Papers

Background: Discontinuity in neonatal EEG is a critical marker of brain dysfunction but can be difficult to quantify visually. Inter-burst intervals (IBIs) are a key characteristic of discontinuity, yet their definition does not easily translate to AI detection. Objectives: To introduce low-voltage intervals (LVIs), defined exclusively by amplitude and duration, as a context-independent alternative to IBIs, develop an AI detection method for LVIs, and assess their clinical utility as a marker of brain injury. Methods: We developed a ConvNeXt model to detect LVIs and compared its performance with existing methods. We then tested the clinical relevance of detected LVIs across four applications: 1) grading background EEG abnormalities on an open benchmark dataset, 2) classifying clinical hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) grades and comparing with a normal EEG dataset, 3) seizure prediction, and 4) association with seizure burden. Results: For training and validation, 654 hours of per-channel EEG from 123 neonates were reviewed and 51,162 LVIs were annotated. On held-out validation, ConvNeXt had an AUC of 0.996 and a Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.926. Model-reader agreement exceeded inter-reader agreement ($\Delta \kappa = 0.025$, 95% CI: 0.007 to 0.045, $p<0.001$), attaining expert-level equivalence. On a combined dataset of 444 neonates, percentage LVI showed a strong association with EEG grades (Spearman's $\rho=0.801$), a moderate association with HIE grades ($\rho=0.384$), a weaker association with seizure burden ($\rho=0.244$), and a strong seizure prediction capacity (AUC $=0.872$). Conclusion: AI detection of LVIs achieves expert-level equivalence, whereas quantitative features do not. Automated LVI quantification provides a robust clinical biomarker of neonatal encephalopathy associated with background EEG activity, HIE severity, and seizure risk.

Low-density transiting gas giant exoplanets are key benchmarks for atmospheric studies. Despite their large-scale heights, many of them remain poorly characterised. We present the first atmospheric investigation at high-resolution of the inflated (R$_\mathrm{p}$$\sim$1.4 R$_{\mathrm{J}}$), hot Jupiter (T$\sim$1500$ \mathrm{K}$) WASP-13 b aiming at constraining its atmospheric composition and refine its orbital geometry. We analysed four transits observed with GIARPS at the TNG. Updated stellar and planetary parameters were re-derived from the most precise literature values, and a new Rossiter-McLaughlin analysis was performed to measure the projected spin-orbit angle ($\lambda$) and stellar rotational velocity ($v\sin{i_\star}$). Atmospheric signals were searched using high-resolution spectroscopy, both with cross-correlation and single-line analyses, targeting key atomic and molecular species (e.g. \ion{He}{I}, H$\alpha$, \ion{Na}{I}, H$_2$O, CO). We find a well-aligned orbit ($\lambda$ = 2.7$\pm$1.1$^\circ$) and $v\sin{i_\star}$ = 4.5$\pm$0.1 km s$^{-1}$, improving upon previous constraints. No significant atmospheric absorption is detected in either VIS or NIR data. Injection-and-recovery tests exclude an isothermal atmosphere with metallicity [M/H]$\lesssim$10$\times$[M/H]$_\odot$ and simultaneously a grey cloud top pressure P$_{\rm cloud}\gtrsim10$ mbar, under the assumption of chemical equilibrium. WASP-13 b appears to belong to the class of low-density hot Jupiters with weak or featureless transmission spectra, most likely shaped by the presence of high-altitude clouds. Although a highly metal-enriched atmosphere cannot be fully excluded, current evidence disfavours this scenario. Further observations with next-generation facilities will be essential to characterise the atmospheric properties of this challenging target.

Do lattice triviality, suspected Borel non-summability and the perturbative Landau pole exclude an interacting four-dimensional theory satisfying the Osterwalder–Schrader axioms and reproducing every renormalized coefficient of positive-coupling $O(N)$ $\phi^4$ theory? An example involving one real function separates vanishing cutoff limits along its allowed bare trajectories from a nonzero result obtained by renormalizing the coefficients first; an exponentially small correction preserves its expansion and removes the pole in its running coupling. For the massless two-point expansion of the singlet composite $\Phi_a\Phi_a$ at leading order in $1/N$, ordinary Borel summation fails even for Gaussian smearing. The arithmetic mean of two Borel integrals along opposite imaginary rays defines a real distribution on every four-dimensional Schwartz momentum or position test, with finite-order remainder bounds uniform on bounded test sets. Two alternative covariances with nonnegative mass spectral weights remove the Euclidean pole and construct generalized free fields. After a fixed contact subtraction, their Euclidean extensions preserve every coefficient of the collective correlations obtained by Wick pairing. The interacting finite-$N$ family remains open. We also state a conditional interacting route through the physical scalar correlations of a larger theory (the parent) with heavy particles. A concrete $N=1$ gauge–Higgs–fermion candidate has a tuned one-loop trajectory on which all interaction couplings tend to zero in the ultraviolet, and a stable tree vacuum with additional masses comparable to the heavy scale. Constructing the parent and its corrected ultraviolet trajectory, and proving coefficient decoupling and the exact remainder bounds as the quartic coupling tends to zero and the family's heavy masses grow, remain open.

We construct exact deterministic circuits for transposing and inverting an unknown qutrit unitary $U\in\mathrm{SU}(3)$ using only forward queries. Three queries prepare a catalyst independently of the input state. Four further queries implement transposition while returning the catalyst unchanged and uncorrelated with the output. Two uses within an antisymmetric encoding implement inversion with eight processing queries and return the same catalyst. Reusing the catalyst implements $m$ transpositions or inversions with $3+4m$ or $3+8m$ total queries, respectively. More generally, we prove that exact transposition and inversion of an unknown $U\in\mathrm{SU}(d)$, $d\ge2$, require at least $d+1$ and $d^2-1$ processing queries, respectively, in fixed causal order. These processing bounds hold for any program state prepared independently of the input state using finitely many forward queries, even if that state is consumed during processing. Both our catalytic qutrit algorithms attain their respective bounds. Moreover, exact qutrit transposition with four processing queries requires at least three preparation queries, and our construction attains this bound.

We develop an optimization algorithm for spherical lattice discretizations based on the spectrum of the discretized Laplace operator. Starting from refined icosahedral lattices, we minimize the splitting of the $(2\ell+1)$, $\ell=0,1,2,\dots$, continuum multiplets expected from $\mathrm{SO}(3)$ symmetry via gradient descent. This approach simultaneously produces lattices based on triangles with nearly uniform circumradii and perimeters. Although the optimization uses only the free-particle spectrum, we show that the resulting lattices carry over to interacting models. On the optimized lattices, rotational symmetry is restored for the critical Ising and Potts models and primary scaling dimensions are accurately reproduced for the three-dimensional Ising conformal field theory, when appropriate geometry-dependent interaction strengths are used. Higher-angular-momentum descendant states reveal weak residual symmetry breaking beyond the sectors protected by the underlying icosahedral symmetry.

Legacy Fortran physics packages in atmospheric models such as CESM, WRF, and E3SM pose a barrier to GPU modernization, while manual porting requires accelerator-programming expertise. We present LAFT (LLM-Assisted Fortran Translation), an agentic framework for converting Fortran atmospheric physics parameterizations into GPU-accelerated JAX while preserving numerical agreement with the Fortran reference. LAFT coordinates source-code analysis, translation, repair, runtime validation, and performance profiling. It combines a deterministic front end for metadata extraction and bridge generation, structured translation prompts, numerical validation, and profiling-guided feedback to identify inefficient execution patterns. The bridge handles array-layout conversion separately from scientific computation. We evaluate LAFT using the Kessler warm-rain microphysics scheme and four LLMs: Claude, GPT, Gemini, and Qwen. All four validated translations reproduce the Fortran reference outputs to near floating-point precision for the evaluated case, but their GPU performance differs substantially with execution design. The Gemini-generated implementation achieves up to a 357-fold speedup over serial Fortran in cached execution at 1,000,000 atmospheric columns, excluding compilation and host-device transfers. The results demonstrate that numerical agreement alone does not ensure efficient GPU execution and motivate combining numerical validation with hardware-aware performance analysis. LAFT provides a practical workflow for modernizing legacy atmospheric physics code through LLM-assisted translation, deterministic interface generation, automated validation and repair, and reproducible profiling.

A tropical quantum field theory is an exactly solvable deformation limit of an ordinary QFT, governed by a non-linear partial differential equation. We use the integrable two-dimensional sine-Gordon theory as a testbench to compare the exact features of an undeformed model with its tropical counterpart. We classify scale-invariant tropical QFTs in $D=2$ and leverage functional renormalization group methods to demonstrate that all scale-invariant theories with periodic effective actions are infrared fixed points of flows originating from sine-Gordon Lagrangians. For the tropical sine-Gordon model, we compute the $\beta$-functions exactly, solve the renormalized theory both via a convergent expansion and numerically for all admissible couplings, and illustrate the complete renormalization group flow from the Gaussian to the IR fixed point. Finally, we study the large-order behaviour of the loop expansion and relate it to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, whose solutions we interpret as tropical instantons.

We investigate the full statistics of entropy production in coherent mesoscopic conductors beyond the weak-coupling regime. Using the inside-outside perspective and the Landauer-Büttiker scattering framework, we relate entropy production to the full counting statistics of particle transport and show that the corresponding cumulant-generating function satisfies the fluctuation symmetry independently of the coupling strength. We obtain closed analytical expressions for the cumulant-generating function in the weak- and strong-coupling limits, enabling a detailed characterization of entropy production distributions and higher-order cumulants. These cumulants reveal distinct signatures of resonant transport and coherent fermionic partitioning. While coupling-induced broadening substantially modifies the transport statistics, the fluctuation symmetry imposed by microscopic reversibility remains preserved in the long-time limit.

The classical vertical shear instability (VSI) is a baroclinic instability that arises from height-dependent azimuthal velocities and is a leading candidate for driving anisotropic turbulence in discs with extended vertical modes. The classical VSI requires fast cooling times and radial temperature gradients, which are absent in an isothermal stratified (barotropic) setup. We investigate the dust-driven vertical shear instability in an isothermal, stratified shearing box, where the VSI is generated by drag forces acting on the gas due to dust rather than radial thermal stratification. We construct two-fluid (gas+dust) vertically stratified equilibria including dust diffusion and use these profiles to initialise 2D (radial-vertical) hydrodynamical simulations with FARGO3D. To separate dust-driven vertical shear instability (DVSI) from drag instabilities, we employ a dust-analogue model in which dust-induced drag on the gas is prescribed as a time-invariant and height-dependent acceleration, such that the underlying spatial distribution of the dust is assumed to be constant. The DVSI grows from regions of strongest vertical shear away from the midplane, exciting predominantly radially short, vertically extended disturbances (large k_x/k_z) and producing banded structures in the perturbed azimuthal and vertical velocities during the linear phase. In the nonlinear regime, the instability saturates via a Kelvin-Helmholtz-like parasitic instability that breaks the coherent vertical-shear modes into smaller-scale eddies, which balance the growth of the vertically extended modes, driving sustained vertical stirring. Dust-driven vertical shear can drive anisotropic turbulence and vertical mixing in an isothermal model without invoking global thermal gradients and could play an important role in the stratified streaming instability.

Quantum Zeno dynamics constrains a continuously monitored system to measurement-selected subspaces. Here we show that the structure of such Zeno subspaces can be governed by a latent symmetry, namely a symmetry that is absent from the geometry of the underlying physical network. We consider a minimal circuit-QED network of coupled microwave resonators subject to quantum-nondemolition (QND) monitoring of local photon occupations. Two distinguished resonators are geometrically inequivalent, yet are exactly exchanged by a latent symmetry of the network. Strong monitoring partitions the single-excitation Hilbert space into three quantum-Zeno subspaces, two of which correspond to localization on the distinguished resonators. Latent symmetry exactly exchanges these two Zeno subspaces and enforces identical escape and residence statistics despite their different microscopic environments. In the strong-measurement regime their residence times grow linearly with the measurement strength and diverge in the ideal Zeno limit, where the measurement subspaces become dynamically disconnected. Our results show that latent symmetry can act as a hidden organizing principle of quantum Zeno dynamics, imposing exact relations between measurement-selected subspaces that are geometrically inequivalent in the physical system.

We investigate the construction of unitary $t$-designs in a multi-photon Fock space on programmable linear-optical interferometers. Using the frame potential as the optimization objective, we identify architectures that realize approximate unitary 1- and 2-designs with considerably fewer controllable parameters than required for universal linear optics. For example, we find numerical evidence suggesting that for unitary 1-designs, the required number of programmable parameters scales empirically as $2d$ with the number of modes $d$, instead of $O(d^2)$. We benchmark the resulting ensembles using single-photon transition probabilities and average channel fidelities. Furthermore, as a practical result, we develop a photon-number estimation protocol for multi-photon Fock states that leverages these optimized 1- and 2-designs. Our findings demonstrate that shallow interferometers can accurately reproduce Haar-averaged first moments, while second-moment-sensitive observables provide a considerably stricter test for approximate unitary 2-designs.

The even-denominator fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states, understood as topological superconductors of composite fermions, are predicted to support elementary quasiparticles (QPs) or quasiholes (QHs) obeying non-Abelian braid statistics. Using the microscopic framework of parton theory, we investigate many experimentally observed paired composite-fermion states and find that their elementary QPs and QHs in general bind to form Abelian molecules, thus obscuring non-Abelian braid statistics. An exception is the $\nu=1/2$ state in wide quantum wells, where our calculations show free QPs or QHs; we thus identify this state as an especially promising candidate for realizing and studying non-Abelian braid statistics. We also indicate how the study of such bound states can help reveal the topological structure of the state.

We study the reheating epoch and total bounce-to-present expansion in modified loop quantum cosmology using current observational determinations of the scalar amplitude and spectral index. We consider the power-law plateau potential, whose normalization is determined independently from the observed values of the scalar amplitude and spectral index. We find that, for the kinetic-energy-dominated initial conditions, the quantum-bounce regime is remarkably insensitive to this normalization, while the subsequent inflationary and reheating evolution shows a more appreciable dependence. We then investigate the sensitivity of the results to the inflationary potential by considering the Starobinsky and polynomial chaotic potentials. The reheating e-fold number and reheating temperature are found to depend strongly on both the form of the potential and, in the polynomial case, the branch selected. In contrast, the total bounce-to-present expansion satisfies the conservative bound N > 129 over the ranges considered here and remains close to the characteristic scale found in LQC. Moreover, the difference between mLQC-I and LQC is remarkably stable for all three potentials. These results suggest that reheating is strongly model dependent, whereas the small systematic shift in the total expansion is primarily associated with the different background quantum geometries of LQC and mLQC-I.

We present a minimal classical lattice model of superfluidity at arbitrarily high temperatures, using a modified three-dimensional XY model with “soft" rotors. The global U(1) symmetry is spontaneously broken above a positive critical temperature due to entropic order. We study hydrodynamics in this high-temperature regime and verify consistency with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, explaining how the large noise variance at very high temperatures is not sufficient to destroy superfluidity or the long lifetime of Goldstone modes.

The Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) is initiated when a shock wave interacts with a perturbed interface between two materials, imparting an initial velocity to the interfacial perturbation. When the materials are viscoelastic, the subsequent evolution is influenced by the coupled effects of inertia, viscous dissipation, and elastic resistance. The interplay of these effects remains poorly understood and is important for predicting the dynamic response of shock-loaded soft materials, e.g., in blast-induced injury. Using the incompressible Cauchy momentum equation with a Kelvin-Voigt constitutive model, we conduct a linear stability analysis for the early-time post-shock evolution of a single-mode interface perturbation of two viscoelastic materials. We derive an implicit dispersion relation for the temporal growth rates of the perturbation. This relation depends on density, viscosity, and elasticity contrasts between the two materials and an viscoelastic parameter which is a bounded ratio of the viscous dissipation and elastic resistance response rates. Four material cases, spanning symmetric to highly contrasted interfaces, are examined to show how the viscoelastic number affects the growth rate structure as complex-dominated (oscillatory) or real-dominated (monotonic relaxation). The critical viscoelastic number separates these two regimes and is primarily governed by the density and viscosity contrasts. These results provide a theoretical criterion for predicting the early-time response of shock-driven interfaces involving fluids and viscoelastic solids.

Edge-on protoplanetary disks provide a spatially resolved view of the vertical distribution of icy planetary building blocks, but inferring their relative abundances requires radiative-transfer (RT) modeling with multiple anisotropic scattering. Each model costs $10^{1}$-$10^{3}$ CPU hours, which precludes principled Bayesian inference and homogeneous, population-scale analyses. We develop and validate a fast and reusable surrogate for Bayesian inference with ice-bearing edge-on disk models. We train a Fourier Neural Operator on a grid of RADMC-3D spectra. The network maps disk parameters and analytic physical input fields to the spectrum, using mixed-resolution spectra. We use the surrogate in an explicit-likelihood nested sampler and validate it on held-out simulations and synthetic recovery tests with TARP coverage. Finally, we use it to retrieve the disk structure and ice abundances of ESO-H$\alpha$ 569 from its spectral energy distribution. The surrogate reproduces the RADMC-3D spectra with a median error of 4.84%. We recover synthetic parameters without detectable bias and with nominal coverage. For ESO-H$\alpha$ 569, the posterior favors a massive ($M_{\rm gas}=0.028^{+0.015}_{-0.011}\,M_\odot$), nearly edge-on ($i=79.8^{+5.2}_{-2.4}$ deg) disk consistent with the image-plus-SED model of Wolff et al. (2017). Its ice abundances and cavity size remain weakly constrained by broadband data alone. The marginal spectrum-evaluation speed-up is $\sim10^{9}$-$10^{10}$. Neural-operator emulation makes full posterior inference feasible within the adopted model and training prior. Key posterior points should still be checked with high-fidelity RT models. By drastically cutting evaluation time, this approach enables for the first time homogeneous population studies of ices in disks, which new JWST surveys can capitalize on to map the range of compositions within planetary nurseries.

Despite its elusive character, coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS) detection is evolving as a precision measurement from different neutrino measurements. In this note we show how CEvNS experiments using the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) are robust measurements that enter into a precision era. Despite the interplay of nuclear and elementary particle physics, we demonstrate that CEvNS current measurements are accurately described by using only one extra parameter, the number of neutrons, $N$. By making this test, we illustrate that current CEvNS are precise enough to reconstruct the number of neutrons in the nuclear target. At the same time, determining the number of nucleons in the target material can be used as a benchmark for the precision and accuracy of this kind of detectors.

We present the first performance-portable implementation of a loop integral library for high-energy particle physics. The new code is based on the QCDLoop package, which provides an essential component in the software stack for perturbative precision calculations at collider experiments. Our implementation extends QCDLoop to modern computing architectures by means of the Kokkos portability framework, which allows to target most existing CPUs and GPUs.

We study the sensitivity of future high-luminosity $e^+e^-$ colliders to the electromagnetic and weak dipole moments of the $\tau$ lepton within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory. We analyse several complementary processes across the FCC-ee operating stages and show that the exceptional luminosity and clean environment of future $e^+e^-$ colliders allow for substantial improvements over current limits from LEP and the LHC. The $e^+e^- \to \tau^+\tau^-$ process provides excellent sensitivity to weak dipole operators through resonant $Z$ production and $Z$-pole energy scans, while $\gamma\gamma \to \tau^+\tau^-$ yields the strongest constraint on the anomalous magnetic moment owing to the dominance of linear interference effects in the near-threshold region. Higher-energy stages improve the sensitivity to the $\tau$ electric dipole moment. The radiative processes $e^+e^- \to \tau^+\tau^-\gamma$ and $H\to\tau^+\tau^-\gamma$ provide complementary, though subleading, probes of $\tau$ dipole operators. Combining all channels, we estimate the statistical reach at the 95% CL to be $|\Delta a_\tau|<2.8\times10^{-5}$, $|d_\tau|<2.5\times10^{-18}\,e\,{\rm cm}$, $|\Delta a_\tau^Z|<1.0\times10^{-5}$, and $|d_\tau^Z|<4.4\times10^{-19}\,e\,{\rm cm}$, improving upon the current bounds by several orders of magnitude. These projections quantify the potential statistical reach of the FCC-ee program, motivating dedicated studies incorporating detector effects, systematic uncertainties, and higher-order theoretical predictions.

Resonant dispersive wave (RDW) emission in gas-filled anti-resonant hollow-core fibers (AR-HCF) offers a wavelength-tunable route to ultraviolet (UV) and vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) frequency comb generation. RDW emission is expected to be coherent fundamentally, but various noise sources are expected to limit the coherence, including amplitude-to-phase fluctuations due to input pulse intensity noise and plasma formation. It is critical, therefore, to establish the limits of the coherence of UV RDW pulses to determine their applicability for precision spectroscopy. Here, we demonstrate the coherence of RDW emission at 260~nm generated with an amplified Yb-doped fiber system at a 2-MHz repetition rate with a self-heterodyne beat measurement between the RDW and the fourth harmonic of the source. We isolate the RDW contribution to the frequency noise by coherently subtracting the carrier-envelope offset noise contribution measured simultaneously with an f-2f interferometer. We observe a beatnote linewidth below 10~kHz over timescales longer than 100~ms, and we find a conservative upper bound of 1~rad on the integrated RMS phase deviations over a frequency range spanning 1 to 30~kHz. The dominant frequency noise contributions are consistent with environmental noise of the interferometers and AR-HCF coupling fluctuations. These results provide strong evidence that RDW emission is coherent under well-controlled experimental conditions, confirming its potential for UV and VUV frequency comb generation.

Social influence, the tendency of our social environment to sway our beliefs and behaviors, is often cited as a driver of population-level trends in opinions or beliefs. Many quantitative theories of social influence assume that an agent interacts with its entire social environment. This assumption is often unrealistic. For example, users of online platforms typically see posts from only a small subset of the accounts they follow at any given time. We introduce a simple probabilistic agent-based model of social influence that explicitly models unobserved attention mechanisms. The first of these latent mechanisms is selection: each agent interacts with only one other agent at a time from its social environment. The second is retention: the agent chooses whether or not to ignore the opinion of the other. Our model admits an efficient maximum-likelihood algorithm which allows us to fit it to opinion traces even when these mechanisms are unobserved. On synthetic data, omitting either latent mechanism reduces the overall strength of social influence governed by the inferred interaction kernel, which hides the evidence for the underlying nonlinearity of the social influence. We study a selection of previously analyzed empirical datasets and curate several new ones. We show that models that include the latent mechanisms are often more predictive on these datasets; indeed, they typically improve prediction far more than the choice of interaction kernel does. Modeling latent attention increases held-out predictive likelihood on 14 of these 15 datasets. Each mechanism changes the size of the inferred kernel in a predictable direction, while its effect on the kernel's shape depends on the data.

The S-matrix bootstrap restricts low-energy interactions through unitarity, analyticity and crossing symmetry. For effective field theory couplings, positivity bounds have a natural geometric formulation, the EFThedron, in which the allowed couplings form the classical positive moment problem. We show that this geometry extends to full nonlinear unitarity. Multiplying the amplitude by fractional powers of the energy turns its real part into a moment as well, so that unitarity becomes a bounded complex moment problem. Analyticity becomes a set of linear constraints requiring different kernels to reconstruct the same couplings, analogous to the null constraints imposed by crossing symmetry. In two dimensions the problem can be solved exactly, leading to Castillejo–Dalitz–Dyson amplitudes as extremal measures of the moment problem. In four dimensions we obtain closed-form and semi-analytic bounds for the massless EFThedron model and for massive scalar scattering. For massive scalars, the analyticity constraints improve on published dual bounds, reducing the gap to the primal region. By placing the real and imaginary parts of amplitudes on an equal footing, the Real EFThedron provides a powerful framework combining unitarity, analyticity and crossing, opening a new route to mapping the space of consistent quantum field theories.

Students often perceive scientific experiments as clean, straightforward procedures with predictable outcomes. Students' beliefs about the nature of experimental physics typically remain inconsistent through the initial stages of undergraduate education. In reality, experimental work in physics involves hands-on activities such as soldering circuits, assembling provisional setups, and building functional mock-ups from simple materials before reliable measurements can be achieved. To address this gap, we designed a laboratory activity in which students were completely involved in the experiment design, construction and operation with the final goal of measuring the speed of light with a low-cost and compact setup. The educational objective of this activity was double: firstly, to make students aware of the importance of experimental choices and constraints in the setup design and secondly, to discover the potentiality of semiconductor technologies. As far back as the 1990s, with the spread of compact disk players, laser diodes and photodiodes capable of fast timing performance in the order of nanoseconds became largely available. In the last decades, consumer electronic devices made high performance technologies ubiquitous. Nevertheless, the idea of measuring ultrashort time intervals and the relevance of such measurements in science and technology remain unknown to most students. Nowadays, digital instruments with significant performance such as waveform generators and oscilloscopes are affordable for high school physics labs, paving the way to a closer contact with the world of experimental physics.

We present a Fourier-based method for evaluating two-electron four-center Coulomb repulsion integrals over Slater-type orbitals. Spherical Fourier-Bessel coefficients of the convolution factors are precomputed and reused. Since the spherical part of the integral can be evaluated directly, there remains only a one-dimensional quadrature problem in the radial direction. For the ten reference integrals reported here, the largest absolute discrepancy is $1.7\times10^{-9}$. A preliminary resident-cache benchmark computes approximately $4.2\times10^5$ unique integrals per second on an NVIDIA V100 at the contraction stage.

We study symmetries and anomalies of dissipative Majorana chains described by Lindblad dynamics. Using the operator-state mapping, we represent the Lindbladian as a non-Hermitian operator on a doubled Hilbert space. In this formulation, the ket and bra contours admit strong fermion parities and strong translations, while their diagonal combinations define weak symmetries. For even and odd chain lengths, we diagnose anomalies by comparing symmetry algebras with and without weak fermion-parity defects. These algebras retain the lattice precursor of the modulo-$8$ anomaly of the closed Majorana chain and exhibit projective relations between strong fermion parity and weak translation, as well as between weak fermion parity and strong translation, which are intrinsic to open quantum systems. We establish the IR correspondence between the lattice symmetry algebras and those of the doubled Majorana CFT in four spin sectors, identifying chiral fermion parities emanated from the lattice translations. Finally, we develop the lattice bosonization of the dissipative chain. For even length with collective energy dephasing, combining the defect and no-defect sectors and imposing GSO projections gives rise to an Ising Lindbladian with non-invertible Kramers–Wannier symmetries descending from the anomalous strong translation and fermion parity of the Majorana chain. For odd length, constructing mutually commuting ket- and bra-sector spin operators instead yields an Ising Lindbladian with a Kramers–Wannier duality defect. Our results provide a controlled framework for extending lattice anomalies and non-invertible symmetries to open quantum systems.

Broadband soliton microcombs near 1 $\mu$m offer coherent, evenly spaced optical lines for measurements in the biological window. However, combining broad spectral coverage with closely spaced comb lines increases the pump-power requirement and makes thermally stable soliton access more difficult. Here, we demonstrate broadband silicon nitride (Si3N4) soliton microcombs enabled by a resonant coupler that enhances pump delivery to the nonlinear resonator. The device generates a spectrum spanning 930-1380 nm with an approximately 98-GHz comb-line spacing at on-chip pump powers of tens of milliwatts, while providing reliable thermally stable access to the single-soliton state. These results provide a route to compact, power-efficient microcomb sources that combine broad spectral coverage with closely spaced comb lines for spectroscopy and imaging in the biological window.

Empirical relations and planet formation simulations suggest an upper mass limit for rocky planets of $\sim$10M$_{\oplus}$, as cores above this will almost certainly undergo runaway gas accretion. Nevertheless, a small number of planets appear to have densities consistent with rocky Earth-like compositions above this threshold, indicating that unusual formation and evolutionary scenarios are capable of producing extremely massive rocky planets called "Mega-Earths." However, all of these planets orbit active stars with log$R'_{HK}$ $>$-4.75. We find a <1$\%$ probability that all literature ultra-massive rocky planets would coincidentally orbit such active stars, and find no astrophysical reason to expect Mega-Earths to preferentially form around active stars. We therefore conclude that Mega-Earths are artifacts of stellar activity, and we question the reliability of Gaussian Processes to enable mass measurements for rocky planets around active stars.

Quantum error-correcting codes on graph geometries beyond regular euclidean lattices have emerged as a promising route toward robust quantum information processing. A major challenge in quantum error correction is the trade-off between favorable properties of codes constructed in high dimensionality and the need for locality in practical implementations on near-term hardware. Sparse intermediate geometries may combine the advantages of both, but how their structure governs quantum information dynamics and code performance remains unclear. Here we show that the spectral dimension $d_s$, defined from the low-energy spectrum of the graph Laplacian, is the universal parameter connecting these properties. Using Floquet random Clifford circuits on two distinct sparse graph architectures with tunable spectral dimension, we find that $d_s$ governs both quantum information spreading and the scaling of the resulting quantum error-correcting code distance. We identify a geometry-induced entanglement phase transition from localized area-law to ergodic volume-law, whose universality is determined by $d_s$ and exhibits long-range percolation criticality. In the ergodic phase, the circuit acts as a CSS code encoder whose code distance is set by the competition between two logical sectors — the cost of severing the graph and the length of its shortest winding cycle — which connectivity pushes in opposite directions. The spectral dimension organizes this trade-off, highlighting a maximum at intermediate $d_s$ retaining sparse connectivity and physical realizability.

We present the first inference of the Hubble constant and matter density parameter from a strongly lensed supernova by exploiting the mass model of a galaxy cluster enhanced by an extended surface brightness reconstruction. Building upon the recent mass model of the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223, relying on the identified image positions only, we include the surface brightness distribution of the SN Refsdal host, to infer some cosmological parameter values within a flat LCDM framework. We consider two cosmological parameterizations, with either H0 and {\Omega}m or H0 alone treated as free parameters, acknowledging the milder dependency on {\Omega}m when incorporating additional constraints from the SN host. We explore four different mass-model realizations to assess some of the systematic uncertainties associated with the constraint weighting and source reconstruction. Although known as one of the main possible systematic effects, including influences from the external convergence, we deliberately keep the cluster total mass parametrization fixed to that of the previously published point-like mass model to enable a fair comparison. This reveals that incorporating 77,000 HST pixels reduces the uncertainty on the inferred value of the Hubble constant by a factor of 2.0, while all model realizations remain mutually consistent. Our final measurements are $H_0 = 65.0^{+2.0}_{-1.8}$ km/s/Mpc and $\Omega_m = 0.30^{+0.08}_{-0.09}, in agreement with previous results. This corresponds to a substantially improved precision, reaching a remarkable 3.0% uncertainty on the value of H0 given our cluster total mass parameterization. The contributions of the uncertainties on the lens total mass and on the measured time delays to the final H0 error are now comparable, indicating that future improvements in cluster-scale time-delay cosmography will increasingly depend on (abridged version).

The post-reionization epoch ($z\sim4$-6) marks a critical phase in galaxy evolution, during which galaxies rapidly assemble their stellar mass, enrich their interstellar medium, and build up substantial dust reservoirs. The physical processes responsible for such rapid dust enrichment remain uncertain. We investigate the dust enrichment history of the ALPINE-CRISTAL-JWST (ACJ) sample using the semi-analytic galaxy formation model GAlaxy Evolution and Assembly (GAEA), which follows galaxy assembly, chemical enrichment, and dust evolution. We select model galaxies matching the observed stellar masses, star formation rates, and metallicities of the ACJ sample, compare their dust properties with observed scaling relations, and trace their enrichment histories and environments. The model reproduces the observed dust mass-stellar mass relation and the dust-to-stellar mass, dust-to-gas, and dust-to-metal ratios as functions of stellar mass and metallicity. Reproducing these constraints requires efficient dust growth in the interstellar medium; stellar dust production alone cannot account for the observed dust reservoirs, even under the most optimistic assumptions. The combination of stellar mass, star formation rate, and metallicity provides a good predictor of galaxy dust content. Our model suggests rapid dust build-up consistent with the previously noted rapid metal enrichment, with evidence for a transition around $z\sim8$-9 below which dust growth becomes the dominant dust formation channel. Finally, ACJ-like galaxies preferentially reside in locally overdense environments, suggesting that environment may have contributed to their accelerated evolution. Taken together, these results support rapid and coupled stellar, metal, and dust build-up in ACJ galaxies during the post-reionization era.