Papers

High-momentum ratios measured in the CaFe experiment using high-energy electron scattering off the CaFe nuclei $(i.e.~ {}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}, {}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}, {}^{54}\mathrm{Fe})$ have revealed a surprising correlation between the nuclear shell structure and the high-momentum components generated by short-range and tensor correlations (SRC). The non-local dispersive optical model (DOM) successfully describes the experimentally measured high-momentum ratios while simultaneously describing the nuclear bound-state properties and scattering observables for these CaFe nuclei. The experimentally measured average high-momentum ratio of ${}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$/${}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$ and ${}^{54}\mathrm{Fe}$/${}^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$ are $1.10~\pm~0.02$ and $1.49~\pm~0.03$, respectively. The corresponding DOM results are $1.05~\pm~0.05$ and $1.52~\pm~0.08$, which is the first successful description of these experimental results. The present DOM analysis of CaFe nuclei relied on an extended version of the DOM incorporating a shrinkable geometry to provide a more localized and stronger volume absorption at higher missing energies to correctly represent the SRC physics. The success of the DOM can be attributed to its simultaneous treatment of structure and reaction data, the latter requiring a depletion of the mean-field accompanied by the proper admixture of high-momentum components in the respective ground states.

Branching fundamentally modifies nonlinear localization by introducing vertex degrees of freedom absent in one-dimensional lattices. We investigate localized states in a PT-symmetric four-edge star graph described by the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We identify a discrete vortex state with a fixed topological charge, supported by the branching geometry. Constructed by continuation from the anticontinuum limit, the vortex evolves into a current-carrying state in the presence of balanced gain and loss and exhibits stability windows absent for the conventional branches. A possible electric-circuit realization of the proposed model is discussed.

We establish duality relations for conditional entropies relative to subalgebras of arbitrary von Neumann algebras, including the Umegaki relative entropy as well as the sandwiched- and Petz-Rényi divergences. Even in finite dimensions, these results extend the familiar dualities for conditional entropies from tensor-product subsystems to general subalgebras, while also lifting the framework to the fully infinite-dimensional setting. As an application, we establish an infinite-dimensional extension of quantum Stein's lemma when the alternative hypothesis is the state space of a finite-index subalgebra, which gives an operational interpretation of the relative entropy to a subalgebra as the optimal asymptotic error exponent in composite quantum hypothesis testing-the first beyond finite dimensions.

We summarize recent developments in the theory of the Benjamin-Ono equation, a well-known long-wave asymptotic model for internal waves in deep water, focusing on results obtained by means of an explicit formula for the solution of the Cauchy problem in terms of given initial data. We give a full description of this formula, and provide simple examples, with the aim of bringing it into the realm of applied mathematics. We also show how the formula simplifies further upon restriction to rational initial data. We then show how the formula and its rational restriction explain in great detail, and in a strikingly simple fashion, the asymptotic behavior of solutions of the Benjamin-Ono equation in the small-dispersion and long-time limits. In the setting of long-time asymptotics, we prove some new results related to soliton resolution yielding pointwise convergence with a concrete decay rate under the assumption of rational initial data. The first half of the paper is a stand-alone general survey and user's guide, while the appendices constituting the second half are intended for readers who want to explore the topics in greater depth, and it includes the proofs of our new results.

A graphene slit junction is investigated as a compact geometry for directional electron-beam formation, coherent interference, and symmetry-controlled spin filtering. Atomistic tight-binding calculations combined with the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism show that trigonal warping in monolayer graphene produces strongly directional electron beams near E~2.7eV. Boundary reflections redirect these beams toward a common drain, where the transmission exhibits magnetic flux-dependent oscillations consistent with an h/e Aharonov-Bohm period, whose modulation is characterized by Fourier analysis and harmonic fitting. A local electrostatic gate provides additional control of the interference phase. In separate self-consistent mean-field Hubbard calculations, the pristine antiferromagnetic ground state is shown to have spin-degenerate transmission, whereas structural or electrostatic breaking of the left-right symmetry enables spin filtering. Complementary valley-resolved calculations using a four-band continuum model demonstrate analogous beam formation in bilayer graphene at E = 50meV. The results identify the slit junction as a common geometry for electron-optical and spin-dependent transport and motivate further investigation of low-energy bilayer implementations.

Undergraduate research experiences provide students with an opportunity to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to authentic scientific problems. In this work, we describe the development of a special-topics course in Plasma Physics and Engineering (PPE) at a small liberal arts college using a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). During the first half of the semester, students learned fundamental plasma physics and dusty plasma concepts through traditional lectures and homework. During the second half, they applied this knowledge to investigate an unanswered research question: why does the levitation time of growing nanoparticles decrease in the presence of a magnetic field? Students learned and used Langmuir probe and optical emission spectroscopy diagnostics to characterize an argon plasma over a range of magnetic-field strengths. Their measurements showed a general decrease in electron density with increasing magnetic field strength, while optical emission measurements confirmed a reduction in carbonaceous nanoparticle growth-cycle time from acetylene. Using the measured plasma parameters, students estimated the nanoparticle charge and developed the hypothesis that a reduction in electron density leads to a smaller negative dust charge and consequently a weaker electric force available to levitate the particles as a function of increasing magnetic field strength between 50 and 330 Gauss. Students subsequently disseminated their results through research poster presentations at conferences. Course evaluations and E-CLASS responses also indicated positive student experiences with the laboratory and research components of the course. This work demonstrates one approach for integrating plasma physics education and authentic research in an undergraduate curriculum at a small liberal arts institution.

Early in the 2006 outburst of the recurrent nova RS Oph, Swift detected the onset of the super-soft-source (SSS) phase. An XMM-Newton observation on day 26.1 revealed an unusual soft X-ray spectrum containing transient narrow emission features that could not be identified with known transitions and are atypical of SSS spectra. We analyse a new XMM-Newton observation obtained at a comparable stage of the 2021 outburst and compare it with spectra from other epochs and with similar novae. A blackbody model reproduces the low-resolution 2006 EPIC/pn spectrum but fails to describe the simultaneous high-resolution RGS data. The 2021 spectrum closely resembles that observed in 2006 and consists of a slowly fading shock component and a highly variable soft component containing several unidentified features. While the shock emission evolves on timescales of days, the soft component varies on hourly timescales and dominates the observed variability. Its properties resemble those of the novae V1494 Aql and V1716 Sco, but not those of the persistent SSS Cal 87. No significant 35-s periodicity is detected. The results demonstrate that low-resolution observations can miss the complex line-dominated emission revealed by high-resolution spectroscopy. The rapidly variable soft component, together with radiative recombination continua, Fe X emission, and the previously detected 35-s period, suggests the presence of a hidden photoionising source. We conclude that these enigmatic spectra form an intermediate class between the SSe and SSa categories of Ness et al. (2013), together with V1494 Aql and V1716 Sco. Future modelling will be required to determine the relative importance of photoionisation, charge exchange, and other processes in shaping this class of intermediate SSS spectra.

A model for $\beta$-delayed neutron emission is presented in which the emission of neutrons is allowed to occur before states populated in $\beta^-$ decay have reached equilibrium in the so-called "compound nucleus" picture. The pre-equilibrium neutron spectra are computed using a two-component exciton model, where neutron and proton, particle and hole degrees of freedom are treated independently. This model is implemented in the code BeoH to supplement the existing Hauser-Feshbach model for statistical decay of compound-nucleus states. The effect of a pre-equilibrium component in the total neutron spectrum on the single- and multi-neutron emission probabilities $P_{xn}$ is investigated for $\beta$-decay precursor nuclei in the regions $47\leq Z\leq 49,~83\leq N\leq 86$ and $54\leq Z\leq 58,~N=125,126$. An absolute change in the $P_{xn}$ values of up to 5-10% is observed in the $N=126$ region when including pre-equilibrium emission compared to the values predicted by the Hauser-Feshbach model alone.

Uncovering new phenomena in nature requires experiments. For centuries, their design has been exclusively a human endeavor. Today, a new paradigm is emerging in which artificial intelligence and computational methods can design experiments themselves. Realizing this form of automated scientific discovery requires simulators that are sufficiently expressive to represent the diverse physical processes and couplings from which new experiments can be constructed. In this direction, we introduce esQueranto, a differentiable software that brings photon-number quantum optics and structured-light propagation into a common description, allowing the spatial evolution of light to directly influence non-classical quantum states and their interference. esQueranto is implemented in JAX, providing automatic differentiation and hardware-accelerated evaluation for optimization and automated search. We demonstrate the framework across a broad range of quantum-optical applications that exercise complementary aspects of its physical description. By combining quantum and structured-light physics within a single differentiable simulator, esQueranto takes an important step towards the dream of a foundational simulator in physics.

We propose a calibration-free photonic memory bitcell based on nonresonant variable optical attenuators in the GlobalFoundries 45SPCLO platform. The cell maintains complementary electrical states through electro-optical feedback without cavity-resonance alignment. Wordline-controlled attenuators enable selective writing through differential optical bitlines, while optical readout shares the holding input and output splitters, avoiding additional read attenuators or a separate laser source. Circuit simulations demonstrate writing with $10~\mathrm{ps}$ optical pulses at $2~\mathrm{mW}$ peak power. The cell retains data as long as optical and electrical power are supplied, with retention simulated for $5~\mathrm{s}$ per logic state. The evaluated transition consumes an incremental write energy of $0.562~\mathrm{pJ}$, including circuit electrical energy and the laser contribution at 20% wall-plug efficiency. The bitcell layout occupies $147.92\times219.93~\mu\mathrm{m}^{2}$.

The recent development of wavelength-scale nonlinear waveguides highlights the need for new diagnostic methods that characterize both waveguide dispersion and fabrication-induced spatial inhomogeneities. While tightly confining waveguides enable compact and highly efficient nonlinear devices, nanometer-scale waveguide nonuniformities can limit the effective interaction length and conversion efficiency. In this work, we establish a high-throughput diagnostic method for second-order nonlinear waveguides based on near-degenerate three-wave mixing, hereafter referred to as sum-frequency tomography (SFT). In contrast with conventional diagnostics based on second-harmonic generation, SFT produces two-dimensional transfer functions that allow dispersion orders to be characterized separately from longitudinal phase-mismatch variations. We validate this technique using commercially available PPLN waveguides and show that SFT recovers the group-velocity mismatch between the interacting waves, the group-velocity dispersion of the fundamental, and a low-order polynomial approximation of the longitudinal phase-mismatch profile. SFT avoids the experimental complexities of phase-sensitive or spatially resolved measurements, enabling the characterization of individual waveguides in seconds.

The study of continuous spin particles, as general low-energy implications of relativity and quantum mechanics, has intensified in recent years with potential experimental signatures. In this note we show that these particles are absent in perturbative super-string theories, generalising a result in arXiv:1302.4771 to the supersymmetric case. This stands out as a general low-energy prediction of all perturbative superstring constructions.

The terahertz (THz) region is highly attractive for imaging because it penetrates many optically opaque materials and can distinguish them by composition. Among the various methods that allow us to access this spectral region, THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is uniquely suited to retrieve broadband information, recording the full waveform of the THz electric field to recover both amplitude and phase with high sensitivity. Translating this capability into fast, wide-field imaging has however remained a major challenge, largely because the low average power of conventional TDS sources forces a trade-off between acquisition speed, field of view, and sensitivity. Here we demonstrate a hyperspectral THz camera in which a high-average-power, pulsed broadband THz source, delivering 38.3 mW at a 400 kHz repetition rate, drives parallel electro-optic detection over a wide field of view at high acquisition rates. The system simultaneously records the full THz waveform, in amplitude and phase, across 145,000 pixels over a ~14.5 mm field of view at an acquisition rate of 2 Hz. These results demonstrate the potential of high-average-power THz-TDS for broadband, high-speed imaging, opening applications such as inline material-resolved inspection and the spectroscopic imaging of irreversible, second-timescale processes such as hydration in biologically relevant systems.

Negative Kirkwood–Dirac quasiprobabilities are credited with the quantum advantage of interaction-free measurement and postselected metrology. We test that claim on the task interaction-free measurement was designed for: learning about a sample letting it absorb as little light as possible. The Kirkwood–Dirac distribution of path and output gives the linear response to a weak sample: its real part responds to absorption, its imaginary part to a phase. For a pure single photon passing once through any interferometer, the Fisher information about transmittance per absorbed photon is the direct-transmission value minus a sum of squared imaginary parts: no interferometer or readout beats direct transmission. Negativity plays no role beyond concentrating information in weakly lit outputs. The imaginary parts of the Kirkwood-Dirac distribution depend on the output basis here, not on the sample, so a basis exists in which every term is real, which is optimal. A single photon gains information per absorbed photon only through a phase response, which for an optical line needs a thick or inhomogeneously broadened sample, or through many passes when absorptions go uncounted, as shown by a critically coupled resonator. For detecting a weak absorber, negativity gives a single-shot advantage that does not accumulate over multiple trials; advantage instead accumulates when there are outputs which are dark without the object, a case which needs no negativity.

Excited organic dyes chemically bound to an icosahedral virus shell can spontaneously synchronize and emit a superradiant burst of light. The mechanism that allows it to occur at room temperature, despite collisional dephasing and inhomogeneous broadening, is not understood. Few other known low-dimensional condensed matter systems exhibit room-temperature superradiance (SR). In the fluctuation-prone environment of molecular-based systems, electron–vibrational coupling has been proposed to play a central role. Here, we addressed experimentally the existence of underdamped virus capsid phonon-like modes and theoretically their involvement in the transition from uncorrelated to cooperative emission. We find that SR-active dye-labeled capsids exhibit underdamped low-frequency oscillations that modulate the dye excited-state response, and modeling shows how such capsid motion can promote the collective polarization required for superradiant emission.

Constraint-preserving mixers keep QAOA within a feasible subspace, but feasibility and global mixer connectivity do not determine which feasible configurations are available to a particular shallow circuit. We study constrained QAOA at the level of the circuit actually executed: a specified feasible initial state, finite depth, and finite schedule of mixer interactions. We define the finite-depth accessible set $R_p(M,x_0)$ and show that the computational-basis support of the ideal QAOA circuit is contained within it. This gives a parameter-independent objective ceiling $f_R^\star=\max_{x\in R_p}f(x)$ and a normalized reachable-quality diagnostic $Q_R$, separating accessible volume from the objective quality contained within it. We evaluate this framework using resource-matched block-local XY mixer schedules for constrained portfolio optimization and synthetic block-constrained quadratic problems. Across 207 favorable-tail CVaR QAOA configurations, $Q_R$ shows the strongest association with realized shallow-QAOA performance among the structural diagnostics considered, with Pearson and Spearman correlations of $0.7003$ and $0.8057$; the relationship remains positive under controlled and dependence-aware analyses. The distinction persists across changes in feasible initialization, portfolio size, and objective family. A compilation-only study further shows that, for the dense portfolio Hamiltonians considered here, phase-separator routing dominates the compiled two-qubit resource scale, while mixer schedules with comparable compiled two-qubit cost can exhibit markedly different finite-depth accessible quality. These results motivate objective-relevant finite-depth accessibility as a complementary diagnostic for resource-bounded constrained QAOA.

We consider multi-dimensional quasiperiodic Schrödinger operators with monotone sawtooth-type potentials in the perturbative localization regime. We prove that a given gap is closed iff a corresponding (via a natural gap labeling) eigenfunction vanishes at the origin. Using this, we show that for a generic choice of the sampling function $f$, the spectrum of such an operator is a Cantor set, with all possible gaps being open. We also provide a class of functions $f$ for which some gaps are closed. Finally, we observe that certain gaps are more difficult to close than the others.

The abundance of galaxy clusters as a function of mass — the halo mass function (HMF) — depends strongly on cosmological parameters. Large-scale simulations are computationally expensive, motivating emulators that interpolate simulation outputs. We present a neural network emulator that maps cosmological and astrophysical parameters, halo mass, and redshift directly to a cumulative count of halos above the input mass, avoiding the information loss inherent to binning and to the functional or PCA-based data reduction used in prior emulators. Each emulator prediction is accompanied by a self-estimated error, expressed in units of Poisson shot noise, that the network learns to predict alongside the halo count itself — giving every output a built-in confidence metric. We validate the emulator with leave-one-out tests on three simulation suites — the N-body MassiveNus suite and the hydrodynamical CAMELS IllustrisTNG and SIMBA suites — spanning a range of box sizes, redshifts, sub-grid physics, and softwares. Of all the held-out predictions ($1.2\times 10^6$ in total), 88% have model bias at or below shot noise and 99.9% are within $3\times$ shot noise. The only significant high-error tail is in MassiveNus, where the predicted model bias flags 76% of predictions exceeding $3\times$ shot noise; the remaining number of high error predictions is comparable to the number expected from shot noise alone. This emulator is publicly available and can be trained on other simulation suites making it a flexible HMF tool that can be used for cosmological and astrophysical inference.

A TeV-scale muon collider enables the production of a highly collimated high-energy neutrino flux by muon decay in the straight sections of the collider ring. Recent studies have demonstrated that these neutrinos can be used for high-precision measurements in neutrino physics with a dedicated far-forward neutrino detector. In this study, we investigate the potentiality of the muon collider to discover the rare neutrino trident process, which is characterized by the fusion between a weak boson from the neutrino and a photon from the Coulomb field of the nucleus target. Our results indicate large neutrino trident rates per year [$\mathcal{O}(10^3)$] in a baseline 10 kg neutrino detector for a configuration of different flavour pairs of charged leptons in the final state, which will allow high-precision tests of the Standard Model and searches for New Physics. As a first example, we investigate the impact of the a new gauge boson $Z'$, as predicted by the $L_\mu - L_\tau$ model, and derive the projected sensitivity to this new gauge boson. Our findings show that a neutrino detector at a muon collider will significantly extend the current excluded regions of the parameter space.

We investigate Krylov state complexity in a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain in which both the on-site interaction $U$ and nearest-neighbor interaction $V$ are present. The tilted extended Bose-Hubbard model can be realized with Rydberg-dressed interactions in optical lattices. Using exact diagonalization and Lanczos recursion from three physically motivated Fock states, we compute the time-dependent complexity, its long-time saturation value, and the fluctuations of the Lanczos coefficients for an open chain at unit filling. Crucially, we identify a pronounced quasi-chaotic diagonal regime near $U\simeq V$ in which the Krylov complexity saturation exhibits a sharp ridge while the spectral level-spacing statistics remain partially chaotic. This dissociation arises from the competition between the on-site and nearest-neighbor interaction, which generates a dense manifold of near-resonant many-body configurations that is efficiently coupled by the state-dependent dynamics but retains residual spectral structure. Our results show that Krylov state complexity provides complementary, state-sensitive information about many-body chaos that is not captured by the spectral diagnostics alone, establishing Krylov complexity as a useful diagnostic for studying thermalization and information scrambling in experimentally accessible quantum simulators.

If strange quark matter (SQM) is absolutely stable, hadronic neutron stars (NSs) and strange quark stars (QSs) may coexist in the so-called two-families scenario. A key issue is explaining how hadronic NSs can survive as long-lived metastable objects, rather than promptly converting into stable QSs. Since all NSs are born as hot proto-neutron stars (PNSs), a necessary condition for their existence is that the conditions for conversion, triggered by the nucleation of the first critical SQM droplet, are not reached in every PNS. We investigate the thermal nucleation of critical SQM droplets under representative PNS conditions, accounting for flavor-composition fluctuations and finite-size effects on color superconductivity by suppressing pairing in droplets smaller than the diquark coherence length. We define the nucleation conditions as the thermodynamic state at which a critical SQM droplet is expected to nucleate statistically within the characteristic dynamical timescale of the system. Under these conditions, the reduced nucleation barrier is nearly universal, with $W_*/T\simeq167$ to within a few units. Exploring the SQM parameter space, we show that requiring a canonical $1.4~\rm{M}_{\odot}$ NS to survive the PNS stage sets a lower bound on the hadron-quark surface tension $\sigma\gtrsim 67$ MeVfm$^{-2}$.

Strain offers a direct route to control electronic phases by altering bond lengths, hopping amplitudes, and lattice symmetries. These aspects make electron-phonon (e-ph) coupled systems a natural setting to study strain-induced effects. The Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) Hamiltonian describes the coupling between itinerant electrons and lattice degrees of freedom that modulate hopping and is thus expected to be strongly affected by strain fields. At half-filling and on a bipartite lattice, the SSH interactions drive dominant bond-order-wave (BOW) correlations at low- temperature in which short bonds with high kinetic energy alternate with long bonds with low kinetic energy along four possible patterns. We model uniaxial strain through anisotropic hopping, which breaks the $90^\circ$ rotational symmetry and reduces the BOW phase degeneracy to two. We also include an on-site Hubbard U that promotes antiferromagnetic correlations that are also (weakly) driven by the SSH interaction itself. We map out the half-filled phase diagram in the plane of the e-ph and Hubbard couplings, and determine the critical temperature of BOW formation. Using analytic continuation, we also evaluate the spectral function and demonstrate directionally dependent gap formation in the BOW phase

Accurately extracting information from galaxy surveys, particularly at non-linear scales, requires increasingly complex and flexible forward models of the observed galaxy distribution. A key component is the galaxy bias relation, which connects the underlying matter distribution to observed galaxies and requires more expressive representations than those currently incorporated into Bayesian field-level inference. Certain parameterized models for this mapping can be overparameterized, with individual parameters carrying no direct physical interpretation, making them challenging to constrain. Our objective is to guide the inference of flexible model parameters towards physically plausible regions of parameter space through physics-informed priors. These priors are derived from high-fidelity simulations, thereby enabling the indirect use of simulations that cannot be integrated directly into gradient-based field-level inference. To this end, we introduce the ROBIN-PIP (RObust Bayesian INference with Physics-Informed Priors) framework. As a proof of concept, we jointly infer the cosmic initial conditions and the parameters of a truncated power-law galaxy bias model for a simulated universe. We integrate ROBIN-PIP into the Bayesian Origin Reconstruction from Galaxies algorithm and benchmark against inference without the simulation-based prior. With the additional prior, posterior standard deviations of the bias model parameters are reduced by up to $20\%$ and autocorrelation lengths are reduced from $730$-$870$ to $440$-$550$, increasing the effective sample sizes. We find no bias in the recovered initial conditions, demonstrating that ROBIN-PIP guides inference towards physically consistent solutions without compromising the data likelihood and highlighting its potential to incorporate overparameterized models in field-level inference.

We construct an extensive model of bulk mutual information (MI) in anti-de Sitter spacetime and use it to describe the leading quantum corrections to the MI of certain holographic theories. The equivalence between bulk and boundary MI follows from the Faulkner–Lewkowycz–Maldacena prescription. We show that the extensivity of the bulk MI is sufficient for the quantum-corrected boundary entropy vector to satisfy monogamy of MI and all other holographic entropy cone inequalities. Our model is built from a covariantly conserved current-current kernel in AdS and is realized explicitly by a free massive Dirac fermion, whose boundary MI at long distances is that of a fermionic generalized free field (GFF). The construction also reproduces the expected short-distance divergence structure of a GFF, and the current-current correlator defines a positive and monotonically decreasing function along the renormalization-group flow. We illustrate this explicitly for disjoint half-disks at the conformal fixed point of the model in AdS$_3$, where we present the exact result.

We present a routing-aware pruning strategy for quantum circuits that selectively removes parametric two-qubit gates whose computational contribution is outweighed by the fidelity cost of their execution, and assess it across both Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) and fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) architectures. Each two-qubit gate of a circuit is evaluated by comparing an architecture-independent lower bound on the fidelity cost of omitting the gate against a hardware-specific model for the routing execution cost in each setting. We additionally provide an analytical characterization of the pruning boundary as a function of rotation angle, qubit distance, and hardware noise. Simulations on benchmark circuits demonstrate gate count reductions of up to 48.6% and fidelity improvements of up to 47.7% in the NISQ regime, while a feasibility analysis on FT hardware indicates that pruning is expected to remain relevant across a range of code distances and physical error rates. These results establish routing-aware pruning as a practical and unified compilation strategy across the quantum computing stack.

We construct Feynman rules for Lindblad master equations in the operator language of quantum optics: a fixed algebra of elementary operator moves and closed-form propagators for perturbation theory about an exactly solvable, in most cases Gaussian, generator. The expansion separates into a kinematic part (the shift algebra on the Wick-ordered eigenoperators $O_{mn}=:(c^\dagger)^m c^n:$, from which the vertex table for a specified interaction is assembled) and a dynamical part that enters only through the resolvent of the unperturbed generator, diagonal and additive for any stable, diagonalizable Gaussian $L_0$, including thermal and squeezed reservoirs and correlated decay, and equally available for a two-level emitter, driven or undriven. In the driven Kerr cavity the loop expansion is the semiclassical expansion and the series is asymptotic. In a strongly driven two-level atom, dressed lines replace a series of finite radius by one accurate deep into saturation, one line per Mollow component. For Kerr rings and chains the cost is polynomial in the number of sites at fixed perturbative order. On a three-site ring the diagrams recover the non-Gaussian part of the three-photon correlation that the Gaussian cumulant closure lacks; carried to tenth order they give the smallest $g^{(3)}$ error of the methods compared for $U\leq0.25\kappa$ at a cost below that of a fourth-order closure, and third- and fourth-order closures are more accurate at moderate coupling. The same rules, extended to the counting-field-tilted generator, give the photon-counting cumulants of a disordered eight-site chain beyond direct diagonalization; quantum-jump trajectories at three couplings agree with them to within $1.6$ standard errors, within one at the strongest coupling, where they place the third cumulant six standard errors above the Gaussian value.

Recent optical and near-IR photometric databases like Gaia data release 3 (DR3) and the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea eXtended (VVVX) ESO public survey allow the exploration of candidate unresolved multiple systems (binaries, triples, quadruples, etc.) in nearby clusters, that need spectroscopic confirmation. NGC 2437 (M 46) is a benchmark open cluster with well determined physical parameters. Its relative proximity (D=1.6 kpc) makes this cluster an ideal laboratory to measure the fractions of unresolved multiple systems. We aim here to identify unresolved triple and higher order systems that are reliable members of the open cluster NGC 2437, and provide the spectroscopic confirmation using radial velocities. We confirm that there is a sequence of unresolved binaries in NGC 2437, and report the discovery of a sequence of unresolved triple systems in this cluster. We corroborate membership for 13 binary systems and 8 triple systems using radial velocities measured by the ESO KMOS VVVX-GalCen spectroscopic survey. We further select stars with colors consistent with K-dwarfs, in order to have a controlled sample, comparable to the Solar neighborhood. We also find that the fraction of unresolved triples and quadruples is higher than that of the older open cluster Trumpler 19, studied using a similar setup, suggesting that these systems merge to form blue stragglers or get dissolved with time. We report the spectroscopic confirmation of 95% of the selected VVVX targets, thereby securing the presence of a sequence of unresolved triple systems in NGC 2437, located above the sequence of equal-mass binaries. The single stars constitute 60% of the mass of the cluster, while the rest of the mass (40%) is lodged in the unresolved multiple systems.

We investigate fatigue failure in two-dimensional (2D) model glasses under cyclic shear deformation using atomistic simulations. We find that the number of cycles to failure diverges as a power law as the strain amplitude approaches the fatigue limit, with an exponent close to $-1$, in contrast to the exponent of $-2$ reported in three dimensions (3D). A failure exponent of $-1$ has also recently been observed in a 2D elastoplastic model, suggesting an interesting dependence on spatial dimensionality that needs to be rationalized. Measures of accumulated plastic activity, including dissipated work and non-affine displacements, exhibit scaling with the failure time that is consistent with results in 3D, and indicate a robust connection between damage accumulation and failure. To probe the origins of the variability of failure times, we perform isoconfigurational seeded simulations in which a localized soft region is introduced. While such seeding constrains the spatial location of failure, the distribution of failure times remains broad. These findings extend recent results in 3D concerning fatigue failure times to 2D glasses, including their relation to accumulated plasticity and apparent stochasticity, while also revealing a key difference, namely the exponent describing the divergence of the failure times.

We introduce a finite-dimensional state-space representation of bisexuality in Dirac notation, specify normalized amplitude weights, and analyze the limits of inference from one single observation. We extend the basis for discussing attraction across genders, then define a distinct state space for gender identity with an illustrative normalized time-dependent trajectory. The model is an analogy, not a physical theory or a measurement procedure for human sexuality.

The recent LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) data shows a nuclear-recoil event around $248\,\mathrm{keV}$, motivating scenarios in which dark matter (DM) preferentially scatters at large recoil energies. We investigate an inelastic scattering interpretation in terms of a simple extension with a fermionic DM field interacting with the Standard Model through a single dimension-6 operator. A tiny soft symmetry breaking term facilitates an endothermic transition while naturally suppressing elastic scatterings. Without any fine tuning, a simultaneous explanation of the LZ data and the observed relic density can be effected for a DM mass in the $\sim (0.2,1)$ TeV range.