Astrophysics of Galaxies
The first dusty galaxies across $6 \lesssim z \lesssim 14$: Blue monsters, red monsters, and the bimodality of dust content in early galaxies
Sergio Martínez-González, Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón and Santiago Jiménez
JWST has revealed
galaxies at $z>10$ with extremely blue UV-continuum slopes approaching $\beta_{\rm UV}\lesssim-2.4$, and low inferred
dust contents. At similar
redshifts, JWST and ALMA reveal dusty massive systems reaching $\beta_{\rm UV}\gtrsim-1$. We aim to explain blue monsters and red monsters at $z\gtrsim10$ as different outcomes of
supernova dust retention in clustered
star-forming systems and connect this bimodality to dusty massive
galaxies at $z\simeq6$–7. We model
dust removal in a cluster-dominated regime through cloud-scale mechanical blowout followed by breakout from stratified high-
redshift disks. The shock-processed
dust mass retained in the UV-attenuating layer is converted into a UV-continuum slope using absorption opacities derived from 3D hydrodynamical simulations of clustered
supernovae in porous molecular clouds. In compact, gas-rich
galaxies, efficient cloud blowout and disk breakout reduce the retained
dust fraction to blue-monster levels, yielding $\beta_{\rm UV}\lesssim-2.4$. Larger
stellar masses increase the retained
dust column and produce red-monster-like systems with $\beta_{\rm UV}\gtrsim-1.5$, reaching $\beta_{\rm UV}\simeq-0.5$ when radiative losses weaken large-scale driving. The transition depends on whether clustered-
supernova ejecta cross both the natal cloud and the
galactic gas layer.
Supernova dust production, shock processing, radiative losses, and mechanical venting can jointly explain UV-bright
dust-poor
galaxies and red dusty massive systems across $6\lesssim z\lesssim14$.
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Strongly Correlated Electrons
Coloring in anyon superconductivity
Umang Mehta, Yuto Nakajima and Hart Goldman
The recently observed signatures of superconductivity proximate to a fractional
quantum anomalous
Hall (FQAH) state in a twisted MoTe$_2$
bilayer has revitalized interest in
quantum phases of matter induced by anyon dynamics. Here we show how a panoply of anyon-driven phases associated with doping the
lattice ${\nu=2/3}$ FQAH state can be realized as competing instabilities of a
Fermi surface of charge-$e/3$ “
quarks” coupled to a $\mathrm{SU}(3)_{-1}$ Chern-Simons gauge field, which is dual to the more conventional $\mathrm{U}(1)_3$ Chern-Simons-Ginzburg-Landau theory of quasiholes. For example, a range of electronic
superconductors emerge from color superconductivity, under which the
Fermi surface experiences a pairing instability mediated by gauge fluctuations. These include SC$\star$ phases – where superconductivity coexists with topological order – as well as topological
superconductors displaying half-integer
chiral central charges when the
quarks are weakly paired. One example is a $p+ip$ “color-valley-locked”
superconductor, a topological analogue of the color
superconductor familiar in
quantum chromodynamics. On the other hand, both superconducting and non-
Fermi liquid phases can emerge when the
quarks form an itinerant ferromagnet, polarizing the
Fermi surface to a particular combination of colors. Finally, our framework naturally accommodates the possibility of anyonic bound state formation, allowing access to phases induced by doping anyons of charge $2e/3$ as opposed to $e/3$ within the same model. Our work unifies many earlier proposed anyonic phases as instabilities of a single parent
quark metal phase, distilling their emergence into a competition between superconductivity and itinerant color ferromagnetism.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Can the universe be matter-dominated after a supercooled first-order phase transition?
Henda Mansour, Yann Gouttenoire and Felix Kahlhoefer
We show that the answer is generally no, at least not immediately. Bubble collisions leave behind a highly inhomogeneous scalar field with persistent relativistic gradients, producing an equation of state between matter and radiation. Using
lattice simulations in one, two and three spatial dimensions, we find that the equation of state is controlled by the wall Lorentz factor at collision $\gamma_\star$: walls with larger $\gamma_\star$ populate higher-momentum modes and drive the fluid closer to radiation. Matter domination begins only after these modes
redshift, at $a/a_\star \simeq \gamma_\star$, or after the field thermalises through self-scattering and number-changing processes. This delay has direct implications for gravitational waves,
primordial black holes and dark matter production.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
Confinement Versus Screening in the Schwinger Model on AdS$_2$ from Bosonization and Tensor Networks
Sriram Bharadwaj, Jack Isen and Zhong-Bo Kang
We analyze confinement and screening in single-
flavor quantum electrodynamics (QED$_2$) on two-dimensional anti-de Sitter space (AdS$_2$), with and without a Schwarzschild black hole, both in the continuum and on the
lattice. The theory is formulated in two frames adapted to distinct choices of a preferred time coordinate: the Schwarzschild frame, associated with the Boulware
vacuum, and the global AdS$_2$ frame, associated with the $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$-invariant
vacuum. In the massless limit, the static potential between an external charge-anticharge pair is obtained in closed form by bosonization, at both zero and finite temperature. After subtraction of the position-dependent probe self-energies, which, unlike in flat space, are not constant, the potential remains finite as the geodesic separation is taken to infinity, establishing that the theory is screened. This is consistent with the explicit breaking of the $\mathrm{U}(1)$ electric one-form
symmetry by the dynamical
fermions, and resolves a confining/screening ambiguity in earlier treatments that identify the static potential with the unsubtracted ground-state energy. To validate the continuum analysis, we propose a covariant discretization scheme for placing
fermions in curved spacetime on the
lattice while ensuring that the continuum properties of the
spin and gauge connections are restored in the continuum limit. This construction resolves ambiguities in the existing literature on
lattice fermions in curved backgrounds and provides the foundation for our tensor-network simulations. Using a
matrix product state ansatz, we confirm our analytical predictions for the phase diagram in AdS$_2$. We perform extensive numerical simulations of the static potential and the electric flux-tube profile for varying
fermion masses, which we match to the continuum prediction.
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Quantum Gases
Florian Hirsch, Oriana K. Diessel, Rafał Ołdziejewski et al. (+1 more)
Inspired by the progress on the study of
exciton physics in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD)
semiconductors, we investigate the formation of analogs of
excitons in cold atomic systems. To this end, we consider single-component
fermions comprised of ultracold ground-state molecules or dipolar atoms in a hexagonal optical
lattice. An energy offset between triangular sublattices opens up a band gap with degeneracies at the K/K' points as in TMDs. We predict the existence of cold atomic
excitons and show that cold atoms allow us to study
excitons from the weak-coupling regime, where effective mass models apply, to the strong-interaction regime, described by flat-band models. We demonstrate how these
excitons can be observed using
lattice modulation spectroscopy, and how their wave functions can be mapped out using
quantum gas microscopy. Firmly establishing the idea of
quantum simulation of
semiconductor physics, this work lays the foundation for simulating complex electronic states such as trions, polarons and excitonic
insulators.
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All authors Florian Hirsch, Oriana K. Diessel, Rafał Ołdziejewski, Richard Schmidt
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Sayak Bhattacharjee, Julian May-Mann and Srinivas Raghu
We obtain integer and fractional
quantum Hall crystals as ground states of a two-dimensional electron system subject to a strong perpendicular
magnetic field and a periodic potential. For certain fractional states, we show that the
Hall crystal can constitute an anyon
crystal, with a periodic ordering of well-defined anyons. We find that the latter states can be stabilized at odd denominator Landau level filling fractions when Landau level mixing is sufficiently weak, and near half-filling of the underlying
lattice. These phases are obtained from a mean-field analysis of an effective
lattice model of
bosons attached to an odd number of flux quanta, which transmutes their statistics to that of electrons. In
boson coordinates, the
Hall crystal is a supersolid: a superfluid with charge order. Under strong interactions,
vortex-anti-
vortex pairs spontaneously nucleate in the supersolid, realizing a crystalline state of anyons.
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Strongly Correlated Electrons
Quantum Mott semimetal in a one-dimensional Hubbard model
Boran Zhou, Taige Wang and Ya-Hui Zhang
Mott physics in topological bands has recently attracted considerable
attention, particularly in the context of twisted
bilayer graphene (TBG). However, the essential ingredients for stabilizing this physics remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate a
quantum Mott semimetal phase as the ground state within a one-dimensional spinful Hubbard model featuring only one orbital per unit
cell, protected by inversion and particle-hole
symmetries. We start from a two-orbital model where a localized $f$ orbital on the A sublattice hybridizes with a delocalized $c$ orbital on the B sublattice. Projecting the $f$-orbital Hubbard $U$ onto the active flat band yields a
lattice model with Wannier orbitals centered on the B sublattice. Similar to TBG, a momentum-space scale $k_*$ emerges, setting the interaction range in the projected model to $1/k_*$. While the ground state is
ferromagnetic with only the Hubbard $U$, introducing an inter-site
antiferromagnetic spin coupling $J$ stabilizes a Mott semimetal$^*$ phase with a central charge $c=3$. Using exact diagonalization (ED) and density
matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods, we show that this phase hosts a spinful Dirac
fermion coexisting with a neutral
spin mode – analogous to the fractionalized
Fermi liquid (FL$^*$) phase in higher dimensions. Furthermore, breaking particle-hole (PH)
symmetry via dispersion transforms the Mott semimetal into a Mott
insulator, which is separated from a distinct Mott insulating phase by a continuous transition with a polarization jump of $1/2$. Our work provides the first unbiased evidence of a Mott semimetal ground state and demonstrates that this 1D model captures some essential aspects of TBG physics, despite lacking a Wannier obstruction.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
Conformal QED in AdS as a BCFT
Fabiana De Cesare and Simone Giombi
We study conformal
Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) coupled to either $N_f$ massless
fermions or $N_s$ conformally coupled scalars in Euclidean Anti-de Sitter (AdS$_d$) space for $d < 4$. Using the $\epsilon$-expansion around $d=4$, we investigate the associated Boundary Conformal Field Theories (BCFTs) defined by imposing either Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions on the gauge field. We compute the regularized AdS free energy at the interacting fixed point up to next-to-leading order and extract some of the boundary conformal data at one loop, including the anomalous dimensions of the lightest singlet scalar operators. For Dirichlet boundary conditions, extrapolation of our $\epsilon$-expansion results indicate that one of these scalar operators, which is irrelevant near $d=4$, reaches marginality within the range $3 < d < 4$. This suggests that the Dirichlet boundary condition may not define a stable BCFT in $d=3$.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Higgs Couplings at a Future Wakefield Collider
Katherine Fraser, Simon Knapen, Kevin Langhoff et al. (+1 more)
We explore the potential of multiple possible future 10 TeV wakefield
colliders to measure electroweak couplings of the
Higgs boson. We find that the beam-beam interactions are not an impediment to high precision measurements of the
Higgs couplings, provided that the luminosity spectra can be measured or calculated to high accuracy. In addition to $e^+ e^-$
colliders, we also assess the effectiveness of alternatives such as $e^- e^-$
colliders or $\gamma \gamma$
colliders, which by-pass the positron acceleration challenge for wakefield
colliders. We find that a 10 $\text{ab}^{-1}$
dataset at a $\gamma\gamma$
collider yields qualitatively similar sensitivity to 10 $\text{ab}^{-1}$ at a
muon collider and 1 $\text{ab}^{-1}$ at an $e^+e^-$ wakefield
collider.
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All authors Katherine Fraser, Simon Knapen, Kevin Langhoff, Robert Szafron
High Energy Physics (Theory)
The Runkel-Watts string
Mattia Biancotto, Lorenz Eberhardt, Victor A. Rodriguez et al. (+1 more)
We introduce and solve a new family of two-dimensional string theories obtained by coupling Liouville CFT to the generalized Runkel-Watts CFT. By taking an appropriate limit of the complex Liouville string, we derive an all-genus formula for its string amplitudes, and formulate a duality with a
matrix integral. We explain that it can be interpreted as 2d SU(2) Yang-Mills theory coupled to
gravity. We show that it also directly relates to other minimal string constructions such as the A-series minimal string.
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All authors Mattia Biancotto, Lorenz Eberhardt, Victor A. Rodriguez, Zi-Yue Wang
High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Claudia Garcia-Garcia, Manuel González-López, Xabier Marcano et al. (+1 more)
Heavy Neutral
Lepton (HNL)-mediated t-channel processes provide a unique opportunity to probe mass scales beyond the kinematic reach of direct production at high-energy
colliders. We revisit these processes using the vector
boson scattering channel $WW\to\ell\ell$ at the LHC as a case study, highlighting the essential role of the light
neutrinos in restoring the proper high-energy
unitary behavior of the scattering amplitude. Their inclusion, overlooked in some previous studies, leads to destructive interference that strongly suppresses
lepton number violating signatures, demonstrating that a consistent treatment of the full seesaw spectrum qualitatively alters the phenomenology of t-channel HNL searches. This motivates the exploration of
lepton number conserving but
lepton flavor violating final states instead. We present a detailed analysis of the $pp\to e\mu jj$ channel and show that it provides a promising probe of TeV-scale HNLs in low-scale seesaw scenarios with sizable active-sterile mixing, extending the LHC sensitivity beyond existing direct searches.
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All authors Claudia Garcia-Garcia, Manuel González-López, Xabier Marcano, Daniel Naredo-Tuero
High Energy Physics (Theory)
On the Origin of Toric Diagrams
Sebastián Franco and Diego Rodríguez-Gómez
Five-dimensional superconformal field theories ($5d$ SCFTs) can be encoded by Generalized Toric Polygons (GTPs), where external legs of the dual $(p,q)$ five-brane web correspond to $T$-cones. Hanany-Witten transitions act on these geometries by flipping $T$-cones about their apex, thereby naturally endowing the choice of origin in the polygon with physical significance. It was recently conjectured that a suitably graded
Hilbert series equals the Ehrhart series of the dual polytope, which, in turn, is an invariant under such mutations. In this paper, we introduce a prescription for assigning scaling dimensions to fields in the toric gauge theory associated with the underlying toric diagram and show that the resulting
Hilbert series of the coherent component of the
moduli space matches the
geometric Hilbert series given by the Ehrhart series of the dual polytope once an origin is specified. We validate our construction through several non-trivial examples, including cases with multiple admissible choices of origin leading to distinct GTPs and brane-web realizations. Our results provide evidence that ordinary brane tilings retain non-trivial information about generalized toric polygons and suggest the existence of a deeper combinatorial structure underlying GTPs.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Strong Gravitational Lensing Posterior Sampling in Pixel-Space Using Diffusion Models and Recurrent Inference Machines
Guillaume Payeur, Laurence Perreault-Levasseur, Gabriel Missael Barco et al. (+1 more)
Modeling
galaxy-
galaxy strong gravitational lenses to infer the brightness of the source
galaxy and the mass distribution of the foreground
galaxy is computationally challenging, particularly for high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio observations. In this regime, high-dimensional representations of both the source and the foreground mass distribution are necessary to model the data down to the noise level. This inference problem has been challenging for both traditional and machine learning-based methods because of its high dimensionality and its non-linearity in the foreground mass distribution. We present a method to generate joint posterior samples of the source
galaxy and foreground mass distribution as pixelated images conditioned on observations. The method combines
diffusion-based generative modeling and recurrent inference machines. It can model realistic gravitational
lensing simulations with background and foreground
galaxies drawn from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations down to the noise level.
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All authors Guillaume Payeur, Laurence Perreault-Levasseur, Gabriel Missael Barco, Yashar Hezaveh
Superconductivity
Quantum geometry and critical temperature enhancement in MgB$_2$ superconductivity
Yi Jiang, Haoyu Hu, Dumitru Călugăru et al. (+13 more)
MgB$_2$, a
phonon-mediated
superconductor with record-high critical temperature $T_c\simeq 39$ K, is revisited to obtain a comprehensive theory of electrons,
phonons, and their coupling with minimal ab initio input. We construct compact analytic models for the electronic structure,
phonons, and electron-
phonon coupling (EPC) of MgB$_2$. We show that strong in-plane B $sp^2$ bonding realizes an obstructed band structure whose natural description is a bond-centered kagome
lattice, yielding small quasi-2D $\sigma$-band
Fermi-surface cylinders and pronounced
quantum-
geometric effects. The
phonon spectrum is found to closely track that of a
graphene-like boron layer, but the heavy intercalated Mg atoms dominate the three acoustic branches and rigidly lift the boron modes into the optical sector, while the in-plane B-B bond-stretching mode exhibits a pronounced softening along $\Gamma$-A. By
symmetry, this $\Gamma$-point bond-stretching mode is the only $\Gamma$
phonon that can couple to the $\sigma$
Fermi surface, explaining its dominant contribution to the EPC. Upon electron doping toward the doubly degenerate band edge of the $\sigma$ sheets, we find that a reduced density of states competes with enhanced EPC
matrix elements. At light electron doping, ab initio calculations show that the EPC enhancement dominates, leading to an increase in $T_c$ (within the clean doping limit without disorder effects). Using the Gaussian approximation for the EPC tensor, we further show that this enhancement is overwhelmingly
quantum geometric in origin, arising from a
geometric EPC contribution of the small $\sigma$
Fermi surface peaked at $\Gamma$. Overall, our results provide a transparent,
symmetry-based account of superconductivity in MgB$_2$ and suggest that
quantum-
geometric effects can be essential for shaping doping trends in
phonon-mediated
superconductors.
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All authors Yi Jiang, Haoyu Hu, Dumitru Călugăru, Kaja H. Hiorth, Junze Deng, Hanqi Pi, Handong Chen, Maia G. Vergniory, Ion Errea, Emilia Morosan, Leslie M. Schoop, Claudia Felser, Miguel A.L. Marques, Päivi Törmä, Daniel Agterberg, B. Andrei Bernevig
High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
The Conformal Origin of the Lepton Flavor Mixing Matrix
Cora Aigle and Alex Jourjine
Using the formalism of the
flavor spin theory, we re-derive the TM1
lepton flavor mixing factor decomposition in a novel way, using a previously unreported near identity involving the elements of the first row of U_PMNS. The resulting mixing
matrix is a direct consequence of the conformal
symmetry of the massless SM before the EW phase transition. In addition to the previously reported results, we derive a relation between the CP violating phase and the three mixing angles. Application of the relation to the experimental data data suggests the TM1 decomposition should use (19/12)Pi as the value for the CP violating phase. With this assumption all four parameters of TM1 may be expressed in radicals, which might help in the separation of the classical values of the mixing parameters from their
quantum corrections in the framework of the
flavor spin theories. This in turn could help in clarification of the mass generation mechanism.
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Statistical Mechanics
Markov state models revisited: Principles and algorithms for unbiased observables
David Aristoff, Robert J. Webber and Daniel M. Zuckerman
Markov state models (MSMs) have become ubiquitous tools for analyzing molecular dynamics (MD) simulations because of their simple, powerful premise: although complete MD sampling may be impossible, the MSM can "stitch together" transition probabilities derived from local sampling to provide a global picture of kinetics and mechanisms. In the standard MSM framework, the available MD data is organized into a single transition
matrix, which is then used to estimate all observables at a lag time chosen so the coarse-grained dynamics are approximately Markovian. This approach leads to avoidable model bias and motivates long lag times that obscure short-timescale processes of interest. In contrast, this paper shows how to obtain unbiased coarse-grained observables at any fixed lag time and for any fixed coarse-graining in the limit of infinite, properly weighted data. The central idea is to replace the single-
matrix framework with two transition
matrices – one representing
equilibrium dynamics and another representing source-sink recycling dynamics – and use the correct
matrix or
matrices to estimate the matched dynamical observables.
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Quantum Physics
Auditing Syndrome-to-Decoder Mappings for Repetition, Surface, CSS, and Digitized-GKP Interfaces
Dennis Delali Kwesi Wayo, Chinonso Onah, Rodrigo Alves Dias et al. (+2 more)
Quantum error-correction experiments increasingly require a verified interface between measured syndrome bits and decoder-native correction requests. We report a four-branch syndrome-to-decoder mapping audit spanning a five-data-
qubit repetition code, a distance-five surface Z-check interface, a compact Steane CSS
benchmark, and a digitized-GKP proxy. For the surface interface, an independent noiseless interpreter verifies 40/40 single-X syndrome columns and data-bit round trips, while a reversed-register negative control fails for all 40 targets. Sampled hardware and local-noise streams are then analyzed with exact binary minimum-weight representatives to separate mapping validity from noisy localization. The results establish a narrow interface-conformance claim, not a decoder
benchmark, threshold estimate, or logical-QEC demonstration.
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All authors Dennis Delali Kwesi Wayo, Chinonso Onah, Rodrigo Alves Dias, Leonardo Goliatt, Sven Groppe
Quantum Physics
Decoder Comparability Across Quantum Software Stacks: Repeated-Round Surface and Digitized-GKP Syndrome Replay
Dennis Delali Kwesi Wayo, Chinonso Onah, Rodrigo Alves Dias et al. (+2 more)
We present a contract-preserving, family-aware comparison of decoder behavior across four syndrome-generation stacks (PennyLane, Qiskit, Cirq, and a LiDMaS+ reference) under a fixed replay interface. Request streams from repeated-round surface-code and digitized-GKP
circuits are replayed through BP, MWPM, and UF with matched controls. The unified
matrix spans 24
cells and achieves line-level integrity: $24\,000$ request lines, $24\,000$ response lines, response ratio $=1.0$ in every
cell, zero parse failures, and zero decoder-name mismatches. Fifteen warning-no-syndrome events occur only in GKP-Cirq rows. Within-family ordering is stable in both families ($\mathrm{BP}<\mathrm{MWPM}<\mathrm{UF}$); source-averaged flip counts are 2.435, 4.768, and 5.870 for surface and 1.595, 2.908, and 3.681 for GKP. Relative to MWPM, BP reduces mean intervention volume by $48.9\%$ in surface and $45.1\%$ in GKP. Source-vs-reference effects are family dependent, with larger coherent shifts in GKP. Source-bootstrap ranks remain unchanged, and hidden-truth sidecars add an outer-code logical-parity error-rate check in which UF has the largest source-mean rate in both families. The comparison is stack-aware, contract-verified, and avoids raw cross-family threshold-equivalence claims.
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All authors Dennis Delali Kwesi Wayo, Chinonso Onah, Rodrigo Alves Dias, Leonardo Goliatt, Zaher Mundher Yaseen Sven Groppe
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
The general set of Noetherian energy-momentum tensors in linearized gravity: mathematical framework
Lydia Beth Taylor and Mark Robert Baker
Energy-momentum tensors are foundational objects which are uniquely defined in standard physical field theories such as electrodynamics and Yang-Mills theory. In general relativity, and in particular linearized
gravity where
symmetries required for an energy-momentum tensor derived from Noether's first
theorem are well defined, there exists a long standing non-uniqueness problem; numerous distinct energy-momentum expressions exist in the literature, and there is not consensus which, if any, is the unique expressions for the theory. Recently, the viability of the superpotential `improvement' method was shown to be insufficient for addressing the non-uniqueness problem of energy-momentum tensors in linearized
gravity. In the present article, the mathematical framework for the general set of Noetherian energy-momentum tensors in linearized
gravity is derived using Noether's first
theorem, which consists of all possible energy-momentum tensors from the Noether current which yield the linearized Einstein field equations in the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equation of the Noether identity without introducing any `improvement' terms. This result has several advantages in addition to not requiring `improvements', such as the ability to impact the Lagrangian proportional piece of the energy-momentum tensor. Numerous common published gravitational energy-momentum expressions are then compared to these general results to assess which can be classified as Noetherian, and which cannot. Standard physical criteria such as
symmetry and tracelessness are then used to prove that it is possible to directly obtain an energy-momentum tensor which is simultaneously symmetric and traceless from the Noether current; such an expression is derived from the general results. Consequences of these results and their relation to the aforementioned non-uniqueness problem are discussed.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)
A T-Fold Black Hole in Doubled Type IIB
Mir Faizal and Arshid Shabir
We construct an asymptotically flat T-fold representative of a four-dimensional dyonic black-hole charge orbit in doubled type-IIB theory. Starting from the F1-P-NS5-KKM toroidal seed, an integral
parabolic T-duality monodromy is imposed on an active doubled three-
torus. The non-
geometric data enter only through this global patching: the Reissner-Nordström-type term is sourced by conserved four-dimensional electric and
magnetic field strengths in the doubled Kaluza-Klein/winding local system, not by an internal algebraic \(Q\)-flux alone. Exact duality preserves the local equations, the BPS index, and the \(O(6,6)\)-invariant of the NS-NS/\(N=4\) charge sublattice governing the
entropy. The minimal Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton slice contains a running-scalar branch and an equal-charge Reissner-Nordström limit; the extremal near-horizon region is locally \(\mathrm{AdS}_2\times S^2\), with the compact factor globally T-duality patched.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies
Resolving Galactic and Cluster Dynamics Without Dark Matter: Tsallis Entropy as the Unique Foundation of Emergent Gravity
S. Shamari and A. Sheykhi
While modified
entropy models-such as Barrow, Tsallis, Kaniadakis,Power-law, Logarithmic, and Rényi
entropies-have been widely explored in cosmological contexts, their implications on
galactic scales remain largely untested. These generalizations of the Bekenstein-Hawking
entropy encode
quantum gravitational, nonextensive, or fractal spacetime effects and can alter the gravitational
entropy-area relation. In this paper, we demonstrate that the entropic force framework, when applied to
galactic rotation curves and the baryonic mass of
galaxy clusters, uniquely selects Tsallis
entropy as the specific generalized
entropy formulation. We then extend this Tsallis modified
gravity to globular clusters to complete the structural hierarchy from
galaxies to
galaxy clusters to globular clusters and to investigate its behavior as a function of system scale. We will show that the nonextensive parameter exhibits no correlation with any of the macroscopic quantities characterizing gravitational systems, such as mass, radius, temperature, or density. Furthermore, it has previously been shown that
entropy is not well-defined within the standard thermodynamic approach to
gravity. The adoption of nonextensive statistics provides a foundation for
entanglement, thereby enabling a consistent definition of
entanglement entropy. We predict the existence of
galaxy clusters with $\delta = 1$ (i.e., clusters whose dynamics require no dark matter) analogous to $\delta = 1$ systems already observed at
galactic and globular cluster scales. This prediction provides a unique observational test to discriminate Tsallis
gravity from $\Lambda$CDM and MOND. Therefore, for the entropic
gravity paradigm to be consistent with observational data across all scales-from globular clusters to
galaxies to
galaxy clusters-it is inevitably required to be built upon Tsallis
entropy.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)
Integral representation of the neutrino mass-squared differences
I. Alikhanov
Determining the absolute
neutrino mass scale remains one of the most compelling challenges in particle physics. To constrain theoretical models, establishing precise relations among
neutrino masses is essential. We propose a simple integral representation of the
neutrino mass-squared differences $\Delta m_{ij}^2$ that provides a complementary perspective on these oscillation parameters. We then demonstrate its utility through several examples. Specifically, assuming stringent cosmological bounds that confine the sum of
neutrino masses near the normal ordering floor, we derive an analytical condition for the lightest
neutrino mass, $m_1 < \sqrt{61\Delta m^2_{21}}/30$. Using recent data from the JUNO experiment, this yields a competitive upper limit of $m_1<0.0023$ eV (95% C.L.). We also formulate practical analytical bounds for $m_{2}$ and $m_{3}$ adaptable to future data, and translate the results into allowed ranges for the effective electron and Majorana
neutrino masses $m_{\nu_e}$ and $m_{\beta\beta}$. Finally, we show that
neutrino mass relations of the Gatto-Sartori-Tonin type emerge directly from the proposed integral representation.
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High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Gravitational-Wave Sky Mapping with Pulsar Timing Arrays: The Full Earth-Pulsar Response and Resolution Operational Regimes
S. A. Andrianov and S. M. Kopeikin
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are usually analyzed in the Earth-term approximation, although the exact response of an Earth–
pulsar baseline contains additional angular structure through the
pulsar term. We develop a tensor-spherical-harmonic framework for PTA sky mapping of a deterministic, band-limited gravitational-wave strain field, retaining the full Earth–
pulsar response. The single-baseline response is reduced to a compact analytical closed form involving two spherical Bessel functions. Its asymptotic analysis reveals four regimes: Earth-term dominance, transition,
pulsar-term dominance, and an effective diffraction cutoff at $l_\mathrm{cut}\simeq\omega L$. This scale characterizes the intrinsic exponential suppression of an individual baseline, while the practical angular resolution of a PTA is primarily governed by the finite number, sky distribution and timing noise of the
pulsars. Formulating PTA sky mapping as a linear inverse problem; we derive the associated Fisher information
matrix and construct an singular-value-decomposition-based reconstruction framework that explicitly separates observable and poorly constrained sky modes. The analysis clarifies the relationship between intrinsic detector resolution and array-sampling limitations and provides a quantitative assessment of the circumstances under which coherent
pulsar-term information becomes relevant for full-sky reconstruction. Idealized scaling arguments suggest that exploiting the transition/
pulsar-term-dominated regime in global sky mapping imposes a severe $\sim l^4$ penalty on the array size required to maintain uniform reconstruction fidelity at high multipoles. The formalism extends naturally to anisotropic
stochastic backgrounds and provides a unified framework for deterministic field reconstruction and angular-power anisotropy inference.
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Quantum Physics
Quantum Synchronization
Parvinder Solanki, Albert Cabot, Fernando Iemini et al. (+8 more)
Natural and engineered classical systems are replete with examples of synchronization, understood as the adjustment of rhythms of physical systems. Such synchronization is at the heart of the stability of several classical technologies, such as mechanical bridges and electrical networks. Given the advent of
quantum simulation and computation technologies, it is natural to study a
quantum analogue of synchronization and explore novel applications. This review surveys synchronization in few and many-body
quantum systems, measures that quantify them, and their applications to
quantum technologies.
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All authors Parvinder Solanki, Albert Cabot, Fernando Iemini, Federico Carollo, Midhun Krishna, Yeshma Ibrahim, Michal Hajdušek, Igor Lesanovsky, Rosario Fazio, Roberta Zambrini, Sai Vinjanampathy
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Refined parameters, formation, and dynamical stability of the wild exoplanet system K2-312=HD 80653
L. Naponiello, E. Poretti, K. Rice et al. (+24 more)
The architecture of planetary systems hosting ultra-short-period (USP)
planets is a key diagnostic for understanding formation and migration scenarios. The presence of outer
giant companions in these systems is of particular interest to test theories regarding dynamical effects and pebble
accretion. We present an extended radial velocity (RV) monitoring of the bright
star K2-312=HD80653, known to host a rocky USP super-Earth ($P_b=0.720$d). Previous studies identified a long-term trend and subsequently a Keplerian signal due to an outer highly eccentric
giant planet, K2-312c. We aim to refine the orbital parameters of K2-312c by precisely monitoring its periastron passage and to model the formation and dynamical
evolution of the system. We analyzed a set of 237 HARPS-N high-resolution spectra, extending the observation baseline of previous literature by almost 4 years. We performed a joint analysis of the RVs together with K2 and TESS photometry to refine the ephemerides and properties of the two
planets. To account for
stellar activity, we coupled the Keplerian models with a Gaussian processes regression. K2-312c is a cold Jupiter on a wide orbit (orbital period refined to $P_c=871.32$d), with a minimum mass of Msin(i)$\sim5 M_{Jup}$ and a refined eccentricity of $e_c \sim 0.85$. It is among the most eccentric cold Jupiters known in multi-
planet systems, and the only one that is highly eccentric and has a USP
planet companion. Our simulations suggest that
planet-
planet scattering between two
giant planets could have driven K2-312c to its current high eccentricity, ejected the other
giant, and still allowed for the survival of K2-312b. The extended observation baseline further allowed us to identify the
stellar rotation period and a long activity cycle, while a new K2 reduction improved the significance of the secondary eclipse detection for K2-312b.
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All authors L. Naponiello, E. Poretti, K. Rice, A. S. Bonomo, L. Malavolta, M. Stalport, A. Vanderburg, C. Ziegler, L. Affer, M. Cecconi, A. Collier Cameron, R. Cosentino, M. Damasso, X. Dumusque, Y. N. E. Eschen, A. Ghedina, D. W. Latham, M. López-Morales, T. Lu, A. Massa, A. Mortier, B. A. Nicholson, L. Palethorpe, F. A. Pepe, A. Sozzetti, S. Udry, T. G. Wilson
High Energy Physics (Experiment)
Towards anomaly detection searches for new physics signatures including Higgs bosons with weakly supervised machine learning
Chi Lung Cheng, Julia Gonski, Julie Khalilieh Romman et al. (+5 more)
The
Higgs boson, with its universal coupling to mass, provides a broadly applicable portal to sectors beyond the Standard Model and is therefore a natural anchor for anomaly detection (AD) at
collider experiments. The
Higgs And X Anomaly Detection (HAXAD) strategy offers a principled approach to searching for such anomalies occurring in association with a
Higgs boson by combining machine-learning-based feature
embedding, background estimation, and weakly supervised classification. This work extends the previous HAXAD approach towards the level of maturity required for application to recorded
collider data. A major addition is the introduction and comparison of two new
embedding strategies, which in turn shape the background estimation and classification. In addition, a new inference framework is developed, yielding signal-agnostic and signal-specific cross section limits and thereby completing the statistical machinery needed for future AD analyses built on HAXAD. The set of investigated signal models is also significantly expanded, allowing for the evaluation of sensitivity on a much broader phase space. Improvements to the method increase signal sensitivity with respect to the original method, and when benchmarked against an example cut-based search on the same final state, HAXAD matches or exceeds the best individual cut-based limits for a wide variety of considered signal models. These developments strengthen the case for HAXAD as a viable and compelling AD-based search strategy with novel discovery potential at
colliders.
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All authors Chi Lung Cheng, Julia Gonski, Julie Khalilieh Romman, Runze Li, Qibin Liu, Benjamin Nachman, Dennis Noll, Liangyu Wu
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Cross-listed from math.DG
A spacetime positive mass theorem with corners via mollification
Hyun Chul Jang and Aidan F. Wood
We prove a strict dominant energy deformation
theorem for asymptotically flat initial data with corners along a hypersurface $\Sigma$. The deformation preserves a corner condition on the Bartnik data across $\Sigma$. We show that if the dominant energy condition holds on each side of $\Sigma$ and the Bartnik data satisfy this corner condition, then the exterior end satisfies $E \ge |P|$ in every dimension $n \ge 3$.
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High Energy Physics (Experiment)
Dark matter searches with a 13 meV threshold superconducting sensor array
Christopher Albert, Lanqing Yuan, Jacob Harris et al. (+13 more)
Many well-motivated dark matter models predict meV-scale energy deposits in interactions with terrestrial experiments, but this regime is challenging to probe due to a lack of mature single-
quantum detectors. Here we report results from QUALIPHIDE (
QUAntum LImited
PHotons In the Dark Experiment), a cryogenic dark matter search using a $41$-pixel array of energy-resolving microwave kinetic inductance detectors with a $13$ meV threshold, simultaneously used to look for both conversion
photons from THz wavelength hidden
photon dark matter and
phonons from particle-like light dark matter interactions. The experimental design, with on- and off-focus pixels for the hidden
photon search, allows for a data-driven background model, giving the experiment discovery potential. A blind analysis of $22$ hours of data shows no significant excess, setting the strongest constraints on the hidden
photon kinetic mixing parameter $\chi$ over the mass range of $13$-$90$ meV/$c^2$, reaching $1.5\times10^{-12}$ at $50$ meV/$c^2$. These data also yield among the first terrestrial limits on dark matter scattering off
nuclei and electrons, down to $5$ MeV/$c^2$ and $20$ keV/$c^2$, respectively. The low threshold also enables future study of the low-energy excess limiting cryogenic detectors and, as we project, will allow for a terahertz-scale QCD
axion search with a
magnetic field.
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All authors Christopher Albert, Lanqing Yuan, Jacob Harris, Ritoban Basu Thakur, Andrew Bear, Karl K. Berggren, Christopher Cappiello, Christopher Curwen, Peter Day, Byeong H. Eom, Arjun Ghosh, William Ho, Nikita Klimovich, Henry G. LeDuc, Karthik Ramanathan, Alejandro Simon
Quantum Physics
SoK: Adversarial Robustness of the Variational Quantum Eigensolver via Red-Teaming
Ahmed Azaz Humdoon, Cheng Chu, Lei Jiang et al. (+2 more)
The Variational
Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) is a leading
algorithm for estimating molecular ground-state energies on near-term
quantum hardware, with applications spanning
quantum chemistry, materials science, and drug discovery. As VQE workloads are increasingly deployed through cloud-based “VQE-as-a-service” pipelines, they become exposed to adversaries such as compromised service components, malicious co-tenants, or insiders in the transpilation stack, any of which can corrupt results before they reach the user. A range of attacks on variational
quantum circuits has been proposed, but each has been studied in isolation: some on
quantum classifiers with accuracy-based metrics, others on variational
quantum algorithms with energy-error metrics. This lack of a common evaluation setup makes their relative severity difficult to compare and leaves the security of VQE poorly characterized. In this work, we present VQE-AdvBench, the first unified red-teaming
benchmark for the Variational
Quantum Eigensolver, systematizing these attacks under a single evaluation protocol to rigorously assess VQE's
adversarial robustness. We organize attacks along a black-, gray-, and white-box access taxonomy, and evaluate seven representative attack scenarios – the QTrojan
circuit backdoor, the QDoor parameter
backdoor, parameter-space adaptations of FGSM and PGD, and three QNBAD noise-induced variants – over a fixed molecule-ansatz-backend-metric configuration, on H$_2$ and H$_3^+$ across five noise-calibrated IBM backends. Our results reveal a clear severity ordering: noise-induced attacks that manipulate the Zero-Noise Extrapolation (ZNE) pipeline are the most damaging (up to 8.84$\times$ error amplification), followed by the QTrojan
circuit-level
backdoor (7.52$\times$), while the QDoor parameter-level
backdoor is the least effective, yielding only marginal amplification (up to 1.37$\times$).
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All authors Ahmed Azaz Humdoon, Cheng Chu, Lei Jiang, Qian Lou, Mengxin Zheng
Optics
Integration of hBN Single-Photon Emitters into a Hybrid Optomechanical Membrane-in-the-Middle Fiber-Cavity
Patrick Maier and Alexander Kubanek
The integration of membranes into optical resonators plays a key role in a variety of applications, including optomechanics. Membranes hosting single
photon emitters, ideally with access to
spin states, open new avenues in optomechanics,
spin-mechanics and
spin-optomechanics. Hexagonal boron nitride is among the most promising two-dimensional materials, showing excellent optical and mechanical properties combined with the ability to host optically active (
spin) defects. The deterministic creation of optically active defect centers in hexagonal boron nitride membranes and their coupling to optomechanical systems is an outstanding challenge. Here, we explore an alternative hybrid approach to establish coupling between a single
photon emitter in commercially available hexagonal boron nitride flakes and a fiber cavity mode. We address technical challenges, such as scattering losses arising from uncontrolled flake topography, and establish deterministic hexagonal boron nitride positioning on the cavity mirror. For the coupled system, we observe cavity-induced spectral enhancement by a factor of up to 100 at room temperature. We extend our work by positioning single
photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride flakes on a highly strained silicon nitride membrane in a membrane-in-the-middle configuration. The mechanical vibrational modes of the silicon nitride membrane and cavity-coupled emission from the single
photon emitter are simultaneously observed. Our work is a first step towards the realization of a cavity optomechanical platform with an incorporated single
photon emitter and provides a starting point to explore hybrid
spin-optomechanics.
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