Papers

Structural nonlinearity is the emergence of nonlinear input-output transformations from purely linear processes. In optics, this arises from the multiple interactions of light with input data. Current implementations achieve either a finite number of interactions, or partial modulation of the optical field. In this study, we present an architecture that combines both arbitrarily many interactions and full modulation. Our design consists of a Fabry-Pérot cavity, where one mirror is replaced by a spatial light modulator on which data is displayed. We develop an analytical model from which we derive closed-form expressions for the main metrics of nonlinearity, and find good agreement with experiment. Our analysis extends beyond the present implementation and reveals relationships that are independent of a specific physical system, providing a basis for a unified description of structural nonlinearity, and a first-principles design guide for machine learning applications.

Companion to arXiv:2609.10614, which built a physics judge that classifies the gap symmetry of a superconductor candidate from its structure and showed that generation in the wire families re-finds the known canon. Here the judge is applied end to end to the single compound that survived its own screen. From 58 iron-pnictide compositions in the electronic window of BaFe$_2$As$_2$ absent from the Materials Project, a zero-cost literature-and-stability screen leaves one with no bulk synthesis and no band-structure, magnetic or pairing calculation: NaFeP (111-type, P4/nmm, Fe$^{2+}$ d$^6$, arsenic-free). The judge, refined with an explicit Stoner gate and a frame-independent symmetry reader, returns a paramagnetic DFT ground state and an s$\pm$ gap: a clean sign reversal between the hole cylinders at Gamma and the electron sheets at the zone corner, at nesting vector (1/2,1/2,1/2), in every basis and cell tried. Whether the gap is nodeless is where the instrument is tested. The phosphorus height (1.16 Å) lies below the empirical threshold of about 1.33 Åseparating nodal from nodeless pnictides, so the structural rule calls NaFeP nodal. The sealed verdict on a metal-only basis said nodeless; a d+p basis that passes the same gates puts the inner hole cylinder at the node threshold (min|g|/max|g| = 0.07-0.10), and a scan of the phosphorus height reproduces, inside one compound, the ingredients of the height rule: a third hole pocket, a switch of the nesting vector to (1/2,1/2,0), a monotonic approach to the Stoner instability, and near-degeneracy of s$\pm$ and d channels beyond 1.33 Å. The prediction we stand behind is the d+p reading: an s$\pm$ superconductor with a near-nodal inner hole sheet, on the LiFeP side of the rule, with the disagreement between bases reported, not resolved by choice. No Tc is asserted; the discriminating measurement, nodal or nodeless, is stated in advance.

Empirical mass-radius relations have long been used in exoplanetology to study planet demographics and to predict masses and radii for objects where only one of these is known. Inferred transitions between planet classes can also provide empirical evidence in support of theory. However, mass-radius relations fitted in two-dimensions can be complicated when additional factors influence the planetary parameters, as is the case with the radius inflation of giant planets. In this work, we present an empirical mass-radius relation derived by fitting a broken power-law to a cleaned PlanetS sample from which inflated giants have been removed. We find that when inflated giants are excluded, the preferred model contains three breakpoints and four segments, showing the emergence of a distinct Saturnian regime between $54\pm3~{\rm M_\oplus} <M< 258\pm11~{\rm M_\oplus}$. In this regime, planets are still growing but at a lower rate than the Neptunian regime, consistent with the onset of gravitational self-compression. We also update the irradiation threshold for giant planet inflation, $S_{\rm thr}=99~\rm S_\oplus$ ($1.3~\rm ergs\,s^{-1}\,cm^{-2}$); below $S_{\rm thr}$, 90% of giant planets have a radius excess $\Delta \log{R}<2\sigma$.

Disc evolution dictates the time for planet formation providing the raw material to build the planets' cores. Dynamical stellar masses derived from the kinematics of the gas in discs provide constraints on the ages of very young stars, offering a powerful approach to studying disc evolution and the epoch of giant-planet formation. We investigated a sample of 33 solar-type stars with bright protoplanetary discs and ages between 1 and 9\,Myr. We modeled the spectral energy distributions and ALMA dust continuum images simultaneously to constrain the stellar radius and effective temperature, accretion rate, disc dust mass, the radii of the inner and outer disc regions (roughly separated at the ice line), and the maximum grain size in the inner disc. Combining the stellar masses and radii with stellar evolutionary models, we derived individual stellar ages. We found that the accretion rate and the dust mass of the inner disc evolve with time. The dust mass of the inner disc correlates with the observed accretion rates for stars younger than 2\, Myr. A depletion of centimetre-sized grains in the inner disc is observed in more than half of the analysed stars with ages between 2 and 5\, Myr indicating the action of a mechanism that inhibits the inward drift of large grains, potentially associated with the progressive growth of giant-planet cores more massive than 30 \MEarth, although the exact mass threshold remains uncertain. In addition, three discs exhibiting strong asymmetries in their ALMA continuum emission are associated with stars with ages of $\sim$2\, Myr. The results provide observational indications of significant changes in the dust distribution during the epoch when giant planets may be forming.

Adaptive-Optics assisted astronomical imaging and satellite imaging from the ground share many commonalities but have also specificities. In particular satellites are non-stationary objects in terms of both shape and flux, encouraging relatively short exposure times. Besides, very short exposures freeze the turbulence and preserve high spatial frequency information in speckles, but at the cost of a low image SNR, which complicates the post-processing. Conversely, long exposures lead to speckle-less images where some high frequency information is lost. In this communication, we propose a method for determining the exposure time that optimizes the image quality after post-processing. In particular, we focus on the reduction of the jitter effects – induced by atmospheric tip-tilt residues, vibrations and object non stationarity – which may dramatically reduce the image quality when imaging satellites. Our model takes into account the object type and flux, the residual aberrations power spectral density and the noise level.

Ionization profile monitors (IPM) are used in many accelerator laboratories around the world for non-destructive profile measurements of high-energy particle beams. They have been used in nearly all the synchrotrons built at Fermilab and are presently used in the Main Injector (MI), Recycler (RR), and Booster. This paper will present the current status of the design of a new pair of IPMs to be installed in the Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA), an experimental proton storage ring with a beam energy of 2.5 MeV. The design incorporates aspects of several IPMs previously or currently used at FNAL. Similar to the Booster IPM, ions are collected rather than electrons, thus requiring no external magnetic field. To increase the signal, each IPM uses two microchannel plates in the chevron configuration as is done in the MI/RR IPMs, and due to the ring's ultrahigh vacuum conditions, the local vacuum pressure is increased with a calibrated leak, akin to the former Tevatron IPMs, to increase the ionization yield per bunch. Data acquisition includes upgraded preamplifiers and leveraging of the digitizer design of the beam position monitor system already in use at IOTA. In addition to the mechanical and electronic designs, simulation results of the effects of the electric fields and injected gas on the circulating beam will also be presented.

Protoplanetary discs' infrared water spectra (e.g. as observed by JWST) encode information about the underlying water distribution and physical conditions. In this work, we examine and quantify the imprint of various dynamical processes (operating alone or in unison) on water abundances and emerging spectra using a new 2D model called Molecular emission Affected by Gas, Pebble, and Ice Evolution (MAGPIE). This model combines diffusion and advection for water (and associated species) and dust grains with aerodynamically decoupled pebbles, and photodissociation and a gas-phase water formation prescription. In general, we find that transport processes have a major impact on the inner disc's water content and can (re)plenish the layer above the ice reservoir which in static models is water-poor due to photodissociation. In particular, adding diffusion to a chemical model can result in strong changes in the spectrum (e.g. a flux increases of colder compared to warmer water lines) that recent work has associated with pebble drift. Adding pebble drift dramatically increases the inner disc water abundance but, surprisingly, does not readily lead to a further increase of cold water tracers as (1) efficient outward transport of water vapour is inhibited by a conveyor belt effect of incoming pebbles, and (2) the increase in hot water line fluxes overshadows smaller increases of colder lines. We conclude that dynamical processes have a significant but complex impact on water spectra. Future work should explore a range in stellar (e.g. UV irradiation) and disc properties to comprehensively understand the observed diversity of water emission.

We present a new multiplicative next-to-leading order (NLO) matching scheme in Pythia 8 for deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) processes in electron-proton collisions. The implementation is based on numerical event-by-event integration over the virtual corrections and real-emission phase-space and matrix-element corrections (MECs) for the first parton-shower emission. The latter has been included for two parton-shower options currently available in Pythia 8 to handle DIS processes, the default shower with dipole-recoil option and Vincia. The implementation has been validated against other available NLO-capable event generators and compared to experimental data from the HERA collider. In all cases we find very good agreement confirming the validity of the new Pythia implementation. We also study the impact of the MECs in each shower and consider the implications for the upcoming Electron-Ion collider.

We study strictly localized mixed states in quantum field theory: states that are indistinguishable from vacuum outside some spacetime region. Such states are generated from the vacuum by so-called Licht maps. While the states associated with individual outcomes of local, projective measurements on the vacuum are not strictly localized, the corresponding non-selective states are strictly localized and even admit decompositions into strictly localized pure states. Remarkably, however, there are strictly localized mixed states that cannot be written as mixtures of pure states strictly localized to the same region. Such states can arise from unsharp local measurements. Finally, we extend Knight's theorem to mixed states, showing that strictly localized bosonic mixed states contain terms with arbitrarily high particle numbers.

We theoretically investigate the indistinguishability of single photons generated from single trapped $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ions in a Raman scattering process driven by few-nanosecond excitation pulses. Of particular interest is how spontaneous decay back to the initial state affects Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) photon interference. Numerical simulations identify the mean number of back-decays as a measurable quantity that correlates with achievable HOM visibility. Optimization of the excitation pulse with respect to a trade-off between photon yield and indistinguishability is analyzed. Finally, we compare the performance of different trapped-ion species for long-range dual-rail entanglement swapping via HOM photon interference.

Odd slip at solid-liquid interfaces, characterized by a velocity component perpendicular to the applied shear stress, introduces a novel class of odd transport phenomena with transverse momentum transfer at boundaries, distinct from odd viscosity, odd elasticity, or odd diffusivity. This effect arises on chiral active surfaces with persistent energy input and defined handedness, such as carpets of rotating biological or synthetic cilia with flexible anchoring. Although odd slip itself is dissipationless, its maintenance in active systems comes at an energetic cost, which we estimate from the microscopic model. With respect to its orientation dependence, odd slip can be classified as pseudo-scalar or pseudo-vectorial. We use a perturbative expansion to determine the resistance tensors of problems with different levels of broken symmetries. They reveal how the surface chirality and body asymmetry together violate the Onsager symmetry, but uphold the Onsager-Casimir reciprocity. Strikingly, suspensions of particles with odd slip embedded in a conventional Newtonian bulk fluid exhibit odd viscosity, providing a new minimal mechanism for its emergence beyond current microscopic models.

Low-dimensional Dirac systems offer a versatile platform for quantum-geometric non-linear transport. Hexagonal warping in topological insulator (TI) surface states generates rich momentum-space geometric textures. However, mirror and time-reversal symmetries strictly constrain both the Berry curvature and quantum metric dipoles to zero. Here, we show that proximity-coupling a hexagonally warped TI to a d-wave altermagnet lifts spatial mirror symmetry via the interplay of C_{3v} warping and d-wave spin-splitting. This symmetry breaking enables finite Berry curvature dipole components, which, however, remain heavily suppressed near charge neutrality, establishing the intrinsic quantum metric dipole as the sole driver of the non-linear Hall response. This scattering-independent response vanishes at \mu = 0 and exhibits odd parity under chemical potential inversion. Importantly, rotating the altermagnetic orientation angle \phi continuously tunes quantum metric dipole and induces a sign reversal, peaking near \phi=0 and vanishing at \phi = \pi/4. Our findings highlight TI-altermagnet interfaces as ideal candidates for gate- and orientation-tunable quantum metric spintronics.

In this note we announce the limiting shape for the height function of a uniformly distributed alternating sign matrix (equivalently, a six-vertex model with equal weights and domain-wall boundary conditions)

Recent JWST observations have revealed a large population of faint Quasi-Stellar Objects (QSOs) at redshifts 4 < z < 6, including a highly reddened sub-population of Little Red Dots. We exploit the sensitivity of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest 1D flux power spectrum to thermal fluctuations in the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) to place statistical constraints on the spectral properties of the QSOs. By post-processing simulated Lyman-$\alpha$ forest spectra from the Sherwood-Relics suite of Lyman-$\alpha$ forest simulations with added HeII reionization by QSOs, in conjunction with published precision measurements of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest 1D flux power spectrum between 4.2 < z < 5.0, we find that the addition of temperature boosts of the IGM within the HeIII regions improves agreement with the measured power spectra. While the contribution of the Little Red Dot population to HeII reionization is consistent with both a mild temperature boost of $\Delta T_b=1\times10^4$ K for soft spectra QSOs and $\Delta T_b=2\times10^4$ K for hard spectra QSOs, a contribution from the larger population of faint QSOs found by JWST having $M_{\rm UV} > -21.6$ is excluded at the 2$\sigma$ level if their spectra are sufficiently hard to boost the IGM temperature in HeIII regions by $\Delta T_b=2\times10^4$ K or greater.

Gravitational-wave (GW) microlensing occurs when an intervening compact object causes diffraction of the GW, imprinting characteristic frequency-dependent modulations on the observed signal. Current searches for microlensing signatures in the detected GW events, including those used to constrain the fraction of dark matter in the form of compact objects, assume an isolated point mass lens (PML) model. However, astrophysical compact objects are typically embedded within larger structures, such as galaxies, whose potentials introduce additional convergence and tidal shear, thereby perturbing the lensed signal. In this work, we study the impact of the background galaxy in the search for microlensing by compact objects using a PML model. We distribute the compact objects inside a galaxy following the Navarro-Frenk-White density profile. We model the microlensing effects using the potential of a PML embedded in a constant convergence and shear, which are, in turn, calculated from a singular isothermal sphere model of the galaxy lens. We demonstrate that neglecting the galaxy's effects can systematically reduce sensitivity in microlensing searches, particularly for high microlens masses. Thus, future searches may need to incorporate the additional effect of the lens galaxy, particularly those aimed at placing robust constraints on the abundance of compact dark matter.

The Zero-Degree Calorimeter (ZDC) at the proposed Electron-Ion Collider in China (EicC) is essential for detecting forward-going neutral particles and supporting the core nucleon spin and 3D imaging physics programs. In this work, a highly compact Spaghetti Calorimeter (SPACAL) architecture is proposed and optimized as the baseline design for the ZDC hadronic section. To systematically and quantitatively evaluate its physics capabilities, a comprehensive end-to-end Geant4 simulation framework was developed, integrating energy deposition, optical photon transport, photo-detection, and modeled front-end signal digitization. The optimized detector demonstrates excellent performance for neutron detection, achieving an energy resolution of $33.42\%/\sqrt{E/\mathrm{GeV}} + 1.47\%$ and a timing resolution of approximately 500 ps, outperforming the targeted specification. Furthermore, full-system simulations incorporating the upstream electromagnetic calorimeter yield a sub-centimeter transverse position resolution. Moreover, topological shower shape analysis across the full detector system provides robust particle identification (PID), with photon-neutron separation accuracy reaching over $99\%$ for high-energy incident particles. These quantitative results confirm that the SPACAL design fully satisfies the stringent operational and physics requirements of the EicC forward kinematic region.

Numerical simulations of ocean flows typically require fine computational meshes to resolve the Munk scale, leading to high computational costs. Filtering-based large eddy simulation (LES) provides a way to relax the mesh size requirement by modeling the effects of the unresolved scales. For the implementation of this strategy, we propose a three-step algorithm called Evolve-Filter-Relax (EFR) that requires (i) the solution of a QGE problem, (ii) a nonlinear Helmholtz filter for the potential vorticity field leveraging an indicator function, and (iii) a final relaxation step. We show that the EFR algorithm can be interpreted as a splitting scheme for a perturbed QGE problem with additional dissipation and provide a practical choice for the relaxation parameter. For comparison, we also investigate a nonlinear Bardina regularization of the QGE. Numerical results on a classical benchmark show that both the EFR approach and the nonlinear Bardina regularization significantly improve the accuracy and stability of coarse mesh simulations with no LES model. Additionally, the EFR method with a deconvolution-based indicator function delivered the best balance between accuracy, stability, and computational efficiency in a test case involving a more realistic geometry (Mediterranean Sea).

Reliable catalogs at the faint limit are essential for statistical studies of galaxy evolution. However, detection and structural measurements of faint galaxies remain challenging. We evaluate detection completeness and structural parameter uncertainties of faint galaxies in the CANDELS/EGS field using mock images and observations from the HST and JWST. The framework is also applicable to large high-redshift surveys, including Euclid, the upcoming CSST, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. We detect sources in the EGS F160W mosaic using a 1.5\sigma threshold and quantify detection completeness and false-detection rates with realistic mock images. Mock galaxy-pair tests assess blending effects on both source detection and structural measurements in sersic fitting. In addition, the overlap with CEERS observations is used to derive an empirical criterion for separating true faint galaxies from fake detections using HST photometry. We identify 72,467 sources in the CANDELS/EGS field, including 57,444 fainter than 25 mag in F160W. Detection completeness exceeds 95% for objects brighter than 25 mag but declines to <50% beyond 27 mag (with false detection rate>50%). Structure parameters from single sersic modeling are reliable down to mH = 25 mag. For galaxies at 25<mH<27 mag, systematic biases in the sersic index reach \Delta n \approx 5-70%, while \Delta q decreases from approximately -0.03 to -0.27. Close companions (~0.3 arcsec) introduce measurable biases in recovered sersic magnitudes and shapes, while the impact becomes negligible at larger separations. An empirical criterion based on mH, F814W-F160W color, R50, and zphot separates true faint galaxies from false detections, reaching 72% completeness and 84% purity. It yields a final catalog of 59,646 objects consistent with previous CANDELS measurements at bright magnitudes while reaching fainter limits.

A central question in bottom-up holography is whether a given bulk effective theory admits a consistent holographic dual. In this work, we explore whether the near-singularity Kasner scaling of planar AdS black hole interiors can serve as a useful diagnostic based on interior-sensitive holographic probes. By examining the metric combinations that control interior-sensitive observables, including Complexity=Volume (CV), the bulk contribution to Complexity=Action (CA), Hartman-Maldacena (HM) entropy, and the thermal $a$-function, we derive algebraic bounds on the Kasner exponents $(p_t,p_s)$ for the relevant semi-classical regimes: finite-radius late-time branches of CV and HM, finite CA complexity, and a finite near-singularity thermal $a$-function. The resulting inequalities delineate the corresponding regions of Kasner space in which the terminal scaling alone is sufficient to realize these behaviors. Furthermore, we demonstrate that classical energy conditions, specifically the null and dominant energy conditions, provide simple sufficient criteria ensuring that the Kasner exponents fall within these holographically allowed regions. These results establish a direct connection between classical bulk energy conditions and the interior geometry selected by holographic probes, and suggest that Kasner scaling can provide a complementary diagnostic in bottom-up holography.

Entanglement can enhance precision in phase estimation and in frequency estimation with atomic clocks, but it remains a central challenge to identify useful states and measurements under realistic noise processes. Here, we study quantum metrology with an ensemble of atoms subject to spontaneous emission, which limits frequency estimation by constraining the useful interrogation time. We identify spin grid states (SGSs) as the relevant near-optimal probes beyond a crossover at an ensemble size of 51, where GHZ-like states cease to be optimal. SGSs display a periodic grid on the Bloch sphere and can be generated with two one-axis-twisting (OAT) operations separated by a collective rotation. By optimizing the quantum Fisher information over permutationally symmetric states, we find that SGSs perform close to the globally optimal probes for intermediate and large ensembles, which turn out to be spin GKP states. We further present a sequential readout strategy that nearly saturates the corresponding quantum Fisher information. This strategy uses an OAT echo to map spontaneous-emission events onto collective rotations, making the corresponding jump sectors distinguishable and allowing the measurement basis to be conditioned on the number of decay events. Together, these results show that SGSs provide a practical route to quantum-enhanced phase and frequency metrology in atomic ensembles limited by spontaneous emission.

We present a hardware-efficient hybrid trigger for FPGA-based radio detection of extensive air showers. The hybrid design consists of a lightweight denoiser that cleans raw ADC traces and a compact classifier that operates on the denoised output, enabling robust near-threshold pulse detection in high-interference environments. Both neural networks are trained quantization-aware. Signals are generated from detector-folded CoREAS/CORSIKA simulations and embedded into measured noise to form a realistic benchmark. The trigger reaches an AUC of 0.992 while fitting comfortably within the resource budget of a Zynq-7000 Z-7020, with microsecond-scale latency and sub-watt power consumption. RTL validation confirms agreement between the fixed-point hardware and the quantized software model, demonstrating that neural denoising combined with classification provides reliable, low-cost radio triggering in noisy environments.

The ongoing use of Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) as standardisable candles relies on an additional correction for the relationship between their standardised brightnesses and host galaxy properties. Currently, this correction is built on host stellar mass, typically derived from optical-only SED fitting, which recent analyses suggest may not fully capture the underlying environmental properties. This relationship is stronger when considering the regions closest to the SNe, rather than the galaxies as a whole. I use a sample of SNe Ia in DustPedia galaxies and CIGALE SED fitting to compare the local environments of 90 nearby SNe Ia against the global properties of their hosts. The UV-to-FIR coverage of DustPedia enables improved dust constraints, and helps break the age-dust degeneracy that limits optical-only studies; to my knowledge this coverage has not been previously applied to the sub-galactic regions around SNe Ia. Stellar mass and dust mass are lower locally simply because the aperture encloses less of the galaxy; however, for colour, sSFR, and dust attenuation, local values differ from the host average by more than measurement uncertainty alone allows, with attenuation showing the strongest discrepancy ($p=6.3\times10^{-5}$). Only mass-weighted age is consistent locally and globally. Galaxy-integrated properties therefore do not capture the true conditions at the SN location. SN siblings (sharing a host galaxy) only emphasise this effect. Siblings sampling the same galaxy structure, such as two SNe in spiral arms, have consistent environments, whilst others diverge. Standardising on global properties may therefore mask the differences that drive the brightness-environment relationship.

We study the stationary spectrum of a coherently driven single-mode Kerr cavity in Bargmann–Fock space. For positive Kerr coupling the Hamiltonian is self-adjoint, bounded below, and has compact resolvent. For nonzero drive, a minimal-solution continued fraction yields an exact scalar spectral condition, with all eigenvalues simple. A Liouville transformation identifies the eigenvalue equation with a degenerate double-confluent Heun problem and classifies its singularities. An Olver-type Volterra construction gives normalized sectorial solutions at infinity with explicit error bounds. In the strong-drive regime, the leading turning-point energy coefficient is proved, whereas the next coefficient remains conditional on a stated global-connection conjecture; independent Bogoliubov and complex-WKB calculations provide consistency checks. A formal weak-drive expansion is verified from the Bargmann recurrence, and its upper-edge tridiagonal series is summed in closed form. Exploratory WKB iteration portraits are included only as visual aids and do not establish the conjectural global connection.

The European XFEL generates bursts of up to 4096 ultra-short X-ray flashes with a spacing of only 222 ns every 100 ms. These flashes are produced in the linear electron acceler- ator by undulators and guided 1 kilometer in vacuum pipes until they reach the scientific experiments. Accurate synchronization and the availability of information about all configurable pulses within a single burst, which can vary every 10 Hz cycle, enable the full potential of control, monitoring, and measurement in terms of accuracy and utilization. The MicroTCA-based timing system provides all the necessary capabilities. However, the industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which manage most of the control electronics of the beamlines and experiments, are only synchronized on a millisecond-level through UART and NTP interfaces. This paper presents a new development based on an FPGA SoC EtherCAT solution in MicroTCA that implements an interface to the PLC using distributed clocks to achieve synchronization on nanosecond-level and provide beam-related information in a deterministic manner.

Road passenger transport faces acute disruption risks from flash flooding from heavy rainfall. To capture system complexity and dynamics for assessing its flood resilience, this study (a) proposes performance metrics to quantify disruption impacts from physical, operational, environmental, social, and economic dimensions, and (b) develops an integrated modelling framework to assess selected metrics by combining rainfall modelling, surface water flood modelling, and agent-based transport modelling to simulate asset-level disruptions and user behavioural responses. This methodology is demonstrated through a 1-in-30-year rainfall event in Tyne and Wear, North East England. Three behavioural response scenarios to rainfall are simulated, including a worst-case scenario, an ideal-response scenario, and an early-warning scenario. Results highlight the potential of behavioural adaptation in enhancing road flood resilience by reducing journey delays, cancellations, and economic losses. The framework and multidimensional performance metrics offer a transferable approach for stress-testing rainfall scenarios and evaluating interventions, supporting evidence-based climate-resilient transport planning.

We examine the exact propagation of light in a McVittie spacetime to quantify the observational bias introduced on the inferred Hubble constant $H_0$ by a localized central mass embedded in an expanding asymptotically de Sitter background. By integrating the Sachs optical equations for radial null geodesics, we derive linearized analytical expressions for the areal and luminosity distances to first order in the dimensionless Hawking-Hayward coupling parameter $\mu = H_{\text{dS}} m_H$. We evaluate the magnitude of this local gravitational field effect across realistic astrophysical scales, ranging from supermassive black holes ($\text{Sgr A}^*$) to galaxy cluster halos. We show that while a McVittie central mass induces a coordinate-invariant path-focusing effect on incoming photons, the quantitative correction for local galactic parameters ($\mu \sim 10^{-16}$) is negligible ($\sim 10^{-15}\%$), proving that a localized galactic mass alone cannot resolve the $\sim 8\%$ Hubble tension. We establish strict upper bounds on the extent to which local spacetime inhomogeneity can bias low-redshift distance ladder measurements.

The target-fragmentation region in deeply inelastic electron-nucleus scattering provides insight into the partonic structure of the target, as hadrons measured in the final state retain information about the nonperturbative dynamics of spectator partons inside the nucleus. In QCD factorization theorems, this nonperturbative dynamics is encoded in objects known as fracture functions. In this paper, we study the extended quark fracture function in the limit where the struck (anti)quark carries a very small longitudinal momentum fraction, $x$. We first present an elementary derivation within the Color Glass Condensate effective field theory of the quark fracture function in terms of the dipole operator at small $x$. At the parton level, the quark extended fracture function is sensitive to gluon saturation when the transverse momentum $P_\perp$ of the outgoing parton produced in the target-fragmentation region is smaller than the nuclear saturation scale $Q_s$, in which regime the $P_\perp$ distribution becomes approximately flat. We then show, through a numerical study that incorporates the convolution of this parton-level result with a collinear fragmentation function, that hadronization largely washes out these saturation effects, as the convolution predominantly probes partonic transverse momenta that are typically larger than $Q_s$.

We investigate the star formation properties and ultraviolet (UV)/optical spectral characteristics of 142 far-infrared (FIR)-bright quasars at redshifts 1 < z < 4 to probe supermassive black hole (SMBH) and host galaxy co-evolution. By combining multi-wavelength observations with high-resolution ALMA submillimeter (submm) data, we overcome source confusion and robustly constrain star formation rates (SFRs). The inclusion of ALMA data to the Spectral Energy Distribution fitting reduces SFR estimates by ~20% for quasars with single submm counterparts and by a factor >2 for FIR-blended multi-component systems, while reducing FIR luminosity uncertainties by ~18%. The revised host SFRs span 500 and 3000 solar masses per year (median 1080 solar masses per year), confirming these systems are extreme starbursts. The very shallow positive correlation between starburst and accretion luminosities suggests that SMBH accretion and star formation in the host are not coupled on the timescales probed by the observations. Compared to the general population of FIR-faint quasars, FIR-bright sources have a factor of three higher detection rates at 1.4 GHz, predominantly following the FIR-radio correlation, and reduced CIV and Lya equivalent widths with unaffected MgII, suggesting AGN-driven winds that leave MgII relatively unaffected. Together, these results place FIR-bright quasars in a brief transitional phase, bridging heavily obscured "blowout" galaxies and optically unobscured blue quasars, where bulge assembly and SMBH growth peak simultaneously during ongoing stellar assembly.

We study an effective model of topological insulators joined along a bent interface. The Hamiltonian is a Dirac operator $\mathcal{D} = D_1\sigma_1 + D_2\sigma_2 + \kappa(x) \sigma_3$ on $L^2(\mathbb{R}^2,\mathbb{C}^2)$, where $\kappa(x)$ represents a domain wall with a corner: while initially straight, it undergoes a bend when passing from one side of $\mathbb{R}^2$ to the other. For most energies in a spectral window centered at $0$, we construct a reflectionless edge state of $\mathcal{D}$: a distorted plane wave with transmission coefficient of modulus $1$. This implies that $\mathcal{D}$ admits modes confined near $\kappa^{-1}(\{0\})$, that travel through the bend with no loss neither to the bulk nor to reflection. Our result explains experimental observations from the physics literature, as well as our own numerical simulations.

We present new results on the matching relations for gluon transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions up to one-loop accuracy. At tree-level, employing the spinor formalism, we obtain these relations up to twist 3 accuracy for both T-even and T-odd distributions, including the hadron-mass corrections. At one-loop order, we extend the parton-in-parton approach to include higher-twist operators in the small-$b$ expansion. As a result, we derive for the first time the Wandzura-Wilczek relation for the worm-gear T distributions and establish a systematic method to include mass corrections at one-loop and twist-2 accuracies.