Papers

We investigate the topological classification and properties of nonabelian vortices that arise in a 2-dimensional film of a two-component condensate. For a repulsive interaction between the condensates, we realize an order parameter in the ordered configuration space of three complex numbers $\mathcal C_3(\mathbb C)$. Analyzing the homotopic properties, we find the emergence of elementary nonabelian vortex-antivortex pairs connected by energetic strings that are rooted in the repulsive interaction and carry the nonabelian information. Moreover, we predict the existence of Brunnian vortices, which are textures exhibiting zero net winding of the condensate phases and can only be detected by a higher-order winding number. Finally, to motivate technological applications rooted in nonabelian vortex transport, we devise a nonvolatile memory storage device that encodes topologically robust information.

Space weather early warning depends on detecting solar wind transients in in-situ measurements at the first Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L1), before they reach Earth. Fixed thresholds can miss combined magnetic and plasma structure, and many learning methods provide a single anomaly score. We present the Physics-Informed Solar-wind Convolutional autoEncoder for Space-weather (PISCES), a convolutional autoencoder trained without catalog labels on OMNI solar wind measurements under physics constraints. Its loss includes magnetic field consistency, an empirical relation between temperature and velocity, the Parker spiral angle, and penalties on changes between consecutive one-minute samples in derived quantities calculated from the reconstruction. At inference, PISCES separates the anomaly score into magnetic and plasma reconstruction errors, physics relations, and residual corrections, and reports the magnitude of each contribution. Attenuation of the skip connections, selected on validation data, improves average precision for the trained models, while the untrained scores remain nearly the same. The trained models also give a more consistent ordering of these physical contributions. After smoothing with a trailing median, the alarms can precede independently observed sudden commencements, including positive sudden impulses.

We investigate a route to enhanced thermoelectric energy conversion in nanoscale systems by exploiting a correlated quasiperiodic energy landscape in a one-dimensional chain coupled to source and drain reservoirs. The considered modulation generates a highly non-uniform electronic transmission spectrum, providing favorable conditions for achieving a large thermoelectric figure of merit. By systematically tuning the incommensurability parameter, a variety of quasiperiodic configurations are explored, several of which yield high values of the figure of merit exceeding $2$. Electronic transport properties are evaluated within a tight-binding framework using the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism, while the thermoelectric coefficients, including electrical conductance, Seebeck coefficient, and electronic thermal conductance, are determined through the Landauer approach. The underlying quasiperiodic potential belongs to the Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) family and exhibits a weakly varying spatial profile, leading to transmission characteristics that are favorable for thermoelectric optimization. The influence of phonon thermal conductance on the overall energy-conversion efficiency is also analyzed in detail. For the sake of completeness, we also critically inspect the effect of conductor to electrode coupling and the coupling asymmetry on $ZT$. We also check the thermoelectric response of conventional AAH system and an elaborate comparison is made with our chosen quantum system. Our findings highlight the potential of correlated quasiperiodic nanostructures as promising candidates for efficient thermoelectric applications.

Nature, at the shortest distances accessible to contemporary colliders, is described by the Standard Model of particle physics with remarkable precision. Since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, progress has shifted from finding new resonances to precision studies of established theory. Here, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), describing the interactions of quarks and gluons, plays a central role. Collider observables involving hadrons are made theoretically accessible by factorization, which separates universal long-distance hadron dynamics encoded in parton distributions from process-specific short-distance coefficients calculable in perturbation theory. This thesis develops analytic methods for perturbative QCD with applications to collider phenomenology and proton structure. A major part is devoted to angular integrals, key building blocks of phase-space integrals. Methods originally developed for Feynman integrals, including integration-by-parts identities, expansion by regions, differential equations, and dimensional shifts, are adapted to angular integrals and yield several new results. The analytic structure of one-loop integrals is also studied, with spurious branch cuts removed using single-valued polylogarithms, leading to a compact representation of coefficient functions for semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering. A systematic expansion in higher powers of transverse momentum is developed and applied to the Drell-Yan process, refining the understanding of its factorization structure. Finally, a new semi-analytical ansatz for the evolution of parton distributions is explored. Together, these methods improve analytic control over radiative corrections, kinematic dependence, and scale evolution in processes relevant to the Electron-Ion Collider and other collider experiments.

The discovery of billion solar mass black holes at high redshift challenges any standard Eddington-limited growth model. Previous work has shown that an advective accretion disk can account for these early black holes with episodic accretion. It has also been shown that if the accretion disk of a black hole is misaligned from the spin axis of the black hole, the disk can become advective within a certain radius. While warped and misaligned accretion disks have been explored in numerical simulations, there is no fully or semi-analytic framework that self-consistently connects disk warp, mass inflow, winds, and energy transport in the super-Eddington regime. In this work, we develop a first-principles semi-analytic model of a radiation-pressure-dominated, warped accretion disk, starting from the coupled conservation equations for mass, energy, and angular momentum. We find profiles for the radial velocity and surface density that explicitly account for disk warping and mass loss and determine the radius at which the disk becomes advective. We explore changes with black hole spin, misalignment angle and viscosity, reproducing relevant results from numerical studies.

Machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs) enable simulations of larger atomistic systems over longer timescales than traditional ab initio methods but require large, diverse training data. Existing datasets lack comprehensive sampling of solid-liquid interfaces, which exhibit complex phenomena such as solvent layering and surface reconstruction critical for energy and catalytic materials. Here, we present SoLiD26, a curated solid-liquid interface dataset of 15.4 million first-principles structures with up to 576 atoms and 15 chemical elements for training and evaluating MLIPs. The structures were compiled from density functional theory (DFT) calculations, with most configurations originating from ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations. SoLiD26 includes aqueous coinage metal interfaces, electrode-electrolyte systems, and selected bulk reference structures, calculated with VASP using the PBE functional and D3 dispersion corrections. The application of SoLiD26 for training and evaluating MLIPs is demonstrated with a suite of MACE models on a simple training, validation and test split. This dataset provides a valuable resource for advancing MLIP development targeted at modelling solid-liquid interfaces in electrochemical and catalytic systems.

Twist-bend nematics formed by achiral particles support heliconical domains of opposite handedness. Using Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations of repulsive bent particles, we study the interface between two such domains. Rather than a gradually untwisting texture, we find a density-modulated splay-bend-twist structure. The density modulation is along the helix axis with a period of approximately half the bulk pitch, while the twist is locally enhanced in magnitude, alternates in sign, and vanishes only on an undulating surface. An explicit director interpolation shows how gradients along the helix axis and across the interface combine to produce an undulating zero-twist surface.

We investigate the computation of optimal bias potentials for accelerating transitions between metastable states and for computation of equilibrium properties in molecular dynamics simulations. We formulate optimal biasing as an ergodic optimal control problem (OCP), which can be recast as a linear eigenvalue problem for the infinitesimal generator of the unbiased dynamics. We demonstrate that data-driven learning methods for the generator enable reliable solution of the OCP, computation of biasing potentials, extraction of equilibrium properties, and acceleration of state transitions. We also explore the relation of the control problem to coarse grained representations and learning of coarse grained dynamics.

Stellar flares are important tracers of magnetic activity and can significantly influence the characterization of exoplanet host stars by introducing time-dependent astrophysical variability. ESA's Ariel mission, designed for atmospheric characterization of exoplanets, will include the VISPhot instrument, providing high-cadence optical photometry offering an opportunity to study stellar flares while identifying and mitigating their impact on transit spectroscopy. We discuss Ariel's potential for flare studies, emphasizing the importance of short-cadence observations for resolving flare morphology and estimating flare energies. We identify potential flaring targets within the Ariel Mission Candidate Sample by cross-matching it with a TESS-based flare catalog, identifying 44 stars in the sample of 3321 host stars with flare rates spanning 0.0012-1.05 flares per day yielding a lower limit. The majority of these active stars are expected to flare infrequently during typical Ariel observations, but for a few of the most active targets there is a significant chance of flaring during a typical Ariel observing window. We further investigate the detectability of stellar flares in Ariel's wavelength range using synthetic spectra based on time-dependent RADYN flare models propagated through the Ariel radiometric simulator. Our simulations indicate that strong flares on cool dwarfs can produce measurable infrared signatures, with flux variations reaching several percent, substantially exceeding the amplitudes of typical exoplanet atmospheric features. These results demonstrate stellar flares represent both a valuable ancillary science case and a potential source of contamination for Ariel observations, highlighting the need for improved flare models and mitigation strategies to maximize the mission's scientific return.

Helical dichroism (HD), arising from the interaction between structured light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) and chiral matter, offers opportunities for enhanced chiroptical characterization at the subwavelength scale. Here, we employ inverse design to develop chiral metasurfaces tailored for enhanced HD under Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam illumination. The optimized planar structure exhibits a simulated HD around 115% at 800 nm for opposite OAM states, revealing the strong chiroptical response enabled by the inverse-designed geometry. The optimized metasurfaces were fabricated from Si$_3$N$_4$ and experimentally characterized using a custom-built optical system with controlled OAM excitation. A single chiral metasurface exhibited a maximum experimental HD up to 62% near 800 nm, demonstrating a strong OAM-dependent helical dichroic response from a single 6-micron-large chiral structure. Although the measured HD value is lower than the optimized simulation value, the experimental result validates the feasibility of inverse-designed chiral metasurfaces for structured-light chiroptics. These findings establish inverse design as an effective approach for engineering compact chiral nanophotonic structures with enhanced interactions with structured light, offering potential for miniaturized chiroptical sensing and OAM-resolved imaging.

The interactions between post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) binaries and their circumbinary disks play a central role in shaping the evolution of these systems. Circumbinary disks around post-AGB binaries are stable, though relatively short-lived structures ($10^4-10^5$ years) and their physical properties and evolution remain poorly understood. In this study, we target IRAS 08544-4431, one of the best-studied post-AGB binaries. This system has well-constrained stellar and orbital parameters, exhibits well-defined characteristic refractory-depleted photospheric chemistry, and hosts a stable, sub-Keplerian circumbinary disk extending from a well-resolved sublimation rim at approximately 8 au to outer radii of approximately 1 000 au. We probe the disk layers close to the midplane using ALMA Band 7 continuum and $^{12}$CO $J=3-2$ observations of IRAS 08544-4431 obtained with baselines up to 16.2 km. These data provide the finest angular resolution yet achieved with ALMA for dust-continuum observations of post-AGB binaries with a (almost) face-on disk (15 au; 10 mas). The resulting map of dust continuum enabled resolving disk inner rim, a largely smooth radial profile, and a prominent azimuthal asymmetry at a radius of $\sim$45 mas. Notably, the location of this dust asymmetry coincides with the forward-scattering peak reported in SPHERE/VLT observations of IRAS 08544-4431. The $^{12}$CO emission is more extended than the dust continuum and confirms the disk rotation in this system. However, the global $^{12}$CO map shows indications of a spatial offset from the dust asymmetry, suggesting some degree of gas-dust decoupling. Together, these observations establish IRAS 08544-4431 as a key laboratory for studying disk and dust evolution in a parameter space distinct from that of young stars with protoplanetary disks.

The anisotropic evolution of relativistic particles in magnetically dominated Alfvénic turbulence is a fundamental process governing nonthermal emissions in high-energy astrophysical environments. In this work, we develop a theoretical framework by deriving scaling equations that characterize the pitch-angle dynamics of leptons and photons across both weak- and strong-radiative cooling regimes. Our model reveals a universal coupling between particle energy and angular distribution, arising from the interplay of field-aligned accelerations, perpendicular drift motions, and radiation reactions. The model can uniquely identify “turning-point energies" that exhibit a nonlinear dependence on the local magnetic field and the energy-injection scale. The validity of this scaling model is confirmed through radiative particle-in-cell simulations. We show that the electron pitch-angle distribution fundamentally dictates photon emission characteristics, further revealing a pronounced statistical correlation between high-energy photon emission and turbulent vortices in the reconnection regions. By bridging the gap between small-scale kinetic interactions and broad-band spectral characteristics, this work provides a quantitative basis for interpreting the hardening of radiation spectra and complex polarization signatures in sources such as pulsar wind nebulae and gamma-ray bursts.

We establish a sufficient condition under which overlapping PEPS boundary states satisfy the approximate factorization criterion for a spectral gap. The condition is formulated in terms of the boundary response induced by cutting bonds through the center of a rectangular region. We decompose this response into a contribution common to all four associated regions and a remainder measured in the instantaneous boundary metric. A single linear transport absorbs the common contribution and yields compatible factorization operators, with an error controlled solely by the remainder. We apply this framework to Ising PEPS and to the spin-3/2 AKLT model on the hexagonal lattice. For Ising PEPS, the required boundary-response estimate reduces to a Dobrushin-Shlosman-type condition. For the hexagonal AKLT model, a rooted expansion in paths and loops isolates the common response, while a local comparison of boundary states together with a scalar Kotecký-Preiss estimate controls the remaining terms. In both cases, the factorization error decays exponentially with the overlap width, up to a prefactor proportional to the cut length. For AKLT, we establish the corresponding physical projector estimate and obtain a uniform spectral gap. For Ising PEPS, the gap implication additionally requires compatible injective regional contractions, as specified in the paper. More generally, the method provides a systematic route from locality of PEPS boundary response to spectral gaps of two-dimensional parent Hamiltonians.

We prove Shor's conjecture: an orthogonal measurement maximizes the information obtainable from any two quantum states in finite dimension. We then show that an error constraint can require three outcomes. For a class of full-rank qubit pairs, the best orthogonal basis switches abruptly as the error penalty increases. Near the switch, three outcomes yield more information at the same error than any orthogonal measurement or random mixture of them. The extra outcome distinguishes confidence levels in one guess; every outcome is used.

In this work, we investigate the dynamics of a scalar particle in a black-hole spacetime surrounded by a cosmological constant and an anisotropic fluid. By solving the Klein–Gordon equation through a power series approach, we obtain quasibound states and the corresponding energy quasispectrum. We find that the quasispectrum can exhibit both real and imaginary components, depending on the model parameters, with the real component existing only under specific conditions. The numerical analysis shows that decreasing the cosmological constant and the anisotropic fluid parameter enhances the energy and increases the radiation in the region outside the event horizon, whereas stronger contributions from these surrounding fields tend to suppress the emitted radiation. We also analyze several asymptotic limits and recover the corresponding results for the Kiselev, de Sitter, and Schwarzschild black holes, providing consistency checks for our solutions. These results highlight the role of the surrounding matter distribution and cosmological contribution in modifying the dynamics and radiation of scalar fields in black hole spacetimes.

Rapid growth of data centers and artificial-intelligence services is producing computational loads at scales once associated mainly with largest power plants. Recent grid events show that a routine transmission disturbance can cause several gigawatts of data-center demand to disconnect or transfer to backup nearly at once. This article revisits the classical synchronization and transient-stability theory needed to reason about such events. We organize four lines of work—graph-based synchronization conditions, winding-number descriptions of nonlinear power flow, separable convex network optimization, and direct energy methods—into a single cycle-space certificate framework for the lossless fixed-voltage model. The static layer gives an exact strict-cohesion test within a prescribed winding cell and reveals the widely used Dörfler–Chertkov–Bullo test as a quadratic surrogate of the same convex problem. The dynamic layer converts the critical-energy calculation into a finite family of convex boundary problems. Standard MATPOWER benchmarks illustrate both what the stronger static test gains and where it gains nothing: the 118-bus case admits $16.2\%$ more loading than the sufficient screen, while the 39-bus case is bridge-limited and the thresholds coincide. A stylized $2.7$-GW 39-bus event further shows that transient margin can change by about a factor of two depending on where balancing power is supplied, even when every final balanced operating point remains statically feasible. The result is a tutorial synthesis and an extensible deterministic certificate for emerging gigawatt-scale computational-load contingencies.

Transverse momentum dependent parton distributions are objects that have gained substantial attention in the recent past as they are crucial for studying the 3-D structure of proton. These distributions at twist-3 are important for understanding phenomena like beam single spin asymmetries, which are observed in high-energy scattering experiments. However, due to the unavailability of direct phenomenological fits, currently one has to rely on simplified models of the proton in order to obtain these twist-3 distributions. In this work, we present the calculation of T-even twist-3 quark distributions using the quark target model.

We introduce cavity Rydberg quantum photonics as a novel platform for generating hybrid entangled states of optical photons. The system achieves world-record sizes of these states and has the potential to produce yet larger states in the future. In the hybrid entangled state produced here, a superposition of two coherent states is entangled with a polarization qubit carried by a photon in another beam path. We perform quantum state tomography of this hybrid entangled state and evaluate various key properties. By optimizing the decoherence we increase the size compared to previous hybrid entangled states, reaching a size of $\alpha^2= 2.4$. Besides the fundamental interest in Schrödinger cat states, this work is interesting because of potential applications in the field of quantum information processing.

Supercooled phase transitions can generate observable gravitational waves, but their bubble dynamics may also imprint large spatial inhomogeneities in the baryon asymmetry. For phase transitions below the TeV scale, ordinary baryon diffusion can be too slow to erase such inhomogeneities before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, potentially leading to stringent constraints from the observed light-element abundances. We show that this problem can be naturally avoided in darkogenesis scenarios, where the phase transition first generates an asymmetry in a dark-sector particle that is subsequently transferred to visible baryons. The dark-sector particle can travel over much larger distances than ordinary baryons before decaying, erasing the inhomogeneity before the baryon asymmetry is established. We derive the conditions for efficient erasure in both the diffusive and collisionless transport regimes and translate them into constraints on the dark-sector interactions. For a representative dark phase transition with a reheating temperature of $\mathcal{O}(1) \,\mathrm{GeV}$, $\beta/H \simeq 10$, and a dark-sector particle lifetime of $0.1\,\mathrm{s}$, we find that the inhomogeneity is efficiently erased for a viable range of the interactions. Importantly, baryogenesis before the phase transition is challenged both by dilution from strong supercooling and by the subsequent imprinting of spatial inhomogeneities. This points toward darkogenesis associated with the phase transition as a consistent framework, in which dark-sector transport erases the inhomogeneity before it is transferred to visible baryons.

We study the topological non-Abelian string and its classical stability in models with two Higgs fields to achieve the symmetry breaking of ${\rm SU}(N) \otimes {\rm U}(1)_X\to {\rm SU}(N-1) \otimes {\rm U}(1)_{X^\prime}$. The topological origin is due to the global $\widetilde {\rm U}(1)$ symmetry and its breaking in the scalar potential. The most generic winding configurations of arbitrary integers of $(n_1\,, n_2)$ are considered. The stability of the topological string is analyzed based on the time-dependent perturbations to the string background and numerical solutions to the coupled Helmholtz equations of the perturbed Fourier modes. We present the constraints on the stable regions for the $(n_1\,, 0)$ configuration (or equivalently the $(0\,, n_2)$ configuration). For the general winding configurations of $(n_1\neq 0\,, n_2\neq 0)$, we point out the stable regions only exist in the semilocal limit of the large mixing angle of $\vartheta_N\to \frac{\pi}{2}$.

In this work, we consider the problem of uncertainty estimation of the results obtained through theoretical calculations using a composite quantum chemistry scheme. Each component of the composite scheme carries its own individual uncertainty, originating principally from a finite size of the basis set used in the calculations. Of practical interest is the total uncertainty, i.e. the uncertainty of the sum of all components. We first show that the conventional error propagation rules that treat each component as a statistically uncorrelated variable are not well-justified in practice. To remedy this, we propose a method of estimating the total uncertainty of the composite scheme which does not rely on the assumption that the components are independent. It is formulated as a series of random walks with different starting values that represent the uncertainty of each component of the composite scheme. This method is first applied to two example composite schemes for the water dimer and the nitrogen molecule that illustrate its most salient features and allow for a deeper analysis. Next, the method is tested for a larger set of interaction energies from the S66 dataset for which trustworthy reference data are available and the error can be assessed unambiguously. It is shown that the method provides reliable and reasonably tight uncertainty estimates at an arbitrary predefined confidence level required in a given application. While the focus of the paper is on composite schemes, we believe that the general idea can be useful more broadly in computational chemistry and physics.

Many-body environments are conventionally incorporated into quantum dynamics as heat baths, which induce a Lamb shift and quantum dissipation. In the traditional picture, such environmental coupling is expected to induce suppression and broadening of spectral signals. In this letter, we investigate high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in a two-level system coupled to a heat bath via dipole-dipole interactions using the Lindblad master equation. It is found that the environmental effect does not simply suppress the harmonic efficiency. Instead, when the cutoff frequency of the coupling spectral density exceeds the energy-level spacing, the environment can actually enhance the harmonic yield. Further analysis reveals that this enhancement originates from intense level fluctuations induced by the Lamb shift. Meanwhile, the environmental influence exhibits a distinct dependence on harmonic order, manifesting clearly different behaviors for lower and higher harmonics. Our results challenge the common relaxation-time picture of uniform damping and establish a microscopic, order-dependent mechanism for environmental control of HHG, with direct implications for solid-state attosecond spectroscopy and quantum material engineering.

We study the quantized six-vertex (Q6V) model on arbitrary admissible diagrams at $q=\varepsilon$, where $\varepsilon$ is a primitive $N$th root of unity with $N$ odd. For the commuting layer transfer matrices $\mathbb{T}(y)$ with mixed boundary conditions, we establish the quantum Frobenius property \[ \mathbb{T}(y)\mathbb{T}(\varepsilon y)\cdots \mathbb{T}(\varepsilon^{N-1}y) = \mathscr{P}_N(y^N)\mathbb{I}, \] where $\mathscr{P}_N$ is a scalar Laurent polynomial obtained directly from the monomial expansion of $\mathbb{T}(y)$. Our proof exploits the underlying three-dimensional integrability, in particular the tetrahedron equations and their consequences. The quantum Frobenius relation essentially determines the joint eigenvalues of the associated Hamiltonians up to multiplicities and shows that they take a free-parafermion form, thereby extending such structures from previously known one-dimensional examples to a broad class of genuinely two-dimensional quantized six-vertex models. The construction also admits independent local gauge choices and recovers the long-range-interacting $\tau_{\; 2}$ model, which includes the original free-parafermion model as a special case. We also apply the same framework to the relativistic quantum Toda chain at odd roots of unity and obtain the free-parafermion spectra for the relevant Q6V transfer matrices with fixed boundary states.

Shell structure and spontaneous decay of $Z = 124$ isotopes are systematically investigated using the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) with the PC-PK1 density functional. By accounting for deformation and continuum effects, the neutron drip line is predicted to be located at $N = 320$, and eight potential multi-neutron emitters beyond the neutron drip line are identified. The results, compared with the spherically constrained case, highlight the critical role of deformation effects in determining the ground-state properties of superheavy nuclei. In addition, potential neutron shell closures emerge at $N = 258$ and $350$, alongside subshell closures at $N = 232$ and $320$. The results disfavor $Z = 124$ as a possible proton magic number and suggest $Z = 120$ and $138$ as more favorable candidates for proton shell closures in the superheavy region. Finally, the competition between $\alpha$ decay, $\beta$ decay, and spontaneous fission is analyzed by calculating half-lives within various semi-empirical formulas. The results indicate that $\alpha$ decay is the predominant mode on the proton-rich side, whereas spontaneous fission and $\beta^-$ decay gradually become dominant with increasing neutron number.

Silicon-based spin qubits in Si/SiGe heterostructures are a leading platform for scalable quantum computing, yet bridging the gap between theoretical computer-aided design(CAD) models and experimental reality remains a significant challenge. Standard simulations often fail to capture critical physical phenomena, such as interface dipoles, parasitic charge accumulation, and the magnetic hysteresis of on-chip micromagnets. In this work, we present a comprehensive, experimentally calibrated 3D simulation pipeline for a 6-dot Si/SiGe device. We refine the semiconductor band alignment and introduce a semi-empirical classical charge screening model to accurately capture the formation of parasitic wells and their suppression of gate lever-arms. Furthermore, we apply the Jiles-Atherton model to account for the hysteresis and pre-magnetization of integrated cobalt micromagnets, successfully reproducing the experimental resonant frequencies across all six qubits. By coupling these calibrated electrostatic and magnetic profiles into a time-dependent rotating wave approximation (RWA) Hamiltonian, we reproduce experimental observables, including microwave power chevrons. This framework provides a robust foundation for predicting device behavior, evaluating microwave line losses, and optimizing future scalable spin qubit architectures prior to fabrication.

We investigate superfluid pairing in a two-dimensional Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas subject to spin-selective one-body loss. Within the non-Hermitian mean-field framework, we self- consistently solve the gap and number equations and find that moderate dissipation can significantly enhance the pairing gap, resulting in a pronounced nonmonotonic dependence on the dissipation strength. Dissipation also provides an additional control parameter for driving the system across the BCS-BEC crossover. We further analyze the quasi-particle spectrum and identify two distinct superfluid regimes characterized by one and three exceptional rings, separated by an exceptional spectral transition. Interestingly, dissipation can enhance both pairing channels while simultaneously inducing a momentum-dependent phase twist in the triplet component. These results demonstrate that spin-selective dissipation provides a versatile non-Hermitian control knob for manipulating superfluid pairing, spectral structure, and crossover physics in spin-orbit-coupled quantum gases.

We present photometric, spectroscopic, and polarimetric observations of (163693) Atira collected on the night of 05 March 2024. A dual-band lightcurve acquired in the V and R_C filters using the Metsähovi Observatory (L08) in Kirkkonummi, Finland spans nearly 8~hours. From these measurements we estimate a V-R_C = 0.43 +/- 0.07 mag. A visible spectrum and linear polarisation measurement were obtained with the Nordic Optical Telescope in La Palma, Spain. We employ a semi-empirical model to recover the spectral flux that was lost due to a mis-aligned spectroscopic slit. The corrected model reflectance spectrum indicates a primitive Cgh taxonomic type with a distinct absorption feature from 0.60 to 0.85 um with a depth of ~7.4 %. Direct comparison with laboratory spectra of meteorites indicates close matches with CM carbonaceous chondrites. We detect a large degree of linear polarisation at a phase angle of 83 degrees which is consistent with (3200) Phaethon and (155140) 2005 UD, but lower than (162173) Ryugu and (152679) 1998 KU2. We use a CM carbonaceous chondrite density to estimate its bulk porosity of 51 +/- 31 % from previously estimated bulk density. The uncertainty in bulk density and bulk porosity is dominated by the volume of the primary. Future near-infrared spectroscopic and thermal infrared observations can be used to refine the composition and bulk density. Finally, we discuss implications for ground-based physical characterisation studies of the Atira population.

Orbital degrees of freedom play a pivotal role in shaping the physical properties of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals magnetic systems, strongly influencing electron-phonon coupling and intermediate-state dynamics. In this study, we present a comprehensive temperature and thickness-dependent Raman investigation of the single crystals of 2D van der Waals antiferromagnetic series (NixFe1-x)2P2S6. Utilizing Raman spectroscopy, we explore the interplay between local orbital excitations and lattice vibrations, observing higher-order phonon modes extending up to the fourth order. We observe an anomalously high and weakly temperature-dependent intensity ratio of these higher-order modes relative to low-energy first-order phonons. Theoretical cluster calculations and Franck-Condon modelling reveal that these features originate from resonantly enhanced multiphonon scattering mediated by localized intermediate Ni 3d8 multiplet excitations. The local orbital occupancy of these intermediate states couples strongly to lattice coordinates, providing a selective enhancement mechanism for specific phonon channels. Notably, these higher-order features are absent in the end-member Fe2P2S6. This distinction reflects the charge-transfer character of Ni2P2S6, which places optical transitions in resonance with local multiplet states, contrasted with the Mott-Hubbard insulator regime in Fe-rich analogues. Our findings clarify the microscopic origin of high-frequency Raman scattering in transition metal thiophosphates and underscore the central role of local orbital-phonon interactions in 2D correlated magnets.

Seven Hamamatsu R8520-506 photomultiplier tubes were characterized at room temperature and in liquid argon to evaluate their response and operating stability for liquid-argon light readout. A 405~nm pulsed light source was used to measure gain, peak-to-valley ratio, single-photoelectron charge resolution, and afterpulsing, while dark-count data were acquired with random triggers in the absence of active illumination. Gain and dark-count stability were monitored during a ten-day operating period in liquid argon. At a motherboard input voltage of 900~V, the extracted gains in liquid argon were approximately 27.8%–51.3% higher than the corresponding room-temperature values. For all seven tubes, the peak-to-valley ratios were higher and the single-photoelectron charge resolution improved in liquid argon. The dark count rates ranged from approximately 143 to 252~Hz at room temperature and from 166 to 199~Hz in liquid argon, with three tubes showing increases and four showing decreases. The mean number of detected afterpulses per selected primary event was approximately 21.0%–63.6% lower in liquid argon. The relative standard deviations across the ten daily means of gain and dark count rate did not exceed approximately 2.1% and 3.3%, respectively. The measurements provide a quantitative basis for considering R8520-506 tubes as photosensor candidates for liquid-argon detectors.

We theoretically investigate the spatial response of chiral Andreev edge states at a quantum Hall-superconductor interface probed by scanning gate microscopy. Using the Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism, we demonstrate that the localized potential of the scanning gate tip decouples the chiral Andreev edge states from the superconductor into independent electron and hole paths. In the $\nu=2$ regime, this local separation forces the quasiparticles to accumulate a relative magnetic phase in the normal region, resulting in Aharonov-Bohm-type conductance oscillations that are captured by a geometric analytical model. At higher filling factors (e.g., $\nu=4$), the tip progressively interacts with spatially distinct edge channels, dynamically altering the Andreev-induced mode mixing and modifying the transport resonances. Furthermore, we show that these highly localized interferometric signatures survive in the presence of disorder, even when conventional non-local transport oscillations are masked.