Papers

Aggregation and fragmentation processes are widespread in engineering and the natural world. Here, we investigate a distinct colloidal aggregation mechanism in an active system of motile bacteria in highly anisotropic environments. Specifically, we examine Escherichia coli bacteria swimming in one-dimensional confinement within nematic liquid crystals and observe long-lived chains of bacteria swimming along the nematic director. Crucially, we find that longer chains swim faster, in apparent contradiction to fundamental force-balance models that predict the swimming speed to be independent of chain length, as chains should swim at the average speed of their individual components. The seeming discrepancy is resolved by recognizing that chains do not form randomly but self-organize due to the relative velocities between bacteria. To elucidate the physical mechanism behind this active aggregation process, we combine our experimental findings with a minimal model of nearest-neighbour aggregation and agent-based simulations of active particles aggregating in one dimension. Consistent with experimental observations, our agent-based simulations reveal a positive correlation between the length and speed of dynamically self-assembled chains of active particles, with the correlation depending on the variance of the individual speed distribution and diminishing over time. Together, our experiments and theoretical models indicate a distinct regime of swimming-limited aggregation whose evolution is constrained by the intrinsic speed distribution of active agents, providing new insight into bacterial self-organization.

LISA Pathfinder (LPF) is the technology demonstration mission for the future Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Besides the science interferometric channel, LPF is equipped with numerous auxiliary channels that monitor the instrument and environment disturbances, some of which contain information correlated with noise in the science channel. In this work, we investigate cross-talk noise subtraction in LPF using a frequency-domain transfer-function approach, in which the coherence between the science channel and auxiliary channels is used to estimate and remove correlated noise. The effectiveness of this method is first validated using simulated science and auxiliary channel data with a common disturbance. The simulation shows that the subtraction performance strongly depends on the auxiliary-channel noise level, providing a practical framework for determining the auxiliary-channel noise requirement needed to achieve a desired subtraction performance. This method is then used to analyze 9 auxiliary channels in publicly available LPF telemetry data. In the cross-talk dominated frequency band from $1\times10^{-2}$ to $6\times10^{-2}\,\mathrm{Hz}$, this method achieves cross-talk noise suppression comparable to the standard fitting based subtraction. Above $6\times10^{-2}\,\mathrm{Hz}$, it further suppresses the residual noise by avoiding the introduction of auxiliary-channel readout noise associated with the fitting procedure, resulting in better performance than the standard pipeline.

We describe the variable flavor number scheme to three-loop order, which modifies the massless parton densities by single- and two-mass effects and introduces heavy-quark parton distribution functions for charm and bottom. A renormalization group analysis shows the validity of this picture at large scales $Q^2$, where it resembles the non-power-suppressed heavy-flavor corrections completely. We also provide numerical implementations of a series of charged and neutral current Wilson coefficients.

The development of Group Theory in Mathematics as well as its impact in Physics has been spectacular during the twentieth century, and more particularly these last fifty years. If its contribution to Particle Physics deserves a special consideration, its usefulness cannot be neglected in other domains like Statistical Physics for example, and might also be of interest in Theoretical Biology. Some of these aspects will be examined.

A direct detection of the cosmic neutrino background (CNB) in laboratories on Earth has been called the “holy grail” of experimental neutrino physics, but a still more glorious prize awaits. Beyond simply detecting the presence of relic neutrinos and measuring their flux, one may aspire to measure their energy distribution, polarization, anisotropies, temporal variation, and other properties. In this work we focus on the CNB wind, which is the approximately dipolar anisotropy in the CNB flux resulting from the relative velocity of the CNB rest frame and the lab frame. We consider a CNB detection strategy based on measuring the angular distribution of recoiling electrons at the tritium $\beta$-decay endpoint. In order to quantify the difficulty of detecting the CNB wind, we calculate the required exposure (detector mass times observation duration) for a $3\sigma$ discovery. We find that detecting the CNB wind would require an exposure that is at least $10^{5}$ times larger than what's required for detecting the CNB flux alone. Additionally if the experimental energy resolution were to exceed the neutrino mass scale, then an exceptionally good control of systematic uncertainties would also be required. For nonrelativistic neutrinos, the Majorana wind signal is suppressed relative to the Dirac case by the cancellation of the leading helicity-odd angular-correlation term, leading parametrically to an exposure penalty of order $(m_\nu/T_\nu)^2$.

We develop a framework for quasi-holonomy in non-adiabatic quantum time evolution of subspaces along loops in a complex Grassmannian. By factoring the Schrödinger evolution into dynamical and connection-induced contributions in a moving basis, we obtain an effective geometric generator that depends explicitly on the dynamical propagator. This quasi-connection does not define a genuine connection on the original Grassmann bundle, since its gauge transformation law acquires a history-dependent, nonlocal term. Other ways of factoring the Schrödinger evolution are briefly discussed. All these approaches suffer from the same type of history-dependence, thereby defining transport of subspaces in which geometric and dynamical effects are generally intertwined, just as in the case of the quasi-holonomy. Our work sheds light on the issue of separating quantum evolution of subspaces into holonomic and dynamical parts from an essentially gauge-theoretic perspective.

Circular states in Rydberg atoms offer a promising platform for quantum computation, quantum simulation and quantum sensing. However, the final step of their preparation - termed as circularization, a process that involves the transfer of a large amount of angular momentum quanta to the valence electron by means of radio-frequency (RF) pulses - remains as a major bottleneck for all technological applications based on interacting circular Rydberg atoms. Even though successfully implemented to circularize an atom cloud in the dilute regime, previous efforts to speed up the circularization process have focused on the single-atom case, thereby neglecting the interactions which constitute one of the main resources for quantum simulation and computation. In this theoretical work we show how interactions between two atoms disturb the efficiency of pulses designed for single atoms and identify shifts induced by the interactions on relevant transition energies as the dominant disturbance. We demonstrate that the initial efficiency of single-atom pulses can be restored by adapting them to these shifts. Our approach is based on a simple functional form depending only on two linear parameters, which we derive analytically. The adapted pulses prepare two $^{87}$Rb atoms after $65 \,$ns in a $n=52$ circular state with a fidelity of at least $95\,\%$ for interatomic distances down to $6.5\,\mu$m and for all angular configurations, while also complying experimental amplitude and frequency constraints. Finally, we show that when combining our adapted pulses with Krotov's pulse-shaping algorithm we obtain high-fidelity pulses for any pair arrangement with interatomic distances larger than $5.9\,\mu$m. This work demonstrates that fast RF pulses can circularize interacting Rydberg atoms, paving the way toward their technological application.

The recent detection of a gravitational wave background (GWB) by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) may represent the first evidence of gravitational waves from merging supermassive black hole binaries, opening a new window on the low-frequency end of the gravitational wave spectrum. These inspiralling binaries are expected to dominate the signal, although most theoretical models seem to predict somewhat lower amplitudes than what is observed. We present the first comprehensive statistical framework to quantify the tension between PTA measurements and theoretical predictions, maximising the constraining power of current data and allowing straightforward application to future PTA datasets. We further investigate how different assumptions in the observational inference, particularly the use of a power-law model for the GWB spectrum, can bias tension estimates and potentially overstate discrepancies with theory. We apply our framework to compare predictions from the FABLE cosmological simulation with the NANOGrav 15-year dataset. For our fiducial black hole population, we find tension values of $1\sigma$-$2.5\sigma$, indicating no statistically significant disagreement with the observations. We further explore physically motivated modifications to the merging black hole population, guided by electromagnetic observations and theoretical uncertainties. In particular, scenarios with boosted black hole masses at high redshift and more equal-mass mergers substantially increase the predicted GWB amplitude, improving agreement with PTA data. Finally, we investigate the high-mass end of the black hole mass function and the impact of finite simulation volume. We find that the $(100 \, \mathrm{cMpc} \, h^{-1})^3$ FABLE box is sufficient to robustly predict the GWB signal at the most constraining frequency.

The symbiotic recurrent nova (SyRNe) TCrB (T-Coronae Borealis) is perhaps the most famous example of the group of known four symbiotic nova systems, for which at least two previous nova eruptions are known and accurately recorded: in 1866 and 1946. B.E. Schaefer (2023) has identified the dates of two other previous eruptive events: in 1787 and 1217. Its peak magnitude V was found to be 2.50+-0.10, making it the brightest of its class. In its quiescent phase, TCrB is the brightest of all known novae, with a mean magnitude of 9.8. Careful studies, especially photometric ones, have led to different predictions for the next nova eruption, taking into account the recurrence times extrapolated from previous eruptions, which an average value about 80 years. Schaefer, in particular, has produced various forecasts, including one made in 2023 based on B and V light curves for the period: 1842-2022, which predicts the next nova eruption should occur in 2025.5+-1.3 and is therefore still valid today. Using the Schaefer's remarkable work in accurately determining the key physical parameters that drive the dynamics of the TCrB symbiotic system, we propose here a new semi-empirical method to derive the variations in the nova recurrence time, Trec, and thus obtain a forecast estimate for the next eruption for the date: 26-Feb-2027, which is currently compatible and consistent with the observed behavior and would also justify the supposed "delay" for the next event of this nova as commented by various authors.

We define and analyze hockeystick divergences and $f$-divergences for normal positive functionals on general von Neumann algebras, generalizing and unifying previous work in classical probability and finite-dimensional von Neumann algebras. All the main properties of these state distinguishability measures (including in particular monotonicity, convexity, semicontinuity, bounds, state discrimination, data processing inequality) are derived from properties of the Jordan decomposition of selfadjoint normal functionals. This is done by representing the $f$-divergences as integrals over hockeystick divergences, and their significance in quantum hypothesis testing is reviewed. The $f_0$-divergence given by the information function $f_0(t) = t \ln t$ is shown to coincide with Araki's relative entropy, extending results of Frenkel to general von Neumann algebras.

Classical nucleation theory (CNT) describes the formation of a stable phase from a metastable one in terms of a single reaction coordinate that corresponds to the radius of a nucleating droplet. In this work, we provide a full account of nonequilibrium nucleation theory (NNT), which generalizes CNT to non-equilibrium field theories with non-conserved order parameter. We present two equivalent derivations of the dynamics of the droplet radius: a stochastic route, based on a direct projection of the stochastic field equation onto the radial reaction coordinate, and a route based on the minimization of the Freidlin-Wentzell action. Crucially, the quasipotential barrier predicted by NNT differs from the one found when assuming the instanton to be the time-reversal of the relaxation dynamics. Whereas the interfacial density profile differs from that on the relaxation path, an analytical derivation of NNT remains possible using a careful definition of the reaction coordinate. This leverages the perturbative structure that (in common with CNT) emerges in the limit of large critical radius. We further derive with similar techniques the dynamics of capillary waves, whose stability is required for the CNT/NNT precept of a near-spherical droplet to prevail. After deriving our theory for generic non-conserved field-theories, we address two explicit examples: a non-equilibrium generalization of Model A (Active Model A), and a population dynamics model (with two choices of noise that each break time-reversal symmetry). In both cases, we validate our analytical NNT against numerical results obtained by action minimization, with excellent agreement. NNT provide a systematic framework for constructing nucleation theories in a broad class of non-equilibrium systems from active matter, reaction-diffusion systems and population dynamics.

Despite more than 6000 exoplanets being discovered to date, no satellite orbiting an exoplanet, an exomoon, has ever been confidently detected. While there are some candidates, they lack clear and convincing confirmation and remain controversial. Beyond the innate value of discovering new types of objects in the Universe, satellites can help give key insights into planet formation mechanisms and the dynamical evolution histories of their systems. In this work, we show strong evidence for the existence of satellites orbiting the directly-imaged brown dwarf companion CD-35 2722 B. We have applied radial velocity analysis, the same technique used to discover the first exoplanet around a Solar-type star, on spectra of this brown dwarf obtained with VLT/CRIRES+. We have found what appears to be the periodic signal induced by at least one orbiting satellite. This is the first time this technique has successfully produced evidence of satellites. We produce a strong detection of a satellite candidate with a minimum mass of 0.743 Jupiter masses and an orbital period of 169 days. The best-fitting model also includes a second, closer satellite with minimum mass of 0.277 Jupiter masses and a period of 87 days, although these parameters for this smaller satellite candidate are less certain. These periods would place them very near a 2:1 mean motion resonance, a phenomenon also seen in the Galilean moons of Jupiter. The discovery of these satellites will unlock many future avenues of study, including planet formation, system dynamics, and even the search for life in the Universe.

Strong light-matter coupling in optical cavities provides a versatile platform for modulating chemical structure, reactivity, and spectroscopy, and hence motivates the development of ab initio cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) methods that can treat the electronic and photonic degrees of freedom on an equal footing. We present such a method, cQED-iCIPT2, by combining the near-exact iCIPT2 (iterative configuration interaction with selection and second-order perturbation theory) with the cQED Hamiltonian in two ways, cQED-PN-iCIPT2 and cQED-CS-iCIPT2. The former works directly in the photon-number representation, whereas the latter employs a coherent-state transformation that restores origin invariance of the cQED Hamiltonian and avoids artificially strong coupling in charged systems. To efficiently handle the tensor-product structure of the electron-photon wavefunction, we introduce a graded configuration space organized by photon numbers and decompose the key computational steps (selection, diagonalization, and perturbation correction) into intra- and inter-subspace steps, so as to maximize the reuse of the existing infrastructure in the MetaWave platform (J. Phys. Chem. A 2025, 129, 5170). The selection step enables automatic determination of the optimal number of photons without a priori truncation. The efficacy of the methods is showcased dissociation of N2, torsion of ethylene, proton transfer reactions in malonaldehyde and aminopropenal, and low-lying excited states of polyacenes. The results provide numerically accurate reference data and meanwhile reveal how the cavity can fine-tune reaction barriers, alter potential energy surfaces, and induce state crossings. As such, this work establishes a robust near-exact framework for polaritonic chemistry in the presence of both strong electron correlation and strong light-matter coupling.

Quantum matter emerges from the interplay of fluctuations, topology, and entanglement, which - in equilibrium - governs quantized transport, universal criticality, and topological classification. Non-Hermitian systems, widely explored in platforms ranging from electric circuits to photonics, are intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, and display fundamentally new phenomena, including complex spectra, spectral winding, exceptional topology, and non-unitary dynamics. A central challenge is understanding how the complex single-particle spectrum governs universal many-body behavior. We introduce a symmetry-protected dynamical topological index derived directly from the complex spectrum. Through the lens of algebraic topology, more specifically Morse theory, we identify critical points in the spectrum with topological defects, whose curvature and stability are protected under continuous deformations. This links spectral geometry to many-body observables, unifying non-Hermitian band topology, entanglement, and transport. We demonstrate that non-Hermitian quantum criticality in non-interacting systems is controlled by gain-and-loss-selected non-equilibrium steady states, which dynamically generate an emergent imaginary Fermi surface whose Fermi points host scale-invariant gapless modes with logarithmic entanglement scaling and algebraic correlations. Our work establishes a unified framework for non-Hermitian quantum matter, connecting spectral topology to Morse theory, revealing a topological foundation of non-equilibrium quantum criticality.

Radio emission during X-ray binary outbursts is dominated by synchrotron radiation from relativistic jets, but is usually studied through total-intensity diagnostics such as flux density, spectra, variability, and proper motion. Radio spectropolarimetry provides a complementary probe of the magneto-ionic plasma through Faraday rotation and depolarisation. When the Faraday rotating material is local to the source, these effects can constrain the jet plasma composition and mass content, but this approach is rarely applied to transient jetted sources. We present MeerKAT L-band spectropolarimetry of the black hole X-ray binary \src\ during its 2023 outburst, focusing on the brightest radio flaring interval, when relativistic jets were being launched intermittently. Using multiple spectropolarimetric techniques, we identify transient Faraday-complex structure coincident with the major radio flares. The close temporal association with the flaring activity, together with the stability of the foreground Faraday screen, favours an origin local to the jet rather than in the ISM or in a separate local screen external to the emitting plasma. Since internal Faraday rotation is suppressed in a pure electron–positron plasma, the data favour a dominant electron–proton component. Interpreting the characteristic Faraday thickness as internal rotation, and anchoring the magnetic-field and size scales with synchrotron self-absorption arguments, we infer a characteristic Faraday-rotating mass of order $M_{\rm rot}\sim10^{21}{\rm\,g}$, corresponding to only a small fraction, $f_{\rm rot}\sim10^{-3}$, of the accreted mass available during the flare. These results show that time-domain spectropolarimetry can turn transient Faraday complexity into a diagnostic of jet composition, mass loading, and plasma evolution in X-ray binary outbursts, and potentially other transient jetted sources.

In variational Monte Carlo (VMC) calculations of $N$-site quantum systems with arbitrary all-to-all two-body interactions, evaluating the local energy generally costs $O(N^3)$. We introduce a new framework that reduces this cost to $O(N)$ for tensor network states, capable of scalable and accurate computation of real-time dynamics and ground states. As a result, we obtain accurate simulations of the adiabatic real-time protocol of a $10\times10$ dipolar XY model realized in a Rydberg simulator [C. Chen et al., Nature 616, 691 (2023)], which was previously beyond the reach of classical simulation. Going beyond quantum experiments, we also directly perform ground state VMC to compare with the adiabatic state preparation. Our work demonstrates tensor network VMC as a powerful classical simulator for long-range quantum platforms such as Rydberg and ion-trap simulators, which are currently in urgent need of scalable classical benchmarking tools. As a separate technical contribution, we resolve the pathology of evolving from product states within of tensor network VMC.

We study a Brownian particle in a harmonic trap whose stiffness switches between two values with arbitrary waiting-time statistics, generating semi-Markovian dynamics. To treat the resulting temporal memory, we formulate the problem in an enlarged age-structured state space, restoring Markovianity and yielding a local Fokker–Planck description. Within this framework, we derive exact steady-state integral equations for the spatial and birth distributions and obtain exact expressions for stationary moments, injected power, and potential energy. In the second part of the paper, we analyze the stochastic-resetting limit, corresponding to a particle alternately released and trapped. By representing the stationary spatial distribution as a superposition of Gaussian states with fluctuating variance, the problem can be reformulated as a switching process in variance space. This yields exact integral equations for the variance distributions and leads to a simplified description amenable to direct analytical treatment.

Metal-semiconductor junctions in optoelectronic devices are commonly engineered to promote charge separation. In Pt/TiO2 Schottky junctions, Pt is typically regarded as a catalytic electron sink rather than a visible-light-active component. Here, we demonstrate that Pt nanoislands on TiO2 can generate photochemically active carriers under visible light excitation. Using quantitative scanning photoelectrochemical microscopy, we measure the wavelength-resolved external quantum efficiency (EQE) of Au and Pt nanoisland arrays on TiO2, and correlate their reactivity with their morphology and extinction spectra. Discrete 10 nm Pt nanoislands exhibit robust broadband visible light photoactivity - exceeding the photoactivity of similar-sized Au nanoislands under blue-green excitation - whereas Pt's photoactivity is strongly suppressed when the nanoislands are connected. Surprisingly, Pt exhibits an EQE-per-atom approx. 20 times higher than Au at 455 nm and approx. 2 times higher at 595 nm (at Au's optimum). We show an approximately wavelength-independent Pt internal quantum efficiency of approx. 1 percent across the visible spectral region. These findings reposition catalytic metals with strongly damped optical response in the visible as light-responsive components in metal-semiconductor hybrids, challenging the prevailing perception that they function solely as passive co-catalysts in photocatalytic systems.

Ising machines are heuristic solvers for combinatorial optimization, but their solution quality can degrade when large-scale constrained problems are solved directly. Ising-machine-assisted large neighborhood search (LNS) instead repeatedly updates a feasible current solution by solving smaller subproblems. An existing feasibility-preserving method for the vehicle routing problem (VRP) re-optimizes the entire routes of selected vehicles and thus cannot adjust the subproblem size finely. We propose LNS-VT, which introduces the number of consecutive steps re-optimized per vehicle as a parameter to control the subproblem size finely while preserving feasibility. For a 300-site, 5-vehicle VRP, its best setting reduced the objective value by approximately 10% relative to the existing method after 100 iterations, and the appropriate setting changed with the current solution quality. Applying the same principle to the quadratic multiple knapsack problem, we confirmed that an appropriate subproblem size also exists, indicating that subproblem-size control is important in Ising-machine-assisted LNS.

Trace estimation is central in many lattice QCD computations, but the accuracy of the standard, stochastic Hutchinson method improves only with the square root of the sample size, making precise results expensive. We investigate two complementary variance reduction strategies. First, multigrid multilevel Monte Carlo uses a multigrid hierarchy to construct an unbiased multilevel estimator via recursive coarse grid corrections available from the multigrid hierarchy of the solver. Second, stochastic probing uses distance-$d$ graph colorings; we propose a torus based coloring that requires substantially fewer colors than hierarchical probing at the same distance. We test these approaches on two representative problems: the connected pseudoscalar correlator and disconnected fermion loops. For the connected pseudoscalar two-point function, the multilevel decomposition yields a variance reduction of up to $\mathcal{O}(10^5)$ at large time separations and translates into a clear cost reduction at fixed accuracy, thus confirming earlier results of arXiv:2412.06347. For the disconnected loops, in contrast, the multilevel decomposition provides only moderate gains, whereas probing combined with dilution delivers a substantial cost reduction that improves as the number of probing vectors is increased. Overall, the results highlight a pronounced complementarity: deflation schemes are most effective for observables dominated by long distance propagation, while probing is most effective for localized quantities.

(Abridged) The turbulent cascade naturally generates a hierarchy of filaments within molecular clouds, with fibers suggested to be the first (tran-)sonic components formed out of it. We aim to investigate the diffuse gas kinematics and its interaction with the dense gas composing fibers using HNC as molecular tracer. We use high-resolution (4.5" or 2000au) large-scale ALMA+IRAM-30m mosaics to survey five star-forming regions in Orion, as part of the EMERGE Early ALMA Survey covering a wide range of stellar activity, cloud morphology, and evolutionary stages. We observe our targets in HNC(1-0) as probe of diffuse gas in the regions and compare it to the N2H+(1-0) emission tracing the dense gas. Our high resolution observations reveal that HNC traces lukewarm, diffuse ($\sim5\times10^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$) material around dense fibers. The properties of the diffuse gas appear to be similar across our sample, despite the wide range of different environments. Compared to the quiescent and subsonic gas inside fibers, the diffuse gas is, however, more turbulent ($M_\text{s}=2.9$). Understanding the dissipation process is crucial to mark the transition between the dense subsonic gas and diffuse turbulent material occurs. We investigated the turbulence dissipation through the statistical analysis of the HNC velocity gradients. We identified high-shear regions showing higher gradients with $\nabla V_{lsr}\ge10~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}~pc^{-1}}$ concentrated in small features of 0.1-0.3 pc in size located near the dense gas. These high-shear structures appear to be major contributors of the turbulence dissipation in our targets. Our results suggest that in Orion the transition to coherence occurs at the fiber level, as suggested by the turbulence being effectively dissipated before the formation of cores and during the formation of these first dense structures.

Phase-separated liquid droplets organize molecules in cells, but the underlying physical principles differ from abiotic mixing and quantitative rules in living systems remain poorly understood. The pyrenoid – a liquid-like organelle that enhances photosynthetic carbon fixation in algae and hornworts – provides an unusually tractable model system. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of pyrenoids from the perspective of biophysics. We highlight how reaction-diffusion models connect compartment architecture to catalytic performance, how soft matter theories link molecular interactions to condensate assembly, and how modern experimental methods enable these predictions to be tested quantitatively. Recent studies suggest that pyrenoid function may be described by a small number of effective transport and reaction processes, while condensate assembly can be understood through molecular design parameters and thermodynamic constraints. Together, these findings establish the pyrenoid as a powerful system for investigating catalytic compartmentalization, biomolecular self-organization and the emergence of effective physical descriptions in living systems.

We propose a numerical algorithm to construct a Markov model with an extended list of variables to parameterize the equation of motion of a multidimensional coarse-grained physical system in an external potential, when memory effects are relevant. Our method uses autocorrelation data of the stationary velocities, but it avoids the inverse problem of finding the corresponding memory kernel from these data in a first step. Rather, the data are used to construct a Prony series approximation of the autocorrelation function, and the parameters of this Prony series provide the corresponding Markov model. Numerical results for molecular dynamics data show a good match for parameterized models with five auxiliary variables for a one-dimensional, and twelve auxiliary variables for a two-dimensional system.

A search for nonresonant triple Higgs boson (HHH) production in the final state with six bottom quarks is performed using proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$ recorded by the CMS experiment. No significant excess of events over the background prediction is seen. Observed (expected) 95% confidence level upper limits on the signal cross section are set at 44 (43) fb, corresponding to 588 (572) times the standard model expectation. The observed (expected) constraint on the trilinear coupling modifier $\kappa_3$ is $-$7.4 $\lt$ $\kappa_3$ $\lt$ 12.4 ($-$6.4 $\lt$ \kappa_3 $\lt$ 11.2), assuming the quartic coupling modifier $\kappa_4$ = 1. The corresponding constraint on $\kappa_4$ is $-$177 $\lt$ $\kappa_4$ $\lt$ 185 ($-$180 $\lt$ $\kappa_4$ $\lt$ 190), assuming $\kappa_3$ = 1. This analysis provides the most stringent constraint to date on nonresonant HHH production and excludes, for the first time, part of the $(\kappa_3,\kappa_4)$ space allowed by the perturbative unitarity bound.

Like the Gell-Mann–Low coupling $\alpha$ of QED, the effective charge $\alpha_{g_1}$ is a physical, observable-defined running coupling that can serve as the QCD coupling $\alpha_s$. It can be represented by an analytic form consistent with renormalization-group evolution, holographic light-front QCD (HLFQCD), and the world data on $\alpha_s$. As an observable, $\alpha_{g_1}$ has a physically relevant analytic structure that reflects the underlying partonic dynamics. It displays, in the long-distance regime, two imaginary conjugate singularities at $Q^2 = \pm i\Lambda_s^2$, with $\Lambda_s$ the QCD scale. To connect this structure to confinement, we combine known general relations between $\alpha_{g_1}$ and the parton dressed propagators and vertices with a recent phenomenological representation of $\alpha_{g_1}$ within HLFQCD. Since, unlike vertices, propagators characterize a field variation between separate locations, the two singularities are assigned to the propagators. This results in the parton propagators displaying a long-distance behavior $e^{-\Lambda_s |x|/\sqrt{2}} |x|^{-5/2 + d_a}$ where propagation is suppressed beyond distances of order $1/\Lambda_s$, as expected from confinement. This offers an intuitive interpretation of confinement as the suppression of QCD Green's functions at long distance.

We extend the coadjoint orbit approach to bosonization systematized by Delacretaz-Du-Mehta-Son to double-scaled non-relativistic Fermi liquids with central inverted harmonic oscillator potential. In 1+1d, this reproduces the Das-Jevicki collective field theory describing quasiparticle excitations of the $c=1$ matrix model. In 2+1d, this yields an effective field theory for noncritical M-theory, namely the 2+1d Fermi liquid proposed by Hořava and Keeler as a unified framework for characterizing noncritical string vacua. With a suitable gauge choice this theory reduces to a continuous family of 1+1d chiral bosons resembling Das-Jevicki collective fields coupled by additional interactions. Utilizing the underlying integrability of noncritical M-theory, we compute select fermion density correlation functions order-by-order in perturbation theory, and provide evidence that they agree with their Fermi liquid counterparts in a suitable semiclassical limit. This represents a step toward an effective spacetime gravity description of noncritical M-theory, which we expect to shed light on both the landscape of 2d noncritical strings and 3d quantum gravity in general.

Standard Pancharatnam-Berry and linear-birefringent media convert optical spin into orbital angular momentum (OAM) through an anisotropy director, a rank-two, headless field, and therefore obey the selection rule $\Delta\ell=2q$ per unit texture charge $q$. We show that a medium with geometric torsion, the continuum limit of a screw-dislocation array, can convert spin to OAM through the contortion of its material connection, which enters the effective paraxial dynamics as a rank-one vector field. The resulting selection rule is $\Delta\ell=q$. Its winding is fixed by geometry and symmetry, not by a Pancharatnam–Berry director, and the process conserves the screw charge $\tilde J_z=L_z+(q/2)\sigma_z$ while exchanging $(2-q)\hbar$ of angular momentum per converted photon with the defect lattice. Paraxial simulations confirm the rule: a circular Gaussian input develops a stable, topologically quantized $\ell=+q$ vortex in the reversed helicity, with $83\%$ conversion over three Rayleigh ranges and no fine-tuning. We propose a polarization-resolved photonic-lattice discriminator in which the slope of the measured OAM versus the independently written texture charge, one for torsion, two for birefringence, separates the two mechanisms.

We study a minimal agent-based market in which a single evolutionary-optimized institutional agent interacts with 20{,}000 herding retail traders. The agent spontaneously discovers a multi-cycle predatory strategy, producing 8–11 complete cycles over 2000 trading days with total portfolio return of $+51\%$ (best of 20 seeds; mean $+37.7\%$). Mean-field reduction maps the system onto a nonlinear oscillator that undergoes two distinct bifurcations: a continuous Hopf transition as institutional capital exceeds a critical threshold $C_c$, with oscillation amplitude $A \propto (C-C_c)^\alpha$ where $\alpha$ is consistent with the standard prediction of $1/2$; and a discontinuous fold transition in the herding-scale parameter space. The limit cycle persists even at $\beta = 0$: position-tracking feedback coupled with square-root price impact creates a self-sustained nonlinear oscillator requiring no retail herding. Square-root impact is shown to be necessary: linear impact eliminates the Hopf bifurcation entirely and renders the retail market unconditionally stable. Manipulation cycles thus emerge as the optimal-control solution of a nonlinear dynamical system, and a structural analogy to Maxwell's demon frames the agent as an information-processing controller that reduces the entropy rate of the price process.

Two-stage exams have been used in physics classrooms, yet no empirical study has examined the effect of individual member performances on team performance. Using direct measures of individual and team performances in two-stage physics exams, we study the effect of member performances on team outcomes. Our data reveal three results of interest. First, either the best or the mean of member performances significantly affects team performance, whereas the standard deviation of member performances has a weak effect. Second, member performances explain less than half the variance in team performances, indicating that team outcomes in two-stage exams are not determined simply by individual performances. Third, cross-validation shows that the best predictor of team performance is the best member's performance, highlighting the need to form balanced teams with high-scoring individuals distributed evenly throughout teams before team exams are conducted. As the first empirical analysis built on the input-process-output framework, this study provides researchers of two-stage exams with insight into how to investigate factors that can make team problem-solving more productive in the team round.

For the Potts model on the Cayley tree $\mathbb{T}^d$ with branching factor $d\geq 2$, we consider the free state which is obtained as the limiting Gibbs measure with free boundary conditions. We prove that the free state is either extremal or glassy (i.e., whose decomposition into extremal Gibbs measures contains uncountably many components). As a corollary, the free state for the Ising model on $\mathbb{T}^d$ is glassy if and only if the inverse temperature $\beta>\operatorname{arctanh}(1/\sqrt{d})$; this generalizes a previous result by Gandolfo, Maes, Ruiz and Shlosman (2020) from a very low temperature regime to the entire spin-glass regime.