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Physics

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Tuesday 6 October

Soft Condensed Matter

Phase-Field Fracture Simulation of Highly Deformable Thin Structures via a Discrete Differential Geometry Framework

Bohan Zhang, Bo Wang, Huajiang Ouyang et al. (+3 more)

Thin elastic flexible structures exploit large geometric deformation to achieve mechanical functionality, making their fracture behavior strongly coupled with the evolving structural configuration. This work presents a unified discrete differential geometry (DDG) phase-field framework for fracture in highly deformable thin structures. Membrane and bending elasticity are formulated from discrete geometric measures on a triangulated midsurface, while the phase field is defined on the same discrete surface to describe onset of crack growth and subsequent propagation. The coupled problem is solved using a staggered scheme, with phase-field irreversibility enforced by an active-set method. A degradation-deletion procedure removes nearly fully failed elements and reconstructs the DDG topology, enabling complete crack opening and substantial post-fracture reconfiguration. For two-dimensional in-plane fracture problems, the DDG predictions agree closely with geometrically nonlinear finite element results in both crack evolution and mechanical response. In three-dimensional tearing, the framework resolves the interaction between out-of-plane deformation and crack propagation, including the experimentally observed convergence and coalescence of initially parallel cracks. Its engineering applicability is further demonstrated using an island–bridge structure representative of flexible electronics. The simulations capture direction-dependent deformation modes, instability and snap-through during loading, and the coupled evolution of structural configuration and fracture. These results establish the proposed framework as an effective tool for investigating geometry-dependent fracture and supporting the damage-tolerant design of flexible thin structures.
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All authors Bohan Zhang, Bo Wang, Huajiang Ouyang, Zhigang Wu, Yu Zhou, Weicheng Huang

Computational Physics

Convergence of Roberts flow dynamos in Eulerian and Lagrangian codes

Nikyta Shchutskyi, Axel Brandenburg and Matthieu Schaller

Standard benchmark tests for numerical magnetohydrodynamics codes focus on one- and two-dimensional problems that ignore the possibility of dynamos, i.e., an exponential instability converting kinetic energy into magnetic energy. They also tend to ignore magnetic helicity conservation that can have dramatic effects in periodic domains. The existence of magnetic diffusion is crucial for dynamos, as was exemplified by the impossibility of finding dynamo solutions when using Euler potentials, which is a perfectly valid approach in the absence of magnetic diffusion. The Roberts flows~I, II, III, and IV are two-dimensional flows that support three-dimensional dynamos, all of which are also large-scale dynamos in the sense that their planar averages are of significant strengths, even though flow~II is pointwise non-helical. Here we demonstrate the numerical convergence properties of solutions obtained using discretisation schemes of second, sixth, and tenth order in the mesh width in the Pencil Code, compare the results with the SPH-based SWIFT code, and present a list of averaged quantities that facilitate their use in characterising the solutions as benchmarks. In addition, we present a procedure to obtain two-dimensional time-independent magnetic field visualisation for all Roberts flows, and perform per-pixel comparison between the Pencil and SWIFT codes. The rich combination of features makes Roberts flows an excellent dynamo benchmark for the direct numerical simulations of magnetohydrodynamics equations.
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Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

A method for multimodal analysis of TAIGA experiment data using essential features

Alexander Kryukov, Julia Dubenskaya, Elena Fedotova et al. (+6 more)

The aim of processing and analyzing experimental data from physical experiments is to obtain physically significant information about the phenomenon under study. This goal is achieved by multi-stage processing of experimental data, during which noise associated with measurements is suppressed and the dimensionality of the input data is reduced. In this paper, we propose a new method based on the use of neural networks such as autoencoders to extract essential features. The special value of the proposed approach lies in the possibility of its application to the analysis of multimodal data received simultaneously from several installations. We will apply this approach to a multimodal data (MMD) of the experiment TAIGA. Currently, the analysis of the MMD is carried out independently for each installation separately. Therefore, the development of methods for the joint analysis of MMD from TAIGA-type installations is an urgent task in cosmic ray physics and gamma-ray astronomy. Based on Monte Carlo simulation, it is shown that the proposed method allows for effective MMD analysis. It can also be used for MMD analysis at other experimental complexes.
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All authors Alexander Kryukov, Julia Dubenskaya, Elena Fedotova, Elizaveta Gres, Stanislav Polyakov, Eugene Postnikov, Alexander Razumov, Pavel Volchugov, Dmitry Zhurov

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Valley transitions during spin shuttling in Si/SiGe heterostructures

Jonas R F Lima and Guido Burkard

Valley excitations are considered one of the biggest challenges for a coherent spin shuttling in Si/SiGe heterostructures. In this work we theoretically investigate the valley dynamics during spin shuttling in a Si/SiGe heterostructure by considering a two-level system given by the two low-lying valley states of the mobile quantum dot. We assume that the electron is initially in the valley ground state and analyze the evolution of this state during shuttling. We find that, depending on the shuttling velocity, the system can be in three distinct regimes. In one of these regimes, the quantum information is preserved even in the presence of the valley excitations, allowing for coherent spin shuttling independently of the shuttling distance. This regime is obtained for a shuttling velocity of tens of m/s, a desired regime where dephasing mechanisms, such as spin-valley hotspots and spatially varying spin splitting, can be suppressed. This result is in accordance with recent experimental work that obtained a high spin shuttling fidelity after a fast and long shuttling. We also propose strategies based on the Partial Landau-Zener model to enhance the valley shuttling fidelity, which was found to be much more efficient than previously proposed strategies based on the standard Landau-Zener model.
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Astrophysics of Galaxies

CHemical Evolution in MassIve star-forming COres (CHEMICO). II. Molecular ions, electron fraction, and cosmic-ray ionisation rate

F. Fontani, E. Roueff, V.M. Rivilla et al. (+5 more)

Molecular ions are crucial in initiating and regulating the formation of molecules in the interstellar medium, and are expected to be sensitive tracers of evolution in star-forming regions. Within the framework of the project `CHemical Evolution of MassIve star-forming COres' (CHEMICO), we investigate the temporal evolution of molecular ions towards three high-mass star-forming cores that represent three sequential evolutionary stages. CHEMICO is based on an unbiased spectral line survey of the bandwidth at 3, 2, and 1.2~mm carried out with the 30m telescope of the Insitut de Radioastronomie millimétrique. We detect 19 molecular ions, including isotopologues. From a local thermodynamic equilibrium analysis, we derive the following main results: (i) Overall, the physical parameters of sulphur-bearing ions are the most sensitive to evolution, whereas those of nitrogen-bearing ions are the least; (ii) The molecular abundances that exhibit the most pronounced temporal variations are those of SO+, DCO+, and N2D+; (iii) A simple analytic approach tailored for warm gas conditions provides cosmic-ray ionisation rates of H2 several orders of magnitude above the canonical values measured in the interstellar medium and with a marked increase with evolution; (iv) The abundance ratio of protonated-to-neutral species increases with the proton affinity of the neutral regardless of the evolutionary stage of the source, indicating that proton-transfer appears to proceed similarly in both cold and warm interstellar environments. Molecular ions exhibit distinct evolutionary trends in high-mass star-forming regions, with sulphur-bearing species and the abundances of N2D+, DCO+, and SO+ emerging as particularly sensitive tracers of evolution. Measured electron fractions and cosmic-ray ionisation rates are in line with an internal production of cosmic-rays that becomes increasingly efficient with time.
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All authors F. Fontani, E. Roueff, V.M. Rivilla, Á. López-Gallifa, L. Bizzocchi, L. Colzi, H. Martín-Caballero, P. Caselli

Mathematical Physics · Cross-listed from math.NA

Polynomial Difference Schemes with Energy and Momentum Multipliers on Orthogonal Uniform Meshes: Stencil Restrictions and Monge–Ampère-Type Examples

E. I. Kaptsov

Experience with invariant finite-difference schemes for one-dimensional hydro\-dynamic-type equations for a function $u(t,x)$ suggests that nonlinear polynomial schemes on orthogonal uniform meshes with the 9-point stencil cannot simultaneously preserve difference analogues of the energy and momentum conservation laws, with the multipliers given by the standard difference approximations of $u_t$ and $u_x$. For the 9-point stencil this hypothesis is proved for polynomials of arbitrary degree. On larger stencils it is investigated by means of the difference analogue of the direct method: for polynomials of bounded degree, such schemes are found to exist only on sufficiently large stencils, and the second-order equations they approximate are of Monge–Ampère type. As a by-product, a scheme for the homogeneous Monge–Ampère equation is obtained that has five conservation laws, admits most of the symmetries of the differential equation, and is invariant under the discrete dihedral group $D_4$. Numerical tests on exact solutions confirm its second order of approximation and show that the conservation laws are satisfied on these solutions with the same order of accuracy.
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Fluid Dynamics

Inferring Multi-Scale Cascade Structure from a Single Lagrangian Trajectory via Hidden Markov Switching

Ziang Yang and Lei Fang

We show that a single Lagrangian trajectory encodes not only temporal but also spatial cascade structure–recoverable without access to a spatially resolved Eulerian velocity field. We report a Markov-Switching Multifractal (MSM) framework that infers hidden multi-scale cascade states directly from single-particle trajectories. Kolmogorov scaling fixes the model's switching rates, leaving a single calibrated intermittency parameter; exact Bayesian filtering then returns the posterior of the layer-resolved cascade state along the trajectory. When we apply the MSM framework independently to each trajectory of a particle pair, we find that the inferred states carry genuine spatial information: consistent with Richardson's locality picture, the Kolmogorov $r^{1/3}$ scaling is preserved when fine-scale layers are randomized, but collapses once the randomization crosses the layer set by the pair separation. Single trajectories thus encode the spatial organization of the cascade, opening a route to cascade diagnostics for turbulent flows accessible primarily through sparse or individual Lagrangian trajectories–from particle-tracking velocimetry to atmospheric and oceanographic tracking–where the instantaneous Eulerian field is out of reach.
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High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Can LISA See Inside the Little Red Dots?

Samuel Gómez Gómez, Xisco Jimenez Forteza, Carlos Palenzuela et al. (+1 more)

The Little Red Dots (LRDs) are compact, broad-line sources that appear to contain accreting black holes (BHs) embedded in dense gas. Proposed models for their central environments (including quasi-stars, radiative BH envelopes and super-Eddington accretion discs) predict gas densities at the radii probed by an extreme-mass-ratio inspiral that differ by many orders of magnitude. We compute the inspiral of a $10$–$30\Msun$ BH for a range of LRD interior models, including environmental effects from the gas, and test with a mismatch criterion whether the resulting waveforms can be distinguished from vacuum and from one another. Dense interiors (Bondi-like free-fall cavities and radiative envelopes) produce measurable deviations from vacuum in essentially every detectable event. Convective quasi-star interiors are measurable for $\MBH\lesssim10^5\Msun$ and $z\lesssim0.6$, while a co-rotating disc leaves no measurable imprint. In favorable cases the models are also mutually distinguishable. None of the 14 JWST LRDs at $z>3.9$ would be detectable with a $10\Msun$ companion, but 30 of 31 LRDs at $z<0.9$ would be if their black holes are $\sim100$ times less massive than their virial estimates, and in many of them the interior's imprint would be measurable. Across the LRD population to $z=6$, a 4-yr LISA mission would yield $0.08$–$0.8$ detectable events for $10^5\Msun$ hosts and $10\Msun$ companions ($1.5$–$15$ for $30\Msun$) if LRD nuclei host inspirals at the rate of ordinary galactic nuclei. In dense clusters, where captures are plunges, this falls to $\lesssim10^{-4}$.
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All authors Samuel Gómez Gómez, Xisco Jimenez Forteza, Carlos Palenzuela, Rosalba Perna

Statistical Mechanics

Phase diagram of a semiflexible magnetic polymer in three dimensions

Linda Delimi, Arpan Dey and Jean-Charles Walter

We study a semiflexible magnetic polymer in which each monomer carries a two-state spin, giving rise to coupled conformational, stiffness, and magnetic degrees of freedom. The model provides a minimal representation of nucleoprotein complexes in vivo, in which DNA bending rigidity and bridging proteins must be simultaneously accommodated. We employ Monte Carlo simulations on a face-centered-cubic (FCC) lattice, complemented by a variational free-energy upper-bound approach, to characterize the zero-field phase diagram as a function of bending stiffness and temperature. At low stiffness, we identify a first-order transition combining coil-to-globule collapse with a ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition. At lower temperatures, an additional first-order transition separates the disordered globule from an ordered crystal characterized by nematic-like orientational order of the bond tangents. At high stiffness, the globule disappears, resulting in a direct first-order coil-to-crystal transition. These results demonstrate how chain stiffness and magnetic degrees of freedom couple to polymer conformation and reorganize the zero-field phase diagram. Our model connects the two limiting cases of flexible magnetic polymers and semiflexible homopolymers, the latter corresponding to the strong-field limit in which all spins are aligned.
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Materials Science

Probing magnetic interactions in real space via magnetic pair distribution function analysis

Edison P. Carlisle and Benjamin A. Frandsen

Determining magnetic exchange interactions is vital for understanding the magnetic behavior of materials. The standard method for exchange interaction determination involves performing inelastic neutron scattering experiments on single crystals to measure spin wave dispersions from a long-range-ordered magnetic ground state. However, the influence of exchange interactions is not limited exclusively to spin waves in ordered states, but also governs magnetic behavior in all magnetic states, including the short-range spin correlations that persist into the paramagnetic regime. Exchange parameters have been successfully recovered in the past from energy-integrated diffuse neutron scattering data from paramagnets, indicating that the diffuse scattering and underlying short-range magnetic correlations are rich in information. Consequently, magnetic pair distribution function (mPDF) analysis, which directly probes short-range magnetic correlations in real space, is expected to be well suited for extracting exchange parameters from correlated paramagnets. Here, we demonstrate a robust mean-field theory approach incorporating the Onsager reaction field for determination of exchange parameters from the results of mPDF analysis. We successfully apply this approach to several relevant materials to recover exchange interaction values comparable to literature values.
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Strongly Correlated Electrons

From continuum neural quantum states to effective lattice models: Fluctuating Wigner molecules in moiré superlattices

Ahmed Khalifa and Shubhayu Chatterjee

Effective descriptions of quantum materials rely on a separation of energy scales that identifies their low-energy degrees of freedom. When kinetic energy, lattice potential, and interactions compete, this hierarchy breaks down, and both the microscopic state and its effective description are unknown. Continuum neural quantum states (NQS) can find the ground state directly without projecting onto prescribed bands, orbitals, or spins, but their microscopic wavefunctions are difficult to interpret in terms of effective variables. Here, we introduce a wavefunction readout that maps the continuum NQS onto site-resolved charge and spin statistics, allowing effective degrees of freedom to emerge from the microscopic solution. Focusing on moiré transition metal dichalcogenides at filling $\nu = 3$, the NQS reveals a low-spin ground state below the ferromagnetic crystal of spin-polarized Wigner molecules. Although the charge density retains triangular molecular motifs, our readout reveals significant charge fluctuations through bound nearest-neighbor doublon–hole pairs. Each molecular charge state has an inert spin-singlet core and rim electrons that carry the spin. Charge and spin fluctuations are therefore intertwined, with antiferromagnetic spin-correlations between sites, motivating an effective description by a spinful two-orbital Hubbard model. More generally, our results demonstrate a route from continuum wavefunctions to effective lattice models when competing scales preclude a controlled reduction.
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Quantum Physics

An efficient variational polaron master equation for non-Markovian spin-boson dynamics: Transformed initial states and general observables

Chien-Chang Chen and Hsi-Sheng Goan

We investigate the effects of initial states on the dynamics of a quantum spin-boson model using an efficient variational polaron master equation approach. The transformation of a factorized system-environment initial state into the variational polaron frame introduces inhomogeneous terms in the master equation, essential for accurately describing non-Markovian dynamics beyond the weak coupling regime. To efficiently account for these effects, we formulate the dynamics in an extended auxiliary Liouville space, converting the resulting integro-differential equations into coupled ordinary differential equations. We further introduce a simplified variational polaron technique for computing the time evolution of expectation values of general observables, including those that do not commute with the polaron transformation, overcoming a major limitation of previous approaches and enabling the unified treatment of coherence and population dynamics. The effects of transformed initial states generated from arbitrary factorized initial states are systematically characterized through expectation values and trace-distance analysis, providing insight into the associated bath-relaxation dynamics over a broad range of tunneling amplitudes, temperatures, and coupling strengths. Comparison with the weak-coupling master equation reveals a delay phenomenon associated with multi-bath-quanta processes, pronounced at intermediate coupling strengths and tunneling amplitudes. We further show that coherent superposition initial states induce stronger nonequilibrium effects than localized states, with inhomogeneous terms playing a crucial role in the short-time dynamics. The proposed formalism applies to both undriven and resonantly driven spin-boson models, providing a computationally efficient framework for open quantum-system dynamics with arbitrary factorized initial states and general physical observables.
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Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Turbulent viscosity in line-driven stellar winds

Matías Montesinos, Michel Cure, Ignacio Araya et al. (+1 more)

Radiation-driven winds from massive stars generate powerful outflows known to be intrinsically turbulent. Despite this, standard hydrodynamic models have historically restricted the application of macroscopic turbulent viscosity to rotationally supported disks, neglecting its dynamic role in the supersonic expansion regime of the wind. We evaluated the dynamical relevance of macroscopic turbulent momentum transport in accelerating line-driven stellar outflows of rotating B supergiants. We introduced a generalized strain-limited viscous prescription within a stable, time-dependent 1D m-CAK hydrodynamic framework using the FARGO3D code. We compared inviscid, constant-viscosity, and strain-limited models to analyze their effects on the radial velocity, density stratification, mass-loss rate, and angular momentum transport. The strain-limited prescription produces a radially structured viscosity that primarily acts as a broad radial braking term. With the viscosity bounded through a prescribed maximum mixing length, the viscous acceleration remains subdominant to the total radiative acceleration but is dynamically relevant to the advective acceleration. In the strongest-viscosity model, the terminal velocity decreased by $\sim 39\%$ and the mass-loss rate by $\sim 58\%$ relative to the inviscid model in the stationary state. The flow remains radiatively driven, and angular momentum transport remains dominated by advection, maintaining a quasi-conserving $v_\phi \propto r^{-1}$ scaling. Turbulent viscosity exerts a measurable dynamic effect on supersonic line-driven winds. When bounded by the local macroscopic strain, it modifies the radial momentum balance and the resulting mass-loss rate without forcing the wind into a disk-like regime of strong viscous angular momentum redistribution.
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All authors Matías Montesinos, Michel Cure, Ignacio Araya, Roberto O. J. Venero

High Energy Physics (Phenomenology)

Resonance-aware electroweak Sudakov reweighting for multijet-merged predictions

Lenart Jerala, Rikkert Frederix, Miha Muškinja et al. (+3 more)

We present a resonance-aware extension of electroweak Sudakov-logarithm reweighting in MadGraph5_aMC@NLO for NLO QCD-matched and FxFx multijet-merged event samples. The method identifies the hard production process underlying each event and evaluates its electroweak Sudakov correction while accounting for the spin correlations between unstable particles and their decay products. Photonic logarithms are removed from the virtual weight to avoid overlap with QED shower evolution. We validate the method in FxFx-merged $Z$+jets production and fully leptonic $W^+W^-$ production. The reweighting yields the expected growing weak suppression in high-energy tails and is stable under variations of the clustering and merging parameters. In $W^+W^-$ production, the density-matrix and spin-summed prescriptions are statistically compatible for the observables studied, indicating only a small additional helicity dependence of the Sudakov correction in this channel. The method provides a practical virtual weak-Sudakov approximation for matched and merged simulations, but does not constitute an exact NLO electroweak calculation.
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All authors Lenart Jerala, Rikkert Frederix, Miha Muškinja, Davide Pagani, Timea Vitos, Marco Zaro

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Measuring the Clustering of tSZ-Selected Galaxy Clusters with SPT-3G

E. S. Martsen, D. Anbajagane, L. E. Bleem et al. (+96 more)

We present a measurement of the spatial clustering of galaxy clusters selected via the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) signal. Using a cluster catalog derived from five years of SPT-3G Main field survey data, we define a sample spanning $0.25 < z < 1.1$, as well as two subsamples spanning $0.25 < z < 0.67$ and $0.67 < z < 1.1$. We detect cluster clustering at $12.8\sigma$, the highest significance detection in a tSZ-selected sample to date. We detail our analytic modeling and theoretical covariance models, including validations performed on synthetic data created from numerical simulations. The measurements and inference pass a variety of null tests, and show minimal sensitivity to common spatially varying systematics that impact optical clustering measurements, such as depth, stellar density, and extinction. We use our pipeline to place constraints on the halo bias of our sample, $b_{\rm{h}} = 5.30\pm{0.24}$, and the normalization of our mass-observable relation, $\rm{lnA}_{sz} = 0.43^{+0.17}_{-0.21}$. We also demonstrate the useful synergies between cluster clustering and abundance measurements, which manifest in the breaking of high-dimensional parameter degeneracies. Samples of clusters selected using the tSZ effect serve as a unique probe of clustering that is insensitive to common systematics, relative to conventional galaxy datasets, and the detection significance of this measurement will increase substantially with existing data from the SPT-3G Ext-10k survey and upcoming data from SPT-3G+ and the Simons Observatory.
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All authors E. S. Martsen, D. Anbajagane, L. E. Bleem, B. A. Benson, E. Anderes, A. J. Anderson, B. Ansarinejad, M. Archipley, L. Balkenhol, D. R. Barron, P. S. Barry, K. Benabed, A. N. Bender, F. Bianchini, S. Bocquet, F. R. Bouchet, E. Camphuis, M. G. Campitiello, J. E. Carlstrom, J. Carron, C. L. Chang, P. M. Chichura, A. Chokshi, T.-L. Chou, A. Coerver, T. M. Crawford, C. Daley, T. de Haan, K. R. Dibert, M. A. Dobbs, M. Doohan, D. Dutcher, C. Feng, K. R. Ferguson, N. C. Ferree, K. Fichman, A. Foster, N. Frontiere, S. Galli, A. E. Gambrel, A. K. Gao, F. Ge, S. Gradis, F. Guidi, S. Guns, N. W. Halverson, E. Hivon, G. P. Holder, W. L. Holzapfel, J. C. Hood, A. Hryciuk, N. Huang, T. Jhaveri, F. Kéruzoré, A. R. Khalife, M. Klein, L. Knox, K. Kornoelje, C.-L. Kuo, P. Larsen, K. Levy, Y. Li, A. E. Lowitz, C. Lu, G. P. Lynch, T. J. Maccarone, A. S. Maniyar, F. Menanteau, M. Millea, J. Montgomery, Y. Nakato, T. Natoli, Y. Omori, A. Ouellette, Z. Pan, P. Paschos, K. A. Phadke, K. Prabhu, W. Quan, M. Rahimi, A. Rahlin, C. L. Reichardt, M. Rouble, J. E. Ruhl, A. C. Silva Oliveira, A. Simpson, J. A. Sobrin, A. A. Stark, J. Stephen, C. Tandoi, C. Trendafilova, J. D. Vieira, A. G. Vieregg, A. Vitrier, Y. Wan, N. Whitehorn, W. L. K. Wu, M. R. Young, J. A. Zebrowski

Quantum Physics

Efficiently computable bounds on the energy-constrained quantum reading capacity

Vishal Singh, Zixin Huang and Mark M. Wilde

In quantum reading, classical messages are encoded in sequences of quantum channels and recovered by probing the channels and processing their outputs. We study the reading capacity of a finite family of finite-dimensional channels under an average constraint on the probing energy, allowing arbitrary adaptive operations between channel uses. Using an input-dependent chain rule for the Belavkin-Staszewski relative entropy, we derive a converse bound expressed as an optimization involving channel Choi operators and the operator relative entropy. This formulation admits semidefinite approximations and reduces, without an energy constraint, to a channel information radius. To obtain achievable rates, we construct bilinear semidefinite lower approximations to a standard non-adaptive reading bound. Alternating optimization produces feasible probe states and encoding distributions, whose Holevo information gives a directly evaluable achievable rate. For jointly classical-quantum channels, we derive a separate converse based on the Umegaki relative entropy. Without an energy constraint, this converse matches a non-adaptive achievable rate, recovering a recent result of Pascual Abraldes and Winter: non-adaptive protocols suffice to achieve the unconstrained reading capacity of jointly classical-quantum channels.
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Quantum Gases

Matter wave bistability with a momentum chirped Bose-Einstein condensate

Mikhail Mamaev, Nicholas Mantella, Noah P. Baker et al. (+2 more)

While a Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity interferometer is a standard tool in modern optics, analogous physics can also be observed with matter waves such as Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). Interatomic collisions in BECs can induce nonlinear features such as multi-valued transmission spectra for interferometry experiments. Observation of interaction effects in the matter-wave analogue of FP interferometry has not yet been experimentally achieved, mostly due to broadening of transmission peaks by interaction-induced shifts of cavity resonances. In this work, we theoretically show that this limitation can be overcome by engineering a momentum chirp in a BEC wavepacket. By balancing this chirp against the dynamical mean-field energy shift of the cavity during transmission, we predict enhanced resonant spectra and bistability features due to interaction-assisted tunneling that would be otherwise inaccessible. We show that this physics is readily observable with quasi-one-dimensional BECs of cold atoms colliding with a pair of light-induced Gaussian potential barriers forming the cavity. We also benchmark the requisite optimum chirp needed and characterize the contrast of near-discontinuous FP transmission spectra at an interacting resonance. Our findings enable the realization of technologies like matter-wave switching protocols, and high-precision velocity measurements; estimates of achievable sensitivity for the latter are provided.
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All authors Mikhail Mamaev, Nicholas Mantella, Noah P. Baker, Joseph McGowan IV, Aephraim M. Steinberg

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Predictions for Short Gamma-Ray Burst Detections by COSI

Eliza Neights, Eric Burns, Nicolò Parmiggiani et al. (+21 more)

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a soft gamma-ray telescope scheduled to launch in 2027. COSI will trigger onboard the spacecraft in response to short-duration transients, including gamma-ray bursts, and it will promptly disseminate alerts which include localizations to the community. This will enable rapid follow-up observations of the afterglow and associations with transients identified by other instruments. By simulating COSI observations of short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) and processing them with the trigger algorithm which will run onboard the spacecraft, we estimate the sensitivity of COSI to sGRBs. We then convolve this with a simulated set of sGRBs representing the intrinsic population in the universe to predict the rate that will be detected by COSI. We find that COSI is expected to trigger on $\sim$47-89 sGRBs per year with $\sim$7-10 localized to within 2.5{\deg}. With the gravitational wave sensitivity anticipated in the O5 run, we predict 0-3 joint detections with gravitational waves.
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All authors Eliza Neights, Eric Burns, Nicolò Parmiggiani, Yong Sheng, Savitri Gallego, Aldo Aguilar-Nadalini, Aaron C. Trigg, Sylvain Guiriec, Koothodil Abhijith Augustine, Matthew G. Baring, Anna L. Butterworth, Hsiang-Kuang Chang, Che-Yen Chu, Niccolò Di Lalla, Christopher Fryer, Hadar Lazar, Israel Martinez-Castellanos, Marion Sudvarg, Péter Veres, Steven E. Boggs, Dieter H. Hartmann, Carolyn A. Kierans, John A. Tomsick, Andreas Zoglauer

High Energy Physics (Theory)

Non-supersymmetric M-theory vacua and dark bubbles

Vincent Menet, Alessandro Tomasiello and Vincent Van Hemelryck

An expanding bubble in AdS$_5$ has a dS$_4$ geometry; the dark bubble scenario explores whether this can be our Universe. Motivated by this, we consider new non-supersymmetric AdS$_5$ compactifications of M-theory and investigate their non-perturbative instabilities. We focus on a compactification on the flag manifold. In certain regions of the flux landscape, the non-supersymmetric vacua become unstable under the nucleation of M5-brane bubbles wrapping an internal two-cycle, thus realising the dark bubble scenario. The cosmological constant on the bubble can be made parametrically small by tuning the internal fluxes, making the M5-branes close to the extremality bound. The solution relates the induced cosmological constant on the brane and the typical largest length scale of the extra dimensions through $R^{-1}\sim \Lambda_4^{1/4}$ in 4d Planck units, allowing for extra dimensions of the order of tens of microns. We also consider various alternatives, which for various reasons are currently not as successful.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)

Root systems and Minimal RG flows to c=1 CFTs

Changrim Ahn, Sara Kostadinovic and Francesco Ravanini

We derive exact massless S-matrices from algebraic root-system geometry and derive thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) equations that generate minimal renormalization group (RG) flows. We show how P. Dorey's geometric construction, originally developed for massive S-matrices, can be extended to massless cases and prove that these new $S$-matrices straightforwardly satisfy the bootstrap equations. We focus on minimal D_n coset CFTs, which are c=1 free-boson CFTs with compactification radius \sqrt{n/2}, and find their UV completions by analyzing the TBA.
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Superconductivity

Remote magnon sensing detects the universal phase stiffness jump in Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$

Yue Sun, Mai Nguyen, Naiyuan James Zhang et al. (+14 more)

Phase stiffness governs macroscopic quantum coherence in superfluids and superconductors, providing a sensitive probe of condensate depletion, fluctuations, and phase transitions. However quantitative and spatially resolved measurements remain challenging. Here we report a contactless, local, all-optical measurement of superconducting phase stiffness using propagating antiferromagnetic magnons as remote sensors. In CrSBr, strong exciton-magnon coupling enables optical excitation and detection of magnon wavepackets and precise determination of their group velocity. When CrSBr is interfaced with underdoped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$, we find that the magnon group velocity is substantially enhanced below the superconducting transition and quantitatively encodes the phase stiffness through Meissner screening currents. Using this capability, we identify a parallel-field-induced Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition through direct observation of the universal phase-stiffness jump, revealing a field-controlled route to expose intrinsic two-dimensional phase-ordering physics in a bulk cuprate. Our work establishes propagating magnons as local probes of superconducting electrodynamics and phase-coherent phenomena in low-dimensional quantum materials.
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All authors Yue Sun, Mai Nguyen, Naiyuan James Zhang, Dingbin Huang, Shuai Yuan, Aljoscha Söll, Arun Ramanathan, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, Xavier Roy, Zdeněk Sofer, Shigeyuki Ishida, Hiroshi Eisaki, Makoto Hashimoto, Zhi-Xun Shen, Joseph Orenstein, Xiaodong Xu

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Early onset of the hot circumgalactic medium around Milky Way galaxies

Víctor Rufo-Pastor, Oscar Agertz, Santi Roca-Fábrega et al. (+6 more)

Hot coronae are key regulators in Milky Way (MW)-type galaxy formation and are thought to emerge once a galaxy's dark matter halo crosses a critical mass threshold, $M_{\mathrm{vir}}\sim10^{12} {\mathrm{M}}_\odot$, so that accretion shocks can heat infalling gas to virial temperatures, $T_{\mathrm{vir}}$. Here we investigate the roles of stellar feedback and accretion shocks in establishing the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around MW-mass galaxies using the VINTERGATAN cosmological simulation suite. We find that stellar feedback drives the early formation of a hot CGM, with $T_{\mathrm{CGM}}\sim T_{\mathrm{vir}}$. By contrast, in feedback-free simulations, accretion shocks alone do not produce a CGM with comparably high average temperatures at early epochs ($z>2$), independent of gas metallicity. We show that CGM virialisation (defined when halo-gas cooling time exceeds the free-fall time) begins with the emergence of a hot corona ($T>10^5$ K) that can appear as early as $z\approx3$ at virial radius, $R_{\mathrm{vir}}$, when feedback is included. This is much earlier than predicted by accretion-shock theory or feedback-free models ($z\lesssim1$). While accretion shocks alone produce an inside-out virialisation pattern, feedback can alter this behaviour, driving a rapid transition ($\lesssim0.5$ Gyr) that is either outside-in or nearly simultaneous throughout the halo. Finally, these early-forming coronae are largely stable from formation through to the present day, but can appear to evolve simply because the definition of $R_{\mathrm{vir}}$ grows with time. This 'CGM pseudo-evolution' is analogous to the pseudo-evolution of dark matter haloes and should be taken into account when interpreting the evolution of hot coronae.
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All authors Víctor Rufo-Pastor, Oscar Agertz, Santi Roca-Fábrega, Martin P. Rey, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Justin I. Read, Thor Tepper-García, Corentin Cadiou, Anatole Storck

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Re-calibrated analytic stellar evolution formulae for the main sequence: Extension to massive stars and variations in $[\alpha/\mathrm{Fe}]$

Conor M Byrne, Elizabeth R Stanway and Jan J Eldridge

Analytic formulae are an efficient way to approximate the evolution of a star of a given mass and chemical composition, and are widely used in the literature to compute large grids of evolutionary models for stellar population synthesis. Such formulae rely on calibration to detailed stellar evolution models, and existing versions are based on a sparse, limited grid in comparison to modern simulations. By calibrating against the latest generation of single-star evolution models calculated within the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis (\bpass) framework, we revise and extend pre-existing equations to include the evolution of massive ($M\gtrsim50\,$\msun) stars and changes in chemical abundances in the form of variations in \afe. We introduce additional terms which allow for a better approximation of the main-sequence lifetimes, and the luminosities and radii at the beginning and end of the main sequence. These revised equations describe the main-sequence age, zero-age and terminal-age radius and luminosity with mean errors of less than 10 per cent or 0.05 dex, for all except the terminal age radius, which shows RMS errors of 20 per cent and 0.1 dex. For \afe\ enriched stellar populations, we advise using a matched-iron value for metallicity in the equations, consistent with the expectation that iron is the dominant opacity source affecting the evolution of main-sequence stars.
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2610.08930 · 6 Oct · Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 18 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, plus appendices (12 pages, 7 tables 12 figures) Python functions to evaluate the equations are available at https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/conorbyrne/byrne26_equations.py and a Fortran version is available at https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/conorbyrne/byrne26_equations.f90

Abstract PDF $EVO ×6$STAR ×5$STELR ×4$MTLC ×1

Quantum Physics

High-Fidelity Inter-Species Rydberg Gates with Two-Photon Driving

Shuan Wang and Kevin Singh

Recently, neutral atom arrays have become known for their promising potential in quantum information processing. High-fidelity entangling operations are typically achieved by exciting atoms to high-lying Rydberg states through two-photon processes. To improve the performance of these systems at the hardware level, dual-species strategies have been applied to enhance readout, error correction, and reloading in neutral atom systems. However, the influence of laser crosstalk arising from two-photon excitation for dual-species systems has remained largely unexplored in the literature. Here, we develop a model that incorporates the influence of crosstalk in inter-species Rydberg gates with two-photon driving. We demonstrate that the influence of this crosstalk can be suppressed to arbitrarily small levels through appropriate gate design, with gate fidelities greater than $99.8\%$ achievable with conservative experimental parameters in the near-detuned case of an $^{85}$Rb/$^{87}$Rb system. We also outline how this fidelity can be further enhanced through improvements to the Rydberg excitation.
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High Energy Physics (Theory)

Dimensional uplifts of thermal two-point functions and higher-derivative CFTs

Songyuan Li and Anastasios C. Petkou

We explore the idea that the mass parameter $m$ can be used as a diagnostic tool for identifying the critical points of thermal two-point functions of massive free scalar fields in odd $d$ dimensions. For general values of $m$ these correlators admit an expansion in thermal conformal blocks associated with symmetric traceless operators of definite scaling dimension. For each spin the higher-twist contributions can be resummed into a closed-form dressing factor of the leading-twist coefficient. At special values of $m$ for which the thermal trace of the energy-momentum tensor vanishes they are identified as two-point functions of thermal CFTs. Through a dimensional uplift, valid for all $m$, we map these correlators to thermal two-point functions of higher-derivative massive theories in $d+2$ dimensions. We show that the thermal trace of the energy-momentum tensor of the $d+2$-dimensional theory is proportional to the free energy of the original $d$-dimensional theory. When that thermal trace vanishes for $m\neq 0$ the uplifted correlators are identified as two-point functions of a higher-derivative nonunitary thermal CFT$_{d+2}$, but they differ from the uplifted nontrivial thermal two-point functions of the original unitary CFT$_d$.
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Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Superconducting edge contact to a buried Ge quantum well

Dina Sokolova, Davide Costa, Davide Degli Esposti et al. (+4 more)

Semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems form the basis for a broad range of quantum phenomena, such as Andreev bound states, topological superconductivity, and hybrid quantum Hall states. The performance of these hybrid systems can strongly benefit from the exceptional electronic properties of heterostructures with deeply buried quantum wells. However, establishing high-quality superconducting contacts to such quantum wells remains challenging. Here, we address this problem with an edge-contact approach that combines anisotropic dry etching to access the quantum well followed by wet etching for interface preparation. Josephson junctions fabricated using this approach consistently exhibit near-unity interface transparency, while quantum point contacts show strong Andreev enhancement, with the first conductance plateau approaching $4e^2/h$, the limit of perfect Andreev reflection. In superconducting quantum point contacts, the high contact quality is further manifested by quantized supercurrent. These results establish the combination of dry and wet etching as a robust strategy for integrating deeply buried quantum wells into superconducting hybrid devices.
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All authors Dina Sokolova, Davide Costa, Davide Degli Esposti, Tommaso Costanzo, Giordano Scappucci, Georgios Katsaros, Anton V. Bubis

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Searching for hot water world candidates with CHEOPS: II. A low-density super-Earth orbiting the K dwarf TOI-2211

J. A. Egger, P. Cortés-Zuleta, D. Kubyshkina et al. (+98 more)

Small exoplanets on close-in orbits are exposed to high levels of stellar irradiation, which can effectively remove low-mass primordial H/He envelopes through atmospheric escape. Under these conditions, planets whose masses and radii are incompatible with both bare rocky interiors and extended H-dominated atmospheres are therefore expected to host high mean molecular weight atmospheres, making them promising candidates for volatile-rich hot water worlds. We present the first detailed characterisation of the low-density super-Earth TOI-2211 b (P~3.09 d), a recently validated transiting planet orbiting a K type star (G mag: 9.1). Combining TESS and CHEOPS photometry with radial velocity measurements from HARPS, ESPRESSO, and KPF, we precisely constrain the planet's radius and mass to $1.457 \pm 0.047$ R$_\oplus$ and $2.69 \pm 0.56$ M$_\oplus$. We also identify an outer, non-transiting planetary candidate (P~15.6 d, Msin(i) $ = 8.53 \pm 1.04$ M$_\oplus$) in the radial velocity data. We investigate the internal structure of the transiting planet and assess the stability of the inferred volatile envelopes through a detailed evaporation analysis, thereby identifying TOI-2211 b as a promising hot water world candidate. TOI-2211 b therefore joins the small but growing sample of these close-in low-density super-Earths, which represent particularly interesting targets for testing current planet formation and evolution theories. Additionally, we investigate the full architecture of the planetary system using a generative model of planet formation and evolution, with the resulting posterior distributions showing a clear over-density consistent with the observed orbital period and minimal mass of the non-transiting planetary candidate identified in the radial velocity data.
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All authors J. A. Egger, P. Cortés-Zuleta, D. Kubyshkina, H. P. Osborn, S. Marques, I. Crossfield, A. Deline, S. Ulmer-Moll, A. E. Simon, G. Scandariato, A. C. M. Correia, Y. N. E. Eschen, D. Gandolfi, V. Adibekyan, A. Bonfanti, C. Pezzotti, P. H. Premnath, S. G. Sousa, T. G. Wilson, L. Fossati, R. Eltschinger, Y. Alibert, D. Degen, G. Lacedelli, T. Zingales, B. Akinsanmi, R. Alonso, T. Bárczy, D. Barrado, S. C. C. Barros, W. Baumjohann, W. Benz, N. Billot, L. Borsato, A. Brandeker, C. Broeg, M. Buder, A. Castro-González, A. Collier Cameron, C. Corral Van Damme, Sz. Csizmadia, P. E. Cubillos, M. B. Davies, M. Deleuil, O. D. S. Demangeon, B.-O. Demory, A. Derekas, B. Edwards, D. Ehrenreich, A. Erikson, A. Fortier, M. Fridlund, K. Gazeas, M. Gillon, M. Güdel, M. N. Günther, J. Hasiba, A. Heitzmann, Ch. Helling, K. G. Isaak, L. L. Kiss, D. Kitzmann, J. Korth, K. W. F. Lam, J. Laskar, A. Lecavelier des Etangs, A. Leleu, M. Lendl, M. Lund, D. Magrin, P. F. L. Maxted, B. Merín, C. Mordasini, M. Munari, V. Nascimbeni, G. Olofsson, R. Ottensamer, I. Pagano, E. Pallé, A. Peel, G. Peter, D. Piazza, G. Piotto, D. Pollacco, D. Queloz, R. Ragazzoni, N. Rando, H. Rauer, I. Ribas, N. C. Santos, D. Ségransan, A. M. S. Smith, M. Stalport, S. Sulis, Gy. M. Szabó, S. Udry, V. Van Grootel, J. Venturini, E. Villaver, N. A. Walton, S. Wolf

Strongly Correlated Electrons

Exact solutions for kinematics across interaction-deformed Fermi surfaces

Alexander Kruchkov and F. Duncan M. Haldane

Luttinger's theorem fixes the volume of the Fermi sea of a Fermi liquid, but not how interactions redistribute occupation around its surface. For an interaction switched on and tuned at fixed density, we derive the exact rates of change of the occupation deficit inside the interacting Fermi surface and of the surplus outside it. Each is the weight swept by the deforming surface plus a change of Luttinger's integrand at fixed momentum; the difference of the surface terms is flux of incoherent weight $1 - Z_{\vec k}$. These identities hold with or without the Luttinger theorem.
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High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

PEARLS: NuSTAR and XMM-Newton Extragalactic Survey of the JWST North Ecliptic Pole Time-Domain Field V: Unraveling X-ray Spectral Variability

Samantha Creech, Francesca Civano, Daniel Wik et al. (+13 more)

As one of the first deep time-domain surveys in the hard X-ray band, the NuSTAR campaign in the JWST North Ecliptic Pole Time Domain Field (NEP-TDF) offers a prime opportunity to measure variability in a faint population of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the medium-to-high redshift universe. In the X-ray band, AGN variability is generally caused by changes in the brightness of the corona ($F_{int}$ variability) or changes in the column density of obscuring material near the SMBH ($N_H$ variability). Broad-band spectroscopy ($\sim$0.5-24 keV) is required to reliably disentangle these two phenomena. With simultaneous NuSTAR and XMM-Newton coverage—as well as 1.8 Ms of Chandra monitoring—the X-ray surveys in the NEP-TDF are ideally situated for this purpose. This work presents the first spectral modeling of the 52 NuSTAR-identified sources discovered in the latter half of the campaign, as well as a spectroscopic variability study of the entire 112-source NuSTAR NEP-TDF catalog. Seven variable candidates are identified. We find that $\gtrsim 1000$ total counts split across many ($\gtrsim 10$) epochs are needed in order to detect variability. Additionally, variable sources are compared to the survey sensitivity in order to inform population synthesis models of how variations can affect the detectability of faint AGN, which dominate the SMBH accretion history. Lastly, the timescale of $N_H$ variability is investigated as a probe for the obscurer location. Significant variability is slightly more common on $> 100$ day timescales, suggesting that the torus may have only slight dominance in driving $N_H$ variability in faint AGN.
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All authors Samantha Creech, Francesca Civano, Daniel Wik, Núria Torres-Alba, Ross Silver, Xiurui Zhao, Tonima Ananna, Gibson Bowling, Norman A. Grogin, Anton M. Koekemoer, Peter Maksym, Sylvia Mesicek, Rafael Ortiz III, Payaswini Saikia, Steven Willner, Rogier Windhorst

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

The BUFFALO Survey : The Subhalo Mass Function for Abell 2744 with Strong+Weak Gravitational Lensing

Nency R. Patel, Mathilde Jauzac, Anna Niemiec et al. (+16 more)

We present a combined strong and weak gravitational lensing mass model of the massive merging galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (z = 0.308). The mass reconstruction combines strong-lensing constraints in the cluster core with weak-lensing measurements derived from deep imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), enabling a reconstruction of the projected mass distribution from the core to the cluster outskirts. Using the resulting mass map, we identify cluster substructures and construct the subhalo mass function (SHMF) for Abell 2744. To interpret the observed substructure population, we apply identical detection methods to projected mass maps of massive galaxy clusters from the BAryons and HAloes of MAssive Systems (BAHAMAS) simulations. We observe a systematic excess of detected substructures in Abell 2744 compared to BAHAMAS. We interpret this excess as likely reflecting Abell 2744's exceptionally disturbed dynamical state, characterised by complex ongoing mergers, rather than tension with $\Lambda$Cold Dark Matter ($\Lambda$CDM) or self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) predictions. Although confirming this interpretation will require extending the analysis to a larger sample of clusters spanning a range of dynamical states.
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All authors Nency R. Patel, Mathilde Jauzac, Anna Niemiec, Guillaume Mahler, David Lagattuta, David Harvey, Johannes Schwinn, Andrew Robertson, Lukas J. Furtak, Sownak Bose, Alastair Edge, Anton Koekemoer, Jose Diego, Andreas Faisst, Eric Jullo, Marceau Limousin, Richard Massey, Derek Perera, Sut-Ieng Tam