Papers

Quantum Annealers (QAs) are among the first commercially scaled quantum computing systems designed for large-scale optimization. Unlike digital systems that execute sequences of compiled instructions, QAs operate as analog single-instruction machines that directly evolve an Ising Hamiltonian toward low-energy solutions. To execute an application, the logical problem graph must first be mapped onto the hardware's sparse connectivity via embedding, where logical variables are represented by chains of connected physical qubits. As a result, embedding becomes the dominant system challenge in QAs, shaping whether and how workloads can execute on the machine. Despite its central role, embedding has largely been treated as a preprocessing step rather than a system bottleneck. In this work, we present ChainForge, the first systems and architecture characterization of embedding in QA workloads. Using diverse workload families and graph topologies on modern QA hardware, we characterize how embedding impacts effective hardware capacity, routing overheads, runtime variability, and solution quality. Our results show that embedding inflates physical resource usage, long chains degrade annealing fidelity and scalability, and heuristic embedders may fail even when valid embeddings exist. We further show that embedding latency can become a runtime bottleneck for dynamic workloads requiring frequent remapping, while nominal qubit counts significantly overestimate the usable capacity of QAs for realistic applications. Overall, our findings establish embedding as the defining workload bottleneck and systems abstraction of QAs, providing architectural insights for future hardware topologies, runtime systems, and workload-aware annealing platforms.

We study the sensitivity of the DUNE and T2HK long-baseline experiments to time reversal (T) violation in neutrino oscillations. Rather than the conventional approach of exchanging initial and final neutrino flavors, we search for T violation through the $L$-dependence of the $\nu_\mu \to \nu_e$ transition probability at fixed neutrino energy using neutrino data only. Within the standard three-flavour framework, we show that the DUNE and T2HK together can establish the presence of an $L$-odd component in the oscillation probability at up to $\sim 4\sigma$ significance, with the optimal sensitivity in the energy range $E_\nu \in [0.68, 0.92]$ GeV. The second oscillation maximum of DUNE plays a crucial role in this analysis. We further show that DUNE is more sensitive to T violation that is running in neutrino-only mode, whereas T2HK provides better sensitivity in the conventional neutrino versus anti-neutrino comparison, making the two experiments complementary to each other in search of the CP phase $\delta_{\rm CP}$.

We introduce a minimal model of a two-dimensional lattice that, upon spontaneous symmetry breaking, simultaneously develops altermagnetic order, a finite electric polarization, and a spin-polarized transport response, all of which are controlled by an external electric field. By coupling a dimerized altermagnet to an external electric field, we show that the three order parameters are not merely compatible but dynamically entangled, so that switching one (for instance, reversing the polarization with an electric field) necessarily reconfigures the other two. We show that this model offers a clear physical blueprint for designing next-generation spintronic logic and pure spin current memdevices that merge the ultrafast, stray-field-free advantages of compensated magnets with the low-power switching architectures of ferroelectrics.

Differences between high-energy event generators can arise at several stages of the collision simulation, from the hard scattering through parton showering and hadronization to the final event. These differences are usually summarized using observable distributions or global classifier scores. While these quantify the disagreement, they do not reveal which observable-level structures carry it or whether those structures persist through different stages of event generation. In this work, we formulate this problem as a staged functional analysis of generator-model differences. Following the same hard dijet events through Pythia and Herwig at shower-only, hadronized, and full-generator levels, we use an additive Kolmogorov-Arnold network (KAN) representation of the classifier-derived log density ratio to decompose the learned discrepancy into explicit one-dimensional observable responses that can be isolated, recomposed, and transported between generator stages. Within the same eight-observable jet representation, the Pythia-Herwig difference is driven mainly by multiplicity at shower level, shifts toward jet mass and shape after hadronization, and develops a mixed shape-multiplicity driven structure in the full-generator configuration. Transporting the individual shower-level functional components downstream shows that shower-level multiplicity information can retain its reweighting power, whereas the corresponding shape responses need not do so even though shape becomes important again at later stages. The jet-mass factors, meanwhile, are limited by poor statistical support. This KAN-based framework therefore provides a functional anatomy of generator-model dependence, exposing both persistent structures and support failures that are hidden inside a single global classifier-derived reweighting function.

We investigate a class of late-time cosmological models derived from the phenomenological framework of variable matter diffusion. In these scenarios, energy-momentum conservation requires a continuous energy exchange between matter and an effective scalar-field dark-energy component, $\phi$. We consider a baseline constant-diffusion scenario alongside four non-linear power-law parametrizations, in which the diffusion coefficient evolves as a function of the scale factor, matter density, scalar-field density, or Hubble expansion rate. To assess their cosmological viability, we implement these models within SimpleMC and constrain them using late-time observations, including cosmic chronometers, baryon acoustic oscillation measurements, Type Ia supernovae with and without the local SH0ES calibration. In the absence of the local calibration, the diffusion models yield only modest improvements in the fit ($\Delta\chi^2 \approx -4$), performing comparably to the CPL parametrization while exhibiting negative Bayesian log-evidence differences relative to $\Lambda$CDM. In contrast, including SH0ES leads to a dramatic reduction in the minimum $\chi^2$ ($\Delta\chi^2 \approx -22$) and decisive Bayesian evidence in favor of the diffusion framework ($\Delta\ln\mathcal{Z} \approx 9$). Remarkably, the single-parameter constant-diffusion model accounts for virtually all the statistical improvement, outperforming the CPL parametrization by more than 10 units in $\chi^2$ and more than 8 units in $\Delta\ln\mathcal{Z}$. The four non-linear extensions provide only negligible additional improvements ($\Delta\chi^2 \approx -1$), indicating that current late-time background observations favor the presence of a non-vanishing matter-diffusion interaction over $\Lambda$CDM, while providing no statistically significant evidence for a specific time-dependent functional form of the diffusion coefficient.

Prompt-photon predictions with experimentally relevant isolation criteria retain a residual dependence on parton-to-photon fragmentation functions, whose phenomenological uncertainties remain only weakly constrained. We present a pragmatic study of photon fragmentation functions extracted from Pythia parton-shower events and stored in LHAPDF grids. We briefly review the role of photon fragmentation in perturbative QCD and then construct shower-level estimates of the flavour-dependent functions $D^{\mathrm{PS}}_{\gamma/i}(z,\mu_D)$ as functions of the photon momentum fraction $z$ and fragmentation scale $\mu_D$. The extracted distributions show the expected qualitative hierarchy between quark and gluon channels and an increasing fragmentation contribution with scale. In parallel, we convert the commonly used BFG, GRV, and GDRG parameterizations into LHAPDF grids and study their interpolation. We find that the default logcubic interpolation in LHAPDF reproduces the non-trivial $z$- and scale-dependence of the tabulated fragmentation functions more faithfully than the linear interpolation commonly used in legacy implementations. We also define a simple collider-oriented envelope set, based on the BFG and GRV families. These results provide a portable baseline for future phenomenological studies and for more systematic extractions of photon fragmentation functions.

Here, an improved phase-field method for simulating the impact dynamics of solidifying molten metal droplets is developed using targeted free-energy modifications. Conventional Cahn-Hilliard-Navier-Stokes (CHNS) formulations generally do not capture melt retraction over a solidified portion of the droplet, because the newly formed solid region is not treated as an actual internal boundary in a single-order-parameter diffuse-interface model. As a result, the formulation lacks an internal wetting condition or localized wall-energy mechanism capable of driving melt retraction over a solidified splat. To address this limitation, a diffuse-domain wall-energy term is added to the free energy, with a chemical-potential contribution that is active near the diffuse liquid-solidified-material-gas triple-line region, enabling the remaining melt to retract over a solidified splat. In addition, a solidification penalty term is introduced to immobilize the solidified splat formed during impact and suppress unphysical interface motion caused by residual Cahn-Hilliard diffusion inside the frozen region. The proposed formulation is validated against benchmark experiments on impacts of solidifying tin droplets. The results reveal that the localized wall-energy term captures post-maximum-spread melt retraction, while the penalty term effectively arrests motion of the solidified splat. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons with experiments, volume-of-fluid simulations, and standard phase-field predictions demonstrate that the proposed formulation captures post-maximum-spread melt retraction and provides an accurate estimate of the stabilized final splat diameter.

Functional electro-optic (EO) tunable photonic integrated circuits are crucial to next-generation information processing and advanced computing, where ferroelectric materials such as lithium niobate (LiNbO3) provide outstanding optical properties and versatile tuning mechanisms. However, beyond achieving high-performance devices, practical deployment of LiNbO3 photonic integrated circuits requires rapid and cost-effective scale-up, which remains challenging because of the fabrication complexity and high costs of ion-sliced thin-film lithium niobate and wafer bonding processes. To address this gap, we demonstrate a fully monolithic photonic platform, amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC) on bulk LiNbO3 crystal substrate, enabling scalable, CMOS-compatible, low-cost, and high-density photonic integrated circuits without relying on thin-film LiNbO3. This integration approach breaks the long-standing cost-performance-scalability tradeoff, and intrinsically eliminates the need for sophisticated fabrication processes, including ion slicing, wafer bonding, and LiNbO3 etching. It realizes high-density, low-loss, and record high EO tuning efficiency of VpiL = 2.87 Vcm on bulk LiNbO3 crystal substrate. Furthermore, leveraging slow-light effect near photonic crystal bandgap, an 8.5-fold EO tuning efficiency enhancement is achieved, highlighting the platform's capability in confinement control and dispersion engineering.

Most computationally predicted materials are never synthesized because conventional synthesis optimization is slow, expertise-dependent, and iterative. Here we present a closed-loop framework that automates this expert workflow by placing human tacit knowledge in the loop through a large language model (LLM) that distills synthesis knowledge from the literature, high-throughput hyperspectral imaging for rapid film evaluation, and multi-objective Bayesian optimization guided by experimental feedback. In a paired optimization campaign, LLM-assisted initialization produced more Pareto-optimal samples and higher hypervolume than a Latin hypercube sampling baseline at matched trial counts, and this advantage persisted throughout iterative optimization. We demonstrate the framework by synthesizing the previously unreported perovskite-inspired compound Rb3BiI6 as thin films and validating the optimized films by optical bandgap analysis and X-ray diffraction. The framework transforms synthesis prediction from single-shot recommendation to iterative learning, providing a generalizable strategy to accelerate automated and fully autonomous experimental materials discovery.

We prove a universality theorem for a broad class of two-dimensional gauge theories on compact surfaces. Each admissible conjugation-invariant Lévy process on a compact connected Lie group determines a universality class of lattice gauge theories whose continuum limit is the associated Markovian holonomy process. Our result can be seen as a gauge-theoretic analogue of invariance principles for random walks and Lévy processes. This framework includes the Yang–Mills holonomy process and the standard heat-kernel (Villain), Wilson, and Manton lattice actions. The proof uses state-sum formulas of independent interest, separating action-dependent spectral coefficients from action-independent topological coefficients determined by the surface and the marked ribbon type of the loop configuration.

The origin of the plateau phase in gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows remains under debate, with the energy injection model being one of the most competitive explanations. If the plateau is truly driven by energy injection, the average X-ray and optical luminosities during the plateau phase, $L_{\rm X, plat, ave}$ and $L_{\rm opt, plat, ave}$, should naturally be correlated. Moreover, under this scenario, the scaling relations between the luminosities during the plateau and the normal decay phase are expected to be consistent since they share the same origin, i.e., synchrotron radiation from the external forward shock. Therefore, simultaneous multi-band observations are essential to verify this mechanism. In this work, we select a sample of 47 GRBs with simultaneous plateaus in both bands. We calculate their time-averaged isotropic luminosities for the plateau and the subsequent normal decay phases. We find a moderate positive correlation $\log L_{\rm X, plat, ave}=m\log L_{\rm opt, plat, ave}+c$ with a slope $m = 0.86 \pm 0.11$ for the plateau phase. This correlation supports the energy injection origin and offers a promising diagnostic approach to test the model. Furthermore, we obtain a similar slope $m = 1.05 \pm 0.05$ for the normal decay phase, which reinforces the idea that both phases share the same physical origin. Notably, the post-plateau data exhibit a systematic downward shift in luminosity, which may indicate the cessation of the central engine.

We study the differential, statistical, and geometrical consequences generated by the geodesic quantum $f$-divergences introduced in [14], which are constructed by interpolating the relative modular operator and the commutant Radon-Nikodym derivative using a geodesic with parameter $t\in [0,1]$. For an invertible state $\rho$ and an operator convex function $f$, we compute the Hessian and obtain an explicit formula for the induced monotone quantum information metric $g_{\rho,t}^{(f)}$. Furthermore, we also compare these metrics with the Petz-Hasegawa metric and find the meaning of the interpolation parameter $t$ in this new geometry. We next show that the interpolation of relative modular operators $\Gamma_t$ in the reference purification of a state $\sigma$ defines a canonical finite binary experiment $(p_t,q_t)$, and introduce a log-likelihood cumulant function $\Psi_{\rho,\sigma}(t,s)$, recovering the Nussbaum-Szkoła distributions at $t=0$ and the Matsumoto construction at $t=1$. Finally, using Busemann functions, we endow this statistical framework with a geometric meaning in the cone of positive operators.

JWST has enabled the measurement of carbon, oxygen, and sulfur abundances in the atmospheres of directly imaged planets. Interpretation of these abundances from a planet formation standpoint requires the corresponding abundances for the host star. In this work, we present detailed characterizations of the cold imaged planet hosts AF Lep A and $\epsilon$ Indi A using high-resolution Gemini/GHOST spectra. We derive the atmospheric parameters $T_{\rm eff}$ and $\log{g}$ using two different approaches, revealing differences in $T_{\rm eff}$ up to $\sim260\,$K. The derived parameters are subsequently incorporated in measurement of 16 elemental abundances (C, O, Na, Mg, Si, S, K, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Zn, Y) and several abundance ratios. Utilizing both the spectral fit and the equivalent width methods, we find solar C/O, C/S and O/S ratios ($<1.5\sigma$) for AF Lep A and $\epsilon$ Indi A. We compare our measured abundances and their ratios with those of the planets AF Lep b and $\epsilon$ Indi Ab, with the elevated abundances for the planets relative to their host stars strongly indicating formation by core-accretion pathways.

The persistent current switch (PCS) closes the superconducting loop of an MRI magnet. During ramping it is commonly treated as a binary element: with the heater on, the PCS branch is assumed effectively open; after heater turn-off, it is assumed superconducting. Field measurements with an MPS2 service power supply (Digit Systems) on a Siemens MAGNETOM Avanto show that the PCS remains electrically active and that its resistive state can persist after heater turn-off through Joule self-heating. Dedicated maneuvers identified two resistive regimes. With the heater on, the low-voltage resistance is nearly constant; after heater turn-off, self-heating produces a power-law voltage dependence. Both are described by a single effective electrothermal relation, $R_{sw}=C\,(P_h h+V_{node}^2/R_{sw})^a$, where $h$ is the recorded heater state, spanning a 690-fold resistance range. Final-hold data from 17 Siemens magnet sessions confirmed the voltage dependence of effective PCS resistance. Since branch-current relaxation follows $\tau=L/R_{sw}$, the required hold time depends on switch state rather than a fixed delay; the median margin after source settling was $3.6\,\tau$. The intersection of the PCS characteristic with the external-circuit load line defines the boundary of self-sustained resistive operation. For Avanto, the predicted 0.062 V threshold lay between superconducting recovery at 0.06 V and resistive-state persistence at 0.07 V, and retrospectively classified all 24 archived segments correctly. Including both PCS resistive regimes in the dynamic model reproduced the observed current redistribution: RMSE decreased from 1.449 to 0.154 A, a factor of 9.4. This improvement required explicit representation of heater state.

We investigate the start-up flows through ordered porous media (hexagonal close-packed, face-centred cubic and body-centred sphere packs) by means of direct numerical simulations. The flows are initiated from rest and driven by a constant pressure gradient, allowing us to examine the transient development across a wide range of Hagen numbers. Dimensional analysis identifies two relevant time scales: the viscous diffusion time $\tau_\mathrm{visc}$ and the inviscid time $\tau_\mathrm{inv}$. While the small-time behaviour follows the viscous asymptotics of Johnson et al. [J. Fluid. Mech. 176, 379 (1987)], the subsequent emergence of nonlinear effects is universally governed by the inviscid time $\tau_\mathrm{inv}$, rather than by any critical Reynolds number. At the pore scale, the transient evolution is characterised by the growth of thin vorticity layers on the sphere surfaces, their detachment into the pore space around $t \sim \tau_\mathrm{inv}$, and the formation of inertial cores. Despite geometric differences, these processes occur in a remarkably similar sequence across all three packings. Vorticity magnitude exhibits laminar boundary-layer scaling with Hagen number, while in the body-centred cubic sphere pack case a transition towards turbulent-type scaling is observed. These results establish $\tau_\mathrm{inv}$ as a unifying measure for the onset of nonlinearity in strongly accelerated porous media flows, with direct implications for the modelling of unsteady transport in natural and engineered systems.

A metalens is conventionally built by prescribing a target phase and matching each meta-atom to it, and making that phase achromatic across the visible band is the main difficulty in color imaging. We remove the prescribed phase entirely. The meta-atom width map is optimized directly against the information the raw, noisy, mosaic-sampled camera measurement carries about the target image, differentiated through Maxwell propagation, the color-filter mosaic, pixel integration and sensor noise, with material, thickness and library held fixed. On a single-layer silicon-nitride platform, starting from a hyperbolic design, this raises delivered target information by 15.8% despite lower collected charge, produces the most balanced set of channel responses at the sensor plane relative to their respective axial maxima, and reduces blue-channel blur. A high-signal-to-noise held-out reconstruction improves in spatial fidelity and color accuracy. The same width-only optimization improves color across silicon-nitride, silicon-dioxide and titanium-dioxide libraries.

Relativistic-reflection measurements of Cygnus X-1 disagree on the extent of disk truncation and commonly infer supersolar iron abundances. We analyze a selected sample of 26 archival NuSTAR observations obtained between 2012 and 2024 using two configurations from one reflection-model family, with posterior modes sampled by preconditioned sequential Monte Carlo. In the baseline recovered modes, disk-surface ionization increases with photon index (Pearson r = +0.59), with state medians rising from log xi approximately 3.3 in the hard state to approximately 3.9 in the soft state. The corresponding free-emissivity fits give median inner radii of 6.6, 4.4, and 4.0 R_ISCO in the hard, intermediate, and soft states. Fixing q = 3 moves three of eight soft-state observations to the ISCO and one to 2.4 R_ISCO; four fixed-q fits have lower chi^2 than the sampled free-q solutions, showing that those runs missed higher-likelihood regions. The inferred radii are therefore model- and mode-dependent, and the spectra neither require nor exclude an ISCO disk or R_in greater than or approximately 20 R_ISCO. Baseline fitted abundances span A_Fe = 1.6-8.6, with a median of 4.9. Two observations separated by 7.2 hr yield A_Fe = 1.9 +/- 0.2 and 4.5 +/- 1.0, indicating that fitted abundance is not a direct composition measurement. Fixing A_Fe = 1.6 drives some densities toward the grid boundary and worsens the fits relative to A_Fe = 4.5. The wind parameters remain sensitive to the continuum, abundance, and orbital-phase sampling.

Data-driven materials discovery interpolates more reliably than it extrapolates and seldom reveals new structure types. We present MatEvolve, an agentic-AI framework that designs crystals in an interpretable language of motifs, in which each crystal is written as a motif profile that describes the recurring geometric patterns—the motifs—composing the crystal. The motif profile serves not merely as a description of a material but as the medium for material design: the agent edits the profile with a stated rationale and constructs a crystal from the modified one; the most promising candidates are then validated by first-principles calculations. MatEvolve is built on the state-of-the-art language model Claude Fable~5 without fine-tuning. It is applied to the design of rare-earth-lean permanent-magnet compounds and finds novel (meta)stable crystals that are both new structural prototypes and magnet compounds; under an equal validation budget, it does so an order of magnitude more often than generative models. Beyond design, analyzing the human-readable profiles of the discovered crystals reveals their structure–property relationships.

Anti-Zeno enhancement of quantum heat machines has been established for working fluids driven by an external classical field, but whether the same quantum advantage survives when a quantized piston replaces the classical drive has remained open. Here we study an autonomous thermal machine in which a two-level working fluid is coupled to a quantized harmonic piston and to two spectrally separated reservoirs, without external modulation. We derive a finite-time master equation for the resulting carrier and sideband channels, whose rates interpolate between the Zeno, anti-Zeno, and Markovian regimes as the coupling time is varied. For an initially coherent piston, the machine charges the piston and generates more ergotropy than the Markovian reference in the anti-Zeno window. Reversing the same retained channels turns the device into a finite-resource refrigerator with enhanced cooling. The anti-Zeno effect therefore increases the rate of operation while leaving the underlying carrier and sideband energy ratios unchanged. These channel ratios remain consistent with the usual Carnot bounds over the operating regimes considered here. Our results establish finite-time reservoir sampling as a mechanism for enhancing autonomous thermal-machine operation with a quantized piston, without external modulation.

We propose a unified framework for a combined global analysis to constrain leading hadronization effects across the 1-Jettiness class of global event shapes for Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS). We show that for the subclass of jet-based event shapes where the leading jet direction is determined dynamically event-by-event, the leading hadronization effects can acquire a non-trivial dependence on the hard scattering kinematics. However, this dependence is explicitly calculable, allowing for universality of leading hadronization effects in the 1-Jettiness class. The non-trivial kinematic dependence provides an independent lever arm for simultaneously constraining hadronization effects in the jet-based and DIS thrust event shapes. This universality, combined with the kinematic lever arm, could allow for including the typically ignored peak region, where hadronization effects are most severe, in precision extractions of the strong coupling. We demonstrate the need for such a unified treatment of hadronization effects through comparisons of theoretical predictions with simulation data.

The broad shape of the Galactic cosmic-ray knee challenges source models in which all supernova remnants share a nearly universal, sharp maximum rigidity. We investigate whether the knee can instead arise as a population effect, produced by source-to-source variations in the maximum energy of Galactic supernova remnants. We derive the population-averaged spectrum for sources with sharp individual cutoffs and distributed $E_{\max}$, showing that it is given by an underlying propagated power law multiplied by the survival probability of the cutoff distribution. A lognormal distribution of $E_{\max}$ naturally produces a smooth, continuously curving knee, while a power-law tail gives an approximately constant post-knee steepening. We then connect the lognormal width to supernova-remnant physics through maximum-energy scalings with explosion energy and ambient density, finding that the expected variance is mainly driven by the spread in explosion energies. Fitting the measured proton spectrum with a two-component lognormal-cutoff model, we find that the PeV component requires $\sigma_{\log_{10}E_{\max}}\simeq 0.24$. This width is substantially smaller than the variance expected for the full Galactic remnant population, indicating that the PeV component must originate from a more restricted and comparatively homogeneous subset of remnants. Our results show that the knee can be understood as the gradual exhaustion of a heterogeneous population of PeV-capable supernova remnants, without requiring a universal maximum rigidity.

Currency arbitrage (CA) involves trading currencies in cycles to exploit discrepancies in market valuations. Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) involves minimizing a quadratic cost (energy) function of binary variables. Previous works have explored the use of QUBO to solve CA problems. We build on these previous works by introducing realistic constraints such as beginning cycles from a held currency and accounting for per-transaction trading fees. We show that this formulation requires fewer logical variables (qubits) than previous QUBO encodings in the literature. We derive provably sufficient penalty weights for its constraint terms. We also introduce an exact anchor-gauge reweighting of the exchange rates that compresses the QUBO coefficient range from the rate scale to the arbitrage scale, addressing the finite analog precision of annealing hardware. We demonstrate the efficacy of this formulation using classical simulated annealing against an exact Held-Karp baseline on the same CPU and show that it can effectively find profitable cycles and account for trading fees. Finally, we benchmark faithful implementations of five prior QUBO encodings at matched sampler budgets and show that the proposed encoding is the only one to recover the exact fee-adjusted optimum.

We compute the dynamic critical exponent $z$ of the Yang–Lee edge singularity in relaxational dynamics using perturbative renormalization-group methods to the three-loop order. The calculation combines diagram reduction, analytic two-loop evaluation via parametric integration with hyperlogarithms, and numerical evaluation of three-loop integrals using the Sector Decomposition method. The perturbative series obtained is resummed using Padé and Padé-Borel-Leroy methods to produce estimates of $z$ in various spatial dimensions. The resulting values are consistent with previous perturbative and functional renormalization-group calculations.

Developing proposals to execute programs on space telescopes involves networks of astronomers coalescing around ideas and plans for observations. When aggregated, these program level networks allow a collective structure of the overall social network of astronomers using a telescope to be created and analysed. We do this using program level investigator data over the first five cycles of accepted General Observer (GO) programs on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The aggregate network contains 5252 unique astronomers with 144740 connections between them based on their program level participation. We apply a modularity class coefficient to visualize the sub communities that evolved within the aggregate network. Ten dominant sub communities emerge that are shown to correlate at various levels with the JWST scientific categories as defined by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). These sub communities vary in size as well as diversity of countries and institutions represented. Analysis of the research interests of investigators within sub communities reveals that separation along the long axis of the graph is associated with the scale of science performed at community level (AU scale vs kpc Gpc scale). While the social network structures based on institutional affiliation and country of institution are highly centralized, the aggregate network at the investigator level is highly heterarchical and decentralized. It appears to be supportive of cross disciplinary interaction, and institutionalized integration between planetary system and cosmic structure science that is wide and redundant, rather than mediated by a small set of critical brokers. Results have implications for access policy (time allocation processes on telescopes leaving behind a legacy of heterarchical social networks) and access strategy (astronomer need to access networks before accessing telescopes).

Rare-earth chalcogenide perovskites have attracted significant attention for optoelectronic applications due to their nontoxic composition, robust phase stability, and excellent optoelectronic properties. However, their excitonic and polaronic properties remain largely unexplored due to the high computational cost of accurate theoretical treatments. In this work, we present a comprehensive first-principles investigation of excitonic dynamics and polaronic effects in a series of III-III rare-earth chalcogenide perovskites ABX$_{3}$ (A = Y, La; B = Sc, Y; X = S, Se), along with their structural stability and optoelectronic properties, using state-of-the-art density functional theory in conjunction with many-body perturbation theory within the G$_{0}$W$_{0}$ and Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) frameworks. All investigated compounds satisfy the dynamical and mechanical stability criteria. They exhibit quasiparticle band gaps in the range of 2.75$-$4.47 eV, and the BSE calculations reveal strong optical absorption spanning the visible to ultraviolet regions. The computed excitonic properties indicate intermediate-to-large exciton binding energies (0.148$-$0.517 eV), moderately localized excitons, and strong electron-hole wavefunction overlap, indicative of favorable radiative recombination characteristics and enhanced light-matter interaction. Furthermore, analysis based on the Fröhlich model demonstrates intermediate-to-strong carrier-phonon coupling, with electron-phonon interactions generally stronger than hole-phonon interactions. Overall, rare-earth chalcogenide perovskites ABX$_{3}$ exhibit a compelling combination of structural stability, tunable optoelectronic properties, pronounced excitonic effects, and favorable polaronic transport, positioning them as promising lead-free materials for next-generation optoelectronic devices, including light-emitting devices and photodetectors.

We propose a surprisingly elementary method to compute the Schur index in closed-form for general $\mathcal{N} = 2$ Lagrangian theories. The method is inspired by the Bethe ansatz type formula for $\mathcal{N} = 1$ superconformal index. We identify issues underlying the original derivation: the loss of periodicity property upon integration and the omitted poles outside of the annulus region. We circumvent the problems and transform integration into solving a simple difference equation. The final result is expressed as a finite sum of quasi-Jacobi forms involving twisted Eisenstein series. We test our method on different types of theories, including BCD-type $\mathcal{N} = 4$ theories and various $\mathcal{N} = 2$ quiver gauge theories.

The noise threshold below which the qubit depolarizing channel retains positive quantum capacity has been studied since 1996. The classic constructions come with exact finite formulae, but in every reported threshold to date – most recently the record of Agarwal et al. – the final step, the sign of the coherent information at the reported point, is a floating-point evaluation. We give the first exact-arithmetic, independently machine-checkable positivity proofs in this regime: an explicit 45-copy rank-two input state $A$, published as a 1,472-byte witness, with certified $I_c > 0$ at the exact rational $p = 16239/250000 = 0.064956$ (per-Pauli convention; total error rate $3p = 0.194868$) – beyond both the best value printed in the Agarwal et al. paper ($0.064657$) and the strongest state in the same authors' public repository ($\approx 0.064911$), both numerical. Because the depolarizing family is a semigroup under composition, fixed-input coherent information is nonincreasing in $p$ on $[0,1/4]$, so a single certified point extends to the entire interval below it. The same machinery confines the positivity boundaries of $A$ and of the strongest public state of Agarwal et al. to disjoint rational intervals separated by more than $1/25000$ – to our knowledge the first proven ordering of the positivity boundaries of two explicit competing code states. Every computational claim in the paper reduces to a finite list of big-integer comparisons, checkable by a dependency-free few-hundred-line verifier whose soundness rests on three self-contained half-page lemmas. Payloads, certificates, and verifier accompany the paper as a supplementary artifact.

We investigate the emergence of bulk geometry from boundary entanglement entropy in the context of holographic duality. Considering a thermal $1+1$-dimensional conformal field theory dual to the BTZ black hole, we compute four distinct holographic entanglement measures: the standard spacelike HEE, its complementary spacelike counterpart HEE$^s$, the timelike HTEE and its complementary timelike counterpart HEE$^t$. These measures probe both the exterior and interior regions of the black hole horizon. Remarkably, by taking appropriate derivatives of these entanglement entropies with respect to the boundary intervals and the turning point of the extremal surface, we reconstruct the full BTZ metric, including the radial component $g_{zz}$, without imposing the Einstein equations. The reconstruction yields the correct metric components in all regions of the geometry. We further show that in the zero-temperature limit, our results consistently reduce to the pure AdS$_3$ metric and the familiar vacuum CFT$_2$ entanglement entropies. Our findings demonstrate that entanglement entropy data alone contains sufficient information to uniquely determine the dual gravitational background, offering a concrete realization of holographic emergence where gravity arises from the quantum information structure of the boundary theory.

We show that in strong-field ionization driven by bright squeezed vacuum, the mean longitudinal photoelectron momentum scales with the mean incident intensity $I$ as $I^{2/3}$, rather than linearly as under coherent-light driving. This anomalous scaling originates from a field-amplitude saddle-point structure: nonlinear tunneling selects two dominant field amplitudes of equal magnitude and opposite sign from the broad quantum fluctuations. Tracing over the final photon state erases their relative-phase information, leaving their common magnitude to determine the field-dependent longitudinal momentum shift and its $I^{2/3}$ scaling. Photon-number resolution instead preserves this coherence, producing parity-dependent modulations of the longitudinal momentum transfer through time-domain double-slit interference between two field pathways separated by half a cycle. These results establish longitudinal momentum transfer as a distinct observable in strong-field quantum optics that encodes both the photon statistics and the field coherence of intense quantum light.

We perform a cosmographic analysis of Type Ia supernovae using the Pantheon+&SH0ES, DES-SNY5 and Union3 compilations. We consider different redshift intervals, analyzed through a third-order Taylor expansion and a Padé $(1,2)$ approximation of the luminosity distance. First, we first infer the cosmographic parameters directly from the observed supernova redshifts. Afterwards, we extend the analysis by including a dipole correction associated with the local peculiar velocity field, constraining both its amplitude and direction. For Pantheon+&SH0ES, the Cepheid calibration allows a direct determination of the Hubble constant, whereas for DES-SNY5 and Union3 we fix $H_0$ to set the absolute distance scale. By progressively increasing the maximum redshift of the sample, we study how the inferred cosmographic parameters depend on the adopted redshift interval. We find that the Hubble constant obtained from Pantheon+&SH0ES remains consistent with previous determinations for both cosmographic parameterizations. Instead, the agreement of the deceleration $q_0$ and jerk $j_0$ parameters with the $\Lambda$CDM values depends on the adopted compilation and improves mainly for Pantheon+&SH0ES as the redshift interval is enlarged. Moreover, the reconstructed dipole parameters remain stable across the redshift intervals considered, with velocity amplitudes of order $300\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$, for all three supernova samples. Finally, fixing the dipole parameters with the cosmic microwave background values leads to a slight shift from the fiducial $\Lambda$CDM values of the deceleration $q_0$ and jerk $j_0$ parameters.