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Friday 11 September

High Energy Physics (Experiment)

Demonstrating topological identification capabilities of the NEXT experiment at low pressure

J. Waiton, H. Almazán, B. Palmeiro et al. (+109 more)

The NEXT-100 detector is a high-pressure xenon time projection chamber utilising electroluminescence amplification for sub-1% FWHM energy resolution and topological discrimination, two key attributes required to achieve the NEXT programme's overarching goal of detecting neutrinoless double beta decay ($0 \nu \beta \beta$). The detector has completed its first physics run at the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC), with xenon at a pressure of $\sim$4 bar. In this paper we report on the first validation of NEXT-100's topological performance and present the first topological analysis conducted at low pressure within the detector programme. A Monte Carlo study characterising the effects of pressure on track topology is presented, with qualitative agreement observed in data. We then demonstrate the topological discrimination capabilities for $0\nu \beta \beta$-like events from $^{208}$Tl decays using a cut-based method considered the 'baseline' in NEXT's topological programme, upon which all future analyses will improve. The analysis described applies a set of selection cuts before implementing a background discrimination algorithm that yields a reported signal efficiency for double-electron tracks and background acceptance for single-electron tracks of 75.6 $\pm$ 1.9 (stat.) $^{+3.4}_{-4.1}$ (syst.) % and 14.7 $\pm$ 0.4 (stat.) $^{+0.7}_{-0.8}$ (syst.) %. These results demonstrate the excellent topological discrimination capabilities of the NEXT-100 detector in line with NEXT-White, which achieved a signal efficiency and background acceptance of 71.6 $\pm$ 1.5 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.3 (syst.) % and 20.6 $\pm$ 0.4 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.3 (syst.) % respectively.
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All authors J. Waiton, H. Almazán, B. Palmeiro, G. Martínez-Lema, R. Guenette, V. Álvarez, L. Arazi, I.J. Arnquist, F. Auria-Luna, S. Ayet, Y. Ayyad, C.D.R. Azevedo, F. Ballester, J.E. Barcelon, M. del Barrio-Torregrosa, J.M. Benlloch-Rodríguez, F.I.G.M. Borges, A. Brodoline, C. Cabo, A. Castillo, E. Church, M. Cid, X. Cid, C.A.N. Conde, C. Cortes-Parra, F.P. Cossío, R. Coupe, E. Dey, P. Dietz, C. Echeverria, M. Elorza, R. Esteve, R. Felkai, L.M.P. Fernandes, P. Ferrario, P. Ferrero Mancheño, F.W. Foss, Z. Freixa, J. García-Barrena, J.J. Gómez-Cadenas, J.W.R. Grocott, J. Hauptman, C.A.O. Henriques, J.A. Hernando Morata, P. Herrero-Gómez, V. Herrero, C. Hervés Carrete, Y. Ifergan, A.F.B. Isabel, B.J.P. Jones, F. Kellerer, L. Larizgoitia, A. Larumbe, P. Lebrun, F. Lopez, N. López-March, R. Madigan, R.D.P. Mano, A. Marauri, A.P. Marques, J. Martín-Albo, A. Martínez, M. Martínez-Vara, R.L. Miller, K. Mistry, J. Molina-Canteras, F. Monrabal, C.M.B. Monteiro, F.J. Mora, K.E. Navarro, P. Novella, D.R. Nygren, E. Oblak, I. Osborne, J. Palacio, A. Para, A. Pazos, J. Pelegrin, M. Pérez Maneiro, M. Querol, J. Renner, I. Rivilla, C. Rogero, L. Rogers, B. Romeo, C. Romo-Luque, E. Ruiz-Chóliz, P. Saharia, F.P. Santos, J.M.F. dos Santos, M. Seemann, I. Shomroni, A.L.M. Silva, P.A.O.C. Silva, A. Simón, S.R. Soleti, M. Sorel, J. Soto-Oton, J.M.R. Teixeira, S. Teruel-Pardo, J.F. Toledo, C. Tonnelé, S. Torelli, J. Torrent, A. Trettin, P.R.G. Valle, M. Vanga, P. Vázquez Cabaleiro, J.F.C.A. Veloso, J.D. Villamil, L.M. Villar Padruno, A. Yubero-Navarro

Exactly Solvable and Integrable Systems

Matrix Dressing Beyond Pfaff-Toda

Sylvain Carpentier and Marta Dell'Atti

We develop a matrix pseudodifference operator framework that places theAdler-Pfaff and Pfaff-Toda hierarchies in a common algebraic setting. The bi-infinite Adler-Pfaff hierarchy then becomes a $2\times2$ matrix pseudodifference Lax hierarchy. We introduce the Matrix Pfaff-Toda hierarchy by dressing the matrix Laurent algebra $M_{2N}\bigl(\mathbb{C}[\mathcal{S},\mathcal{S}^{-1}]\bigr)$ using a Pfaff-Toda splitting of the matrix pseudodifference algebra. In the one-component case, its diagonal sector recovers the continuous Pfaff-Toda hierarchy, while the off-diagonal directions supply the missing odd flows, and the powers of a single bare operator reconstruct the full Adler-Pfaff hierarchy. For general $N$, on the regular factorization locus, the multicomponent Pfaff-Toda tau-functions of Savchenko and Zabrodin realize the commuting diagonal sector, with its dressing equations derived directly from the fermionic bilinear identity. Reductions to the block-diagonal and scalar cases recover multicomponent and scalar $2D$ Toda, identifying the even Pfaff hierarchy with an anti-diagonal Toda subhierarchy, and yielding the Krichever-Zabrodin C-Toda hierarchy.
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Quantum Physics

Thermal robustness of sensing quantum phases of matter via qubit probes

Sambunath Das, Hari Kumar Yadalam, Mark T. Mitchison et al. (+1 more)

We study the effect of temperature on the ability of a qubit probe to distinguish between different phases in strongly correlated systems. Now to this end, we investigate a spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXZ chain coupled to a qubit probe via a pure dephasing interaction. At zero temperature, as reported previously, the decoherence dynamics exhibit different behavior in the gapped and gapless phases of the chain, with characteristic strong oscillations in the gapped phase and monotonic decay in the gapless phase. These oscillations decay much more slowly than expected with rising temperature in the gapped phase and their remnants are still visible at infinite temperature. In the gapless phase at low temperatures, using Luttinger liquid theory, we predict that the coherence exhibits asymptotic exponential decay in time, with the decay rate sensitive to the sign of the anisotropy parameter. We conclude that probe dynamics continue to carry information about the chain even at finite, reasonably small temperatures, positioning qubit probes as sensitive and robust detectors for quantum phases of correlated spin systems.
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All authors Sambunath Das, Hari Kumar Yadalam, Mark T. Mitchison, Katarzyna Roszak

Mathematical Physics · Cross-listed from math.DS

The Integrability of a knife-edge Billiard in a Disk

Alejandro Bravo-Doddoli, Huaidian Hou, William Clark et al. (+1 more)

This paper proves the integrability of a nonholonomic billiard defined by a knife-edge in a disk. The paper begins by parametrizing the impact space using coordinates that reveal the system's rotational symmetry. It then constructs a map on the space of post-impact states that encodes the billiard dynamics through a recurrence relating each post-impact state to the next. In addition, the paper shows that the knife-edge billiard admits a family of generalized caustics.
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All authors Alejandro Bravo-Doddoli, Huaidian Hou, William Clark, Anthony M. Bloch

Strongly Correlated Electrons

Orbital Hall effect and orbital altermagnetism in even- and odd-parity-wave magnetic Lieb lattices

Börge Göbel, Ersoy Şaş{\i}oğlu and Samir Lounis

Altermagnets combine compensated antiferromagnetic order with ferromagnet-like signatures such as spin-polarized bands and, under appropriate conditions, an anomalous Hall response. Their characteristic momentum-dependent spin splitting originates from the interplay of magnetic order and crystal structure and therefore does not require spin-orbit coupling (SOC), whereas the anomalous Hall effect relies on SOC. This raises the question whether the ferromagnet-like transport character of altermagnets can manifest already in the nonrelativistic limit. Here, we investigate the transport of orbital angular momentum in magnetic Lieb lattices. We show that a collinear antiferromagnetic texture realizes a d-wave altermagnetic state and simultaneously generates an orbital Hall effect, both in the complete absence of SOC. In this nonrelativistic limit, the orbital Hall response closely resembles that of the corresponding ferromagnet. When SOC is included, the orbital Hall effect is accompanied by a spin Hall response, while the altermagnetic spin texture acquires a corresponding orbital texture, realizing orbital altermagnetism. In contrast, an anomalous, or crystal, Hall effect requires SOC and is additionally subject to crystal-symmetry constraints. We extend the analysis from d-wave altermagnetism to odd-parity p-wave magnetism, where the orbital Hall effect becomes anisotropic and the orbital conductivity tensor develops a symmetric transverse component analogous to the planar Hall response in charge transport. Our results establish the orbital Hall effect as a nonrelativistic transport manifestation of the close relation between altermagnets and ferromagnets and extend this connection to unconventional magnetic orders beyond altermagnetism.
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Soft Condensed Matter

Geometric theory of elastic curves constrained on rigid curved surfaces

Fahim Bin Selim and C. Nadir Kaplan

Slender elastic objects constrained to curved surfaces are ubiquitous in soft systems, with examples ranging from DNA wrapping around histones to actin filaments forming contractile rings on the cell membrane during cytokinesis. In the continuum limit, the conformation of these effectively one-dimensional (1D) objects is governed by both the geometry and mechanics of the embedding surface, and the elasticity of the object. Existing phenomenological typically describe such behavior through elastic energy minimization that incorporates bending and twisting, but neglect stretching that may be important for filaments with finite cross-section or are highly incompatible with the underlying surface. Here we present a coarse-grained geometric theory of 1D elastic curves constrained on rigid surfaces, derived from the first principles. For an isotropic material, our model emerges naturally in terms of the Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, and area moments of inertia. The resulting effective energy functional explicitly includes stretching in addition to bending and twisting. We minimize it to determine the equilibrium curve conformations on different zero, positive, or negative Gaussian rigid surfaces. Our theory provides a general framework for analyzing the equilibrium configurations of surface-bound elastic curves in biologically and physically relevant settings.
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Chemical Physics

Direct Asymmetric Photochemistry with Synthetic Chiral Light

Jason B. Greenwood, Letizia Fede, Daniel García González et al. (+10 more)

Circularly polarized light has long been used to distinguish the two mirror images of chiral molecules. Recently, a conceptual breakthrough has predicted that a new form of optical fields - synthetic chiral light - could usher in an 'electric-dipole revolution' in chiroptical interactions. We report the first experimental evidence for this prediction in the optical domain, using a three-dimensional laser electric field synthesized to trace a chiral pattern. The ionization and fragmentation of chiral molecules was found to depend on both the molecular handedness, and the handedness and geometry of the synthetic chiral field. Supported by two theoretical models, our results demonstrate that synthetic chiral light can induce strong chiroptical interactions, opening new horizons for asymmetric photochemistry and chiral analysis.
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All authors Jason B. Greenwood, Letizia Fede, Daniel García González, Umberto Dellasette, Ross Anderson, Chris Sparling, Dave Townsend, Patricia Vindel-Zandbergen, David Ayuso, Valérie Blanchet, Bernard Pons, Andrès Ordóñez, Yann Mairesse

Chemical Physics

Topologically protected chiral sensing using Synthetic Chiral Light

Gefei Li, Justas Terentjevas, Yong Zhang et al. (+13 more)

Chirality underlies molecular function in living matter, yet its optical detection remains challenging because conventional chiroptical spectroscopies rely on weak corrections to the dominant electric-dipole light-matter interaction, making desired optical signals weak and fragile. Topology offers a route to robustness, enabling observables whose defining properties survive disorder and imperfections. However, experimental realization of a practical topological observable for chiral spectroscopy has remained elusive. Here we realize chiral topological light and demonstrate such an observable. A tightly focused, phase-locked, counter-rotating two-colour field encodes chirality in the three-dimensional electric-field trajectory while its dominant topological charge resides in the longitudinal electric-field component where it remains hidden from direct far-field detection. An isotropic chiral medium acts as a topological transducer, converting the latent topology of the driving field into a propagating nonlinear response whose topological charge becomes directly observable in the far field while remaining strongly suppressed in achiral media. Using randomly oriented chiral single-crystal powders, we experimentally detect the enantio-sensitive response through the topological charge of the emitted field. Directly accessible in the far field and robust against experimental imperfections, this observable allows us to track and control chiral signal on attosecond timescales through the relative phase of the driving two-colour fields. Our results establish topology as a practical resource for ultrafast chiral optical spectroscopy.
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All authors Gefei Li, Justas Terentjevas, Yong Zhang, Patricia Vindel-Zandbergen, David Ayuso, Serguei Patchkovskii, Tran Tien Dat, Junpeng Lu, Qihua Liu, Yuanjie Pan, Li Liu, Hao Teng, Zhiyi Wei, Misha Yu. Ivanov, Olga Smirnova, Pengju Zhang

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

XMST: An Extended Minimum Spanning Tree Framework with Objective Fracture-Scale Selection

Mark Gallaway

We present XMST, an extended minimum spanning tree framework for identifying spatially coherent stellar structures using an objective, data-driven fracture-scale criterion. XMST combines percolation analysis with Jenks Natural Breaks optimisation, restricting the MST edge-length distribution to the subcritical regime before determining the final fracture scale. The method was validated using 1000 controlled Monte Carlo realisations containing eight empirical stellar-association templates, including a deliberately overlapping pair. The Percolation-Jenks fracture scale was highly reproducible, with a median of 17.028 pc and a between-realisation standard deviation of 0.066 pc. The injected structures were recovered with a mean completeness of 0.9996 and mean purity of 0.7413, while alternative CDF and Mean Edge criteria selected substantially larger fracture scales and produced markedly lower purities. Propagation of the published distance uncertainties through 10,000 additional XMST reconstructions produced a median absolute fracture-scale change of only 0.282 pc. Under these perturbations, mean completeness was 0.8605 and mean purity 0.7126, while 99.30 per cent of injected-template cases continued to satisfy the adopted detection criterion. Individual membership was less stable, with peripheral and locally sparse members showing lower persistence than structural cores. The deliberately overlapping pair was resolved spatially in only 15 of 1000 realisations; a reddening-based post-processing diagnostic increased this to 446, although with a corresponding completeness-purity trade-off. XMST therefore provides a robust method for identifying candidate stellar structures and their stable cores, while detailed outer membership and strongly overlapping populations require additional astrophysical information.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Probing Neutrinophilic Axion-Like Particles in Tritium Beta Decay

Yi Chung, Florian Goertz, Maya Hager et al. (+1 more)

We investigate the prospects for constraining neutrinophilic axion-like particles via measurements of the tritium beta decay spectrum, as performed by the KATRIN experiment and its planned TRISTAN detector upgrade. We study in detail the resulting spectral modifications and the corresponding experimental sensitivity. The relevant complementary searches are also discussed for comparison and we derive the most up-to-date and robust constraints on keV-scale neutrinophilic axion-like particles, covering both lepton-number-conserving and lepton-number-violating interactions. Cosmological constraints are generally more stringent; however, this conclusion relies on the assumption that the particles remain unchanged from the early universe to the present day. We therefore construct a model in which the neutrinophilic axion-like particle, being a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of an extended scalar sector, emerges from a spontaneous symmetry breaking featuring a non-trivial thermal history. We show that the model naturally evades the conventional cosmological bounds, allowing tritium beta decay measurements to provide the leading constraints.
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All authors Yi Chung, Florian Goertz, Maya Hager, Joscha Lauer

High Energy Physics (Experiment)

Searches for Non-Standard Neutrino Oscillations with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

Philip L. R. Weigel

The short-baseline neutrino anomalies observed by LSND, MiniBooNE, and the gallium experiments can be explained by additional neutrino states beyond the three established by solar, atmospheric, and reactor oscillation measurements. The minimal 3+1 sterile neutrino model that parameterizes these anomalies is in significant tension with null results from other oscillation experiments and with cosmological constraints, motivating the exploration of non-minimal extensions in which the additional mass eigenstate is unstable. This thesis presents a search for an unstable sterile neutrino model, in which the heavy mass eigenstate $\nu_4$ decays to two invisible particles, using 10.67 years of high-energy atmospheric neutrino data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The analysis finds no preference for sterile decay over the no-decay 3+1 hypothesis and excludes most of the parameter space preferred by global fits to short-baseline data at 90% confidence level, providing a strong constraint on this non-minimal explanation of the anomalies. The thesis additionally develops the foundation for a future sterile neutrino search at IceCube targeting the resonant disappearance of antineutrinos. Three contributions are presented: a comprehensive calculation of neutrino-nucleon and neutrino-nucleus deep-inelastic scattering cross sections, new machine-learning reconstruction techniques, and an improved event selection with twice the signal efficiency of the previous iteration. Together, these tools enable statistical separation of neutrinos and antineutrinos and establish the infrastructure for the next generation of sterile neutrino searches with IceCube.
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Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Density-matrix quantum kinetics of spin-mode crossover and ac Edelstein response in spin–orbit-coupled chiral metals

Shuntaro Sumita and Yusuke Kato

To clarify spin relaxation and precession across the weak-to-strong SOC crossover in chiral conductors, we formulate a density-matrix quantum kinetic theory for a three-dimensional isotropic chiral metal with hedgehog SOC and nonmagnetic impurity scattering. The formulation retains interband coherence, and its collision integral conserves charge, energy, and spin during impurity scattering. We identify three spin modes that evolve continuously from a long-lived D'yakonov–Perel' relaxation mode and two strongly damped precessional modes at weak SOC to one relaxational and two coherent precessional modes at strong SOC. A closed multipole decomposition maps the spin dynamics onto an effective Bloch equation, providing a unified interpretation of relaxation and precession across the crossover. We further derive the ac Edelstein susceptibility and the reciprocal current response to a time-dependent Zeeman field, show that their poles coincide with the spin modes, and verify Onsager reciprocity. The theory thus provides a unified analytic description of spin relaxation, precession, and spin–charge conversion across the weak-to-strong SOC crossover.
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Fluid Dynamics

A Variational Formulation of the MHD Induction Equation

Ahmed Farooq

We present a variational formulation of the induction equation in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) based on Gauss's principle of least constraint. The central result is the Euler–Lagrange equation $\mathbf{Z}_B = -\nabla h_m$, where $h_m = \mathbf{A}\cdot\mathbf{B}$ is the magnetic helicity density. This reveals that the magnetic helicity gradient $\nabla h_m$ acts as the constraint force maintaining the solenoidality of the magnetic field, exactly as the pressure gradient $\nabla p$ maintains incompressibility in Taha et al.'s pressure-gradient minimization principle. The magnetic helicity density—which, though gauge-dependent locally, yields a gauge-invariant variational principle—naturally emerges as the Lagrange multiplier enforcing $\nabla\cdot\mathbf{B}=0$. At the solution, the field minimizes the norm of the magnetic helicity gradient $\|\nabla h_m\|^2$. This establishes a structural analogy: magnetic helicity is to the magnetic field as pressure is to velocity. The variational principle connects to Woltjer's theorem, Taylor relaxation, and the Hamiltonian structure of MHD.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

The Infrared Glow of Galactic Outskirts: A New Window with NASIM

Elham Saremi, Ignacio Trujillo, Mohammad Akhlaghi et al. (+5 more)

The outskirts of galaxies retain fossil records of their assembly history and are dominated by old stellar populations shaped by tidal interactions, accretion events, and environmental processes. Observing these low-surface-brightness (LSB) regions in the near-infrared (NIR), particularly in the $K_s$ band, is crucial for tracing evolved stars and minimising the effects of dust. Yet, ground-based NIR studies of faint extended structures remain challenging because of the bright and variable sky background and complex detector systematics. To overcome these limitations, we developed NASIM, the Near-infrared Automated low Surface brightness reduction In Maneage pipeline, a fully automated and reproducible framework designed to recover faint structures in VISTA/VIRCAM data. Using GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro), NASIM corrects large-scale flat-field patterns and instrumental signatures across the VIRCAM detectors while preserving LSB emission that can be strongly suppressed in conventional NIR reductions. We apply NASIM to $K_s$-band imaging of the Euclid Deep Field South through the KEDFS programme, a key region also targeted by Rubin/LSST and Euclid. The final reduction reaches a surface-brightness limit of $\mu_{K_s} \simeq 27.7$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$, measured at $3\sigma$ over 100 arcsec$^2$, approximately 67 times deeper than 2MASS and 11 times deeper than VHS in surface-brightness sensitivity. Direct comparisons with publicly available VISTA products show that NASIM preserves diffuse emission without substantially compromising compact-source depth. These results open a deep NIR view of faint galaxy outskirts, LSB galaxies, and intracluster light, providing a reproducible ground-based foundation for future studies of the faint Universe.
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All authors Elham Saremi, Ignacio Trujillo, Mohammad Akhlaghi, Zohreh Ghaffari, Johan H. Knapen, Manda Banerji, Helmut Dannerbauer, Sébastien Comerón

Strongly Correlated Electrons

Spin splitting without symmetry: a nearly compensated ferrimagnet and the origin of altermagnetism

Jaekyung Jang and Joo Yull Rhee

The spin splitting of collinear altermagnets is usually attributed to the crystal symmetry relating the opposite-spin sublattices — a rotation or mirror in place of the translation or inversion of a conventional antiferromagnet. We show that this symmetry organizes the splitting but does not produce it; its origin is the anisotropic arrangement of the magnetic orbitals and their ligands, which also fixes the symmetry itself. Two results establish this. A triclinic ($P1$) \ce{Mn} oxide, a fully compensated ferrimagnet whose two inequivalent sublattices are related by no symmetry, is spin split throughout the Brillouin zone; repositioning the same ligands, atom for atom, to restore an inversion centre relating the two metal sites collapses the splitting to a residual two orders of magnitude smaller, so the splitting follows from the arrangement rather than the symmetry. Symmetry, we show formally, can only ever reverse or forbid a splitting that already exists: it cannot create one between sublattices an arrangement has left electronically identical, nor where the underlying orbitals carry no anisotropy to arrange in the first place. Organizing the analysis through an operation-resolved symmetry hierarchy and reading the crystal classes as a single axis, the enforced nodal planes fall from two to one to zero across the orthorhombic, monoclinic, and triclinic classes while the arrangement-generated splitting persists to the base. The altermagnet and the fully compensated ferrimagnet are thus the two ends of one axis — the same splitting, organized by symmetry at one end and unorganized at the other — and the search for compensated spin-split magnets is a search over orbital arrangements rather than symmetry labels.
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Other Condensed Matter

Intrinsic excitations and a proposed ground state in an Ammann-Beenker artificial spin ice

E Weightman, L O'Brien and S Coates

Artificial spin ices built on quasiperiodic geometries remain under-explored. Here we investigate an ASI based on the octagonal Ammann-Beenker tiling, whose six vertex types present local environments inaccessible in periodic lattices. Combining Monte Carlo simulations of dipolar-coupled macrospins with micromagnetic calculations of individual vertex energies, we find that vertex types freeze in an order set not by coordination number, but by quasi-degenerate levels at five-island vertices and their local environment. Excitations in the low energy state are correspondingly localised to specific, geometrically determined sites. Using twice-inflated substitution rules as an energetic backbone, we propose an analytical ground state combining a long-range ordered fixed spin network with a sparse set of degenerate regions.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

NNLL resummation for the production of four top quarks

Melissa van Beekveld, Anna Kulesza, Michele Lupattelli et al. (+1 more)

Four-top production is one of the rarest processes of the Standard Model observable at the Large Hadron Collider, offering sensitivity to the top Yukawa coupling, Higgs width, and beyond-Standard-Model physics. We present precise predictions for the invariant-mass distribution and total cross section using threshold resummation at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy, matched to next-to-leading order (NLO) calculations.
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All authors Melissa van Beekveld, Anna Kulesza, Michele Lupattelli, Tommaso Saracco

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

What has the LHC told us about the electroweakino sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model?

Peter Athron, Csaba Balázs, Andy Buckley et al. (+19 more)

We perform global fits of the electroweak sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) using a comprehensive set of LEP searches, 34 Run 2 LHC searches, and 63 Run 2 LHC measurements. Scanning the bino, wino and Higgsino mass parameters, and the ratio of the Higgs vacuum expectation values, we find that for a light, bino $\tilde{\chi}_{1}^0$, the mass of the next-to-lightest neutralino must be $m_{\tilde{\chi}_{2}^0} \gtrsim 760$ GeV. While MSSM electroweakinos can explain individual excesses observed by ATLAS and CMS in searches targeting compressed spectra, we find no scenarios that fit these excesses simultaneously. When we add a light gravitino, neutralinos are further excluded up to about 1 TeV, though this depends on their composition; Higgsino-dominated $\tilde{\chi}_{1}^0$ requires only $m_{\tilde{\chi}_{1}^0} \approx m_{\tilde{\chi}_{2}^0} \gtrsim 650$ GeV. Lastly, the newer LHC searches and measurements exclude a low-mass region that was preferred in a previous study. This is the most complete summary of collider constraints on the electroweakino sector of the MSSM performed to date.
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All authors Peter Athron, Csaba Balázs, Andy Buckley, Jon Butterworth, Christopher Chang, Andrew Fowlie, Tomás E. Gonzalo, Vinay Hegde, Ida-Marie Fauske Johansson, Adil Jueid, Tore Klungland, Anders Kvellestad, Farvah Mahmoudi, Gregory D. Martinez, Holly Pacey, Tomasz Procter, Are Raklev, Roberto Ruiz de Austri, Pat Scott, Martin White, Yang Zhang, Pengxuan Zhu

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

The influence of free-free absorption on the radio spectrum of Particle-Accelerating Colliding-Wind Binaries

Michaël De Becker, Agustina Belen Blanco, Mathilde Tasseroul et al. (+4 more)

The study of massive stars in binary and higher-multiplicity systems that participate in particle acceleration is a key topic at the crossroads of massive star physics, shock physics, and galactic cosmic ray astrophysics. From an observational perspective, radio measurements are our pri- mary tool for identifying these systems through their synchrotron radio emission. Out of the 54 such systems known to date, all but two have been discovered via their non-thermal radio emission. However, identifying these systems is not straightforward. The main challenge lies in free-free absorption, which can obscure the synchrotron signature and hinder detection. This paper summarizes recent developments in our understanding of these systems, with a particular focus on the strong observational bias introduced by free-free absorption. This bias significantly limits our ability to determine the true fraction of particle accelerators among colliding-wind binaries.
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All authors Michaël De Becker, Agustina Belen Blanco, Mathilde Tasseroul, Anandmayee Tej, Anindya Saha, Paula Benaglia, Santiago del Palacio

Soft Condensed Matter

NEMO: A Framework for Nematic and Morphological Analysis of Curved and Multi-layered Biological Surfaces

Konstantinos Andreadis, Oriol Mañé-Benach, Claire A. Dessalles et al. (+3 more)

Across biological scales, from cytoskeletal networks to whole tissues, orientational order and topological defects arise within complex three-dimensional geometries. However, quantifying nematic order orientational order with head-to-tail symmetry remains challenging: 2D projections introduce geometric distortions, while current 3D methods often struggle to resolve distinct nematic fields within curved or multilayer structures. Here, we introduce NEMO, a modular Python framework for the depth-resolved quantification of tangential nematic order and surface morphology. By reconstructing biological surfaces as triangulated meshes, NEMO projects curved intensity layers, extracts local nematic directors, and computes locally averaged nematic tensors within the tangent plane. The pipeline identifies topological defects and computes their topological charge by accounting for the Gaussian curvature of the underlying surface. Furthermore, NEMO quantifies tissue morphology through inter-surface distance and surface-fitted estimates of Gaussian and mean curvatures. We show the capacities of this framework using a synthetic nematic film on a vesicle and experimental actin organisation in Hydra. By combining customisable projections with surface-constrained analysis, NEMO provides a unified framework for quantifying the interplay between orientational order and geometry across scales.
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All authors Konstantinos Andreadis, Oriol Mañé-Benach, Claire A. Dessalles, Lodovico Mazzei, Aurélien Roux, Guillaume Salbreux

Computational Physics

Physics-enriched neural solvers for transient ice-flow simulation

Thomas Gregov, Sebastian Rosier, Brandon Finley et al. (+2 more)

Transient glacier simulations with higher-order ice flow require the repeated solution of a nonlinear problem as the geometry evolves. In the online mode of the Instructed Glacier Model, the velocity field is represented by a neural network whose weights are warm-started from the previous time step and updated with a few optimizer iterations. We show that supplying the network with inexpensive input fields derived from low-order ice-flow balances improves this online solver. Unlike residual-based physics-informed neural networks, which incorporate physics through governing-equation penalties in the loss, our approach leaves the governing energy objective unchanged, adding physical structure through the network inputs. Across three real-world glacier configurations, the enriched solver is markedly more robust to solver settings. On the two alpine cases, it also improves the tuned accuracy–runtime trade-off, reducing surface-velocity errors by factors of two to four at fixed runtime and reaching few-percent relative errors with only $10^4$–$10^5$ trainable parameters, far fewer than comparable raw-input baselines. A 300-year Aletsch simulation then completes in under one minute, and the larger Valais domain in about two minutes, on a single GPU—a budget once reserved for much simpler shallow-ice models. Gains are smaller for the fast marine-terminating glacier, where nonlocal stress coupling favors larger or spectral networks. More broadly, the results suggest that enriching a neural solver's inputs with reduced-order physics can make repeated higher-order solves much cheaper, with no training data and no offline training.
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All authors Thomas Gregov, Sebastian Rosier, Brandon Finley, Andreas Vieli, Guillaume Jouvet

High Energy Physics (Theory) · Cross-listed from math.QA

Affine $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ at admissible levels and quantum $\mathfrak{sl}_{2|1}$

Thomas Creutzig and Simon D. Lentner

We prove braided tensor equivalences between the categories of weight modules of the affine vertex algebra of $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ at any admissible level and categories associated to partially semisimplified versions of quantum $\mathfrak{sl}_{2|1}$ at roots of unity.

Mathematical Physics · Cross-listed from math.NA

A stabilized, nodal strain finite element method for small and large deformations: formulation, analysis, and impact on remeshing strategies

Nestor Rossi and Ignacio Romero

We present in this article the discretization of small and finite strain mechanics using variationally consistent, stabilized, nodal strain finite element formulations. We prove that these methods derive from a mixed variational principle that uses different meshes for the primal and dual variables. We demonstrate that, for both mechanical problems, nodal strain finite elements can be written as pure primal formulations with assumed strain operators. The stabilization terms are shown to be necessary and a new, general class of stabilizing functions is proposed for the finite strain regime. The ensuing formulations can be interpreted as pure particle methods because all kinematic and material information is stored at the nodes. This point of view explains the favorable properties of nodal strain methods when employed in problems that require frequent remeshing and involve inelastic materials. In these cases, the diffusion of internal variables is kept to a minimum. The numerical examples presented validate the claims.
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Physics and Society

The hierarchical organization of urban social overlap: How shared social spaces diverge from physical mobility

Bibandhan Poudyal, Mariana Macedo, Ronaldo Menezes et al. (+1 more)

Cities are commonly characterized through population density, infrastructure, and mobility flows. These quantities describe where people are and how they move, but movement does not uniquely determine where populations repeatedly encounter one another or whether different locations participate in the same social environments. Here, we construct co-presence overlap networks across 13 Brazilian cities to distinguish these dimensions of urban organization. We introduce two complementary measures: colocation, which quantifies recurrent co-presence activity within individual locations, and co-connectedness, which measures the extent to which locations share the same co-present pairs. We find that the spatial concentration of colocation differs substantially from that of mobility, producing social centers that can differ in both number and location from mobility centers. At the network level, co-connectedness exhibits a non-random hierarchical organization in which locations preferentially share recurrent pairs with locations of similar activity. This hierarchy is systematically weaker and substantially more variable across cities than the corresponding mobility hierarchy, demonstrating that cities with similar mobility organization can differ in how recurrent social overlap is organized across locations. Finally, we show that the spatial proximity of colocation activity to social centers relative to residential centers provides a complementary spatial dimension of urban organization. Together, these results separate three features that are conflated when cities are characterized through mobility alone: movement between locations, local opportunities for social interaction, and the organization of recurrent social overlap across locations.
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All authors Bibandhan Poudyal, Mariana Macedo, Ronaldo Menezes, Gourab Ghoshal

High Energy Physics (Experiment)

Quark-Parton Fusion and the Scaling of Hadron Production at the LHC

A.B. Kurepin and E.V. Karpechev

Hadron production, including pions, kaons and antiprotons, in proton-proton collisions at an energy of 7 TeV at the ALICE facility has been studied. For the data analysis, a generalised parton model was used, which takes into account the interaction of two partons in colliding beams and the production of new particles. Considering the effects of parton fusion and compound state formation results in a scaling dependence of the hadron production cross sections of different species.
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Fluid Dynamics

Physical mechanism of turbulence attenuation by polymers from a timescale perspective

Hayato Masuda, Yusuke Koide, Yutaro Motoori et al. (+1 more)

To elucidate the physical mechanism of turbulence attenuation by polymers at each scale, we conduct direct numerical simulations of homogeneous isotropic turbulence in dilute polymer solutions. We model polymers as FENE dumbbells and simulate them using Brownian dynamics. By visualising the hierarchical structures of coherent vortices, we demonstrate that as the Weissenberg number increases, polymers progressively suppress vortices from smaller to larger scales, attenuating their turbulent energy. While inspired by Lumley's theory, we propose a novel timescale-based framework for analysing this attenuation process using the scale decomposition. We define a scale-dependent Weissenberg number, $\mathrm{Wi}_{\mathrm{sd}}(k)$, as the ratio of the polymer relaxation time to the turnover time of multiscale vortices at each wave-number. We reveal that when expressed in terms of $\mathrm{Wi}_{\mathrm{sd}}(k)$, the energy attenuation rate at each scale collapses onto a single curve that rises at $\mathrm{Wi}_{\mathrm{sd}}(k) \gtrsim 1$, proving that $\mathrm{Wi}_{\mathrm{sd}}(k)$ successfully describes both the onset and the degree of turbulence attenuation at any given scale $k^{-1}$. Furthermore, the scale decomposition uncovers that polymers preferentially align with the turbulent stretching direction at the scale satisfying $\mathrm{Wi}_{\mathrm{sd}}(k) \approx 1$. Based on these results, we establish a physical picture of the polymer–turbulence interaction and explicitly link it to the statistics in turbulence attenuated by polymers.
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All authors Hayato Masuda, Yusuke Koide, Yutaro Motoori, Susumu Goto

Optics

Multidimensional attosecond clocking near Dirac cones in graphite

Daniel Kroeger, Anna Hassine, Eyal Uzner et al. (+5 more)

Two-color high-harmonic spectroscopy is widely used to access sub-cycle electron dynamics and to retrieve harmonic timing information, including harmonic phases and attochirp across gases, solids, and liquids. However, the dependence of such timing observables on additional laser-control parameters remains largely unexplored. Here, we introduce driving intensity as an additional dimension of two-color harmonic spectroscopy in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). The retrieved attosecond two-color delays maximizing the 4th and 5th harmonic yields evolve systematically and differently with driving intensity. Semiconductor Bloch-equation calculations reproduce these trends and reveal a pronounced sensitivity of the intensity-dependent delays to the electronic band dispersion. Our results demonstrate multidimensional attosecond clocking near Dirac cones and establish intensity-dependent two-color delays as a sensitive observable for band-dispersion in quantum materials.
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All authors Daniel Kroeger, Anna Hassine, Eyal Uzner, Camilo Granados, Marcelo F. Ciappina, Ofer Neufeld, Michael Krüger, Zhaopin Chen

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Gauge-invariant Higgs mechanism via gradient-flow regularization

Gunnar S. Bali

We provide a manifestly gauge-invariant description of the Higgs mechanism in the Standard Model, casting it not as the breaking of a local symmetry, but as a smooth, analytic crossover from a high-temperature symmetric phase to a low-temperature Higgs phase. Taking the vacuum expectation value of a gauge-invariant local scalar operator and constructing composite quasi-particle states from the original fields of the Lagrangian usually introduces contact-term divergences. Previous attempts to circumvent this issue via bilocal operators remain unsatisfactory. Here we demonstrate that the gradient flow at a flow time $t$ provides a clean, structurally sound, and Lorentz-covariant regularization that permits a consistent, renormalon-free matching onto the standard $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme at a scale $\mu \sim 1/\sqrt{2t}\gg m_t$. Beyond its theoretical appeal, this construction clarifies a number of conceptional and practical questions. We demonstrate the utility of this framework at the one-loop level, thereby establishing the foundation for future electroweak precision physics in this approach.
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Exactly Solvable and Integrable Systems

Integral Representations for Solutions of the Linearized Fourth Painleve Equation

Oleg M. Kiselev

We formulate the linearization of the fourth Painlevé equation as a linearized Hamiltonian system and transform the scalar variational equation to normal form, with the first-derivative term eliminated. From the canonical fundamental solutions of the Jimbo–Miwa Lax pair, we construct quadratic expressions $Q_{IV}$ and $R_{IV}$ that satisfy the identity $\partial_x^2Q_{IV}-U_{IV}Q_{IV}=\partial_\lambda R_{IV}$. Here $U_{IV}$ is the coefficient in the normal-form equation. A rapid-decay cycle with a vanishing boundary term yields an integral solution of the linearized equation. Every nontrivial such cycle has asymptotic branches in at least two distinct Stokes sectors; otherwise the integral vanishes by Cauchy's theorem. A second rapid-decay homology class gives another integral solution. The Wronskian of the two integral solutions depends holomorphically on the monodromy data, so a single nonzero value implies generic linear independence. For one set of complex data, direct quadrature gives numerical evidence of a nonzero Wronskian. We also derive integral formulas for variations of the Stokes multipliers, the connection matrix, and the local monodromy, and verify the contour representation by substitution into the linearized equation.
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Mathematical Physics

Extremal States of Multipartite Quantum Spin Systems

Oskar Olander

We consider two quantum spin models on $k$-partite graphs. The system is assumed to be invariant under all permutations within any of the $k$ sets. In the limit of infinitely many particles, the Gibbs state is described as a mixture of independent spins due to a version of the Quantum de Finetti theorem. First, we study a spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model and identify its three phases. At low temperature all $k$ sets are magnetised but cancel each other, at medium temperature there is a net magnetic field and at high temperature there is no magnetisation. The magnetisation temperature is a solution to a $k$-degree polynomial. Second, we allow a general spin $s$ and identify all orthogonally invariant models which have frustration. The criterium for a frustration-free model is that the $k$-sets can be partitioned into two parts, where the only antiferromagnetic interaction is between the two parts.
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