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Thursday 18 June

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Impossibility of superluminal signalling rules out causal loops in conical spacetimes

In PRL 129, 110401 it was shown that it is theoretically possible to have operationally detectable causal loops without violating the principle of no superluminal signalling (NSS) in (1+1)-Minkowski spacetime. Whether or not such causal loops are also possible in $d > 1$ spatial dimensions, has remained a key open question. We resolve this question by showing that in a wide class of "conical" spacetimes, including Minkowski with d > 1, NSS does rule out all operationally detectable causal loops, in classical, quantum and post-quantum theories. This establishes that the relationship between the relativistic principles of NSS and no causal loops depends inherently on the geometry of spacetime.
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Quantum Physics

Many-body chirality of topological stabilizer states

A defining feature of chirality is the distinction between a system and its mirror image. Despite extensive experimental observations of chiral phases and theoretical advances, a quantum-information theoretic characterization of chirality based solely on the entanglement structure of many-body quantum states remains elusive. Here, we introduce the notion of many-body chirality by formulating it as an obstruction to transforming a quantum state into its complex conjugate through finite-depth local operations. We rigorously establish many-body chirality for stabilizer realizations of $\mathbb{Z}_d^{(k)}$ anyon theories, proving that complex conjugation can be implemented by local quantum channels if and only if the underlying anyon data are mirror invariant. This reveals forms of chirality that evade conventional diagnostics, including examples with vanishing modular commutator, vanishing chiral central charge, and commuting-projector realizations. We further show that this obstruction is intrinsically four-partite, while invisible to tripartite entanglement structure. Finally, we prove that $\mathbb{Z}_d^{(k)}$ states with $d>2$ possess intrinsic many-body imaginarity: their complex phase structure cannot be removed by finite-depth local unitaries. Remarkably, this includes states that are not many-body chiral.
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All authors Tyler D. Ellison, Dongjin Lee, Zhi Li, Amin Moharramipour, Yasamin Panahi, Beni Yoshida

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

The impact of FRB dispersion measure probability distribution functions on cosmographic estimates

Recent cosmological observations have reopened the discussion about the model that best describes the dynamics of the Universe, highlighting the need for cosmological model-independent analyses. In this paper, we utilize the cosmographic approach applied to a robust sample of 106 well-localized Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) within the redshift range $z \le 0.7$ to constrain the Hubble constant $H_0$, the deceleration parameter $q_0$, and the jerk parameter $j_0$. Our primary goal is to assess the impact of intergalactic medium (IGM) inhomogeneities on cosmographic parameter estimation. To this end, we consider the statistical behavior of these parameters under two distinct functional forms for the IGM dispersion measure ($\mathrm{DM_{IGM}}$) probability density function (PDF): a Gaussian distribution (Distribution I) and a quasi-Gaussian distribution (Distribution II) that accounts for the skewed structure of cosmic large-scale environments along the lines of sight. We further investigate the role of the baryon mass fraction by considering both fixed and free-parameter scenarios. We find that the inferred cosmographic constraints, particularly those on $q_0$, depend sensitively on both the assumed IGM distribution and the adopted parameter priors.
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Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Agentic Symbolic Search: Approximating Solutions of PDEs Beyond Hand-crafted Expressions, Meshes, and Neural Networks

Numerical methods and neural networks have transformed our understanding of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs), yet discovering mathematical representations that explain their dynamics remains largely an expert task. We introduce Agentic Symbolic Search (ASYS), in which coding agents construct and refine explicit approximations from a known PDE and supplied mathematical knowledge. ASYS couples evolutionary search over differentiable symbolic programs with gradient-based fitting, using the governing equation to evaluate candidates and guide their revision. For a singular generalized Constantin-Lax-Majda profile, ASYS infers a missing decay term that sets how fast the field approaches its singular-time limit, and builds a basis that fits the profile to a median error of $3.90\times10^{-5}\%$. For Fujita blow-up, separating diffusion from reaction and deriving a local response lowers the supplied formula's error from 55.5% to 0.0879%. For Allen-Cahn interfaces, a 14-parameter construction yields a mode-coupling law confirmed by independent simulations. These studies show how agentic search develops mathematical starting points into accurate, analyzable approximations.
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Strongly Correlated Electrons

Correlated Mott semi-metal in the topological heavy fermion model

The topological heavy-fermion model provides a minimal framework for describing the coexistence of localized moments and itinerant Dirac electrons in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG). Several analytical and numerical methods have been applied to this model; however, whether they provide a realistic description of MATBG remains incompletely understood. In this work, we develop an Hubbard operator approach that incorporates non-local correlations beyond the single-site limit. We benchmark the approximate calculations against numerically exact determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice-regularized model. We show that commonly used local approximations, such as Hubbard-I, fail to capture the coupling between localized and itinerant degrees of freedom, leading to incorrect spectral properties in the local-moment regime. In contrast, the Hubbard operator method provides a controlled description of both correlation functions and spectral features over a regime of parameters, in good agreement with exact numerical methods.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Atmospheric diversity of sub-Neptunes from formation with rock, water, and soot

Recent JWST detections of CH4 and CO2 in sub-Neptune atmospheres point to a link between atmospheric composition and the nature of planetary building blocks - rock, water, or refractory carbon ("soot") - yet this connection remains poorly understood. Here we investigate how different formation environments shape the coupled interior and atmospheric compositions of sub-Neptunes. We model planets assembled from varying proportions of rock, water, and soot and compute the global chemical equilibrium and the overlying atmospheric structure. We find that planets formed from water-poor material produce atmospheres strongly depleted in carbon-bearing species, with log(CH4) and log(CO2) below -4. In contrast, planets assembled from water-rich building blocks naturally develop methane- and carbon-dioxide-rich atmospheres with elevated metal mass fractions and C/O ratios. The presence of refractory carbon (soot) further enhances methane production and can lead to methane-dominated atmospheres. Comparison with JWST observations suggests that water-rich formation is sufficient to explain K2-18b and TOI-270d with no soot component required, while TOI-421b and GJ3470b are consistent with water-poor formation inside the water ice line. The ratio H2O/CH4 combined with the mean molecular weight (MMW) provides a powerful two-dimensional diagnostic linking atmospheric composition to formation environment, with departures from the predicted trends explained by water condensation in temperate atmospheres or fractionated atmospheric mass loss.
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Nuclear Experiment

Observation of centrality-dependent dijet transverse momentum imbalance in O+O and Ne+Ne collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.36 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The ATLAS experiment presents an observation of a centrality-dependent dijet transverse momentum imbalance in O+O and Ne+Ne collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.36 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement uses 8.0 nb$^{-1}$ of O+O and 1.0 nb$^{-1}$ of Ne+Ne data collected in 2025, together with 386 pb$^{-1}$ of pp data at the same energy used as a reference. The dijet momentum balance is quantified using the ratio of the sub-leading jet transverse momentum to that of the leading jet, $x_J$. For dijets produced azimuthally back-to-back, the self-normalized $x_J$ distributions exhibit increasingly large deviations from the pp reference as collisions become more central, corresponding to an increasing overlap of the colliding nuclei. The observed centrality dependence is consistent with medium-induced partonic energy loss in O+O and Ne+Ne collisions, demonstrating that such effects persist in collision systems considerably smaller than Pb+Pb and Xe+Xe. These results establish a new regime for investigating the path-length dependence of jet quenching and constrain the onset of quark-gluon plasma effects in small nuclear collision systems.
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Soft Condensed Matter

Polymer-polymer interdiffusion: effects of entanglements and a polymeric source

Many industrial applications and biological scenarios involve the interdiffusion of two polymeric species. Motivated by biological subcellular source-driven processes, we study polymer-polymer interdiffusion problems in the absence or the presence of a polymeric source, for both unentangled and entangled scenarios. Utilizing a two-fluid formalism, we arrive at scaling relations, self-similar reductions, and analytical solutions, which are confirmed with one- and two-dimensional numerical simulations. The introduction of a source term breaks the self-similar structure, modifying the boundary conditions and the domain of integration. Nevertheless, we show that the front characteristics of the diffusing droplet exhibit similar spatial structures as in the absence of a source. Our results allow deeper understanding of polymer-polymer interdiffusion and nonlinear transport, especially in the presence of a source.
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Statistical Mechanics

Scaling, fractal dynamics, and critical exponents in the equilibrium phase transition

Statistical methods are essential for understanding thermodynamic systems with many degrees of freedom. For systems in equilibrium, a very useful method is that of correlation functions, which establish a correlation between a field phi(x), which depends on the spatial position x, and the same field evaluated at another position, phi(x0). Fisher [Journal of Mathematical Physics 5, 944322 (1964)] introduced the autocorrelation function for fluctuations of the order parameter, which has been an important mathematical tool for understanding second-order phase transitions in equilibrium. However, his analysis is restricted to a Euclidean space of dimension d, and an exponent eta is introduced to correct the spatial behavior of the correlation function at T = Tc. In a recent work, Lima et al. [Phys. Rev. E 110, L062107 (2024)] demonstrated that a modern fractional differential analysis is necessary for a complete description of the correlation function at Tc. In this study, we highlight the deep connection among scaling behavior, critical exponents, and fractal geometry. Our results provide a unified geometric interpretation of critical exponents and fractal dimensions, broadly applicable to thermodynamic phase transitions. However, the approach does not apply to topological phase transitions, which lack local order parameters and the associated scale-invariant fractal geometry. We verify its predictions for several cornerstone thermodynamic models: the Ising, Potts, XY, and Heisenberg systems.
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All authors Adauto F. Souza, Henrique A Lima, Anderson L. R. Barbosa, Fernando A. Oliveira

Statistical Mechanics

Space-time duality approach to (inhomogeneous) integrable quenches

Characterising the universal aspects of non-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics is one of the key goals of this century's physics research. Progress, however, is hindered by the lack of general theoretical frameworks for studying interacting quantum matter far from equilibrium. A recent breakthrough has been the realization that several key non-equilibrium quantities, such as the rate of growth of entanglement or the fluctuations of conserved charges within finite subsystems, can be related to equilibrium properties through a space-time duality that effectively exchanges the roles of space and time. This observation effectively enables the study of non-equilibrium phenomena using tools and concepts borrowed from equilibrium statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. A first proof of principle of this framework, dubbed space-time duality approach (SDA), was provided by interacting integrable systems, where thermodynamic properties can often be characterized exactly, while dynamical quantities typically remain beyond analytical reach. Subsequent developments, however, revealed that the SDA suffered from an intrinsic ambiguity, restricting its applicability to homogeneous quenches and to charge fluctuations arising from symmetric initial states. Here we resolve this ambiguity from first principles and derive closed-form predictions for entanglement growth and charge fluctuations after general quantum quenches. We benchmark our results against the exact analytical solution of the Rule 54 quantum cellular automaton and extensive TEBD simulations of the XXZ chain. Moreover we show that, when specialised to the entanglement entropy, our framework naturally reproduces the predictions of the quasiparticle picture.
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All authors Riccardo Travaglino, Pasquale Calabrese, Katja Klobas, Bruno Bertini

Quantum Physics

Computing noise-canceling observables via Pauli propagation

The pursuit of quantum advantage is driving the co-evolution of quantum processors and classical simulation methods. Despite advances in scale and quality, the accuracy of quantum simulation is ultimately limited by error rates and sampling overheads. Similarly, while classical simulation methods such as Pauli propagation have made remarkable progress, their accuracy is ultimately limited by the exponential growth of operator paths and the truncations needed to control memory and runtime. Here we show that these complementary limitations can be mitigated by embedding Pauli propagation within a hybrid error-mitigation framework that reduces quantum sampling overhead while achieving lower truncation errors with fewer classical resources than traditional Pauli propagation alone. In this framework, a target observable is classically propagated through noise-canceling inverse channels, producing a modified observable that is measured directly on a quantum processor. We prototype two implementations and benchmark their performance numerically on canonical models that challenge traditional Pauli propagation. We also perform experiments on a quantum processor using 56 superconducting qubits, revealing the tradeoffs of their respective truncation strategies. These results illustrate how classical and quantum resources can be orchestrated to extend observable estimation beyond the limits of either approach alone, providing a foundation for quantum-centric supercomputing and future demonstrations of quantum advantage.
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All authors Andrew Eddins, Caleb Johnson, Alberto Baiardi, Francesco Tacchino, Ewout van den Berg, Roy Elkabetz, Vinay Tripathi, Swarnadeep Majumder, Max Rossmannek, Liran Shirizly, Abhinav Kandala

Quantum Gases

Polaronic hybridization of atoms, dimers and trimers in a Bose-Einstein condensate

The Bose polaron problem of an impurity immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has been predicted to feature strong correlations arising from bound states of multiple bosons with the impurity. While direct experimental evidence has so far remained elusive, here we observe clear signatures of three-body correlations in Bose polarons. We perform radiofrequency spectroscopy on $^{40}$K impurities in a BEC of $^{23}$Na and identify polaronic hybrid states that can be understood as superpositions of the bare atom, a NaK dimer and a Na$_2$K trimer, coupled through coherent particle exchange with the condensate. We show that the main spectroscopic features are captured by a simple three-level model without free parameters. Our work shows how a condensate environment can coherently hybridize bound states of different composition and mass, reminiscent of quark-flavor mixing described by the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix in particle physics.
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All authors Carsten Robens, Arthur Christianen, Alexander Y. Chuang, Huan Q. Bui, Yiming Zhang, Richard Schmidt, Martin Zwierlein

High Energy Physics (Experiment)

HEPTv2: End-to-End Efficient Point Transformer for Charged Particle Reconstruction

Charged-particle tracking – reconstructing trajectories from sparse detector measurements – is a fundamental high-energy-physics inference problem and a canonical example of learning under extreme combinatorial ambiguity. At the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), tracking must remain accurate and efficient despite unprecedented collision densities. Graph neural networks perform strongly, but incur substantial costs from graph construction and processing, while transformer-based approaches rely on auxiliary stages that prevent end-to-end optimization. To address this, we present HEPTv2, an end-to-end point-transformer architecture that reconstructs tracks from detector hits in one trainable pipeline. HEPTv2 combines a locality-aware point encoder with a track decoder that predicts complete trajectories without graph-building, clustering, or filtering. The encoder uses locality-sensitive hashing in detector coordinate space to preserve tracking-relevant geometry while enabling efficient local attention. The decoder resolves ambiguities through sectorized decoding and direct hit-to-track prediction under joint encoder-decoder supervision, allowing the full pipeline to be optimized end-to-end. On TrackML, HEPTv2 achieves 98.6% double-majority tracking efficiency at a 0.8% fake rate, while requiring only $\sim$15~ms inference time and 0.4~GB peak memory per event on a NVIDIA A100 GPU. Latency and memory scale approximately linearly for events with up to $5\times10^5$ hits. HEPTv2 establishes a new state of the art in the accuracy-latency trade-off, improving efficiency by 4.5% over the strongest prior transformer and by 1.1–2.2% over optimized graph-based pipelines, while reducing latency by factors of 7 and 38–52, respectively. These results show end-to-end transformers can deliver the accuracy and efficiency required for real-time particle reconstruction at the HL-LHC.
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All authors Siqi Miao, Shitij Govil, Jack P. Rodgers, Mia Liu, Javier Duarte, Shih-Chieh Hsu, Yuan-Tang Chou, Pan Li

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

The Hubble tension: A decade review

Ever since the new millennium, precision cosmology has forged the $\Lambda$-cold-dark-matter ($\Lambda$CDM) model as the standard model of concordant cosmology, withstanding various tests except for an ever-enlarging discrepancy between early-Universe observations and late-Universe measurements on the current Hubble expansion rate of our observable Universe. This Hubble-constant tension has likely become a real crisis for modern cosmology, with the discrepancy persisting regardless of whether the early-Universe observations depend on Planck CMB or not, and the late-Universe measurements depend on distance ladders at all. If the Hubble tension originates from a different early Universe, its resolutions pertain to shrinking the sound horizon by altering either early expansion or recombination histories, but at the same time necessitating modifications to both primordial and late Universe altogether. Alternatively, if the Hubble tension arises from a different late Universe, its resolutions operate by changing the absolute magnitude of supernovae either intrinsically or effectively, both of which have been strongly constrained by the inverse distance ladders with the cosmic distance duality relation. The remaining options seem to turn to our local Universe, but a local Hubble bubble or cosmic void solution has long been ruled out as a significant contribution to the Hubble tension. In view of this dilemma, we review in this paper alternative resolutions involving interacting dark energy models, either combining early-time and late-time modifications or operating at the transition from inhomogeneity to homogeneity scales.
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2606.20434 · 18 Jun · v1, 76 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, Invited review for RAA (Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics), prepared for invited talk at Special Forum: "Dark Energy and the Hubble Constant Crisis" of 28th Annual Conference of the China Association for Science and Technology; v2, 86 pages, largely extended references (including ones added after acceptance for publication)

High Energy Physics (Theory)

Shadow Completion in Celestial OPEs

We argue that celestial OPEs must be supplemented by shadow-basis operators. Although the shadow transform does not introduce new bulk degrees of freedom, it provides a distinct primary state in the boundary celestial theory. From OPE consistency, we show that the ordinary celestial OPE does not close on Mellin-basis exchanges alone. Rather, the same exchanged bulk particle must also appear through its shadow-basis representative. This leads to a shadow-completed OPE, with the shadow OPE coefficient fixed by the ordinary collinear coefficient through the universal shadow factor. We discuss the corresponding boundary Hilbert-space interpretation, extend this argument to gluons and gravitons, and verify the shadow exchange directly in tree-level regular celestial amplitudes, including a scalar $2\rightarrow n$ analysis and an explicit five-point example.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from math.AG

Eigenvector Varieties

Any linear space of square matrices has an associated eigenvector variety. Its points are eigenvectors of matrices from that linear space. We present a systematic study of eigenvector varieties, with focus on Lie algebras and Hamiltonians of quantum systems.

Strongly Correlated Electrons

Non-Hermitian Skin Effect Enhances Pairing Correlations in Moiré Hubbard Systems

We show that the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) can enhance pairing correlations in moiré Hubbard systems through a channel-selective mechanism: skin-induced localization amplifies the boundary density of states, strengthening local pairing tendencies within an intermediate “golden window” of non-reciprocity $\gamma\in[0.5,1.2]\,t$. Using exact diagonalization of the non-Hermitian Hubbard model on triangular lattices with open boundaries, we map the $(U,\gamma)$ phase diagram. The double occupancy $D(\gamma)$ exhibits non-monotonic behavior – rising by up to 21% then declining – reflecting a competition between NHSE-enhanced boundary pairing and over-localization. A decomposition of the pairing susceptibility $\chi_{\mathrm{SC}}$ on the $3\times3$ cluster reveals that the NHSE acts channel-selectively: it enhances on-site pairing ($+21\%$) while simultaneously suppressing competing antiferromagnetic correlations (22% reduction), so that the total pairing susceptibility, dominated by the on-site channel, grows by $+98\%$ on that cluster. These trends are corroborated by an independent non-Hermitian DMRG calculation and establish an enhancement of finite-cluster pairing correlations rather than trivial density redistribution. We do not claim long-range superconducting order. A BCS scaling estimate converts the same pairing-response signal into a dome-shaped $T_c(\gamma)$ fingerprint, suggesting an experimentally distinguishable response in coherent-drive versus reservoir-dominated moiré devices.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

The X17 Anomaly: Experimental Evidence and Theoretical Interpretations

This review summarizes the experimental evidence for the hypothetical X17 particle, examines the theoretical frameworks in which it can be accommodated, and discusses its potential implications for the Standard Model and couplings to known particles. Future experimental prospects are also highlighted.
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High Energy Physics (Experiment)

Resonant heterodyne conversion applied to a low-frequency haloscope for dark matter axion searches in the 1-35 MHz range

We study resonant heterodyne up-conversion in the RADES-BabyIAXO haloscope as a method to search for low-mass dark matter axions using microwave cavities. Starting from axion electrodynamics, we derive the axion-induced source term and the power extracted through a readout mode, explicitly accounting for the finite axion linewidth. This leads to effective quality factors that determine the pump-axion mixing, detection bandwidth, and detected signal power. We extend the BI-RME 3D full-wave formulation to heterodyne axion detection in a realistic two-port cavity, including pump leakage into the readout channel. Applying the formalism to the largest RADES-BabyIAXO cavity identifies the $\mathrm{quasi\textrm{-}TE}_{011}-\mathrm{quasi\textrm{-}TM}_{010}$ mode pair as a favorable configuration, enabling sensitivity to axion frequencies between 0.9 and 34.6 MHz. Analytical and full-wave predictions show excellent agreement at resonance, while the full-wave model provides a more accurate description off resonance and allows a precise characterization of the pump leakage. We also derive the optimal port couplings that maximize the scanning rate. Sensitivity projections for cryogenic copper and superconducting niobium cavities indicate that, under thermal-noise-limited conditions and assuming sufficient pump-leakage rejection, the experiment could probe axion-photon couplings down to $10^{-15}\,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ at 90% confidence level, representing a significant improvement over previous heterodyne-based searches.
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All authors Jose R. Navarro-Madrid, José Reina-Valero, Alejandro Díaz-Morcillo, Benito Gimeno

Optics

Plasma Etch Process Optimization for Photonic-Grade Diamond-on-Insulator Substrates and Thickness Evaluation using Colorimetry

Diamond color-center qubits integrated with photonic circuits can be initialized, manipulated, entangled, and read individually with high fidelity, making them attractive for large-scale modular quantum computers, quantum networks, and distributed quantum sensing. However, the limited size of heteroepitaxially grown single-crystal diamond (SCD) and photonic-grade diamond-on-insulator (DOI) substrates remains a challenge for integration with existing manufacturing processes. Here, we develop a plasma etch recipe to thin direct-bonded (100) SCD membranes (<50 $\mu$m) into large-area, thin-film DOI substrates, and demonstrate free-standing photonic chiplets fabricated from the resulting DOI. The ICP-RIE recipe preserves diamond bonding, provides sufficient micromasking and surface-quality control, and enables thin-film DOI manufacture. We thin a 10 $\mu$m diamond plate bonded to SiO$_2$/Si and obtain a photonic-grade DOI substrate with diamond thickness $\leq$300 nm. The DOI film is around 300 nm thick over 0.5 $\times$ 0.5 mm$^2$, with surface roughness < 0.5 nm, while the bonding interface remains intact. Diamond photonic chiplets are fabricated on this DOI substrate using a standard two-step lithography process, without complex thin-film transfer, under-etching, or pedestal formation. We also present a colorimetric study of diamond visibility on SiO$_2$ and quantify color differences across thicknesses in common colorimetric spaces. This analysis enables automatic diamond-thickness extrapolation from standard optical microscope images with 5 nm resolution, in good agreement with white-light interferometry (WLI) measurements. The DOI substrate and colorimetric thickness-evaluation method provide an effective fabrication platform and reliable validation route for scalable manufacturing of diamond nanophotonic devices, opening a path toward large-scale integrated quantum systems.
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All authors Tianyin Chen, Alessio Miranda, Leyla Rami, Ryoichi Ishihara, Salahuddin Nur

Strongly Correlated Electrons

Superconductivity and non-Fermi liquid metals in a charge-1/3 anyon fluid

We revisit the charge-1/3 anyon fluid obtained by doping the $\nu = 2/3$ Jain fractional Chern insulator (FCI). In the standard composite fermion description, the doped anyons fractionalize into three translation-related flavors of secondary composite fermions, whose gauge-mediated interactions drive a robust inter-flavor pairing instability. In our previous work, we analyzed a flavor-asymmetric paired state and obtained a charge-ordered Fermi liquid. Inspired by a recent paper, we consider an alternative flavor-symmetric paired state and show that it is an SC* state: a charge-$2e$ condensate that coexists with residual $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological order. The weak and strong pairing regimes share the same intrinsic topological order but differ in chiral central charge, giving $c_- = 7/2$ and $c_- = 2$. We further show how other proposed effective field theories fit within the same composite fermion description, and argue that across the doping driven FCI-to-superconductor transition, localized anyons evolve into Bogoliubov quasiparticles rather than vortices. At low doping, we identify an approximate SU(3)-symmetric regime in which the system instead realizes a non-Fermi liquid $\mathbb{Z}_3$ Orthogonal Metal with three charge-1/3 fermion pockets and no sharp electron quasiparticle. Finally, we comment on the energetics of various possible ground states and discuss implications for experiments in moire materials.
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Quantum Physics

Quantum Kernels are Spectral Tensor Networks

Quantum kernels admit Fourier representations whose frequencies are determined by the data-encoding gates of the underlying feature map. We show that entangling tensor kernels are matrix product operator factorizations of the corresponding Fourier coefficient tensors, thereby identifying quantum kernels as spectral tensor networks. By grouping gate-level frequency configurations that yield the same feature-wise frequency, we obtain a grouped Fourier form that induces a more compact spectral tensor network representation of the kernel. We further show that kernel target alignment serves as a bridge between the Fourier and tensor network views. On a grid that resolves the accessible Fourier modes, it becomes the Frobenius cosine similarity between Fourier coefficient tensors. Our numerical experiments show that layered quantum kernels admit accurate representations with small bond dimension, revealing a compressibility governed by correlations between Fourier modes. This compressibility provides a diagnostic of classical representability and of whether kernel evaluation is likely to remain classically tractable.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Giant impact between high-viscosity Theia and low-viscosity proto-Earth: Origin of lunar isotopic crisis

According to the giant impact theory, the Moon was formed by accretion of the debris disk that resulted from the collision between Theia and the proto-Earth. Although this theory accounts for most characteristics of the Earth-Moon system, numerical simulations of impacts between a planetary embryo and the accreting proto-Earth indicate that more than 40 percent of the material in the circum-terrestrial disk generated by such an impact originates from the impactor. This poses a challenge for the giant impact theory in explaining the Moon's Earth-like isotopic composition, a discrepancy known as the lunar isotopic crisis. Since terrestrial planets were melted one or more times during accretionary processes, magma ocean on the surface of a growing planet would appear. Small terrestrial planets with magma ocean cool faster than large ones, resulting that the viscosity of small terrestrial planets is larger than that of large terrestrial planets still covered by magma ocean. Here, it shows that giant impact between a high-viscosity Theia and a low-viscosity proto-Earth could produce a circum-terrestrial debris disk predominantly composed of material from the proto-Earth without violating the angular momentum constraint of modern Earth-Moon system. The theory proposed here may provide a natural way of explaining the lunar isotopic crisis.
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Quantum Physics

Imperceptible measurement deviations can fake high-dimensional entanglement

Quantum entanglement is a central resource for emerging quantum technologies, but its experimental certification usually assumes that prescribed quantum measurements can be realized exactly. This assumption becomes increasingly restrictive in high-dimensional systems, where accurate measurement control is more challenging. Here, we show that arbitrarily small, adversarially tailored measurement deviations can lead to the false certification of high-dimensional entanglement in systems that are, in fact, separable, with the effect becoming increasingly severe as the dimension grows. We experimentally demonstrate this across a broad range of dimensions using classical photonic states encoded in the spatial degree of freedom. We report false certification of several tens of entangled dimensions in systems spanning up to 61 dimensions while exploiting measurement deviations as low as 0.23%. Our results reveal how imperceptible invasive attacks can critically compromise high-dimensional entanglement certification, motivating the development of new certification methods robust to bounded discrepancies between theory and experiment.
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All authors Jaime Moreno, Elna Svegborn, Simon Morelli, Markus Hiekkamäaki, Lea Kopf, Robert Fickler, Armin Tavakoli

Medical Physics

Efficient and Accurate Image Reconstruction for Geometric-Inconsistent Multispectral CT with Ray-Dependent Energy Spectra

In practical multispectral computed tomography (MSCT), the scanning geometric parameters under different X-ray energy spectra are often inconsistent, and the distributions of the energy spectra are even ray-dependent. However, existing algorithms cannot effectively and accurately solve the associated image reconstruction problem. To address this limitation, using the proposed aggregated energy spectra, we approximate the Jacobian matrix of the nonlinear forward operator at certain special points (e.g., the zero point) as a block product of a diagonal matrix composed of projection matrices and a very small-scale matrix, and then based on this matrix with a special structure, propose an efficient and accurate image reconstruction algorithm tailored for geometric-inconsistent MSCT with ray-dependent energy spectra. Under appropriate conditions, we establish the convergence theory for the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, numerical experiments using both noiseless and noisy projection data are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, which demonstrate that the efficiency and accuracy of this algorithm are much higher than existing algorithms, offering the flexibility and scalability to accommodate various MSCT imaging configurations.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

New Gauge Forces, Neutron Stars and Schwinger Neutrino Production

We investigate neutrino effects of new long-range forces arising from gauging $B-L$, $L_e-L_{\mu/\tau}$ or $L_{\mu}-L_{\tau}$ symmetries of the Standard Model. The leptonic potential generated by astronomical bodies, such as the Earth, the Sun or a neutron star, results in the Schwinger pair production of neutrinos charged under the new gauge symmetry. The oppositely charged particles accumulate in the potential well forming a degenerate Fermi gas, while equally charged particles fly away forming a steady flux of neutrinos. We find that, for the $B-L$ and $L_e-L_{\mu/\tau}$ forces, these effects are too weak to be observable. For the $L_{\mu}-L_{\tau}$ force these effects are significant in neutron stars if the gauge coupling is $g\gtrsim 10^{-18}$. The muonic force changes the element abundances of a neutron star in equilibrium and suppresses its $L_{\mu}-L_{\tau}$ charge. This invalidates the constraint on $g$ from neutron star mergers, at $g\gtrsim 10^{-17}$. Furthermore, for such values of $g$, the neutrino flux produced by the Schwinger effect could potentially be detected from a single young neutron star at a distance of $\simeq 100$ pc, with the typical neutrino energy $E_\nu\sim 100$ MeV. A dedicated search for such a signal will reassert the bound $g\lesssim 10^{-18}$.
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All authors Yuxin Liu, Zhen Liu, Andrey Shkerin, Jing Shu, Yue Zhao

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Phase Transitions and Gravitational Wave Production at the End of Thermal Inflation

We investigate the first-order phase transition that terminates thermal inflation and evaluate the associated stochastic gravitational-wave signals. The transition is first characterized through semi-analytic calculations of the bounce action, which are compared with numerical results obtained using CosmoTransitions. We then study its real-time evolution in a three-dimensional Langevin lattice simulation that incorporates Hubble expansion and the corresponding temperature evolution throughout the transition. The lattice dynamics are consistent with the bounce-action estimates: the transition proceeds through localized bubble nucleation and subsequent bubble growth, rather than through a phase-mixing instability. Using the resulting transition parameters, we estimate the gravitational-wave spectra generated by bubble collisions and acoustic motions in the plasma. The predicted stochastic background lies within the projected sensitivity ranges of future gravitational-wave observatories, including BBO and DECIGO.
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All authors Hyukjung Kim, İlayda Kuzu, Kerem Özsoy, Zeynep Kahraman, Wan-Il Park, Heeseung Zoe

Quantum Physics

Interaction geometry and ground-state properties of sparse quantum lattice models

We investigate how interaction geometry shapes the low-energy phases of sparse tunable long-range quantum models. We focus on a class of graphs whose degree grows logarithmically with system size, and show how symmetry and frustration in graph connectivity can drive, suppress, and reshape ground-state phase transitions. The central examples are power-of-$p$ graphs, where even and odd values of $p$ exhibit qualitatively distinct behaviour: even-$p$ graphs inherit the rich phase structure of the power-of-two model, while odd-$p$ graphs are governed by geometric frustration. Fibonacci graphs provide a contrasting case, lacking the discrete self-similarity of the power-of-$p$ family but exhibiting a direct geometric mapping between the short- and long-range limits. Across our models, we find that phase structure and criticality are governed by the same effective-geometry principle, unifying our framework for experimentally motivated long-range quantum systems.
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All authors Alex Gunning, Sebastian Schmid, Zhengxiao Liu, Sridevi Kuriyattil, Aydin Deger, Andrew J. Daley

Quantum Physics

Sparse Configuration Interaction for the Electronic Schrödinger Equation Revisited: Complete Basis Set Limit Complexity and Quantum-Encoding Impact

In this article we revisit regularity results for eigenfunctions in the discrete spectrum of the electronic Schrödinger equation and study their consequences for approximation complexity. In particular, for the convergence to the complete basis set limit, it can be shown that the curse of dimensionality in the leading algebraic exponent can be mitigated. That is, for general sparse grid constructions, the main term of the convergence rate with respect to the number of degrees of freedom is independent of the number of electrons. These insights indicate potential benefits for classical numerical solvers of the electronic Schrödinger equation and also for quantum-computing approaches through new qubit-efficient wavefunction encodings.
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Quantum Physics

Discrimination of genuinely nonlocal sets without entanglement in multipartite systems

Genuine nonlocality arises when a set of multipartite orthogonal states is locally indistinguishable under any bipartition of the subsystems. The entanglement-assisted discrimination of such genuinely nonlocal orthogonal product sets has attracted significant attention in quantum information. Based on the criterion of local irreducibility, genuine nonlocality is classified into Type I (reducible) and Type II (irreducible). We present entanglement-assisted discrimination schemes for both types of genuinely nonlocal sets that use minimal resources. For low-dimensional cases, Type I sets require only a single EPR pair, whereas Type II sets necessitate only one GHZ state. We extend these protocols to higher-dimensional systems: the discrimination of Type I sets requires only one maximally entangled state in a two-qutrit system, while that of Type II sets similarly demands a single maximally entangled state in a three-qutrit system. For $n$-partite ($n > 3$) systems, Type I sets continue to require only one maximally entangled state, whereas Type II sets necessitate just one additional EPR pair compared to their Type I counterparts. These results provide a robust framework for the efficient discrimination of genuinely nonlocal sets using minimal quantum resources.
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