Papers

The Control Variational Quantum Eigensolver (ctrl-VQE) directly optimizes microwave pulses to enable faster and lower-error quantum-state preparation, but its continuous control landscape re- quires efficient search strategies. We demonstrate that a reinforcement-learning agent based on a deep Q learning network can autonomously discover high-performance pulse sequences using only system parameters and a reward function. The approach is fully general for superconducting qubit platforms, requires no ansatz, and operates at nanosecond resolution compatible with hardware con- straints. As a proof of concept, we apply the method to ground-state preparation of the Hydrogen molecule on a simulated superconducting device. The agent consistently identifies optimized control sequences that achieve high fidelity and outperform random-search baselines. These results highlight adaptive learning as a promising hardware-ready framework for pulse-level quantum control.

In this work we study the maximal ratio $I$ between the white noise integrated over a set and the perimeter of the set, which can be seen as a random isoperimetric problem, and appears in the random-field Ising model (Ding-Wirth) and min-max optimal matching (Leighton-Shor). In the planar case considered here, such a ratio is scale-invariant and therefore the problem is critical. As such it requires an ultraviolet cutoff, which we impose by restricting to polygonal sets with side-length at least 1 contained in the ball $B_L$. Our main result establishes the leading-order asymptotics $\mathbb{E}I\approx i\ln^{3/4}L$ for some $i\in(0,\infty)$ and superconcentration at scale $O(\ln^{-1/4}L)$. This is done by relating to a simpler $(1+1)$-dimensional action, studied by the last two authors and C. Wagner. Such a connection is found by a classical geometric linearization of the perimeter to the Dirichlet energy, justified by Ried-Wagner large-scale regularity theory, and allows a coarse-graining and scale-by-scale iteration argument.

Aqueous redox-flow batteries based on TEMPO derivatives are promising for large-scale energy storage, but their practical use is limited by the chemical instability of the oxidized N -oxoammonium state. In this work, we investigate the degradation of five TEMPO derivatives using ab initio molecular dynamics combined with enhanced sampling. Two proposed degradation mechanisms, ring opening and Hofmann elimination, are examined and their corresponding activation free energies are compared. For all derivatives considered, ring opening exhibits a lower activation free energy than Hofmann elimination, identifying it as the kinetically preferred degradation pathway. The magnitude of the ring-opening barrier, however, varies significantly between molecules, showing that different functionalizations strongly influence its stability toward degradation. The predicted preference for ring opening is consistent with available experimental studies, which have identified or inferred ring-opening degradation for several TEMPO-based catholytes. These results provide an atomistic picture of degradation pathways that are difficult to resolve experimentally and highlight the importance of molecular structure in controlling the kinetic stability of TEMPO derivatives in aqueous electrolytes.

We establish spacetime counterparts of fill-in inequalities for spin initial data sets satisfying the dominant energy condition in dimensions three through seven, controlling the minimum and the integral of the norm of the spacetime mean curvature vector by intrinsic boundary data. The proof relies on a Reilly–MIT estimate for complete spin manifolds with compact boundary. As further consequences, under suitable nonnegativity assumptions, Gromov's hyperspherical-radius fill-in inequality and Bär's recent total mean-curvature estimate extend to complete, possibly noncompact spin manifolds with compact boundary.

This paper gives a categorical interpretation of Baumeler & Wolf's logically consistent non-causal circuits, connecting them to postselected quantum teleportation. Looped feedback is represented by a trace in the category of non-negative matrices, and it is shown that the traced process is stochastic precisely when the induced loop transition matrix has trace $1$ for every external input, a condition shown to be equivalent to a unique fixed point for the loop for each input to a deterministic circuit. A classical non-causal circuit is represented by a measure-and-prepare quantum channel with an internal register utilising a maximally entangled Bell-state with postselection. The main result is that classical logical consistency is equivalent to the postselected Bell outcome having, for loop dimension $d$, probability exactly $1/d^2$ for each classical input distribution. The subsequent normalised conditional output then agrees exactly with the classical categorical trace. This work identifies a class of quantum Bell-postselection constructions whose conditional evolution maintains linear dependence on classical input distributions.

The high-energy nuclear recoil event with recoil energy $E_R \approx 248\text{ keV}$ observed by the LZ collaboration provides an exciting hint toward a model with a $1.1\text{ TeV}$ Higgsino inelastic dark matter. Such a recoil energy requires a mass splitting of order ($\delta \approx 350\text{ keV}$) between the two nearly-degenerate neutral states. We show that within the framework of the MSSM, the model predicts a nearly-degenerate charged Higgsino state, chargino, whose mass splitting from the neutral states is of order $\mathcal{O}(350)$~MeV. The subsequent decays of such charginos once produced at colliders would lead to a sub-centimeter charged track or tracklet (with lifetime $\tau \approx 0.025\text{ ns}$) at the detector. We show that such a scenario is not constrained by the current LHC bounds, and could be tested at future high-energy colliders, including HL-LHC, 100 TeV $pp$ colliders, and muon colliders. The most critical requirement is how short a track or tracklet can be reconstructed.

Centaurs occupy dynamically unstable orbits between Jupiter and Neptune and are typically removed by giant-planet encounters within a few Myr. Bailey and Malhotra (hereafter BM09) classified the known Centaurs, from 2007 orbits, into a short-lived diffusing class (D), a resonance-hopping class (R), and a long-lived, quasi-stable class (Q); their sole Q object, 2005 TH173, was fit to a 17\,d arc. We revisit both halves of that analysis on modern Jet Propulsion Laboratory Small-Body Database (SBDB) orbits (retrieved 2026-07-26), integrating clone ensembles of each object with the REBOUND WHFast $N$-body integrator. We ask (i) whether tighter orbital precision narrows the dispersion in clone lifetimes, and (ii) whether the BM09 labels survive on updated elements. Among 65 genuine Centaurs with arc $\ge 30$\,d and no censored clones, $\sigma(\log_{10}\mathrm{lifetime})=0.54$\,dex (a factor of 3.5). Conditioned on present-day $a$, $e$, $i$, and $q$, this dispersion is insensitive to relative semimajor-axis uncertainty (slope $=-0.002$\,dex per decade in $\sigma_a/a$; 95% confidence interval $-0.034$ to $+0.030$) — a chaos floor. On the D/Q axis, 49/50 comparable objects retain their BM09 class; 2005 TH173 is the exception (Q$\to$D): 80/100 clones escape before 10\,Myr (median 2.99\,Myr), and a 40\,Myr integration of the same initial conditions returns 88\,D / 12\,R / 0\,Q. None of the 30 multi-opposition 2007 orbits changes class; two short-arc objects leave the Centaur zone.}

The origin of ferromagnetism in the stable $\beta$-UH$_3$ phase is still debated. With a high Curie temperature and a short uranium-uranium interatomic distance, $\beta$-UH$_3$ is placed outside the known systematics of uranium compounds. Pressure provides a powerful means of tuning magnetism toward its suppression, thereby offering valuable insights into its underlying mechanisms, yet the high-pressure behavior of $\beta$-UH$_3$ has remained largely unexplored. Here, we combine in the Diamond Anvil Cell (DAC) the development of pure $\beta$-UH$_3$ synthesis and widefield nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center magnetometry to measure the pressure dependence of the Curie temperature in $\beta$-UH$_3$ up to about 20~GPa. We present two data analysis methods, vector magnetic field reconstruction and statistical analysis of the optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) response, which enable us to directly image the magnetic dipole of $\beta$-UH$_3$ during isobaric warming. We observe a linear decrease in the Curie temperature with pressure, yielding a slope of $\text{d}T_C/\text{d}P=-3.86\,(8)$~K/GPa. Ferromagnetism in $\beta$-UH$_3$ is predicted to reach 0~K at approximately 44~GPa, where a quantum critical point may emerge.

Evidence of a gravitational wave background suggests the existence of a population of sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), with characteristic angular separations on the order of 1-10 $\mu$as. Spaceborne extensions of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and the next generation ground arrays introduce the possibility of directly imaging these SMBHBs. In this work, a binary spectral energy distribution model is used to predict the detectability of SMBHBs with ground and spaceborne VLBI. We consider the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a proposed spaceborne VLBI mission, as our primary case study. We explore the detectable SMBHB parameter space and identify distinguishable binary signatures in the visibility domain. We find that for a flux-density-limited sample, ground array observations are more effective at detecting a wider region of the binary parameter space, with $M_\mathrm{tot} \gtrsim 10^9$ solar mass systems detectable out to redshift $z=0.075$ and beyond, depending on mass ratio. Conversely, inclusion of a spaceborne element such as BHEX, offering finer angular resolution ($\sim6\,\mu$as) and sampling of the (u,v) plane not limited by Earth rotation synthesis, will provide significant benefits in constraining binary properties. An illustrative Fisher analysis shows improvements in characterisation of the separation and position angle of SMBHBs by a factor of $\sim4$. Near-future ground and/or spaceborne VLBI may achieve the first direct observation of a SMBHB, contributing significantly to multi-messenger studies of such systems with pulsar timing arrays and observations across the electromagnetic spectrum.

We consider the exclusion process with energy, a model with mass and energy conservation, and we put it in a boundary-driven setting. We are interested in its hydrodynamic and hydrostatic limits, together with the associated dynamical and stationary fluctuations. We provide a new proof for the derivation of dynamical fluctuations that does not require explicit estimates on the two-point correlation functions. While the hydrodynamic limit is given by two uncoupled heat equations, the dynamical fluctuations are described by a system of coupled generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes.

Direction-dependent instrumental polarisation is a major systematic limitation in high-fidelity single-dish radio polarimetry, yet a unified characterisation of beam leakage and the conditioning of polarisation recovery is lacking for the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory (GRAO) 32-m telescope. We aim to establish a quantitative, direction-dependent polarimetric beam model at 5.0 and 6.7 GHz. High-resolution GRASP electromagnetic simulations of the nominal telescope configuration are used to derive the full complex Jones response and corresponding Mueller matrices, from which beam shape, beam squint, instrumental Stokes leakage, and intrinsic cross-polarisation ratio (IXR) are evaluated across the primary beam. The Stokes $I$ beams have half-power beam widths of $396.4$ and $295.3$ arcsec at 5.0 and 6.7 GHz, respectively, with main-beam efficiencies of $56.4$ and $55.6$ per cent. At 5.0 GHz, the circular-polarisation beam squint is $9.96$ arcsec ($2.5$ per cent of the HPBW), whereas no statistically significant squint is detected at 6.7 GHz. Leakage from Stokes $I$ into linear polarisation remains below $0.1$ per cent within the half-power beam but increases substantially towards the sidelobes. IXR reaches approximately $80$ dB on axis and decreases with angular offset. These results establish the intrinsic electromagnetic polarimetric response of the GRAO 32-m telescope and provide a quantitative baseline for direction-dependent calibration and subsequent observational validation.

We numerically investigate how particle surface roughness affects the static and dynamic properties of a hard-particle fluid across a wide range of densities, rho. These simulations of a simple model of granular systems reveal that, although the amplitude and coverage of surface corrugation significantly influence the rho-dependence of system properties, the qualitative behavior of this dependence remains unchanged. These findings can be described quantitatively by introducing an effective particle size, which enables a direct mapping of the rough particle systems to equivalent hard-disk systems. Analytical calculations provide an explicit form of this mapping, and allow us to predict the static and dynamic properties of rough particles using standard liquid-state theories for hard disks.

We investigate a geometric mechanism for mass generation in a codimension-two hedgehog braneworld. A massless particle propagating in the bulk acquires an effective four-dimensional mass through its motion along the compact angular extra dimension, yielding a dynamically determined Kaluza-Klein spectrum after canonical quantization. While the bosonic sector exhibits no radial confinement, extending the analysis to N = 1, 2 spinning-particle models shows that the spin-curvature coupling modifies the effective potential and introduces a level-dependent localization pattern for the Kaluza-Klein modes. The results establish a particle-mechanics realization of geometric mass generation in flux-supported codimension-two braneworlds and highlight the interplay between bulk geometry, spin, and the effective four-dimensional mass spectrum.

Unsupervised analysis of gravitational-wave detector data combines expensive scientific stages with data acquisition, provenance checks, statistical calibration, follow-up products, and reporting. Reproducing such an analysis requires more than preserving model weights or a final candidate table: the execution graph, scientific contracts, retry semantics, and verification boundary must also be explicit. We present a local workflow layer for the Domain-Adaptive Network for Transient Evaluation (DANTE) that represents a corrected O4a analysis as a content-addressed, 15-stage directed acyclic graph. The architecture separates immutable stage evidence from mutable operational progress, binds command-line and browser interfaces to the same run identity, and resumes only work compatible with the frozen contract. The tagged v1 release records all 15 stages as verified in a machine-readable receipt and passed a documented human usability gate. The release verifies adopted scientific artifacts rather than recomputing them, and therefore makes no new claim of global significance, astrophysical discovery, or public real-time operation. This paper describes the architecture, its fail-closed controls, and the bounded evidence supporting reproducible local use.

Altermagnets combine the vanishing net magnetization of antiferromagnets with momentum-dependent spin splitting. Magnon band splitting provides a direct probe of altermagnetic order and may enable chirality-selective magnon transport, yet the momentum-space symmetry of this splitting has not been determined quantitatively. Here we use inelastic neutron scattering to map the momentum dependence of altermagnetic magnon splitting in hematite ($\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$). The splitting vanishes along nodal directions and reaches maxima off the nodes, revealing the $g$-wave symmetry of the altermagnetic order parameter. These results agree with linear spin-wave theory calculations based on the altermagnetic model, which further identify the nondegenerate branches as magnons of opposite chirality and trace the splitting to symmetry-inequivalent long-range exchange interactions. Our results provide the first quantitative determination of the momentum-space symmetry of altermagnetic chiral magnons. These findings, together with hematite's high magnetic ordering temperature and low magnon damping, establish it as a promising platform for low-dissipation, symmetry-selective magnonic applications.

We consider Thouless pumping of two-dimensional quadratic solitons composed from coherently interacting fundamental frequency (FF) and second harmonic (SH) components propagating in a periodic $\chi^{(2)}$ material. The pumping is induced by two mutually sliding two-dimensional lattices defined by shallow transverse and longitudinal periodic refractive index modulation. Focusing on solitons in the semi-infinite gap, we find three distinct pumping scenarios: the absence of transport for small-amplitude solitons, non-quantized transport in a transient regime at intermediate amplitudes, and stable quantized transport for solitons with relatively large amplitudes. Different directions of the sliding velocity were investigated resulting in different trajectories of soliton center. The transition to the regime of quantized transport is found to depend strongly on phase mismatch between FF and SH waves that also influences stability properties of two-dimensional $\chi^{(2)}$ lattice solitons. We also show that pumping with longitudinal periods in the x and y directions, whose ratio approximates an irrational number, induces quantized transport whose direction rapidly converges, with increase of the accuracy of the approximation, to a limiting pumping direction determined by this irrational number and corresponding to truly incommensurate longitudinal periods.

Many models across the sciences require global distance-decay interactions on large sparse networks. Gravity models, accessibility measures, spatial economic models, and network influence processes all evaluate distance-weighted potential fields: each location accumulates contributions from every other location, weighted by a decaying function of the shortest-path travel cost between them. Computed directly, such aggregate fields require the dense matrix of all pairwise network costs, which scales quadratically in time and memory. Common approximations either discard long-range contributions or fail when interaction is governed by network distances rather than geometric proximity. We introduce HierX, a hierarchical sparse-plus-correction operator for distance-decay potential fields on networks. HierX constructs multi-scale representative layers with explicit correction terms ensuring each location pair contributes exactly once at the finest available resolution. Under bounded-growth assumptions common in spatially embedded networks, applying HierX scales as O(n log n). Systematic benchmarks confirm quasi-linear scaling to 100,000 nodes. In head-to-head comparison with distance cutoff truncation and Nystrom low-rank approximation on 25,000-zone networks, HierX achieves 5-9% RMSE at a fraction of the computational work; Nystrom degrades severely on steep decay kernels. Case studies compute population-weighted accessibility on the 2.58-million-node Great Britain driving network and the 1.77-million-node London pedestrian network: a one-time hierarchy construction (~1 hour) yields a compact reusable operator that then evaluates each national-scale accessibility field in under one second (~700 ms for Great Britain, ~150 ms for London). Open-source code and worked examples are provided.

PdTe is a Dirac semimetal that also exhibits superconductivity, providing an intriguing platform to explore topological superconductivity and unconventional magnetotransport phenomena. While the superconducting properties of PdTe have been extensively studied in recent years, the detailed magnetotransport phenomena have remained unexplored. Here, we present the first observation of linear magnetoresistance (LMR) and the planar Hall effect (PHE) in a high-quality single crystal of PdTe. We observe temperature-dependent unsaturated LMR in both in-plane ($B \parallel I$) and out-of-plane ($B \perp I$) configurations. The magnetoresistance (MR) shows a crossover from parabolic to linear dependence at the critical field Bc, and detailed analysis indicates that disorder-driven mobility fluctuations are the origin rather than the Abrikosov quantum-limit mechanism. Furthermore, prominent PHE has been observed by rotating the magnetic field within the plane of the sample. The detailed analysis of the field and temperature dependence of PHE-amplitude, along with the parametric plot, suggests that PHE originates predominantly from the anisotropic orbital magnetoresistance rather than the chiral anomaly. Our results demonstrate that although the Dirac point is close to the Fermi level, the observed LMR and PHE in the Dirac semimetal PdTe can be understood within a semiclassical transport framework, highlighting the importance of distinguishing between topological and conventional classical transport mechanisms in topological materials

We present a comprehensive wafer-level 1/f noise study of scaled Gate-All-Around (GAA) p-type nanosheet transistors and benchmark them against large-area planar High- ąppa} Metal Gate (HKMG) devices to assess the impact of device architecture on reliability. By statistically analyzing noise data from 188 nanosheets, we extract the effective trap density in the dielectric and compare it to that of planar transistors with identical gate stack, comparable processing thermal budgets, and no specific reliability anneals. The effective trap density extracted from 1/f noise is comparable in planar and nanosheet architectures. This indicates that transitioning to GAA nanosheets does not increase noise, which remains governed by gate stack quality.

We present a search for radio pulses from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, a well-known source of fast radio bursts (FRBs), at $\sim$110 MHz using the Large Phased Array (LPA) of the Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory. Data from two active periods in 2020 (March – May and September – November, with $\sim 3.5$ minutes of daily coverage) were analyzed with new methods tailored to both FRB-like single pulses and pulsar-like periodic signals. No significant FRB-like pulses were found. Using Monte Carlo simulations, $3\sigma$ upper limits were derived for the burst rate: for a log-normal energy distribution the limit is $\sim$${10}^{1.5}~{\rm{d}}^{-1}$ for a mean of average monochromatic isotropic luminosity $L_{\nu{\rm ,mean}}\sim1.3\times{10}^{29}~{\rm{erg~s^{-1}~ {Hz}^{-1}}}$ and a natural log-space scatter of $\sigma\sim0.85$; while for a power-law distribution it is $\sim$${10}^{1.8}~{\rm{d}}^{-1}$ for an index $\beta\lesssim3.0$ and a minimum average monochromatic isotropic luminosity $L_{\nu{\rm{,min}}}\lesssim0.7\times{10}^{25}~{\rm{erg~s^{-1}~{Hz}^{-1}}}$. When folded at the known 3.24781628 s period of SGR 1935+2154, a weak pulse was noted (S/N $<$ 3.16), but the significance is insufficient for a secure detection of the pulsar-like emission signal. A conservative upper limit on the average monochromatic isotropic luminosity of any possible periodic emission is $2.08\times{10}^{19}~{\rm{erg~s^{-1}~{Hz}^{-1}}}$. Our results offer meaningful low-frequency upper limits on the burst rate of SGR 1935+2154, and hint for very faint pulsar-like radiation at meter wavelengths.

In this article we provide a systematic reduction to static spherical symmetry for (classical) gauge theoretic models with structure group SU(2) x U(1), coupled to gravity. In particular, we derive the most general static spherically symmetric ansatz for the Einstein-Yang- Mills-Higgs-Dirac-Yukawa equation system. This model is reminiscent of the lepton sector of the Standard Model coupled to gravity. The resulting total system of ordinary differential equations is rather large, so that finding global solutions is non-trivial. For this reason, an open-source interactive solver GUI written in C++ is provided together with the article.

Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs) achieve time resolutions below 50 ps through internal charge multiplication, yet the gain is not a fixed device property as the space-charge of the multiplied electron-hole density screens the gain layer field, which suppresses further impact ionization. While TCAD simulations reproduce the average gain suppression, their deterministic treatment of a continuous charge density cannot capture the event-by-event fluctuations that determine the timing performance. We present a Monte Carlo study of space-charge-induced gain suppression in LGADs using the Garfield++ framework, in which the dynamic field of the drifting carriers, computed from a coarse-grained system of charged rings, is superimposed on TCAD-computed static field maps of Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica (CNM) and Hamamatsu Photonics (HPK) produced sensors while preserving single carrier avalanche statistics. The simulated gain reproduces published two-photon absorption-transient current technique measurements across two orders of magnitude in injected charge, including the dependence on the injection depth. For minimum ionizing particles, the event-by-event coupling between deposited charge and gain compresses the Landau tail of the multiplied charge, narrowing the signal arrival time distribution and improving the intrinsic time resolution of the HPK-S1 sensor investigated in this work from 53.9 $\pm$ 1.0 ps to 44.5 $\pm$ 0.9 ps. Treating the primary ionization as a stochastic sequence of charge clusters, it is further shown analytically that any gain suppression that decreases with the cluster size narrows the centroid time distribution.

We propose an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) artificial cavity that can enhance light-matter coupling around the ENZ frequency and theoretically show the possibility of exciton-polariton condensation in the suggested platform. By using a rate equation model based on the driven-dissipative reservoir approach, we calculate the pump threshold for condensation and then compare the suggested platform's advantages/disadvantages with distributed Bragg reflector cavities. We also discuss the validity of the mean field theory within our model.

There is increasing evidence from observations that the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies depends on the large-scale structure in which they are embedded. When probing the CGM in absorption using quasar sightlines, studies find an enhanced sky coverage in the CGM of galaxies in overdensities compared to galaxies in isolation. However, the exact reason for this environmental dependence is still unclear. In this work we aim to model for the first time the influence of the large-scale structure on the cool and warm ($T\sim10^{4-5}$ K) gas phases of the CGM. We use a high-resolution ($m_{gas}\approx 4.5\times 10^4$ M$_{\odot}$, $m_{dm}\approx 2.4\times 10^5$ M$_{\odot}$) cosmological simulation based on the EAGLE model of galaxy formation. We select all galaxies at $z=0$ with stellar mass $M_*>10^8$ M$_\odot$ and split them into galaxies in overdensities (group galaxies) and galaxies in isolation using a Friends-of-Friends algorithm. For these two samples, we investigate how the large-scale structure influences the physical properties of the CGM and the measured covering fractions of the cool and warm gas phases. When the two samples of group and isolated galaxies are matched in stellar mass, halo mass, and we use only central galaxies, we do not find any significant difference in the physical properties of the CGM and the measured covering fractions. However, when satellite galaxies are included, we recover the observational trends in the difference of covering fractions with the environment. The difficulty of recovering the observational trends shows the complexity of capturing the multiphase CGM in simulations. However, since our results concerning the admixture of satellites are independent of the employed subgrid physics, this work shows that central galaxies and satellites need to be disentangled in observational studies to clearly discern the role of the environment on the CGM.

Uniform acceleration induces a thermal response to the Minkowski vacuum and can thereby modify quantum correlations. For measurement-induced nonlocality (MIN), a form of nonclassical correlation distinct from entanglement, previous field-mode analyses of bosonic fields found that it decreases with increasing acceleration and vanishes in the infinite-acceleration limit. This raises the question of whether the disappearance of MIN is a generic consequence of the Unruh effect or depends on the physical description of the accelerated quantum system. To address this question, we study two uniformly accelerating Unruh-DeWitt detectors interacting with a massless scalar field. We find that the response of MIN to the Unruh temperature depends sensitively on the initial detector state: it can decrease monotonically, vanish at an intermediate temperature and subsequently recover, or increase monotonically. Moreover, for a broad class of initial states, MIN approaches a nonzero value in the high-temperature limit. These results show that the suppression of MIN under strong acceleration is not universal. Instead, Unruh-induced detector dynamics gives rise to a state-dependent response in which measurement-induced nonlocality can be suppressed, restored, or enhanced.

Pulsatile flow in corrugated tubes arises in hemodynamics and microfluidics, where oscillatory forcing and geometric constrictions jointly determine transport and wall loading. We extend Womersley's classical solution for oscillatory flow in a rigid circular tube to rigid axisymmetric tubes of slowly varying radius. Within the lubrication approximation, we derive closed-form expressions for the axial velocity profile, volumetric flow rate, phase lag, and wall shear stress at an arbitrary Womersley number. Three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann simulations are used to assess the regime of validity of the theory. The analysis shows that the local velocity profile varies strongly along the tube, ranging from plug-like in wide sections to more parabolic near bottlenecks. The cycle-maximum flow rate decreases with increasing corrugation, but this reduction weakens as pulsatility increases, reflecting a crossover from the quasi-steady scaling $\langle R^{-4}\rangle^{-1}$ to the high-frequency scaling $\langle R^{-2}\rangle^{-1}$. The wall shear stress is maximal at the bottleneck and decreases with Womersley number. For sinusoidal corrugations, the bottleneck wall shear stress depends non-monotonically on the corrugation because of the competition between local shear amplification and global hydraulic resistance. Closed-form expressions for the time-averaged wall shear stress and oscillatory shear index further connect the theory to standard hemodynamic metrics.

We present LensFactory.jl, an efficient, open-source, general-purpose strong lens modeling package written in Julia. It supports single- and multi-plane lensing with a wide range of analytic lens profiles, and its modular design, built on Julia's multiple dispatch, makes it straightforward to add new profiles or inference methods, while native multi-threading parallelizes the computationally expensive steps, enabling full cluster-scale lens reconstructions within hours on a desktop-class machine. We validate the mass-reconstruction pipeline of LensFactory.jl on two simulated galaxy clusters (Ares and Hera), recovering the convergence and magnification maps well where the lensing constraints lie, and on the JWST-observed cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327, obtaining a strong lens model (image-plane RMS of 0.46”) consistent with previously published results. In addition, we introduce singularity maps as a complementary diagnostic for comparing lens models, probing differences in the higher-order derivatives of the lensing potential, which remain largely unconstrained by standard observables such as image positions, time delays, and flux ratios. LensFactory.jl is accompanied by a set of worked examples covering all core functionality.

We propose that the 3d symplectic Chern-Simons theory $USp(2n)$ at level $k=n+\frac12+\ell$ with a single chiral multiplet in the fundamental representation is dual, for every pair of positive integers $(n,\ell)$, to the Abelian rank-$0$ theory $\mathcal{T}_{\ell,n}$ of Creutzig, Garner and Kim. The fundamental is pseudo-real, so the level is half-integral, there is no non-Abelian flavor symmetry, and the supersymmetry is enhanced to $\mathcal{N}=4$. Both sides have vanishing Higgs and Coulomb branches. We match the counting of supersymmetric vacua under real mass deformations for all $(n,\ell)$, and the supersymmetric indices in a number of cases. We then study in detail the case $\ell=1$, the minimal $USp(2n)$ Chern-Simons theory at level $n+\frac32$, whose dual is a $U(1)^{n}$ theory with a tadpole level matrix and a bare monopole superpotential.

We investigate the transverse-spin asymmetry $A^{\sin\phi_{S_\Lambda}}_{UUT}$ for transversely polarized $\Lambda$ production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering with an unpolarized electron beam and an unpolarized nucleon target. The spin-dependent asymmetry is sensitive to the twist-3 T-odd quark-gluon-quark fragmentation function $\tilde{D}_{T}$, which describes the correlation between an unpolarized fragmenting quark and the transverse polarization of the produced hadron. We calculate $\tilde{D}_{T}$ of the $\Lambda$ hyperon within a diquark model and investigate its contribution to the asymmetry. We determine the model parameters by fitting the fragmentation functions $D_1$ and $G_1$ to the DSV parametrization. Using the numerical results of the model and the available parametrization of the unpolarized parton distribution function $f_1$, we predict the asymmetry in the electroproduction of the $\Lambda$ hyperon in the kinematic regions of the EIC and the EicC. We also examine the impact of including the strange-quark contribution on the transverse-spin asymmetry. In our phenomenological analysis, we include the QCD evolution of the parton distribution function $f_1$ and the fragmentation function $\tilde{D}_{T}$. The results show that the asymmetry is sizable and can be significantly modified by the strange-quark contribution.

Motivated by the singularity theorems of Poincaré Gauge (PG) theory, we investigate extensions of the Holst quadratic model by introducing cubic order invariants constructed from the curvature and torsion tensors into the gravitational action. Such models are characterised by a kinetic structure that is governed by a pseudoscalar mode, whereas the remaining irreducible modes of torsion contribute through nonlinear interactions that can have important implications for the space-time geometry. In particular, in line with other well-known models of PG theory, the Birkhoff theorem does not hold in general, allowing for new exact static and spherically symmetric black hole solutions with dynamical torsion. Across the different torsion sectors, corresponding to the irreducible modes and parity components of the torsion field involved in the analysis, we find both singular and regular configurations. Among the singular solutions, we obtain Kiselev-like and Boulware-Deser-like geometries, as well as new geometries with distinct algebraic and Lambert $W$ metric corrections. In addition, we find regular black holes with both primary and secondary torsion hair, which evade the singularity theorems through violations of the causal convergence conditions induced by the nonlinear torsion interactions. Therefore, we show that Holst-type PG models can support a rich variety of black hole geometries, while providing explicit mechanisms for evading the singularity theorems of PG theory.