projections) leads us to an additional requirement that rules out these models. However, a complete classification of the valid models remains one of the open issues, pointed out in the paper, which is intended for the mathematical and physical experts, inspiring them to tackle these problems.