Papers

Moving groups, which are gravitationally unbound collections of stars spread over large portions of the sky, pose challenges to their identification. Analyzing the three-dimensional spatial motion of stars is one method to identify their members. Despite several studies in the past, a reliable and conclusive catalog of moving group stars is currently lacking. Our objective is to present a most recent and updated catalog of nearby young moving group (NYMG) candidates in the solar neighborhood and investigate their properties using updated science data from the Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3). We searched for candidates of twelve NYMGs within a distance of 150 pc using Gaia DR3. To determine the membership, we employed the Bayesian algorithm BANYAN-Sigma. We compiled a total list of 3,153 NYMG candidates, of which 1,651 were new candidates. We also assessed the credibility of the literature defined 'Good-box' criterion with the latest comprehensive catalog of NYMGs from our study. We homogeneously estimated the ages of the NYMG candidates using Gaia DR3 photometry data. The analysis revealed that our NYMG candidates display a large scatter on the CMDs resulting in a large range of estimated ages from isochrones. Additionally, we conducted an infrared (IR) excess analysis to identify disk candidates among our final sample. Our spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis found 51 stars with IR excess. We present a largely inclusive list of all the NYMG candidates within 150 pc of Solar neighbourhood using Gaia DR3. The wide range of ages obtained from isochrone fitting underscores the need for more robust age analysis techniques to accurately determine the ages of NYMG members. The presence of IR excess in the 51 stars confirms the existence of disks indicating that they could be potential candidates for exoplanet detections.

Calculating cross sections in the Color Glass Condensate effective theory requires Fourier transforms of multi-Wilson-line correlators from transverse coordinate space to transverse momentum space. Under the common assumption of impact-parameter independence, each transform reduces to a set of Hankel transforms whose Bessel-function kernels oscillate rapidly at phenomenologically relevant momenta, making direct quadrature prohibitively expensive. We present a Filon-type quadrature, applicable to any integrand, that integrates these oscillatory factors in closed form on the stored coordinate grid, reducing each Hankel transform to a precomputed weight vector and the full nested transform chain to a sequence of matrix products. We develop and validate the method on the deep inelastic scattering dijet cross section beyond the correlation-limit approximation, where an exprel-based reformulation of the quadrupole Wilson-line correlator removes a numerical $0/0$ instability inherent to its standard parametrization. Porting the calculation to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), with custom CUDA kernels that fuse the momentum-space contraction directly into the correlator evaluation, brings the runtime for one dipole input down to about two minutes on a single NVIDIA A800, from several hours on a multi-core Central Processing Unit (CPU). We further generalize the algorithm to three sequential Hankel transforms and validate the resulting six-dimensional transform against an analytic Gaussian integrand family with closed-form results at every stage. This general, process-independent algorithm is directly applicable to next-to-leading-order proton-nucleus and electron-ion scattering cross-section calculations performed without the correlation-limit approximation. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/CCNU-CGC-py/FFT_filon.

We obtain a local first law of dynamics within the interior geometries that are governed by cosmological solutions connecting the event horizon and the Kasner-like singularity. Evaluating the Iyer-Wald identity between the horizon and near-singularity geometries, we define a Kasner potential and transported response coefficients. We test the first law by both exact and numerical solutions. Our formalism provides a self-consistent approach to study the interior dynamics without having to appeal to the outside geometry and the asymptotic charges. It may provide a new approach to study the phase structures of the interior dynamics.

Machine learning and data analysis techniques have recently emerged as powerful tools for identifying patterns and formulating conjectures in mathematical research, most notably in the field of low-dimensional topology. In this paper, we initiate a systematic approach to handling mathematical data structured as (truncated) infinite $q$-series, or equivalently, infinite series of integers. To apply this data analysis pipeline, we construct a comprehensive dataset of $\widehat{Z}$-invariants (homological blocks) for plumbed 3-manifolds. We demonstrate that neural networks can reliably extract essential topological information, such as homology class and underlying graph structure, directly from the $q$-series coefficients. A central feature of our methodology is a focus on interpretability; by contrasting local gradient sensitivity with global feature relevance, we reveal that the networks learn to bypass complex topological rules in favor of specific spectral and geometric proxies. Finally, we apply this pipeline to probe homology cobordism, discovering a high-accuracy predictive relationship between the $\widehat{Z}$-invariant exponents and the Heegaard Floer $d$-invariant (correction term). These results suggest that $\widehat{Z}$-invariants capture subtle geometric information regarding cobordism equivalences, warranting a new direction for the study of quantum invariants.

We study a modified charged BTZ black hole in \((2+1)\)–dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime, where the standard geometry is surrounded by quintessence-like anisotropic matter and a cloud of strings. The corresponding metric function incorporates the effects of the electric charge and the two matter sources. The optical analysis reveals that their combined influence gives rise to a stable circular photon orbit, leading to distinctive modifications of photon dynamics and the associated energy emission. The thermodynamic analysis in a finite cavity further shows that the electric charge and exotic matter sources significantly affect the local thermal stability and phase structure of the black hole. The combined effects of these matter sources give rise to a stable photon sphere and novel thermodynamic behavior absent in the standard charged BTZ solution.

Antiferromagnets hold appealing potential in next-generation spintronic devices with higher frequency and scalability, thanks to their alternating spin orientations that cancel out net magnetization. However, the lack of a nonzero magnetization makes the detection of the magnetic configuration of antiferromagnet difficult, hampering the applications of antiferromagnets. Here, we report a new transverse transport effect in noncoplanar antiferromagnet $\text{MnTe}_{2}$. This effect is antisymmetric in both magnetic field and Néel order, but symmetric in its two indices. It can be understood in terms of the contribution induced by both magnetic field and geometric quantities, as confirmed by our theoretical calculations. Our discovery of a new Néel-order-dependent transverse transport effect provides opportunities to the advancing antiferromagnetic spintronics.

The temperature dependences of magnetization and electrical resistivity as well as their magnetic field dependences have been examined in lightly-doped single-layer cuprate $\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{CuO}_{4+\delta}$ (LCO, hole-doping level $p \, (2\delta) \cong 0.03$) single crystals, in comparison with those in the extremely low doping region of $p \lesssim 0.015$ to uncover the intrinsic magnetism and electrical conduction of the $\mathrm{Cu\text{-}O}$ plane that exhibits both antiferromagnetic (AF) and superconducting (SC) orders simultaneously. In $p \cong 0.03$ SC LCO, the sub-lattice moments on $\mathrm{Cu}$ sites and their AF couplings are only $\sim 15\,\%$ smaller than those of the Mott-insulator parent material, suggesting that the localization of $\mathrm{Cu}$ $3d$ electrons remains very strong. Furthermore, we report that in the SC LCO, two-dimensional AF spin correlations develop rapidly from $T^* \cong 280\text{ K}$ towards Néel temperature $T_{\mathrm{N}} = 266\text{ K}$, where the out-of-plane resistivity starts to decrease largely. This might be responsible for the AF ordering at such a high temperature in the SC single-layer cuprate with $p \cong 0.03$.

The prediction of equilibrium beach profiles under tidal influence is of fundamental importance for sustainable coastal development, informing shoreline protection strategies and managing coastal ecosystems under changing environmental conditions. However, it remains challenging due to the highly nonlinear interactions among wave, tide, and sedimentary processes. Traditional empirical and numerical models often exhibit limited adaptability across diverse coastal environments, with especially pronounced limitations in beach systems where tidal processes are important . To improve data-driven prediction under these conditions, this study proposes MorphoGP, a unified category-specific Gaussian process framework for predicting equilibrium beach profiles (EBPs) under tidal influence. The framework first introduces a ContourCluster model based on contrastive learning to classify tide-influenced beach morphologies automatically. Within each morphological category, a specialized Gaussian process expert learns statistical associations between environmental descriptors including waves, tides, and sediments and the beach profile's shape. A Gating Net then integrates the outputs of all experts through a probabilistic weighting mechanism to produce the final prediction. Evaluated on data from over 180 beach profiles from tide-influenced coasts along the Chinese coast, MorphoGP achieves improved predictive performance compared with conventional and deep learning models, reducing the test RMSE by about 59.3% compared with the best baseline and achieving a final RMSE of 0.297 m. The proposed framework provides a physically informed, data-driven tool for equilibrium beach-profile prediction under tidal influence and coastal management, while stronger process-level physical coupling remains an important direction for future development.

We show that periodic driving with near-infrared to visible light drives topological phase transitions in the photon-dressed band structure of transition-metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers. We apply the Floquet formalism to a light-coupled lowest-order $\mathbf{k}\cdot\mathbf{p}$ Hamiltonian, and obtain an effective four-band model that correctly captures the essential photon-dressed bands of type-II TMD heterobilayers in the vicinity of the first photon resonance. Crossings between the zero- and one-photon sectors effectively invert the bands, yielding topological phases with Chern numbers up to $\pm 2$ and gaps of order 10 meV. Our results establish TMDs as prime candidates for engineering bands with higher Chern numbers, and exploring driven topological states in solid state media.

Open clusters are ideal observational testbeds to understand the dynamics of stellar systems. We present a dynamical study of the young open cluster NGC 2302. The latest Gaia data and $UBVIJHK_s$ photometric data are used in this study. A total of 117 stars are selected as the genuine members using the Gaia data. This cluster is, on average, reddened by $<E(B-V)> = 0.24 \pm 0.06$ (s.d.). The ratio of total-to-selective extinction ($R_V$) in the direction of NGC 2302 is $2.8 \pm 0.1$. The cluster distance is determined to be $1.16 \pm 0.08$ kpc using Gaia parallaxes. Theoretical isochrone fitting for $Z = 0.008$ on color-magnitude diagrams yields an age of $80 \pm 20$ Myr. The relative proper motions of individual members show no significant radial expansion or contraction. NGC 2302 contains a total stellar mass of $333 \pm 48 M_{\odot}$. The one-dimensional velocity dispersion is approximately 0.26 km s$^{-1}$, which is comparable to the viral velocity dispersion of 0.27 km s$^{-1}$ derived from its total mass. Its relaxation time is estimated to be approximately 90 Myr, which is similar to the age of the cluster within the uncertainty in age estimation. Finally, we report a pattern of mass segregation in the radial distribution of stellar masses. Our results suggest that NGC 2302 is virialized and currently approaching a state of dynamical relaxation. However, because no definitive evidence of kinetic energy equipartition is found, the possibility of the in-situ formation of high-mass stars within the central region should be carefully considered.

Fault-tolerant quantum computation hinges on the requirement for low physical error rates. Reaching below threshold regime requires the accounting of circuit dependent noise, that is inherent to the execution context in which a quantum gate is usually embedded. Direct fidelity estimation is a technique that offers natural context preservation as it solely requires the insertion of local Pauli preparation and measurement fiducials around the window of interest. However, each sampled input-output Pauli pair demands its own preparation and measurement setting, an overhead that grows rapidly once the target gate is no longer Clifford. We introduce joint fiducial grouping, which partitions Pauli pairs into sets with commuting input and output operators, allowing several Pauli-transfer coefficients to be estimated within the same preparation-measurement setting. We derive an unbiased grouped estimator and finite-sample guarantees showing that grouping always reduces the number of distinct input-output settings and can also reduce the required channel uses when the target weight is concentrated within compatible groups. We characterize these gains for the parametric two-qubit gate $\mathrm{fSim}(\theta,\varphi)$, and use the grouped estimator as a context-sensitive reward for reinforcement-learning-based gate calibration. Our results provide a practical route to lower-overhead, context-preserving fidelity estimation for continuously parameterized quantum gates.

Atomistic spin dynamics (ASD) codes like VAMPIRE simulate femtosecond-laser-induced ultrafast demagnetization and all-optical switching (AOS) on a rigid lattice; the SPIN package of the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) instead propagates spins and lattice together, but until now could couple its spin thermostat only to a single global temperature, precluding three-temperature (3TM) simulations. We present a validated 3TM extension with two new fixes: langevin/spin/ttm, coupling the stochastic spin bath to the local electron-temperature field of fix ttm; and moment/scale/spin, supplying the per-atom moment-dependent ($1/\mu_i$) prefactor required for heterogeneous-moment systems, with deterministic terms scaling as $1/\mu_i$ and, as required by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, stochastic noise scaling as $1/\sqrt{\mu_i}$. We validate the framework on single-species benchmarks-precession, the bcc-Fe Curie curve, a continuous demagnetization-remagnetization-precession trajectory, and a lattice-strain acoustic-phonon pulse unavailable to spin-only ASD codes-then on heat-induced AOS of GdFeCo with literature parameters (Radu/Ostler exchange constants, moments, and damping). The corrected integrator reproduces the experimentally reported transient ferromagnetic-like sublattice alignment, field-insensitive thermal switching, a switching probability approaching unity across a genuine 8x8 literature damping phase diagram, a non-monotonic critical-cooling-duration boundary that disappears above $T_e^0 \approx 2000 \text{ K}$, a composition-dependent switching window centered on angular-momentum compensation, and convergence in system size with monotonic, physical damping dependence. These results establish LAMMPS as a quantitatively validated platform for three-temperature spin-lattice simulations of ultrafast magnetism.

We present two related customized software packages, Hubb_DMFT and Wan2mb_DMFT, designed to solve the Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (DMFT) equations for strongly correlated electron systems. Hubb_DMFT is adjusted for the single-band Hubbard model, providing a fast way to calculate the local self-energy, as well as the two-particle fermion and triangular fermion-boson charge and spin vertices, while Wan2mb_DMFT extends this capability to realistic multi-orbital systems, directly interfacing Wannier tight-binding Hamiltonians with many-body solvers. Both codes are based on iQIST v.0.7 impurity solver and utilize a modified and internally integrated Continuous-Time Quantum Monte Carlo (CT-QMC) core with the hybridization expansion (CT-HYB) framework and improved self-energy and vertex estimators for density-density interaction, ensuring numerically exact solutions for quantum impurity problems.

Reaction cross sections $\sigma_{\rm R}$ are widely used to infer matter radii, yet their sensitivity to nuclear structure beyond radial one-body distributions is less well understood. We combine complete $A$-body nucleon configurations sampled from ab initio nuclear lattice effective field theory (NLEFT) with event-by-event Monte Carlo Glauber calculations, thereby retaining the many-body correlations encoded in NLEFT. Using a fixed binary-collision prescription determined by the measured energy- and isospin-dependent total nucleon-nucleon cross sections, the calculations capture the overall magnitudes and energy dependence simultaneously for the available data on $^{12}$C and $^{9}$Be projectiles on carbon and hydrogen. Controlled randomization of angular correlations at fixed matter root-mean-square radius and spherically averaged one-body radial density produces only a weak change in $\sigma_{\rm R}$ for $^{12}$C but approximately a $10\%$ increase for $^{9}\mathrm{Be}+{}^{1}\mathrm{H}$. The calculations also capture the measured rise–plateau–sharp-rise–reduction trend across $^{7,9\text{--}12}$Be, a distinctive pattern reflecting the evolution of cluster and halo structures along the isotopic chain. These results show that $\sigma_{\rm R}$ retains sensitivity to intrinsic many-body geometry beyond a single inferred matter radius, opening a route to studies of exotic $\alpha$-cluster geometries and spatial nucleon correlations through reaction cross sections.

We present a simple geometric proof of Kepler's first law. The core of the argument rests on a kinematic invariant that we call the velocity projection ratio - the ratio between the radial projection of the velocity and its projection onto a fixed direction parallel to the periapsis line. We show that the constancy of this ratio is an immediate consequence of Newton's laws, and that it leads directly to the focus-directrix property of the orbit. By establishing a direct link between planetary dynamics and the classical geometric definition of conics, our proof reveals the conic nature of the orbit as an inevitable consequence of the inverse-square law.

Encoding quantum information with low circuit overhead is a fundamental challenge in fault-tolerant quantum computation. Random circuits provide a natural mechanism for rapidly spreading logical information through simple gates applied in parallel. Brown and Fawzi showed that random Clifford circuits on two-qubit Clifford gates provide such encoders that achieve the quantum Gilbert-Varshamov rate-distance tradeoff with depth $O(\log^3 n)$. We show that the same asymptotic tradeoff is attained in optimal $O(\log n)$ depth under a gate distribution with a more restricted support. For every fixed $\delta>0$ and sufficiently large $n$, if $\frac kn < 1 - H(\frac{d}{n}) - \frac{d}{n}\log_2 3 - \delta$, we can construct random circuits of depth $O(\log n)$ which define, with high probability, an $[n,k]$ stabilizer code of distance at least $d+1$, which matches the $\Omega(\log n)$ light-cone lower bound for linear distance encoders. Our ensemble employs a random matching circuit architecture consisting of $T$ independent permutation-invariant layers. In each layer, the qubits are paired up by a uniformly random perfect matching, and a random independent two-qubit Clifford gate is applied to each pair. The gate distribution need not be uniform over, or even have full support on, the two-qubit Clifford group; rather, we allow for very general distributions on Clifford gates satisfying three regularity conditions. In particular, the construction can be implemented using $n/2$ CNOT gates on randomly matched pairs in each layer, with parallel one-qubit Clifford twirls. These regularity conditions allow us to reduce the second-moment dynamics of our random circuits to a reversible Markov chain on binary support strings. We establish logarithmic hitting-time bounds for this Markov chain and comparisons of its stationary distribution to prove the coding properties of the circuits.

Kitaev quantum spin liquids (KQSLs) host fractionalized excitations described by itinerant Majorana quasiparticles and gapped $Z_2$ fluxes (visons), providing a platform for emergent topological matter. Whether such a state survives under strong magnetic fields, however, remains an open question. The layered honeycomb magnet $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ is a leading candidate material: an in-plane field of $\sim$ 7 T suppresses antiferromagnetic order and induces a quantum-disordered phase exhibiting signatures consistent with Majorana excitations, including an anomalous thermal Hall effect and field-angle-dependent specific heat. At higher fields, the magnetization approaches saturation, suggesting a transition to a spin-polarized state, yet the microscopic evolution between these limits remains unresolved. Here we report high-field specific heat measurements up to 24 T that reveal a distinct crossover at $\mu_0H^*\approx$15 T, beyond which the perturbative Kitaev description breaks down. Above $H^*$, the characteristic six-fold angular modulation of the specific heat collapses and the excitation gap deviates from the predicted $H^3$ scaling. Meanwhile, the gap decreases with increasing field and the in-plane magnetization anisotropy persists up to $\sim$ 24 T, both in sharp contrast to a trivial spin-polarized state, indicating that KQSL signatures are preserved even at $\sim$ 90 % of magnetization saturation. These results reveal that the KQSL in $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ extends well beyond the perturbative window, persisting as a nonperturbative regime in which the Majorana and vison energy scales merge, before eventually giving way to spin polarization. This thermodynamic roadmap provides a basis for understanding how fractionalized phases evolve under strong magnetic fields.

How a polaron loses its quasiparticle coherence with increasing temperature is a long-standing open problem. Holstein addressed it in 1959 only in the extreme antiadiabatic, strong-coupling limit, while more recent numerically exact approaches are largely restricted to one dimension. Here we solve this problem on square and simple cubic lattices across the weak-, intermediate-, and strong-coupling regimes. We show that the polaron effective mass $m^*$ and inverse lifetime $1/\tau$ increase monotonically with temperature until, at $T \sim 0.5\,\Omega$, the quasiparticle peak dissolves into a broad incoherent thermal continuum. The phonon frequency $\Omega$ therefore defines a universal coherence scale, independent of dimensionality and coupling strength, validating Holstein's prediction far beyond the regime in which it was derived. These results follow from a finite-temperature generalization of the Momentum Average (MA) approximation, yielding a closed-form, diagrammatically derived self-energy that is asymptotically exact in the strong-coupling limit at all temperatures. Benchmark comparisons demonstrate excellent quantitative agreement of the resulting 1D spectral functions with the numerically exact Variational Exact Diagonalization-Finite-Temperature Lanczos Method (VED-FTLM) and finite-$T$ Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG).

We show that the equilibrium transport noise of a multiband bosonic system carries a measurable imprint of its Chern numbers, and we give the protocol that extracts them. For electrons the topological part of the Berry curvature is absent from the transport noise: over a filled band it yields the quantized anomalous Hall conductivity, yet at a Fermi surface the Chern number is invisible to the fluctuations of the Hall current. That cancellation is an accident of the Fermi surface: magnons and phonons populate every band thermally, each with its own Chern number, so the harmonic sector of the Hodge decomposition is not a single constant, and a variance does not annihilate it. What survives is the occupation-weighted dispersion of Chern numbers. That current noise sees band geometry is known, and at zero temperature the antisymmetric part of the noise sum rule already returns a Chern number; the new element is an object with no zero-temperature analogue, existing only when several bands are populated and weighted differently. We derive it from a fluctuating Boltzmann equation and resolve the energy-magnetization subtraction at the level of fluctuations: the subtracted term is a curl, contributing exactly zero to the current a transport measurement records, and no magnetization auto-correlation enters the antisymmetric cross-spectrum at any wavevector. Measurement uses an equilibrium sum rule on that cross-spectrum, with no drive and hence no suppression: its frequency-integrated form cannot in practice separate topological from geometric content, for a rank reason, whereas the frequency-resolved form does, at accessible resolution. The protocol is specified for Cu(1,3-bdc), with calibration and robustness characterized. A driven alternative lies twelve orders below the equilibrium floor. Two independent implementations agree on every convention-free quantity.

We numerically examine the impacts of particle-wall alignment interactions on active species diffusion through a structureless narrow two-dimensional channel. We consider particle-wall interaction to depend on the self-propulsion velocity direction whereby some specific particle's alignments with respect to the boundary walls are stabilized most. Further, the alignment interaction is meaningful as long as particles are close to the confining boundaries. Unbiased diffusion of active particles for various possible stable velocity alignments against the walls has been examined. We show that for the most stable configuration leading to self-propulsion velocity direction perpendicular to the wall, diffusivity becomes inversely proportional to the square of alignment interaction torque. On the other hand, when the self-propulsion velocity direction making an acute angle to the channel walls is the most stable configuration, diffusion exponentially grows with strengthening alignment interaction. Hence, particle-wall interaction plays a pivotal role in the transport control of active particles through narrow channels. Moreover, the impacts of the alignment interactions on diffusion largely depend on the particle's self-propulsion properties and its chirality. Our simulation results can potentially be used to understand unbiased diffusion of artificial or living micro/nano-objects (such as virus, bacteria, Janus particles, etc.) though narrow confined structures.

Electron phonon coupling governs charge transport, carrier relaxation, and polaron formation in halide perovskites, yet its microscopic origin in low dimensional systems remains poorly understood. Here, we combine operando, bias dependent Raman spectroscopy with density functional theory (DFT) calculations to directly probe carrier lattice interactions in two-dimensional Ruddlesden Popper perovskites,(PEA)$_2$PbI$_4$ and its fluorinated analogue, (PEA-F)$_2$PbI$_4$. Under applied electric fields, both systems exhibit mode-selective Raman linewidth broadening predominantly near 100 cm$^{-1}$, whereas other phonon modes remain largely unaffected, revealing highly selective coupling between injected carriers and specific lattice vibrations. DFT calculations identify these modes as hybrid organic inorganic vibrations involving coupled motion of the organic spacer and symmetric Pb I equatorial stretching, rather than purely inorganic phonons. Fluorination fundamentally reconstructs the vibrational landscape by modifying molecular packing, crystal symmetry, and organic inorganic coupling, resulting in changes to the phonon density of states, longer phonon lifetimes, and an enhanced carrier mediated lattice response. Notably, electrical bias produces opposite phonon lifetime evolution in thin films and single crystals: the phonon lifetime decreases by approximately 17 to 22% in thin films but increases 20 to 26% in single crystals. These contrasting responses demonstrate that structural order plays a fundamental role in determining carrier phonon interactions and phonon relaxation pathways in two-dimensional halide perovskites.

Topological orders (TOs) are widely used as quantum error-correcting codes, with anyon excitations serving as error syndromes. For certain Abelian TOs, decoding can be performed by independently matching particle-antiparticle pairs of each species. However, matching-based decoders cannot handle more general fusion rules in either Abelian or non-Abelian TOs, nor account for noise that correlates different anyon species. While clustering decoders are more broadly applicable, they typically neglect anyon data and fusion properties, leading to poor performance in practice. In this work, we introduce a fundamentally different decoder for arbitrary TOs based on integer linear programming (ILP). The ILP formulation linearizes the error-correction problem through the introduction of auxiliary variables and encodes fusion rules as linear constraints. Classical optimization then identifies the minimum-weight error configuration. As concrete examples, we determine error-correction thresholds for three TOs: the Abelian $\mathbb{Z}_2$ TO under depolarizing noise, where charge and flux errors are correlated; the Abelian $\mathbb{Z}_3$ TO, which does not admit a pairwise matching decoder; and the non-Abelian $D_4$ TO under noise channels that generate all anyon species. We demonstrate the versatility of the ILP decoder by showing a clear performance advantage over most existing decoders in all three cases. We further extend the method to incorporate noisy syndrome measurements and propose a just-in-time variant for continuous error correction. Our results establish ILP as a natural framework for handling correlated errors and general anyon fusion rules, and as a powerful and flexible general-purpose decoder for incoherent anyon noise in arbitrary TOs, with applications to fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Projected entangled pair states (PEPS) provide an efficient variational ansatz for two-dimensional quantum phases, but computing observables remains challenging because PEPS contraction is generally costly. Here, we parameterize two-dimensional quantum states using variational PEPS subject to isometric constraints and map the resulting ansatz onto monitored quantum circuits, replacing tensor-network contraction with circuit sampling. For infinite cylinders, the transfer matrix defines a quantum channel on the virtual boundary. We use a fixed-point treatment and a monitored-circuit unraveling of this channel to evaluate observables efficiently. Using a constant number of variational parameters and a number of qubits that scales only with the cylinder width, our method yields a phase diagram for the $J_1$-$J_2$ model in qualitative agreement with DMRG results. Because the monitored circuits are compatible with near-term quantum hardware, this approach provides a hybrid quantum-classical framework for simulating two-dimensional quantum many-body systems.

We are witnessing an explosion of agentic systems for computational chemistry: from four in 2024 to seventeen in 2025 and over sixty now, surveyed here. What is delegated to these systems is shifting from single calculations to whole in silico experiments and even manuscript writing. The ultimate destination is a fully autonomous AI scientist, where the entirety of computational chemistry is performed on a machine by a machine, without human supervision. Our survey shows that these systems are turning into vetted chemistry skills on general-purpose coding agents, and that they must be evaluated not only on their final answers but also on whether their calculations actually support these answers. The role of the human computational chemist is shifting from performing calculations to directing and supervising them, and the field should invest in the judgement that makes the supervision reliable: we propose a reporting standard, an evaluation reproducing published studies, a controlled comparison with general-purpose coding agents, and how to teach.

If axion-like particles (ALPs) exist, they may have renormalizable couplings only to the Higgs boson ($h^0$) or to fields beyond the Standard Model. An ALP $A_h$ lighter than about 60 GeV would allow the $h^0 \to A_h A_h$ decay, with a branching fraction determined by the explicit global symmetry breaking responsible for the main contributions to the $A_h$ mass ($M_A$). New heavy fields that carry color and electric charge, such as squarks, can mediate $A_h$ decays at one loop mostly into gluons, but also into photons. Exploring LHC sensitivity to $A_h$, we show that the $h^0 \to A_h A_h \to (gg)(\gamma\gamma)$ channel leads to a diphoton resonance at $M_A$ whose production rate is consistent with a $3.5\sigma$ excess reported by a CMS search at $M_A \approx 13.6$ GeV. For $M_A$ of order 10 GeV, the $h^0 \to A_h A_h \to 4g$ cascade decay leads to two wide jets (each with 2-prong substructure) that form a resonance at 125 GeV.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widely recognized as carriers of the aromatic infrared bands (AIBs). However, most spectral models rely on idealized structures that fail to capture the energetic environments of interstellar PAH formation. This work investigates the infrared (IR) signatures of PAHs formed under shock conditions and explores whether produced defective structures can explain observational features unpredicted by standard, idealized models. We combine two-stage reactive molecular dynamics simulations of PAH formation via condensation and shock processing with density functional theory spectral calculations, and compare our theoretical results with James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations of NGC 7023 and MRK 1066. Shock processing produces PAHs featuring fullerene-like carbon skeletons and linear carbon-chain attachments. These structural defects yield distinct IR signatures, including prominent carbon-chain stretching features at 4.6-5.5 micron that is absent in ideal PAHs, and significantly enhanced out-of-plane skeletal modes in the 14.5-20 micron regime. Our findings attribute the observed 5.2 micron band in NGC 7023 and MRK 1066 to carbon-chain vibrations and the 15-18 micron emission to curved skeletal modes, providing observational support for the prevalence of defective, shock-formed PAHs in the interstellar medium.

Pulsars can be either isolated or binary (or even in triple) systems. Observational features of pulsars are used to probe various aspects of fundamental physics, including emission mechanism, gravitational physics, etc. Theoretical models of various phenomena need different coordinate frames. Often different physical processes affect each other and we need to use multiple coordinate frames and relations between those. This short review presents an extensive set of coordinate frames and relations between those.

Two-dimensional (2D) electron/hole gases confined in semiconductor heterostructures suffer from weak Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for manipulating spin degreee of freedom via an electric rather than a magnetic field. Here, we show that complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology-accessible strain could substantially enhance the linear Rashba SOC of the top hole subband in Ge/SiGe quantum wells (QWs) to a level comparable to that of 2D Rashba materials through enhancing the mixture of the light-hole and heavy-hole bands. We further show that strongly enhanced Rashba SOC boosts the Rabi frequency of hole spin qubits confined in Ge/SiGe QWs by two orders of magnitude to an unprecedented 40 GHz, more than one order of magnitude faster than other qubit platforms. We also demonstrate that the hole spin rotation with Rabi frequency > 25 GHz enters a new regime being immune to gate control-induced electric noise, opening a new avenue to simultaneously improve the gate speed and gate fidelity. Our findings provide a new routine to substantially enhance the Rashba SOC in 2D semiconductor hole gases to a level that is great for spintronic applications.

Recent $\gamma$-ray observations indicate that the proton spectra of supernova remnants (SNRs) are well described by broken power laws, with both the spectral break energy, $E_{\mathrm{br}}$, and the low-energy spectral index, $\alpha$, exhibiting systematic evolution with SNR age. The physical origin of these evolutionary trends and their implications for the Galactic cosmic-ray (CR) population remain poorly understood. In this work, we develop the temporal evolution model for protons in SNRs by extending the semi-analytical framework of Zhang & Fang, in which both the maximum acceleration energy and the injection spectral index evolve with the dynamical evolution of the remnant. The calculated proton spectra reproduce the age-dependent trends of both $E_{\mathrm{br}}$ and $\alpha$ inferred from observations. We adopt the proton spectrum at the onset of the radiative phase as the source spectrum for Galactic CR propagation and incorporate the intrinsic dispersion of source spectral indices among SNRs. The resulting cumulative Galactic proton spectrum is then calculated within a diffusion model. The propagated spectrum agrees well with the observed CR proton flux over a broad energy range, particularly above several tens of GeV. Our results provide a self-consistent framework linking the time-dependent evolution of proton acceleration in individual SNRs to the Galactic CR proton spectrum observed at Earth, and further support the long-standing hypothesis that SNRs are the dominant sources of Galactic CR protons below the knee.

We investigate the propagation of structured scalar optical beams in an effective anisotropic background inspired by the scalar sector of the Standard-Model Extension and controlled by a single dimensionless parameter $\lambda$. The physically relevant configuration is a transverse radial director field that modifies the radial part of the Helmholtz operator while preserving axial symmetry. Starting from the Green-function representation, we cast the propagation problem as an initial-value spectral reconstruction of a prescribed finite-aperture entrance profile at $z=0$ and verify that this profile is recovered at the launch plane across the values of $\lambda$ used in the analysis, within small numerical error. We use the Laguerre–Gaussian mode $L_3$ as the representative vortex-free Laguerre case, retain $L_4$ only as a quantitative benchmark for radial-order dependence, and compare both with a Bessel–Gaussian beam of input order $m=0$. The effective anisotropy produces a systematic redistribution of radial intensity, determines whether the central peak remains dominant or is overtaken by off-axis maxima as propagation advances, and controls the radial displacement of the dominant side lobes. For the finite-aperture Bessel–Gaussian beam, the same parameter quantifies how the approximately diffraction-resistant ring structure broadens for negative $\lambda$ and compresses for positive $\lambda$ during propagation.