Papers

Self-dual Einstein gravity is a one-loop exact, UV and IR finite, diffeomorphism invariant, non-unitary theory of quantum gravity in four dimensions. The only non-trivial amplitudes are the one-loop-all-plus amplitudes, and they are equal to those of pure Einstein gravity. In these notes we review SDG and SDYM pedagogically. We walk the reader through key calculations, fill in some gaps in the literature, and point out directions for future research. Topics include: derivation of the self-dual actions from the full Einstein gravity/YM actions in lightcone gauge, decoupling of ghosts, Berends-Giele currents, vanishing of tree-level-one-minus amplitudes, celestial $Lw_{1+\infty}$ symmetry, perturbiners, double-off-shell current calculation of one-loop-all-plus SDYM and SDG amplitudes, dimension shifting, unitarity cuts, the BDPR gravity formula, one-loop color ordering, and the covariant formulations of the self-dual theories as well as their their gauge fixing. We also review some selected results from the celestial holography program, and briefly comment on an all-n expression for the one-loop-one-minus gravity amplitudes.

We prove that $(1-o(1))$-fidelity $N$-qubit Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) encoding can be performed in time $O(\log N/N)$ using all-to-all 2-local Hamiltonians with bounded 2-qubit interaction terms. This saturates the theoretical lower bound $\Omega(\log N/N)$, and by rescaling, also saturates the lower bound on signaling time for Hamiltonians with power-law interaction strengths $1/r^\gamma$, $\gamma<d$ in dimension $d$. The protocol uses spin-squeezing dynamics combined with quantum signal processing.

Counting processes provide a fundamental description of stochastic events ranging from photon detection to clock ticks. A central question is how accurately such events can be timed when only finite memory resources are available. Here, we investigate this problem within a general framework of finite-dimensional classical and quantum counting processes. We derive a rigorous finite-memory variance bound obeyed by every classical $d$-state counting process, which is tight and saturated by a discrete Erlang-type ladder process. Through numerical optimization, we identify quantum counting processes that violate this classical bound, achieving smaller first-tick fluctuations than any classical process with the same memory size and mean tick time. For the qubit case, we further derive an analytical large-mean bound within a single-Kraus no-tick family, showing that the quantum advantage persists asymptotically within this class. The optimized quantum processes exhibit coherent conditioned dynamics and approach a continuous-time quantum-jump description as the mean increases. Our results establish a finite-memory quantum advantage in temporal precision and connect discrete-time counting processes with continuous-time quantum timekeeping.

Macroscopic hydrogen transport codes model material interfaces with local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE), imposing continuity of chemical potential as a per-species constraint. Three assumptions hide in that condition: fast interfacial equilibration, a single exchange pathway between the two sides, and a carrier species known in advance on each side. The literature scrutinises the first, but the other two are the more consequential failures, and neither survives at a metal/molten-salt interface. We replace the constraint with reversible reaction channels at the interface that obey mass action, with detailed balance fixing each ratio of rate constants from the thermodynamic data that already parameterise LTE, and we implement the framework in festim. LTE is recovered as the fast-kinetics limit of a single channel, in both its Sieverts/Sieverts and its Sieverts/Henry form, so the framework generalises LTE and does not compete with it. A Damköhler number delimits validity within a channel, a branching ratio between channels. In a representative nickel/FLiBe system, hydrogen partitions kinetically between molecular and fluoride carriers. The apparent interfacial law then drifts between Sieverts and Henry with loading and salt redox state, and an LTE condition underestimates the steady permeating flux. The measured pressure exponent is set by the branching ratio, not by any fixed property of the salt; a redox sweep at fixed temperature should continuously shift it between 0.5 and 1. With two isotopes, two metal-side species feed five salt-side carriers, and a per-species LTE condition is ill-posed.

In the era of TESS, exoplanet follow-up and confirmation have become a massive community effort. With only about an eighth of the over 8,000 TESS exoplanet candidates confirmed, astronomers need flexible software to allow them to characterize many different kinds of systems with data from multiple telescopes and instruments. In this work, I present Alfred (the Awesome Library For Robust Exoplanet Detection), an open-source Python package for exoplanet detection and confirmation. Alfred is designed to be flexible and easy to use, allowing users to fit transit and radial velocity data for an arbitrary system of exoplanets. The code is released under an MIT license on GitHub (https://github.com/maxkroft/Alfred ) and is installable via pip, with documentation under active development (https://alfred-exoplanets.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html# ).

Event triggering sits at the heart of high-energy physics, where the rare events of interest must be retained while an overwhelming background is discarded under tight latency and bandwidth budgets. This work compares four classical machine learning models, namely a support vector machine, an artificial neural network, a convolutional network and a long short-term memory network, with four hybrid quantum counterparts, on a trigger-like binary classification task built from CMS open data. The label is defined by an invariant-mass window, and the inputs combine reconstructed kinematics with physics-motivated derived variables: the pseudorapidity difference, the wrapped azimuthal difference, the angular separation and the total transverse momentum. The quantum models run under a fixed resource budget of eight qubits, a principal-component compression to sixteen features and state-vector simulation. Every model shares the same stratified split, the same preprocessing and a common decision threshold, and performance is reported through accuracy, ROC-AUC, F1-score, precision and recall. The strongest classical model is the artificial neural network, at 93.53 percent accuracy and 0.9819 ROC-AUC, while the strongest quantum model is the quantum convolutional network, at 90.89 percent accuracy and 0.9731 ROC-AUC, with the quantum neural network close behind. The quantum-kernel and recurrent quantum approaches trail both, which places the trainable hybrid embeddings ahead within this budget. The study is meant as a controlled reference point rather than a claim of quantum advantage.

As generative AI gains traction, researchers are investigating its potential to serve as proxies for humans. From undergoing cognitive psychology experiments to experiencing an epidemic, generative agents, agents powered by generative AI models, produce realistic human behavior when prompted. This study explores the sensitivity of these generative agents' behavior to prompt modifications and varied persona names of the agents. To assess this sensitivity, we use a generative agent epidemic model, wherein each agent is prompted daily on whether it wants to isolate or commingle with other agents. We found that using synonymous prompts results in negligible changes to the model's outcomes. However, minor variations in prompts, as well as contextual changes, do influence the model's results. Lastly, our data indicates that different persona names assigned to generative agents, specifically those imbued with personas, do not significantly impact epidemic outcomes.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), with its near-infrared imager NIRCam, is capable of obtaining detections of small bodies down to what would correspond to a visual magnitude of about 31. However, the complexity of NIRCam introduces multiple subtle effects in the way the images are obtained, and they in turn affect the astrometric information that can be extracted from the images. In the following, we very briefly summarize these peculiarities, and provide some basic information on how to extract meaningful astrometric positions from NIRCam images.

The deployment of advanced, AI-enabled control algorithms in tokamak experiments requires robust integration with existing plasma control system (PCS) architectures and extensive pre-experimental validation. In this contribution, we describe the integration and testing of neural-network-emulated virtual circuits for plasma shape control within the MAST Upgrade (MAST-U) PCS environment. The neural network models predict the plasma shape using the plasma current, poloidal field coil currents, and plasma profile parameters. In this paper, we explain how they are deployed via a real-time C++ inference server that interfaces with the PCS, returning the shape prediction and its Jacobian, and how, from the latter, virtual circuit matrices and updated coil current requests are computed for real-time actuation. Emphasis is placed on the validation workflow and best practices adopted to ensure confidence in the proposed control framework prior to experimental deployment. This work demonstrates practical AI-based shape control components for fusion control systems, with direct relevance for upcoming MAST-U experiments and future devices.

Recent advances in nuclear science and technology are being driven simultaneously by fundamental questions on strong interactions and many-body emergence, by the rapid expansion of rare-isotope capabilities and multimessenger astronomy, and by growing societal demand for clean energy, precision medicine, and strategic technologies. This review reorganizes the "ten frontier questions" for nuclear science and technology, offering a scholarly roadmap accessible to a broad audience. We first discuss the fundamental frontiers, including the nonperturbative origin of hadronic mass, the properties of QCD matter under extreme conditions, the multiscale evolution of nuclear structure from light nuclei to the superheavy region, the physics of exotic nuclei and open quantum systems near the driplines, and the nuclear-astrophysical origin of the elements. We then emphasize enabling methodologies, especially modern ab initio and continuum-coupled theories, advanced accelerator and detector platforms, precision mass spectrometry, and the emerging role of data-driven and artificial-intelligence-assisted methodologies. Finally, we review translational and strategic directions, including advanced fission and fusion energy systems, cross-disciplinary nuclear technologies such as radiomedicine, isotope science, and nuclear clocks, as well as the long-term challenges of fuel cycles, waste management, and international cooperation. Rather than serving as an exhaustive bibliography of each subfield, this article aims to provide an integrative research framework that connects frontier scientific problems with enabling infrastructure, application scenarios, and long-range strategic planning.

Spatial textures of magnetic order, such as domain walls and skyrmions, are fundamental objects in magnetism. In rhombohedral multilayer graphene, magnetic order involves spin and valley degrees of freedom, opening the possibility of qualitatively new spatial textures. Here, we explore this possibility through a microscopic study of a one-dimensional domain wall in the valley-imbalanced quarter-metal phase of rhombohedral graphene. We uncover two different classes of domain walls. One resembles a conventional magnetic domain wall, locally rotating between the two bulk states, whereas the other is intrinsically multicomponent and explores states that are not occupied in either bulk domain. Which texture is realized is controlled by the competition between intervalley Hund's coupling and spin-orbit coupling, and we identify experimental signatures to distinguish them. For a superconducting junction formed across the wall, we further show that the superconducting phase difference couples directly to the intervalley-coherent phase of the texture, allowing precession of this internal phase to generate a voltage. This mechanism provides an explanation for the resistive domain walls recently observed in chiral superconductors [arXiv2605.13303] and predicts accompanying magnetization oscillations that could be detected using GHz-frequency AC probes. Our theory establish a microscopic connection between multicomponent magnetic textures, their internal dynamics, and superconducting transport.

We predict a new viscochiral regime of electronic transport in which spatially varying Hall viscosity selects vortical flow patterns. Although uniform Hall viscosity cannot alter incompressible bulk flow, its spatial gradient redistributes vorticity, amplifying vortices in one chamber while suppressing the vortex in the other. We further determine the underlying mechanism to be generic to recirculating flows and insensitive to the details of the device geometry. The paper maps the resulting phase diagram and shows that the regime is experimentally accessible in valley-polarized bilayer graphene.

Quantum geometry has emerged as a guiding principle across atomic and condensed-matter physics, shaping the topological responses of Bloch bands and the stability of the correlated phases they host. Sublattice symmetry, though common among bipartite lattice models, has not yet been exploited to obtain closed-form quantum geometry in multiband systems. For this purpose, we derive a general expression for the QGT of sublattice-symmetric systems in terms of contributions from the individual sublattice sectors, and show that this symmetry renders the Bloch Hamiltonian of a paradigmatic four-band model, the quarter-flux Harper-Hofstadter model, anti-block-diagonal, analytically yielding the spectrum, eigenstates, and full quantum geometric tensor (QGT), including the Berry curvature and quantum metric, for all four bands. The model, describing charged particles on a two-dimensional square lattice subjected to a uniform magnetic field, has recently been realized experimentally with ultracold atoms, photons, and superconducting circuits. Finally, we evaluate fractional-Chern-insulator stability criteria analytically and quantify the lowest band of the quarter-flux Harper-Hofstadter model to be a nearly ideal Chern band. Our approach opens a route for studying also the quantum geometry of other sublattice-symmetric multiband systems.

The Local Bubble (LB) contains significant internal structure, with many interstellar clouds lying within or on its walls. By observing time variability of atomic neutral hydrogen (HI) absorption profiles in the direction of pulsars, it was suggested that some of the HI structures exhibit variations in optical depth representative of the tiny scale atomic structure (TSAS). However, the exact location of these structures has not been known and understanding their origin in the framework of LB formation and evolution has been impossible. We use three-dimensional dust maps to extract density profiles of the hydrogen volume density along the line-of-sight (LOS) to four selected pulsars. We attempt to correlate individual density components with the Gaussian components of the HI absorption spectra, revealing the TSAS towards B1929+10 likely lies outside of the LB. Comparing column density images integrated over the entire LOS and over sub-volumes of the 3D dust maps show a mixture of diffuse and clumpy structure. Using estimates of the mean HI volume density and maximum total neutral hydrogen density along the LOS, we place upper and lower limits on ionisation fraction and thermal pressure, respectively, to characterise the properties of the local ISM towards each pulsar. Our method of using HI absorption data in conjunction with three-dimensional dust data holds potential for broader applications, especially to validate the structures and properties of dust clouds in the LB and beyond.

Elemental and isotopic abundances are key tracers of planet formation, stellar evolution, and Galactic chemical evolution. Very low-mass stars are particularly interesting in this regard, because unlike more massive or evolved stars their photospheric abundances retain the star's natal composition. Cool dwarf spectra have historically been challenging to use for measurements of chemical abundances because of the blending of molecular and atomic features. However, recent advances in molecular line lists, atmospheric models, fitting techniques and IR spectrographs have enabled the successful measurement of elemental and isotopic ratios in a few dozen very low-mass stars. Here, we present near-infrared high-resolution spectroscopy of TRAPPIST-1 covering the fundamental and overtone bands of carbon monoxide and its prominent isotopologues. From the joint analysis of the $K$-band (CFHT/SPIRou) and $M$-band (Keck/NIRSPEC) spectra, we derive the first stellar C/O ratio and the first carbon and oxygen isotope ratios for this star. We obtain a metallicity of $[\mathrm{M/H}] = 0.00 \pm 0.06$, a C/O ratio of $0.60 \pm 0.02$, $^{12}\mathrm{C}/^{13}\mathrm{C} = 154{}^{+17}_{-16}$, and $^{16}\mathrm{O}/^{18}\mathrm{O} = 490{}^{+78}_{-64}$. TRAPPIST-1 has generally solar-like elemental abundances, with a $^{12}\mathrm{C}/^{13}\mathrm{C}$ ratio that is higher than the solar value and may be modestly elevated relative to some nearby cool dwarfs at similar metallicity. While C/O is most tightly constrained by the $K$-band, the isotopic detections are driven by the $M$-band data.

Calibrated torsion-balance spectra constrain deterministic and stochastic deviations from standard Newtonian gravity. Using one-sided spectra, we derive a calibrated angle-equivalent noise budget and finite-time matched-filter/Cramér-Rao bounds for known torque templates. For stochastic models, subtracting the calibrated standard noise budget (thermal, Newtonian, environmental, imprecision, backaction) from the observed angle spectrum yields a residual spectrum, convertible to an equivalent residual torque spectrum via calibrated torsional susceptibility. This bounds additional stationary stochastic torque noise. This frequency-resolved bound compresses to a single torque-diffusion coefficient, $D_\tau$, only in the Markovian white-noise limit; non-Markovian or colored models require the full residual spectrum. Page–Geilker branch discrimination and Fedida-Kent mixture-equivalence tests address distinct physical questions, but upon projection onto torque templates, both reduce to the same statistical matched-filter discrimination problem. For a room-temperature Cavendish benchmark, resonant thermal angle ASD is $1.36\times10^{-4}\,\mathrm{rad}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$, while measurement-added SQL is $3.25\times10^{-12}\,\mathrm{rad}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$. For the Yan et al. search, the reported $0.3\,\mu\mathrm{rad}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ sensitivity at $2.5\,\mathrm{mHz}$ yields a conservative bound $D_\tau \lesssim 2.4\times10^{-23}\,\mathrm{N^2\,m^2\,s}$, assuming white torque noise. These formulations provide an interface linking calibrated torsion-balance data, deterministic tests, and stochastic semiclassical-gravity searches, without asserting a direct test of the full relativistic semiclassical Einstein equation.

We present a first application of sparse-autoencoder-based mechanistic interpretability to particle physics. Studying a neutrino foundation model pretrained on IceCube data and fine-tuned for direction reconstruction, we identify a validated atlas of physical concepts in the model representation, using a strict validation protocol consisting of held-out tests, matched nuisance controls, and replication across independent dictionary trainings. Causal interventions show that the direction head barely draws on this atlas. Motivated by this underused information, we train an uncertainty head on the same event-level representation to predict the model's angular reconstruction error. Unlike the direction head, it depends causally on quality and brightness features from the atlas. At $20\%$ selection efficiency, this interpretable estimator improves the median angular resolution from $20.2^\circ$ to $3.2^\circ$. These results suggest that mechanistic interpretability can reveal learned latent physics encoded within a model's internal representation and help design downstream tasks that exploit it.

We investigate the problem of confinement of massive ghost, which violates the unitarity of the physical S-matrix, in quadratic gravity on the basis of a manifestly covariant and local canonical operator formalism. First, we reconsider the manifestly covariant quantization of quadratic gravity in the de Donder gauge (the harmonic gauge) from the viewpoint of dipole fields. Next, we also reconsider a possible mechanism of confinement of the massive ghost and derive an effective Lagrangian for asymptotic fields of a BRST quartet where the asymptotic field corresponding to the massive ghost is found to obey a dipole field equation as in the Froissart model, which is a characteristic feature in our formalism. To understand quantum aspects of our theory, we perform a manifestly covariant quantization of the effective Lagrangian in two different ways based on the three-dimensional Fourier transform and the four-dimensional Fourier transform, and derive the same result that the quantum Fock space is spanned by multipole states.

We show that the $d+0$-dimensional Yang-Lee theory describing classical Ising spins in an imaginary magnetic field can be realized, without post-selection, within a $(d-1)+1$ open quantum system whose dynamics consist of local unitaries and engineered dissipation. Competition between the coherent unitary and dissipative dynamics drives a transition wherein the time-dependence of a particular class of linear observables changes from damped oscillatory "underdamped" to purely exponential "overdamped" decay. Our construction relies on an extensive number of weak-symmetries of the Lindbladian fixed by the choice of observable but is otherwise exact. Consequently, we show that the dynamics are described by the non-Hermitian generator of the Yang-Lee transfer matrix, leading to an effective Yang-Lee theory defined on the spacetime history of the open system. By locally modifying the dynamics, we directly measure spin correlation functions of the Yang-Lee theory as well as a related "Loschmidt Echo" correlator which we detail. We explicitly show that the required dissipation channels can be obtained through local $2$-qubit gates and discuss potential realization on near-term quantum simulator devices. Finally, we generalize our construction to embed arbitrary non-Hermitian Hamiltonians within an open quantum system under Lindbladian time-evolution without post-selection, drawing connections between unconditional open quantum dynamics, exceptional point physics, and non-unitary statistical mechanics.

Collective intelligence can emerge when individuals coordinate through a shared environment, allowing local actions to accumulate into durable social organization. Language-model agents offer a new substrate for this process, yet most multi-agent systems rely on direct conversation, predefined roles, or centralized workflows. It remains unclear whether decentralized agents can build functional technologies and outperform independent search. Here, initially homogeneous LLM agents in SwarmWorld self-organize without assigned roles or recipes into evolving technological societies. Agents explore a spatial environment, process resources, test materials, construct persistent artifacts, and write executable controllers evaluated by a deterministic simulator under unseen disturbances after the agents are removed. SwarmWorld splits cognition from consequence: agents propose architectures and controllers within fixed action and material schemas, while the simulated world determines function. Shared societies develop broader, more resilient technological portfolios than a strong best-of-N isolated-search baseline, although isolated search remains competitive for the strongest artifact. Agents differentiate into exploration, construction, maintenance, and coordination behaviors, transitioning as the world matures. Technologies accumulate through collaborative construction, executable inheritance, and persistent agent-artifact networks, with most reuse beginning through physical observation rather than communication. Explicit cultural mechanisms amplify collaboration and organization, but functional benefits depend on outcome and timescale. Physical stigmergy alone supports capable societies, while interaction drives persistent technological ecologies rather than universally superior individual inventions.

The modular commutator $J(A,B,C) = i\langle[K_{AB},K_{BC}]\rangle$ extracts the chiral central charge $c_-$ from a single bulk wavefunction of a gapped 2d state, where $3J/\pi=c_-$. Inspired by the recent developments in the field of gapless symmetry-protected topological phases, we ask: what does the modular commutator measure, if it is well-defined at all, when the 2d bulk becomes gapless? Several interesting new insights can already be obtained using the simple Haldane honeycomb model. For the critical point hosting an isolated Dirac node we find that $J$ remains sharp: it converges to a half-quantized value, with corrections that decay as a power law in the subsystem size rather than exponentially, mirroring the power-law correlations in gapless systems. We prove the half-quantization using an emergent reflection symmetry of the massless Dirac cone, and show that the half-quantized contribution comes from the other gapped cone (the massive partner of the massless one). This massive partner can be interpreted as the physical incarnation of the Pauli-Villars regulator, which is the origin of the parity-breaking level-$\frac{1}{2}$ Chern-Simons term (with half-quantized Hall conductance) and the parity anomaly. When protected chiral edge modes coexist with a bulk Dirac node we obtain $3J/\pi = c_-+\frac{1}{2}$. The half-quantization is also shown to be robust against tripartition deformation, tuning Dirac velocity and Dirac cone anisotropy. We further investigate other types of gaplessness—quadratic nodes (in contrast to linear Dirac) and the case with Fermi surface—and show that the robust half-quantization of $J$ is lost in such non-Dirac cases. These results generalize the modular commutator beyond gapped phases, and at the same time provide an information-theoretic measurement of the parity anomaly.

Radio emission from particle air showers is one of the most promising detection techniques to achieve an experiment with a large exposure in ultra-high-energy astroparticle physics. In this regime, above $10^{17}$ eV, the detailed calculation of the radio emission from Monte Carlo particle showers is sufficiently CPU intensive that statistical studies and optimization problems remain largely out of reach. In this article we examine the characteristics of the longitudinal and lateral development of extensive air showers, and exploit them to obtain a fast evaluation of the associated radio emission. We introduce the Coherent Radio Emission from Positrons and Electrons in Showers (CREPES) algorithm, in which the particle distributions are precomputed once and the emission is subsequently obtained from them, yielding a gain in speed of more than three orders of magnitude while preserving the accuracy of the microscopic calculation.

Localized surface plasmons (LSPs) supported by metallic nanostructures exhibit a great tunability of their resonance frequencies and associated spatial field distributions. In particular, nanoscale gaps and sharp corners exhibit promising near-field enhancements for applications such as biochemical sensing and nanoantennas. In this work, we investigate the optical properties of bowtie nanowire dimers excited by linearly polarized light, including polarization orthogonal to the dimer axis. To distinguish dimer-separation-induced and monomer-shape-induced effects, we compare bowtie, circular-cylindrical dimer and triangular wires. We emphasize the advantages of a Bézier-type corner parametrization with tunable curvature and employ the discontinuous-Galerkin time-domain finite-element method for numerical calculations. This enables the identification of hybrid resonances and the systematic analysis of the role of geometrical parameters. For all investigated geometries, we compare the spatially local Drude model with the spatially nonlocal Halevi model. For the specific case of silver, we demonstrate quantitative curvature-dependent LSP line shifts arising from the longitudinal nonlocality captured by the Halevi model. For higher-order LSPs, this nonlocality gives rise to a sequence of resonances that may be exploited for light-harvesting applications. Furthermore, we investigate the field enhancement associated with LSP resonances and, motivated by the occurrence of both hot and cold spots, introduce geometry-dependent measures for assessing the ability of nanostructures to enhance nonlinear optical effects, such as through the optimal positioning of SERS-active molecules. To facilitate the simultaneous study these measures, we propose the use of suitable radar charts.

We present an experimental and numerical study of the spin fluctuations in 1D Kondo metal CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$. Using inelastic neutron spectroscopy, we measure highly one-dimensional magnetism with low-energy incommensurate short-ranged magnetic fluctuations. ARPES similarly shows a highly one-dimensional electronic band structure, confirming the one-dimensional nature of the system. We use density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations of the 1D Kondo lattice model to interpret the measured spectrum, which successfully reproduce the neutron scattering features. We are thus able to place CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$ within the emergent incommensurate phase of the 1D Kondo lattice phase diagram, and demonstrate that the Kondo lattice simulated non-perturbatively is an accurate microscopic model for heavy fermion physics. This shows CeCo$_2$Ga$_8$ to be one-dimensional despite its complexities, and reveals a coexistence of low-energy Kondo and magnetic features in its inelastic spectrum.

Large natural earthquakes are typically mediated by frictional pulse-like rupture, which features a finite slipping zone. Recently, a comprehensive two-dimensional theory of frictional slip pulses has been developed. It predicts that pulses are categorically unstable rupture modes, whose evolution is intrinsically slow. Unsteady pulses satisfy an equation of motion expressed in terms of discrete observables, which is inherently related to their steady-state counterparts. The theory also predicts a transition from decaying to slowly growing pulses. Here, we perform extensive lab earthquake experiments to test the theory. The experiments confirm the theoretical predictions for pulse-like lab earthquakes over a range of prestress levels, rupture nucleation conditions and small-scale fault roughness amplitudes. Specifically, the predicted time-dependent dynamics are tested in a plane defined by the evolving pulse size and peak slip rate, along with measurements of the dimensionless growth rate of pulses, demonstrating their intrinsically slow unsteady nature. The predicted transition between decaying and growing pulses is also experimentally demonstrated. These results constitute major progress in understanding a dominant earthquake rupture mode.

Highly resolved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are essential for design but too expensive for dense design-space sampling. This chapter presents an AI-driven CFD workflow that combines scalar-response modeling and reduced-order dynamics using jet-in-cross-flow examples. A reacting hydrogen jet-in-cross-flow study is first used to train a multilayer perceptron (MLP) mapping injector spacing to unburnt hydrogen throughput, wall heat transfer, and bulk temperature concentration, with shape-preserving interpolation as a baseline. The CFD samples show a non-monotonic spacing response, and the MLP identifies an intermediate-to-wide favorable region near eight jet diameters. Leave-one-sample-out validation shows strong dependence on the predicted quantity: the bulk temperature concentration is robust, while heat transfer and unburnt hydrogen throughput are substantially harder to predict. Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics (SINDy) is then used as a reduced-order modeling framework for field-derived Reynolds-stress statistics. The parametric SINDy model provides compact field-level predictions at simulated and out-of-sample spacings, though its aggregate spacing-mean Reynolds-stress error is $6.7\%$ higher than the POD-basis reconstruction because of degradation at selected cases. The broader conclusion is that AI-driven CFD is not a single-model prescription: MLPs are effective for fast scalar responses, while POD–SINDy is better suited when transient reduced dynamics and field-derived statistics are central to the question.

Left–right symmetric theories with generalized parity restrict the bare QCD angle to a CP-conserving value and relate the physical strong-CP phase \(\bar\theta\) to a CP-odd parity-breaking parameter \(\eps\). We show that, in the Dirac-neutrino realization, imposing a sectorial reality condition on the Dirac lepton Yukawa matrices turns observable leptonic CP violation from an independent input into a branch-dependent prediction. Parity reconstructs the right-handed leptonic mixing matrix, whereas leptonic reality requires it to be rephasing-equivalent to the complex conjugate of the left-handed one. For generic three-generation Yukawas, compatibility is equivalent to the vanishing of a single Jarlskog-type CP-odd invariant. In the physical Dirac hierarchy, for fixed oscillation data, mass ordering, and discrete leptonic branch, compatibility determines the PMNS Jarlskog invariant as a function of the lightest neutrino mass and \(\eps\). We derive its leading analytic behavior and obtain the nonlinear compatibility branches numerically. In compressed mixed-sign Dirac-neutrino spectra, small signed mass sums can amplify a tiny parity deformation into order-one values of the normalized PMNS Jarlskog invariant, including maximal CP violation. The corresponding quark reconstruction independently provides a calculable, branch-dependent conversion between \(\eps\) and \(\bar\theta\). Together, the leptonic and quark relations define a family of correlations among leptonic CP violation, the absolute neutrino mass scale, and strong CP.

We consider the problem of noisy unitary purification. Given access to an unknown $d$-dimensional unitary channel followed by depolarizing noise of strength $p$, we aim to construct a superchannel that universally purifies the noisy unitary back to the original unknown unitary. We optimize over arbitrary adaptive sequential strategies and analytically derive the optimal fidelity to the leading order in the noise strength and number of channel uses, while also providing a concrete $\mathrm{SU}(d)$-covariant parallel strategy that attains the optimum. Our result implies the query complexity $\Theta(d^2p/\epsilon)$ for achieving leading-order infidelity $\epsilon$ in the low-noise regime, which scales better than the naive approach combining optimal state purification and storage-and-retrieval of quantum channels. We also consider the dual problem of noisy unitary conjugation, where the goal is to obtain the best approximation of the complex conjugate of the original unknown unitary from access to noisy queries. We show that the optimal fidelity for this task coincides with that of noisy unitary purification to the leading-order in the low-noise and large-query limit.

Bright quantum emitters are key components for quantum communication systems. Radiative point defects in gallium nitride (GaN) are promising candidates for room-temperature single-photon emission, operating from the visible to the telecom O-band. Despite their potential, their integration into photonic structures has remained limited in the literature, with experimental photon extraction efficiencies far below simulated predictions. To identify the origin of this limitation, we investigate visible and near-infrared quantum emitters in GaN epilayers grown on $c$-plane sapphire substrates exhibiting narrow linewidths ($\sim$4 nm), high photon count rates ($ > $2 MHz), and strong antibunching, reaching $g^{(2)}(0)$ values as low as 0.06 at room temperature. We find that these emitters are located near the GaN/substrate interface, explaining their limited coupling to optical modes. Building on this observation, we show that the insertion of a thin low-temperature GaN interlayer enables the formation of quantum emitters at arbitrary depths with sub-60 nm accuracy, independent of the substrate. The intentionally introduced emitters retain optical properties comparable to naturally occurring ones, including narrow linewidths ($\sim$6 nm), saturation count rates exceeding 1.5 MHz, high Debye-Waller factors (0.69-0.98), and strong antibunching. The resulting epilayer fully coalesces within less than 250 nm ensuring compatibility with GaN-based cavity fabrication and enabling emitter placement within intrinsic regions of p-i-n diode architectures. These results mark a decisive step toward efficient emitter-cavity coupling, enabling the realization of cavity-enhanced quantum emission in GaN.

While band topology is usually associated with the deterministic dynamics of a system, we show that it can instead reside in its fluctuations. Using a reciprocal lattice driven by nonequilibrium chiral active noise, we find that the displacement spectrum—which quantifies displacement fluctuations—admits bands with nonzero Chern numbers despite a Chern-trivial deterministic mechanics. A two-band valley theory captures the emergence of this topology through a Dirac mass inversion, a Haldane-type mechanism, or a quadratic band touching, depending on the relevant transition. Through the bulk–boundary correspondence, we find boundary-localized fluctuation modes that are distinct from the usual propagating mechanical edge states.