Papers

The evolution of angular momentum in galaxies is shaped by a combination of internal secular processes and external mechanisms such as mergers. Orbit-superposition based dynamical modelling provides a powerful means of linking the intrinsic orbital structures of galaxies to their global properties and merger histories. We construct Schwarzschild orbit-superposition models of massive ($\log(M/M_{\odot})>10$) SAMI galaxies using the DYNAMITE code, utilising deep KiDS photometry to accurately reproduce each galaxy's luminosity distribution. We find that the fractions of hot, cold, warm, and counter-rotating orbits all show significant correlations with the spin parameter proxy $\lambda_{R_e}$, with the strongest correlation arising from the combined hot plus counter-rotating fraction. When controlling for stellar mass and environment, we find that the fraction of hot and cold orbits show significant correlations with stellar age, whereas warm orbits do not. We further find that the lower values of $\lambda_{R_e}$ for young galaxies with shell merger features as compared to the full sample is driven by an excess of hot orbits and a deficit of cold orbits, with no dependence on warm orbits. We suggest that the kinematic transformation in this SAMI sample proceeds through stars transitioning directly from cold to hot orbits. As warm orbits are expected to arise from secular heating processes, these findings indicate that merger-driven heating is the dominant mechanism governing the redistribution of angular momentum and the reduction of rotational support in massive galaxies.

Burst oscillations observed during thermonuclear X-ray bursts arise from asymmetric brightness patterns on the neutron star surface and provide a direct probe of the neutron star spin frequency. We present a detailed timing analysis of the neutron star low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1323-62 using 2024 observations with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observatories. We identify nine thermonuclear X-ray bursts in the XMM-Newton/EPIC-pn data, along with eclipsing dips in the light curve. One of the XMM-Newton bursts exhibits a rare doublet structure. In addition, NuSTAR detects six bursts, four of which occur simultaneously with those observed with XMM-Newton. We identify a possible burst oscillation signal at $\sim$611.5 Hz in the XMM-Newton data. The strongest oscillation, detected during the primary burst of the doublet burst, reaches a maximum $Z_1^{2}$ power of $\sim35$. An analytical estimate accounting for the searched frequency and time intervals gives a significance of $\sim3.0\sigma$, whereas independent Monte Carlo simulations yield a more robust global significance of only $\sim2.4\sigma$. We therefore interpret the signal as a tentative detection of burst oscillation. The folded pulse profile in the 0.5-10 keV band is well described by a sinusoid, with a fractional rms amplitude of $\sim30\pm6$%. The oscillation frequency corresponds to a neutron-star spin period of $\sim$1.635 ms, suggesting that 4U 1323-62 may harbor a rapidly rotating millisecond neutron star.

Context. Stellar flares are energetic events driven by the sudden release of magnetic energy in the stellar atmosphere. Studying these flares is crucial for understanding their impact on exoplanets, the circumstellar environment, and stellar evolution itself. The launch of the Einstein Probe (EP) offers a unique opportunity to systematically detect such events. Aims. We present a systematic analysis of the flaring activity of the active RS CVn-type binary {\sigma} Gem, utilizing the first-year monitoring data from the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) aboard EP. Our goals are to demonstrate the unique capability of EP in monitoring stellar X-ray activity and detecting flares, by identifying and characterizing extreme X-ray flares on {\sigma} Gem and estimating their occurrence rate. Methods. We developed a data-processing pipeline to select and extract EP-WXT observations, producing a background-subtracted, vignetting-corrected light curve. We employed the Bayesian Blocks method to detect significant flares in the long-term X-ray light curve. For each identified flare, we performed light curve and spectral fitting to derive the flare parameters. Results. Between October 2024 and April 2025, WXT detected 6 distinct flares from {\sigma} Gem. Their durations ranged from 21 hours to 3 days, with peak X-ray luminosities (0.5-4 keV) of 3.7 * 10^31 to 7.0 * 10^32 erg/s and total energies of 1.1 * 10^36 to 4.4 * 10^37 erg, placing them among the "superflare" class. Conclusions. Using {\sigma} Gem as a case study, we demonstrate an analysis process for flare detection and analysis with EP-WXT data, which provides new statistical constraints on its flaring behavior. Applying this methodology to the growing EP stellar archive promises to yield a vast sample of X-ray flares, which will significantly advance our understanding of stellar magnetic activity.

Frequency-domain Huygens' principle and equivalence relations for an infinitely long cylindrical surface enclosing the field sources or scatterers are addressed. Assuming the harmonic dependence of the fields along the cylinder axis, we derive three equivalent versions of line-integral representations for the fields in free space at any point outside the enclosing cylinder. In one of the forms, similarly to the Helmholtz-Kirchhoff scalar diffraction theory, the integrals contain a longitudinal field component and its normal derivative. Another presented form contains longitudinal and normal field components, similarly to the three-dimensional boundary integral representations by Stratton and Chu. This form eliminates the need to calculate the field derivatives. Furthermore, we present a two-dimensional version of the three-dimensional Schelkunoff-Franz representation, which contains only tangential components of the fields, complies with the field equivalence theorem and can be regarded as a rigorous formulation of Huygens' principle for a cylindrical enclosing surface. All three forms of the line-equivalence relation are exact and describe the fields through equivalent field distributions on a line enclosing the cross section of the source region. A physical interpretation of Huygens' principle in terms of conical waves emanated by virtual linear sources on the cylindrical surface enclosing the true sources is given. Specialization of the relations to the intermediate and far-field zones are presented. The derived expressions are applicable for studies of scattering and radiation in a very general class of structures that are infinite and periodic along one direction.

We show that quantum phase estimation (QPE) circuits can be significantly compressed in depth by preprocessing the input operator with a sigmoid spectral filter before estimation. For systems with small spectral gaps Delta_lambda, standard QPE requires m = ceil(log2(1/Delta_lambda)) precision qubits and depth Theta(2^m). Applying a soft-step transformation f(lambda; tau,w) amplifies the effective gap to Delta_f > Delta_lambda (for w < 1/4), reducing the required precision to m_f = ceil(log2(1/Delta_f)) and compressing circuit depth by 2^(alpha Delta_m), where alpha = 1 for the LMR density-matrix exponentiation framework and alpha is in [0.11,0.42] for controlled-phase-gate circuits. We prove that this compression is exact, bounded above by log2(1/(4w Delta_lambda)) + 1, and impossible for exactly degenerate spectra. We further show that the threshold parameter tau requires only O(w) accuracy, so classical preprocessing such as covariance diagonalisation or CASSCF avoids circularity. A net resource advantage occurs when 4w^2(2^Delta_m - 1) > Delta_lambda log(1/epsilon). Validation on LiH and BeH2 bond-stretch calculations, classical covariance datasets, and synthetic near-degenerate cases demonstrates depth reductions of up to 27x and CX-gate reductions of up to 21x. For LiH, QPE output fidelity improves from 0.66 to 0.98 at a 1% hardware error rate. The method preserves the principal subspace to machine precision, requires no modification of QPE, and can be combined with readout-stage and state-preparation filtering. Negative-control tests establish the benefit condition: m_raw >= 2 and Delta_lambda > 0.

Laser frequency chirp is a ubiquitous dynamical process in semiconductor lasers, vital for frequency-modulated photonic systems. In the mid-infrared (MIR) and terahertz (THz) ranges, quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) are ideal sources with high power, narrow linewidth and compact size. While chirp dynamics in MIR QCLs have been studied, the transient chirp behavior of THz QCLs–particularly the thermal chirp on microsecond to millisecond timescales–remains largely unexplored. Here, we experimentally investigate transient thermal chirp dynamics in single-mode THz QCLs via an on-chip heterodyne scheme. Twin monolithically integrated single-mode QCLs are used: one pulsed QCL as the device under test, and one continuous-wave (CW) QCL serving as both local oscillator (LO) and ultrafast THz detector. The frequency chirp is mapped to the radio-frequency (RF) domain by heterodyne down-conversion. By varying current and temperature, we observe three distinct chirp features: unidirectional down-chirp, V-shaped chirp, and unidirectional up-chirp. A two-node thermal model reproduces the dynamics with good agreement with experiments. Chirp dynamics in the multi-mode regime are also identified, showing the potential for sensitive dynamic spectral characterization. These findings deepen the understanding of THz QCL thermal chirp mechanisms and support applications in THz frequency combs, frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar, and high-speed coherent communications.

Quantum illumination exploits entanglement between a transmitted signal and a retained idler to improve the error-probability exponent of target detection by roughly a factor of four (6 dB) over that with a coherent state of the same transmitted energy. This advantage presumes a known return phase. In practice, the phase is set by the range to the target and the condition of its surface, and is difficult to know in advance. Whether the advantage survives when this phase is unknown is not obvious. Here, we cast target detection as a composite hypothesis test in which the return phase is an unknown constant common to all trials, and we restrict the receiver to independent and identical measurements on each copy. We bound the worst-case error exponent at low reflectivity for every such measurement and every input state of a single signal mode and an idler of any dimension. We then show that unentangled coherent light with heterodyne detection already saturates this bound, for every value of the phase. Entanglement therefore confers no advantage in this setting. The class of independent and identical measurements contains many implementable quantum-illumination receivers, including the optical parametric amplifier and phase-conjugate receivers. Our result shows that none of them can offer a quantum advantage in the worst case over the phase, to leading order in the reflectivity.

How galaxy mergers drive morphological evolution remains an open question. Traditional views hold that major mergers produce elliptical galaxies, while minor mergers form dispersion-dominated components such as galactic bulges. However, more recent work has challenged this simple picture, suggesting a more complex evolutionary scenario. In this study, we use the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulation to investigate how mergers shape galaxy morphology, across a broad range of galaxy masses and merger mass ratios. Our results show that the post-merger galaxy morphology is primarily determined by three factors: collision angle $\overline{\theta}$, cold gas fraction $f_\mathrm{cold\,gas}$, and pre-merger galaxy morphology $\mathrm{(B/T)_{*,pre}}$. Specifically, spiral-in mergers with large $\overline{\theta}$ increase the rotational support of the system, allowing the gas to settle into an extended disk. When the system is rich in cold gas, star formation within the newly formed gas disk can further strengthen the disk-dominated structure of the remnant. On the other hand, head-on mergers with small $\overline{\theta}$ typically disrupt ordered galactic motion, producing more dispersion-supported remnants. Overall, we interpret our results within a unified picture of merger-driven morphological transformation in galaxies.

The reptation model postulates that entangled polymers slide within a fractal tube. Here we employ a model-independent relation between the zero-displacement probability and the mean-square displacement that applies to time-dependent fractal structures, enabling direct measurement of the fractal dimension $d_\mathrm{f}$ of the geometry experienced by monomer motion. For two-dimensional obstacle arrays and in the slip-link model, $d_\mathrm{f}$ agrees with the reptation prediction $d_\mathrm{f}=1/\nu$ (where $\nu$ is the Flory exponent). In polymer melts, however, we find $d_\mathrm{f} \approx 2.6$ — a value close to the fractal dimension of percolation clusters, not the reptation value $d_\mathrm{f}=2$. This contrasts sharply with the reptation picture, in which a Rouse chain slides in a fractal structure with $d_\mathrm{f}=2$, spectral dimension $d_\mathrm{s}=1$, and walk dimension $d_\mathrm{w}=4$; our results point instead to a percolation-like scenario, characterized by $d_\mathrm{f}\approx 2.6$, $d_\mathrm{s}\approx 1.3$, and $d_\mathrm{w}\approx 4$ — revealing a dynamically emergent, finite-size fractal geometry distinct from the static tube.

Single-Pulsar Noise Analysis (SPNA) and Gravitational Wave (GW) searches done on Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) datasets have everlastingly suffered from the computational bottleneck arising due to high dimensionality and multi-modality of the PTA likelihood landscape, along with strong correlations amongst various single-pulsar noises and ensemble-level common noise processes. We addressed this outstanding issue by employing a Normalising Flow-based Preconditioned Monte-Carlo sampling technique implemented in the POCOMC package, for the first time on PTA-specific computations, and comparing the achieved acceleration with the widely used PTMCMCSAMPLER and DYNESTY packages. We further investigated the acceleration achieved via parallelisation over an increasing array of communicating nodes on a high-performance computing (HPC) resource, by employing the PARALLEL_BILBY architecture with DYNESTY. We tested the acceleration on realistic long baseline simulated datasets with SPNA and Common Red Noise (CRN) analysis. We found PARALLEL_BILBY to be the most efficient in parallelisation, achieving a runtime of ~10min and ~100min with 16 nodes for spatially uncorrelated and Hellings and Downs-correlated CRN searches, respectively. POCOMC outperforms in single node performance requiring only ~10h for correlated search. PTMCMCSAMPLER was found to be the least efficient. We envisage POCOMC to be of great importance for PTA analyses, without requiring any GPU or HPC support, while also performing ensemble-level GW searches within a manageable time span. These results have everlasting implications with increasing data volumes and need to incorporate more complicated models, which were otherwise beyond reach due to the associated computational costs.

We investigate a single mobile impurity in a two-dimensional hard-core Bose–Hubbard bath at low and intermediate fillings and determine how polaronic dressing evolves with bath filling for impurity–bath couplings ranging from weak to strong and ultimately to the two-component hard-core limit. Using large-scale, sign-problem-free worm-algorithm quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we extract momentum-space quasiparticle properties from the impurity Green's function and resolve the accompanying real-space bath rearrangement from an imaginary-time-averaged impurity-centered correlator. We also vary the impurity hopping $t_{\rm imp}$ to assess how reduced mobility modifies dressing in the strong-coupling regime. For the fillings accessible at each coupling, the impurity remains a dressed quasiparticle whose ground-state energy, effective mass, and residue vary smoothly with filling $n_{\rm b}$. In real space, increasing $n_{\rm b}$ strengthens the short-range depletion while shifting the dominant response toward the impurity. In the two-component hard-core limit $U_{\rm ib}/t_{\rm b}\!\to\!\infty$, the large-distance recovery of the cumulative density deformation exhibits only weak filling dependence over the range considered here, whereas short-range core indicators continue to evolve. Our results quantitatively characterize strongly dressed polarons in a correlated, compressible lattice bath and resolve how filling and impurity mobility modify the near-core response and spatial extent of the dressing cloud.

Quantum optical skyrmions, as topologically robust quantum information carriers, hold transformative potential for resilient high-dimensional quantum information networks. However, their practical exploitation was still restricted to a single quantum channel, which precludes the multiplexing essential for practical high-capacity quantum networks. Here, we utilize a metasurface to achieve multi-channel quantum state distribution of the polarization-entangled photon pairs, inducing a two-photon bunching effect in both the spin and spatial dimensions with compact flat optics. At the spatial bunching port, controlled manipulation of the spin-orbit interaction enables the generation of a tunable single-photon skyrmion pair. In contrast to any prior skyrmion generation, the single-photon skyrmions are mediated and topologically controlled by quantum measurement in multiple channels. Concurrently, during the amplitude and phase modulation process, both the skyrmion localization and the texture helicity can be precisely customized. The proposed tunable single-photon skyromions offer multidimensional controllability and topological stability provide a viable path toward noise-resilient high-dimensional quantum information processing.

Video analysis software is a staple of the modern undergraduate physics laboratory, enabling students to extract quantitative kinematic data from real-world phenomena. In this paper, we introduce PhysTrackX, a modern, open-source video analysis framework designed to minimize cognitive load and maximize pedagogical value. Built with a streamlined graphical interface, PhysTrackX features a comprehensive set of functionalities including video trimming, spatial calibration, and coordinate system definition with robust, machine learning based tracking. Furthermore, it introduces an integrated optical character recognition (OCR) module for synchronizing kinematic motion with external digital sensor displays, an interactive geometry plugin for in-situ spatial measurements, and a data management tool. In this article, we introduce the software and its functionality through some case studies.

To maximize the potential of quantum error-correcting codes, it is essential to develop high-performance decoders. The subsystem many-hypercube (MHC) codes have been developed to achieve both high encoding rates and low-weight syndrome-measurements, but the introduction of gauge degrees of freedom makes decoding more challenging. In this work, we develop neural-network-based decoders for the subsystem MHC codes in a circuit-level noise model. We demonstrate that even the gauge-measurement information can be utilized for decoding by carefully arranging the syndrome-measurement sequence, improving the decoding performance. We further show that recurrent neural decoders outperform simple fully connected neural decoders, and can decode syndrome-measurement sequences longer than those used during training.

We present a deep photometric analysis of the main-sequence (MS) population in the old, metal-rich open cluster (OC) NGC 6791 using Gaia Data Release 3 data. After correcting for differential reddening, we use the Bayesian model comparison to test whether stellar rotation can account for the observed MS broadening and find that a rotation-dominated interpretation is strongly disfavored. We therefore infer that unresolved multiplicity is the primary contributor to the photometric offsets. We derive a high-q companion fraction of $54.3\% \pm 2.8\%$ for systems with $q \gtrsim 0.5$, significantly higher than typical values reported for most OCs and the field. The inferred offset distribution is not consistent with a flat mass-ratio distribution but instead shows an excess toward high mass ratios ($q \sim 0.8$–$1.0$), suggestive of preferential survival of hard binaries in a dynamically evolved environment. We also identify a population of stars lying above the equal-mass binary limit ($\Delta G > 0.75$ mag), which is difficult to explain with ordinary MS binaries alone and is plausibly interpreted as candidate unresolved triple or higher-order multiple systems. A Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, together with Monte Carlo label-shuffling experiments, shows no statistically significant difference between the projected radial distributions of the single-star and binary/multiple populations within the observed field. Taken together, these results are consistent with the picture that NGC 6791 is the dynamically processed inner remnant of a once more massive cluster.

We derive a one-dimensional reduction for nonlinear dynamics on simplicial complexes containing both pairwise and triangular (higher-order) interactions. The effective state is defined using a mixed weight determined by the pairwise and triangular degrees of each node. The resulting reduced equation retains two structural coefficients, associated separately with the pairwise and higher-order coupling channels. A fluctuation expansion identifies the closure assumptions underlying the reduction and shows how deviations of individual node states from the effective state contribute to the approximation error. We numerically validate the proposed framework on Gene-regulatory dynamics, the double-well system, and SIS spreading. The states of the reduced model are compared with full-network simulations through coupling-parameter sweeps, steady-state branch calculations, and progressive node-removal experiments on synthetic and real-world networks. The reduced model successfully reproduces the principal transitions and steady-state branches in all three dynamical systems considered. Agreement is strongest for relatively homogeneous networks and deteriorates when structural heterogeneity produces a broader distribution of node states. The closure diagnostics account for this loss of accuracy and indicate when a single effective state is no longer sufficient. The reduction therefore provides a tractable description of resilience in systems with coexisting pairwise and higher-order interactions.

Hawking radiation may be regarded as originating at the event horizon; however, its spatial origin can instead be distributed over a finite region outside the horizon. In this paper, using an effective proper temperature, we investigate the quantum atmosphere within a tractable model based on the two-dimensional radial sector of $D$-dimensional Schwarzschild black holes. In the Hartle–Hawking state, the proper temperature is derived from the first law of thermodynamics in the presence of the conformal anomaly associated with Hawking radiation. In the Unruh state, we decompose the proper temperature into two chiral temperatures, $T_{\rm L}$ and $T_{\rm R}$, associated with the ingoing and outgoing fluxes, respectively. Demonstrating $T_{\rm R}$ as the effective proper temperature characterizing the outgoing Hawking flux with the proper temperature in the Hartle-Hawking state, we define the atmospheric radius effectively as the radial position at which the effective proper temperature attains its maximum. We then numerically compute the atmospheric radius of the quantum atmosphere for various spacetime dimensions and show that it decreases monotonically as the number of spacetime dimensions increases. In the large-dimensional limit, we find that the atmospheric radius remains separated from the horizon by a finite radial factor, indicating that the quantum atmosphere can persist as an extended exterior region in any dimension.

For testing quantum mechanics in the macroscopic domain, a major challenge is to devise effective means for enhancing the observable nonclassical signatures despite the ubiquitous presence of environmental decoherence. Toward this goal, we invoke the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE) for achieving a tunable amplification of an inherently nonclassical quantum disturbance induced by any measurement. Such an enhancement of otherwise small and decoherence-suppressed nonclassicality can arise from the cumulative quantum disturbances generated by repetitive measurements, with the tunability of amplification controlled by the number of measurements. To evidence this, we formulate a testable loophole-free scheme using a massive oscillator, where the system preparation requires trapping and ground-state cooling of a massive object. The required measurements can be realized through a beam-splitter-type interaction between the mechanical oscillator and an optical field, followed by photon detection. Our analysis shows that such amplification, suitably quantified in terms of a testable witness, remains appreciably observable even in the realistic regimes of optomechanical damping, and for sufficiently large masses, thus enabling the demonstration of QZE in the macroscopic domain.

Atomic spin-based comagnetometers are powerful tools for precision sensing and tests of fundamental physics. Compared with the widely used gas-cell comagnetometer systems, cold-atom systems offer access to much shorter distance scales and allow implementation of {optical} quantum control techniques. However, in order to realize long spin coherence times with cold atoms, it is necessary to employ diamagnetic atoms and overcome decoherence induced by light shifts. Here we demonstrate a cold-atom comagnetometer based on the nuclear spins of $^{171}$Yb (spin-1/2) and $^{173}$Yb (spin-5/2), jointly trapped in an optical lattice. Vector light shifts are suppressed by enforcing linear polarization of the lattice, while tensor shifts in $^{173}$Yb are suppressed via the use of a Schrödinger cat state. This enables simultaneous Ramsey interferometry on both isotopes with a spin coherence time of 60 s. We achieve a magnetic noise suppression factor exceeding $3\times10^4$, and determine the ratio of nuclear magnetic moments to 4 ppm precision. Our results establish a new cold-atom platform for spin-based sensing and open pathways toward quantum-enhanced searches for physics beyond the Standard Model.

The initial nuclear geometry of colliding nuclei, manifested in proton and neutron density profiles, plays a key role in determining final-state effects in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. We study ${^{96}\text{Ru}}+{^{96}\text{Ru}}$ and ${^{96}\text{Zr}}+{^{96}\text{Zr}}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=200$ GeV incorporating an isospin-dependent Woods-Saxon distribution to account for neutron-skin effects in the UrQMD model. By systematically scanning the proton surface diffuseness parameter $a_{\text{p,Zr}}$ of the $^{96}\text{Zr}$ nucleus and performing a $\chi^2$ analysis by comparing with STAR experimental data, we extract the relative neutron-skin thickness difference $0.278 \pm 0.018$ fm between the two isobaric systems using the net-charge yield difference $\Delta Q$. We further show that the neutron-skin effect evidently modifies the baryon-to-charge transport ratio $R_{B/Q}=\langle B \rangle/\Delta Q \times \Delta Z/A$, and substantially influences the observed $R_{B/Q}>1$ behavior in central collisions. This work indicates that nuclear structure effects contribute non-negligibly to baryon transport observables without a baryon junction hypothesis, and underscores the importance of precise initial-state geometry constraints for exploring novel QCD phenomena in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

Transient weather systems are often associated with alternating warm and cold advections of air masses and changing wind directions, which drive coastal ocean and estuarine waters to oscillate quasi-periodically. Quantifying water transport under these meteorological oscillations between inland waterways and the coastal ocean helps interpret land-ocean interactions and the impact of migrating weather systems. The challenge lies in the difficulty of obtaining continuous, long-term direct measurements of transport due to logistical constraints. Here, we apply a method to determine the meteorological tide-induced volume transport of water through an intensive survey, correlating transport values measured by a boat-mounted ADCP with vertically averaged velocities from a bottom-mounted ADCP, which recorded a much longer time series. The correlation is then used to compute transport over the period of the bottom-mounted ADCP deployment. Observations were conducted at Belle Pass, Port Fourchon. The transport data revealed the impact of weather systems, including four cold fronts. A model of volume transport, accounting for rotary cold front wind variations, was applied, where both along-channel and along-coastline wind components contribute to the remote wind effect, leading to a more complex response to passing weather systems. The local wind effect is much smaller than the remote wind effect, and transport is primarily controlled by water level fluctuations resulting from open boundary input. Finally, the channel orientation relative to the coastline is found to be critical in determining both the magnitude and phase of the transport.

Focused very-high-energy electron (VHEE) beams can produce localized dose enhancement at selected depths, but irradiation of a finite target requires coordinated control of multiple focal positions, incidence directions, and beam weights while limiting exposure of nearby organs at risk (OARs). We present Focal-Point Scanning (FPS), a dose delivery and optimization method developed for laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA)-driven VHEE beams. The method is based on a two-dipole focusing system that produces single-plane beam convergence and allows the focal position to be varied by changing the magnetic field strength. FPS distributes focal points throughout the planning target volume and determines focal-point-specific incidence sectors according to the geometry of nearby critical OARs. The method was evaluated using the AAPM TG119 C-shape benchmark and one previously treated lung radiotherapy case. At matched target coverage, FPS reduced the TG119 Core mean dose by approximately one half relative to parallel VHEE and intensity-modulated x-ray plans, approaching the single-field proton pencil-beam-scanning reference. In the lung case, FPS maintained target coverage comparable to the clinical volumetric modulated arc therapy reference while reducing the mean dose to every evaluated OAR; spinal-cord mean and maximum doses decreased by 93.2% and 87.2%, respectively. The evaluated OAR mean doses varied little across rms energy spreads of 0 to 10% and for a flat-top electron spectrum spanning 150 to 250 MeV. These results demonstrate that focal-point-specific angular selection can translate focused-beam physics into effective OAR sparing and support FPS as a planning strategy for broadband LWFA-VHEE radiotherapy.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings are sensitive biomedical data, limiting the ability of hospitals and wearable devices to share raw signals for centralized model training. Federated learning addresses this practical privacy constraint by enabling collaborative model training while keeping raw biosignal data at their respective sources. However, federated ECG classification remains challenging due to limited client-side samples, imbalanced arrhythmia labels, and non-independent and identically distributed (non-IID) data across clients. These constraints require classifiers that are both communication-efficient and robust to cross-client distribution shifts. In this work, we evaluate a hybrid quantum-inspired Kolmogorov-Arnold network (HQKAN) against a multilayer perceptron (MLP) for five-class arrhythmia classification on the MIT-BIH dataset and three-class classification on the INCART dataset under federated averaging (FedAvg). Across multiple client configurations, HQKAN improves most aggregate and minority-class metrics while using 37.35% fewer trainable parameters and reducing communication cost by 24.89% on MIT-BIH; on INCART, it achieves corresponding reductions of 44.81% and 36.41%. These results indicate that HQKAN offers a compact, communication-efficient and robust alternative to the MLP baseline for privacy-aware federated learning on biosignal data.

Mechanical deformation of gapped graphene can act on Dirac quasiparticles as an emergent gauge field. When this deformation field couples to the same current as the electromagnetic field, the parity anomaly produces a mixed electromechanical Chern-Simons response: a phonon electric field drives a transverse electrical current, and a phonon magnetic field binds charge. Previous zero-temperature results predict a sharp change in the response when the chemical potential crosses the band edge. We show that finite temperature replaces this sharp feature by a universal smooth crossover controlled only by the ratios of temperature, gap, and chemical potential. The response remains almost quantized in the insulating regime, is rounded over a gate window of order temperature near the band edge, and approaches the doped Berry-curvature result with a controlled Sommerfeld correction. We apply the result to two experimentally useful drives: a traveling flexural wave, which produces a transverse second-harmonic current, and a dynamic phonon mixed with a static ripple, which produces a fundamental-frequency signal. The same gate-temperature line shape controls both signals. This gives a direct way to separate the anomaly-induced current from ordinary electromechanical backgrounds and to extract the effective gap and electronic temperature in graphene devices.

6G mobile communications impose immersive communication demands for higher data rates and massive connectivity, while emerging integrated sensing-computing-intelligence scenarios require base stations to concurrently enhance computing capability, guarantee service latency, and realize sensing. We propose the Omni-Photonic Base Station-a progressive evolutionary architecture that introduces photonic technologies into three functional domains, namely baseband processing, fronthaul transmission, and the RF front-end, and obtains system-level gains through cross-domain co-design. By introducing photonics, Omni-PBS harnesses the inherent physical advantages of ultra-broad bandwidth, ultra-low propagation latency, and native parallelism to transcend the aforementioned electronic bottlenecks and fulfill the compound demands of 6G scenarios. The optical baseband computing domain employs photonic accelerators to perform linear computation-intensive tasks, improving the energy efficiency of AI inference by one to two orders of magnitude. The analog optical fronthaul domain replaces digital fronthaul with analog radio-over-fiber , which eliminates the ADCs/DACs and digital intermediate-frequency chips in the remote unit and substantially reduces fronthaul bandwidth requirements. The microwave-photonic RF domain breaks through the bandwidth and frequency limitations of electronic RF front-ends via optical true-time-delay beamforming, programmable photonic filtering, and optical heterodyne frequency conversion. The three domains yield system-level gains beyond single-domain summation through four co-design principles: end-to-end optical-domain continuity, cross-domain co-design, optical computing resource scheduling, and joint optimization of functional splitting.

Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) in viscoelastic flows past deformable structures at low Reynolds numbers remains poorly understood, despite its relevance to biological systems such as cilia and flagella, and to engineered microsystems. We investigate viscoelastic FSI in side-by-side flexible cantilever arrays using a bottom-up approach that systematically varies the number of cantilevers and the rheology of the test fluid, comparing weakly shear-thinning (WS) and highly shear-thinning (HS) polyethylene oxide solutions. For both fluids, with increasing Weissenberg number (Wi), an elongated elastic wake develops behind a single isolated cantilever. For multiple cantilevers, the WS fluid undergoes a transition at a critical Weissenberg number (Wi*) from separated to merged elastic wakes, accompanied by the emergence of a divergent flow field and coordinated inward spanwise cantilever deflection. The critical Wi* increases as the number of cantilevers in the array is increased from two to three, demonstrating a strong dependence of the onset on the array configuration. For the HS fluid, wake merger, flow divergence, and inward cantilever deflection are suppressed across the full range of Wi investigated, despite comparable elasticity and the formation of elastic wakes. This contrast shows that elasticity alone promotes wake formation but is insufficient to produce the collective instability, which instead requires both shear-thinning and interactions between neighboring cantilevers. These findings demonstrate that viscoelastic FSI in flexible arrays is governed by the combined effects of fluid elasticity, shear-thinning, and geometric configuration, with elastic wake interactions mediating the collective instability and linking local elastic wakes to array-scale structural response.

Absolutely maximally entangled states require every reduction of at most half of the parties to be maximally mixed, a condition that is both rigid and often impossible for qubit systems. Previous work introduced the quantum extremal number, which maximizes the number of exactly maximally mixed half-body marginals, and determined the exact value Qex(8,4)=56. The present work develops a robust extension of this extremal problem. For a subsystem $A$, the marginal maximal-mixing defect is defined by \[ D_A=2^{|A|}\operatorname{Tr}(\rho_A^2)-1 =2^{|A|}\left\|\rho_A-\frac{I_A}{2^{|A|}}\right\|_2^2, \] and $Q_{\mathrm{ex},\varepsilon}^{D}(n,k)$ is defined as the maximum number of $k$-body marginals satisfying $D_A\leq\varepsilon$ in an $n$-qubit pure state. This counting problem differs from approximate $k$-uniformity, which requires all $k$-body marginals to obey a common error bound. For pure states on $4m$ qubits, the following local stability inequality is established: \[ \sum_{i\in T}D_{T\setminus\{i\}}\geq1 \qquad (|T|=2m+1). \] It follows that, whenever $\varepsilon<1/(2m+1)$, the hypergraph of $\varepsilon$-good $2m$-subsets is $K_{2m+1}^{(2m)}$-free. Combined with the known exact eight-qubit construction, this yields the stability plateau \[ Q_{\mathrm{ex},\varepsilon}^{D}(8,4)=56, \qquad 0\leq\varepsilon<\frac15. \] For odd systems of $2k+1$ qubits, the exact forbidden hypergraph $H_k$ is used to derive explicit finite-error stability radii. In particular, $Q_{\mathrm{ex},\varepsilon}^{D}(9,4)\leq120$ for $0\leq\varepsilon<1/17$. These results turn exact quantum Turán obstructions into quantitative robustness statements and identify intervals on which quantum extremal numbers are stable under imperfect marginal mixedness.

We investigate the effects of the isovector-scalar $\delta$ meson on the density dependence of the symmetry energy within the density-dependent relativistic Hartree–Fock (DDRHF) framework. As a baseline, we generate $1006$ accepted DDRHF parametrizations including the $\sigma$, $\omega$, $\rho$, and $\pi$ mesons by imposing empirical constraints on the saturation properties of nuclear matter. The resulting symmetry-energy slope parameters are confined to relatively large values, $L\simeq65$–$110~\mathrm{MeV}$. Two representative parametrizations, denoted RHF-NK1 and RHF-NK2, are randomly selected from this ensemble. Starting from these two parametrizations, we introduce the $\delta$ meson and readjust the meson–nucleon couplings under the same saturation-property constraints. The numerical optimization shows that small values of $L$ are obtained most efficiently when the $\delta$ coupling is taken to be constant. In this case, $L$ is reduced from approximately $73$ to $32~\mathrm{MeV}$, while the binding energy per nucleon, saturation density, symmetry energy, and incompressibility coefficient remain nearly unchanged. A channel-by-channel decomposition shows that the softening is not caused by the direct $\delta$-meson contribution alone, but by a redistribution among the $\delta$, $\rho$, and $\pi$ mesons together with the isoscalar Fock contributions. The resulting neutron-star mass–radius relations shift toward smaller radii, indicating that the $\delta$ meson provides an efficient additional degree of freedom for controlling the isovector properties of DDRHF models.

To date, all known exoplanetary systems have been identified around stars currently residing in the Milky Way, whereas planets formed in external galaxies remain largely unexplored. Such systems would offer a unique probe of planet formation in galactic environments distinct from the Milky Way. We combine a literature-compiled sample of Kepler, K2, and TESS planet-candidate host stars with Gaia DR3 astrometry and radial velocities, and incorporate metallicities and [Mg/Fe] abundances from the LAMOST DR9 DD-Payne catalogue, to search for candidate accreted-halo planet hosts. We identify 11 planet-candidate hosts with halo-like kinematics, five of which have reliable chemical abundance measurements. Among these, four systems exhibit low metallicities ([Fe/H]<-0.7) and low [Mg/Fe] ratios that are inconsistent with the canonical Milky Way thick-disc sequence, indicative of enrichment histories characteristic of accreted dwarf galaxies. We further carry out a uniform false-positive assessment using Gaia RUWE, Gaia DR3 neighbourhood checks, odd–even transit-depth comparisons, secondary-eclipse searches, independent BLS period recovery, and comparison with ExoFOP and available follow-up information. This vetting identifies EPIC~211407755 and TIC~239541449 as the most plausible, although still unvalidated, planet-candidate systems. TIC~293432942 is more likely associated with a blended or otherwise binary-related false positive, whereas TIC~184739529 remains a high-risk giant-companion candidate whose planetary nature is uncertain. If confirmed, EPIC~211407755 and TIC~239541449 would suggest that planetary systems can form in dwarf-galaxy environments and subsequently survive accretion into the Milky Way.

We extend de Broglie–Bohm (dBB) pilot-wave theory by introducing a complex source field into the Schrödinger equation and examining its effects on quantum equilibrium and nonequilibrium dynamics. In dBB theory, the physical particle distribution P, rather than the Born density $|{\psi}|^2$, carries the ensemble probability, so a source term may modify the pilot wave without violating conservation of total particle probability. We derive the source-modified Hamilton–Jacobi and continuity equations, the transport equation for the nonequilibrium ratio $f=P/|{\psi}|^2$, and an exact entropy-production formula. Three applications follow. First, suitably designed sources can drive exponential relaxation toward quantum equilibrium. Second, the entropy-production rate admits a Prigogine-type bilinear form, providing a basis for a subquantum thermodynamics with entropy-producing and entropy-extracting regimes. Third, a tuned source can exactly cancel the Bohmian quantum potential, yielding classical particle trajectories while the guiding wave retains nontrivial structure and the nonequilibrium ratio remains conserved. The resulting framework provides a unified setting for studying source-driven quantum nonequilibrium, entropy exchange, and classicalization, and motivates further investigation of the physical and ontological status of the source field.