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Tuesday 22 September

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Improved $B\to K^*_0\left(1430\right)$ transition form factors at next-to-leading order in light cone sum rules

Arslan Sikandar and M. Jamil Aslam

We present an improved determination of the $B\to K_0^*(1430)$ transition form factors using light-cone sum rules (LCSR) with an expansion near the light cone. We include the one-loop radiative corrections to the twist-2 and asymptotic twist-3 distribution amplitudes of the scalar meson and perform the calculation consistently in the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ scheme. It allowed us to quantify the impact of radiative corrections on the form factors for each twist. A daughter sum rule is used from the $B\to K_0^*(1430)$ LCSR to ascertain Borel mass and threshold parameter simultaneously. We find that the dominant theoretical uncertainties arise from the $K_0^*(1430)$ distribution amplitudes and its decay constant. Our results are presented in a form that facilitates the incorporation of future improvements in these nonperturbative inputs, including those from lattice QCD and experimental measurements, and can be readily extended to other scalar mesons.
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Soft Condensed Matter

Viscous Dissipation Governs Bubble Morphology and Failure in Soft Matter

Sushma SP, Anshul Shrivastava, Imnatoshi Jamir et al. (+2 more)

Cavitation, the growth of bubbles in fluids and soft matter, plays a central role in tissue damage, ultrasound therapies, and material failure, yet the influence of viscoelastic dissipation on bubble dynamics remains unclear. Here, we investigate cavitation in polyacrylamide hydrogels with identical elastic moduli but different viscous dissipation. We observe a striking symmetry breaking transition: elastic gels rapidly develop ellipsoidal cavities before rupture, whereas viscoelastic gels sustain large, nearly spherical bubbles. A modified Rayleigh Plesset framework shows that viscous stresses suppress shape instabilities and delay symmetry breaking, whereas elastic stresses accelerate cavity deformation. Finite element simulations independently validate these findings. The Deborah number (De) further captures the competition between material relaxation and cavity growth, with higher De associated with predominantly elastic growth and lower De with greater relaxation. Together, our results establish viscous dissipation as a key stabilizing mechanism that governs bubble morphology and failure in soft materials. These results have direct implications for understanding cavitation-mediated damage in biological tissues, optimizing therapeutic ultrasound, and advancing mechanical characterization of hydrogels for engineering and food processing applications.
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All authors Sushma SP, Anshul Shrivastava, Imnatoshi Jamir, Aritra Chatterjee, Namrata Gundiah

Quantum Physics

Measurement-Only Dynamical Phase Transitions in Spin-1 Chains

Kemal Aziz, Haining Pan and J. H. Pixley

We study measurement-only dynamics in an interacting spin-1 chain, using forced, normalized local projections rather than Born-rule-sampled measurement outcomes. Starting from the nearest-neighbor (NN) Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki (AKLT) Haldane symmetry-protected topological state, we show that competing local projectors drive this order toward three distinct dynamical phases: a featureless topologically trivial product state, an explicitly dimerized valence-bond-solid state, and a topologically trivial next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) AKLT state consisting of two interwoven Haldane chains. Using matrix product state and exact statevector simulations, we identify continuous transitions among these phases and characterize them using nonlocal string order parameters, local dimer order, and entanglement scaling. For the NN-NNN AKLT model, finite-size signatures are consistent with an intervening extended critical regime rather than a single direct transition. These results extend studies of monitored topology to a bosonic SPT and show that local projections can control both topological and valence-bond-solid order.
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Medical Physics

Towards Modeling the Hemodynamic Impact of Mitral and Aortic Valve Repair in Patients with Left Ventricular Assist Devices

Mia Bonini, Michael Ferguson, Marc Hirshvogel et al. (+4 more)

Valve dysfunction is a major threat to long-term success in left ventricle assist device (LVAD) therapy, with direct implications for right heart performance. In this study, we apply a patient-specific, image-based computational modeling framework to evaluate the hemodynamic impact of simulated mitral and aortic valve repair in five LVAD-supported patients. Each patient was modeled under four conditions: (patient-specific LVAD-supported state), simulated mitral valve (MV) repair, simulated aortic valve (AV) repair, and simulated combined MV&AV repair. Because validation data for valve repair were unavailable, the simulated repair scenarios are exploratory in silico interventions based on clinically validated patient-specific models. The models integrate dynamic CT imaging, echocardiography, catheterization data, and device-specific LVAD parameters into a coupled 3D-0D simulation pipeline. Valve dynamics are governed by transvalvular pressure and flow, allowing physiological modeling of regurgitant lesions and surgical repair. The right ventricular (RV) was assessed using a combination of model-derived metrics, including right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF), pulmonary artery pulsatility index (PAPi), and RV-PA coupling. In addition, we performed blood residence time (RT) analysis to evaluate blood stasis within the left heart and aorta. The simulations suggest that valve repair improved cardiac output, reduced pulmonary congestion, and enhanced right ventricular loading conditions. Notably, mitral valve repair restored aortic valve opening during the cardiac cycle, which improved sinus washout and reduced blood residence time within the aortic root-factors associated with lower thrombotic risk. Overall, these findings suggest a potential role for valve repair in LVAD-supported hearts, though larger, validated patient cohorts are needed to confirm these results.
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All authors Mia Bonini, Michael Ferguson, Marc Hirshvogel, Maximilian Balmus, Paul C. Tang, Francis Pagani, David Nordsletten

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

The Simons Observatory: Commissioning of the Mid-Frequency Small Aperture Telescopes

Kathleen Harrington, Remington Gerras, Nicholas Galitzki et al. (+88 more)

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey experiment observing from an altitude of 5,200 m in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The SO Small Aperture Telescopes (SATs) will cover six spectral bands between 30 and 280 GHz primarily to search for evidence of primordial gravitational waves in the large angular scale $B$-modes of the CMB polarization. The first two Mid-Frequency (MF) SATs, operating in the 90 and 150 GHz frequency bands, began commissioning observations in late 2023, and we present the results of those observations here. Each MF SAT operates with approximately 9,400 biased transition-edge sensors (TES) at 1 mm of precipitable water vapor (PWV), representing a typical 80% yield. Planet observations confirm the telescope optics performance, calibrate the instrument response, and measure the end-to-end optical efficiency of the SATs. The realized instrument efficiencies are within the range expected based on instrument model predictions. In nominal observing conditions, the noise equivalent temperatures from both telescopes combined are $2.4~\mathrm{\mu K_{CMB}\sqrt{s}}$ at 90 GHz and $3.2~\mathrm{\mu K_{CMB}\sqrt{s}}$ at 150 GHz, substantially outperforming the baseline instantaneous sensitivity targets for the observatory.
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All authors Kathleen Harrington, Remington Gerras, Nicholas Galitzki, Samuel Day-Weiss, Yoshinori Sueno, Thomas Alford, Michael J. Randall, Kyohei Yamada, Maximiliano Silva-Feaver, Kevin Crowley, Shunsuke Adachi, Alexandre E. Adler, Prakamya Agrawal, Simone Aiola, David Alonso, Kam Arnold, Susanna Azzoni, Andrew Bazarko, Sanah Bhimani, Simon Biquard, Bryce Bixler, Josh Borrow, Michael L. Brown, Erminia Calabrese, Yuji Chinone, Steve K. Choi, Nadia Dachlythra, Mark Devlin, Simon Dicker, Peter N. Dow, Shannon M. Duff, Jo Dunkley, Rolando Dunner, Daniel Dutcher, Hamza El Bouhargani, Josquin Errard, Allen Foster, Ken Ganga, John Groh, Yilun Guan, Jon E. Gudmundsson, Saianeesh Haridas, Masaya Hasegawa, Matthew Hasselfield, Shawn W. Henderson, Carlos Hervías-Caimapo, Adam D. Hincks, Renée Hložek, Johannes Hubmayr, Bradley R. Johnson, Yutaro Kasai, Brian Keating, Ben Keller, Theodore Kisner, Brian J. Koopman, Akito Kusaka, Adrian Lee, JB Lloyd, Anto Lonappan, Marius Lungu, Aashrita Mangu, Michael McCrackan, Jeff McMahon, Jenna Moore, Thomas W. Morris, Hironobu Nakata, Federico Nati, Laura Newburgh, David V. Nguyen, John Orlowski-Scherer, Lyman Page, Ioannis Paraskevakos, Tristan Pinsonneault-Marotte, Erik Rosenberg, Yuki Sakurai, Goureesankar Sathyanathan, Thomas P. Satterthwaite, Yudai Seino, Elle Shaw, Sara M. Simon, Suzanne T. Staggs, Junna Sugiyama, Junya Suzuki, Satoru Takakura, Osamu Tajima, Alex Thomas, Daniel B. Thomas, Tran Tsan, Eve Vavagiakis, Yuhan Wang, John Wilson

Quantum Physics

Coherence-Enhanced Spatial Quantum Thermometry

Asghar Ullah, Giovanni Scala, Luis L. Sánchez-Soto et al. (+1 more)

Quantum thermometry has long promised sensitivities beyond classical limits, with recent paradigms highlighting quantum coherence as a primary driver of precision. While most studies focus on single-point temperature estimation, we extend this framework to the spatial domain. We consider a probe two-level system (TLS) coupled asymmetrically to an auxiliary TLS that equilibrates with a sample of profile T(x). The reduced probe state carries coherence in its local basis that remains temperature-sensitive after the probe transition has frozen out, yielding a Fisher information exponentially larger at low temperature than that of a population-only readout. An exact reparametrization converts the thermometric precision into a local spatial distinguishability bound; its validity requires only a sufficiently small relative temperature uncertainty and yields an explicit measurement budget. Adding auxiliary TLSs shifts the array's optimal working temperature upward and broadens the useful sensing window, with the achievable gain ultimately limited by the total available coupling rather than by an indefinite scaling law. Finally, we propose a microwave Mach-Zehnder interferometer that maps the temperature-dependent probe coherence onto an experimentally accessible quadrature observable.
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All authors Asghar Ullah, Giovanni Scala, Luis L. Sánchez-Soto, Özgür E. Müstecapl{\i}oğlu

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

SN2025aico: An Interesting Case Of $^{56}$Ni Mixing, Ejecta Asymmetries, and Dust Formation in a Type IIb Supernova

Grace Davis, Kyle Medler, Chris Ashall et al. (+8 more)

Stripped-envelope supernovae provide a window into how massive stars lose their layers, mix radioactive material, produce dust, and explode asymmetrically. We present optical, near-infrared (NIR), and mid-infrared (MIR) observations of SN~2025aico, a Type~IIb supernova in LEDA~35384. Our spectroscopic sequence, spanning $+1$ to $+167$ d after explosion, follows its evolution from a photospheric phase exhibiting both hydrogen and helium features to prominent helium emission and, ultimately, nebular-phase ejecta. Using He I $1.083$ and $2.0581\,\mu$m transitions, we investigated the kinematics and geometry of the helium-rich material. Both transitions exhibit a three-phase, non-monotonic velocity evolution: an initial rapid decline, a subsequent increase, and an eventual plateau. We interpret this behavior as evidence for limited outward mixing of $^{56}$Ni, such that radioactive energy deposition reaches the outer helium-rich ejecta progressively as the ejecta expand, producing the non-thermal electrons responsible for helium excitation. After $\sim100$ d, both NIR He I transitions develop double-peaked emission profiles. Similar structure in the oxygen emission indicates ejecta asymmetry. Comparison with other supernovae suggests a tentative connection between this structure and explosion energy, potentially linked to the delay between core collapse and explosion. Serendipitous JWST observations at $+124.4$d reveal an infrared excess. Modeling favors warm ($\sim800$–$1500$K) carbon dust newly formed in the ejecta, together with cooler carbon or silicate dust likely associated with pre-existing circumstellar material. SN~2025aico demonstrates how continuous optical-to-MIR observations can connect progenitor evolution, explosion physics, ejecta geometry, and dust production.
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All authors Grace Davis, Kyle Medler, Chris Ashall, Willem B. Hoogendam, Cameron Pfeffer, David O. Jones, Shunsaku Horiuchi, Tyco Mera, Benjamin Shappee, Charlotte Ward, Grace Showerman

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Radio Quasars in the Cosmic Dawn: A Spectroscopic Sample from the DESI Survey

Anniek J. Gloudemans, Jinyi Yang, David M. Alexander et al. (+55 more)

We present the largest statistical spectroscopic sample of radio quasars at 4.7<z<6.7 to date. These have been selected from a dedicated Dark Energy Survey Instrument (DESI) target program and provide a robust sample to study the influence of radio jets on early quasar evolution. Using low-frequency radio data from the LOFAR Two Metre Sky Survey Data Release 3 (LoTSS-DR3) at 144 MHz, we identify 83 high-z radio quasars, 26 of which are classified as radio-loud (5-15% of 646 confirmed high-z quasars, defined as $R = F_{5\text{GHz}}/F_{4400A} >10$). With radio luminosities of $\sim10^{25-28}$ W/Hz, the radio emission in all 83 quasars is expected to be jet-dominated rather than powered by star formation. Analysis of their rest-frame ultra-violet (UV) spectra reveals broadly similar composite spectral properties and CIV velocity shifts compared to radio non-detected quasars. The radio-detected and radio-loud quasars exhibit slightly smaller Ly$\alpha$ and CIV equivalent widths on average, however, we find no significant evidence ($\sim1.3\sigma$) for a higher fraction of weak-line quasars (WLQs; ~10+/-4% versus ~4+/-1% for radio non-detected quasars). We further find that the broad absorption line (BAL) quasars are predominantly radio-quiet, and no correlation is observed between absorption index and radio-loudness, suggesting that radio emission is not produced by the BAL outflows themselves and are physically distinct phenomena. Our results demonstrate that powerful radio jets were already well-established by z~5.
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All authors Anniek J. Gloudemans, Jinyi Yang, David M. Alexander, Arjun Dey, Xiaohui Fan, Victoria A. Fawcett, Martin J. Hardcastle, Stephanie Juneau, George K. Miley, Leah K. Morabito, Adam D. Myers, Swayamtrupta Panda, Huub J. A. Röttgering, Timothy Shimwell, Daniel J. B. Smith, Feige Wang, J. Aguilar, S. Ahlen, D. Bianchi, D. Brooks, T. Claybaugh, A. Cuceu, A. de la Macorra, P. Doel, S. Ferraro, J. E. Forero-Romero, E. Gaztañaga, S. Gontcho A Gontcho, G. Gutierrez, C. Hahn, M. Ishak, R. Joyce, R. Kehoe, D. Kirkby, T. Kisner, A. Kremin, M. Landriau, L. Le Guillou, M. E. Levi, M. Manera, A. Meisner, R. Miquel, J. Moustakas, S. Nadathur, W. J. Percival, F. Prada, I. Pérez-Ràfols, A. Robertson, G. Rossi, E. Sanchez, E. F. Schlafly, D. Schlegel, J. Silber, D. Sprayberry, G. Tarlé, B. A. Weaver, R. Zhou, H. Zou

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Impact of neutral fluxes and signal significance optimization on semi-exclusive $pp \to t\bar{t}$ production via deep learning training

A. Cota Rodríguez, Jesús Alberto V. Corral and J. A. Murillo Quijada

Photon flux benchmark models and recent experimental estimates of pomeron energy fluxes and structure functions are implemented in Monte Carlo simulations to assess their impact on physical observables and signal strength uncertainty for the yet-to-be-observed semi-exclusive $t\bar{t}$ production in proton-proton ($pp$) collisions at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Future Circular Collider (FCC) energies. The expected cross sections increase by factors of approximately 50 and 22 for pomeron-induced and photon-induced processes, respectively, from LHC to FCC energies. TensorFlow deep neural networks discriminate semi-exclusive processes from the non-peripheral $t\bar{t}X$ background, achieving a test area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of $0.9917 \pm 0.0002$ for the photon-induced signal. At detector level, using the CMS detector geometry at CERN, the minimum Hadronic Forward energy observable is identified as the most effective discriminator against this background. For low-pileup $pp$ data, an Asimov dataset analysis incorporating statistical uncertainties and systematic contributions from pomeron and photon schemes predicts a significance of $5\sigma$ for pomeron-induced and photon-induced $t\bar{t}$ production with integrated luminosities of 1 and 4.7 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$, respectively. The systematic contributions to the total uncertainty are 25.1% and 7.6%, respectively. These results highlight the potential for experimental observation using Run 2 and Run 3 LHC data and for further studies within the LHC forward physics program.
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Statistical Mechanics

First Passage in the Presence of Jump Rate Fluctuations: A Transition from Infinite to Finite Mean

Bara Levit and Shlomi Reuveni

A simple symmetric random walk on a one-dimensional lattice is guaranteed to reach any target site, yet its mean first-passage time diverges. Here, we show that stochastic fluctuations in the jump rate can fundamentally alter this classic result. We find a phase transition in the mean first-passage time: sufficiently broad rate fluctuations render it finite, whereas weaker fluctuations leave it infinite. Our results demonstrate that temporal fluctuations in the jump rate—and hence in the diffusivity—can overcome spatial wandering and regularize otherwise divergent first-passage times.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Simulated Effects of Radioactive Elements on Magnetic Evolution and Atmospheric Mass Loss of Earth-like Planets

Nathaniel Tanglin and Juliette Becker

Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in recent decades, yet Earth remains the only known world with life. To assess the potential habitability of other planets, we must identify the importance of various physical conditions that may contribute to sustaining life. One such factor is the presence of a planetary magnetic field. A planet's magnetic field can protect its atmosphere from photoevaporation, and its long-term strength depends on interior heat flow driven by radiogenic heating from isotopes such as 40K, 232Th, 235U, and 238U. In this work, we use the VPLanet code to simulate the coupled thermal, magnetic, and atmospheric evolution of Earth-like planets with varying radiogenic heat budgets orbiting G-, K-, and M-dwarf stars. The range of isotope abundances tested is based on observed stellar elemental distributions for planet-hosting stars in the Milky Way. We find that variations in radiogenic heating slightly extend dynamo lifetimes and reduces atmosphere and surface water loss for K- and G-dwarf systems, while its effects are more negligible for M dwarfs. Our results show that, while stellar irradiation and planetary location primarily control photoevaporation rates, radiogenic heating contributes to planetary habitability in a small subset of cases and may help refine target selection for future surveys.
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Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Interlayer-correlated fractional quantum Hall state in a trilayer electron system

Chengyu Wang, C. T. Tai, N. Toemtrisna et al. (+4 more)

In multilayer quantum Hall systems, when the layer separation is sufficiently small, the interplay between intralayer and interlayer Coulomb interactions can lead to exotic, multi-component, many-body states. A particular example is the even-denominator fractional quantum Hall state (FQHS) at total filling factor $\nu=1/2$ in bilayer systems with negligible interlayer tunneling. This state can be understood as a generalized Laughlin state described by the Halperin-Laughlin $\Psi_{331}$ wavefunction. While such correlated states have been extensively explored in bilayers, little is known about their counterparts in systems with more than two layers. Here, we investigate a trilayer two-dimensional electron system confined to ultrahigh-quality GaAs triple quantum wells. We observe an exotic FQHS at total filling factor $\nu=5/7$, evinced by a deep longitudinal resistance minimum and a quantized Hall plateau, when the side layers have a density larger than the middle layer and $d/l_B \simeq 2.2$ ($d$ is the interlayer distance and $l_B$ the magnetic length). This state is naturally interpreted as the long-predicted trilayer, generalized Laughlin ($\Psi_{33311}$) state, characterized by $\nu=1/3$-like intralayer correlation within each layer and $\nu=1$-like interlayer correlation between neighboring layers. Our observation establishes a new member of the Halperin-Laughlin many-body states that extends interlayer coherence to three coupled layers.
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All authors Chengyu Wang, C. T. Tai, N. Toemtrisna, A. Gupta, L. N. Pfeiffer, K. W. Baldwin, M. Shayegan

Optics

Temporal Interfaces in Metamaterials with Shape-Varying Inclusions

Ishtiaque Rahman, Mohamed Hesham Mostafa and Viktar Asadchy

Temporal modulation of metamaterials is commonly achieved by varying constituent material properties, while changes in meta-atom geometry offer an additional means of controlling their effective response. Here, we develop an analytical and numerical framework for temporal scattering in metamaterials composed of cylindrical inclusions undergoing abrupt geometric transformations. Changing the radius of circular cylinders modifies the filling fraction and scalar in-plane effective permittivity, enabling temporal reflection, field amplification or attenuation, and frequency conversion. An area-preserving transformation from circular to elliptical cross sections introduces anisotropy, producing angle-dependent temporal scattering and redirecting the energy flow while conserving the wavevector. We derive these effects using effective-medium theory and temporal boundary conditions and compare the predictions with full-wave time-domain simulations. The simulations reproduce the main scattering and temporal-aiming trends, with larger angular deflections than predicted by the quasistatic model at higher permittivity contrasts. This suggests that moving toward the resonant regime may offer opportunities for stronger temporal aiming. These results identify inclusion geometry as a means of controlling wave amplitude, frequency, and energy-flow direction at temporal interfaces.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)

Maximal Total Quantum Dimension at Bounded Rank in Dijkgraaf-Witten Theories

Ce Shen

We investigate the maximal total quantum dimension at a bounded categorical rank cutoff $R$ in three-dimensional Dijkgraaf–Witten theories. This optimization problem physically governs the maximal state-optimized torus topological entanglement entropy at a fixed torus ground-state degeneracy, while providing a quantitative constraint on the search space required to classify these topological order phases. We analyze how topological twists (3-cocycles) and gauge-group structures independently govern this trade-off. For elementary-Abelian gauge groups at a fixed prime $p$, we prove that introducing cocycle twists elevates the maximum total quantum dimension from square-root growth $\Theta_p(R^{1/2})$ to linear growth $\Theta_p(R)$ in the rank cutoff, driven by the geometric protection of cyclic holonomies. For untwisted theories, we establish sharp envelopes for symmetric and alternating gauge groups, and derive group-theoretic bounds across almost-simple, solvable, and radical-free families. In particular, almost-simple groups and their direct products obey a quadratic-logarithmic upper envelope: $\log\mathcal{D} = O((\log R)^2)$. Finally, we compare these scales against WZW models and discuss the status of the general quadratic-logarithmic envelope conjecture.
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Quantum Physics

Influence of fast and slow laser phase noise on the fidelity of the Mølmer-Sørensen trapped-ion gate

Nikita Semenin, Ksenia Khabarova and Nikolay Kolachevsky

High-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates are essential for the realization of useful quantum algorithms on quantum processors. The Mølmer-Sørensen (MS) gate has become a common choice for trapped-ion quantum computing due to its resilience to ion temperature and its demonstrated record fidelities. However, the spectral impurity of the driving laser field impacts gate performance, with phase noise influencing the qubit dynamics through mechanisms operating on different timescales. In this work, we present a comprehensive theoretical analysis of laser phase noise in the MS gate, identifying two spectral ranges which influence the gate fidelity the most: "fast" noise at frequencies near the motional mode spectrum, and "slow" noise at frequencies on the order of the inverse gate time. We derive the noise Hamiltonians for two common laser beam geometries and obtain analytical expressions for the average gate error in terms of the laser noise power spectral density and gate parameters. For slowly varying noise spectra, we provide simplified error estimates. In addition, we validate our findings against previously published numerical simulations.
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High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Waiting in the wings: extended emission GRBs from high latitude emission and jet expansion

Isabelle Worssam, Benjamin P. Gompertz and Hendrik J. van Eerten

The process powering extended emission (EE) Gamma Ray-Bursts (GRBs) from compact object mergers is a debated problem due to their observed prompt emission timescales of 10 to 100s, far in excess of the expected accretion timescales following a binary neutron star (BNS) merger. Here, we present an analytical thin shell structured jet model designed to alleviate this tension. We show that a changing jet structure in which early emission is produced by a high Lorentz factor narrow, structured jet and later emission comes from a wider, lower Lorentz factor tophat-like jet can successfully reproduce the EE GRB phenomenology. All emitting shells are powered by a $0.1$ $M_{\odot}$ accretion torus and launched within a time window of 2s after merger. Spatially-resolved opacity checks confirm that our emission sites remain optically thin, in part due to the spectral softness associated with EE. We present light curves from our model compared to representative EE bursts detected by Swift: GRBs 211211A, 211227A and 060614. While our light curves provide good matches to the data, our spectra do not evolve fast enough when compared to the well-measured spectral evolution observed in GRB 211211A. We discuss an update to the model incorporating inherent spectral evolution in the shells as future work. We also show a parameter exploration of the model and identify a parameter range within which standard short GRB-like light curves could be produced, showcasing the ability of the model to produce short bursts with and without EE.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Supernova Gamma-Ray Echo as an Astrophysical Near Detector for Galactic Neutrino Propagation

Garv Chauhan and Yago Porto

Core-collapse supernova neutrinos offer a unique probe of physics beyond the Standard Model over Galactic baselines. Yet even a high-statistics nearby burst may be limited by source uncertainties, especially for propagation effects that average over energy and appear only as an overall flux suppression. Inspired by near–far comparisons in terrestrial oscillation experiments, we show that next-generation MeV observations of the supernova gamma-ray echo—the delayed 511 keV signal induced by the neutrino burst in the stellar envelope—can serve as an astrophysical near detector for the emitted $\bar\nu_e$ fluence. Comparing this echo-inferred source fluence with the surviving flux measured at Earth gives a direct test of neutrino propagation between the stellar surface and the detector. For pseudo-Dirac neutrinos, this turns the fully averaged active–sterile oscillation regime from an unobservable source-normalization ambiguity into a measurable near–far deficit, with sensitivity for nearby progenitors to splittings $\delta m^2\gtrsim 10^{-18}~{\rm eV}^2(0.22~{\rm kpc}/D)(E_\star/15~{\rm MeV})$. The same near–far logic also applies to other propagation-induced modifications of the observed flux, including neutrino decay and neutrino interactions with Galactic dark matter.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Interference Meets Inference: Bayesian Time-Series Modeling of Radio-Frequency Interference

Jade M. Ducharme, Andrei Li, Michael J. Wilensky et al. (+1 more)

Radio-frequency interference (RFI) remains a major challenge for modern radio astronomy experiments. In this work, we cast RFI detection as a one-dimensional time-series anomaly-detection problem and develop a probabilistic mixture-model framework for separating a smoothly varying astronomical background from anomalous contamination. The model jointly describes the clean and contaminated components and assigns each time sample a posterior probability of belonging to the RFI state, rather than relying solely on binary flags. This probabilistic formulation provides a measure of classification confidence, enables uncertainty propagation into derived downstream statistics, and offers additional information for investigating ambiguous events. We apply the framework to observations from the Murchison Widefield Array collected in 2014, producing "soft" classification labels and seasonal RFI trends. We perform a parallel analysis using the Sky-Subtracted Incoherent Noise Spectrum software pipeline (SSINS), which produces "hard" classification labels. Overall, the mixture model provides similar and in some cases superior classification results while providing a complementary probabilistic description of RFI contamination and its uncertainty.
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All authors Jade M. Ducharme, Andrei Li, Michael J. Wilensky, Adrian Liu

Mathematical Physics · Cross-listed from math.PR

Down-the-middle isometries for the Airy and KPZ sheets

Duncan Dauvergne and Fardin Syed

We find a new coupling between the Airy sheet $\mathcal{S}$ and the Airy line ensemble $\{ \mathcal{A}_n \}_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$, which we call the down-the-middle isometry. In this coupling, the Airy sheet is encoded by last passage values that start at $\mathcal{A}_k(0)$ for some $k \in \mathbb{N}$ and end on the top line $\mathcal{A}_1$. Using this coupling, we give a new construction of the (extended) Airy sheet as a scaling limit of Brownian last passage percolation and study coalescence of geodesics in the directed landscape. This coupling extends to discrete polymers and last passage percolation models, as well as to the KPZ line ensemble and KPZ sheet.
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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Scalar halos and conical matching for finite-width vortices at a wormhole throat

Vedant Subhash

We study the static matter constraint associated with a conical deficit that varies along a string near a wormhole throat. A positive scalar-dependent factor multiplying the complete Abelian-Higgs Lagrangian couples a finite-width vortex to a canonical kink. At critical coupling, we obtain the leading longitudinally varying vortex tension. The flat-kink fluctuation operator has an even translational mode and an odd shape mode of mass $\sqrt{3}/L_\chi$. Reflection symmetry excludes the translational mode from the leading sourced response. We formulate the response with nonzero dressed-string boundary conditions at the longitudinal ends and derive a finite-range transverse halo. In the overlap $w\ll\rho\ll L_\chi$, its mixed stress satisfies $2\pi C\,\delta T^{\chi\,\rho}{}_l=\partial_l\mu_v^{(0)}$ to leading order, where $2\pi C$ is the azimuthal circumference. Together with the local weak-gravity deficit relation, this supplies the leading mixed Einstein constraint of a restricted varying cone. At fixed longitudinal position the sourced halo instead decays beyond $L_\chi$. Consequently, it cannot sustain that restricted cone throughout an outer overlap unless another source contributes the missing mixed stress. This obstruction is conditional on the response of the wormhole-supporting sector and is not a no-go result for general axisymmetric metrics. A finite-width calculation checks the linear-response crossover. We specify the perturbative domain and explain why a rotating extension requires an independent solution of Gauss's law. No complete backreacted wormhole solution or stability result is claimed.
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High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Towards Foundation Models on Hardware Accelerators for Particle Physics

Maya Benyas, Julia Gonski, Qibin Liu et al. (+5 more)

Bandwidth constraints require many particle physics experiments to make real-time decisions on custom hardware or firmware running simplified algorithms, unlike offline analysis, where latency is usually not a limiting factor. For example, for particle jet tagging at colliders, state-of-the-art performance is achieved by foundation models with hundreds of millions of parameters pre-trained with billions of jets. We use knowledge distillation to transfer what such models have learned into efficient networks towards deployment in hardware accelerators. The teacher is the OmniLearned foundation model fine-tuned on top quark jet tagging; the student is an attention-free Deep Sets network. We demonstrate three ways the student's performance improves: adding a message-passing layer to the Deep Sets architecture, training on the teacher's soft labels rather than on ground-truth labels alone, and distilling from a pretrained teacher rather than from the same architecture trained from scratch. In each case the gain is largest in the background rejection at low signal efficiency, the regime that is most relevant for a trigger.
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All authors Maya Benyas, Julia Gonski, Qibin Liu, P. Alex May, Vinicius Mikuni, Benjamin Nachman, Tanvi Wamorkar, Liangyu Wu

Quantum Physics

The logical set of Gaussian states under the stabilizer subsystem decomposition

Santiago Zamora, Kaustav Chatterjee, Ulrik Lund Andersen et al. (+4 more)

Universal quantum computation requires non-Gaussianity in continuous-variable systems and non-stabilizerness in discrete-variable systems. Yet, mapping a Gaussian state into the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill logical subspace can yield a logical qubit with non-stabilizer resources. To understand how the continuous-variable structure determines logical resources, we characterize the image of single-mode Gaussian states under the corresponding extraction channel, known as the stabilizer subsystem decomposition. Specifically, we derive series expressions for the logical Bloch vector and characterize the resulting reachable set, enabling an analytical treatment of the robustness of magic of the logical states. We then turn this geometric framework into a certification tool: by mapping a discrete-variable qubit witness to a continuous-variable squeezing witness, we obtain lower bounds on the squeezing of prepared states. We also show that ensembles of Gaussian states can violate both stabilizer and classical bounds. Violation of the stabilizer bound certifies the relational resource known as "set-magic," while violation of the classical bound enables the certification of cryptographic randomness at moderate squeezing.
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All authors Santiago Zamora, Kaustav Chatterjee, Ulrik Lund Andersen, Thiago Lucena de Macedo Guedes, Jonatan Bohr Brask, A. de Oliveira Junior, Rafael Chaves

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

A Coherent Search for New Galactic Magnetars using Fermi/GBM and follow-up Swift/BAT: 7 Candidates and a Large Burst Catalog

Ariel Perera, Barak Zackay and Tejaswi Venumadhav

Galactic magnetars are a rare class of neutron stars with extreme magnetic fields, with only about 30 known sources. Their short hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray bursts provide an important channel for discovering magnetar activity. Wide-field instruments such as the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) are well suited to detecting these bursts, but their broad localization uncertainties make it difficult to associate individual bursts with specific sources. Coded-aperture telescopes, in contrast, provide arcminute-scale localizations but have narrower fields of view. We search for previously unidentified magnetars and construct a magnetar burst catalog by combining a broad sample of short, soft triggers from our coherent GBM detection pipeline over 2013-2025 with targeted searches of archival Swift/BAT images. We develop a statistical association framework that uses BAT detections to localize GBM bursts to arcminute precision, together with a spatio-temporal clustering framework that associates poorly localized bursts with common sources. Together, these methods identify 1720 magnetar bursts, of which 1170 are confidently associated with 11 known magnetars. The remaining 550 bursts could not be assigned to specific sources. We identify seven candidate new magnetars through three complementary discovery channels. The catalog, composed of the associated bursts, extends to the lowest fluences observed by GBM. We also provide spectral and temporal analyses of the catalog. The new candidate sources provide targets for X-ray follow-up that could reveal previously unidentified Galactic magnetars. More broadly, this work demonstrates how combining instruments with complementary capabilities can maximize the scientific return of high-energy transient observations.
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Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

JWST and HST Confirm Transit Timing Variations for the Ultra-Hot Jupiter TOI-2109 b

Michael Greklek-McKeon, Julie Inglis, Nicole L. Wallack et al. (+9 more)

Ultra-hot Jupiters are a rare yet valuable subset of exoplanets that can help elucidate both the internal properties of their host stars as well as the orbital evolution of close-in planets. An extreme among extremes, TOI-2109 b is a super-Jupiter ($1.347 \pm 0.047 R_{\rm Jup}$, $5.02 \pm 0.75 M_{\rm Jup}$) with the shortest orbital period (0.67247479 $\pm$ 0.00000028 days) and the fastest predicted orbital decay rate of any known giant planet. Previous observations hinted at a quadratic long-term trend in the transit timing variations (TTVs) consistent with orbital decay, as well as short-term sinusoidal TTVs consistent with a near-resonant planetary companion that would indicate a dynamically quiescent migration pathway. Here, we combine archival ground-based, TESS, and CHEOPS photometry with new transit and eclipse data from HST and JWST to update the TTV analysis. We find very strong evidence for sinusoidal TTVs over a linear ephemeris ($\Delta$BIC of 33.6), consistent with a nearby planetary companion as suggested by J.-V. Harre et al. 2024, and rule out several non-planetary scenarios that could explain the sinusoidal TTVs. We also find strong evidence of a quadratic TTV trend ($\Delta$BIC of 6.75) consistent with an orbital decay rate of -3.46 $\pm$ 1.17 ms/yr and a stellar tidal quality factor of 2.13$^{+1.18}_{-0.61} \times10^7$, though we cannot rule out line-of-sight acceleration as the cause of the quadratic trend. If our results are confirmed, TOI-2109 b would be the only known exoplanet besides WASP-12 b with a decaying orbit and the most extreme of an ultra-rare class of close-in giant planets with nearby companions.
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All authors Michael Greklek-McKeon, Julie Inglis, Nicole L. Wallack, Shreyas Vissapragada, Ian Wong, John R. T. Allen, Yayaati Chachan, Fei Dai, Guangwei Fu, Tiffany Kataria, Thaddeus D. Komacek, Johanna K. Teske

Quantum Physics

Transparent Domain Walls through Information Convex Sets

Jintae Kim, Amanda Gatto Lamas, Jacopo Gliozzi et al. (+3 more)

In $(2+1)$-dimensional topologically ordered many-body states, transparent (topologically deformable) domain walls are invisible to local topological probes, yet can modify the ground state degeneracy (GSD) and transmute anyons transported across them. Here, we develop an entanglement-bootstrap framework using information convex sets (ICSs) on local and noncontractible annuli to extract information about transparent domain walls directly from ground state wavefunctions at fixed points of Abelian topological phases on a torus, without taking categorical defect data as input. We derive fusion rules governing the action of anyons on extreme points of ICSs on noncontractible annuli and determine their quantum dimensions. Extreme points invariant under transport around the complementary cycle correspond one-to-one to minimum entropy states (MESs), and their number equals the GSD. The maximal topological entanglement entropy (TEE), $\gamma_{\rm LW}^{\max}=\log(\mathcal{D}/d_\alpha)$, probes the net effect of walls crossing the chosen annulus, where $\mathcal{D}$ is the total quantum dimension and $d_\alpha$ is the quantum dimension of an extreme point of its ICS. In contrast, the maximal entanglement asymmetry is $\Delta S_X^{\max}=\log\mathrm{GSD}$. This value is the same for both annulus orientations and reflects the combined effect of the transparent domain walls. We further show that transparent domain walls can give rise to symmetries supported jointly on the two chosen fundamental cycles that cannot be decomposed into a product of two $1$-form symmetry operators, one supported on each cycle. By relating their action on MESs to anyon tunneling and the fusion rules, we clarify how these symmetries connect distinct ground states. Additionally, we apply the framework to Wen's plaquette model, the anisotropic dipolar toric code, and the rank-2 toric code.
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All authors Jintae Kim, Amanda Gatto Lamas, Jacopo Gliozzi, Bowen Shi, Taylor L. Hughes, Jong Yeon Lee

Chaotic Dynamics · Cross-listed from cs.LG

PR-Smoother: Simulator-Preserving Non-Gaussian Smoothing for Data Assimilation

Yuta Tarumi

Many physical data assimilation (DA) workflows require smoothing methods that represent non-Gaussian posteriors over physical state variables, scale to high-dimensional simulators, train from observation windows alone, and remain compatible with calibration of the prescribed simulator. We introduce PR-Smoother, a simulator-preserving amortized smoother designed for this prescribed-simulator DA regime. Its key design principle is to keep the prescribed simulator explicit in both the evidence lower bound and the variational family: rather than learning replacement dynamics or a learned trajectory prior, PR-Smoother learns only future-conditioned corrections around the prescribed rollout. This yields an explicit non-Gaussian smoothing distribution over physical trajectories and supports joint state, parameter, and sensor-bias learning from observations alone. The variational family contains the exact smoother in deterministic and linear-Gaussian limits. Empirically, PR-Smoother captures multimodal posteriors in 4-dimensional Lorenz-96, remains accurate under ambiguous nonlinear observations and process noise in 40-dimensional Lorenz-96, and scales to joint state-parameter-bias inference in 16,384-dimensional Kolmogorov flow.
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Quantum Physics

Deterministic photon waveform adaptation for quantum connectivity

Jeffrey Mohan, Jérémy Berroir, Filippo Borselli et al. (+9 more)

The scalability of quantum technologies will depend on the ability to interconnect independent quantum systems through photonic channels. However, heterogeneous quantum platforms emit and absorb photons with widely differing properties, severely limiting inter-node interference and modular connectivity. Here we demonstrate a cold-atom optical quantum memory that simultaneously achieves near-unity storage-and-retrieval efficiency and deterministic temporal adaptation of single photons between arbitrary and programmable input and output pulse waveforms. Operating at high optical depth and within a fully integrated architecture, the system can store photons with durations spanning over three orders of magnitude and reshape them arbitrarily without compromising efficiency, achieving compatibility with many current platforms. By augmenting the role of a quantum memory from a passive storage element to an active programmable photonic interface, our results establish a key building block for scalable entanglement-based quantum networks and modular quantum computing architectures.
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All authors Jeffrey Mohan, Jérémy Berroir, Filippo Borselli, David Libault, Ferhat Loubar, Kilian Müller, Jed Rowland, Félix Hoffet, Eleni Diamanti, Tom Darras, Tommaso Mazzoni, Julien Laurat

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

The universe as a superconductor: How to search for a photon mass

Andrei Gruzinov, Anson Hook and Junwu Huang

We revisit the bounds on the photon mass when it arises from an Abelian Higgs mechanism rather than a Proca term. Because the higgs is necessarily millicharged and light, the phase of the theory (Meissner, vortex, or symmetry-restored) depends on the ambient magnetic field, so the photon mass an experiment measures depends on the environment it is performed in. We classify existing experiments by the phases in which they apply, in analogy with Type I and Type II superconductors. For Type I photon masses, magnetic fields in galaxies and the intergalactic medium can restore the symmetry everywhere, allowing a vacuum photon mass as large as $0.3 \,{\rm MeV}$. Regions of photon mass as large as $10^{-5}\, {\rm eV}$ could be present in the Universe, and measurement of frequency dependent optical depth can potentially reveal these regions. For Type II photon masses, we show that the strongest constraints mainly arise from the requirement that the galactic dynamo generates the observed magnetic fields, which we derive by generalizing magnetohydrodynamics to a nonzero photon mass. Since the terrestrial magnetic field restores the symmetry in much of the remaining parameter space, laboratory searches performed inside large magnetically shielded volumes, or in space, could probe photon masses invisible to any experiment on Earth. Measurements of distant light sources, in particular, fast radio bursts, also offer unique sensitivity to parameters invisible to lab experiments.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

Galaxies Below the Fundamental Metallicity Relation Are Morphologically Disturbed: Merian H$\alpha$ Morphologies and DESI Metallicities

Abby Mintz, Jenny E. Greene, Shany Danieli et al. (+8 more)

Empirical results have revealed a connection between a galaxy's metallicity, mass, and star formation rate, known as the fundamental metallicity relation (FMR), in which metallicity increases with stellar mass and decreases with SFR. Physical interpretations of the FMR suggest that actively star-forming galaxies are fueled by pristine gas, likely obtained via IGM accretion or minor mergers. Here we demonstrate the value of galaxy morphology as an additional axis in the FMR. Using medium-band imaging from the Merian Survey, we construct spatially resolved maps of stellar continuum and H$\alpha$ emission for a large sample of galaxies with DESI DR1 spectra, reaching stellar masses down to $10^8$ M$_\odot$. We measure non-parametric morphological parameters from the emission maps and derive gas-phase oxygen abundances from the spectra using strong-line calibrations. We fit a series of simple linear models to explore correlations among the metallicity, stellar mass, sSFR, and morphological parameters. We find that galaxies that are more metal-poor than predicted by the FMR appear particularly disturbed. At fixed stellar mass and sSFR, metallicity is inversely correlated with the asymmetry of both the continuum and H$\alpha$ morphology. The observed trends – and the existence of particularly metal-poor, morphologically disturbed, highly star-forming galaxies – are consistent with external burst triggering. Our results indicate that a galaxy's morphology is linked to its metallicity and star formation history, providing an additional observational probe of the physical drivers of elevated star-formation in low-mass galaxies.
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All authors Abby Mintz, Jenny E. Greene, Shany Danieli, Erin Kado-Fong, Alexie Leauthaud, Jiaxuan Li, Yifei Luo, Annika H. G. Peter, Joy Bhattacharyya, Mingyu Li, Akaxia Cruz

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Benchmark Dark SMEFT Scenarios from the Interplay of Flavor Physics and Dark Matter Searches

Lipika Kolay, Soumitra Nandi and Ipsita Ray

We investigate the interplay between low-energy flavor physics and dark matter (DM) phenomenology within the dimension-6 dark Standard Model Effective Field Theory (dSMEFT), featuring a fermionic DM candidate. Focusing on a minimal set of effective operators, we analyze both single- and multi-operator scenarios under current flavor and DM constraints. We show that correlated multi-operator configurations are required to simultaneously satisfy all existing bounds, leading to tightly constrained benchmark regions with implications for future collider searches. We further present representative phenomenological predictions and discuss possible ultraviolet completions of the effective framework.
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