Papers

We develop two implementations of the Event-Chain Monte Carlo (ECMC) algorithm for Yang-Mills $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ lattice gauge theories with the Wilson action. These algorithms consist in a succession of local ballistic updates intersped with stochastic events, resulting in an irreversible and rejection-free Markov process. The resulting dynamics satisfy global balance, ensuring the correct equilibrium distribution. The algorithms are formulated for general $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Yang-Mills theories with Wilson action and implemented for the case $N=3$. Numerical tests on four-dimensional lattices show that standard gauge observables, such as the mean plaquette, agree with results obtained using conventional Monte Carlo algorithms. These results provide a first validation of ECMC as a viable sampling scheme for Yang-Mills lattice gauge theories.

Small quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) studies are difficult when close molecular analogues have different activity labels. This paper asks whether a quantum kernel can add similarity information to a Morgan/Tanimoto fingerprint model, and which molecules account for the change. QBioFusion-QSAR uses quantum multiple kernel learning (QMKL): a support vector machine combines a Morgan/Tanimoto kernel with a quantum fidelity kernel constructed from fold-local components derived from RDKit and Mordred descriptors and Deep-PK features. Linear and radial basis function descriptor kernels are included as classical controls. On the 54-molecule PsychLight-A benchmark, Morgan/Tanimoto was the strongest single representation. In the primary stratified five-fold evaluation, QMKL increased accuracy from 0.815 to 0.833 and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) from 0.613 to 0.645. Matched-regularization auditing attributed the change to N-Me-5-HT and N-Me-tryptamine changing from false-negative to true-positive predictions; activity-cliff subset MCC increased from 0.07 to 0.22. Repeating the five-fold protocol over ten random partitionings showed that learned QMKL did not exceed Morgan/Tanimoto on mean MCC; paired held-out bootstrap intervals for the matched comparison also span zero. These results support QBioFusion-QSAR as an auditable QMKL framework for identifying localized residual quantum-kernel contributions in small-data, activity-cliff-aware ligand classification.

The measurement problem is one of the longest-standing open problems in quantum mechanics: noncommutative observables are incompatible with the Born and collapse rules, prescribing that the outcome of their observation is distributed according to the laws of classical probability. In this paper, we solve the measurement problem through the correspondence principle with a semiclassical approach. We prove that Born rule, the wavefunction collapse, and macroscopic observability all hold true, approximately, but with arbitrary precision, whenever a measuring device (in a semiclassical state) is coupled adiabatically to the observed system. Our measurement device is based on the propagation properties of semiclassical bosonic coherent states through an adiabatic two level system on scale times of the order of the Ehrenfest time.

Reaching global agreement from purely local interactions is a defining problem of collective intelligence, and most models of it assume that all agents share a single communication protocol. We ask what happens when they do not. Using a Neural Cellular Automaton in which a population of cells must solve the density classification task, agreeing on a global majority that no individual can observe, we introduce “languages” as sub-populations that read one another's messages through a translation with a tunable “linguistic distance”. We find that linguistic distance slows consensus, that it produces mild divergence between groups rather than full fragmentation, and that a collective whose shared rule was trained under diverse protocols is robust to mismatch; a homogeneously trained one is not. The findings hold on both a ring and a two-dimensional grid, and admit a natural reading as Ising relaxation, in which a foreign-language region acts as a boundary defect that leaves the system in a higher-energy, partially ordered state. These patterns are qualitatively consistent with effects reported in human group studies, suggesting that distance between communication protocols is a minimal mechanism sufficient to produce them, without anything language-specific.

Wildfire research, modeling, and education require geospatial data from multiple sources that vary in formats, coordinate systems, spatial resolutions, and temporal cadences. This preprocessing burden limits reproducible reuse. We present FireDataForge, an open-source Python framework that automates retrieval and harmonization of 11 wildfire-related sources spanning fire behavior, weather, land cover, vegetation, elevation, built environment, wildland-urban interface, fire history, and satellite imagery. Given an MTBS Event ID, FireDataForge retrieves relevant datasets, aligns them to a common grid, and outputs analysis-ready NumPy arrays with embedded metadata. Batch processing of historical fires demonstrates support for fire behavior simulation, educational visualization, machine learning, and AI-assisted wildfire analysis.

Hard carbons are a class of disordered materials with widespread application in energy storage. Despite decades of research, their atomistic formation mechanisms have remained elusive, due to the difficulty of both in situ experimental characterization and first-principles simulations. Here, we describe the formation mechanism of hard carbon from the thermal decomposition of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC), using first-principles-quality simulations with a bespoke machine-learned interatomic potential model. Our results indicate a two-stage process, consisting of (i) radical-mediated dehydrochlorination, which generates reactive unsaturated carbon sites, and (ii) progressive carbon-carbon cross-linking followed by thermally activated rearrangement into an extended sp$^{2}$-bonded network. We provide an atomistic account of non-hexagonal ring motifs emerging during pyrolysis, supporting the empirically-derived theory that these motifs induce the intrinsic curvature that frustrates graphitic ordering in hard carbons.

The recently developed Q-variable formalism generalises the Elsässer representation by providing a wave-aligned representation applicable to a broad class of magnetohydrodynamic disturbances, including Alfvénic, fast, slow, and kink waves. While this framework has proven useful for the study of wave dynamics and turbulence, its behaviour in the presence of plasma discontinuities has not yet been established. In this work, we derive the complete set of Rankine-Hugoniot jump conditions in terms of the Q-variables by rewriting the ideal MHD equations in a form suitable for shock-frame jump analysis. This yields explicit jump relations for mass, momentum, magnetic flux, and energy. We then demonstrate analytically that these relations are exactly equivalent to the classical MHD Rankine-Hugoniot conditions. This reformulation provides a wave-aligned representation of MHD discontinuities and offers a natural framework for discussing directional wave content and branch-restricted limits when $\alpha$, the wave-branch parameter entering the Q-variable definition, is chosen consistently with the relevant characteristic speed. The resulting formulation is well suited for the analysis of wave-shock interactions in magnetised plasmas, with potential applications to the solar wind, magnetospheric systems, and large-scale models of structured plasma environments such as UAWSOM.

Fault-tolerant quantum computing based on lattice surgery requires place-and-route compilation with low spacetime overhead. Routing, in particular, faces a basic tension between suppressing path conflicts through greater spatial allocation and exploiting the time direction to realize ancilla-efficient spacetime routing. Existing approaches do not fully resolve this trade-off while retaining compatibility with inner factory layouts and termination guarantees. Here we introduce double-slice routing, a constant-depth spacetime-routing method that uses two consecutive time slices with a guarantee that its kink-parity correction terminates under both planar and stacked architectures. We numerically benchmark the resulting compiler on Hamiltonian-simulation workloads to show that double-slice routing reduces compilation cost by up to a factor of 2.4 over a single-slice baseline. Compared to projective routing, an existing method that allows an unbounded number of time slices per path, double-slice routing achieves smaller circuit volume with only a marginal execution-time penalty. Combined with a cultivation-compatible mapping optimization, the overall improvement reaches up to 7.5-fold over a naive single-slice compilation baseline. These results identify double-slice routing as a practically useful operating point in lattice-surgery compilation and show the substantial benefit in joint optimization of mapping and routing.

We study plasmonic excitations in twisted bilayer graphene within a non-Hermitian framework that incorporates effective gain and loss. Using a non-Hermitian extension of the Bistritzer–MacDonald continuum model together with a biorthogonal Kubo formalism for the optical conductivity, we determine how the moiré electronic structure enters the plasmonic response of the active bilayer. We find that non-Hermiticity modifies the collective spectrum, yielding optical and acoustic plasmon branches, with the acoustic branch exhibiting strong subwavelength confinement. In the parity-time-symmetric configuration, gain–loss engineering can reduce the effective spatial damping and enhance the propagation length within the ideal linear model. The same regime produces strongly localized transverse-magnetic near fields. We argue that the enhancement is not a generic consequence of adding gain to a bilayer, but results from the combined influence of moiré-band reconstruction, biorthogonal optical matrix elements, and non-Hermitian modification of the plasmon pole. We also discuss the limitations imposed by disorder, substrate loss, gain saturation, and stability of the parity-time-symmetric regime. These results identify twisted bilayer graphene as a promising, but experimentally demanding, platform for tunable non-Hermitian plasmonics in moiré quantum materials.

Attractive three-body interactions have been reported for like-charged colloids in low-salt suspensions, based on both finite-element Poisson-Boltzmann calculations and direct experimental measurements, and have been proposed as a mechanism to drive colloidal clustering. However, these Poisson-Boltzmann calculations typically neglect charge regulation and higher-order many-body effects. Here, we construct machine-learned (ML) many-body interaction potentials for charge-regulating colloids, trained on finite-element Poisson-Boltzmann calculations, to accurately capture three-body and higher-order contributions. We find that the three-body contribution to the many-body potential as obtained from Poisson-Boltzmann calculations on isolated colloid triplets is strongly attractive, consistent with previous work, whereas the four-body contribution for an equilateral pyramid configuration of four colloids is repulsive. We then construct ML many-body potentials for charged colloids using finite-element Poisson-Boltzmann calculations on clusters of 13 colloids, and find that the incorporation of higher-body interactions weakens the cohesive nature of the interactions. We identify a parameter regime exhibiting gas-liquid or gas-solid phase separation using the ML potentials in molecular dynamics simulations. However, when we include clusters of 48 colloids in the training data, the cohesion diminishes further, and molecular dynamics simulations using these potentials no longer include broad phase separation in aqueous dispersions of charged colloids. Finally, we compute the potential of mean force of pairs and triplets of colloids using primitive model simulations. We find that the resulting potentials are in good agreement with those obtained from the Poisson-Boltzmann calculations, thereby supporting the validity of the Poisson-Boltzmann approach for determining many-body interactions.

In this paper, using a novel geometrical approach, we relate the concept of the thermodynamic temperature of the free gravitational field, to the non-affinity of real null geodesics in a Newman Penrose tetrad. This naturally links various temperature functions like Clifton, Ellis and Tavakol temperature, Hawking temperature, Unruh temperature etc., in their respective proper limits. Although our analysis is done within the realm of local rotational symmetry, we show that the result can be extended to other Petrov type D geometries, like the Kerr spacetime. We also obtain the geometrical and causal transport equations for this temperature function, in the form of a hyperbolic wave equation with a forcing term, sourced by Weyl curvature and matter. Finally, as a possible physical interpretation of the non-affinity, we relate the geometrical temperature with the gravitational red/blue shift of light rays travelling along null geodesics.

Testing the validity of the cosmological principle's assumption of large-scale isotropy remains crucial for modern cosmology. We investigate the angular distributions of gamma-ray bursts using the GRB catalog from Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (Swift) for an independent probe of isotropy. Using the HEALPix spherical harmonic decomposition, we estimate the dipole and quadrupole amplitudes and compare them against the null hypothesis obtained from 500 isotropic Monte Carlo realizations. Our results show 2.9$\sigma$ dipole and 7.2$\sigma$ quadrupole amplitude when applied to the raw data. To account for observational biases, we then create an exposure map using the pointing history, roll angle, and the partial coding fraction of the Swift Telescope. Reevaluating the null hypothesis using this map reduces the significance of these anisotropies to less than $1\sigma$. Therefore, our findings confirm statistical isotropy of the GRB sky using the Swift data, consistent with previous studies. We have also made the Swift exposure map publicly available.

We reexamine the quantum circuit model of black hole evaporation proposed in a previous work (Class. Quantum Grav. 35, 235013, 2018) [1]. This tripartite model incorporates the following systems: black hole ($\mathbf{BH}$), just radiation ($\mathbf{JR}$), and early radiation ($\mathbf{ER}$). We apply a scrambling unitary matrix with a single parameter $\theta$ to the ground state of the qubits in infalling matter toward a black hole in order to generate initial qubit states of the black hole that are more general than those in [1]. Specifically, the scrambling unitary matrix reduces to no scrambling and maximum scrambling when $\theta=0$ and $\theta=\pi/2$, respectively. Our aim is to explore the role of quantum monogamy in the firewall formation between the black hole and radiation. In this model, entanglement and firewall formation depend on the black hole mass $M$ and the frequency of Hawking radiation $\omega$. For the initial state with $\theta=\pi/2$, a firewall emerges at an earlier stage of the evolution than with $\theta=0$. We also find that a firewall structure emerges between $\mathbf{BH}$ and $\mathbf{JR}$, and that the information is carried away by radiation for all values of $M\omega$, provided that $\theta$ lies within a certain analytically determined range. Following unitary gate dynamics, the initial black hole qubit state can be retrieved from its imprint on the final radiation state, which was originally hidden behind the black hole's horizon. These results may provide insight into the properties of multipartite entanglement due to the different initial states in the evolution of a quantum circuit model for black hole evaporation.

We report the first XRISM observation of the low-mass AGN in the nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 4395 ($M_{\rm BH}\sim10^{4-5}\,M_\odot$), complemented by a simultaneous NuSTAR observation. We constrained the continuum by jointly fitting the XRISM/Resolve (2-12 keV) and NuSTAR (3-30 keV) spectra while excluding the Fe K band (5.5-7.5 keV). Relative to this baseline continuum, the time-averaged Resolve spectrum revealed an unresolved neutral Fe K$\alpha$ core with a velocity width of $\lesssim$110 km s$^{-1}$ and an adjacent redward wing. The red wing was well reproduced by an additional relativistically broadened Fe K component. Furthermore, time-resolved spectroscopy with $\approx$87 ks bins showed that the diskline profile varied significantly over the $\sim$400 ks observation. This evolution can be interpreted in terms of changes in the inner radius of the line-emitting region, together with a possible inclination modulation with a period of $\approx$210 ks. If interpreted as Lense-Thirring precession of a tilted inner flow, the observed period would favor the low end of the black hole mass estimates ($M_{\rm BH}\approx9\times10^3\,M_\odot$) and imply a moderate spin ($a\gtrsim0.6$). These results highlight the capability of XRISM to track relativistic disk dynamics in AGNs.

Segmenting the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disc from MRI is essential for accurate diagnosis of internal derangement, yet it remains unreliable in practice due to its small size, low contrast, and morphological variability. Existing methods, primarily adapted from general segmentation architectures, often produce fragmented or anatomically inconsistent masks, leading to unstable measurements of disc position and shape for downstream diagnosis. To address these challenges, we propose TISC, a TMJ disc segmentation framework that integrates semantic anchoring with clinical metadata-guided boundary refinement. The framework first establishes robust disc localization in the foundation model feature space via a Prototypical Semantic Anchoring (PSA) module that aggregates adjacent-slice MedDINOv3 features and derives a prototype-driven similarity map. It then performs targeted boundary refinement through a Clinical-Metadata Point Refinement (C-MPR) module, with point-wise predictions modulated by Mouth Open Limitation (MOL), a clinical indicator associated with disc displacement without reduction. On a large-scale cohort of 2,488 PD MRI volumes from 1,300 patients, our method achieves up to a 4.96 Dice improvement over strong baselines across diverse architectures, delivering more anatomically coherent and clinically reliable TMJ disc segmentation.

Topology has become a central concept in understanding physical phenomena, leading to important advances in condensed matter and photonics. Recent work has established a universal upper bound on the energy gap of Chern insulators in electronic systems, revealing a fundamental connection between topology, quantum geometry, and optical absorption. Here, we generalize this framework to photonic systems, deriving rigorous upper bounds on gap Chern numbers without requiring explicit topological analysis. Our approach enables the estimation of the topological charge of band gaps in both dispersive and nondispersive regimes.

Recent moiré experiments and numerical studies of interacting Chern bands have revealed fractional Chern insulators, charge-density-wave order, and superconductivity as proximate correlation-driven phases in topological systems. How these phases compete or intertwine, and how quantum geometry shapes their interplay, remain open questions. Here we present an analytic study of competing correlation-driven phases in a partially filled Chern band using a coupled-wire construction and bosonization. The key ingredient is the coexistence of interaction channels that favor, respectively, a fractional Chern insulator (FCI) and a closely related anti-FCI (aFCI) state. The aFCI channel is specific to lattice Chern bands and is enhanced by the quantum geometry of the underlying band structure. We show that when both FCI and aFCI scattering channels are present, their interplay generates an effective coupling that drives a superconducting instability near the FCI phase. The same mechanism can also favor a charge-density-wave phase, depending on microscopic parameters. Using a perturbative renormalization-group analysis, we obtain the phase diagram and identify a superconducting regime adjacent to the FCI phase. We further estimate the superconducting transition temperature and show that it is enhanced by quantum geometry. Our results establish quantum geometry as an organizing principle for the interplay among FCI, aFCI, and superconducting correlations.

The maximum field-free orientation attainable from a thermal molecular ensemble within a finite rotational subspace has not been characterised analytically. Here we derive a Schur–Horn-type upper bound on the field-free orientation $\avg{\cos\theta}$ achievable by any $M$-conserving unitary control acting on a Boltzmann ensemble truncated to rotational levels $J\le\Jmax$. The bound is the sum, over magnetic-quantum-number sectors, of the sorted Boltzmann weights paired with the sorted spectrum of $\cos\theta$; it is purely kinematic, set by temperature, the rotational constant, and $\Jmax$ alone, and interpolates exactly between the zero-temperature subspace eigenvalue and a finite-temperature ceiling fixed by the rotational partition function. Benchmarked on LiH against the analytical $N$-subpulse resonant protocol of Hong et al. [Phys.\ Rev.\ Research 7, L012049 (2025)], it reveals three regimes: the protocol saturates the bound to within about $1.6\%$ for $T\le\SI{5}{\kelvin}$, loses roughly $10\%$ of its zero-temperature orientation at $T=B/\kB\approx\SI{10.8}{\kelvin}$, and leaves a $10$–$40\%$ gap above $\SI{10}{\kelvin}$. Optimising the subpulse areas and carrier phases within the fixed layout closes only $\approx7\%$ of that gap, the optimal phase offsets vanishing, which localises the dominant loss in the rigidity of the analytic layout rather than in the choice of areas or phases. The bound is a control-independent target for coherent-control design, applies unchanged to any linear polar molecule in a $^1\Sigma^+$ state, and is mapped across the $(\Jmax,T)$ plane.

We present a multiwavelength investigation of the molecular cloud complex G12.79+0.43, which extends over $\sim18'$ on the sky. Several infrared- and radio-bright regions are arranged along an irregular rim, surrounding a central region characterised by diffuse 24~$\mu$m emission. CO molecular line observations reveal three prominent velocity components along the line of sight. Low-frequency radio continuum observations at 666 and 1300~MHz show diffuse emission spanning $\sim10.5'$ ($\sim$7.3~pc), predominantly filling the central region enclosed by the infrared-bright structures. We identify 70 compact radio sources and six \hii~regions across the cloud complex, which are likely powered by early B-type ZAMS stars. Using infrared data, we identify a total of 82 YSO candidates, including 28 Class~I sources, distributed across the cloud complex. On larger scales, the kinematics of the molecular gas over a $2^\circ\times2^\circ$ field indicate that G12.79+0.43 is located along the rim of a larger molecular superbubble (diameter $\sim50$~pc) that also encompasses the well-known W33 region. The inferred expansion age of this superbubble is $\sim0.3$~Myr. While the spatial association between G12.79+0.43 and the superbubble is evident, the current data do not allow us to establish a clear causal connection between the superbubble evolution and the ongoing star formation within G12.79+0.43.

We study spin correlations and quantum entanglement in the process $\gamma\gamma\to t\bar t$ with the photons coming from Compton backscattered laser beam. We present predictions for the cross sections and spin observables including next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections under various beam-polarization configurations. The NLO QCD corrections significantly enhance the total cross section while having only a minor impact on spin observables. Using the spin density matrix of the $t\bar t$ system, we further investigate quantum entanglement and Bell nonlocality. We find that the entanglement is the strongest near the $t\bar t$ invariant-mass threshold, while both entanglement and Bell nonlocality are highly sensitive to the initial beam polarization. Our results provide a theoretical basis for future studies of quantum correlations in top-quark pair production at photon colliders.

In this paper, we explain how classical $W$-algebras can be obtained as limits of $q$-deformed $W$-algebras in type $A$. To this end, we give a detailed examination of the construction of deformed $W$-algebras via Hamiltonian reduction of deformed affine Poisson algebras. We first derive an affine Poisson vertex algebra (PVA) from the Poisson structure of the deformed affine Poisson algebra. This construction identifies a specific set of generators of the deformed $W$-algebra with generators of the classical $W$-algebra.

Low-dimensional ferroelectrics are attractive for their promising prospects in nanoelectronics. Compared with widely-used ferroelectric perovskites, most low-dimensional ferroelectrics exhibit several inborn weaknesses such as small bandgaps (mostly <2 eV, i.e. semiconductors-like) or faint polarizations (e.g. $<1$ $\mu$C/cm$^2$ for sliding ferroelectrics even if their bandgaps can be large). Here we experimentally demonstrate the room-temperature ferroelectricity of van der Waals WO$_2$Cl$_2$ . The well-tested d0 rule inherited from ferroelectric perovskites leads to a large dipole (~3 eÅ) from the off-center displacement of W$^6+$ ion and a wide bandgap of 2.80 eV. Its ferroelectricity is proved by multiple characterizations including second harmonic generation, piezoresponse force microscopy, and ferroelectric hysteresis loops. More interestingly, the exotic noncollinear dipole order is directly observed at the atomic level by integrated differential phase contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy. Our work paves an alternative route for low-dimensional ferroelectrics to pursue excellent ferroelectric performance and distinct physics of polarity.

Electron transport in a Hall thruster is investigated at the test particle level using prescribed electric fields derived from the electron drift instability (EDI) resolving three dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. Four primary electric field configurations are considered: static averaged field, full PIC field, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) reconstructed field, and a simplified analytical Ey field. Two additional control cases, the magnetic-field-only case and the denoised PIC field, are also included. Transport statistics show that the averaged field produces only weak axial cross field transport. In contrast, the full PIC field produces clear fluctuation driven transport, characterized by pronounced negative axial displacement, enhanced channel entry, finite channel residence, particle energization, and appreciable anode directed loss. POD analysis shows that the transport relevant EDI electric field structures are distributed over multiple coupled modes, and that a moderate truncation order of approximately 20 modes is required to recover the main transport signatures. The analytical Ey model separately examines the influence of azimuthal electric field fluctuations on axial electron transport and shows that fluctuation amplitude is a primary determinant.

The observed abundance of galaxy clusters as a function of mass and redshift provides a powerful route to precision cosmology; a key challenge for cluster cosmology is to establish the relation between cluster observables and cluster masses, for which cluster weak gravitational lensing has become the standard tool. A key challenge for cluster lensing is that the shear signal near cluster centers can reach the non-linear regime, where many shear estimators rely on perturbative assumptions that must be explicitly validated. In this work, we use image simulations to test the performance of the shear estimator AnaCal for cluster weak lensing under conditions representative of the 10-year LSST data. We find that AnaCal recovers the input shear with minimal bias even at mildly high shear, $|g|\sim 0.15$. We discover a radially decreasing mean shear response as seen previously in data, driven by the radial dependence of the convergence field; if unmodeled, this effect can bias shear inference. We also find a positive shear-estimation bias at third order in the reduced shear near the cluster center. However, because only a small fraction of galaxies lie in the high-shear regime and those measurements are further downweighted by the covariance matrix, the resulting mean cluster-mass bias for cluster lens masses in $[10^{14} M_\odot, 10^{15} M_\odot]$ – adopting a scale cut of $\sim 0.2$ Mpc at $z=0.25$ – is $0.24 \pm 0.26\%$ under ideal settings. These results demonstrate that AnaCal is a robust tool for accurate cluster mass calibration in the LSST era.

Salt fingering drives diapycnal scalar exchange across thermohaline interfaces that are statically stable but double-diffusively unstable. Oceanic interfaces are finite-depth structures and may carry roughness inherited from waves, shear, intrusions, or prior mixing. We test how the horizontal spectrum of that roughness controls the route from a two-layer interface to a finite-depth salt-finger plume forest. Direct simulations of the modeled Boussinesq equations are performed at $\mathrm{Pr}=7$, $\tau=0.01$, and $\mathrm{R}_\rho=1.2$, with matched domain, grid, amplitude, boundary treatment, and analysis measures. The imposed spectra are high-annulus, low-mode, and mixed; a second mixed realization tests robustness. The imposed spectrum selects distinct routes to vertical exchange. High-annulus roughness remains compact and branch-locked through $t=60$, without a tracked broad-branch transition. Low-mode roughness begins on the broad branch, produces the strongest salinity transport at $t=45$, and reaches the finite-depth boundary region first. Mixed roughness follows a velocity-led pathway: vertical velocity selects the broad branch before salinity, while salinity develops the richest planform spectral population. At $t=45$, the mixed salinity effective mode count is $86.66$, compared with $3.26$ for high-annulus forcing and $5.46$ for low-mode forcing. Angular and signed-branch measures show branch-dependent diagonal organization, and probe/volume measures show that local plume-passage asymmetry does not imply large global upper/lower imbalance. The replicate preserves the mixed route with shifted transition times. Thus a finite-depth thermohaline interface can retain spectral memory, controlling whether salt-finger mixing remains localized, penetrates rapidly, or forms a scalar-rich plume forest through delayed modal handoff.

We revisit thawing quintessence models with nearly flat scalar-field potentials using a cosmographic framework. Earlier work indicates that the cosmographic reconstruction of the slope $\lambda=-(dV/d\phi)/V$ of the quintessence potential in the general case requires the knowledge of the cosmographic paremeters up to the jerk parameter $j$. In this work we show that the slow-roll conditions $[(dV/d\phi)/V]^2 \ll 1$ and $|(d^2V/d\phi^2)/V| \ll 1$ allow the reconstruction of the slope of a nearly flat potential with knowledge of only the deceleration parameter $q$ (and the density parameter $\Omega_\phi$). Confronting the assumption of near-flatness with the cosmographic data after DESI DR2, however, reveals possible tension between the two. We further show that these models exhibit attractor behaviour in the $w$–$\Omega_\phi$ and $w$–$w'$ phase planes, corresponding to a universal thawing evolution with $w \approx -1$ at early times. We also derive the corresponding relation in the cosmographic $q$–$j$ plane and show that different cosmological expansion histories can produce the same thawing evolution. Nevertheless, all viable trajectories remain close to the $\Lambda$CDM limit $j=1$.

In large-scale real-time time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), preparing the ground-state electronic structure can be more expensive than the subsequent time propagation, limiting simulations of nonequilibrium electron dynamics in realistic systems containing thousands of atoms. This bottleneck is especially important for disordered materials, liquids, nanostructures, and heterogeneous condensed-matter systems, where nonlinear and strong-field phenomena such as high-harmonic generation and light-induced phase transitions require explicit real-time treatment. SALMON is an open-source first-principles code for light-matter interaction simulations based on real-time TDDFT on real-space grids, supporting massively parallel calculations with MPI combined with OpenMP or GPU acceleration. In SALMON 2.3, we implement a divide-and-conquer density functional theory (DC-DFT) scheme and combine it with a postprocessing method that reconstructs spatially extended Kohn-Sham orbitals of the entire system. These reconstructed global orbitals are used directly as initial states for the standard real-time, real-space TDDFT module of SALMON. The resulting workflow connects efficient DC-DFT ground-state preparation to conventional real-time TDDFT. The DC-DFT self-consistent-field procedure exhibits linear scaling with system size, addressing a major bottleneck in large-scale electron-dynamics simulations while retaining the robustness and broad applicability of SALMON's established time-propagation scheme. We describe the computational procedure, parallelization strategy, and input/output design. Weak-scaling tests using Si supercells on Fugaku confirm the linear-scaling behavior. Accuracy tests for a 512-atom amorphous Si system and a bulk H2O liquid system containing 4134 atoms demonstrate that the workflow enables practical large-scale real-time TDDFT simulations.

Optical frequency combs on photonic integrated platforms are revolutionizing precision metrology, bio-imaging, atomic and molecular sensing, and ultrafast photonics, yet most remain confined to the near-infrared. This restriction prevents access to the ultraviolet, visible, and mid-infrared bands critical for a vast array of quantum, atomic, and molecular systems. The fundamental obstacle has been the lack of a nanophotonic waveguide that simultaneously provides an ultra-broad transparency window, engineered dispersion, ultra-low propagation loss, and a strong Kerr nonlinearity, all while suppressing detrimental two-photon absorption at short wavelengths. Here, we overcome this challenge by exploring tantalum pentoxide for ultra-broadband supercontinuum spanning continuously from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared, leveraging its broad transparency window (300-8000 nm), a high nonlinear refractive index three times larger than that of silicon nitride, and a wide bandgap that suppresses two-photon absorption. Critically, by using a photolithography assisted chemo-mechanical etching process that avoids a lossy SiO2 upper cladding, we achieve dispersion engineered waveguides with record-low propagation losses of 0.066 dB/cm at telecom wavelengths and 0.43 dB/cm at 780 nm, significantly facilitating the supercontinuum spectral extension into the ultraviolet and the mid-infrared. Pumping these anomalous-dispersion waveguides with femtosecond pulses at 1550 nm yields a gap-free, 3.2-octave supercontinuum spanning from 350 to 3200 nm via a soliton-based dynamics at only 54 pJ pulse energy, representing the broadest comb spectrum on this platform. We further demonstrate a relatively flat spectrum with a -30 dB bandwidth of 1182 nm by engineering normal dispersion, validate the comb coherence via heterodyne detection, and achieve soliton-effect pulse self-compression from 126.7 fs to 19.2 fs.

We present a study of dwarf galaxy candidates in the deepest optical imaging yet obtained of the field surrounding the nearby galaxies NGC 5068 and NGC 5084/NGC 5087, the latter two located in the peripheries of the Virgo Supercluster. This field, covering $\sim 2.6$ deg$^2$, was observed as part of the multi-band, wide-field and very deep data from VST-SMASH, a distance-limited program ($D < 11$ Mpc) that reaches $g$- and $r$-band surface brightness depths of $\mu \sim 30$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$. Using a two-step visual inspection procedure, we identify 47 dwarf galaxy candidates and perform the surface photometry of the sample and the fitting procedure with 1D Sérsic model on their profiles. Only 4 galaxies were previously reported in the literature, augmenting by one order of magnitude the number of dwarfs discovered in these regions. The colors (median $g-r = 0.57$ and $r-i = 0.24$ mag) and structural properties of the dwarf candidates are consistent with the literature, as are their scaling relations with effective radius, Sérsic index ($n < 2$), and absolute magnitude. We also investigate their central colour gradients, which exhibit significant scatter, and discuss them within the broader context of galaxy formation. We finally analyze their spatial distribution relative to potential host galaxies. We identify reasonable associations with NGC 5084, NGC 5087, and NGC 5068 as likely hosts for a significant fraction of the sample. Several candidates are at physically credible distances from NGC~5068, despite what their offset size-luminosity relation alone might indicate. Future spectroscopic and deeper imaging follow-up is required to determine distances and velocities, enabling robust association with hosts, studies of satellite distributions and counts, and comparisons with cosmological expectations for planes of satellites and dark matter models. (abridged)

Newtonian noise is expected to be the dominating noise source for low frequencies at the Einstein Telescope. It originates from seismic waves that cause density fluctuations in the rock around the interferometer. The mitigation strategy for Newtonian noise relies on an array of seismometers, placed at depth in boreholes, which provides measurements of the seismic wave field. We optimize the positions of the individual seismometers for the mitigation capabilities of the array for a full corner of the Einstein Telescope. We find that the mitigation capabilities of arrays with multiple seismometers in each borehole match the capabilities of only somewhat smaller arrays but with only one seismometer per borehole. Mitigation is further improved by extending the array with seismometers in the interferometer tunnels. Such configurations may hence provide a cost-effective way towards realizing an efficient seismic array. In each case, we quantify the broadband mitigation performance in the range from 1 to 10 Hz for arrays that are optimized for a frequency of 10 Hz, as well as the robustness of the arrays with respect to variations from their optimized positions. We find that larger arrays with several seismometers per borehole and additional seismometers in the tunnels provide promising broadband performance above 3 to 4 Hz and that such arrays are particularly stable against variations in the seismometer positions with mitigation factors $>6$ for an array of 20 boreholes with 3 seismometers each and $>15$ for a large array of 50 boreholes with 10 seismometers.