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Tuesday 4 August

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Bianchi-Type Black Holes in Higher-Dimensional $R^2$ Gravity

Seçil Şentorun

In this study, we investigate higher-dimensional static and stationary Bianchi-type solutions in an $R^2$ gravity theory using the formalism of exterior differential forms. We construct a broad class of exact higher-dimensional Bianchi-type solutions in an $R^{2}$-corrected gravity theory. It is shown that the theory admits hyperscaling violating black hole solutions associated with homogeneous but anisotropic horizon geometries, encompassing both static and stationary configurations. We further analyze some thermodynamic properties of these backgrounds and demonstrate that higher-curvature corrections give rise to unconventional features. In particular, we show that within the critical sector, the solutions possess a finite Hawking temperature despite an identically vanishing Wald entropy, signaling an unusual thermodynamic regime. These configurations arise at the critical point of the theory, where the effective gravitational coupling vanishes and the space of admissible constant-curvature geometries is enlarged.
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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Thermodynamic Supercriticality and Complex Phase Diagram for Charged AdS Black Holes in Trace Anomaly Gravity

Minyan Ou, Xiangdong Zhang and Zhang-Yu Nie

We extend the Lee-Yang phase transition framework to charged anti-de Sitter (AdS) black holes in four-dimensional trace anomaly gravity. By treating the horizon radius as a complex variable, we derive a fully resolved complex phase diagram that uncovers novel supercritical phenomena within this modified gravity setting. Relative to the standard Reissner-Nordström-AdS black hole, the trace anomaly shifts the location of the critical point: for a representative set of anomaly parameters, both the critical pressure and critical temperature are suppressed. The Widom line is rigorously identified as the projection of the complex Lee-Yang zeros onto the real physical phase plane, a trajectory that demarcates the small-black-hole-like and large-black-hole-like phases throughout the supercritical regime. We also independently recover this same Widom line via the thermodynamic response function method, demonstrating that the two definitions are in excellent quantitative agreement in the near-critical region and share identical universal scaling behavior. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a smooth, continuous crossover across the Widom line as probed by thermodynamic response functions–a behavior fundamentally distinct from the discontinuous first-order phase transitions that occur below the critical point. These results offer new, physically concrete insights into the thermodynamics of quantum-corrected black holes.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Cross-listed from cs.CV

Real-time physics inversion for retrieval of sub-pixel wildfire temperatures from VSWIR imaging spectroscopy

William R. Keely, Philip G. Brodrick, Katherine Mistick et al. (+3 more)

In this work, we present a wildfire temperature retrieval framework for VSWIR imaging spectroscopy data, employed on data from NASA's Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-3). The retrieval framework utilizes a full-physics approach in which a forward model is employed to resolve both solar and emitted radiance derived from a temperature distribution and utilizes the full spectral range in the residual fit. To optimize the forward model retrieval, we use state-of-the-art nonlinear least squares methods implemented for fast convergence on the on-board GPU, allowing for estimation of effective fire temperature within flight cadence. We verify the forward model assumptions on simulated spectra with an injected thermal signature and find good agreement with an RMSE of $41.8$ Kelvin (K). We apply the retrieval over the full 2025 FireSense AVIRIS-3 campaign, totaling 168 overflights with probable active fire spectra, and demonstrate a residual radiance fit of $\leq 10\%$ across bands in the short-wave infrared (SWIR). Lastly, we verify the applicability of the retrieved posterior fire temperature parameters to generalize to space-borne imaging spectrometers such as EMIT, by retrieving at coarsened spatial resolution. We find that the posterior distribution exhibits good coverage of the underlying sub-pixel temperature range with an absolute error of $30$ K across quantiles and a mean absolute error of $27.16$ K between spatial resolutions.
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All authors William R. Keely, Philip G. Brodrick, Katherine Mistick, Adam Chlus, Robert O. Green, Philip E. Dennison

Quantum Physics

Local Uniqueness of the Born Rule on Categories with Complex-Weighted Morphisms

Tayfun Ustun

I prove a local uniqueness theorem for the Born rule in the setting of quiver-generated categories equipped with complex morphism weights and path-amplitude probability functionals. Given (i) non-negativity, (ii) invariance of bounded total degree, (iii) global U(1) invariance, (iv) classical-limit additivity over mutually exclusive paths, and (v) normalization, I show that the probability assignment P: C -> R>=0 is uniquely determined to be P(z) = |z|^2. The notion of mutually exclusive paths is given a precise categorical formulation as the absence of a shared factorization through any common morphism. I relate the result to reconstructions of quantum probability due to Gleason, Hardy, Chiribella-D'Ariano-Perinotti, and several further, more recent reconstructions, and identify the extension to global coherence under morphism composition as an open problem connected to synthetic probability theory in Markov categories. The Born rule emerges as the unique locally consistent probability law on complex amplitudes, fixed by phase invariance and classical-limit behavior together with polynomiality and normalization, independent of any Hilbert-space framework.
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Materials Science

Electron correlation in semiconductors and insulators via symbolic regression

Nick Pant, Viet-Anh Ha, Donghwan Kim et al. (+1 more)

Predicting quasiparticle energies in materials requires expensive numerical evaluations of the electron self-energy. This limits calculations to ordered systems with small unit cells. Here, using symbolic regression, we show that the GW self-energy can be accurately approximated with compact analytical functions of physically motivated Kohn-Sham descriptors. These expressions can be learned from a single GW calculation in the ordered phase and remain accurate under symmetry breaking induced by quantum and thermal fluctuations, elastic deformations, and amorphous disorder. This development enables routine GW calculations of complex materials with thousands of atoms at a computational cost comparable to semi-local density functional theory. We demonstrate the accuracy of this approach for covalent semiconductors, ionic insulators, and two-dimensional materials. These results establish symbolic regression as a viable route to predictive, interpretable, and transferable many-body electronic structure models.
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All authors Nick Pant, Viet-Anh Ha, Donghwan Kim, Feliciano Giustino

Quantum Physics

Measurement-based simulation of lattice gauge theory dynamics with adaptive quantum circuits on a trapped-ion processor

Hiroki Sukeno, Enrico Rinaldi and Takuya Okuda

Measurement-based quantum simulation (MBQS)—a recently proposed architecture for simulating lattice gauge theories—implements Hamiltonian dynamics by consuming a model-specific entangled resource state with adaptive mid-circuit measurements, rather than by a gate-based circuit. The local constraints in lattice gauge theories are mirrored by the higher-form symmetries of the resource state. Here we report, to our knowledge, the first experimental realization of MBQS of real-time dynamics in the $(2+1)$-dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory using the Quantinuum System Model H2 trapped-ion processor. We observe coherent evolution of gauge-invariant observables on $2\times2$ and $3\times3$ spatial lattices, consuming virtual three-dimensional cluster states of 200 and 288 resource-state qubits that are generated from instantaneous blocks of 48 and 54 qubits within the 56-qubit register by measurement, reset, and re-entanglement. The measurement record that drives the evolution simultaneously provides one-form-symmetry syndromes at no additional cost, enabling postselection that strongly suppresses observed Gauss-law violations and improves aggregate agreement with ideal Trotterized dynamics. Our results demonstrate that MBQS is a viable, symmetry-aware architecture for simulating lattice field theories on present-day hardware.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

First multi-opposition recoveries of large-orbit LSST TNOs

Chantal Hemmann, Brett Gladman, Justine Obidowski et al. (+2 more)

We report 2026 CFHT second-opposition recovery observations of three large-orbit Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) discovered by the Vera C. Rubin Telescope's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) during preliminary observations in 2025. Due to their potential scientific interest, we selected three TNOs whose nominal semimajor axis could be larger than 100~au according to their short-arc ($\leq0.2$-yr) LSST observations. These three targets (2025 LS2, 2025 ME278, 2025 MX348) had discovery opposition orbits of varying observation quality (in terms of the duration and distribution of observations). In two cases, the 2026 CFHT recoveries showed that the semimajor axis dropped by a factor of $\simeq$3-10, and that the object appears to be a (common) plutino in the 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. We discuss how and why the estimated orbital elements evolved, and re-caution the community to be skeptical of unusual TNO orbits until they have multi-opposition recoveries.
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All authors Chantal Hemmann, Brett Gladman, Justine Obidowski, Jean-Marc Petit, JJ Kavelaars

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

CCAT: The 410 GHz camera module for FYST - design and testing of the MKID focal plane

Scott C. Chapman, Jordan Wheeler, Anthony Huber et al. (+16 more)

Prime-Cam, the primary first-light instrument for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) developed by the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope (CCAT) Collaboration, will accommodate seven modules. Here we describe the off-central 410 GHz imager/polarimeter. The 410 GHz instrument is a camera module for CCAT funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, being developed as a collaboration between Dalhousie University, University of British Columbia (UBC), National Research Council (NRC) - Herzberg, and Duke University. With atmospheric loading in the 410 GHz window being significantly higher than at 350 GHz (but substantially lower than 850 GHz), we assess four MKID test devices with varying inductor volume for performance at 410 GHz. We propose a design for an array of ~6,700 horn-coupled TiN MKIDs optimized for use at 410 GHz, with a planned ~20,000 MKIDs over three arrays, exploring mapping speed versus detector number. We test the four MKID devices optically and assess optimal Qi/Qc and responsivity for the 410 GHz atmospheric window atop Cerro Chajnantor. The detectors will be designed in frequency to be efficiently readout with a second generation, two octave readout (based on the Xilinx RFSoC board), with over 4000 detectors per board.
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All authors Scott C. Chapman, Jordan Wheeler, Anthony Huber, Jason Austermann, James A. Beall, James Burgoyne, Max Chapman, Jesslyn Devina, Douglas Henke, Johannes Hubmayr, Dylan Lockyer, Michael Niemack, Tilak M. Patel, Colin Ross, Douglas Scott, Adrian Sinclair, Eve Vavagiakis, Michael R. Vissers, Ruixuan Xie

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Effect of non-spherical projectiles on the structure of porous dust aggregates formed by coagulation

Lucas Kolanz and Davide Lazzati

Cosmic dust is ubiquitous in the universe, yet the structure and geometry of individual grains remain poorly understood. The existence of non-spherical, fluffy, and even fractal grain structures is predicted by numerical simulation and supported by observations of linear polarization of starlight. However, it has proven challenging to go beyond a qualitative investigation of such crucial grain characteristics. We present soft-sphere discrete element simulations of dust coagulation with sequential collisions using non-spherical projectiles of various sizes. We study the internal structure and geometry of the resulting aggregates under three growth conditions: a constant final aggregate size, a constant number of projectiles, and a constant projectile size. In most cases we allow for projectile internal restructuring, but we also test the effect of enforcing a constant projectile structure after impact. We find that aggregates' porosity and fractal dimension depend both on the size and number of projectiles, and that their asymmetry and stretch parameters depend more on the number of projectiles than on projectile size. Overall, the grain porosity increases with both the number of projectiles and the size of the individual projectiles. Comparison with constraints from interstellar polarization indicates that none of our sufficiently large aggregates have structures capable of reproducing the observed polarization of starlight in the interstellar medium. We conclude that cosmic dust undergoes additional processing after coagulation to acquire structures consistent with observations.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Callisto from JWST: CO2-rich terrain on the leading hemisphere and global patterns of H2O ice

Maria Camarca, Katherine de Kleer, Richard J. Cartwright et al. (+5 more)

We present maps of H2O, CO2, and a 4.57 um spectral feature across Callisto's surface observed using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). H2O ice was mapped by measuring band parameters of the 3.1 um Fresnel peak across the leading and trailing hemispheres under a simplified assumption of crystalline ice. We update the CO2 solid-phase, CO2 gas, and 4.57 um feature band depth maps originally presented in Cartwright et al. (2024) with a new JWST observation of Callisto centered on Valhalla, the largest multi-ring impact basin in the solar system. Our H2O ice map shows that the Fresnel peak on the trailing hemisphere exhibits a bullseye pattern that is weaker at low latitudes, and on the leading hemisphere its strength is associated with impacts. This dichotomy is possibly related to the Jovian magnetospheric plasma impinging on the trailing hemisphere. Our solid-phase CO2 map reveals an enhancement in the vicinity of the Lofn/Heimdall impact craters, a region that may be the largest reservoir of non-radiolytic CO2 on Callisto's surface. The gas-phase CO2 exhibits a patchy spatial distribution and does not clearly correlate with solid CO2.
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All authors Maria Camarca, Katherine de Kleer, Richard J. Cartwright, Geronimo L. Villanueva, Bryan J. Holler, Zachariah Milby, Kevin P. Hand, Lorenz Roth

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Magnetic Field Reorganization of Electronic States in Moiré Bilayer Graphene

Milan Sharma Mandigo-Stoba, William Wang, Jackson Kuklin et al. (+4 more)

Magnetic fields are widely used to diagnose quantum phases in two-dimensional systems through quantum oscillations or by tuning spin and valley polarizations, but magnetic fields can also reshape the underlying electronic structure. Here, using a bilayer graphene/hBN moiré system, we reveal a rich magnetic field induced evolution of the semiclassical orbit network, encompassing Lifshitz transitions, magnetic breakdown, and scattering between coexisting electron and hole pockets. At magnetic fields of 1 T to 2 T, quantum oscillation frequencies and the Hall density change markedly over a broad carrier density range, signaling magnetic breakdown and magnetic Lifshitz transitions. This evolution is valley contrasting: Berry curvature hot spots near the breakdown junctions enhance magnetic breakdown in the K valley while suppressing it in the K$^\prime$ valley, whereas valley-antisymmetric orbital magnetic moments split the corresponding Lifshitz transitions. The resulting valley-selective trajectories manifest at higher fields as valley-symmetry-breaking Hofstadter gaps. At elevated temperatures and low magnetic fields, scattering between coexisting electron and hole pockets produces nearly density-independent resistance oscillations whose frequency tracks the sum of their Fermi surface areas, persisting after conventional Onsager oscillations are thermally washed out. Our results provide a unified picture of how modest magnetic fields reorganize moiré electronic states as the system evolves from semiclassical transport toward the Hofstadter regime.
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All authors Milan Sharma Mandigo-Stoba, William Wang, Jackson Kuklin, Jack Lichterman, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Qianhui Shi

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

A Compact Phenomenological Pattern in Fermion Mass Ratios and Mixing Parameters

Petr Baron

We record a compact numerical regularity in charged-fermion mass ratios and fermion mixing parameters. The construction uses discrete generation labels G=1,2,3, fixed structural integers Nc=3 and Nw=2, sector exponent functions LA(G), and simple phase assignments. No continuous numerical optimization is performed: after one overall mass scale is chosen in each charged sector, the charged-fermion mass ratios and the leading mixing inputs follow directly from the stated formulae. The same exponent structure generates six charged-fermion mass ratios, six mixing sines, and the CKM phase as correlated numerical outputs. The full CKM and PMNS matrices are then obtained by standard unitary reconstruction. The construction is phenomenological and does not claim a first-principles derivation of the numerical constants.
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Quantum Physics

Poisson-Compiled Quantum Singular Value Transformation for Power-Exponential Dissipation

Chao Wang, Xi-Ning Zhuang, Menghan Dou et al. (+2 more)

We study quantum implementations of the contraction $\exp(-T H^\alpha)$ for $H=H^\dagger\succeq0$ and $\alpha>0$. Poisson summation provides an exact target–alias–tail decomposition whose Fourier samples are compiled classically into a single Chebyshev polynomial, so the quantum circuit uses polynomial eigenvalue transformation rather than a frequency linear combination of unitaries. We compare block encodings of $H/\norm{H}$ and of the shifted signal $2H/\norm{H}-I$. Under ordinary single-sequence QSVT, parity forces the former to use an even extension, which is entire only for even positive integers. An exact quadratic lift for the shifted signal makes every positive integer entire and improves the fixed-scale approximation error for noninteger powers from $\Theta(d^{-\alpha})$ to $\Theta(d^{-2\alpha})$ within the stated access and parity classes. We derive matching degree bounds in the large-scale fixed-error and fixed-scale high-precision limits, including the output-normalization overhead $u_r$. Nearest-neighbor Laplacians give a unit-normalized shifted signal. We further establish a noncommutative Weyl–Poisson identity compatible with LCHS quadrature, and use the same polynomial construction to implement controlled dissipative families in amplitude–phase separation.
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All authors Chao Wang, Xi-Ning Zhuang, Menghan Dou, Zhao-Yun Chen, Guo-Ping Guo

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Direct versus resolved photons in DPS in photoproduction on proton and nuclei

B. Blok and R. Segev

We study the process of double parton scattering (DPS) associated with the photoproduction at a future Electron-Ion collider (EIC) and HERA. We show that in the case of the resolved photon the 1 to 2 processes lead, even at small transverse momenta of the hard processes , to the increase of the DPS by a factor of order 1.6 in the significant part of the phase space, relative to the predictions of the mean field based models . Moreover we study the kinematic region where direct photon contribution is dominant and show it s boundaries for charm and light quark jets. For charmed jets we see that the relevant region is $x_\gamma\ge 0.2-0.4$. This region is even enhanced if we consider the photoproduction on the nuclei.
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Quantum Physics

Dynamical Lie Algebras Cannot Describe Shallow QAOA: Cragged Terrains, Barren Plateaus, and Empirical Hardness Models

Harrison Copp, Charlton Li, Anžej Margeta-Cacace et al. (+1 more)

The dynamical Lie algebraic (DLA) theory of variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) predicts commonplace exponentially vanishing loss and gradient variances for sufficiently deep parametrized circuits. In this work, we show that these predictions fail dramatically in the shallow-circuit (and particularly constant-depth) regime for the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) applied to the maximum independent set (MIS) problem. In a large-scale numerical study across $\sim$23,000 problem instances, we find that barren plateaus are rare, while landscapes whose variances polynomially increase with system size—which we term "cragged terrains"—are common across graph families. This aggregate polynomial growth persists both for generic, low-symmetry random graphs and for highly symmetric vertex-transitive graphs, indicating that DLA-based variance predictions do not describe landscape scaling in this regime. As a stopgap alternative to the theory, we train empirical hardness models to predict instance-wise hardness metrics for QAOA-MIS. While these models generalize poorly, they nonetheless recover the correct landscape scaling class (barren plateau vs. cragged terrain) with high fidelity. Taken together, our results identify shallow QAOA for MIS as a prototypical setting in which asymptotic, unitary-design-centric predictions may be fundamentally insufficient to describe shallow variational quantum algorithms more broadly, emphasizing the need for more empirically-informed models of VQA loss landscapes.
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All authors Harrison Copp, Charlton Li, Anžej Margeta-Cacace, Amy Qiao

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Searching for Habitable Exoplanets with Relative Astrometry (SHERA). I. The Case for Searching for Planets in Binary Star Systems

Jessie L. Christiansen, Eric E. Mamajek, Gautam Vasisht et al. (+14 more)

Discovering Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars was identified as a priority science goal of the Astronomy 2020 Decadal Survey. It is confounded by many factors, one of which is the high multiplicity of Sun-like stars in the local neighborhood - half of nearby Sun-like stars are in binary or higher-order stellar systems, which are less amenable to the detection of small planets with almost all of the currently productive exoplanet detection techniques. Here we describe the SHERA (Searching for Habitable Exoplanets with Relative Astrometry) NASA Small Explorer mission concept. SHERA utilizes diffractive-pupil technology on a small, simple optical space telescope to achieve microarcsecond precision relative astrometry on 14 Sun-like stars in seven nearby multi-star systems, combining the pupil and stellar binarity to provide a precise reference in the image plane. With this precision, SHERA would enable: (i) a search for rocky planets in the habitable zones of the closest Sun-like stars; (ii) an investigation of the impact of binary star formation on small, widely separated planets; and (iii) the performance of crucial precursor observations on a number of high-priority targets of NASA's future missions to characterize Earth-like planets, such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory. When combined with radial velocity measurements, SHERA relative astrometry will also enable exploration of the three-dimensional orbital structure of planets in binary systems.
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All authors Jessie L. Christiansen, Eric E. Mamajek, Gautam Vasisht, Catherine A. Clark, William Roberson, Eric L. Nielsen, Kaitlin M. Kratter, Juliette Becker, Eduardo Bendek, Ruslan Belikov, Alex Davis, Louis Desdoigts, Alyssa Jankowski, Michael R. Meyer, Benjamin J. S. Pope, Armen Tokadjian, Peter Tuthill

High Energy Physics (Theory)

Tilts from 2-Groups

Sven Harder, Theodore Jacobson and Zhengdi Sun

2-group global symmetries intertwine 0-form and 1-form symmetries in an interesting way. We analyze universal constraints on lines which are charged under the 1-form subgroup of a 2-group, and show that they generically break the 0-form symmetry explicitly. This gives rise to a family of line defects parameterized by the broken symmetry generators, whose existence is invariant under the renormalization group flow of the bulk-defect system. The symmetry breaking is enforced by a `family anomaly,' which is a topological obstruction to a symmetric defect. Our main tools are the Wess-Zumino consistency condition and a generalized anomaly inflow formalism for defects and boundaries. For nonabelian continuous 2-groups the family anomaly stems from a higher Berry connection on the moduli space of defects, and constrains response functions that probe the local action of the broken symmetry. In the continuous abelian case we apply differential cohomology to the 2-group background fields to uncover a subtle generalization of the Wess-Zumino condition, while in the discrete case we recast it in terms of the associativity of symmetry defects. We give numerous illustrative examples, computing when possible explicit forms of the tilt operator (which probes the linear response of the defect to the broken symmetry) and its higher analogs, which are crucial for matching the family anomaly. We also discuss universal features such as how symmetry violation by charged line defects is related to symmetry breaking hierarchies in the bulk, and highlight a number of subtle points including the distinction between simple and non-simple lines, and Postnikov class resolution.
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Applied Physics

Fully optoelectronic coherent THz spectroscopy

François Parnet, Francis Hindle, Ulysse Mao et al. (+9 more)

Coherent terahertz spectroscopy of molecular transients has so far relied on electronic sources whose bandwidth is limited to a fraction of their center frequency. Photoconductive devices offer a complementary approach, combining intrinsically broadband operation with coherent optoelectronic generation and detection. We report free-induction-decay spectroscopy of carbonyl sulfide at 0.29 THz in which, to our knowledge for the first time, both the pulsed emitter and the coherent heterodyne receiver are LT-GaAs photoconductors simultaneously pumped by a single free-running dual-frequency Ti:Sa laser. The receiver operates within 15 dB of the thermal noise limit, and the shared optical reference maintains phase coherence over more than 1000 averaged acquisitions. The measured transients agree with a time-domain Maxwell-Bloch model based on HITRAN parameters. These results demonstrate the feasibility of fully optoelectronic coherent THz spectroscopy and establish photoconductive optoelectronic mixing as a practical route toward frequency-agile, high-resolution coherent THz spectrometers over broad spectral ranges.
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All authors François Parnet, Francis Hindle, Ulysse Mao, Guillaume Ducournau, Jean-François Lampin, Sophie Eliet, François Bondu, Romain Peretti, Gaël Mouret, Daniele Fontanari, Goulc'hen Loas, Emilien Peytavit

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Open-Charm Vector Mesons in Hot and Dense Nuclear Matter

N. Er and K. Azizi

We investigate the in-medium properties of the open-charm vector mesons $D_s^{*}$ and $D^{*}$ in hot and dense nuclear matter within the framework of finite-temperature and finite-density QCD sum rules. The analysis incorporates temperature- and density-dependent quark and gluon condensates together with an in-medium continuum threshold constrained by the light-quark condensate. By solving the resulting QCD sum rules, we determine the in-medium masses and leptonic decay constants of the $D_s^{*\pm}$ and $D^{*\pm}$ mesons over a broad region of the $(T,\rho)$ plane. Both vector mesons undergo substantial in-medium softening, with their masses and leptonic decay constants decreasing as the baryon density increases. The masses exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on baryon density, whereas the leptonic decay constants decrease monotonically throughout the investigated density range. Increasing temperature generally weakens the density-induced modifications, although baryon density remains the dominant driver of the in-medium evolution. The largest mass shifts occur at intermediate-to-high densities, reaching approximately $-413~\mathrm{MeV}$ for the $D_s^{*-}$ meson and $-207~\mathrm{MeV}$ for the $D^{*-}$ meson, while the leptonic decay constants are reduced by more than $68\%$ in both channels at the highest densities considered. We further investigate the particle–antiparticle splittings of the masses and leptonic decay constants induced by finite baryon density. Finite baryon density lifts the vacuum degeneracy between the charge-conjugate states, while increasing temperature generally suppresses the resulting asymmetries. Although the strange and non-strange channels exhibit similar qualitative behavior, quantitative differences emerge in both the in-medium modifications and the particle–antiparticle splittings. ....
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Generating eccentricity from envelope stripping in the Radius Valley

Brad M. S. Hansen

We demonstrate that the stripping of planetary envelopes can result in the excitation of planetary orbital eccentricity if the stripped gas remains in the system long enough to interact gravitationally and absorb angular momentum from the planetary orbit. We estimate that envelope mass fractions of a few percent can excite eccentricities of order 0.1 for single planets. This process can potentially explain the elevated eccentricities observed for planets whose radii lie in, or near, the radius valley. In multiple planet systems, the stripped gas can mediate angular momentum exchange between neighbouring planets, causing the separation to expand. Using data from the Kepler satellite, we find that planet pairs, whose members straddle the radius valley, do appear to be systematically wider than those in which both members are sub-Neptunes. These results support the idea that planets in, or just below, the radius valley are the stripped cores of planets that have lost mass, because the elevated eccentricities represent evidence that the gas remained in the system long enough to absorb additional angular momentum from the planet.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)

Boundary Conditions and Entanglement in Anti-de Sitter Space

Konstantinos Boutivas, Dimitrios Katsinis, Georgios Pastras et al. (+2 more)

We study the entanglement entropy of a conformally coupled scalar field at its ground state in $(3+1)$-dimensional AdS space in global coordinates. We consider spherical entangling surfaces centered at the origin of AdS and allow for general boundary conditions at the conformal boundary. Through numerical and analytical means, we show that the UV-divergent part of the entropy has a universal form, while the UV-finite part is sensitive to the boundary conditions. We determine the dependence of the latter part on mixed boundary conditions that interpolate between Dirichlet and Neumann.
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All authors Konstantinos Boutivas, Dimitrios Katsinis, Georgios Pastras, Nathan Smeyers, Nikolaos Tetradis

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Joint dynamical-geophysical evidence for a limit cycle in the Galilean moons

Amirhossein Bagheri, Steven Vance, Jim Fuller et al. (+5 more)

Io, Europa, and Ganymede orbit in the Laplace mean-motion resonance, where their orbital and thermochemical evolution are strongly coupled [1-5]. Forced eccentricities sustain tidal dissipation, powering Io's volcanism and maintaining Europa's subsurface ocean [6-8]. Tidal heating depends on the moons' eccentricities, semimajor axes, and interior properties. Orbital evolution depends on how satellite dissipation affects the resonant dynamics [4, 8]. This coupled evolution has not been treated in a self-consistent framework constrained by modern observations. Here, we combine modern astrometric and geophysical measurements of migration rates, surface heat fluxes, tidal response, and moment of inertia [9-13] with an orbital-thermochemical evolution model to constrain the long-term evolution and present state of the moons. We show that the joint observations select an ongoing late-time limit cycle, likely established $\sim$0.8-2.0 Gyr ago through feedback between thermal and orbital evolution. The present-day state recurs within this oscillatory branch, whose cycles repeat every $\sim$95-150 Myr. Io presently experiences high dissipation and migrates inward, whereas Europa and Ganymede continue to migrate outward. Europa is predicted to undergo episodes of inward migration during the cycle. During the cycles, Io's mean melt fraction varies substantially ($\sim$10-30%), while Europa's ice-shell thickness varies by $\sim$3-15 km. The predicted structures of Europa and Io will be assessed by future missions including Europa Clipper, JUICE, and IVO [14-17].
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All authors Amirhossein Bagheri, Steven Vance, Jim Fuller, Brianna Fernandez, Mohit Melwani-Daswani, Hauke Hussmann, Gregor Steinbruegge, Francis Nimmo

Fluid Dynamics

TIDE: A Physically Diverse 3D Turbulence Benchmark Dataset for Advancing Scientific Machine Learning

Yilong Dai, Yiming Sun, Yiheng Chen et al. (+4 more)

Turbulence is a central testbed for machine learning on physical dynamics because its governing laws are known exactly. However, most existing studies remain in 2D, while 3D turbulence has fundamentally different physics and is far more costly to simulate. Existing 3D resources also typically provide only one realization per configuration, making it difficult to distinguish learning the dynamics from fitting the statistics of a single flow. In this paper, we introduce TIDE (Turbulent Incompressible DNS Ensembles), a 256^3 DNS corpus and benchmark for 3D incompressible turbulence, with 15 configurations on eight controlled axes, independent ensembles, pressure fields, and equation-level verification. The benchmark includes five tasks, standardized learned baselines, controlled generalization splits, and physical-fidelity metrics alongside pointwise error. Across the main forecasting configurations, current learned models barely outperform persistence and still make about twice the error of a spectral solver given the true equations. Moreover, lower pointwise error can coincide with severely distorted small-scale dynamics, showing that accuracy alone does not ensure physical fidelity. Generalization results further show that most regime shifts reflect limited training coverage, whereas forced-to-decay transfer exposes a missing conditioning variable: operators trained under forcing continue to predict driven evolution when the external drive is removed. Closing these accuracy, fidelity, and conditioning gaps is the central open problem made measurable by TIDE.
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All authors Yilong Dai, Yiming Sun, Yiheng Chen, Shengyu Chen, Peyman Givi, Xiaowei Jia, Runlong Yu

Optics

Analysis of Nonlinear Phase Noise in Coherent Fiber-Optic Systems Based on Phase Shift Keying

Shiva Kumar

Analytical expressions for the phase variance in a nonlinear fiber optic system based on phase-shift keying are developed. The Gauss-Hermite functions are used as the orthogonal basis to represent the noise field. Number of degrees of freedom (DOF) to accurately model the phase variance is estimated. The amplifier noise excites higher order Gauss-Hermite noise modes and the nonlinear mixing of a signal pulse and higher order Gauss-Hermite noise mode leads to new noise fields which enhance the nonlinear phase noise. The higher order noise modes propagate linearly and enhance the linear phase noise if the matched filter is not used at the receiver. Analytical expression for the optimum launch power is developed taking into account the linear and nonlinear phase noise.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

The Constant Evolution of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory: Two Decades of Operational Innovation for Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Astrophysics

Jamie A. Kennea

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has, for more than twenty years, served as NASA's premier rapid-response, multi-wavelength facility for the study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and the transient sky. While Swift's hardware has remained essentially unchanged since its 2004 launch, its operational capabilities have evolved continuously, driven by a philosophy of “always be developing.” Hosted entirely at The Pennsylvania State University, with co-located flight and science operations, Swift has repeatedly reinvented how a NASA mission can be commanded, transforming itself from a GRB-chasing autonomous robotic telescope into a flexible, automated platform for time-domain and multi-messenger astrophysics (TDAMM). We review the key operational innovations that have enabled this evolution: the development of automated target-of-opportunity (TOO) uploads in response to the early loss of active X-ray Telescope cooling; onboard tiling of large error regions; the ManyPoint flight-software capability for executing hundreds of pointings; the Gamma-ray Urgent Archiver for Novel Opportunities (GUANO); and the “Urgency 0” continuous-commanding mode that has reduced TOO response latencies from hours to seconds. We illustrate the scientific impact of these capabilities through Swift's gravitational-wave and neutrino follow-up campaigns, including GW170817/AT2017gfo and IceCube-170922A, and through real-time “early-warning” slewing toward predicted compact-binary mergers. Finally, we discuss the heritage Swift is creating for future TDAMM missions, and the ongoing efforts to extend Swift's life, both through attitude-based scheduling that minimizes the spacecraft's atmospheric drag cross-section and through a commercial orbit-boost mission.
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Materials Science

First-principles predictions of carrier mobility with record accuracy using GW perturbation theory

Nick Pant, Sabyasachi Tiwari, Steven G. Louie et al. (+2 more)

Accurate prediction of carrier mobility is critical for the discovery and design of next-generation electronic materials. Despite sustained progress, state-of-the-art ab initio methods remain limited by the approximate treatment of electron-phonon interactions at the density functional theory level. Here, we demonstrate that incorporating many-body GW corrections to both the electronic band structure and electron–phonon couplings when solving the ab initio Boltzmann transport equation yields a mean absolute relative error of just 11% for electron mobilities across benchmark semiconductors, including Si, GaAs, GaP, diamond, and SiC. The common practice of neglecting GW corrections to the electron–phonon interaction can lead to mobility errors exceeding 50%. The present findings highlight the importance of many-body GW self-energy effects in carrier transport simulations, and provides fundamental insights into how many-body electron–phonon interactions govern charge transport in crystalline solids.
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All authors Nick Pant, Sabyasachi Tiwari, Steven G. Louie, Zhenglu Li, Feliciano Giustino

Materials Science

Computational Microstructure Analysis of Sintered Ceramics

Nikhil Dhanankam, Deeksha Kodangal, Rajendra K. Bordia et al. (+1 more)

Characterizing materials through manual extraction of physical properties from microstructure images is a laborious process. This work presents a workflow to extract porosity, solid fraction, grain size distribution, and pore size distribution from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of sintered ceramic samples using an automated pipeline. The primary challenge for extracting physical properties from SEM images is the presence of unimodal histograms in SEM images as a result of the overlapping intensity ranges for the grain and pore phases. We evaluated several different methods for noise reduction and local thresholding of SEM images. We find that topological filtering in combination with Sauvola thresholding enables segmentation and extraction of physical property data from SEM images. We validated the automated pipeline by comparing our results with the results of manual analyses performed for samples sintered at 1200$^o$C and 1400$^o$C and achieved an Intersection over Union (IoU) score of 95.14% and 99.85%, respectively. The workflow provides an efficient means to automatically extract microstructure properties from SEM images as a crucial step in generating materials datasets for machine learning.
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All authors Nikhil Dhanankam, Deeksha Kodangal, Rajendra K. Bordia, Ulf D. Schiller

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Custom Colors: A Module for Computing Synthetic Photometry On-the-Fly in Stellar Evolution Calculations, Integrated with MESA and Usable with Other Stellar Evolution Codes

Niall Miller, Meridith Joyce and Philip Mocz

Stellar evolution simulations predict physical quantities such as luminosity, whereas broadband photometric observations measure flux in specific bandpasses; converting the predicted stellar state to magnitudes requires interpolating a stellar atmosphere model at the surface parameters, convolving the resulting spectral energy distribution (SED) with filter transmission curves, and applying a photometric zero-point correction. We introduce Custom Colors, which performs this conversion from the stellar model. It is integrated into MESA as MESA Custom Colors, and available as the Python package SED_Model for external applications. At each timestep, the module interpolates a user-specified atmosphere grid at the current T_eff, log g, [M/H], applies geometric dilution at a user-specified distance, convolves the SED with each requested filter transmission curve, and appends observer-frame magnitudes to standard MESA output files. We demonstrate the module across six diverse use cases: TP-AGB evolution, nonlinear RR Lyrae pulsation, starspot-modified photospheres, white dwarf cooling, blue-loop evolution, and rotational spot modulation based on an external YREC SPOTS grid. These cases draw on Kurucz/ATLAS9, BT-Settl, and Koester DA atmosphere grids and filter systems including Roman WFI, LSST ugrizy, Gaia, and extended Johnson UBVRIJHKLMN. Two of these demonstrations compare the module directly with observational data: a 0.6M_dot DA white dwarf cooling track follows the broad Gaia DR3 cooling locus from M_G ~ 8.5 to 15mag without intermediate color transformation, and an RSP model recovers the Kepler light curve of FN Lyr (KIC6936115) to 1.1% in period and 0.2% in amplitude.
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Materials Science

Green's function theory of magnetism in Bi$_2$CuO$_4$: anisotropic Heisenberg XYZ model

R.O. Kuzian and E.E. Krasovskii

The Green's function theory of Lymar' and Rudoi [Theor. Math. Phys. vol. 21, 990 (1974)] is generalized to the case of multiple intra- and inter-sublattice magnetic interactions in a collinear spin-half antiferromagnet and applied to magnetic excitations in Bi$_2$CuO$_4$. The spin Hamiltonian includes both the out-of-plane and in-plane symmetric anisotropy terms and the Zeeman term, which describes the interaction with an external magnetic field $B$ applied along the Néel vector. Within the spin-wave approximation we calculate spin excitation dispersion, antiferromagnetic resonance frequencies and the critical field $B_c$ of the spin-flop metamagnetic transition. A weak in-plane anisotropy is shown to result in a gap in the acoustic-like branch of the excitations. The gap nonlinearly depends on the external field and closes at $B=B_c$. An expression for the Neel temperature in the Tyablikov random phase approximation at zero field is derived. For the parameters derived from the recent inelastic neutron scattering study by Yuan et al. [Phys. Rev. B vol. 103, 134436 (2021)] it gives $T_{\rm N}\approx 52$~K.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)

Constants in Sequences of M2-brane Partition Functions

Junho Hong

We determine in closed form the $N$-independent constant terms in the all-order $1/N$ expansions of the topologically twisted index and of the associated Bethe potential for the ABJM theory, as well as the Bethe potential constant of the ADHM theory. We reconstruct these constants analytically from high-precision Bethe-Ansatz numerics, verify them down to the level of non-perturbative corrections, and find them to be closely related to the constant map function $A$ governing the round three-sphere partition function. The resulting expressions for the ADHM and ABJM constants pass the non-trivial test dictated by 3d mirror symmetry. Via recently established factorization relations, they also determine in closed form the $N$-independent constant contribution to the squashed three-sphere partition function, through the first two leading orders in its large-squashing expansion. These constants supply precisely the piece left undetermined in the recent exact results for 3d supersymmetric partition functions to all orders in the $1/N$ expansion, and thereby mark an important step toward completing them, both in field theory and in the dual quantum gravity description.
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