Papers

We perform a joint analysis of the high-energy neutrino emission observed from the Galactic Plane by IceCube and the diffuse ultra-high-energy gamma-ray emission measured by LHAASO. We compare this data to models that include diffuse emission from cosmic-ray interactions in the interstellar medium, unresolved TeV halos, and unresolved Galactic neutrino sources. We find that the gamma-ray emission can be explained by a combination of diffuse processes and unresolved TeV halos. The observed neutrino emission cannot be generated by cosmic-ray interactions in the interstellar medium alone, but requires contributions from one or more unresolved source populations. Across a wide range of assumptions about Galactic cosmic-ray transport, we find that Galactic neutrino sources contribute significantly to the neutrino flux observed from the Galactic Plane and are likely responsible for most of this emission.

Quantum networks based on optically active solid-state spins may enable quantum technologies including long-range quantum communication and distributed quantum computing. Network nodes containing multiple high-fidelity qubits can facilitate large-scale fault-tolerant operation. However, the stringent error thresholds remain out of reach for multi-qubit registers. In this work, we demonstrate high-fidelity two-qubit gates in a 7-qubit register, based on nuclear spins coupled to a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. We analyze crosstalk in highly connected spin systems, develop an efficient optimization procedure, and characterize the gates using gate set tomography. The two-qubit gate fidelities (best: 99.61(5)%, average: 99.18(2)%) demonstrate a multi-qubit register at the threshold for distributed quantum computation. Finally, as an example application, we perform a variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) simulation of the ground-state energy of H2 and LiH molecules. These results demonstrate one of the key prerequisites for scalable quantum networks based on solid-state spins.

We present a suite of 24 full-lifetime simulations of dense star clusters with the Cluster Monte Carlo (CMC) code, featuring updated input physics and a realistic distribution of initial binary systems. The latter encompasses a mass-dependent binary fraction, period distribution, and eccentricity distribution based on observations of well-studied stellar populations in the Solar neighborhood and nearby star-forming regions. We predict the cosmic rate, masses, and spins of binary black hole (BBH) mergers formed through dynamical assembly, primordial binary evolution, and hierarchical mergers within dense clusters. As with previous model grids with fewer binaries, dynamically assembled first-generation (1G) mergers dominate the rate of cluster-derived mergers, and the total merger rate is consistent with that inferred from LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observations as of GWTC-5.0. Our models naturally reproduce key features of the inferred BBH population, including the broken-power-law behavior of the primary BH mass spectrum for $m_1 \gtrsim 20 M_\odot$, the shallower (steeper) slope of the secondary mass spectrum relative to the primary for $m_2 \lesssim 10 M_\odot$ ($m_2 \gtrsim 30 M_\odot$), and the shape of the mass-ratio distribution in the low- and high-mass domains. We predict broad distributions of the spin parameters $\chi_{\mathrm{eff}}$ and $\chi_{\mathrm{p}}$, consistent with previous studies of dynamical assembly in clusters. The merger rate from primordial binary systems within clusters is a small fraction of the total; however, their merger products are frequently involved in subsequent hierarchical mergers, with the result that the hierarchical merger rate evolves more steeply than the 1G dynamical merger rate with redshift.

The Migdal effect-the prompt ionization induced by a sudden nuclear recoil-is widely used in direct dark matter searches, yet its validity beyond the impulse approximation has remained unresolved. We present the first first-principles calculation for isolated atoms, establishing the adiabatic crossover where ionization is suppressed. We show that this behavior is fully encoded in the scattering amplitude, without ad hoc assumptions, and map the relevant parameter space, finding that dark matter searches lie in the unsuppressed regime.

Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered to date, but only a handful of them are young planets in the latter stages of their formation. H-alpha emission is a strong tracer of this process, but it is difficult to isolate the planetary H-alpha signal from the stellar signal due to the small angular separation. RISTRETTO is a high-resolution (R~140,000) integral-field unit spectrograph with an attached coronagraph and extreme adaptive system that is currently under construction. Used in tandem with the VLT, its resolving power and seven-spaxel layout is designed to characterise the atmospheres of exoplanets in reflected light. It can also be leveraged to obtain spatially and spectrally resolved observations of planetary H-alpha emission lines. Using a combination of synthetic and real observations, we determined the detection limits for theoretical observations of protoplanets with on-sky separations of 37-600 mas (the equivalent of 4-70 AU at 113 pc). We used theoretical BT-Settl photospheric spectra, observed HARPS spectra of PDS70, and a model for the line emission at the planetary accretion shock to estimate the planetary H-alpha signal. Models with the PyEchelle simulator show that the H-alpha emission from theoretical objects similar to the four known protoplanet candidates (PDS70b, PDS70c, WISPIT2b, and 2MJ1612b) can be spectrally resolved with VLT/RISTRETTO down to a line flux between $F\sim(1.4-2.7)\times10^{-16} erg \;s^{-1} cm^{-2}$ with a 1 hour exposure. We show that the planetary H-alpha line can be spatially resolved from that of its stellar host and that the shape of the line can be used to constrain the pre-shock density (n0) and velocity (v0), thereby enabling new constraints on the accretion rate and flow geometry. This study and the instrument act as a pathfinder for the next generation of high-resolution spectrographs such as ELT/PCS and ELT/ANDES.

We study the impact of collisions involving red giants (RGs) in the dense stellar environments of galactic nuclei. We analytically estimate when collisions with main-sequence stars or stellar-mass black holes can strip a RG's envelope via ram pressure or accretion-driven shocks, or eject its helium core through gravitational recoil. At high velocities, $v\gtrsim10^3~{\rm km/s}$, collisions with main-sequence stars efficiently deplete the RG population. At lower velocities, collisions with stellar-mass BHs typically dominate over stellar encounters, but the overall RG destruction rate is low and does not significantly affect the RG population. Nonetheless, these collisions produce low-mass helium white dwarfs, which are the stripped cores of the disrupted RGs, at a rate of $\sim 500~~{\rm Gyr}^{-1}$. Helium white dwarfs can produce an interesting class of white dwarf tidal disruption events around $\sim 10^{5-6} M_\odot$ massive black holes where Carbon-Oxygen white dwarfs cannot be tidally disrupted outside the horizon. Applied to our own Galactic Center, we quantify the impact of collisions on the observed population of RGs, as well as the effects of their intrinsic scarcity due to short RG lifetimes. We find that the RG projected density flattens within $\sim1$”, primarily due to collisions for fainter RGs and their short lifetimes for more luminous RGs.

One of the goals of quantum simulation is to provide novel insights into quantum systems, such as the gauge theories that are relevant for high-energy and nuclear physics. Recent years have seen rapid improvements in both the hardware and software necessary for these simulations. A central consideration in the design of such simulations is the quantum complexity of a given quantum state. This work takes a step towards studying a specific kind of complexity, namely the non-stabilizerness, in a simple yet non-trivial system: SU(2) lattice gauge theory of two plaquettes. The non-stabilizerness of low-energy eigenstates is studied and the implications for quantum simulations are discussed. The real-time evolution of this system is simulated on ibm_marrakesh and the non-stabilizerness is measured using a random measurement protocol. New techniques enhancing the efficiency of this protocol are developed, including both a new way to calculate the estimator for non-stabilizerness and a flexible error mitigation technique called Bit String Decoherence Renormalization. This mitigation method is central to accurately resolving the experimental time dependence of non-stabilizerness, and is anticipated to have broad applicability in digital quantum simulations.

This paper, the second in a series, presents an efficient, self-contained algorithm for computing the modified Bessel function of the second kind, \(K_{\nu}(z)\) for complex argument and real orders, building on Part~I (for \(I_{\nu}\)). The method adaptively selects among analytic representations such as power series, large-\(|z|\) asymptotics, uniform asymptotics for large \(|\nu|\), and numerically stable forward recurrence with region boundaries tuned for accuracy and efficiency. A robust Fortran implementation supports double precision and quadruple precision. The use of quadruple precision extends the reliable computational domain and improves stability in challenging regimes. Accuracy is validated against high-precision Maple results, and benchmarks show runtimes significantly superior to those of established methods, in the literature, while avoiding their numerical failure modes across several decades of the parameter domain. Together with Part~I, this work provides a comprehensive, multiple-precision toolkit for \(\{I_{\nu},K_{\nu}\}\) across wide parameter ranges.

We explore the properties of inner and outer horizon thermodynamics of dyonic Kerr-Sen black hole (DKSBH). It is observed that the entropy (or area) product is universal, depending only on the angular momentum of the BH. We then proceed to study the dual conformal field theory~(CFT) in the Kerr/CFT correspondence using thermodynamic relations and compute the central charges from 2D CFT. The central charges are found to be universal with only angular momentum dependence. By comparing to Kerr-Newman BH, it is found that the essential difference is in the right-moving sector of the CFT. Interestingly, we can then explicitly produce the non-vanishing central charges related to its static solution, the dyonic dilaton BH, using the thermodynamic method. Moreover, from the CFT relations to multi-horizon thermodynamics, we find the analytical expression of the quasi-normal modes~(QNM) spectra in terms of BH parameters. This QNM computation supports the Bekenstein-Hod conjecture on the BH's entropy quantization.

We searched for past close encounters of the Hyades and Pleiades with all 5736 clusters of the Hunt & Reffert catalog, integrating orbits with galpy over the last 100 Myr and validating candidates by Monte Carlo. Most nominally close pairs are unstable under catalog errors; only two remain reliable: Pleiades and HSC 751 and Hyades and HSC 2986. HSC 2986 coincides with the star-forming cloud Corona Australis, which the Hyades crossed about 5 Myr ago, passing ~11 pc from its dense core. Such interactions may be the cause of the mini-clusters discovered in the Pleiades.

Dirac fermions have attracted significant interest due to their relativistic dispersions and close connections to topological physics, yet they are generally expected to be gapped in two-dimensional systems with strong Ising spin orbit coupling, making their realization in such materials an outstanding challenge. Here we report the emergence of six fold degenerate Dirac fermions in an Ising moire system across a quantum spin Hall transition in twisted WSe2. In a 3.65 degree device, we observe a quantum spin Hall phase at high electric fields with nearly quantized resistance h/(2e2), and a Dirac semimetal phase over a broad range of electric fields near zero field. Magnetotransport measurements of the Dirac phase exhibit a half-integer Landau fan sequence, characteristic of Dirac fermions, with six-fold degeneracy on the hole-doped side and two fold degeneracy on the electron-doped side. Temperature dependence shows weakly metallic behavior consistent with a semimetallic state. Our twist-angle-dependent transport measurements map out a complete phase diagram and identify a critical twist angle of 3.3 degree, establishing the phase boundary between the quantum spin Hall and Dirac semimetal regimes. Our work establishes a new route to realizing Dirac fermions in strongly spin orbit coupled moire systems through a topological phase transition, providing a promising platform for high mobility spintronics.

We propose ultra-wide-orbit exoplanets as a novel probe of small-scale dark matter objects. These systems are highly sensitive to gravitational perturbations that could be induced by a Galactic population of compact baryon-free dark matter objects – whether point-like or extended. Focusing on ultra-compact minihalos, which may arise from large primordial perturbations deviating from the canonical scale-invariant power spectrum, we derive new constraints on their injection scale and amplitude. These constraints complement existing dynamical limits and are expected to improve with upcoming exoplanet surveys. Furthermore, the detection of additional loosely bound exoplanets with these surveys could significantly tighten these constraints. Beyond constraints, we also identify characteristic observational signatures in these systems that could help trace a population of dark matter objects. All this strengthens the potential of exoplanetary science to probe the dark universe back to its very primordial properties.

We have investigated and quantified how the choice of the white dwarf (WD) initial-final mass relation (IFMRs) affects the age determination of star clusters from the luminosity function of their cooling sequences. We have performed a purely theoretical differential analysis using recent semi-empirical IFMRs across three age regimes: ~ 10 Gyr (old ages), ~ 1 Gyr (intermediate ages), and ~ 100 Myr (young ages), respectively. For each regime, we have considered the age of a representative cluster whose entire WD sequence has already been observed and analysed, and calculated theoretical luminosity functions (varying the IFMR) that include realistic observational errors and binning. We have found that for old ages (as those of globular clusters), the choice of the semi-empirical IFMR introduces age offsets of at most ~0.6 +- 0.2 Gyr, while for intermediate ages the impact is reduced to 0.2 +- 0.1 Gyr, and it becomes negligible at young ages. Additionally, we have employed the metallicity-dependent IFMR derived by a recent grid of theoretical stellar evolution models to study whether the predicted metallicity dependence impacts the ages of old clusters with subsolar metal content. We found that neglecting this predicted metallicity dependence in old metal-poor globular clusters can lead to an age underestimate of up to 0.8 +-0.2 Gyr. All these age offsets should be interpreted as a systematic uncertainty associated with the choice of the IFMR.

Anderson localization has evolved far beyond the conventional dichotomy between extended and localized states. Modern localization theory predicts a complete transport hierarchy comprising extended, critical, and localized phases together with all coexistence phases among them, forming a seven-phase Anderson-localization landscape. Despite its fundamental importance, this hierarchy has never been experimentally realized within a single system. Here we realize the complete seven-phase Anderson-localization landscape in a one-dimensional Floquet photonic lattice. By engineering quasiperiodic hopping profiles containing inhomogeneously distributed hopping zeros, we generate critical states and enable their coexistence with extended and localized sectors. The resulting transport regimes are directly resolved through their distinct spatiotemporal dynamics, including ballistic expansion, confined critical oscillations, and persistent localization. We observe all seven phases, including the elusive triply coexisting extended-critical-localized phase, and experimentally track the phase transitions connecting them. Our results establish the first complete experimental map of the Anderson-localization landscape and provide a unified platform for investigating mobility edges, multifractality, and programmable coherent transport.

Recent advances in Machine Learning have transformed numerous industrial sectors, yet classical paradigms face fundamental limitations: rapidly growing data volumes, rising computational costs, significant energy consumption, and the physical scaling limits of conventional hardware architectures. Quantum computing has emerged as a promising computational paradigm to address these challenges, giving rise to the field of Quantum Machine Learning (QML). In this thesis, the theoretical foundations of QML are investigated, with a focus on near-term and future practical applications. Three central challenges are addressed: the trainability of variational quantum circuits, their expressivity, and their resistance to efficient classical simulation. The trainability of Hamming-weight preserving variational quantum circuits is first studied, and theoretical guarantees are established that resolve an open conjecture on the absence of barren plateaus for this circuit family. Subspace-preserving QML algorithms are then introduced, including photonic circuits and quantum convolutional neural networks, and are designed to mimic classical ML subroutines while offering polynomial quantum advantage. Finally, variational quantum circuits are analyzed as quantum Fourier models, and a framework is derived to jointly characterize expressivity and trainability, from which conditions are obtained under which quantum models provably separate from their classical counterparts. These contributions are intended to advance the theoretical roadmap for harnessing near-term and future quantum technologies in real-world applications.

A content-moderation system can score well on every standard accuracy metric and still cause real harm, if its mistakes fall on the few users who connect otherwise separate communities. We show this in an agent-based model where N=240 learning agents on a community-structured network each post harmless, productive, or dangerous content, and a regulator removes or penalizes whatever a noisy classifier flags. Overall usefulness barely moves as the noise changes (one-way ANOVA, p=0.96): by aggregate measures, nothing looks wrong. The damage instead concentrates on these bridge users, whose useful posts are wrongly suppressed and whose dangerous posts are wrongly spared. A governance loss (L_gov) that prices these two mistakes separately from the cost of enforcement more than doubles under false-positive-heavy noise. Aggregate accuracy hides who is harmed, and the cheap quantity to audit is how many connections a user has (degree), a near-perfect proxy for the betweenness that defines a bridge (r=0.96).

Statistical Physics has traditionally dealt with entities that interact merely based on the present, and possibly past, configurations. This reactive framework is inefficient in many situations involving living beings, such as predators chasing a prey, pedestrians, or even robots. This paper introduces a statistical physical framework for the dynamics of anticipatory agents, whose present-time dynamics depend on the prospective system state that they anticipate. We clarify how these dynamics can be expressed in terms of a cost function constructed based on observations and we show that the dynamics of an anticipatory agent in d dimensions can be mapped onto the dynamics of a (non-anticipatory) chain in d + 1 dimensions, with fluctuations acting transversely on the chain to account for the uncertainty about the future state. Insights from polymer Physics help us characterize the dynamics of these chains and delineate an anticipation horizon beyond which the blurry future can be handled in a mean-field way. The foregoing framework is successfully applied to pedestrian dynamics, leading to a seamless integration of operational and tactical levels in an agent-based model. Even with a minimal expression of the cost, the model succeeds in reproducing various experimental scenarios which are challenging for state-of-the-art models, such as crossing cluttered environments or alighting from a crowded train. The transparent and flexible basis of the model allows the straightforward incorporation of additional mechanisms.

We investigate the effects of perturbative and non-perturbative quantum corrections on the thermodynamics of black holes immersed in a perfect fluid dark matter (PFDM) background with a cloud of strings (CoS) in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime. Starting from the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy as the semiclassical baseline, we incorporate two distinct classes of corrections arising from small thermal fluctuations about thermodynamic equilibrium. In the perturbative sector, we derive the logarithmically corrected entropy and systematically compute the resulting modifications to the mass, Helmholtz free energy, Gibbs free energy, heat capacity, and pressure. The stability structure of the system is analyzed through the sign behavior of the heat capacity, which reveals a transition from a thermodynamically unstable to a stable phase. In the non-perturbative sector, we introduce exponential corrections to the entropy and carry out a parallel analysis of all thermodynamic quantities. We demonstrate that non-perturbative effects are negligible for large black holes but become significant as the horizon radius shrinks toward the Planck regime. In both sectors, we investigate the equation of state and search for a van der Waals-like critical point by examining the simultaneous vanishing of the first and second pressure derivatives with respect to thermodynamic volume; no such inflection point is found within the physically admissible domain. Our results illuminate the contrasting roles of logarithmic and exponential entropy corrections in governing the thermodynamic stability and phase structure of PFDM black holes with a CoS.

The Materials Science and Engineering ontology landscape is fragmented along multiple axes simultaneously. Horizontally: a recent survey identified 94 ontologies of which over 40 are structurally incompatible; each new application domain – ceramics, polymers, batteries, smart materials – typically restarts ontology design from scratch. Vertically: EU regulation (CSRD, CSDDD, PPWR, CBAM, R2R, AI Act, ESPR) forces material, manufacturing, supply-chain, and lifecycle data into integrated digital product passports, leaving ontologies that only address horizontal fragmentation incomplete for any contemporary consumer. And mechanistically: a vocabulary that records that BNT-BT has $d_{33} \approx 580$ pC/N stores a fact but cannot surface why – Bi-6s$^2$ lone-pair stereo-activity, anomalous Born effective charges, soft modes, defect chemistry – without a systematic explanation skeleton. We propose a multi-level modular architecture with two independent classification axes – level of abstraction (L0 bridges, L1 material-agnostic laboratory-notebook, L2 material-class-specific, L3 categorical reasoning) and consumer audience (material vs. compliance) – in which the material-specific level is internally organised by a seven-tier mechanistic-explanation skeleton (Symmetry, Energy/DFT, Thermo/CALPHAD, Kinetics, Microstructure, Defect chemistry, Bonding) applicable to any crystalline ionic oxide. The level-and-audience modularity dissolves the horizontal fragmentation, the compliance audience absorbs the vertical regulation pressure, and the seven-tier organisation of Level 2 delivers the mechanistic explanation depth. We instantiate the architecture as the OntoCrafter Ceramics Ontology (OCO v0.94): 5,196 classes across 44 modules; 167,348 OWL axioms (40,454 logical); 1,674 properties; 829 cross-ontology bridge mappings; 1,172 SHACL shapes; 163 published competency questions.

Jet tagging at the Large Hadron Collider increasingly relies on deep learning models trained on massive simulated datasets, leading to high computational costs and limited robustness to detector mismodeling. We introduce JetParticle-JEPA (JP-JEPA), a self-supervised Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture that learns physically meaningful jet representations directly from continuous particle clouds without tokenization or reconstruction of raw inputs. Built on a Particle Transformer backbone, JP-JEPA predicts latent representations of masked particles while preserving fine-grained kinematic correlations. On the JetClass benchmark, JP-JEPA achieves performance comparable to fully supervised state-of-the-art methods on the full dataset, surpasses supervised baselines in low-label regimes, and significantly outperforms existing SSL approaches. On Top Quark and Quark-Gluon Tagging benchmarks, it remains on par with supervised methods. The learned representations also exhibit strong robustness to missing detector information and improved uncertainty behavior, highlighting JP-JEPA as a promising foundation-model framework for robust and data-efficient jet physics at the LHC.

We present a numerical investigation into the precessing jets of the inner lobes of Centaurus A, focusing on their dynamical evolution and interaction with the surrounding medium. Using three-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic simulations, we model the development of large-scale jet and lobe structures driven by precession. Our setup incorporates physically motivated parameters to reproduce observed morphological features. We compare the resulting structures from our simulations with observed radio images of Centaurus A, particularly focusing on the S-shaped morphology, the distribution of bright emission regions, and the observed asymmetry between the northern and southern lobes. Our findings indicate a precession period of 1.8 Myr, which reproduces observational characteristics. This study explores the role of jet precession in shaping the inner lobes of Centaurus A.

Probably the last planetesimals to have formed from dust in the solar nebula are Cold Classical Kuiper belt objects (CCKBOs). To the extent that they are isolated and unchanged since birth, CCKBOs offer direct insights into nebular processes. Their population density drops abruptly beyond a heliocentric radius of $\sim$47 au, a feature known as the "Kuiper Cliff". We show with global, 1D (radial), time-dependent models how gaseous protoplanetary disks that disperse from magnetic and photoevaporative winds leave behind planetesimal disks with Cliff-like outer edges. The gas disperses from the inside out, creating transitional disks whose inner cavities expand from $\lesssim$ 1 au to $\gtrsim$ 100 au. Gas at the cavity boundary presents a pressure maximum toward which dust particles drift, triggering the streaming instability which clumps dust into planetesimals massive enough to decouple from gas. The receding cavity wall thus paves a disk of planetesimals which truncates when dust and gas are spent. With no fine-tuning, we show how a generic gas disk clearing from the inside out reproduces the Kuiper Cliff and the CCKB surface density. Connecting these global 1D results with published local 3D simulations of dust and gas, we see how many properties of the CCKB – its radial extent, total mass, individual object sizes, and binary statistics – follow from the streaming instability at work in a late-stage transition disk.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, we resolve the quantum pyramids conjecture, confirming the globally information-optimal measurement for an ensemble of equiangular equiprobable pure states, as conjectured by Englert and Řeháček (arXiv:0905.0510). We do so by proving the remaining entropy inequalities of Holevo and Utkin (arXiv:2506.06700), which certify optimality for obtuse and flat pyramids. For obtuse pyramids, our key contribution is a rigorous proof that local minimizers of the corresponding entropy inequality cannot have three distinct coordinate values. We show that eliminating this family can be reduced to a neat algebraic reciprocal inequality relating branches of the Lambert $W$ function, which may be of independent interest. For flat pyramids, we prove a tight $\ell^p$ inequality for zero-sum vectors that was recently conjectured, proved analytically in dimension $d=3$, and computationally verified for $d\leq 200$ by Holevo and Utkin (arXiv:2603.24017). We prove this bound for all $d\geq 2$ via a technique in symmetric inequalities known as the equal variables method.

We revisit the problem of scalar dissipation anomaly and scaling of scalar gradients in passive scalar turbulence using theory and data from well-resolved direct numerical simulations (DNS) on grid sizes of up to $8192^3$, spanning Taylor-scale Reynolds numbers $Re_\lambda=140-1000$ and Schmidt numbers $Sc = 1-512$. The theory is based on a joint multifractal description of longitudinal velocity increments and scalar increments, constrained by Yaglom's law and extended to gradients via a fluctuating Batchelor cutoff scale. The DNS data show that the normalized mean scalar dissipation approaches a single asymptotic value as both $Re_\lambda$ and $Sc$ increase, although larger $Sc$ requires larger $Re_\lambda$ to reach this state. In the multifractal framework, this corresponds to an effective scalar Hölder exponent tending to zero, associated with sharp cliff-like scalar fronts, and saturation of inertial-range scaling scalar structure-function exponents. The joint velocity-scalar fractal dimension of the dissipative structures is inferred to approach $7/3$, indicating a non-space-filling support. The framework further predicts that for fixed $Re_\lambda$, higher-order central moments of scalar gradients are independent of $Sc$. This prediction is confirmed by DNS data and by the collapse of standardized probability distributions of scalar-gradient across Schmidt numbers. These results suggest that the $Sc$-scaling of scalar gradients is dictated solely by scalar dissipation anomaly. In contrast, their $Re_\lambda$-dependence reflects strong intermittency, which can be directly related to mixed velocity-scalar structure function exponents.

The maturation of quantitative tools for studying the high-level structure of animal behavior, and especially tools which represent spontaneous behavior as a sequence of stereotyped and neurally well-defined 'syllables', demands that the field revisit a fundamental theoretical question: if the coarse structure of behavior can be accurately described by Markov models, what do these models really tell us about behavior? In this work, we explore the theoretical implications of these models and discuss how they allow us to quantitatively formulate questions about the sequence-like nature and effective dimensionality of behavior. One important insight is that the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of various model-associated matrices furnish interpretable time scales and modifications of behavior that occur on those time scales. We illustrate our points using both toy examples and Markov models fit to real data. By analyzing the consequences of Markov representations, we clarify the theoretical meaning of progress in quantifying behavior.

New flavour non-abelian gauge groups, which may arise as part of a fundamental theory of flavour, can lead to distinctive flavour-transfer processes. When restricted to the lepton sector, such processes partially mimic the standard charged current interactions at low energy. We explicitly study such constructions with various flavour structures, and investigate systematically all relevant accelerator-based constraints, exploring specific experimental signatures for these models. In the absence of flavour-breaking spurions, constraints from heavy lepton lifetime are found to dominate over most of the parameter space, with specific parts still open for future ee-collider searches. Numerical predictions are obtained using the MARTY framework, allowing us to consistently explore both the light- and heavy-mediator regimes. Finally, using \darkpack, we also assessed that extensions of such models could be compatible with dark matter relic density bounds.

The mechanism behind superconductivity in magic-angle graphene systems remains an open question. Recent tunnelling and superfluid stiffness measurements have suggested a nodal superconducting gap, but these probes are typically applied to large-area devices, where twist-angle inhomogeneity and disorder can hinder resolving the intrinsic superconducting spectrum. Here we introduce quantum dots in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene and access a regime where gate-tunable superconductivity competes with strong Coulomb repulsion upon adding an additional carrier to the island. The islands exhibit $2e$-periodic Coulomb blockade, revealing a well-defined quasiparticle gap in the island spectrum, inconsistent with the presence of nodes in the order parameter. Within the same device, we also realize coupled superconducting islands and proximitized quantum dots, establishing a monolithic platform for hybrid dot devices. Our results point to a nodeless quasiparticle gap in moiré graphene and demonstrate the potential of mesoscopic hybrid structures to probe their correlated phases.

Hole spin qubits provide one of the leading platforms for spin-based quantum computing due to their large intrinsic spin-orbit interaction (SOI), which enables fast electrical manipulation. The SOI of planar quantum dots has mostly been investigated in theoretical studies by examining the SOI already present in the two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG). Here, we study the SOI created by the in-plane confinement by deriving non-perturbative effective Hamiltonians numerically for hole spin qubits. We find that the quantum geometry of the 2DHG naturally emerges, leading to a meaningful non-perturbative definition of pseudospin valid far away from the $\Gamma$-point. The SOI of the 2DHG and of the in-plane confinement have different forms; therefore, they cannot be turned off simultaneously, ruining the perfect spin-orbit switch functionality of spin qubits. We construct effective Hamiltonians using the symmetry approach for various low-dimensional hole systems: (i) a heavy-hole confined in a SiGe/Ge/SiGe heterostructure, (ii) a light-hole confined in SnGe/Ge, (iii) a gate-defined nanowire in SiGe/Ge/SiGe, and (iv) a hole confined in a Ge/Si core/shell nanowire. The non-perturbative effective Hamiltonians provide results with excellent agreement with the full Hamiltonians.

The 21-cm signal probes the intergalactic medium during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) but is overwhelmed by astrophysical foregrounds orders of magnitude stronger than the cosmological signal. We evaluate two mitigation strategies: (i) Foreground Avoidance, restricting analysis to the EoR window in Fourier space, and (ii) Foreground Removal via Gaussian Process Regression, which exploits spectral smoothness to statistically separate contaminants and reclaim modes within the contaminated wedge. Both introduce systematic biases of up to $\approx$1$\sigma$ in astrophysical parameters such as the minimum star-forming halo mass and ionising escape fraction, with avoidance posteriors consistently broader than removal owing to its restricted visibility coverage. The global reionization history is recovered within the 95% credible interval, though the neutral fraction at late reionization epochs shows a persistent bias reflecting the difficulty of its inference from the power spectrum alone. Multi-redshift inference is susceptible to contamination from poorly mitigated bins. Excluding such bins significantly reduces parameter biases, but identifying them requires independent quality metrics. When restricted to identical length scales, both strategies recover similar power spectra, yielding posteriors in similar regions.

The origin of the extreme broadening observed in chromospheric metal lines during solar and stellar flares, particularly Mg II h&k and Ca II H&K, remains poorly understood. These lines often display Lorentzian like wings whose widths exceed standard Stark broadening predictions by factors of approx. 30, with no known collisional mechanism capable of producing such enhancements. We posit that magnetic fields are responsible for this additional broadening due to the increase of magnetic activity during flares. A magnetic-field distribution of the form where P(B) goes as B^-3 reproduces the observed Mg II profile wings while leaving H I Balmer lines and optically thin transitions largely unaffected. To explain the broadening using magnetic fields, the high B tail can extend up to 10^6 G with extremely low probabilities where the filling factors are less than about 10^-6. We propose that observations of flares using spectropolarimetry can verify whether the anomalous broadening is from magnetic structures in flare ribbons.