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Thursday 6 August

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

AT2021yky: A Fast-Rising Optical Transient with Evolving Broad Hydrogen Emission Consistent with an Ambiguous Nuclear Transient

Paarmita Pandey, Jason T. Hinkle, Christopher Kochanek et al. (+14 more)

Nuclear transients are powerful probes of supermassive black hole properties, offering insight into black hole mass, accretion physics, and the structure of galactic nuclei. Among these, a growing class of events cannot be classified as either tidal disruption events (TDEs) or active galactic nuclei (AGN) flares, and their physical origins remain poorly understood. We present a multi-wavelength photometric and spectroscopic analysis of AT2021yky (ZTF21abzciqh), an ambiguous nuclear transient (ANT) at a redshift of $z = 0.076$. AT2021yky reached a peak bolometric luminosity of $L_{\rm peak} = (4.1 \pm 1.1) \times 10^{43}~\mathrm{erg~s^{-1}}$, with a rise-time of $18.2 \pm 0.7$ days. The early-time UV/optical emission is well described by a blackbody with a temperature of $T \simeq 1.4 \times 10^{4}$ K, cooler than most optically selected TDEs. No X-ray emission from the transient is detected, with a $3\sigma$ limit of $L_X \lesssim 3.4 \times 10^{41}$ erg s$^{-1}$ near peak. Spectroscopic observations reveal a largely featureless blue continuum with broad (FWHM$\sim 11,000$ km s$^{-1}$) H$\alpha$ emission line that appears around 20$-$40 days post-peak. The host-galaxy emission-line ratios indicate the presence of an AGN, though the absence of optical or mid-IR variability and a non-AGN mid-IR color suggest it is weak. AT2021yky exhibits a rapid rise time comparable to that of luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs), while its decay timescale and late-time broad H$\alpha$ emission resemble those observed in TDEs. However, its cooler blackbody temperature and the absence of He II and Balmer emission lines other than H$\alpha$ instead favour its classification as an ANT.
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All authors Paarmita Pandey, Jason T. Hinkle, Christopher Kochanek, Michael A. Tucker, Mark T. Reynolds, Katie Auchettl, C. Ashall, Dhvanil D. Desai, Aaron Do, Willem B. Hoogendam, M. E. Huber, T. de Jaeger, Thomas B. Lowe, Anna V. Payne, Benjamin J. Shappee, Todd A. Thompson, Daniel R. Wilkins

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

X-rays from shock-heated gas in recurrent-nova remnants: Nested nova shells in a structured circumstellar medium

Sergio Martínez-González, Santiago Jiménez, Richard Wünsch et al. (+1 more)

Recurrent symbiotic novae such as RS Oph show extended X-ray emission associated with the interaction of nova ejecta with the circumstellar environment. We investigate how repeated eruptions over more than a century structure the circumstellar medium and govern the long-term X-ray evolution of a symbiotic recurrent nova. We perform three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations for a fiducial nine-eruption sequence spanning 130 years, modeling each nova as a supersonic bipolar shell expanding into a wind-shaped circumstellar medium. We post-process the resulting density and temperature distributions to compute X-ray emission in the 0.5-2.0 and 2.0-10.0 keV bands. The eruption sequence excavates a bipolar cavity bounded by nested shells. Soft X-rays trace dense compressed interfaces, whereas hard X-rays arise from the hottest shocked gas, including shell rims and the excavated nova-remnant interior. As the remnant expands, the soft-band emission shows a gradual long-term decline associated with the decreasing emission measure. The hard band evolves episodically, with individual eruptions imprinting distinct flares whose timing and relative strength change as the shell system grows. The extended X-ray morphology becomes progressively smoother and more volume-filling as density contrasts between successive shells are reduced. Our simulations identify extended shell-shock emission as a natural consequence of nested-shell evolution in recurrent novae. Remnant expansion regulates the slow fading of the soft component, and renewed ejecta-shell encounters drive hard-band variability on decade-long timescales. For a fiducial recurrent nova, the predicted diffuse soft X-ray luminosities are broadly consistent with the order of magnitude inferred for RS Oph, indicating that shock-heated gas can contribute appreciably to the observed X-ray environment.
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All authors Sergio Martínez-González, Santiago Jiménez, Richard Wünsch, Tiina Liimets

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Oscillating Neutrinos vs. Oscillating Scalars: Constraining Scalar Dark Matter-Induced Neutrino Mass

Kierthika Chathirathas, Sabya Sachi Chatterjee and Thomas Schwetz

We consider the hypothesis that neutrino masses are generated by a coupling to an ultra-light (pseudo-)scalar field, which provides the dark matter in the universe. This leads to time-varying neutrino masses with a frequency set by the dark matter mass, with implications for neutrino oscillation data. We use that dark matter is in a virialised state in the galaxy and provide a detailed discussion of the relevant time scales. Using data from the T2K, RENO and JUNO experiments, we show that for dark matter masses smaller than about $3\times 10^{-8}$eV down to the smallest allowed dark matter mass of about $10^{-21}$eV only a fraction of between 9% to 54% of the total neutrino mass can arise from the coupling to the background scalar, depending on the value of the scalar mass. Future data from JUNO may improve these limits down to 1% in certain regions of scalar masses. We focus on a real scalar field, but most of our results hold also for a complex scalar.
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Quantum Physics

KPZ Superdiffusion of Local Correlators in Diffusive Random Quantum Circuits

Ewan McCulloch

We study the single-particle Green's function $G(x,t)=\langle \sigma^-_x(0)\sigma^+_0(t)\rangle$ in one-dimensional particle-number-conserving random unitary circuits coupled to an external bath. For fixed spacetime disorder, we argue that $G(x,t)$ is governed, in both the strong- and weak-noise limits, by directed waves in a random medium. We find Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) scaling in the wandering statistics of the normalized spatial distribution $p(x,t)\propto |G(x,t)|^2$ and in the associated free energy. In particular, its center $\langle x(t)\rangle\equiv\sum_x x\, p(x,t)$ wanders on a length-scale $\mathcal{O}(t^{2/3})$, while sample-to-sample fluctuations of $-\log\sum_x |G(x,t)|^2$ scale as $t^{1/3}$. At weak noise $\gamma \ll 1$, the crossover to the strong-disorder fixed point occurs at a parametrically long time $\mathcal{O}(\gamma^{-3/2})$. These predictions are confirmed numerically using tensor-network simulations of the noisy operator dynamics in individual circuits at moderate noise, and of a phase-annealed proxy retaining hopping disorder at weak noise.
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Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Dipole Anisotropy in Newly Sampled AGN Population: Still in Tension with CMB Dipole

Dahee Lee, Minji Oh, Gayathri Asok et al. (+2 more)

We revisit the all-sky survey data, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) catalog, with an improved galaxy-selection criterion to investigate the inconsistency between the dipole anisotropy in the galaxy number count and the kinematic CMB dipole anisotropy. We apply a set of active galactic nuclei (AGN) selection criteria composed of a flux cut and multiple color cuts, and formulate an appropriate adaptation of the original Ellis & Baldwin (1984) formalism for our photometric survey samples whose spectral energy distributions deviate from a pure power-law form. We find that the newly sampled AGNs from the WISE catalog still bears an anomalous number-count dipole anisotropy, whose amplitude is ~ 2.5 times as large as that of the purely kinematic origin at a 5.3 sigma confidence level. We also find that the direction of our WISE-AGN dipole is ~ 3 sigma away from that of the CMB dipole. We discuss its possible cosmological implications: nonlinearity of the nearby universe and mismatch of matter-rest frame and the CMB-rest frame.
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All authors Dahee Lee, Minji Oh, Gayathri Asok, Tsutomu T. Takeuchi, Kyungjin Ahn

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Geometry of dust rings in protoplanetary disks: the case of LkCa 15

Yansong Qian and Yanqin Wu

Dust properties in proto-planetary disks shape the pathways for planet formation. Here, we present a method to measure these properties in moderately inclined dust rings. Our method exploits the simple geometric fact that, for such a ring, its ansae appear brighter because our line of sight traverses a longer path through the ring material, and appear broader because the minor axis are foreshortened by projection. The resultant patterns of apparent brightness and width can used to constrain three parameters: the intrinsic ring width, its vertical thickness and its optical depth. We apply this method to ALMA archival images of the LkCa 15 disk, in Bands 7, 6 and 3. We find that the optical depth of its main ring drops from 1.6 at 0.89mm to 0.4 at 3mm. Simultaneously, both the ring width and the ring height decrease from about two to one gas scale heights. Such wavelength-dependent morphology can only be explained by the presence of multiple grain populations. If we adopt a simple two-size model, we infer that the ring contains a massive population of small grains (size < 20 micron; total mass ~ 100 earth masses) that are broadly distributed, and a less massive population of large grains (size > 200 micron) that are more spatially concentrated. This large surplus of small grains is not predicted by models of dust coagulation, but it naturally explains the fluffy ring in LkCa 15, and possibly rings in other disks.
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Materials Science

Sublattice-resolved coherent phonon dynamics in charge density waves

Kyoung Hun Oh, Honglie Ning, Zongqi Shen et al. (+15 more)

Phonons govern fundamental material properties and play a central role in various electronic phase transitions. Coherent driving of specific phonon modes enables on-demand phase control, motivating sublattice-resolved identification of real-space phonon motions. Yet experimentally resolving these motions remains challenging, limiting precise phonon-based control. Here, we introduce a dynamical protocol to track element-resolved phonon dynamics in the charge density wave material EuTe4, in which the dominant Te-sublattice charge order is accompanied by a previously unreported Eu-sublattice component. We leverage the elemental selectivity of time-resolved resonant X-ray scattering to reveal three coherent phonon modes with distinct sublattice character, thereby disentangling Eu- and Te-dominated lattice dynamics, in good agreement with theoretical calculations of the phonon eigenvectors. This time-domain approach, which surpasses the energy-resolution limits of conventional frequency-domain inelastic scattering, provides a broadly applicable framework for decomposing coherent phonons in multi-element materials, which is crucial for the targeted control of phases of matter.
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All authors Kyoung Hun Oh, Honglie Ning, Zongqi Shen, Yifan Su, Jack Maier, Gyeongbo Kang, Hyeongi Choi, Dong Wu, Qiaomei Liu, Hyun-Woo J. Kim, Seunghyeok Ha, Jaehwon Kim, Byungjune Lee, B. J. Kim, N. L. Wang, Yao Wang, Hoyoung Jang, Nuh Gedik

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Beyond Feedback: Disentangling Baryonic Effects with tSZ$\times$FRB Cross-Correlations

Isabel Medlock and Daisuke Nagai

Standard observational probes lack the sensitivity to characterize the interplay between feedback-driven gas ejection and non-thermal pressure support in groups and clusters, and current models lack the framework to disentangle it. Recent first detections of the tSZ$\times$FRB cross-power spectrum (Takahashi et al, 2025; Sharma et al 2026) have been interpreted as constraining AGN feedback and $\sigma_8$, but the baryon models used do not independently parameterize non-thermal pressure support, leaving feedback efficiency and gas thermodynamics degenerate. We demonstrate that this cross-correlation provides sensitivity to the thermal and non-thermal structure of cluster gas that neither observable alone can achieve, because the tSZ effect traces electron pressure while FRBs trace solely electron density. Using the Baryon Pasting (BP) framework, which separately parameterizes feedback efficiency $\epsilon_f$ and non-thermal pressure amplitude $A_{\rm nt}$, we show that their joint constraint breaks this degeneracy. In the noise-free limit, adding the cross-power spectrum reduces $r_{\rm cond}$ from $0.96$ to $0.08$ (a 12-fold reduction) and improves the joint figure of merit by a factor of 19, with the constraining power concentrated at cluster interior scales ($\ell \gtrsim 3000$). Recent detections are consistent with our fiducial model and disfavor weak feedback ($\epsilon_f^{95\%} \gtrsim 2.40\text{--}3.67 \times 10^{-6}$ across datasets). With $5\times10^4$ FRBs from DSA-2000 combined with SO, we forecast $3.8\%$ fractional precision on $A_{\rm nt}$, improving to $2.3\%$ with CMB-HD. These constraints directly inform the hydrostatic mass bias, with immediate implications for cluster-based cosmological inference from eROSITA, SO, and CMB-HD.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

The Sonora Substellar Atmosphere Models. VII. Flame Skimmer: Cloud-free Atmospheric and Evolutionary Models for the Coldest Substellar Objects

James Mang, Yayaati Chachan, Caroline V. Morley et al. (+7 more)

JWST has provided unprecedented access to ultra-cool brown dwarfs and has pushed the boundaries of directly imaging temperate giant planets. As we continue to push toward detecting sub-Saturn and Neptune-like planets, it is crucial to develop atmospheric and evolutionary models that better capture the complexity and diversity of planetary atmospheres similar to the gas and ice giants in our Solar System. We present Sonora Flame Skimmer, the next suite of cloud-free 1D atmospheric and evolutionary models in chemical equilibrium and disequilibrium probing colder temperatures (down to 50 K), smaller objects (down to log(g) = 2), and a wide range of metallicities (10x sub-solar to 100x super-solar) and C/O ratios (solar to 2.5x solar). Beyond expanding the physical parameter space of previous Sonora models, we update the opacities and evolutionary model framework from Sonora Bobcat, as well as the chemical treatment of volatiles (H$_2$O, CH$_4$, NH$_3$) and carbon species such as CO$_2$ from Sonora Elf Owl. For the evolution of these substellar objects, we find that high-metallicity atmospheres lead to slower cooling compared to solar metallicity, while the strength of vertical mixing ($K_{\rm zz}$) has a negligible impact on the evolutionary tracks. At the highest metallicity explored here (100$\times$ solar), the deuterium-burning and hydrogen-burning minimum masses fall to 5.39 and 45.03 $M_{\rm J}$, respectively. All the models presented here, including the atmospheric structure, chemical profiles, spectra, synthetic photometry, and evolutionary models, are publicly available.
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All authors James Mang, Yayaati Chachan, Caroline V. Morley, Natasha E. Batalha, Nicholas F. Wogan, Sagnick Mukherjee, Jonathan J. Fortney, Mark S. Marley, Channon Visscher, Ehsan Gharib-Nezhad

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Spectroscopic follow-up of compact object binary candidates from Gaia DR3: White dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, and the parallax zeropoint

Kareem El-Badry, David W. Latham, Hans-Walter Rix et al. (+12 more)

Astrometry and radial velocities (RVs) from Gaia DR3 yielded orbits for hundreds of thousands of binary systems, including several samples proposed to contain black holes (BHs), neutron stars (NSs), and white dwarfs (WDs). We present results of a systematic spectroscopic follow-up program targeting these objects. Beginning with a sample of 227 sources, we used a combination of archival data and many-epoch spectroscopic follow-up to characterize more than 200. We obtained 1292 high-quality RVs over a period of four years using the TRES and FEROS spectrographs, achieving a typical precision of 50 m/s and at least 10 RVs for 60 sources. We use these data to test the Gaia orbital solutions and tighten constraints on orbital parameters and component masses. Joint fitting of astrometry and RVs allows us to directly constrain flux ratios, verifying that undetected companions are genuinely dark. We find that ~60% of the astrometric candidates indeed host compact objects, including the two known Gaia BHs, 27 NS candidates, and a dozen massive WDs. We show that tight WD+WD binaries may masquerade as NSs within this sample. The spectroscopic candidates have lower purity: ~50% have spurious solutions, and a majority of the rest are post-mass-transfer binaries or hierarchical triples. Joint astrometry+RV fits of binaries with dark companions yield direct, parallax-independent distance measurements. Using 40 such systems, we measure the Gaia DR3 parallax zeropoint for astrometric orbital solutions. We find $Z=-0.0362\pm0.0053$ mas, consistent with the single-star zeropoint for sources of similar color and magnitude. These results will guide the selection of cleaner candidate samples from Gaia DR4, where a longer observing baseline will enable discovery of many more compact object binaries. RV follow-up will remain important for confirming individual systems, particularly those with extreme parameters.
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All authors Kareem El-Badry, David W. Latham, Hans-Walter Rix, Allyson Bieryla, Lars A. Buchhave, Sahar Shahaf, Tsevi Mazeh, Johanna Müller-Horn, Pranav Nagarajan, Natsuko Yamaguchi, Casey Y. Lam, Dominick Rowan, Joshua D. Simon, Jessica R. Lu, Howard Isaacson

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Logarithmic Wavelets for Dark Matter–Phonon Scattering

Xu-Xiang Li and Zhengkang Zhang

Phonon excitations in crystals are a promising detection channel for sub-GeV dark matter (DM), and anisotropic targets add directional sensitivity through the daily modulation of the rate. Exploiting these capabilities requires evaluating six-dimensional rate integrals across DM models, target materials, detector orientations, and times of day. The vector space integration method factorizes the calculation into projections of the DM velocity distribution and of the material response – each computed once and reused – contracted with an analytic kinematic matrix, reducing such scans to fast matrix algebra. In the phonon channel, however, the relevant momentum transfers span six orders of magnitude, and the linearly spaced Haar wavelet basis of existing implementations falls short: light mediator models demand an impractically large basis, and a single projection reused across DM masses loses its effective resolution for light DM. We introduce a logarithmic Haar wavelet basis that resolves both obstacles, and present a package VectorPhonoDark that implements the approach. On an Al$_2$O$_3$ daily modulation benchmark, it reproduces results from PhonoDark's direct numerical integration while reducing the computational cost by orders of magnitude. Though developed here for phonons, the logarithmic wavelet basis generalizes to any DM detection channel spanning a wide range of momentum transfers, enabling efficient scans over DM models and detection strategies.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)

New symplectic singularities from $SU(2)$ gauge theories

Amihay Hanany, Guhesh Kumaran, Deshuo Liu et al. (+1 more)

Families of $\mathrm{Sp}(1)\simeq\mathrm{SU}(2)$ gauge theories with eight supercharges are found to have a Higgs branch which is an isolated symplectic singularity. These are, in some sense, the most “minimal” gauge theories as they only Higgs to a trivial theory. The matter content is $N$ fundamental half-hypermultiplets and one half-hypermultiplet in the $\mathrm{Sym}^k$ representation where $k=1,3,5,7$. The cases of $k=1,3$ reproduce the known Kraft–Procesi construction for minimal nilpotent orbit closures of $\mathrm{SO}(N+1)$ and the $g\mathrm{SO}(N)$ singularities of \cite{Bourget:2025wsp}, respectively. The cases $k=5,7$ are new isolated symplectic singularities which are termed $h\mathrm{SO}(N)$ and $i\mathrm{SO}(N)$, respectively. The classification of these isolated symplectic singularities is argued for through the Higgs mechanism, with Hilbert series and highest weight generating (HWG) functions computed for some cases. Each of the $g\mathrm{SO}(N)$, $h\mathrm{SO}(N)$, and $i\mathrm{SO}(N)$ families has a (quaternionic) one-dimensional member; these are the Klein $A_3$, $E_6$, and $E_8$ singularities, respectively. Our construction hence provides realisations of these Klein singularities as Higgs branches (hyper-Kähler quotients) of $\mathrm{Sp}(1)$ gauge theories, complementary to Kronheimer's construction \cite{Kronheimer:1989zs} using the $\widehat A_3$, $\widehat E_6$, and $\widehat E_8$ affine quivers. The Klein $E_7$ singularity is also realised as a Higgs branch (hyper-Kähler quotient) of an $\mathrm{Sp}(1)\times\mathrm{O}(1)$ gauge theory.
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All authors Amihay Hanany, Guhesh Kumaran, Deshuo Liu, Travis Schedler

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Generative Amplification with Surrogate Monte Carlo

Henning Bahl, Tilman Plehn and Rebecca Revelli

Amplitude surrogates for LHC simulations build on generative amplification, the fact that a surrogate trained on an expensive and small training dataset describes the smooth amplitude more precisely than the training data does. Applying techniques developed for generative networks, we quantify this amplification for gluon-associated $Z$ production. Significant amplification appears in sparsely populated kinematic tails, where it matters most. Our results show how generative amplification from surrogate Monte Carlo far outperforms the density estimation in current generative networks.
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Strongly Correlated Electrons

Composite Fields and Tree Expansions: A Unified Framework for Renormalized Vertex Decompositions

Oleksandr Sulyma and Benedikt Schneider

One-particle irreducible vertices encode renormalized interactions in quantum field theories, but their practical treatment remains challenging due to their high dimensionality and nontrivial dependence on external variables such as momenta or frequencies. We develop a functional framework that algebraically reorganizes the diagrammatic content of the vertex functions into more efficient building blocks and reveals several established vertex decompositions, such as parquet, single-boson exchange, asymptotic classes and symmetric estimators, as different realizations of a common functional structure. Based on Legendre transforms of the effective action of composite fields, the formalism shows that different vertex representations arise from different choices of composite degrees of freedom. We demonstrate that in our framework higher-order vertices can be systematically obtained via tree expansions, thereby extending the aforementioned decompositions beyond the four-point level. Because our findings are independent of any specific physical setting, the framework applies broadly to quantum field theories in condensed matter physics, particle physics, and beyond.
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Physics and Society

Game-Theoretic Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Modeling Competitive Human Driving: A Cut-in Prediction Study

Yu Song

Capturing the strategic decision-making inherent in competitive human driving is critical for autonomous vehicle safety and traffic simulation. This study demonstrates that game-theoretic Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) provides a robust framework for this challenge. We present a comprehensive analysis comparing data-driven IRL models against an established physics-based game-theoretic approach for predicting aggressive, safety-critical cut-in lane changes. Using the high-fidelity highD dataset, we systematically develop and evaluate a series of IRL models with increasing feature complexity. Our results reveal significant advantages: the best-performing IRL models achieve an overall prediction accuracy exceeding 75 percent while maintaining a Cut-In precision up to 51 percent and recall up to 49 percent. This represents a significant improvement over the established physics-based benchmark, which achieved only 4.4 percent precision in these high-stakes scenarios. The analysis reveals a clear trade-off: incorporating granular, instantaneous features yields higher precision, while adding temporal consistency features maximizes recall. These findings suggest that IRL-based models can effectively bridge the gap between microscopic driver intent and macroscopic safety outcomes, providing a more reliable foundation for modeling interactions in mixed-autonomy environments.
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Nuclear Theory

Reconstructability and directed flow of short-lived resonances in Au+Au collisions at 19.6 and 200 GeV

Junyi Han, Xialei Jiang, Hongcan Li et al. (+1 more)

We present a systematic study of the reconstructability and directed flow of hadronic resonances in Au+Au collisions within the UrQMD transport model. The main objective of this work is to investigate how the hadronic stage influences both resonance reconstructability and the final-state directed flow. A set of short-lived hadronic resonances, including $\rho^0$, $K^{*0}$, and $\Lambda(1520)$, is investigated to quantify their yields and reconstructable fractions as a function of charged-particle multiplicity, characterized by $(dN_{ch}/d\eta)^{1/3}$. We compare results at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 19.6$ and $200 ~\mathrm{GeV}$ to investigate possible energy-dependent differences in the reconstructability. Such differences reflect variations in the properties of the hadronic medium. The results are further examined as a function of resonance lifetime, revealing a clear ordering of reconstructability among different resonances. Overall, the reconstructability is found to be primarily governed by resonance lifetime. The directed-flow analysis reveals clear differences between resonances and their corresponding stable hadrons in mid-central collisions, while these differences become significantly weaker in peripheral collisions, highlighting the important role of hadronic evolution in shaping the final-state directed flow. These studies provide a unified picture of how the hadronic stage influences both resonance reconstructability and directed flow, offering new insights into resonance observables in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
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All authors Junyi Han, Xialei Jiang, Hongcan Li, Yaping Wang

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Atmospheric Light Pollution by Proposed Reflect Orbital Space Mirrors

Miroslav Kocifaj, Gáspár Bakos and František Kundracik

ReflectOrbital is planning to launch a $18\times18$\,m mirror in space at a $\sim$600\,km altitude to illuminate a $2.5$\,km radius circular patch on Earth. The pilot satellite, called EARENDIL-1, is a pathfinder for a constellation of $\sim$50,000 larger mirrors, each with $54\times54$\,m in diameter, with the explicit goal to provide space-borne illumination on Earth. We calculate the sky brightness caused by the Rayleigh scattering and aerosol scattering of the incoming beam from one such satellite and by the light reflected back by the illuminated patch, for various atmospheric properties and ground albedos under cloud-free conditions. We demonstrate that the light pollution caused by one of these satellites is very significant, altering the nighttime environment up to distances of $\sim$30\,kms. The results show that for an observer within the beam of a single 54\,m satellite, the mirror will appear as a $-16.7$\,mag point-like source, i.e.~about 4 magnitudes brighter than the full moon. The diffuse sky background will be similar to the dusk sky shortly after sunset; too bright to see even the brightest stars. From a distance of 14\,km, the glow from a single mirror will exceed the luminance of the full moon sky for majority of the sky. From a distance of 34\,km the sky will still appear brighter than the moon-lit sky in the direction of the beam. If 400 such mirrors illuminate the same patch simultaneously, the glow will be obvious from 80\,kms.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

The Early Career Astrobiology Workforce Under Strain Survey Evidence from 2025-2026

Katherine Dzurilla, Gabby Rizzo, Perianne Johnson et al. (+3 more)

A survey of self identified early career astrobiologists was organized by the NOW early career group FLOW and the Scientific Society of Astrobiology. During November 2025 to February 2026, 165 responses were collected to gain insight into the state of early career communities the impacts of federal grant delays on early career astrobiologists and the future of astrobiology. Results indicated that a majority of surveyed ECRs are concerned about their future careers (90 percent). Funding delays have affected 89 percent of ECRs future career paths, with open responses indicating that the lack of available funding resources, and employment opportunities limit their ability to see a future in the field. Most ECRs are unsure about staying in academia with over 50 percent of Ph.D. students, postdocs, and Junior scientists unsure or not planning to stay in academia. However Junior Faculty are largely planning to remain in academia.
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All authors Katherine Dzurilla, Gabby Rizzo, Perianne Johnson, Patrick Monreal, Ilankuzhali Elavarasan, Elizabeth Spiers

High Energy Physics (Theory)

A Tale of Two Compact Bosons

Christian Ferko, Vishnu Jejjala and Brandon Robinson

Neural network field theory (NN-FT) defines a field theory by a network architecture together with a probability density on its latent variables. For compact theories the local Gaussian sector is only part of the story: one must also sum over discrete topological sectors. We review a mixed continuous/discrete latent-variable construction and apply it to two compact bosons. For the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless transition, a random Fourier feature spin-wave sampler supplemented by an explicit Coulomb gas vortex sector reproduces the Gaussian critical line below $T_c$, vortex proliferation above $T_c$, the essential singularity of the correlation length, and the Nelson–Kosterlitz jump. For the bosonic string, oscillator modes augmented by momentum–winding labels reproduce circle T-duality, Buscher transformations on constant toroidal backgrounds, self-dual current algebra enhancement, and a toy T-fold. The common lesson is that the same local neural sampler, paired with different discrete topological data, yields physically distinct compact theories. These proceedings are based on arXiv:2604.02313.
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Statistical Mechanics

A Universal Control Budget for First-Passage Kinetics

Shiling Liang and Ruicheng Bao

The first-passage time is the natural observable of reaction completion, yet how its mean responds to a rate change has lacked a general constraint. We show that the logarithmic sensitivity of the mean first-passage time of any finite Markov chain to any rate is bounded by one in magnitude, and that these sensitivities sum to -1. Together the two laws form a conserved control budget: speeding completion through some transitions must be paid for by others, and a coordinated change shifts the completion time only as far as the budget allows. Raising an activation barrier or shifting the depth of a well moves many rates at once, yet neither can shift the completion time further than a single rate could. The budget caps kinetic-proofreading discrimination at the checkpoint count, and prices it in sensitivity to substrate concentration.
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Quantum Physics

Bell nonlocality from twisted statistics

Ivana \DJ or\dj ević, Jovan Potrebić, Aleksandra Gočanin et al. (+1 more)

We investigate Bell correlations for a free real quantum scalar field on the noncommutative Moyal plane. Although the free field dynamics and the one-particle sector remain unchanged, the deformation enters through twisted multiparticle statistics and its Fock-space dressing representation. A classical external source coupled locally to the twist-dressed quantum field prepares coherent superpositions of momentum-pair configurations propagating toward two spacelike-separated laboratories. The momentum-dependent twist phases are generally nonfactorizable and generate entanglement between the corresponding wave-packet modes. We show that suitable local mode measurements lead to a violation of the CHSH Bell inequality. The resulting correlations provide an operational probe of the noncommutative structure encoded in the multiparticle sector of the quantum field.
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All authors Ivana \DJ or\dj ević, Jovan Potrebić, Aleksandra Gočanin, Dragoljub Gočanin

Strongly Correlated Electrons

Phonon spectral functions of low-density polaron metals

Luis Walther, Alberto Nocera and Mona Berciu

We use the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) to compute the phonon spectral function of a one-dimensional spinless Holstein model doped with a low but finite carrier concentration, $x \leq 0.15$, as a function of the electron-phonon coupling $\lambda$. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first such results in this regime, complementing extensive prior work at the single-polaron level ($x\to 0$). We find that significant phonon spectral weight is transferred both below, all the way down to $\omega=0$, and above the bare phonon energy $\Omega$, in stark contrast with the Kohn-anomaly phenomenology expected in the Migdal limit, where weight remains centered near $\Omega$ with a kink at $q=2k_F$. No signature of this $2k_F$ kink appears in our results. This behavior is captured qualitatively by the Random Phase Approximation (RPA), and semi-quantitatively, at negligible extra computational cost, by a “dressed RPA” scheme in which the electron addition propagator is renormalized using the Momentum Average (MA) approximation for the low-density electron-polaron. By contrast, adding the lowest-order vertex correction to this dressed scheme produces unphysical negative spectral weight, signaling that vertex and propagator dressings must be treated consistently once the propagators are dressed nonperturbatively. Our results provide an efficient approximation for the phonon spectral functions of low-density polaron metals, a regime relevant to weakly doped insulators.
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Optics

Structured coherence: A modern perspective on optical coherence as a resource

Ayman F. Abouraddy and Bahaa E. A. Saleh

Optical coherence is a well-established branch of physical optics in which the statistical properties of fluctuating optical fields are described in terms of correlation functions over continuous spatial and temporal degrees of freedom (DoFs). Nevertheless, in any practical setting, only discrete DoFs are ever accessible. In these scenarios, the modes are fixed, stable, and deterministic, and partial coherence arises from random relative complex amplitudes, a configuration we refer to as 'structured coherence'. Advances in structured coherence have recently unveiled new conceptual ground in optical communications and information processing in which partial coherence may be preferable to full coherence, which we call a 'coherence advantage'. We formulate structured coherence in terms of coherence matrices to investigate these recent theoretical and experimental breakthroughs. We first review optical fields characterized by a binary DoF via 2x2 Hermitian coherence matrices and introduce key concepts that take on new significance for larger-dimensional modal sets. Next, we examine the structured coherence of two binary DoFs, which can be described by 4x4 coherence matrices. We introduce the concept of coherence rank, entropy swapping, and optical cross-purity. In the perspective outlined here, coherence is viewed as a 'resource', which can be exchanged between DoFs, concentrated into a DoF or into particular modes, or spread over the DoFs. We then examine larger-dimensional modal sets, which allow for more versatile applications in optical information processing. The formulation presented here lends itself particularly to the manipulation of partial optical coherence in integrated photonic platforms, thereby opening myriad avenues for novel fundamental investigations of structured coherence and exploiting the coherence advantage in optical communications and information processing.
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Mathematical Physics · Cross-listed from math.AP

On generalised d'Alembert-type integral representations for damped wave equations on the quarter-plane

Andreas Chatziafratis, Claudio Giorgi, Alain Miranville et al. (+1 more)

We rigorously construct and verify a posteriori new closed-form solutions for the forced Maxwell-Cattaneo-Vernotte equation (also broadly known as the damped wave equation, hyperbolic heat, and telegrapher's equation on lossy transmission lines) posed on the spatiotemporal quarter-plane with general initial and boundary data in classical function spaces. For this purpose, the modern complex-analytic unified transform method of Fokas (originally developed for elliptic PDE and evolution equations with polynomial dispersion relations) is here, for the first time, extended for analysis of hyperbolic-parabolic problems on the semi-infinite interval. Importantly, we then establish theorems which pertain to regularity, boundary and asymptotic properties of the new analytical formulae as well as to well-posedness of the addressed boundary-value problems. Notably, the nature and generality of problems considered, combined with the semi-unboundedness of the domain, induce substantial analytic challenges which demand delicate treatment, both in appropriately interpreting oscillatory integral terms of the solution formulae and in proving the proposed results. In this process, crucially, certain compatibility conditions, between initial, boundary and forcing data at the origin, are revealed, which guarantee the existence of a smooth solution across the whole domain of interest. Our explicit integral representations are of direct utility for numercal benchmarking purposes, for exploring connections with modelling in continuum mechanics, mathematical physics, biology and the natural sciences, and for the investigation of well-posedness for nonlinear counterparts too.
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All authors Andreas Chatziafratis, Claudio Giorgi, Alain Miranville, Federico Zullo

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Clump Migration in Disk Galaxies: Revisiting Chandrasekhar's Dynamical Friction

Pushpak Pandey and Kanak Saha

Massive stellar clumps are thought to migrate toward galactic centers through dynamical friction, contributing to bulge growth and the structural evolution of disk galaxies. While the classical Chandrasekhar formalism is widely used to estimate clump inspiral times, its validity for extended, evolving clumps embedded in realistic galactic disks remains uncertain. We test this formalism using an isolated disk galaxy simulation by identifying and tracking individual stellar clumps over multiple orbital periods. We develop a position- and mass-based tracking algorithm that follows long-lived clumps and compare their measured orbital evolution with predictions from a dynamical friction model constructed from the simulated baryonic and dark matter mass distributions. After excluding the initial transient phase, we identify nine long-lived clumps, eight of which migrate inward while losing 60-90% of their initial mass. The analytical model reproduces the overall dependence of migration on clump mass and galactocentric radius, but for six clumps it overestimates the inspiral time by factors of $\sim2$-$10$. Since mass loss would reduce the dynamical friction force, it cannot account for the observed faster migration. Our results suggest that additional physical processes, for example clump-clump interactions, non-circular orbits, and the time-dependent disk potential play an important role in regulating clump migration beyond the assumptions of the classical Chandrasekhar formulation.
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Quantum Physics

Dimension-Free Polylogarithmic Quantum Shadow Tomography

Fernando Granha Jeronimo, Qizhao Huang and Lenny Liu

Shadow Tomography is a fundamental problem in quantum information theory. Given multiple copies of an unknown $d$-dimensional quantum state $\rho$ and a known collection of observables $E_1,\ldots,E_M$, the goal is to estimate all expectation values $\{\text{Tr}(\rho E_i)\}_{i=1}^M$ to additive accuracy $\varepsilon$ with probability at least $1-\delta$. An elusive open question from the seminal shadow tomography work of Aaronson is whether this task admits a dimension-independent sample complexity with only polylogarithmic dependence on $M$, as suggested by the best-known lower bounds. In this work, we propose two different quantum protocols for shadow tomography with the best sample complexity \[ O\left( \frac{\log(M)\log(M/\delta)}{\varepsilon^2} \right), \] which is polylogarithmic in the number of observables and independent of the dimension of the unknown state, thereby answering Aaronson's original question while also providing an exponential improvement in the prior best dimension independent sample complexity of shadow tomography from Sinha (STOC 2025) and, more recently, Chen, O'Donnell, Pelecanos, and Wright. Our approach first reduces the general shadow tomography problem to a finite-ensemble estimation problem via a minimax argument. We then develop an observable-independent protocol that repeatedly applies the pretty-good measurement while updating the prior distribution over the finite ensemble according to the measurement outcomes. A tail analysis of the resulting estimation error yields simultaneous accuracy guarantees for all observables and a cubic-logarithmic upper bound. We also introduce a refined recovery-label measurement for the same finite ensemble, which yields the bound in our main theorem.
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Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

SPT-3G D1: Foreground-Robust Lensing Templates for Primordial Gravitational Wave Searches

Y. Nakato, W. L. K. Wu, Y. Omori et al. (+92 more)

Gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) generates B-mode polarization that acts as a source of contamination to searches for B modes generated by primordial gravitational waves (PGWs). The strongest constraint on PGW B modes is already significantly limited by lensing B modes, as shown in the most recent BICEP result. In this work, we present CMB lensing B-mode templates constructed using SPT-3G and Planck data, which characterize the lensing B modes and can be used to improve PGW B-mode searches. We use SPT-3G data from the 2019 and 2020 observing seasons for the E modes and the CMB-reconstructed lensing potential, and a cosmic infrared background (CIB) map from Planck as an external lensing tracer. To test for extragalactic foreground biases in the lensing template, we consider CMB lensing reconstruction variants with different levels of foreground immunity: the standard and profile-hardened global minimum variance (GMV) quadratic estimators, and a polarization-only quadratic estimator. We validate the template construction using Gaussian simulations and Agora simulations with realistic non-Gaussian foregrounds. From simulations, we find that foreground-induced biases are strongly suppressed for the template constructed with the profile-hardened GMV + CIB tracer, with residual bias below 10% of the statistical uncertainty on the template power spectrum. Data difference tests on this template similarly show no evidence for significant foreground contamination. This foreground-immune lensing template achieves delensed residual BB power of $A_{\rm lens}^{\rm res} \simeq 0.48$ averaged over $20 \leq \ell \leq 200$, the highest delensing efficiency lensing template to date. These results demonstrate and validate a method to construct foreground-robust lensing templates which will be used in upcoming delensed PGW B-mode analyses of BICEP data.
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All authors Y. Nakato, W. L. K. Wu, Y. Omori, E. Anderes, A. J. Anderson, B. Ansarinejad, M. Archipley, L. Balkenhol, D. R. Barron, P. S. Barry, K. Benabed, A. N. Bender, B. A. Benson, F. Bianchini, L. E. Bleem, S. Bocquet, F. R. Bouchet, E. Camphuis, M. G. Campitiello, J. E. Carlstrom, J. Carron, C. L. Chang, P. M. Chichura, A. Chokshi, T.-L. Chou, A. Coerver, T. M. Crawford, C. Daley, T. de Haan, K. R. Dibert, M. A. Dobbs, M. Doohan, D. Dutcher, C. Feng, K. R. Ferguson, N. C. Ferree, K. Fichman, A. Foster, S. Galli, A. E. Gambrel, A. K. Gao, F. Ge, F. Guidi, S. Guns, N. W. Halverson, E. Hivon, G. P. Holder, W. L. Holzapfel, J. C. Hood, A. Hryciuk, N. Huang, T. Jhaveri, F. Kéruzoré, A. R. Khalife, L. Knox, K. Kornoelje, C.-L. Kuo, K. Levy, Y. Li, A. E. Lowitz, C. Lu, G. P. Lynch, T. J. Maccarone, A. S. Maniyar, E. S. Martsen, F. Menanteau, M. Millea, J. Montgomery, T. Natoli, A. Ouellette, Z. Pan, P. Paschos, K. A. Phadke, K. Prabhu, W. Quan, S. Raghunathan, M. Rahimi, A. Rahlin, C. L. Reichardt, M. Rouble, J. E. Ruhl, A. C. Silva Oliveira, A. Simpson, J. A. Sobrin, A. A. Stark, J. Stephen, C. Tandoi, C. Trendafilova, J. D. Vieira, A. G. Vieregg, A. Vitrier, Y. Wan, N. Whitehorn, M. R. Young, J. A. Zebrowski

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Vector Edge Solitons and Domain Walls in a Nonlinear Mechanical Topological Insulator

David D. J. M. Snee and Yi-Ping Ma

We report nonlinear edge waves in a 2D mechanical topological insulator. A bulk lattice consists of pendulums with on-site cubic nonlinearity connected by linear springs realizing quantum spin Hall effect. We show that the nonlinear interaction between two edge modes with equal group velocities (EGV) is described by a 1D two-component coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (CNLS) equation. On the interface separating two bulk lattices with opposite spin Chern numbers, we construct linear springs such that the dispersion relation exhibits EGV points with favorable CNLS coefficients. Thus, we realize nonlinear edge waves propagating along the interface, including bright-bright (BB) edge solitons for focusing CNLS coefficients, and dark-dark edge solitons, edge domain walls, and dark-bright edge solitons for defocusing CNLS coefficients. In terms of the site amplitudes, these solutions resemble bright and dark breathers. These solutions should be topologically protected when both carrier frequencies lie within a band gap, which we explicitly show by passing BB edge solitons through compact defects on the interface. We also show energy transfer in BB edge soliton collisions with potential application to collision-based computing. Generally, vector edge solitons exhibit a large parameter space for soliton collisions, which endows mechanical devices with greater potential for information processing and other functionalities.
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Chemical Physics

Nuclear-Spin Statistical Weights from Young Diagrams

Eric Kubischta and Ian Teixeira

Nuclear-spin statistical weights and selection rules in molecular spectroscopy are governed by the permutation symmetry of identical nuclei, although rigid and semi-rigid molecules typically realize only a proper subgroup of the full symmetric group. Building on the Schur-Weyl framework of Schmiedt, Jensen, and Schlemmer, we extend this approach to molecular geometries whose rovibrational motion realizes cyclic and dihedral permutation subgroups. By combining the Schur-Weyl decomposition of the $n$-spin Hilbert space with the Kraśkiewicz-Weyman-Adin-Roichman major-index branching rule for the restriction $S_N \downarrow C_m$, we obtain a fully combinatorial method for determining nuclear-spin symmetry species and statistical weights. Each standard Young tableau corresponds to a definite cyclic character determined by its major index, with reflections yielding the associated dihedral symmetry, so that nuclear-spin species follow directly from tableau data without projection operators or case-specific constructions. Applications to $XeOF_4$, $SF_4$, benzene, deuterated benzene, and the tropylium cation demonstrate that the method applies uniformly to realistic molecular point groups and reproduces established statistical weights while providing a transparent spin-resolved structure. The approach supplies the symmetry information required for rovibrational line-intensity modeling and provides a practical, automatable framework for nuclear-spin symmetry analysis in polyatomic molecules.
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High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

A unified modeling of X-ray and gamma-ray spectro-polarimetric data: the case of Cygnus X-1

Tristan Bouchet, Thomas Siegert, Victoria Grinberg et al. (+4 more)

Recent X-ray and soft gamma-ray spectro-polarimetric observations of black hole X-ray binaries, such as Cygnus X-1, reveal discrepancies that challenge current models of accretion and high-energy emission. We present a general framework for broadband spectro-polarimetric modeling that simultaneously fits spectral and polarization data from independent instruments across different energy bands. The method robustly combines measurements with different energy binning and statistical significance while accounting for energy-dependent polarization mixing between model components. Applied to Cygnus X-1 over the 2 keV-2 MeV range, it provides an improved characterization of the soft gamma-ray hard-tail and constrains the optically thin synchrotron cutoff energy to $(2.8^{+0.6}_{-0.8}) \times 10^{2}$ keV. We discuss the implications for non-thermal electron acceleration in the context of Bohm diffusion and synchrotron cooling, and propose a new explanation for the observed polarization misalignment based on magnetic field helicity and Doppler boosting. The framework is broadly applicable to multi-instrument spectro-polarimetric analyses.
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All authors Tristan Bouchet, Thomas Siegert, Victoria Grinberg, Jérôme Rodriguez, Floriane Cangemi, Philippe Laurent, Joern Wilms