Papers

We investigate exotic scalar decays $h_2 \to h_1 h_1$ in the Two Real Singlet Model (TRSM), focusing on light CP-even scalars with $20 \le M_{1} \le 60$~GeV and $20 \le M_{2} \le 120$~GeV. Unlike previous studies focused on gluon–gluon fusion or vector-boson fusion production, we explore associated production with electroweak gauge bosons, $pp \to Vh_2$ {\sl($V = W,Z$)}, as a complementary and experimentally clean probe of light scalar cascades in the TRSM. The subsequent decay $h_1 \to b\bar{b}$ leads to final states containing four $b$-jets accompanied by a charged lepton and missing transverse energy. We evaluate the sensitivity of the $4b+\ell\nu_\ell$ channel at $\sqrt{s}=13.6$~\TeV for the LHC Run~3 and the HL-LHC. For an integrated luminosity of $300~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$, the $W^+h_2$ channel provides the strongest sensitivity, reaching a significance of approximately $4\sigma$, while the $W^-h_2$ channel reaches approximately $3\sigma$. At the HL-LHC with $3000~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$, the corresponding significances increase to approximately $12\sigma$ and $8\sigma$, respectively, highlighting the strong discovery potential of associated light-scalar production in the TRSM.

We study the class of transversal field models with pair interactions, including the quantum Curie-Weiss and the transversal field Ising model, as well as quantum spin glasses based on the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) and Edwards-Anderson models. Our main result is a general correlation inequality based on a Gaussian convolution estimate, which is derived from an extension of the Ding-Song-Sun inequality and an application of Brascamp-Lieb convexity techniques. The results apply for sufficiently strong transversal fields and, for quantum spin glasses, yield a high-field regime without replica order. Combined with the previously established low-field replica-symmetry-breaking regime, this gives distinct low- and high-field overlap phases. As a corollary of the logarithmic Sobolev inequalities for the underlying functional integrals derived here, we show the concentration of the self- and replica-overlap, and determine the high-field asymptotics of the pressure in the quantum SK model.

We investigate the leading near-horizon response of Blandford-Znajek energy extraction to a compact, neutral spin-polarized source within minimally coupled Einstein-Cartan-Dirac-Maxwell theory. Eliminating the algebraic contortion yields an effective axial contact interaction, which we embed into a conserved, anisotropic phenomenological completion. Working at leading order in the torsion parameter $\epsilon_T$, spatial anisotropy $\xi$, and slow rotation $\chi=a/M$ on the fixed-ADM branch, we derive the modified energy extraction rate at optimal load. We find that the leading-order power ratio $P_{\rm BZ}^{\rm EC}/P_{\rm BZ}^{\rm K}$ receives distinct contributions from rotational dragging ($\ell=1$) and magnetostatic flux redistribution ($\ell=2$). In the isotropic limit ($\xi=0$), the power is enhanced for a co-rotating completion and suppressed for a counter-rotating one, whereas for $\xi\neq0$ the net shift depends on the polar quadrupole response. We also formulate the generalized Znajek identity and linearized Grad–Shafranov framework, demonstrating that undetermined load-factor shifts leave the leading power coefficient invariant due to stationarity at the matched load point.

We derive a convenient form of integration-by-parts (IBP) identities for dimensionally regulated loop integrals that include a measurement constraint imposed by a delta distribution $\delta(\phi(\ell))$, where $\phi$ is a regular and generally non-linear function of the loop momentum. Non-trivial IBP relations can be generated directly by vectors tangent to the hypersurface $\phi=0$, leaving the measurement delta as an overall factor and avoiding derivatives of distributions. This construction provides a systematic route to differential distributions within reverse unitarity for non-linear measurement functions, in particular, for transverse-momentum distributions. We implement the construction and validate it for transverse-momentum distributions in $t\bar tH$ production at leading order and $t\bar t$ production at next-to-leading order in QCD.

This work proposes a novel readout mechanism for highly sensitive cantilever-based mass sensors using movable-gate (MG) MOSFETs. Traditional dynamic-mode cantilever sensors measure mass through shifts in resonance frequency, which offer high precision but require complex analog circuitry and large device areas, limiting integration and miniaturization. In contrast, the proposed approach exploits strong short-channel effects in MG MOSFETs, where the drain current depends exponentially on cantilever position, allowing for orders-of-magnitude changes without analog-to-digital conversion. Numerical simulations and initial experiments demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, which also avoids pull-in instability by using the electrostatic behavior of the gate-channel system to stabilize and even excite oscillations. The concept paves the way for scalable, low-complexity, high-resolution mass sensing with full circuit integration potential.

As a natural extension of the single-field fuzzy dark matter (FDM) model, multifield FDM has attracted increasing attention in recent years. This scenario is motivated both by the axiverse scenario predicted by string theory and by the possibility that multifield FDM may provide a better match to astrophysical observations than its single-field counterpart. In this work, we perform high-resolution numerical simulations to systematically investigate the dynamics of wave structures in multifield FDM halos. In particular, we study the oscillatory and stochastic motions of the central core, the evolution and statistical properties of granules, and the resulting dynamical heating of embedded stellar systems. We find that the frequency spectra of the core density oscillations develop multiple peaks and shift toward higher frequencies relative to the single-field case. The centers of different field components undergo nearly synchronized random walks, while subdominant components exhibit larger random-walk amplitudes. We further show that the suppression of granule density fluctuations with increasing number of fields is largely insensitive to the fractional abundance of each component over a broad parameter range. Moreover, using self-consistent simulations, we find that the dynamical heating induced by granules is progressively suppressed as the number of fields increases. However, once the contribution from the central core is taken into account, this trend would become much less pronounced.

Real-time impurity solvers enable the study of transport phenomena and the description of nonequilibrium lattice systems within the framework of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). They also provide direct access to the spectral functions of both equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems. A widely used approach is the self-consistent strong-coupling expansion, whose lowest-order implementation corresponds to the non-crossing approximation. Higher-order implementations, however, are computationally demanding because the number of diagram topologies grows factorially with expansion order, while the evaluation of self-energies and Green's functions requires increasingly high-dimensional integrations. Here, we demonstrate that the latter challenge can be mitigated by employing quantics tensor cross interpolation in a variable-separated framework. Compared with the previously used scale-separated approach, the new scheme yields substantially lower bond dimensions and capacitates self-consistent steady-state DMFT calculations up to fourth order. We illustrate its performance with representative results for both equilibrium and photo-doped systems. In addition, we analyze the convergence of the strong-coupling expansion in the challenging noninteracting limit by computing diagrams up to sixth order. At this order, the onset of the asymptotic regime of the strong-coupling expansion becomes apparent, which allows the application of extrapolation techniques.

Scaling fault-tolerant superconducting quantum computers will likely require distributed architectures built from multiple manufacturable quantum processing units. A central question is whether noisy and slow inter-chip operations impose substantial spacetime overhead or orchestration burdens compared with monolithic architectures. To answer this question, we present a hardware-grounded architectural co-design together with a comprehensive resource-estimation protocol for surface-code-based modular processors. The design confines inter-chip latency and noise to module boundaries, preventing slow, noisy links from inducing prohibitive spacetime overhead or becoming a global orchestration bottleneck. The resource-estimation protocol integrates hardware constraints and circuit-level error-correction performance into utility-scale algorithmic cost estimates, enabling a controlled assessment of different architectures. Using RSA-2048 factorization as a demanding benchmark, we estimate resources under experimentally anchored parameters and realistic superconducting hardware constraints. Compared with a large, ideal monolithic baseline, the resulting distributed architecture requires only modest additional resource overhead in both qubit count and execution time. More importantly, the overhead is nearly scale-invariant across a broad module-capacity window, decoupling chip size from global performance. This decoupling turns module capacity from a finely tuned architectural parameter into a flexible engineering degree of freedom, allowing chip sizes to be set by manufacturability and control-packaging constraints rather than architectural fine-tuning. These results establish a viable route to distributed fault-tolerant superconducting quantum computation that scales without prohibitive resource growth or heavy orchestration burden.

We present a method to calculate spin-phonon coupling parameters from first-principles perturbation theory by downfolding the electron-phonon coupling (EPC). We exploit the localized nature of magnetic moments and atomic displacements by working in the Wannier representation of the electronic Hamiltonian and the EPC matrix. The spin system is mapped to a classical Heisenberg Hamiltonian, whose parameters are obtained by treating local spin rotations as a perturbation within a Green's-function formalism. The spin and phonon perturbations are connected through the EPC parameters, which enter as lattice-induced perturbations to the tight-binding Hamiltonian. By combining these lattice perturbations with local spin rotations, we obtain real-space derivatives of magnetic exchange parameters without performing displaced magnetic supercell calculations. We illustrate the method on SrMnO$_3$ and show that it can be integrated directly into standard workflows.

We study the disc counting statistics of the real Ginibre ensemble, whose spectrum consists of real and non-real eigenvalues, the latter occurring in complex-conjugate pairs. As the matrix dimension increases, we derive the asymptotic behaviour of the joint cumulants of the numbers of real and non-real eigenvalues contained in a centred disc in the bulk, edge, and exterior regimes of the circular law. As consequences, we establish a joint central limit theorem and obtain the conjectured asymptotics for the number variance. Furthermore, our results reveal a universality phenomenon: although the fluctuations of the real and non-real eigenvalues separately retain dependence on the symmetry class, their combined fluctuations exhibit the same limiting behaviour as in the previously established complex and symplectic Ginibre ensembles.

The Sun is one of the fundamental benchmarks in astronomy, and there is ever growing interest in precise and accurate determinations of its chemical composition. We present the current state-of-the-art in spectroscopic determinations of the solar elemental abundances, that now routinely employ three-dimensional (3D) radiative-hydrodynamic simulations of the solar photosphere and post-processing in non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE). We critically review the recent literature and present recommended present-day and protosolar abundances of the 83 long-lived elements, and discuss their implications vis-à-vis primitive meteorites, helioseismology, neutrino fluxes, and the Solar Modelling Problem.

The dielectric and electric conduction properties of BaTiO3 samples fabricated by the spark plasma sintering with additional contamination by different content of carbon have been investigated in the temperature range from 77 through 408 K in small non-heating electric fields and in the range of 77 - 200K under strong electric fields up to 20 kV/cm. The effective dielectric permittivity of the samples with additional carbon achieves colossal values at low frequency, up to several units per 106 at 393 K. In the low temperature range, it remains very high magnitude, 10^4 -10^5 at low frequency and is strongly dependent on the carbon content. The electric conduction in the range of 77 - 200 K bears the hopping conduction and obeys the Mott law. We also studied electric conduction and effective dielectric permittivity vs electric field strength in the range of 77 - 200 K. The results are explained within the frames of hopping conduction theory and suggestion on different constituents in polarization processes and electric conduction.

The Planetary Camera and Spectrograph (PCS) is a proposed second-generation instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), dedicated to the direct imaging and characterization of exoplanets. To meet its demanding science requirements, PCS will incorporate an extreme adaptive optics (AO) system, building upon the heritage of existing ELT AO instruments such as ELT/METIS, as well as high-contrast AO systems at the ELT and the VLT, including SPHERE and its upcoming upgrade, SAXO+. PCS development requires extensive research and development to advance critical AO technologies. In this work, we present the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) plan for a modular testbed to validate key components and control strategies. This testbed will integrate two deformable mirrors, including a DM prototype developed by Bertin-ALPAO in collaboration with ESO, with an estimated delivery in 2029. The facility will enable testing of different Fourier filtering wavefront sensors, including novel mask designs, while exploring different control architectures, such as woofer-tweeter configurations with a single wavefront sensor for both deformable mirrors or fully independent AO stages. Additionally, the testbed will leverage MPIA's expertise in real-time computer development to experiment with advanced control strategies, including predictive control and machine learning-enhanced AO techniques. This contribution presents the current status of PCS development at MPIA, highlighting the ongoing R&D efforts to mature its AO system for high-contrast imaging with the ELT.

In this contribution to Strangeness in Quark Matter 2026, I review the open quantum systems approach, a modern theoretical framework for addressing the interaction of a quantum system with its environment, and highlight recent progress in its application to the understanding of in-medium heavy quarkonium in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

We present the first LLM-powered multi-agent system for autonomous fault management across millions of optical links in production AIDCs. Refined via SFT and continuous memory evolution, it achieves 97.7% F1 and over 60% fault-incident reduction, outperforming SOTA LLMs on a ten-week field data evaluation.

Cosmic muon tomography is a powerful non-destructive imaging technique for inspecting dense and shielded materials through multiple Coulomb scattering. In this work, we present the design, simulation, and performance evaluation of a complete muon tomography system comprising six scintillator-strip tracking stations for trajectory reconstruction and a four-station magnetic spectrometer for muon momentum estimation. The detector geometry is implemented in the GEANT4 framework and optimized for object localization and material characterization. The reconstructed momentum is combined with the scattering angle to define the scattering density $\rho_s = {(\theta p)^2}/{L_{\mathrm{eff}}}$, which enhances sensitivity to material-dependent scattering. Point-of-Closest-Approach (PoCA) reconstruction is used to estimate scattering locations within the imaging volume. To detect and separate multiple unknown objects, Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (HDBSCAN) is applied to the reconstructed PoCA cloud. Cluster-level scattering and geometric features are then extracted for object characterization. The proposed framework enables object detection, localization, volume estimation, shape reconstruction, and material ranking within a unified analysis pipeline. Simulation studies with multiple objects of different compositions demonstrate accurate reconstruction of object positions and geometries, while providing reliable material discrimination based on scattering density. The developed system offers a scalable approach for next-generation cosmic muon tomography applications in security screening, nuclear waste characterization, and non-destructive inspection.

Quantum confinement in stoichiometric $\mathrm{Cd}_n\mathrm{Se}_n$ nanoclusters dramatically attenuates electronic screening, driving a delicate, size-dependent competition between quasiparticle self-energy corrections ($\Delta_{\mathrm{QP}}$) and exciton binding energies ($E_b$). Here, we present a $GW$/BSE study across a representative size series ($n = 3, 6, 13, 33$) and leverage it to validate a scalable atomistic tight-binding (TB) framework derived from first principles. Our results demonstrate that 1-2 eV spectral blueshifts previously reported in the literature arise from single-particle $GW$ convergence artifacts rather than deficiencies in the electron–hole kernels. We show that the near-perfect cancellation between $\Delta_{\mathrm{QP}}$ and $E_b$ breaks down as cluster volume increases, driven by the rapid onset of dielectric screening attenuating $E_b$ faster than $\Delta_{\mathrm{QP}}$ and leading to a pronounced divergence from mean-field predictions. Spatial inverse participation ratio analysis of the electronic structure reveals that optical suppression of fundamental pre-peaks stems from a severe spatial mismatch between localized valence orbitals and delocalized conduction states. Finally, we demonstrate that the confinement-induced scaling of the quasiparticle gap and the optical onset is accurately reproduced by a scissor-corrected, DFT-parameterized TB model. As such, this work provides a quantitative multiscale roadmap for embedding effective many-body effects kernels into computationally efficient models, enabling reliable optical predictions for realistic semiconducting nanostructures containing up to thousands of atoms.

The Vlasov–Poisson system provides the fundamental kinetic description of plasma and plays a central role in understanding collective phenomena such as Landau damping and wave–particle interactions. Efficient numerical simulation of these dynamics remains challenging because of the high dimensionality of phase space. In this work, we studied magnetized and non-magnetized plasma using a quantum simulation framework for the linearized Vlasov-Poisson equation by reformulating the discretized system as a Hermitian Hamiltonian suitable for gate-based quantum computation. The time evolution is implemented using first, second and fourth-order Trotter–Suzuki product formulas and the recently proposed Time-Resolved Interaction Framework (THRIFT). The performance of the different simulation methods is systematically evaluated through electric field evolution, state fidelity, convergence behavior, energy conservation, entanglement entropy and quantum resource requirements, including circuit depth and two-qubit gate complexity, for both magnetized and non-magnetized plasma models. To further reduce finite time step errors without increasing circuit depth, Richardson extrapolation is incorporated as a error-mitigation technique. The results provide a comprehensive comparison of Trotter and THRIFT approaches and establish practical guidelines for accurate and resource-efficient quantum simulation of plasma dynamics on gate-based quantum computers.

Electron-capture supernovae (ECSNe) are a promising formation channel for low-mass neutron stars, but the minimum gravitational mass of the neutron stars they produce depends on both the progenitor core structure and the neutron-star matter equation of state (EOS). We compute the electron-capture (EC) threshold gravitational mass ($M^\star_{WD}$) of cold white-dwarf-like O–Ne–Mg cores with representative compositions and map the baryon number onto cold neutron-star configurations constructed from a Bayesian ensemble of unified crust–core EOSs. Although the EC threshold density is sensitive to the concentrations of the O–Ne–Mg mixture, the threshold baryon number of the O–Ne–Mg core varies only weakly, producing a narrow remnant-mass window. In the baseline case with no baryonic mass loss during the transition from the EC threshold mass O–Ne–Mg core to the remnant neutron star, standard ECSNe yield remnant neutron stars with gravitational masses of $1.24$–$1.265\, M_\odot$, with only a small EOS-induced spread. Small baryonic mass losses of $0.01$–$0.02\, M_\odot$ shift this range modestly downward, but the $1.174\, M_\odot$ companion of PSR J0453+1559 would require an extreme mass loss close to $0.10\, M_\odot$, which is not favored by current ECSN simulations. We find that the residual EOS dependence of the remnant mass is controlled mainly by the pressure around nuclear saturation density, while the corresponding tidal deformability remains sensitive to the remnant radius and compactness. Thus, low-mass double neutron star systems can in principle connect ECSN-like formation channels with gravitational-wave constraints on the EOS. Our results show that ECSNe naturally form low-mass neutron stars, but within a restricted mass range; the lightest observed neutron stars likely require low-mass iron-core collapse, ultra-stripped supernovae, or other nonstandard channels.

Bond-based peridynamics provides a non-local framework for modelling fracture without requiring spatial derivatives of the displacement field. However, when spatially varying horizons are used together with non-uniform discretisations, the classical single-horizon bond-based peridynamics formulation leads to asymmetric interactions between material points. These asymmetric interactions violate balance laws and can introduce non-physical artefacts such as ghost forces and spurious wave reflections. In this work, we develop a variational formulation for bond-based peridynamics with spatially varying horizons. Starting from the Lagrange-d'Alembert principle, we derive the governing equations of motion and show that the dual-horizon peridynamics formulation emerges naturally from the variation of the internal energy. Building on this variational structure, we construct asynchronous variational integrators that allow different time step sizes in different regions of the domain. This is particularly useful for dynamic fracture simulations with local refinement, where small time steps are required only near regions of high resolution or expected crack growth. Numerical examples involving wave propagation, a pre-cracked plate under tension, and the Kalthoff-Winkler impact experiment demonstrate that the proposed framework removes spurious reflections caused by non-uniform horizons, preserves physically consistent fracture patterns, and achieves results comparable to uniformly refined simulations. At the same time, the asynchronous variational integrator reduces the number of internal force evaluations compared to the standard velocity-Verlet method. The proposed approach therefore provides a consistent variational foundation and an efficient time-integration strategy for bond-based peridynamic simulations with spatially varying horizons.

We study a hybrid proposal–correction architecture for reduced-order PDE forecasting in which a pure-state quantum reservoir computer (QRC) predicts latent coefficient dynamics and a PINN-based physics-informed corrector (PIC) refines local rollout windows. The method is evaluated on Burgers and Kuramoto–Sivashinsky (KS), with KS as the primary chaotic benchmark. On KS, QRC+PIC consistently improves over QRC alone in RMSE, NRMSE, and PDE residual, while Burgers highlights a regime in which simple baselines remain strong. These results suggest that QRC proposals with local physics-informed correction are a viable benchmark-dependent reduced-order forecasting strategy.

We construct a finite-Hilbert interacting quantum model in which matter and geometric response are generated by a single Schwinger functional along one spatial refinement. Two inequivalent discretizations converge analytically to the same Hamiltonian on a fixed physical Fourier band, with second- and fourth-order regulator bounds. The common limit determines the excitation gap, connected nonlinear matter response, mixed matter-geometry susceptibility, and low-frequency geometric kernel. Within a prescribed covariant two-derivative FLRW sector, the latter fixes a positive induced Newton coefficient without an additional normalization parameter. The same spectral data define a conserved excitation stress and a regulator-stable semiclassical Friedmann trajectory. These results establish a common regulator limit for interaction, response, and backreaction within one microscopic family. The construction is restricted to a two-mode Fourier band, a finite oscillator cutoff, and a prescribed semiclassical gravitational sector; an interacting all-band quantum field theory with dynamical geometry is not constructed here.

Single-pulse laser ablation thresholds of selected equiatomic Cantor-Wu alloys - FeNi, CoNi, CrFeNi, CrCoNi, and CrMnFeCoNi - are measured for femtosecond and nanosecond pulse durations and interpreted through first-principles calculations of the electronic structure, the electron-phonon coupling, and the electronic thermal conductivity. Alloy synthesis, ablation experiments, and theory are performed consistently on the same set of samples. The absorbed femtosecond thresholds decrease systematically by up to 36 % from FeNi to the Cr-containing alloys, a trend that reflectance variations cannot explain. Two-temperature-model scaling of the thresholds with the electronic thermal conductivity and the electron-phonon coupling, with all parameters taken from the spin-disordered phase, reproduces the measured hierarchy. The nanosecond thresholds instead probe the thermal equilibrium conductivity averaged along the heating path. The apparent outlier of CoNi, whose room-temperature transport over-predicts its thresholds by up to a factor of two for both pulse durations, is resolved quantitatively by the collapse of its conductivity upon loss of ferromagnetic order. Single-pulse ablation thresholds thereby emerge as sensitive, contact-free probes of electronic transport and of its magnetic-phase dependence in compositionally complex alloys.

This study presents a detailed proposal for an optomechanical system consisting of two mechanical oscillators coupled to a common cavity, aimed at generating pure and entangled two-mode squeezed mechanical steady states. We found that the violation of Bell's measurement may not occur where the entanglement is maximum; rather, nonlocality can be observed for lower entangled states. A central result is that optomechanical coupling imperfections can enhance mechanical entanglement while simultaneously suppressing Bell nonlocality by reducing the purity of the mechanical state. To mitigate this trade-off, we introduce phase-dependent phonon hopping between the mechanical oscillators and show that Bell nonlocality can be selectively enhanced in specific dark-mode configurations, even when the overall entanglement is reduced. We trace this contrasting behaviorto changes in state purity associated with the imbalance of the Bogoliubov-mode occupations. Compatible with existing microwave cavity optomechanical platforms, the proposed architecture provides an experimentally accessible route for controlling nonlocal quantum correlations in multimode mechanical systems. Our proposed scheme serves as an attractive platform for the deployment of continuous-variable teleportation and high-fidelity quantum communication.

The energy transfer rate from a projectile nucleus to the electrons of the matter it traverses depends on the charge of that projectile, Q= e Z1. At low projectile velocities the friction coefficient is known to oscillate with atomic number Z1, since core electrons travel with the projectile screening its charge. The effective charge increases with velocity and oscillations disappear. That effect is studied here calculating electronic stopping power from first principles for O and Mg projectiles shooting through bulk Al, using real-time time-dependent density-functional theory. Both projectiles represent maximum and minimum of the first Z1 oscillation, respectively. The oscillation is found to be very sensitive to the direction of propagation, in spite of Al being quite an ideal metal for many purposes. The critical velocity for the oscillation disappearance ranges between below 0.1 a.u. and beyond 1 a.u. for the explored trajectories. The charge state is independently quantified with Hirshfeld and Voronoi analyses, offering remarkably consistent results in spite of their very different partition methods, as well as with an effective definition based on the stopping power itself. They display a gradual undressing of the projectile's core electrons with increasing velocity in qualitative accordance with expectations. However, electron density plots in real space present a richer picture in which the undressing is partly due to the electrons trailing behind the projectile, suggesting possible phenomenological descriptions correcting for the deformation of the density in terms of multipoles beyond the net charge. The plots also offer insights into dissipation by core electrons.

We propose an extension of AdS/CFT in which quantum gravitational wavefunctions of connected bulk geometries are assembled into a Fock space of universes. Splitting and joining interactions in a third-quantized Hamiltonian then provide a quantum description of changes in bulk connectivity and topology. Reduced phase-space quantization supplies the physical one-universe Hilbert space and a radial Schrödinger evolution with respect to which the topology-changing interactions are ordered. We develop the construction concretely in AdS$_3$ gravity with a torus boundary, where these ingredients can be described explicitly. The light spectrum is treated as fixed, non-normalizable background data, whereas the normalizable states above the black-hole threshold are quantized as dynamical modes. A conventional boundary theory is selected by choosing a coherent state whose universe-field expectation value, together with the fixed background contribution, yields consistent CFT data at the asymptotic boundary. Generic one-universe wavefunctions need not admit such an interpretation. This raises the possibility that CFT-realizable wavefunctions are nongeneric in the gravitational state space and are not closed under arbitrary superpositions of gravitational states. The known two-torus spacetime-wormhole amplitude, which lies at the heart of the factorization problem, provides concrete input for the topology-changing interactions of the third-quantized theory. A complementary cutting-and-gluing description yields an effective ensemble interpretation when the resulting gravitational sectors admit consistent boundary-theory interpretations, without assuming a fundamental ensemble of boundary theories. We also discuss replica wormholes and baby-universe processes within the same framework.

Simulations of surface-tension-dominated incompressible two-phase flows are computationally expensive due to the severe capillary time-step constraint. Although many studies have proposed time-implicit discretizations of surface tension to allow larger time-step sizes and accelerate simulations, these methods suffer from either artificial dissipation or complex implementation. Here, we propose a simple and novel approach: an incompressible solver with weakly compressible subcycling. The proposed approach relaxes the capillary time-step constraint, thereby accelerating simulations by more than $8.6\times$ without relying on artificially dissipative stabilization or requiring complex implementation. The key idea is to introduce lightweight substeps using a weakly compressible solver to assist the main incompressible solver. These substeps enable the main incompressible solver to use accurately computed fluxes and surface tension force, even with large time-step sizes. Numerical tests demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for practical problems, including the Rayleigh–Plateau instability and two-phase flows in porous media. This study paves the way for a new paradigm in which a weakly compressible solver serves as an assistant to an incompressible solver.

We introduce a novel physics-guided linear mapper (PGLM) for quantum error mitigation that uses seven distinct interpretable features derived from circuit complexity and device calibration data. The goal is to provide a data-efficient, interpretable, and low-latency alternative to the black-box machine learning for quantum error mitigation in noisy-intermediate scale quantum devices. Evaluated on 52 simulated benchmark circuits (1–4 qubits), PGLM demonstrates strong performance in noise-accumulation regimes: 50.1% RMSE reduction on 3-qubit circuits and 32.3% on 4-qubit circuits, while single-qubit circuits show degraded performance. A circuit-size-aware deployment policy achieves 32.6% aggregate improvement. Sub-millisecond inference enables integration into variational algorithms, and analysis of learned coefficients reveals that circuit depth and CNOT count dominate error prediction, consistent with decoherence mechanisms. Results are simulator-based with idealized noise models; hardware validation remains essential future work.

In the present paper, the cases of a uniformly accelerated reference frame and a Schwarzschild black hole in two and four dimensions are discussed focusing on formal aspects of the corresponding quantum scalar field theories. The main emphasis is made on building consistent quantum field theories and highlighting the problems that are not considered elsewhere. In particular, some pathologies in the case of a uniformly accelerated reference frame are discussed in detail: it is shown that some quantum states that are well defined in Minkowski spacetime possess an infinite energy when considered in Rindler spacetime. In the case of a Schwarzschild black hole in four dimensions, it is shown that the standard theory providing the Unruh vacuum state turns out to be inconsistent. The problem of consistency of quantum scalar field theory in Kruskal-Szekeres spacetime is also discussed.

The large-scale dipole anisotropy observed by the Pierre Auger Observatory above $8$~EeV provides important clues about the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). In this work, we investigate whether gamma-ray active galactic nuclei (AGNs) from the Fermi-LAT Fourth AGN Catalog (4LAC) can explain the observed dipole and examine the contribution of nearby starburst galaxies (SBGs). Incorporating source fluxes, redshift distributions, GZK attenuation, and a mixed-composition framework, we demonstrate that single-source populations of AGNs and SBGs alone fail to reproduce the observed Auger dipole. To resolve this, we construct a hybrid AGN+SBG model. The best-fit solution for the $8$–$16$~EeV interval requires a $23$% AGN contribution and $45$% SBG contribution, which gives a dipole amplitude of $5.03$% while maintaining the dipole direction of ($104.1^\circ$, $-25.1^\circ$) with angular separation of $7.10^\circ$. In the other energy intervals also, we find that the nearby SBGs increasingly dominate the anisotropic component while AGNs provide a subdominant contribution alongside a quasi-isotropic background.