Papers

We study how the interplay between nontrivial quantum geometry and an applied stripe potential affects superconductivity in a two-dimensional single-flavor metal. Assuming a weak contact attractive interaction and focusing on the lowest subband in the presence of a strong stripe potential, we analytically derive two possible pairing states in the quasi-one-dimensional limit. In addition to the conventional longitudinal $p_y$-wave order (with the stripes along the $y$ direction), we find that an exotic transverse $p_x$-wave order can be stabilized. The competition between these two orders is controlled by the electron density of each stripe and the Berry-curvature-dressed interaction. Notably, the transverse $p_x$ wave order develops a nodal line at $k_x=0$, while the longitudinal $p_y$ order is fully gapped. We discuss the possible experimental probes distinguishing these orders. Our results establish a way of controlling the pairing symmetry through a stripe potential, predicting superconductivity with nontrivial quantum geometry.

Population studies of gas-rich galaxies across the full range of Neutral Hydrogen (HI) masses that galaxies are known to exhibit ($10^5 \lesssim M_{\mathrm{HI}} \lesssim 10^{11} M_{\odot}$) remain limited by the need to conduct high-sensitivity, wide-band surveys across significant sky areas. The Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD) is a next-generation radio telescope that will significantly expand the census of HI-galaxies to date from untargeted drift-scan surveys at declinations $+20^{\circ} < \delta < +80^{\circ}$. We draw survey realizations from a known HI mass function (HIMF) to forecast HI detections in fiducial 1-year and 5-year CHORD surveys. The 5-year survey source counts is expected exceed currently available catalogs by roughly an order of magnitude, notwithstanding the potential impacts of radio frequency interference (RFI) and spectroscopic source confusion that we also estimate. We predict that CHORD will push the low-mass HI galaxy census to $M_{\mathrm{HI}} \sim 10^{5.5} M_{\odot}$, over an order of magnitude lower than has been previously achieved. At the high mass end of the HIMF, CHORD is expected to detect $\sim10^{3}$ massive gas-rich giants ($M_{\mathrm{HI}} \gtrsim 10^{10.5}\, M_{\odot}$) at $0.3 \lesssim z \lesssim 0.5$, which will explore the evolution of this population relative to local universe estimates. CHORD HI surveys will therefore improve our understanding of the neutral gas reservoirs at the low-mass and high-mass extremes of the galaxy population.

This paper argues that the geometry-first and symmetry-first formulations of gauge theory are not equivalent. They differ in three respects. First, the geometry-first formulation—in which gauge groups arise as automorphism groups of structured fundamental vector bundles—admits fewer theories when its generating structures are restricted to finite tensorial data. Charged theories with additive structure group $\mathbb{R}$ have no such presentation. Second, even when a symmetry-first theory has a geometry-first presentation, its principal bundle and matter bundles do not determine which structured vector bundles generated the gauge group. Third, the natural functor from geometry-first generating objects to principal bundles with matter is faithful but neither essentially surjective nor full. Essential surjectivity fails for the diagonal quotient of the Standard Model gauge group on what I call `the classical menu', and for the additive-$\mathbb{R}$ examples on every finite tensorial menu. Fullness fails for a real oriented fibre $\mathbb{R}^{2m}$: the principal-bundle category admits the outer automorphism of $SO(2m)$ induced by an improper orthogonal map, but no structure-preserving fibre map induces it.

Here I present a simple and efficient method for generating a disk-averaged planetary spectrum. The technique uses a weighted average of component spectra generated on an irregular grid of offsets from the planet center. This accounts for variations in center to limb brightness and emission from beyond the limb, which is important for bodies with extended atmospheres such as Saturn's moon Titan. The method assumes spherically symmetric emission and requires a grid of component spectra fine enough to faithfully capture radial radiance variations. An example application to Titan's 7.7 $\mu$m methane emission demonstrates the method.

We study the island formula and Page curve for the asymptotically flat eternal and quasi-stationary evaporating black hole solutions within the dimensionally reduced Einstein-Hilbert (DREH) model. In this model, the four-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert action reduces to a two-dimensional dilaton gravity, on top of which the quantum corrections can be incorporated via the Polyakov-Liouville (PL) action for a two-dimensional conformal field theory with a large central charge $c$. This gravity model arises from the s-wave approximation of four-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert gravity and provides a fully gravitational setting in which we study the islands, i.e., we will not require a non-gravitational bath region to collect the radiation, instead it lives in the black hole spacetime itself. The fine-grained entropy of Hawking radiation in the eternal and evaporating black holes within the DREH model was derived using the island rule in \cite{djordjevic2022eternal, djordevic2025evaporating}. The island rule is based on the replica method using the Euclidean gravitational path integral. In this work, we complement the Euclidean approach by providing a Lorentzian prescription for the generalized entropy $S_{\text{gen}}$, in the island formula without invoking the replica trick to compute $S_{\text{gen}}$. The generalized entropy is shown to coincide with Wald-like Noether charge of the combined DREH-PL action. Using this generalized entropy, we determine the quantum extremal surface, the Page time, and the Page curve for the eternal and the evaporating black hole. We conclude with a discussion of the possible extension to the full four-dimensional geometry incorporating vacuum polarization corrections.

We present a lattice-based kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) framework for simulating GaN(0001) growth by molecular beam epitaxy. The framework captures the key microscopic processes governing epitaxial growth, including temperature-dependent surface diffusion, flux-driven deposition, Ehrlich–Schwoebel (ES) step-edge barriers, Ostwald ripening, and species-specific desorption, within a scalable architecture that enables systematic exploration of experimentally relevant growth conditions. In addition to predefined activation-energy catalogs, the framework supports adaptive on-the-fly barrier evaluation using machine-learned interatomic potentials. When previously unencountered local atomic configurations arise, activation barriers are computed via nudged elastic band, potential energy scans, or Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi methods, and cached for reuse. Predefined-barrier simulations reproduce compact triangular island formation, and further capture Ostwald ripening during growth interruptions and ES barrier-induced multilayer nucleation. At elevated temperatures, desorption drives an island “walking” regime, in which N–Ga exchange generates weakly bound Ga adatoms (AdGa) at trailing edges; preferential desorption of AdGa leads to asymmetric edge retreat and net island translation. Our KMC framework provides a flexible platform for predictive simulations of GaN epitaxy at the atomic scale and, more broadly, non-equilibrium growth of compound semiconductors.

Neutrino oscillations establish that neutrinos are massive, providing the only laboratory detection of physics beyond the Standard Model. Direct kinematic experiments bound the electron-neutrino mass to $m_{\nu_e} < 0.45$ eV (KATRIN, 90% CL), implying $\sum m_\nu \lesssim 1.3$ eV. Conversely, cosmology within $\Lambda$CDM is highly constraining: Planck CMB, CMB lensing, and DESI DR2 BAO yield $\sum m_\nu < 0.056$ eV (95% CL), in 2-3$\sigma$ tension with the inverted-ordering floor (0.10 eV). However, this bound relies on $\Lambda$CDM, while data hint at an evolving dark energy. To determine the model dependence of cosmic neutrino mass bounds, we deconstruct each probe's sensitivity to late-time physics and pursue two robust routes to a $\sum m_\nu$ bound: (i) The existing dark-energy-marginalized route, retaining all data and marginalizing over $(w_0, w_a)$, is shown to also be immune to flexible binned and cubic $w(a)$ histories, yielding $\sum m_\nu < 0.152$ eV, sharpening to $\sigma(\sum m_\nu) \approx 0.043$ eV with Simons Observatory lensing and Spec-S5 BAO. (ii) A new late-Universe-free route combines primary CMB, marginalizing over acoustic-peak smoothing via $A_{\rm lens}$, with the reconstructed lensing spectrum $C_L^{\kappa\kappa}$, removing late-time expansion dependence by construction. This yields $\sum m_\nu < 0.41$ eV today, tightening to 0.31 eV (Simons Observatory) and 0.28 eV (cosmic-variance limit) across all tested dark-energy models. These relaxed bounds trade statistical power for model independence. Interestingly, they land in the sensitivity range targeted by next-generation laboratory experiments like Project 8 ($m_{\nu_e} \sim 0.1$ eV), motivating vital synergies between future cosmological and terrestrial neutrino measurements.

Although anyon condensation is a standard mechanism for relating topological orders, anyon condensation in symmetry-enriched topological (SET) phases is more intricate because the condensate must also be compatible with the global symmetry. We study symmetry-preserving anyon condensation in SET phases described by the enlarged Hu-Geer-Wu (HGW) string-net model with multifusion-category input data. We show that a $G$-preserving condensation is characterized by a compatible grading of the input multifusion category, and that this grading constructs the multifusion-category input of the child SET phase. To make this construction concrete, we consider the case where the relevant data come from a finite group extension $E$ of $G$ by $N$: an $E$-graded fusion category induces a $G$-SET input by passing to the quotient symmetry $G$, and the resulting input naturally carries a compatible $N$-grading that implements the further condensation inside the SET phase while preserving $G$. We illustrate the construction using three quantum-double examples: the trivial extension $\mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2$, the non-Abelian semidirect product $S_3$, and the nontrivial central extension $\mathbb{Z}_4$. The $\mathbb{Z}_4$ example further shows that symmetry fractionalized anyons do not obstruct symmetry-preserving condensation once the condensate is treated as a physical coherent state.

Here we analyze the creation of quantum simulacra: phenomena that emerge from treating a Hermitian or non-Hermitian quantum system in metrics other than the standard $L^{2}$. Changing the metric redefines the set of system observables and thus the experimental arrangement for their measurement, making quantum contextuality and microscopic reality metric-dependent. The simulacra therefore consist, on the one hand, of a resizing of the status of quantum measurement, which has always occupied a central role in quantum mechanics: beyond the connection between quantum and classical dynamics, measurements performed in an appropriate metric can emulate a microscopic reality distinct from that prescribed by the Hamiltonian. On the other hand, simulacra provide a route to implementing quantum operations that lie beyond the reach of the $L^2$ metric. Quantum simulacra offer, as an example, an explanation for the recent observation of the violation of Bell inequalities with unentangled photons [Sci. Adv. 11, eadr1794 (2025)]: photons that are separable in $L^2$ metric, become entangled when analyzed within a new metric framework. Simulacrum comes at the cost of implementing measurements of the metric-redefined observables; to address this challenge, we propose a scheme combining positive operator-valued measures with postselected subensembles.

High-contrast imaging of Solar System scale exoplanets and protoplanets demands advancements in instrumentation to access deeper starlight suppression at smaller angular separations than today's state-of-the-art. The multi-mode to single-mode conversion capabilities of photonic lanterns (PLs) provide new avenues to implement techniques such as nulling interferometry due to the inherent spatial filtering of single-mode waveguides. In this work, we present laboratory results on an all-fiber-based focal plane nulling interferometer using off-the-shelf components operating at 1550 nm. We demonstrate the implementation of a PL for coupling light into the instrument, and compare it to the case when laser light is directly fed into the interferometer. The integration of a PL with the interferometer evidences their potential for feeding photonic-based science instruments. Additionally, we discuss expanding the concept of the instrument for the detection of accreting protoplanets.

We consider a cosmological first-order phase transition in which bubbles of true vacuum nucleate during inflation but do not collide and percolate until the Universe has entered the radiation-dominated era. If the collisions take place soon after the end of inflation, the size of these bubbles can be significantly greater than the Hubble length. This has two important consequences for the gravitational waves produced by the bubble collisions: First, as the peak frequency is determined by the comoving bubble radius, it can be well below the MHz frequencies typical for bubble collisions at the end of inflation. Second, when comparing collisions beginning at the same time, the amplitude of the gravitational waves is greatly enhanced relative to Hubble-sized and smaller bubbles. Together, these two effects mean that gravitational waves produced by super-Hubble bubbles soon after the end of inflation can be within the observable frequency and amplitude ranges of LIGO and NANOGrav, as well as LISA and other future gravitational wave experiments. We demonstrate this with a simple illustrative model.

Thermally driven atmospheric escape, including photo-evaporation and core-powered mass-loss, plays a key role in shaping the evolution of close-in exoplanets, yet most current models rely on simplified one-dimensional descriptions of atmospheric escape. In this work, we perform 3D hydrodynamic simulations of atmospheric outflows from a Jupiter-sized planet embedded in the gravitational potential of a solar-type host star, and compare these results with 1D models to identify the regimes where they perform well and where they break down. We explore a range of configurations by varying the degree of Roche-lobe filling and the thermal state of the outflow. We find that systems with weak tidal influence and high-temperature winds produce nearly spherical and isotropic outflows, whereas more Roche-lobe-filling and cooler winds develop strong anisotropy and form two-tailed structures. We show that the commonly used 1D Parker wind model performs well only in the weak-tides regime, while including tidal corrections yields reasonable estimates of mass-loss rates and captures the mean radial density profile across all regimes, but fails to reproduce the intrinsically three-dimensional, angle-dependent nature of the flow as the outflow transitions from spherical to tidally structured tails. Motivated by these results, we develop a physically informed Mixture Model, calibrated using our 3D simulations, that accurately predicts mass-loss rates across the parameter space explored and outperforms 1D model with tidal corrections.

Passive linear optics is a restricted model of quantum computation, with complexity-theoretic evidence of quantum advantage for sampling tasks and low losses that make it attractive for near-term algorithms. In qubit architectures, a body of work has revealed a close connection between barren plateaus and classical simulability. Whether an analogous tradeoff exists for bosonic systems remains largely unexplored. Building on a recently developed representation-theoretic framework for moments of random passive linear-optical circuits, we characterize the concentration of expectation values for relevant families of particle-number-preserving observables by evaluating their projections into irreducible representations of the unitary group and analyzing their asymptotic scaling. We show that concentration is governed by the misalignment of the projections into irreducible representations of the input state and the observable, giving a unified representation-theoretic interpretation of generalized entanglement and locality in the bosonic setting. We further relate these concentration properties to existing classical simulation techniques, identifying broad classes of trainable observables that admit efficient classical simulation. Conversely, we identify Fock-state inputs and observables that appear to evade exponential concentration while retaining a polynomially large signal component not accessible to known efficient classical simulation methods. The separation is only partial: most of the signal remains classically tractable, and the residual part, while not exponentially suppressed, is small enough that a truncation serves as a classical surrogate with polynomially small error. Our framework nonetheless provides a systematic route for searching for regimes that unambiguously combine the absence of exponential concentration and lies beyond known efficient classical simulation methods.

Optimal control problems arise in a wide range of scientific disciplines, but the corresponding optimization algorithms often display a strong dependence on hyperparameters that significantly influence performance and convergence. For the optimal implementation of quantum algorithms, these challenges are further amplified by high-dimensional control landscapes and the need for high-fidelity operations. Here, we propose an algorithm for optimal control problems in quantum computing to efficiently generate high-fidelity control protocols for multi-qubit systems in a hyperparameter and gradient free manner. The method, referred to as Pulse Engineering via Projection of response functions at infinite nonlinear order (PEPRino), leverages the framework of response theory to navigate the control landscape to find high-fidelity implementations. This is achieved by determining the control landscape via response functions to infinite order, efficiently evaluated by resummation in terms of the first and second order response function. To demonstrate the approach, we apply it to quantum systems consisting of two and three qubits for the optimal implementation of the Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT). We benchmark the proposed algorithm against the Chopped Random Basis (CRAB) algorithm utilizing the Nelder-Mead method, focusing on the 2-qubit scenario. The results indicate faster convergence regarding iteration steps and computational time, highlighting the advantages of our approach.

We revisit the derivation of the diffraction integral, which is an approximate evaluation of the Kirchhoff integral, widely used in the literature for phenomenological applications in gravitational lensing. We propose a systematic approach to evaluate the Kirchhoff integral within a beyond-eikonal expansion, carefully tracking all approximations involved in its standard derivation. In this framework, we recover the usual diffraction integral as the leading contribution, together with a correction term that is typically small in realistic lensing scenarios. We further show that our evaluation of the Kirchhoff integral is equivalent to a beyond-eikonal expansion of wave propagation, after summing over all geometric-optics images. This result clarifies the physical origin of diffraction in gravitational lensing and demonstrates that diffraction effects and beyond-eikonal corrections are not distinct phenomena, but rather different but equivalent descriptions of the same underlying physics.

Variational quantum algorithms offer a promising route to combinatorial optimization, but their applicability is limited by the challenge of encoding large-scale problems within restricted qubit resources. In this work, we introduce a qubit-efficient variational framework based on Pauli correlation encoding (PCE) and apply it to electric power demand portfolio optimization. Binary variables are represented through expectation values of Pauli correlation operators, which encode multi-body correlations of the quantum state and provide a continuous relaxation enabling compact representations with few qubits. We further propose a two-stage hybrid formulation, in which a time-averaged problem provides initialization for a time-resolved optimization. Numerical simulations demonstrate near-optimal performance across problem sizes ranging from $m=18$ to $10{,}296$, with normalized cost gaps on the order of $10^{-4}$ relative to solutions with certified optimality. We show that the performance is governed by the interplay between continuous relaxation and discretization: the effective resolution of the correlator representation determines how reliably improvements in the continuous loss translate into better discrete solutions, with larger systems exhibiting more consistent behavior. Finally, we demonstrate robustness on a trapped-ion quantum processor, where high-quality solutions are obtained despite noise and finite sampling. These results establish PCE as a physically motivated and qubit-efficient framework for large-scale combinatorial optimization.

Using stimulated emission, a photon pair source can be characterized by seeding the signal mode with a bright classical beam and measuring the stimulated idler field, thus replacing two-photon coincidence counting with classical intensity detection. We apply this approach to the continuous transverse spatial degrees of freedom of a down conversion source and show that it is possible to certify spatial entanglement with only intensity measurements. We demonstrate this capability through variance-based entanglement and steering witnesses, as well as the Fedorov ratio. This method is useful for studying entanglement properties of photon pair sources in conditions where alignment and photon counting measurements are difficult and time-consuming.

The “butterfly effect”, introduced over half a century ago by Edward Lorenz, has shifted from a cornerstone of dynamical systems to a popular metaphor, yet its true physical manifestation in fully developed turbulence spans a spectrum of phenomena from standard sensitivity on initial conditions to the recently established concept of Eulerian spontaneous stochasticity. Here, we propose an attempt at a systematic synthesis that brings these different but interconnected ideas together within the unifying framework of the Finite Size Lyapunov Exponent (FSLE). The FSLE describes the growth rate of perturbations as a function of their scale, enabling a comprehensive characterization of the multiscale physics of turbulent flows. Using the FSLE and the Sabra shell model, extended to include thermal noise, we bridge the classical, small-scale Lyapunov regime with predictability at large scales and its interpretation in terms of Eulerian spontaneous stochasticity. Moreover, using the FSLE and the Kraichnan model, we also illustrate the closely related phenomenon of Lagrangian spontaneous stochasticity. To complete the spectrum of butterfly effects, we also examine the “literal butterfly” scenario of localized, sub-dissipative perturbations.

Trapped-ion quantum computers rely on shuttling compilers, which cast an input algorithm into a sequence of ion-qubit movements within a given architecture. We present the first study in which a single frontier large language model (LLM), Claude Opus 4.7, generates and iteratively refines the Python code of shuttling compilers from written specifications. Starting with a compiler for (i) a linear segmented trap, we extend it to (ii) a trap with junctions, and finally achieve efficient compilation for (iii) a broad class of connected trap graphs. The compilers for the more general cases are seeded with code from the previous ones. We benchmark the LLM-generated compilers against state-of-the-art hand-crafted ones using a common suite of quantum circuits. The number of shuttling timesteps is reduced by up to 72% for (i) and up to 43% for (ii). For the broad case (iii) of freely connected architectures, we find large variations in the required number of shuttling timesteps, depending on the connectivity. A densely connected, junction-rich architecture yields up to an order-of-magnitude reduction in shuttling timesteps compared to a corridor-like one. Repeating the complete generation and evaluation with a second frontier LLM, Claude Fable 5, reproduces these findings, with the Fable 5 compilers surpassing the hand-crafted ones more often on the largest circuits. Our results show that an unmodified frontier LLM can produce working, correct, and competitive shuttling compilers without additional manual algorithmic engineering. Generating compilers this way reduces the development time for new architectures from several months to a few days.

Supergranulation is a dominant scale of near-surface solar convection and an important diagnostic for studying the interaction between convective flows, rotation, and magnetic activity. We develop an automated framework to identify and characterize supergranular structures using subsurface horizontal-velocity maps inferred from time-distance helioseismology. The method applies Laplacian-of-Gaussian detection to horizontal velocity divergence maps and combines it with magnetic-field masking, divergence-based filtering, and multi-peak rejection to isolate supergranular cells under both quiet-Sun and active conditions. Using this approach, we analyze 16 years of SDO/HMI observations spanning Solar Cycles 24 and 25 and investigate temporal and latitudinal variations of supergranular properties. The results reveal a clear solar-cycle dependence: the mean supergranular diameter decreases near solar maxima and increases around solar minima, with systematically larger supergranules in the weaker Solar Cycle 24 than in the stronger Solar Cycle 25. The width of the diameter distribution increases during high magnetic activity, whereas the number of detected supergranules shows only weak cycle dependence. The mean velocity divergence within detected supergranules is strongly anticorrelated with sunspot number, indicating magnetic suppression of divergent convective flows. Time-latitude distributions of supergranular diameter and divergence closely follow the migration of solar activity belts, while the curl of the horizontal velocity shows weak cycle dependence but pronounced hemispheric asymmetry. These results establish supergranulation as a sensitive tracer of solar-cycle-related changes in near-surface convection.

Quantum resource testing is a fundamental primitive of quantum information processing, profoundly connected to resource manipulation. Its goal is to discriminate $n$ copies of a given resourceful state $\rho$ from all free (i.e., resourceless) states; key instances for applications are entanglement testing and quantum magic testing. The asymptotic characterisation relies on the recently proven Generalised Quantum Stein's Lemma (GQSL), which establishes the rate of decay of the false negative error probability for a fixed false positive error probability. This result, however, is intrinsically asymptotic and thus can provide no finite-resource guarantees, which makes its practical implications unclear. Here, we establish the first rigorous finite-$n$ bounds on quantum resource testing and hence quantum resource manipulation, thus strengthening the GQSL and providing explicit estimates on the number of copies needed to achieve a prescribed performance. As notable consequences, we obtain (a) the convergence of the regularised Rényi relative entropies of a resource, which settles the important open problem from [Fang/Hayashi, arXiv:2508.12901, IEEE ToIT 72:6, 2026]; and (b) the first sample-complexity bound for asymmetric resource testing: for any fixed false positive error probability, a false negative error probability of at most $\delta$ can be achieved with $n=O\left(\frac{\log(1/\delta)}{D^\infty(\rho\|\mathcal F)}\right)$ copies of $\rho$, in the limit where $\delta \to 0$.

We previously constructed closed embeddings of Kac-Moody affine Grassmannian slices using fundamental monopole operators. These spaces are defined via the Braverman-Finkelberg-Nakajima construction of Coulomb branches for quiver gauge theories, and the embeddings do not quantize in general. However, there is variant of the BFN construction that produces zastava spaces, and we show that the closed embeddings do quantize in that case. This allows us to take a limit and construct the limit quantized zastava $\mathcal{A}$ for an arbitrary quiver. This algebra plays the role of the Borel Yangian. We also construct a positive part $\mathcal{A}^+$, which plays the role of the unipotent Yangian. By taking the limit of the monopole formula, we show that both $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{A}^+$ have Hilbert series given by a version for Hua's formula for Kac polynomials. We also show that $\mathcal{A}^+$ is isomorphic to a certain shuffle algebra. Finally, using these results we obtain a proof of Negut's conjecture on the spherical generation of localized shuffle algebras via the second author's work on generators of Coulomb branches.

We present an analytical parametrization of the non-perturbative transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) parton distribution function of unpolarized quarks, extracted from Drell-Yan data using a combination of neural-network fitting and symbolic regression. A factorized neural network is trained directly against experimental cross-section data from fixed-target, Tevatron, RHIC, and LHC experiments at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, and symbolic regression is subsequently applied to each network component to discover compact analytical expressions. The final formula is selected from a Pareto front in the space of expression complexity and experimental $\chi^2$, yielding a closed-form non-perturbative function with 9 free numerical constants that achieves $\chi^2/\mathrm{ndf}=1.040$ over 482 data points. A non-trivial $x$-$b_T$ cross term is retained even under a sparsity prior that biases it toward zero, indicating a mild but genuine correlation between the longitudinal momentum fraction and the transverse momentum. This work demonstrates that symbolic regression is a viable tool for bridging flexible machine-learning fits and interpretable analytical TMD parametrizations, and opens a systematic path toward data-driven discovery of specific features of non-perturbative QCD.

Spread your thumb and index finger in the air, and a virtual lamp in the room changes color. Computer simulations have a long and well-documented record of supporting physics learning. They can support the understanding of abstract physical concepts by making them interactive and by inviting students to play with parameters and explore them. In this paper, we show how a structured natural-language prompt can generate a browser-based, hand-controlled augmented-reality (AR) physics simulation, and we describe its use in an introductory physics class.

A derangetropy operator reweighs a probability density by a fixed profile of its own cumulative distribution function, acting through ranks alone. We prove that these operators are precisely the transformations of absolutely continuous laws equivariant under monotone changes of variable, and that they compose through interval maps, making their dynamics exactly solvable: iteration condenses every law onto its median with a universal Koenigs limit law, the continuous flow is solvable in closed form with the Cauchy family as invariant hyperbolic manifold, and balanced against diffusion the distribution function obeys an overdamped sine-Gordon equation whose unique steady law, the hyperbolic secant, is a globally stable kink. A variational principle selects the canonical kernel, the squared ground state of the Dirichlet Laplacian on the unit interval, whose update is a Bayesian posterior costing exactly one bit for every law, and a unitary lift equips each law with an isospectral Sturm-Liouville system and a quantum carpet: a strong law of large numbers for the critical Sobolev mass, with sharp constant given by Wiener's jump statistic, proves the fractality of the Schrödinger density for arbitrary real bounded-variation data with a jump, previously known only for rational step data. A lift to the dual of the Virasoro algebra, at central charge one, a normalization, identifies laws with disconjugate Hill potentials, tails with conformal weights, and the Cauchy family with the exceptional orbit. Randomized phases yield an exact sampler and a multiplicative chaos, log-correlated in the weakly tempered regime; in several dimensions, dependence stratifies into a conserved interaction, a torsion driven by maximal correlation, and a flat Sinkhorn transport.

Any algorithm execution on quantum computers requires several repeated and costly executions (known as shots) to obtain reliable results. In this work, we propose a closed-form accurate analytical expression to determine optimal number of shots required for reliable execution of any algorithm on a quantum computer. We also present a theoretically grounded technique to distribute fixed shot budget across different partitions in a quantum circuit minimizing the total error. Our proposed analytical model helps to reduce the shots associated with reliable execution of quantum algorithms by about 58% compared to current practice, in turn reducing the energy consumption by upto 62%. Furthermore, our proposed optimal shot allocation technique across different partitions reduces total error by up to 73% compared to conventional approaches.

We establish a connection between Hardy's paradox and nonlocality sharing in sequential bipartite scenarios, where each subsystem is measured in turn by a chain of observers. We show that any correlations exhibiting a Hardy paradox in the two-input two-output scenario enable sequential violations of the CHSH inequality between arbitrarily many pairs of observers, using only projective measurements and the assistance of a small local ancilla system. Since almost all pure entangled states, with the only exception of the maximally entangled one, admit Hardy correlations, our protocol applies generically: almost all pure entangled states, if assisted by a local ancilla, allow for nonlocality sharing between arbitrarily many observer pairs using only projective measurements.

We propose a geometric cosmological probe: the nodal line of the anisotropic galaxy correlation function — the locus in the plane where the function changes sign. Because the nodal line depends only on this sign, it is invariant under any amplitude rescaling, and its information is mostly independent of and complementary to BAO. In a proof-of-concept analysis of DESI DR1 galaxies, the nodal line constrains $\Omega_m h^{3/2}$ to 3% at fixed galaxy bias, degrading to 4.8% under a 10% prior. Combined with BAO, it yields a 4.45% sound-horizon-free constraint on $H_0$.

Quantum communication is ruled out when an eavesdropper can reconstruct the receiver's state. Yet states are operationally specified by measurement statistics, raising a sharper question: can access to every expectation value destroy communication? We show that it can. We call unbiased, variance-nonincreasing reconstruction under arbitrary reference extensions complete observable shadowing and prove that it forces unassisted private and quantum capacities to vanish. An explicit qutrit channel realizes this mechanism while being neither antidegradable nor PPT, resolving the long-standing questions of whether quantum capacity can vanish outside those two classes and whether antidegradability is the only route to zero private capacity. Notably, it superactivates every finite-dimensional channel with zero quantum but positive private capacity. Statistical access can therefore preclude standalone communication without erasing latent coherent utility.

Fluctuation theorems for work provide universal constraints on nonequilibrium fluctuations, yet their quantum generalizations often rely on externally prescribed classical driving protocols. While for classical systems, fluctuation theorems have been extended to autonomous work, where the dynamics of the work source is subject to the backaction of the system, their generalization to the quantum regime is constrained by the uncertainty principle. Here, we extend fluctuation theorems for autonomous work from the classical regime to the quantum regime. By performing successive projective measurements over the work source and the system, we derive Jarzynski-type and Crooks-type fluctuation theorems for autonomous inclusive work from initial mixed thermal states. These relations are analogous to fluctuation theorems for autonomous work in the classical regime and explicitly incorporate the fluctuations of the work source. However, quantum noncommutativity prevents a consistent reduction to the nonautonomous counterparts, even in the limit of a large work source and correspondingly negligible backaction. By contrast, under the exclusive work definition, the nonautonomous limit is recovered when the measured observable of the work source commutes with its bare Hamiltonian and the backaction of the system on the work source is negligible. Our results are illustrated with the Dicke model, where a single-mode radiation field and an ensemble of two-level atoms act as the system of interest and the work source, respectively.