High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Collinear Factorization Violation and Reggeization
Damiano Barcaro, Anjie Gao, Jonathan R. Gaunt et al. (+1 more)
We derive an all-order soft-collinear subgraph factorization in the space-like collinear limits of amplitudes for single
gluon pinched in the Glauber region. We show that these contributions exhibit Reggeization, combining aspects of both forward and hard scattering. By deforming away from the Glauber region wherever possible we demonstrate a dramatic simplification of the effective theory subgraphs and thereby drastically reducing the complexity in computing collinear factorization breaking terms in multi-point amplitudes. Our work is aided with development of new software tools initiating a systematic study of processes involving Glauber exchanges at a multi-loop level.
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All authors Damiano Barcaro, Anjie Gao, Jonathan R. Gaunt, Aditya Pathak
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
DragonflyPol: Wide-Field Optical Linear Polarimetry with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array (Instrument Description and Commissioning)
Mehrnoosh Tahani, Leo Hollberg, Hiroshi Akitaya et al. (+9 more)
We present DragonflyPol, a wide-field optical linear polarimetry capability implemented on the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. DragonflyPol leverages Dragonfly's modular, multi-lens architecture to obtain simultaneous measurements in four linear polarization orientations ($0^\circ$, $45^\circ$, $90^\circ$, and $135^\circ$) across a $\sim5\,deg^2$ field of view, distributed across 44 polarized lens–detector units. Four additional units serve as unpolarized reference channels. We describe a broad range of science goals enabled by this capability, including
magnetic field mapping and
tomography,
dust grain properties, CMB foreground characterization, and the three-dimensional structure of diffuse interstellar clouds. We integrate Canon polarizers and Baader Sloan $r'$ bandpass filters into the drop-in filter holders of the Canon lenses, and conduct a three-phase laboratory characterization program to select optimal polarimetric components, measure contrast ratios and transmission efficiencies, and determine and mark the transmission axis of each polarizer with sub-degree repeatability. Laboratory measurements across all 44 deployed polarizers yield a mean noise-subtracted contrast ratio of $1228 \pm 104$ and a single-polarizer transmission efficiency of $\sim$33% in the $r'$ band. On-sky commissioning, including twilight flat-field characterization and twilight-sky polarization measurements, confirms throughput stability across polarization groups and successful recovery of the expected Rayleigh scattering signal. DragonflyPol achieved first polarimetric light in September 2025.
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All authors Mehrnoosh Tahani, Leo Hollberg, Hiroshi Akitaya, Jaeyeon Kim, Deborah Lokhorst, Roberto Abraham, Pieter van Dokkum, William P. Bowman, Vishwa Koshene Gamage, Paras Regmi, Yasuo Doi, Koji S. Kawabata
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Charting the expansion of the Universe from z$\sim$0 to z$\sim$14 with HII galaxies
R. Chávez, R. Terlevich, A. L. González-Morán et al. (+14 more)
We present an updated Hubble diagram of
giant extragalactic H II regions and H II
galaxies spanning the
redshift interval $z\sim 0$ to $z\sim 14$, extending the use of the $L(\mathrm{H}\beta)-\sigma$ relation as an independent cosmological probe into the epoch of
cosmic dawn. Our sample comprises 243 objects, including local anchor systems with primary distance measurements, previously published low- and intermediate-
redshift H II
galaxies, recent JWST/NIRSpec observations, and a new subsample of extremely high-
redshift H II
galaxies observed with JWST and with ALMA+JWST for the highest-
redshift cases. We homogenise the measurements across the full sample, applying consistent corrections for instrumental and thermal broadening, extinction, and, where required, the transformation from [O III]-based to Balmer-line velocity dispersions. We model
lensing effects of high
redshift using a log-normal magnification formalism and infer cosmological parameters via a nested-sampling analysis. The $L-\sigma$ relation remains consistent over the full
redshift range, showing no evidence for significant
evolution even at the highest
redshifts currently accessible. For the joint anchor+H II
galaxies sample, under a flat $\Lambda$CDM model, we obtain $h=0.725\pm0.040$ and $\Omega_m=0.308^{+0.043}_{-0.053}$. Allowing a constant dark-energy equation of state yields $w_0=-0.96^{+0.53}_{-0.21}$, while a CPL parametrisation gives $w_0=-0.92^{+0.57}_{-0.34}$ and $w_a=-0.48^{+0.60}_{-1.50}$, all consistent, within the uncertainties, with concordance cosmology. These results demonstrate that H II
galaxies offer a viable, fully independent tracer of the expansion history across almost the entire age of the Universe, opening a new avenue for testing $\Lambda$CDM and dark-energy
evolution well beyond reionisation.
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All authors R. Chávez, R. Terlevich, A. L. González-Morán, S. Zamora, E. Terlevich, D. Fernández-Arenas, F. Bresolin, M. Plionis, S. Basilakos, R. Amorín, M. Llerena, F. D'Eugenio, Xihan Ji, J. Zavala, J. Rivera, N. Gómez-Cruz, L. Corral-Bustamante
High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Constraining the Coexistence of Primordial Black Holes and Particle Dark Matter with Neutrino Observations
Prolay Chanda, Sagnik Mukherjee and James Unwin
Primordial black holes (PBH) with a uniform mass scale could contribute up to 1% of the gravitationally inferred dark matter relic abundance and remain consistent with observational limits over a large range of masses. In this case, the vast majority of the dark matter relic abundance is comprised of dark matter particles, such as WIMPs or FIMPs. Particle dark matter gravitationally captured around
primordial black holes can form dense minispikes in which the annihilation rate is strongly enhanced. In this work, we investigate the constraints on the coexistence of PBHs and particle dark matter from high-energy
neutrino observations. Relative to earlier analyses, we refine the treatment of the dark matter
halo profile and its
redshift evolution. We consider models of freeze-out and freeze-in dark matter, as well as Boltzmann-suppressed freeze-in. We present idealized IceCube event-based sensitivities together with conservative limits obtained by requiring that the predicted extragalactic
neutrino intensity not exceed the upper envelope of the measured diffuse flux. We explore the constraints in terms of an idealized model with 100% branching to
neutrinos, we also discuss these results within the context fo a motivated gauged U(1)${}_{L_\mu-L_\tau}$ mediator model, emphasizing that a consistent particle-physics completion generally predicts correlated charged-
lepton and
neutrino final states.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
First planetesimals from DESI DR1: 12 highly metal-rich white dwarfs
Paula Izquierdo, Andrew Swan, Boris T. Gänsicke et al. (+43 more)
Metal-enriched white
dwarfs provide a unique insight into the composition of
exoplanet interiors. These
stars accrete the debris of disrupted planetary bodies, and hence, measuring the
stellar parameters and photospheric abundances yields the bulk compositions of the parent bodies. At present, over 1750 debris-accreting white
dwarfs are known, but just a few dozen are sufficiently enriched to allow a detailed abundance study. Here we report the analysis of 12 highly metal-enriched white
dwarfs observed within the Data Release~1 of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). We characterised their
stellar parameters and photospheric metal abundances and we identified between three and ten different elements in their optical spectra, including most of the rock-forming species: O, Mg, Si, Ca and Fe. We conclude that the accreted bodies broadly resemble compositions found within the inner
Solar System such as primitive meteorites, processed material or planetary cores. Six of the systems allowed a more thorough analysis: four of the parent bodies are composed of dry rock-forming elements; and two of them of something akin to a water-rich planetesimal. Thus, this study establishes DESI as a potent survey for identifying metal-rich targets, yielding reliable compositions of accreted exoplanetary material.
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All authors Paula Izquierdo, Andrew Swan, Boris T. Gänsicke, Jamie T. Williams, Detlev Koester, Nicola P. Gentile-Fusillo, Christopher J. Manser, Laura K. Rogers, D. Aguado, J. Aguilar, S. Ahlen, C. Allende Prieto, D. Bianchi, D. Brooks, T. Claybaugh, A. de la Macorra, A. Dey, P. Doel, J.E. Forero-Romero, E. Gaztañaga, S. Gontcho A Gontcho, G. Gutiérrez, D. Joyce, T. Kisner, S.E. Koposov, A. Kremin, M. Landriau, L. Le Guillou, T.S. Li, M. Manera, A. Meisner, R. Miquel, J. Moustakas, J. Najita, W.J. Percival, F. Prada, I. Pérez-Ràfols, G. Rossi, E. Sanchez, D. Schlegel, M. Schubnell, D. Sprayberry, G.Tarlé, B.A. Weaver, R. Zhou, H. Zou
High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Searching for the $N$-naturalness tower of neutrinos
Sofia Lonardi, Manuel Ettengruber and Philipp Eller
We present the first experimental search for the $N$-naturalness tower of
neutrinos using a global analysis of publicly available
neutrino data. As a potential solution to the hierarchy problem, the $N$-naturalness model employs a varying
Higgs mass parameter among $N$ dark sectors and encodes the required fine-tuning of the placement of the sectors in a parameter $r$. We report exclusion limits on the parameter space ($r$, $N$), for normal and inverted ordering and in case the
neutrino is Majorana or Dirac. In the case of a Majorana
neutrino, we can rule out $N\leq 10^4$ sectors with $r\geq 0.1$. This is particularly exciting as it shows that a gauge and gravitational unification around $M_{GUT}$, which is a
benchmark scenario of the $N$-naturalness framework with $N=10^4$ without fine-tuning, is ruled out by
neutrino experiments.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
COS2035: Extending COS/FUV Operations Through the 2030s
Marc Rafelski, David Sahnow, Christian I. Johnson et al. (+29 more)
The far-ultraviolet (FUV) detector of the
Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) accumulates gain sag where
photons land, and without continued mitigation this degradation would render the most used modes unusable. To extend COS FUV operations through the 2030s, the COS team developed the COS2035 strategy, which builds on the existing COS2025 rules with four technical breakthroughs and two new usage policies. First, SPLIT-wavecals decouple wavelength calibration from science exposures and open detector real estate above the Pt-Ne lamp light leak. Second, a hybrid lifetime position (LP) architecture allows different gratings to operate at different LPs simultaneously. Third, the LP-infinity framework removes the dependence on the eight-LP limit in the COS flight software, supported by a new table-based APT and TRANS rules architecture. Fourth, a revised gain-sag flagging method evaluates integrated column count loss against the maximum achievable signal-to-noise (S/N) per mode. The two new usage policies cap per-target S/N at the maximum achievable value set by fixed-pattern noise, and limit any single program to 2% of the lifetime at any single LP. With LP7 and LP10 enabled in Cycle 33 and LP11 and LP12 in active commissioning for Cycles 34 and 35, the COS2035 strategy positions the FUV channel for continued high productivity through the 2030s.
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All authors Marc Rafelski, David Sahnow, Christian I. Johnson, Bethan James, Svea Hernandez, John Debes, Beverly Serrano, Kate Davis, Serge Dieterich, Van Dixon, Leonardo Dos Santos, Travis Fischer, Elaine Frazer, David French, Mark Giuliano, Joshua Goldberg, Sten Hasselquist, Jacqueline Hernandez, Nick Indriolo, Mike Kelly, Olivia Lupie, Lauren Miller, Diego Mundo, Anna Payne, Karla Peterson, Rachel Plesha, Kate Rowlands, Julia Roman-Duval, Ravi Sankrit, Debopam Som, Scott Swain, Alan Welty
Quantum Physics
Fock-state preparation based on amplitude amplification in cavity QED
Sharoon Austin, Zhi-Yuan Wei, Kartik Srinivasan et al. (+1 more)
In this work, we develop a coherent control technique for cavity QED based on amplitude amplification. We consider two physical platforms. In the first setting, we study a three-level
quantum emitter coupled to a single mode of an optical cavity and introduce a protocol for producing traveling single
photons based on oblivious amplitude amplification. As the key ingredient of our protocol, we propose an extension of oblivious amplitude amplification which uses reflection
unitaries solely on the signal
qubit, along with $U$ and $U^\dagger$, where the
unitary $U$ prepares the initial state. Our approach improves the scaling of the single-
photon-generation protocol length from $N\sim 1/p$ to $N\sim 1/\sqrt{p}$, with $p$ denoting the success probability of obtaining a short single
photon from a single application of the weak control pulse. Furthermore, our protocol also reduces the error from intrinsic cavity loss compared to protocols using a single strong control pulse in various experimentally relevant regimes, suggesting the application of our methods for error reduction. In the second setting, we consider a superconducting
qubit coupled to a single bosonic mode of a microwave cavity in a
circuit QED architecture in the dispersive regime for preparing Fock states. Using fixed-point amplitude amplification, we obtain a protocol for preparing Fock states whose length scales as $O(n^{1/4})$, where $n$ is the number of
photons. Additionally, as an application of our methods for state preparation, we describe a protocol for preparing NOON states.
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All authors Sharoon Austin, Zhi-Yuan Wei, Kartik Srinivasan, Alexey V. Gorshkov
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Efficient Interstellar Grain Growth from High Sticking Coefficients on Amorphous Carbon Dust
Clarke J. Esmerian, Duncan Bossion, Francois Dulieu et al. (+8 more)
Cosmic dust is the solid phase of the interstellar medium (ISM), classically assumed to be composed of carbonaceous and silicate grains with size distributions spanning $\sim 5~\AA$ to $\sim 1~\mu$m (Weingartner & Draine 2001, Draine & Li 2007, Hensley & Draine 2023). While it constitutes at most order-of-magnitude $\mathbf{1\%}$ of the ISM mass,
dust is second only to
stars in importance for the observable properties of
galaxies (Zavala et al. 2021). Large uncertainties in the efficiency of grain growth obfuscate the relative contribution of the two dominant sources of
dust in the Universe: direct production from evolved
stars versus gas-phase
accretion in the ambient ISM (Feldmann 2015, Esmerian & Gnedin 2022, Esmerian & Gnedin 2024). Advances in supercomputers have only recently allowed us to move beyond simple, idealized predictions of
dust grain growth efficiencies (Leitch-Devlin & Williams 1985) with atomistic dynamical calculations (Bossion et al. 2024). We show that small carbon
dust grains can grow significantly on timescales much shorter than the age of the universe and, in some ISM phases, comparable to the lifetimes of
giant molecular clouds. Specifically, we perform molecular dynamics simulations of an amorphous carbon (a-C) grain surface impacted by gas-phase atoms of cosmologically abundant elements with realistic interstellar conditions, finding high ($\gtrsim 0.2$) sticking coefficients for all non-inert elements at all relevant gas and grain temperatures. We present the results of experiments conducted on similar
dust candidate materials that support our theoretical calculations. Our results therefore confirm that the process of gas-phase
accretion onto grains is likely an efficient mechanism for the growth of interstellar
dust mass on astrophysical timescales, and plausibly central to the evolutionary life-cycle of interstellar grains at all
cosmic epochs. (abridged)
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All authors Clarke J. Esmerian, Duncan Bossion, Francois Dulieu, Saoud Baouche, Alexey Potapov, W. M. C. Sameera, Tom J. L. C. Bakx, Susanne Aalto, Kirsten K. Knudsen, Gunnar Nyman, Wouter Vlemmings
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Ultra-long simulations of collisionless relativistic shocks in front-comoving frame: evidence for a steady state and its properties
Mikhail Garasev and Evgeny Derishev
We present a series of unprecedently long 2D3V PIC simulations of unmagnetized relativistic $e^{-}e^{+}$-pair shocks performed in a front-comoving frame. By implementing a moving-wall boundary condition in the downstream together with continuous injection at the upstream boundary, we maintain a fixed simulation domain size, opening the way to perform substantially longer simulations. Our longest runs extend beyond $100000\,\omega_p^{-1}$, exceeding the duration of the previously published simulations by a factor of several. Across a diverse set of simulations — varying upstream/downstream lengths, transverse sizes, and particle-per-
cell counts — we find strong evidence that the shock, {modelled for a long-time in the front-comoving frame,} approaches an asymptotic, time-independent state. In the downstream region, the steady state depends only on the upstream temperature at the injection boundary and {remains the same if we change the downstream and upstream lengths.} The upstream precursor evolves slower and retains a dependence on the simulation's upstream length, that may be of minor observational consequence, since radiation from astrophysical shocks predominantly originates from the downstream region. {Our simulations also indicate} that
Fermi-type acceleration is limited in energy and a true power-law tail never forms. Another important finding is that the downstream
magnetic field has a
soliton-like structure, where individual
magnetic domains evolve independently, each comprising a compact, highly magnetized core embedded within an extended, weakly magnetized region. The
magnetic-field distribution around the centers of these spots has approximately Lorentzian profile.
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Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Phonons under confinement: Finite Hilbert space, coarse-grained $U(1)$ charge and a new transport mechanism
Yuan Gao and K.A. Muttalib
An important feature of solid-state or cold atom systems in low dimensions is the restricted oscillations of ionic/atomic degrees of freedom in the confining directions, for which the conventional
phonon from canonical quantization is not an ideal description. In this work we propose a general recipe to introduce this feature to otherwise unrestricted systems by mapping displacement fields to
spin degrees of freedom, dubbed "soft-corization". In the strong-confinement limit $S=1/2$, we demonstrate the validity of the approach with a harmonic chain; the results lead to a gapped fermionic model showing the absence of acoustic modes as a signature of the confinement of the entire chain. Despite the non-conserved total particle number in the presence of nearest-neighbor parings, the model holds a coarse-grained $U(1)$
symmetry with conserved "polarization charge" in the absence of nearest-neighbor hopping. This enables a new transport mechanism via "dimer-tumbling" instead of single-particle hopping. We then introduce a short-range interaction via anharmonicity; for energy scales slightly above the gap, it leads to a (
quantum) phase transition to a nonreciprocal state carrying dimer current and heat current with spontaneous time reversal
symmetry breaking of the type $\hat{T}^2=+1$. The non-reciprocity can be probed by measuring the change of inductance due to gauge fields in and out of the ordered phase.
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Quantum Physics
A Compass on the Quantum State Sphere: The Hopf Ansatz for Arbitrary Pure-State Optimization
Ruge Lin and Guangxi Li
Optimizing an arbitrary pure state requires more than a
circuit that can prepare it: one also needs coordinates, local distance information, and measurable derivative directions. We introduce the
Hopf ansatz, a binary-tree
circuit for arbitrary normalized real and complex state vectors. Internal angles split probability between subtrees, while leaf phases supply the complex degrees of freedom. The same tree recovers physical angles from known amplitudes, gives an analytic diagonal metric on the state-vector sphere, and prepares each nonzero coordinate tangent as a normalized state. For
Hamiltonian objectives and other costs with the same local transition-moment form, each gradient component is a known metric factor times a transition moment between the current state and a tangent state. Signed branch states express these moments through expectation-value measurements. Indexed preparation groups magnitude tangents by tree depth and collects complex phase tangents into one leaf-indexed block. The number of compiled gradient-access
circuit families is logarithmic in
Hilbert-space dimension; measurement repetitions needed for a prescribed accuracy remain a separate statistical cost. In deterministic real-state
benchmarks with exact objectives and gradients and known global optima, metric-aware
Hopf updates reach numerical-precision median gaps. Relative to coordinate-Adam baselines, they yield smaller mean final gaps in variational eigensolver tests and concentrate more runs at numerical precision in metrology-inspired tests. The
Hopf ansatz thus supplies a compass for arbitrary pure-state optimization, with coordinates, geometry, and measurable directions in one
circuit structure.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
Gravitational Effective Theories with Maximal Supersymmetry and a Peculiar Parity
Justin Berman, Simon Caron-Huot, Aditi V. Chandra et al. (+4 more)
We study the space of four-dimensional ultraviolet completions for $\mathcal{N}=8$ supergravity that are described at low energies by weakly-coupled effective field theories (EFTs) with maximal supersymmetry and $\mathrm{SU}(4)\times\mathrm{SU}(4)$ R-
symmetry. We show that tree-level factorization of the 4-, 5-, and 6-point EFT scattering amplitudes, together with a certain “peculiar parity” condition, leads to nonlinear constraints on the 4-point Wilson coefficients. This peculiar parity is a property that can only be imposed on a subset of scalar amplitudes. Combining the nonlinear constraints with positivity, we find that the allowed region of 4-point Wilson coefficients is reduced to a non-convex domain with two sharp corners: one being the closed superstring Virasoro–Shapiro amplitude, the other an infinite
spin tower amplitude exchanging states of every
spin at the same mass. We show both numerically and analytically that requiring a finite number of states near the first mass level leaves only the Virasoro–Shapiro amplitude.
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All authors Justin Berman, Simon Caron-Huot, Aditi V. Chandra, Henriette Elvang, Aidan Herderschee, Loki L. Lin, Roger Morales
Quantum Physics
Nonplanar qubit with tunable gauge symmetry
Muqing Yu, Han Bi, Hengli Lo et al. (+6 more)
Circuit quantum electrodynamics embeds Josephson junction
qubits within superconducting cavities, and has emerged as a leading approach to
quantum computing and
quantum simulation. Despite the many permutations of
circuit geometry that have been explored, Josephson connectivities have so far been planar, making them effectively low-dimensional. Here we show that a non-planar
qubit – a $3\times3$ crossbar Josephson array – gives rise to flux-tunable $\mathbb{Z}_3$ combinatorial gauge
symmetry (CGS), potentially enabling
spin-
liquid behavior when networked into a
lattice. The observed excitation spectrum shows excellent agreement with predictions from a neural network trained to generate variational
quantum states, demonstrating that we have predictive power over our high-dimensional
quantum system. Fine-structure splittings near the CGS point are compatible with weak tunneling or
symmetry breaking due to experimental imperfections. We additionally use the superconducting cavity to externally induce
symmetry breaking, observing a restoration of
symmetry at the CGS point where ground states differ only by a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ phase. This work initiates a general program exploring
lattice gauge theories using the toolbox of
circuit quantum electrodynamics. More broadly, introducing non-planar Josephson connectivities opens a vast space for experimental and theoretical exploration of structures in almost any imaginable dimensionality and geometry.
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All authors Muqing Yu, Han Bi, Hengli Lo, Vishvesha Sridhar, Guilherme Delfino, Dmitry Green, Claudio Chamon, Nadya Mason, Andrew P. Higginbotham
Quantum Physics
Principles of Quantum Optimization for Constrained Problems
Einar Gabbassov, Gurpahul Singh and Achim Kempf
Constrained combinatorial optimization underlies many industrial and technological decision problems. We develop a spectral theory that unifies many
quantum optimization
algorithms. We show that computational slowdown is driven by
entanglement restructuring: the creation, redistribution, and destruction of
entanglement during system
evolution. The severity of the slowdown depends on how much
entanglement must be changed. We show that algebraic properties of constraints induce such restructuring, and that constraint-aware dynamics reduce the associated slowdown by avoiding unnecessary restructuring. This framework explains why constraint-aware
quantum methods can outperform generic penalty-based approaches. The theory connects constrained optimization, computational complexity,
entanglement dynamics, and
Hamiltonian spectral structure across continuous-time and
circuit-based
quantum optimization paradigms.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Hierarchical Three-Body Problem at High Eccentricities = Simple Pendulum, IV: Octupole for Librating Kozai-Lidov Cycles
Ygal Y. Klein
We solve analytically the long-term octupole
evolution of librating Kozai-Lidov cycles - those with a negative Kozai constant, in which the argument of pericenter librates - in the double-averaged restricted hierarchical three-body problem. Librating cycles reach extreme eccentricities when the normal component of the orbital angular momentum vanishes, just as rotating cycles do, but their slow dynamics was left unsolved: as noted by Katz, Dong & Malhotra (2011), the azimuth of the eccentricity vector jumps by half a turn every cycle, so the leading-order octupole kick alternates in sign and cancels pairwise. We show that the surviving dynamics, at second order in the octupole strength, is a simple pendulum with explicit coefficients. The pendulum predicts slow oscillations of the normal angular momentum with amplitude linear in the octupole strength, evolving on a timescale of order the secular timescale divided by the octupole strength, together with an explicit criterion for orbital flips. At octupole strengths typical of hierarchical triples, these amplitudes are comparable to - and in part of the librating window can exceed - those of rotating cycles, provided one waits the correspondingly longer timescale. The analytic model agrees with numerical integrations of the double-averaged equations across the librating window, for octupole strengths typical of the hierarchical triples in which the eccentric Kozai-Lidov effect is studied - from hot-Jupiter formation to gravitational-wave sources.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
The Expected Yield of Venus Zone Terrestrial Planets from PLATO
Stephen R. Kane, Emma L. Miles, Colby M. Ostberg et al. (+2 more)
The characterization of terrestrial
exoplanets and the conditions that lead to divergent
climate outcomes is a primary goal of exoplanetary science. The Venus Zone (VZ) provides a framework for identifying
planets that may have experienced runaway greenhouse processes similar to Venus, and the statistical properties of such
planets bear directly on models of planetary habitability. Here we present a quantitative estimate of the expected yield of VZ terrestrial
planets from ESA's PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of
stars) mission. We combine the predicted PLATO
planet yield for Earth-size ($0.8$–$1.25~R_\oplus$) and super-Earth ($1.25$–$2.0~R_\oplus$)
planets with empirical occurrence rates for VZ terrestrial
planets derived from Kepler data. Under conservative assumptions, we estimate that PLATO will detect $\sim$170–280 VZ terrestrial
planets ($0.8$–$2.0~R_\oplus$), including $\sim$40–80 Earth-size ($0.8$–$1.25~R_\oplus$)
planets, during a nominal 4-year mission. For the bright P1 sample ($V \leq 11$), we estimate $\sim$50–85 terrestrial and $\sim$13–22 Earth-size VZ detections, enabling radial velocity mass determination and atmospheric characterization of the most favorable targets with JWST and future facilities. We discuss the implications of this yield for comparative studies of Earth-Venus divergence, synergies with the DAVINCI, VERITAS, and EnVision missions to Venus, and the role of PLATO in advancing our understanding of the runaway greenhouse boundary.
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All authors Stephen R. Kane, Emma L. Miles, Colby M. Ostberg, Erika Kohler, James B. Garvin
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Chemodynamical evidence of the HR 1614 moving group as a bar resonance
Andreas J. Koch-Hansen, Vladislav Gulaev, Dominik H. Plonka et al. (+4 more)
Moving groups (MGs) are ensembles of disk
stars that clump in velocity and action space. A multitude of explanations as to their origin has been attempted, from dissolved
star clusters to resonances with the
Galactic bar, or other non-axisymmetric perturbations. The object of this work, the old HR 1614 group, has in the past already been shown to not be a disrupted cluster in terms of its broad age and
metallicity distribution. Thus its
stars have more likely been trapped by the Milky Way bar at corotation. Here, we present a new study that aims to chemically and dynamically characterize this group in the context of such a resonance. To this end, we used MIKE/Magellan high-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra of six member
stars of the HR 1614 MG to determine the chemical abundance ratios for 24 elements, several for the first time in those
stars. The Fe-abundances of our sample range from +0.13 to +0.38 dex and the majority of abundance ratios is fully in line with those of metal-rich Milky Way disk
stars, with few exceptions. In particular, the group's eponym, HR 1614, is enhanced in essentially all abundances and coincides with the higher-[X/Fe] trends of the Milky Way's thick disk. All elements (but S and Ca) show significant intrinsic abundance scatter that argue against this MG having formed in a contained environment such as a dissolved cluster. Isochrone ages, tailored to the measured
metallicities support earlier findings of a broad age mix in this group, ranging from 1 Gyr to as old as 8 Gyr. We performed an orbital frequency analysis in a
Galactic potential that includes a rotating bar. Indeed, our sample
stars fall onto thin resonances on corotation. Hence, our results support the idea that the HR 1614 MG is a resonantly perturbed disk feature, mustering a melange of
stars from different parent populations in the inner
Galaxy.
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All authors Andreas J. Koch-Hansen, Vladislav Gulaev, Dominik H. Plonka, Camilla Juul Hansen, Andrew McWilliam, Victor P. Debattista, Zdenek Prudil
Quantum Physics
Quantum many-body mixed phase space revealed by hybrid feedback control
Hang Dong, Jie Ren, Andrew Hallam et al. (+9 more)
Understanding how complex systems transition between order and chaos is a central challenge of nonequilibrium physics. While weak perturbations of classical integrable systems give rise to a mixed phase space of coexisting regular and chaotic trajectories, analogous behavior in interacting
quantum many-body systems has remained elusive. Here we develop and experimentally implement a hybrid
quantum-classical feedback protocol that autonomously discovers and stabilizes long-lived regular trajectories in a superconducting
quantum processor. Each iteration combines short-time
quantum evolution with classical optimization that projects the dynamics back onto a low-
entanglement variational
manifold, effectively distilling coherence from chaotic
evolution. The stabilized trajectories reveal a
quantum many-body mixed phase space emerging from nonlinear variational dynamics, without a direct analogue in classical or few-body
quantum systems. Our results establish a versatile framework for algorithmic discovery and control of coherent dynamics previously inaccessible to experiment.
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All authors Hang Dong, Jie Ren, Andrew Hallam, Han Wang, Zhengyi Cui, Yiren Zou, Junlin Wang, Hekang Li, Qiujiang Guo, Zhen Wang, Lei Ying, Zlatko Papic
Quantum Physics
Magic Without Entanglement: Exact Revivals and Their Fisher Information Origin
Rishabh Jha and Karun Gadge
Magic and
entanglement are independent
quantum resources, yet their exact relation in many-body dynamics has remained elusive. We uncover two structural principles. First, at any stabilizer state, the
curvature of the second stabilizer Rényi
entropy under an arbitrary Hermitian generator equals the
quantum Fisher information up to a fixed normalization, creating a bidirectional bridge between computational and metrological resources. Second, for commuting Ising
evolution on any forest graph, a Clifford
pruning circuit yields the full stabilizer-Rényi family at arbitrary size and in any spatial
embedding, thereby furnishing a graph-theoretic construction of families with finite magic density and vanishing
entanglement density in the thermodynamic limit. We solve two paradigmatic one-dimensional realizations central to
quantum simulation – an Ising quench and a kicked Floquet chain – exactly for arbitrary system size and directly in the thermodynamic limit, revealing finite magic density with vanishing
entanglement density, distinct magic and
entanglement revival periods, and Clifford points with zero magic but finite bipartite
entanglement. The same tangent geometry fixes initial growth, perturbative revival lifting, and stability of thermodynamic magic minima. Large-scale Pauli-basis
matrix-product-state calculations verify all predictions, and the tangent bridge yields a concrete protocol for detecting magic through established
quantum-Fisher-information measurements.
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Strongly Correlated Electrons
Spinless Charged Excitation at the Interface between a Conventional Topological Insulator and a Topological Mott Insulator
Cesar A. Gallegos, Andrew J. Millis and Steven R. White
We investigate the interface separating two topologically distinct insulating phases of matter using extensive density-
matrix renormalization group calculations to study the triangular-
lattice Hofstadter-Hubbard model with a spatially varying interaction strength, chosen to realize both integer
quantum Hall and
chiral spin liquid states in different spatial regions. We find that the integer
quantum Hall-
chiral spin liquid interface hosts a spinless charged excitation that is bound to the interface. This mode at the interface is identified through charge and
spin pumping, and by direct calculations of low-lying excited states. We also characterize bulk excitations in both phases, finding evidence for fractionalization in the
chiral spin liquid and for
spin-triplet
exciton formation in the integer
quantum Hall phase.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
Non-perturbative saturation of Krylov complexity, and its implications in quantum gravity
Andrew Lucas and Amit Vikram
We study the dynamics of Krylov state complexity in finite-dimensional
quantum systems. Orthogonal
polynomials built on a discrete energy spectrum crowd away from regions where the density of states is low at large Krylov index. The physical implication of this result is that, even using a minimalist Krylov state complexity which is defined over the entire spectrum, the Krylov complexity provably stops growing a little past the Heisenberg length in every low-energy state. This has interesting implications for the proposal that Krylov complexity is related to the wormhole length in 2D
quantum gravity.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
Ising the way into de Sitter
Giovanni Galati and Stathis Vitouladitis
We study the two-dimensional Ising model deformed by the relevant thermal operator and placed on de Sitter (dS) spacetime. Despite being strongly interacting in its original formulation, the theory is exactly solvable on account of fermionisation. We compute exact cosmological correlators and compare them with conformal perturbation theory. In the Euclidean formulation of the model, we first compute the renormalised sphere partition function and the exact two-point functions of the thermal operator and descendant-like operators. We analytically continue the two-point functions to Lorentzian dS$_2$. Their late-time behaviour is governed by de Sitter representation theory and includes oscillations associated with principal-series scaling dimensions. We then analyse two-point functions of the
spin and disorder operators, which are non-local in the fermionic variables, and derive non-perturbative constraints on their late-time scaling dimensions. In both cases, we compare the exact answers to conformal perturbation theory (CPT) and we show that divergent secular terms generically spoil the perturbative series at late times. The de Sitter Ising model shows explicitly how late-time perturbative pathologies are resummed in non-perturbative cosmological observables and provides a minimal solvable laboratory for
quantum field theory dynamics in de Sitter space.
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High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Signatures of Black Hole Spin in Horizon-Scale Polarimetry
George N. Wong, Daniel C. M. Palumbo, Zachary Gelles et al. (+1 more)
The angular momentum of a black hole, usually expressed in terms of a dimensionless "
spin," both shapes the strong-field spacetime and provides a reservoir of rotational energy that can be exchanged with surrounding
plasma. Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) has now begun to resolve polarized emission on event-horizon scales. We distinguish polarimetric signatures of
spin arising primarily from
photon propagation in the Kerr spacetime from those mediated by horizon-threading electromagnetic fields and magnetized
plasma dynamics. We trace the inference from VLBI correlations through Stokes images and compact summary statistics to constraints on the source and, ultimately, on
spin. Within this framework, we review diagnostics linked to horizon regularity and
magnetic-field winding, magnetically arrested
accretion, electromagnetic energy extraction, jet-base and light-cylinder structure, and horizon and
photon-ring polarization. Current Event Horizon
Telescope observations constrain
magnetic-field geometry, variability, source orientation,
magnetic flux state, and aspects of the disk-jet connection more robustly than they constrain
spin magnitude or sense. Future observing and modeling programs should prioritize combinations of polarimetric diagnostics with complementary systematics and test whether a common
spin-dependent interpretation is supported across independent data products and plausible source models.
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All authors George N. Wong, Daniel C. M. Palumbo, Zachary Gelles, Andrew Chael
Quantum Physics
Analytic gradients for low-rank quantum optimal control
Leo Goutte and Vincenzo Savona
We introduce low-rank optimal control (LROC), a method for designing control pulses in open
quantum systems whose full density-
matrix simulation is prohibitively expensive. The method exploits a feature of
quantum computing itself: because protocols are designed to preserve purity, the density
matrix is dominated by a few pure states and admits an accurate low-rank factorization. LROC propagates only this factorized form and, by deriving the corresponding adjoint equation, obtains the gradient of any differentiable objective at the same reduced cost as the simulation, leading to a quadratic improvement in time and
memory compared to the full master equation. We illustrate the breadth of the method on four superconducting-
circuit tasks: preparation of a five-
qubit GHZ state, a CNOT gate,
qubit readout, and an error correction primitive, modeled with realistic multilevel transmons, decay, and strong drives, in each case reaching fidelities consistent with the intrinsic dissipation limits. LROC thereby extends pulse-level optimization to system sizes beyond the reach of existing gradient-based methods.
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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Coupled by Design: Computing Kerr-Newman Quasinormal Modes with a Hybrid SpectralPINN Solver
Alexandre M. Pombo
We extend our SpectralPINN solver to the computation of Kerr-Newman quasinormal modes by applying it to solve the system of two coupled master PDEs – advancing from the single, separable equation of the uncharged Kerr limit to a genuinely coupled two-field problem. The coupling between the gravitational and electromagnetic fields gives rise to two families of solutions: the
photon-sphere, connecting with Kerr; and near-horizon, disconnected from the Kerr limit, each with two branches of solutions depending on the leading field: the gravitational- and vector-led. Benchmarking against publicly available
datasets shows relative frequency errors of $\sim 10^{-4}$ worst case and $\sim10^{-7}$ for most cases. The computed public
dataset spans five
photon-sphere modes, both gravitational- and vector-led, up to $\ell=4$, as well as two fundamental gravitational-led near-horizon modes. The vector-led
photon-sphere branch is computed and systematically characterized for the first time. We apply the
dataset and observe the onset of the
eigenvalue repulsion reported by Dias et al., to exclude an inter-polarization repulsion within the resolved domain, and to forecast Einstein
Telescope constraints on the black-hole charge-to-mass ratio.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
Anti-scrambling and euclidean folds from observer correlators in de Sitter space
Daniel Harlow and Ying Zhao
The de Sitter horizon behaves in a qualitatively different way from a black hole horizon, which poses a challenge to any attempt to develop a fundamental
quantum description of de Sitter space. In this paper we gather some “data” on this problem using gravitational calculations, seeing that they lead to an “anti-scrambling” phenomenon that is contrary to the behavior of standard many-body
quantum systems. We organize our discussion in terms of correlation functions computed on the worldline of an observer living in the spacetime, with the two-point function looking like a conventional thermal correlator but the four-point function showing anti-scrambling. We propose that anti-scrambling can be realized in a
quantum system whose
Hamiltonian is bounded from both above and below using correlators that are folded in Euclidean time.
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Nuclear Theory
Exploring the shell structure of trapped superfluid gases
G. Palkanoglou, R. Curry and S. Gandolfi
We provide
quantum Monte Carlo calculations of a two-component
Fermi system interacting with an attractive interaction confined in harmonic traps. We investigate the role of the interaction's scattering length and effective range and show its important role in modifying shell effects in the structure of these systems. We show that in the strongly interacting regime, where the scattering length is large, the dominant role to shell effects is due to the effective range. These conclusions are very relevant for
nuclear physics, in particular for
neutron-rich systems, and open the way to perform new atomic experiments that can help to explain the disappearance of shell-effects in
nuclei.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
JT gravity on the worldline
Ben Freivogel, Alessandro Fumagalli and Diego M. Hofman
Motivated by the problem of understanding the experience of an observer in dynamical
quantum gravity, we study the effects of coupling a one-dimensional
quantum mechanical system living on a bulk worldline to Euclidean AdS JT
gravity. On the disk
topology, where the worldline stretches between two boundary points, we derive exact expressions for the Euclidean propagator of the observer and for its correlation functions, and discuss their
holographic interpretation. The main effect on the
quantum mechanics is the fluctuation of the total Euclidean time for which the observer evolves, or its inverse temperature for closed Euclidean paths. This turns the standard
quantum mechanical
evolution operator into an average of those, weighted by a measure over Euclidean times which in the semiclassical limit is peaked around the geodesic distance between the boundary points. We characterize the fluctuations around this value, finding that they are small compared to the mean, but large compared to the effective Planck scale of the model. These fluctuations can be resolved by an observer with a finely spaced density of states. We also discuss the Lorentzian interpretation of these Euclidean calculations. Finally, we compute a contribution to the partition function of the observer coupled to
gravity coming from the double trumpet. In this case the fluctuations of the effective temperature are large, reflecting the absence of a smooth semiclassical saddle point.
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Quantum Physics
Benchmarking quantum simulation at scale
Jeremy Hartse, Mohsin Raza, Shravan Shravan et al. (+2 more)
The applications for which
quantum computers will clearly outperform classical computers are still being identified and benchmarking such an advantage is challenging. We propose a scalable verification scheme for non-
equilibrium quantum simulation based on stabilizer scars, a special class of
quantum many-body scars, whose structure ensures both classical simulability and efficient direct fidelity estimation. Assuming a physically motivated error model, we show that the fidelity of
quantum simulating these states bounds the fidelity of classically intractable simulations, providing a
benchmark for
quantum-advantage experiments in non-
equilibrium dynamics.
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All authors Jeremy Hartse, Mohsin Raza, Shravan Shravan, Ivan H. Deutsch, Niklas Mueller