Papers

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct several community-driven surveys using its Wide Field Instrument (WFI), which contains 18 Teledyne H4RG-10 near-infrared detectors in the focal plane. Roman's wide area survey to measure weak gravitational lensing places particularly stringent requirements on point spread function (PSF) precision for the WFI. The brighter-fatter effect (BFE) is a nonlinear detector effect caused by the deflection of new charge away from pixels with previously accumulated charge during an exposure. As a result, the PSF measured at the detector depends on the charge contrast between pixels, and therefore the effective PSF for astronomical sources is a function of flux contrast and integration time. We present characterization of the BFE observed in a non-flight H4RG by projecting a grid of bright point sources onto the detector using the Talbot Illuminator at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Detector Characterization Lab. We find that the effective area of a pixel decreases by $(-2.18\pm0.04) \times 10^{-6}$ per electron of charge contrast with its neighbors, corresponding to a measurable increase in the effective PSF size over the course of an exposure. Despite charge migration, the total signal detected in the vicinity of a bright source is roughly conserved. We also analyze flat field statistics for the same detector to measure the total inter-pixel nonlinearity (IPNL), which is dominated by BFE. We present a method to correct BFE in H4RG images using the flat field IPNL results, adapted from an extant optical correction technique. The correction reduces the observed BFE by about a factor of 25 as measured by the effective pixel area change, but there is remaining nonlinearity in the corrected data. We discuss possible sources of residual nonlinearity and suggest avenues to investigate optimal BFE correction in Roman survey images.

Virgo is the nearest cool core (CC) galaxy cluster, and is archetypal of the class of X-ray weak CCs. Despite the X-ray continuum implying a large cooling rate ($\gtrsim 10\,{\rm M_{\odot}\,yr^{-1}}$), measurements of cooler gas phases, dust, and star formation show almost no cooling outside the M87 nucleus. It is also known that M87$^{\ast}$ is a prodigious source of cosmic ray (CR) leptons observed in radio and $\gamma$-rays, and recent radio observations have shown that the M87 radio halo is low-frequency and its spectral index steepens rapidly away from the injection region+jets, consistent with an aging, low-energy CR population. We demonstrate that coupling X-ray and radio to newer Faraday rotation limits on the magnetic field, this implies the CRs within the CC radius ($\lesssim 40$kpc) must contribute significantly to the total pressure and soft X-ray emission, through a combination of Coulomb heating the gas and inverse-Compton (IC) scattering microwave background photons to $\sim$keV. We show this can explain the apparent correspondence between jet/radio power and X-ray cooling luminosity, and why the X-ray inferred cooling rate appears much larger than otherwise observed. This would also explain why the central X-ray inferred metallicity at $\lesssim 10\,$kpc appears to be suppressed relative to the UV/optical inferred metallicity (in a wavelength-dependent manner). Compared to more extreme radio+X-ray sources like Perseus, we find the observations require a softer 'escaping' CR spectrum (escaping or accelerated outside $\gtrsim 1\,$kpc from M87$^{\ast}$).

Inverse materials design is a long-standing goal of computational materials discovery. Generative models for crystalline materials are typically trained to match the distribution of a structure database, while nothing in their training objective points them at specific design goals such as targeted properties. We use group-relative policy optimization (GRPO) to align a generative model based on stochastic interpolants and discrete flow matching with general black-box reward functions through reinforcement learning. Atom types are generated by a discrete flow and the policy gradient of our generalization of GRPO directly acts on the likelihoods of the atom-type transitions, which differentiates our work from previous reinforcement-learning approaches for diffusion and flow-based generative models of crystalline materials. We introduce a reward function that raises the yield of metastable, unique and novel structures (mSUN) from 13.4% for the pretrained model to 45.5% for the reinforced model, as evaluated by a community benchmark. Our reward also improves the performance of a reinforcement learning framework for crystalline materials based on latent denoising diffusion models. At the same time, we find that directly reinforcing atom-type transition likelihoods enables reward exploitation that has to be prevented with explicit guards. The same analysis also exposes a gap in the community metric. Single-element structures in distinct packings are counted as metastable, unique and novel materials and inflate mSUN without yielding any new compounds. A stability claim is only as good as its reference hull. We report every result split by the number of reference phases behind it and argue that benchmarks should do the same.

We present a next-to-leading order + parton shower generator for $t$- and $s$-channel single-top production in hadron colliders, for a leptonically-decaying top, including off-shell and non-resonant effects. The generator, publicly available in the POWHEG BOX RES framework, describes the hadro-production of a $b$-jet and a leptonically decaying $W$-boson, accompanied by an additional jet, i.e. $pp\to \ell^{+} \nu_{\ell}\, j_b\, j $ and $pp\to \ell^{-} \bar{\nu}_{\ell}\, j_{\bar{b}}\, j $, where $j_b$ ($j_{\bar{b}}$) is a jet containing a bottom (anti)quark, and $j$ is a generic jet. We also provide an interface to the Pythia parton shower, suited to matching in the presence of decaying resonances such as the top quark. Our matching is designed to combine the advantages of a five-flavour calculation with the description of bottom quark mass effects in final-state jets. We perform a phenomenological study using fiducial cuts and discuss shower effects.

The formation of heavy seed black holes from the collapse of supermassive stars (SMSs) is a promising pathway to the supermassive black holes (SMBHs). In the conventional direct-collapse scenario, however, SMS formation requires an extremely strong external far-ultraviolet (FUV) field to suppress H$_2$ cooling and fragmentation. Here, we use cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations to show that SMSs can form in metal-free atomic-cooling haloes even under subcritical FUV backgrounds with $J_{21}=1$-$10^2$. We follow the evolution for $\sim1$-$2~{\rm Myr}$ after the onset of star formation, including FUV and ionizing radiation from stars formed within the halo. Star formation proceeds through a characteristic two-stage evolution. H$_2$ cooling initially induces fragmentation and the formation of ordinary Pop III stars. Internal FUV radiation from these stars then photodissociates H$_2$ and suppresses further fragmentation, while the surrounding warm gas reservoir contracts under self-gravity and undergoes global collapse through atomic cooling. This collapse drives inflow rates of $\sim0.1$-$1~{\rm M_\odot~yr^{-1}}$ and produces rapidly accreting protostars that reach $\sim2$-$6\times10^4~{\rm M_\odot}$ by the simulations end. Since rapid accretion is still ongoing, these objects are expected to grow to $\sim10^5~{\rm M_\odot}$ SMSs and then form direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs). The global collapse is accompanied by clustered star formation, producing a compact, top-heavy stellar system around the SMSs. The estimated DCBH abundance, $n_{\rm DCBH}\sim10^{-3}$-$10^{-2}~{\rm cMpc^{-3}}$, is high enough to provide a plausible progenitor population for Little Red Dots and present-day SMBHs. Our results demonstrate that internal stellar feedback can trigger, rather than prevent, SMS formation, substantially relaxing the external FUV requirement for heavy-seed formation.

Cosmic Birefringence (CB) is a unique probe of physics beyond the Standard Model, potentially sourced by an axion-like field coupled to photons via a Chern-Simons interaction. Recent Planck analyses have strengthened evidence for a non-zero isotropic rotation angle, yet its anisotropic component remains undetected, despite being the key to distinguishing a homogeneous quintessence-like field from spatially varying axion-like dark matter. We forecast the sensitivity of forthcoming ground- and space-based CMB experiments to anisotropic CB, applying a patch-based localization technique to simulated CMB-plus-noise maps with white noise levels representative of Simons Observatory SAT- and LiteBIRD-like sensitivities. Local rotation angles are reconstructed on independent sky patches by minimizing the $\chi^2_{EB}$ statistic built from the $EB$ D-estimator. Under our idealized simulations, the forecast angular power spectrum improves current Planck-based constraints on the CB anisotropy statistical uncertainty by a factor of 26-40 for a satellite-like mission and 11-15 for a realistic ground-based footprint. Translating these into constraints on the scale-invariant amplitude, fitting the reconstructed bandpowers with a scale-invariant amplitude model, we forecast with a 95 % C.L. $A_{\rm CB} < 3.5\times10^{-4}\,{\rm deg}^2$ for the space-like mission and $A_{\rm CB} < 7.1\times10^{-4}\,{\rm deg}^2$ for the ground-based footprint, improving on the current full-sky Planck constraint by a factor of about 20 and 10, respectively. These values represent upper bounds on the achievable gain, and indicate that forthcoming CMB experiments will be able to further shed light on anisotropic CB.

Long-secondary-period (LSP) variables are a subclass of long-period variables whose origin is a matter of debate. J-type carbon stars are a subclass of carbon stars enriched in 13C, and the origin of this chemical peculiarity is unclear. In this paper, we report on the discovery of a LSP in two J-type carbon stars: VZ Per and UV Cam. Methods. A decade-long spectroscopic monitoring was used to obtain a long-term radial-velocity curve for the two stars. From a frequency analysis, we isolated a LSP signal. The retrieved periodicity was then compared with changes in spectral profiles and available light-curve variability to further constrain the origin of the modulation. Results. For VZ Per, the LSP derived from the radial-velocity curve (~960 days) is correlated with the light-curve dimming event and a variation in the Balmer absorption line profile. These results translate into changes in the gas and dust column densities with the phase of the LSP, with the maximum gas column density occurring ahead of the dust. For UV Cam, the radial velocity monitoring yields a period of ~1178 d with an amplitude of about 1 km/s. Interpreting the RV modulation as a Keplerian signal for both stars, a low-mass (<0.1Msun) close companion is found. In this scenario, variations in gas and dust column densities with (orbital) phase trace the material in the expanding comet-like tail trailing the substellar companion. Conclusions. These observations provide time-dependent variations of the gas and dust in LSP variables that are consistent with the current binary scenario. Furthermore, the detection of LSP among J-type carbon stars anchors their current evolutionary status in the dust-producing region of the thermally-pulsing AGB phase.

We study correlation functions of topologically twisted $\mathcal N=2$ supersymmetric QCD with gauge group $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ on a compact four-manifold $X$. We derive the Coulomb branch integral for all $N$, including new couplings to background fluxes for the flavor symmetry. For $X$ of simple type with $b_2^+>1$, the correlators become sums over a finite number of strong-coupling singularities on the Coulomb branch, and can be expressed using a number of Coulomb branch couplings. The sum contains the $\mathcal N=1$ vacua, which become the supersymmetric vacua when the $\mathcal N=2$ theory is broken to $\mathcal N=1$ by an adjoint mass deformation, and whose contribution we attribute to the instanton branch. We focus on asymptotically free $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ QCD with $N_f<2N$ equal mass hypermultiplets, and conjecture that its instanton contribution to topological correlators agrees with the generating function of virtual Segre numbers of rank $N$, which are intersection numbers on the moduli space of semistable sheaves on an algebraic surface. We present a precise dictionary for all $N$ between universal series for Segre numbers and Coulomb branch couplings at the $\mathcal N=1$ vacua. The calculation of these couplings requires new higher-rank techniques, involving Siegel modular forms, an exact $\mathbb Z_N$ symmetry, charge conjugation symmetry, factorisation of the Seiberg–Witten curve, and the blowup formula. For pure $\mathrm{SU}(N)$, our result agrees with earlier work by Mariño and Moore, and the twisted correlators give the $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Donaldson invariants of $X$. For $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ QCD, we determine closed-form expressions for all 13 Coulomb branch couplings for each $N_f=1,\dots, 5$, and find precise agreement with results of Göttsche and Kool for virtual rank 3 Segre numbers.

We present a general method to construct and solve time-dependent integrable chiral quantum field theories on finite intervals from autonomous scattering and reflection data. Spatial homogeneity forces the spectral labels of right- and left-moving particles to be affine with a common slope, so bulk and boundary couplings sample one spectral trajectory. A complete round trip shifts the spectral labels and gives boundary quantum Knizhnik–Zamolodchikov equations. The Yang–Baxter and reflection equations provide local consistency, while boundary-qKZ flatness provides global consistency. We reconstruct the local Hamiltonian by Cayley inversion of the bulk and boundary matching matrices. We apply the construction to rational $SU(N)$ scattering with fundamental boundary impurities and to an $O(3)$ model with a spin-$\tfrac12$ impurity. For the $SU(2)$ impurity, we construct explicit boundary-qKZ solutions as lattice sums of off-shell boundary Bethe vectors and recover the static open-chain Bethe equations when the drive rate vanishes

Neural decoders for quantum error correction have achieved high accuracy on surface code memory experiments, but practical fault-tolerant computation requires decoders that transfer across devices, noise conditions, and logical operations. We introduce a modular graph-recurrent decoder designed for this setting. Built from reusable local syndrome encoders, it is pretrained in simulation and fine-tuned to hardware using a common pipeline, with only lightweight spatial aggregation adapted between experiments. The decoder performs competitively on conventional memory benchmarks, outperforming minimum-weight perfect matching (MWPM) at distances 3 and 5 on an IBM Nighthawk-generation processor and closely approaching AlphaQubit on Google's below-threshold hardware data. We then test the framework in two settings beyond memory decoding on the same IBM device. First, in an $X$-type stability experiment, we continuously tune the effective measurement error rate using a variable pre-readout rotation and train a single decoder jointly across the resulting noise range. It matches or outperforms MWPM across the sweep without requiring a separately calibrated decoder for each setting. Second, we decode a $ZZ$-merge lattice-surgery experiment between two distance-3 surface-code patches, improving the decoded correlation between the merge outcome and the final $ZZ$ parity relative to MWPM on real hardware. Together, these experiments demonstrate neural decoding that is portable not only across hardware, but also across qualitatively different surface code observables and logical operations, using models trainable on single-GPU academic resources.

Star-forming structures of scale $\sim0.5-1\,\mathrm{kpc}$, dubbed 'giant' star-forming clumps, are routinely detected in unlensed surveys of $z > 1$ galaxies. Two scenarios are usually invoked to explain their existence – genuine physical structures or resolution-driven artifacts – yet distinguishing between them requires characterizing their internal structure. In this work, part of the Star-Forming Clumps As Layered Emergent Structures (SCALES) series, we hence ask: What is inside a giant clump? We analyze 23 lensed galaxies at $z=1-4$ with JWST/NIRCam using difference-of-Gaussian decomposition to model (lensed) clumps at $\sim 100-300\,\mathrm{pc}$ scales, and the surrounding extended component (EC) at giant clump scales. Associating clumps to ECs, we effectively identify 44 giant clumps. Characterizing giant clump stellar mass composition using the most massive member clump and the remaining constituent clumps, we find it consistent with random sampling of the host galaxy's clump population, and hence the clump stellar mass function. This conclusion agrees qualitatively with both prevailing scenarios – (I) dominant long-lived giant clumps, although requiring constant renewal of their constituents, and (II) giant clumps as mere blended clump associations. However, most models make no strong claims about their internal mass distribution beyond order-of-magnitude statements, and our observations thus provide an empirical constraint against which such models can be re-evaluated. Finally, using the total mass budget of clumps and ECs, we find that the clump stellar mass function cannot be described by a single power law of slope $\approx 2$, but requires a break to a shallower slope at $\sim 10^{7.4}\,\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$.

Dense star-forming regions in $z>1$ galaxies, often termed 'clumps', have been studied across two distinct regimes of telescope resolution, each motivating interpretations in tension with the other. In the SCALES series (Star-Forming Clumps As Layered Emergent Structures), we aim to connect star-forming structures across scales, from the $\sim100\,\mathrm{pc}$ clumps in lensed studies to the $\sim\mathrm{kpc}$-scale ”giant” clumps in unlensed surveys. In this first paper, we present a difference-of-Gaussian (DoG) decomposition that simultaneously models $\sim100-300\,\mathrm{pc}$ (lensed) clumps and $\sim\mathrm{kpc}$-scale component (the extended component, or EC), which would together constitute the giant clumps seen at lower resolution. Here the EC is treated as a scale-separated local background rather than a physical object, absorbing all light that is not a compact clump. Applying this to 23 moderately lensed ($\mu \approx 2-9$) galaxies at $z_{spec} = 1-4$ to evaluate clump properties (deferring ECs and giant clumps to the next work), we find their stellar mass to be capped at $\sim 10^{8.5}\,M_{\odot}$. We measure clump stellar mass function slope of $2.19 \pm 0.06$, which is higher than typical, and may reflect a physical truncation at the massive end. We also show that empirical correlations of clump surface densities and clump-to-host mass ratio with redshift are exaggerated by redshift-dependent detection bias, so $\sim100-300\,\mathrm{pc}$ clumps are largely co-similar across our range ($z = 1-4$). Finally, combining clump mass, size and age estimates with literature gas-dispersion measurements at similar scales, we argue that $\sim100\,\mathrm{pc}$ clumps are themselves composed of star-cluster-like sub-components at much smaller scales.

We develop a higher-geometric framework for magnetic higher-form symmetries of pre-quantum field theories. The magnetic (topological) charges of a sigma-model with stacky target are encoded by the shape of the target, equivalently of its stack of fields, which is op-dual to the flat automorphism group controlling electric symmetries. Magnetic symmetry backgrounds are obtained by dualizing these charges against a chosen moduli stack of topological field theories, generalizing Pontryagin duality, and act on the theory by stacking. Cohesive modalities allow for targets with non-finite and non-discrete data. When the dualizing stack is a grouplike $E_\infty$-object, we prove a fibration theorem expressing the magnetic symmetries of an electrically gauged theory in terms of those of the ungauged theory and of the gauge group, computed by a homotopy-fixed-point spectral sequence with an explicit first page. For moduli stacks of higher $U(1)$-gerbes with connection, encoding bulk topological local Lagrangians, we prove a factorization theorem: the magnetic symmetry backgrounds of any connected target split, non-canonically, into Pontryagin duals of its integral homology groups, and are necessarily flat, as a consequence of dualizing discrete charges against a target with connections. We illustrate both theorems with pure $\mathrm{Pin}^\pm(2)$ gauge theory: $O(2)$ carries invertible magnetic $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetries in form degrees $d-3$, $d-4$ and $d-5$ that are absent for $\mathrm{Pin}^-(2)$, the first two distinguished by a single differential of the spectral sequence. Gauging and physical applications are developed in upcoming work.

We construct large families of mixed-state topological orders in (3+1)D, including intrinsically mixed-state topological orders. We realize these theories by relating the data parameterizing braided fusion 2-categories to the strong higher-form symmetries and their anomalies that characterize mixed-state topological order. We focus here on bosonic theories, which include theories which admit an emergent fermion in the spectrum of line operators. Our general framework is exemplified on the lattice, where we present concrete models and identify how the data of braided fusion 2-categories are physically encoded. We then formalize this data and show that every braided fusion 2-category arises from a general construction (decoherence followed by strong and weak gauging) as the category of topological operators of a (3+1)D mixed state, with intrinsically mixed-state topological orders distinguished by the presence of strong higher-form symmetries whose anomalies cannot be realized in any (3+1)D gapped ground state. Notably, we show that (3+1)D admits a new mechanism with no (2+1)D counterpart: intrinsically mixed-state order whose topological operators braid non-degenerately, but which carries a gravitational anomaly.

Relativistic heavy quarks equilibrate even when their microscopic drag and momentum diffusion violate the Einstein relation. We investigate how equilibration proceeds as a function of the coupling and compared to simplified Fokker-Planck models. To do this, we present a detailed calculation of the momentum-transfer kernel in weakly coupled non-Abelian plasmas through strict $\mathcal{O}(g^4)$, and study the resulting dynamics at leading order in the inverse heavy-quark mass. Beyond leading logarithm, its non-Gaussian structure plays a crucial role in equilibration. We examine closely the analytic structure of the evolution kernel, determine the large-order asymptotics of the momentum-transfer cumulants, and show how the kernel's bounded analytic domain fixes asymmetric exponential tails at the level of the momentum transfer probability. Strongly coupled $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM also features an approximately Gaussian core and exponential tails, but differs in the nature of the kernel's singularities and the velocity dependence of the transport coefficients and tail exponents. These differences have distinct dynamical consequences: for the parameters studied, the persistence of the relativistic population in steeply falling spectra is largely explained by drag alone at very weak coupling, whereas fluctuation-induced survivor bias produces a large relative enhancement at strong coupling. Nevertheless, the shared qualitative structure between weak and strong coupling points the way towards a practical phenomenological description of heavy quarks anchored in first-principles field theory.

We study complex saddle points of the worldline path integral for massive charged particles in two-dimensional maximally symmetric backgrounds threaded by homogeneous electric fields. Within the worldline formalism, we show that the semiclassical saddles generically require complexifying both the target spacetime and the proper-time parameter. The resulting solutions comprise two slices of a single complex family, distinguished by the direction of proper-time evolution. The one evolving in imaginary proper time carries an action that typically controls the exponential suppression of non-perturbative effects, while that evolving in real proper time may encode additional complex phases responsible for quantum interference between saddles. Treating this family as a whole, we give a prescription for constructing and classifying all topologically inequivalent instanton sectors, and we find that the worldline action depends only on their topological data, namely winding numbers around the compact directions and certain isolated punctures. Moreover, in Anti-de Sitter spacetime, the qualitative structure of the solutions is governed by the dimensionless ratio $R |eE|/m$ ($R$ being the curvature radius), which distinguishes sub-extremal, extremal, and super-extremal regimes. By contrast, no analogous distinction occurs in de Sitter—where the instantons are insensitive to this ratio—or in Minkowski spacetime, which lacks a curvature scale altogether. We also recast the action as a sum over residues of the relevant (non-conserved) conjugate momentum, making transparent which analytic data control each contribution. Finally, we discuss the subtleties that arise when solutions built in various local patches are lifted to global (Anti-)de Sitter space. These impose further necessary conditions on which saddles can in principle contribute to the one-loop path integral.

Dissipative protocols offer a route to ground state preparation that does not require a large initial overlap with the ground state. To move beyond time independent Lindbladians and randomized Lindbladians sampled from a fixed distribution, we study driven-dissipative protocols in which the generator varies over time. Our construction uses a family of randomized Lindbladians whose jump operators are obtained by averaging the unitary evolution of random matrices under a fixed target Hamiltonian. We show that empirical averages of these Lindbladians drive arbitrary initial density matrices to low energy states. The resulting mixing time bounds depend on the Hamiltonian only through its eigenvalue distribution and remain valid even for cold starts.

Vector-boson polarization provides a sensitive probe of new physics in the electroweak sector. Rare processes and suppressed longitudinal contributions make optimal polarization separation essential to exploit the available data. We show that parton-level differential polarization fractions define optimal observables and a fundamental sensitivity limit for polarized cross-section measurements. Their conditional expectations retain all experimentally accessible polarization information, yielding the best achievable sensitivity within the assumed model, and can be learned by neural networks for unbinned or binned inference. Measuring their distributions combines polarization sensitivity with the model independence of fiducial cross sections, probing deviations beyond constant rescalings of polarized contributions. We demonstrate the approach in inclusive ZZ production.

We present SONDE (SOrted Neighbor Distance Embedding): a scalable manifold learning approach to create a nuanced, continuous, low-dimensional representation of the geometry of galaxies' local environments. SONDE is a variation on Isomap that uses similarity distances between galaxy neighborhoods to create an embedding space, within which galaxies cluster according to their neighborhood geometries. We additionally present a novel method to project different datasets into the same embedding space, enabling comparisons of environmental embeddings across redshifts. We demonstrate this method on the TNG100 simulations at $z = 0 - 5$ and show that the embedding values evolve with redshift and correlate with galaxies' physical properties. We train a neural network to predict physical properties based on environmental features and show that our first embedding dimension outperforms a standard environmental quantifier, the number of neighbors, while the top three dimensions encode as much environmental information as a ten-bin radial profile. Our results are consistent with known density correlations, including galaxy halo mass, central vs. satellite status, and quenching. SONDE provides a straightforward way to encode subtleties of galaxy environments that could have significant implications for future analysis of galaxy-environment interactions.

Public Exams are an assessment system designed in the context of Biology Education Research to increase student engagement in the exam design process. Students are shown incomplete versions of test questions ahead of time, with the format of the question revealed but some details withheld. Students are also given the chance to provide feedback on the questions, refining them for clarity before the actual exam. In this study, we examined the impact of Public Exams on the experiences and outcomes of N = 42 students in an introductory physics course at New Mexico State University. Using a combination of online numerical surveys, open-ended written responses, and student grade data, we conducted a mixed-methods analysis of the impact of Public Exams on students in this class. We also applied our method to re-analyze the publicly available data of Wiggins et al. Students reported various benefits of Public Exams, including reduced test anxiety and directing to core concepts, and we observed a significant positive correlation between the participation rate of students in editing public exam questions and their average exam grade. But students also expressed dissatisfaction with the incomplete information provided on problems, and they had a less positive response rate than the control sample. In other qualitative responses, students also consistently highlighted the applications of procedural knowledge as most helpful to their learning and a recommendation for the future. Our findings suggest that physics students at NMSU do benefit from Public Exams through reduced anxiety and directing to core concepts, but that the Public Exam system, as previously described, is not optimized for use in physics. We attribute this to the particular emphasis in physics on applying procedural knowledge and suggest modifications of the Public Exam system to better tailor it to a physics context.

We demonstrate that Maxwell electrodynamics interacting with a planar Chern-Simons interface does not have plane wave solutions localized on the interface. We re-examine the derivation of such waves presented by N. Kaloper in [Phys.Rev.D114(2026)L051903] and show that at an intermediate step certain terms were missed in an equation therein. Taking these terms into account changes the final conclusion of [Phys.Rev.D114(2026)L051903]. We also show that the method used in [arXiv:2606.12513 [hep-th]] to reproduce the same result is not consistent.

Real telescope beams are asymmetric, breaking the simple $B_{\ell}$ factorisation in harmonic space and coupling modes across $\ell$ and $m$. We develop a map-domain treatment in which beam convolution is a local, scan-dependent operation applied directly to the time-ordered data (TOD), accommodating the full beam shape and giving a direct handle on intensity-to-polarisation ($I \rightarrow P$) leakage. A noiseless validation against spherical-harmonic convolution reproduces the input temperature and $B$-mode power spectra up to $\ell \simeq 1000$, well beyond the range of primordial $B$-mode science. We outline how the operation maps onto a sparse linear BeamOperator for modular map-making.

A leading explanation for why humans cooperate with strangers is indirect reciprocity: when conduct is observed, individuals earn good reputations by cooperating with the deserving. Previous research has identified many "moral systems" that sustain cooperation through indirect reciprocity - each pairing a strategy for how to act with a norm for how to judge others - yet what makes them succeed, and whether that success generalizes beyond the donation game, has remained unclear. Here we evaluate all 1,048,576 moral systems whose norms condition on both players' reputations and actions, across every two-player social dilemma. We find that every highly stable, cooperative system pairs a "discriminating" strategy - one that cooperates with the good and defects against the bad when in good standing - with a "consistent" norm that deems good exactly those who act as the strategy prescribes. Such systems "practice what they preach" and preach what they practice. In the limit of small errors, only one strategy paired with a consistent norm remains stable across all social dilemmas: the "contrite discriminator", which cooperates to make amends when its standing is bad. Our results unify decades of research on indirect reciprocity, revealing moral consistency as the common ingredient of every stable, cooperative moral system.

A recent trapped-ion experiment realised a lattice gauge theory in which the internal states of the ions carry the gauge field and their vibrations carry bosonic matter. In that experiment, a charge moving around a loop was frozen in place by Aharonov–Bohm interference. The noise of such a device is usually simulated after the measurements have been made. Here we show that it can be predicted before the machine is run. For each quantity that the experiment measures, we derive, from the reported noise rates alone, a formula for how it decays together with a bound it can never exceed. The results reveal a simple pattern. The local conservation law of the theory is a parity of the vibrational mode, so heating violates it at a rate that grows as the mode warms, and the violation accelerates rather than accumulating steadily. At zero electric field, each of the three noise processes of the device leaves its own fingerprint. Heating affects only the conservation law, motional dephasing only the interference, and qubit errors only the stored flux and the frozen state. Once the electric field is switched on, the frozen state begins to leak, and we write an exact formula and a guaranteed bound for that leak.

Halide solid electrolytes are promising candidates for energy-dense all-solid-state batteries because they combine high-voltage stability, facile processing, and fast Li-ion conduction. A recent study showed that physically mixing two halide solid electrolytes, Li$_2$ZrCl$_6$ (LZC) and Li$_3$YCl$_6$ (LYC), raises the Li-ion conductivity by 46% and 58% relative to LZC and LYC, respectively, suggesting that halide heterointerfaces offer a new route to faster ion transport; however, the origin of this enhancement remains unknown. Here, we combine density functional theory calculations, defect thermodynamics, machine-learning-driven molecular dynamics, and vibrational and Raman spectroscopy to elucidate Li-ion transport in LZC, LYC, and their heterointerface. Using low-energy ordered supercells that represent the configurational disorder of these halides, we find that Li and Cl interstitials are the dominant charged defects in both materials. Forming an LZC|LYC interface favors the generation of interfacial Li Frenkel pairs, producing Li interstitials in LZC and Li vacancies in LYC, thereby increasing the charge-carrier concentration near the interface. By analyzing the angular orientations of Cl around the metal cations in molecular dynamics trajectories of a coherent interface, we show that the interface creates new stable Cl configurations that accommodate the framework rearrangement accompanying Li hops. Simulated vibrational power spectra and measured Raman spectra indicate lattice softening and octahedral distortion at the interface, consistent with the formation of these Cl configurations. These results support a cooperative mechanism in which space charge layer formation and a dynamically flexible interfacial halide framework enhance Li-ion conduction, providing atomistic design principles for superionic halide heterostructures and multicomponent solid electrolytes.

We construct and analyze a mirror family for the generalized complete intersection Calabi-Yau threefold $X_+=[\mathbb{P}^1\,|\,3\ {-1};\ \mathbb{P}^4\,|\,2\ 3]$, with $(h^{1,1},h^{2,1})=(2,46)$. An auxiliary-variable presentation turns the negative-degree section into a variation of toric GIT. Crossing one wall flops 16 disjoint $(-1,-1)$-curves and yields a Calabi-Yau threefold $X_-$, a nef complete intersection in a toric $\mathbb{Q}$-Fano eightfold, which carries a genus-one fibration of index 4. Because this ambient space is not Gorenstein, the Batyrev-Borisov construction does not apply. We use the Hori-Vafa equations only to select a 2-parameter Laurent family, and construct a smooth projective crepant compactification $Y$ of the Laurent model with $(h^{1,1},h^{2,1})=(46,2)$; for very general parameters the Mordell-Weil group is $\mathbb{Z}/4\mathbb{Z}$. The periods of $Y$ satisfy a rank-6 Picard-Fuchs system with two maximally unipotent boundary points, whose indicial algebras are isomorphic to the rational even cohomology rings of $X_-$ and $X_+$. The resulting genus-zero predictions agree with independent counts of 176 vertical lines and 100 vertical conics on the genus-one fibration $X_-\to\mathbb{P}^2$.

A light force carrier can mediate long-range interactions between dark matter particles and facilitate the formation of bound states. Models incorporating these features have attracted considerable attention in recent years, with significant advances in both the theoretical understanding of such bound states and their impact on the parameter space consistent with the observed dark matter relic abundance. However, the relevant results and their consistent implementation in Boltzmann equations remain technically intricate, requiring careful treatment or the use of specialized tools. This complexity has hindered broader adoption of these findings and restricted their use to a small number of expert groups. To address this challenge, we propose a simple prescription based on the analytic limits of the relevant rates, which allows standard freeze-out computations to be refined through a straightforward semi-analytical prescription that captures the main features of the full calculation. We illustrate this approach for a $U(1)$ dark matter model with a light force carrier, including Sommerfeld enhancement and bound-state effects.

Fault-tolerant preparation of logical states is a critical primitive for the realization of large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing. This paper introduces SpiderCSS, a scalable compilation pipeline that generates highly-optimized, fault-tolerant state preparation circuits for arbitrary Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) codes. Starting from an idealized specification of a CSS state, we use the ZX-calculus and fault-equivalent rewrites to construct a diagram that prepares the given state while preserving the fault tolerance of the initial ideal ZX-diagram. From this diagram, SpiderCSS constructs a fault-tolerant CSS-state preparation circuit using a modular construction that is CNOT-minimal both within each component and also in the way these components are connected together. By only using fault-equivalent rewrites, the final circuit is provably fault-tolerant without needing expensive verification. Monte Carlo simulations across a variety of CSS codes up to distance 15 show that SpiderCSS scales efficiently and constructs circuits with substantially reduced depth and qubit footprint compared to existing scalable and heuristic methods, while simultaneously achieving an average decrease of 33.7% in logical error rate and an increase of 9.5% in acceptance rate.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) functions through conformational changes that are not fully captured by static structures. However, large-scale standardized RNA dynamics data remain limited, and existing approaches typically treat trajectory generation and dynamics understanding as separate objectives. Here, we introduce RNADynBench, a standardized RNA molecular dynamics (MD) benchmark with 2585 quality-controlled 100-ns all-atom trajectories and leakage-controlled splits. Building on RNADynBench, we develop RNADynNet, a unified model for RNA dynamics learning that uses a shared backbone for both trajectory generation and dynamics fingerprint extraction from a single conformer. It combines coordinate denoising, single-frame-to-trajectory alignment, and physical grounding to connect all-atom trajectory generation with dynamics representation learning. Physical grounding improves both generated dynamics and the physical information recoverable from these fingerprints. Across both test sets, including the high-flexibility challenge set, the generated trajectories achieve RMSF correlations of 0.875 and 0.766, while single-conformer predictions show comparable agreement with MD-derived dynamics. RNADynBench and RNADynNet together establish a benchmark and unified modeling framework for generating and understanding RNA dynamics.

We provide the first evidence relative to a classical oracle that pseudorandom unitaries (PRUs) can exist without quantum-computable one-way functions. To obtain this result, we first prove that five independent random diagonal phase layers interleaved with Hadamard transforms \[ U=F_5HF_4HF_3HF_2HF_1 \] form a strong PRU with security under adaptive, controlled access to the unitary, its inverse, transpose, and complex conjugate. Our main result is that, when the phase layers are implemented using a classical random oracle O, the construction remains secure against uniform BQP adversaries with coherent access to suitable Boolean completions of classical-input $QMA^{PH}^{O}}$ decision problems. Such an adversary can invert (even quantum-computable) one-way functions and solve efficiently verifiable one-way puzzles defined relative to O. Our result therefore provides classical-oracle evidence that PRUs do not imply quantum-computable one-way functions, in the form of a black-box separation. We substantially strengthen the classical-oracle result of Kretschmer, Qian, and Tal (STOC 2025) by obtaining PRUs secure against these QMA-aided adversaries. Our construction also consists of a simple, efficient circuit that queries a random function, suggesting a route to concrete implementation via the random-oracle heuristic.