  Hardware peripherals such as GPUs and FPGAs are commonly available in
server-grade computing to accelerate specific compute tasks, from database
queries to machine learning. CSPs have integrated these accelerators into their
infrastructure and let tenants combine and configure these components flexibly,
based on their needs. Securing I/O interfaces is critical to ensure proper
isolation between tenants in these highly complex, heterogeneous, yet shared
server systems, especially in the cloud, where some peripherals may be under
control of a malicious tenant.
  In this work, we investigate the interfaces that connect peripheral hardware
components to each other and the rest of the system.We show that the I/O memory
management units (IOMMUs) - intended to ensure proper isolation of peripherals
- are the source of a new attack surface: the I/O translation look-aside buffer
(IOTLB). We show that by using an FPGA accelerator card one can gain precise
information over IOTLB activity. That information can be used for covert
communication between peripherals without bothering CPU or to directly extract
leakage from neighboring accelerated compute jobs such as GPU-accelerated
databases. We present the first qualitative and quantitative analysis of this
newly uncovered attack surface before fine-grained channels become widely
viable with the introduction of CXL and PCIe 5.0. In addition, we propose
possible countermeasures that software developers, hardware designers, and
system administrators can use to suppress the observed side-channel leakages
and analyze their implicit costs.


  The study of symmetric configurations $v_3$ with block size 3 has a long and
rich history. In this paper we consider two colouring problems which arise
naturally in the study of these structures. The first of these is weak
colouring, in which no block is monochromatic; the second is strong colouring,
in which every block is multichromatic. The former has been studied before in
relation to blocking sets. Results are proved on the possible sizes of blocking
sets and we begin the investigation of strong colourings. We also show that the
known $21_3$ and $22_3$ configurations without a blocking set are unique and
make a complete enumeration of all non-isomorphic $20_3$ configurations. We
discuss the concept of connectivity in relation to symmetric configurations and
complete the determination of the spectrum of 2-connected symmetric
configurations without a blocking set. A number of open problems are presented.


  The starburst galaxy M82 at a distance of 12 million light years, is the host
of an unusually bright $2.4-16\times 10^{40}$ erg/s X-ray point source, which
is best explained by an accreting black hole $10^{2}$ to $10^4$ times more
massive than the Sun. Though the strongest candidate for a so called
intermediate mass black hole, the only support stems from the observed
luminosity and the 0.05-0.1 Hz quasi periodicity in its signal. Interestingly,
the $7-12 $Myr old star cluster MGG-11 which has been associated with the X-ray
source is sufficiently dense that an intermediate mass black hole could have
been produced in the cluster core via collision runaway. The recently
discovered $62.0\pm 2.5$ day periodicity in the X-ray source X-1 further
supports the hypothesis that this source is powered by a black hole several
hundred times more massive than the Sun. We perform detailed binary evolution
simulations with an accreting compact object of $10-5000 \msun $ and find that
the X-ray luminosity, the age of the cluster, the observed quasi periodic
oscillations and the now observed orbital period are explained best by a black
hole of $200-5000 \msun $ that accretes material from a $22-25\msun$ giant
companion in a state of Roche-lobe contact. Interestingly such a companion star
is consistent with the expectation based on the tidal capture in a young and
dense star cluster like MGG-11, making the picture self consistent.


  In math.SG/0605587, we studied Yang-Mills functional on the space of
connections on a principal G_R-bundle over a closed, connected, nonorientable
surface, where G_R is any compact connected Lie group. In this sequel, we
generalize the discussion in "The Yang-Mills equations over Riemann surfaces"
by Atiyah and Bott, and math.SG/0605587. We obtain explicit descriptions (as
representation varieties) of Morse strata of Yang-Mills functional on
orientable and nonorientable surfaces for non-unitary classical groups SO(n)
and Sp(n). It turns out to be quite different from the unitary case. we use
Laumon and Rapoport's method in "The Langlands lemma and the Betti numbers of
stacks of G-bundles on a curve" to invert the Atiyah-Bott recursion relation,
and write down explicit formulas of rational equivariant Poincar\'{e} series of
the semistable stratum of the space of holomorphic structures on a principal
$SO(n,\bC)$-bundle or a principal $Sp(n,\bC)$-bundle.


  Let $\Gamma<\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$ be a non-elementary finitely generated
subgroup and let $\Gamma(q)$ be its congruence subgroup of level $q$ for each
$q\in \mathbb{N}$. We obtain an asymptotic formula for the matrix coefficients
of $L^2(\Gamma (q) \backslash \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R}))$ with a {\it uniform}
exponential error term for all square-free $q$ with no small prime divisors. As
an application we establish a uniform resonance-free half plane for the
resolvent of the Laplacian on $\Gamma (q) \backslash \mathbb{H}^2$ over $q$ as
above. Our approach is to extend Dolgopyat's dynamical proof of exponential
mixing of the geodesic flow uniformly over congruence covers, by establishing
uniform spectral bounds for congruence transfer operators associated to the
geodesic flow. One of the key ingredients is the expander theory due to
Bourgain-Gamburd-Sarnak.


  We associate several invariants to a knot in an integer homology 3-sphere
using $SU(2)$ singular instanton gauge theory. There is a space of framed
singular connections for such a knot, equipped with a circle action and an
equivariant Chern-Simons functional, and our constructions are morally derived
from the associated equivariant Morse chain complexes. In particular, we
construct a triad of groups analogous to the knot Floer homology package in
Heegaard Floer homology, several Fr{\o}yshov-type invariants which are
concordance invariants, and more. The behavior of our constructions under
connected sums are determined. We recover most of Kronheimer and Mrowka's
singular instanton homology constructions from our invariants. Finally, the
ADHM description of the moduli space of instantons on the 4-sphere can be used
to give a concrete characterization of the moduli spaces involved in the
invariants of spherical knots, and we demonstrate this point in several
examples.


  The paper aims to show how an application can be developed that converts the
English language into the Punjabi Language, and the same application can
convert the Text to Speech(TTS) i.e. pronounce the text. This application can
be really beneficial for those with special needs.


  We study hypothesis testing under communication constraints, where each
sample is quantized before being revealed to a statistician. Without
communication constraints, it is well known that the sample complexity of
simple binary hypothesis testing is characterized by the Hellinger distance
between the distributions. We show that the sample complexity of simple binary
hypothesis testing under communication constraints is at most a logarithmic
factor larger than in the unconstrained setting and this bound is tight. We
develop a polynomial-time algorithm that achieves the aforementioned sample
complexity. Our framework extends to robust hypothesis testing, where the
distributions are corrupted in the total variation distance. Our proofs rely on
a new reverse data processing inequality and a reverse Markov inequality, which
may be of independent interest. For simple $M$-ary hypothesis testing, the
sample complexity in the absence of communication constraints has a logarithmic
dependence on $M$. We show that communication constraints can cause an
exponential blow-up leading to $\Omega(M)$ sample complexity even for adaptive
algorithms.


  We consider the Kondo-Hubbard model with ferromagnetic exchange coupling $%
J_{H}$, showing that it is an approximate effective model for late transition
metal-O linear systems. We study the dependence of the charge and spin gaps
$\Delta_{C}$, $\Delta_{S}$, and several spin-spin correlation functions,
including the hidden order parameter $Z(\pi)$, as functions of $J_{H}/t$ and
$U/t$, by numerical diagonalization of finite systems. Except for $Z(\pi)$, all
properties converge slowly to the strong-coupling limit. When $J_{H}/t\sim 2$
and $U/t\sim 7$ (the effective parameters that we obtain for Y_2BaNiO_5),
$\Delta_{S}$ is roughly half of the value expected from a strong-coupling
expansion.


  The role of Lorentz invariance as a fundamental symmetry of nature has been
lately reconsidered in different approaches to quantum gravity. It is thus
natural to study whether other puzzles of physics may be solved within these
proposals. This may be the case for the cosmological constant problem. Indeed,
it has been shown that breaking Lorentz invariance provides Lagrangians that
can drive the current acceleration of the universe without experiencing large
corrections from ultraviolet physics. In this work, we focus on the simplest
model of this type, called ThetaCDM, and study its cosmological implications in
detail. At the background level, this model cannot be distinguished from
LambdaCDM. The differences appear at the level of perturbations. We show that
in ThetaCDM, the spectrum of CMB anisotropies and matter fluctuations may be
affected by a rescaling of the gravitational constant in the Poisson equation,
by the presence of extra contributions to the anisotropic stress, and finally
by the existence of extra clustering degrees of freedom. To explore these
modifications accurately, we modify the Boltzmann code CLASS. We then use the
parameter inference code Monte Python to confront ThetaCDM with data from
WMAP-7, SPT and WiggleZ. We obtain strong bounds on the parameters accounting
for deviations from LambdaCDM. In particular, we find that the discrepancy
between the gravitational constants appearing in the Poisson and Friedmann
equations is constrained at the level 1.8%.


  Precision measurements of active and reactive components of in-plane
microwave surface impedance were performed in single crystals of
optimally-doped Fe-based superconductor Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 (x = 0.074, Tc = 22.8
K). Measurements in a millimeter wavelength range (Ka band, 35-40 GHz) were
performed using whispering gallery mode excitations in the ultrahigh quality
factor quasioptical sapphire disk resonator with YBa2Cu2O7 superconducting (Tc
= 90 K) end plates. The temperature variation of the London penetration depth
is best described by a power-law function, delta {\lambda}(T) is proportional
to T with the exponent n, n = 2.8, in reasonable agreement with radio-frequency
measurements on crystals of the same batch. This power-law dependence is
characteristic of a nodeless superconducting gap in the extended s-wave pairing
scenario with a strong pair-breaking scattering. The quasiparticle conductivity
of the samples, {\sigma}1(T), gradually increases with the decrease of
temperature, showing no peak below or at Tc, in notable contrast with the
behavior found in the cuprates. The temperature-dependent quasiparticle
scattering rate was analyzed in a two-fluid model, assuming the validity of the
Drude description of conductivity and generalized expression for the scattering
rate. This analysis allows us to estimate the range of the values of a residual
surface resistance from 3 to 6 mOhm.


  We propose a entanglement measure for pure $M \otimes N$ bipartite quantum
states. We obtain the measure by generalizing the equivalent measure for a $2
\otimes 2$ system, via a $2 \otimes 3$ system, to the general bipartite case.
The measure emphasizes the role Bell states have, both for forming the measure,
and for experimentally measuring the entanglement. The form of the measure is
similar to generalized concurrence. In the case of $2 \otimes 3$ systems, we
prove that our measure, that is directly measurable, equals the concurrence. It
is also shown that in order to measure the entanglement, it is sufficient to
measure the projections of the state onto a maximum of $M(M-1)N(N-1)/2$ Bell
states.


  The Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) effect is a kind of plastic instability
observed in many dilute alloys when deformed at certain ranges of strain rate
and temperature. In this letter we establish that the dynamical process
responsible for the PLC effect is Poisson in nature by applying statistical
analysis to the observed experimental data obtained during the PLC effect in a
substitutional alloy, Al-2.5%Mg and in an interstitial alloy, low carbon steel
subjected to uniaxial tensile test at constant imposed strain rate.


  A method of determining the temperature of the nonradiative reservoir in a
microcavity exciton-polariton system is developed. A general relation for the
homogeneous polariton linewidth is theoretically derived and experimentally
used in the method. In experiments with a GaAs microcavity under nonresonant
pulsed excitation, the reservoir temperature dynamics is extracted from the
polariton linewidth. Within the first nanosecond the reservoir temperature
greatly exceeds the lattice temperature and determines the dynamics of the
major processes in the system. It is shown that, for nonresonant pulsed
excitation of GaAs microcavities, the polariton Bose-Einstein condensation is
typically governed by polariton-phonon scattering, while interparticle
scattering leads to condensate depopulation.


  We introduce a model for the formation of social networks, which takes into
account the homophily or the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with
similar others, and the mechanisms of global and local attachment as well as
tie reinforcement due to social interactions between people. We generalize the
weighted social network model such that the nodes or individuals have $F$
features and each feature can have $q$ different values. Here the tendency for
the tie formation between two individuals due to the overlap in their features
represents homophily. We find a phase transition as a function of $F$ or $q$,
resulting in a phase diagram. For fixed $q$ and as a function of $F$ the system
shows two phases separated at $F_c$. For $F{<}F_c$ large, homogeneous, and well
separated communities can be identified within which the features match almost
perfectly (segregated phase). When $F$ becomes larger than $F_c$, the nodes
start to belong to several communities and within a community the features
match only partially (overlapping phase). Several quantities reflect this
transition, including the average degree, clustering coefficient, feature
overlap, and the number of communities per node. We also make an attempt to
interpret these results in terms of observations on social behavior of humans.


  The initial data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) on M87$^*$, the
supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, provide direct
observational information on its mass, spin, and accretion disk properties. A
combination of the EHT data and other constraints provide evidence that M87$^*$
has a mass $\sim 6.5 \times 10^9\,M_\odot$ and dimensionless spin parameter
$|a^*|\gtrsim 0.5$. These determinations disfavor ultra light bosons of mass
$\mu_b\sim 10^{-21}$ eV, within the range considered for fuzzy dark matter,
invoked to explain dark matter distribution on $\sim$ kpc scales. Future
observations of M87$^*$ could be expected to strengthen our conclusions.


  The recently developed weakly nonlinear theory of dynamic fracture predicts
$1/r$ corrections to the standard asymptotic linear elastic $1/\sqrt{r}$
displacement-gradients, where $r$ is measured from the tip of a tensile crack.
We show that the $1/r$ singularity does not automatically conform with the
notion of autonomy (autonomy means that any crack tip nonlinear solution is
uniquely determined by the surrounding linear elastic $1/\sqrt{r}$ fields) and
that it does not automatically satisfy the resultant Newton's equation in the
crack parallel direction. We show that these two properties are interrelated
and that by requiring that the resultant Newton's equation is satisfied,
autonomy of the $1/r$ singular solution is retained. We further show that the
resultant linear momentum carried by the $1/r$ singular fields vanishes
identically. Our results, which reveal the physical and mathematical nature of
the new solution, are in favorable agreement with recent near tip measurements.


  Efficiently estimating the full-body pose with minimal wearable devices
presents a worthwhile research direction. Despite significant advancements in
this field, most current research neglects to explore full-body avatar
estimation under low-quality signal conditions, which is prevalent in practical
usage. To bridge this gap, we summarize three scenarios that may be encountered
in real-world applications: standard scenario, instantaneous data-loss
scenario, and prolonged data-loss scenario, and propose a new evaluation
benchmark. The solution we propose to address data-loss scenarios is
integrating the full-body avatar pose estimation problem with motion
prediction. Specifically, we present \textit{ReliaAvatar}, a real-time,
\textbf{relia}ble \textbf{avatar} animator equipped with predictive modeling
capabilities employing a dual-path architecture. ReliaAvatar operates
effectively, with an impressive performance rate of 109 frames per second
(fps). Extensive comparative evaluations on widely recognized benchmark
datasets demonstrate Relia\-Avatar's superior performance in both standard and
low data-quality conditions. The code is available at
\url{https://github.com/MIV-XJTU/ReliaAvatar}.


  For optimal control of diffusions under several criteria, due to
computational or analytical reasons, many studies have a apriori assumed
control policies to be Lipschitz or smooth, often with no rigorous analysis on
whether this restriction entails loss. While optimality of Markov/stationary
Markov policies for expected finite horizon/infinite horizon
(discounted/ergodic) cost and cost-up-to-exit time optimal control problems can
be established under certain technical conditions, an optimal solution is
typically only measurable in the state (and time, if the horizon is finite)
with no apriori additional structural properties. In this paper, building on
our recent work [S. Pradhan and S. Y\"uksel, Continuity of cost in Borkar
control topology and implications on discrete space and time approximations for
controlled diffusions under several criteria, Electronic Journal of Probability
(2024)] establishing the regularity of optimal cost on the space of control
policies under the Borkar control topology for a general class of diffusions,
we establish near optimality of smooth/Lipschitz continuous policies for
optimal control under expected finite horizon, infinite horizon
discounted/average, and up-to-exit time cost criteria. Under mild assumptions,
we first show that smooth/Lipschitz continuous policies are dense in the space
of Markov/stationary Markov policies under the Borkar topology. Then utilizing
the continuity of optimal costs as a function of policies on the space of
Markov/stationary policies under the Borkar topology, we establish that optimal
policies can be approximated by smooth/Lipschitz continuous policies with
arbitrary precision. While our results are extensions of our recent work, the
practical significance of an explicit statement and accessible presentation
dedicated to Lipschitz and smooth policies, given their prominence in the
literature, motivates our current paper.


  Within the constrained Hartree-Fock (CHF) theory, an analytic condition is
derived to estimate whether a concept of the self-consistent mean field is
realized or not in level repulsive region. The derived condition states that an
iterative calculation of CHF equation does not converge when the quantum
fluctuations coming from two-body residual interaction and quadrupole
deformation become larger than a single-particle energy difference between two
avoided crossing orbits. By means of the numerical calculation, it is shown
that the analytic condition works well for a realistic case.


  We consider the non-relativistic Hartree model in the gravitational case,
i.e. with attractive Coulomb-Newton interaction. For a given mass, we construct
stationary states with non-zero temperature by minimizing the corresponding
free energy functional. It is proved that minimizers exist if and only if the
temperature of the system is below a certain threshold(possibly infinite),
which itself depends on the specific choice of the entropy functional. We also
investigate whether the corresponding minimizers are mixed or pure quantum
states and characterize a positive critical temperature above which mixed
states appear.


  We report about the results of the application of modern computer algebra
tools for construction of directed strongly regular graphs. The suggested
techniques are based on the investigation of non-commutative association
schemes and Cayley graphs over non-Abelian groups. We demonstrate examples of
directed strongly regular graphs for 28 different parameter sets, for which the
existence of a corresponding digraph has not been known before.


  The ground-state phase diagram of a two-dimensional Bose system with
dipole-dipole interactions is studied by means of quantum Monte Carlo
technique. Our calculation predicts a quantum phase transition from gas to
solid phase when the density increases. In the gas phase the condensate
fraction is calculated as a function of the density. Using Feynman
approximation, the collective excitation branch is studied and appearance of a
roton minimum is observed. Results of the static structure factor at both sides
of the gas-solid phase are also presented. The Lindeman ratio at the transition
point comes to be $\gamma = 0.230(6)$. The condensate fraction in the gas phase
is estimated as a function of the density.


  The aim of this paper is to apply direct methods to the study of integrals
that appear naturally in Statistical Mechanics and Euclidean Field Theory. We
provide weighted estimates leading to the exponential decay of the two-point
correlation functions for certain classical convex unbounded models. The
methods involve the study of the solutions of the Witten Laplacian equations
associated with the Hamiltonian of the system.


  Large scale, homogeneous quasi-free standing monolayer graphene is obtained
on cubic silicon carbide, i.e. the 3C-SiC(111) surface, which represents an
appealing and cost effective platform for graphene growth. The quasi-free
monolayer is produced by intercalation of hydrogen under the interfacial,
(6root3x6root3)R30-reconstructed carbon layer. After intercalation, angle
resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) reveals sharp linear pi-bands. The
decoupling of graphene from the substrate is identified by X-ray photoemission
spectroscopy (XPS) and low energy electron diffraction (LEED). Atomic force
microscopy (AFM) and low energy electron microscopy (LEEM) demonstrate that
homogeneous monolayer domains extend over areas of hundreds of
square-micrometers.


  Combinatorial optimization assumes that all parameters of the optimization
problem, e.g. the weights in the objective function is fixed. Often, these
weights are mere estimates and increasingly machine learning techniques are
used to for their estimation. Recently, Smart Predict and Optimize (SPO) has
been proposed for problems with a linear objective function over the
predictions, more specifically linear programming problems. It takes the regret
of the predictions on the linear problem into account, by repeatedly solving it
during learning. We investigate the use of SPO to solve more realistic discrete
optimization problems. The main challenge is the repeated solving of the
optimization problem. To this end, we investigate ways to relax the problem as
well as warmstarting the learning and the solving. Our results show that even
for discrete problems it often suffices to train by solving the relaxation in
the SPO loss. Furthermore, this approach outperforms, for most instances, the
state-of-the-art approach of Wilder, Dilkina, and Tambe. We experiment with
weighted knapsack problems as well as complex scheduling problems and show for
the first time that a predict-and-optimize approach can successfully be used on
large-scale combinatorial optimization problems.


  We introduce stochastic and quantum finite-state transducers as
computation-theoretic models of classical stochastic and quantum finitary
processes. Formal process languages, representing the distribution over a
process's behaviors, are recognized and generated by suitable specializations.
We characterize and compare deterministic and nondeterministic versions,
summarizing their relative computational power in a hierarchy of finitary
process languages. Quantum finite-state transducers and generators are a first
step toward a computation-theoretic analysis of individual, repeatedly measured
quantum dynamical systems. They are explored via several physical systems,
including an iterated beam splitter, an atom in a magnetic field, and atoms in
an ion trap--a special case of which implements the Deutsch quantum algorithm.
We show that these systems' behaviors, and so their information processing
capacity, depends sensitively on the measurement protocol.


  It is thought that a region of pseudo-vacuum, where the chiral order
parameter is misaligned from its vacuum orientation in isospin space, might
occasionally form in high energy hadronic or nuclear collisions. The possible
detection of such disoriented chiral condensate (DCC) would provide useful
information about the chiral structure of the QCD vacuum and/or the chiral
phase transition of strong interactions at high temperature. We review the
theoretical developments concerning the possible DCC formation in high-energy
collisions as well as the various experimental searches that have been
performed so far. We discuss future prospects for upcoming DCC searches, e.g.
in high-energy heavy-ion collision experiments at RHIC and LHC.


  We studied the ground and excited states of $^{12}$C based on variational
calculations after spin-parity projection in a framework of antisymmetrized
molecular dynamics(AMD). The calculations systematically reproduce various
experimental data. It was found that the sub-shell closure and SU(3)-limit
$3\alpha$ cluster components are contained in the ground state, while various
$3\alpha$ cluster structures develop in the excited states. We discussed
effects of $\alpha$ breaking and show the importance of coexistence of the
cluster and shell-model-like aspects.


  Almost strictly sign regular matrices are sign regular matrices with a
special zero pattern and whose nontrivial minors are nonzero. In this paper we
provide several properties of almost strictly sign regular rectangular matrices
and analyze their QR factorization.


  We consider the problem of obese human mesh recovery, i.e., fitting a
parametric human mesh to images of obese people. Despite obese person mesh
fitting being an important problem with numerous applications (e.g.,
healthcare), much recent progress in mesh recovery has been restricted to
images of non-obese people. In this work, we identify this crucial gap in the
current literature by presenting and discussing limitations of existing
algorithms. Next, we present a simple baseline to address this problem that is
scalable and can be easily used in conjunction with existing algorithms to
improve their performance. Finally, we present a generalized human mesh
optimization algorithm that substantially improves the performance of existing
methods on both obese person images as well as community-standard benchmark
datasets. A key innovation of this technique is that it does not rely on
supervision from expensive-to-create mesh parameters. Instead, starting from
widely and cheaply available 2D keypoints annotations, our method automatically
generates mesh parameters that can in turn be used to re-train and fine-tune
any existing mesh estimation algorithm. This way, we show our method acts as a
drop-in to improve the performance of a wide variety of contemporary mesh
estimation methods. We conduct extensive experiments on multiple datasets
comprising both standard and obese person images and demonstrate the efficacy
of our proposed techniques.


  Prior work has demonstrated that recurrent neural network architectures show
promising improvements over other machine learning architectures when
processing temporally correlated inputs, such as wireless communication
signals. Additionally, recurrent neural networks typically process data on a
sequential basis, enabling the potential for near real-time results. In this
work, we investigate the novel usage of "just enough" decision making metrics
for making decisions during inference based on a variable number of input
symbols. Since some signals are more complex than others, due to channel
conditions, transmitter/receiver effects, etc., being able to dynamically
utilize just enough of the received symbols to make a reliable decision allows
for more efficient decision making in applications such as electronic warfare
and dynamic spectrum sharing. To demonstrate the validity of this concept, four
approaches to making "just enough" decisions are considered in this work and
each are analyzed for their applicability to wireless communication machine
learning applications.


  Even before its role in electroweak symmetry breaking, the Anderson-Higgs
mechanism was introduced to explain the Meissner effect in superconductors.
Spontaneous symmetry-breaking yields massless phase modes representing the
low-energy excitations of the Mexican-Hat potential. Only in superconductors
does the gauge field move the phase mode towards higher energies, as a
consequence of the charged condensate. This results in a low-energy excitation
spectrum governed by the amplitude mode - the Higgs mode. Consequently, the
Meissner effect signifies a macroscopic quantum condensate in which a photon
acquires mass, representing a one-to-one analogy to high-energy physics. We
report on the direct observation of the Higgs particle in the high-temperature
superconductor Bi-2212 by developing an innovative technique to study its
distinct symmetries and energies after a soft quench of the Mexican-Hat
potential. By comparing transient Stokes and anti-Stokes data, we identify the
Higgs particle as an additional anti-Stokes Raman cross section after
quenching. With our technique we discriminate quasi-particle excitations from
excitations in the Cooper channel and argue that alternatives to the Higgs
excitation can be ruled out. This opens the avenue for Higgs Spectroscopy in
quantum condensates and provides a unique pathway to control and explore Higgs
physics.


  Multi-photon hyperentangement is of fundamental importance in optical quantum
information processing. Existing theory and experiment producing multi-photon
hyperentangled states have until now relied on the outcome post-selection, a
procedure where only the measurement results corresponding to the desired state
are considered. Such approach severely limits the usefulness of the resulting
hyperentangled states. We present the protocols of direct production of three-
and four-photon hyperentanglement and extend the approach to an arbitrary
number of photons through a straightforward cascade of spontaneous parametric
down-conversion (SPDC) sources. The generated multi-photon hyperentangled
states are encoded in polarization-spatial modes and polarization-time bin
degrees of freedom, respectively. Numerical calculation shows that if the
average photon number $\mu$ is set to 1, the down conversion efficiency is
$7.6*10^{-6}$ and the repetition frequency of the laser is $10^9$ Hz, the
number of the generation of three-photon and four-photon hyperentanglement
after cascading can reach about $5.78*10^{-2}$ and $4.44*10^{-7}$ pairs per
second, respectively. By eliminating the constraints of outcome post-selection,
our protocols may represent important progresses for multi-photon
hyperentangement generation and providing a pivotal role in future multi-party
and high-capacity communication networks.


  Algebraic and fast algebraic attacks are power tools to analyze stream
ciphers. A class of symmetric Boolean functions with maximum algebraic immunity
were found vulnerable to fast algebraic attacks at EUROCRYPT'06. Recently, the
notion of AAR (algebraic attack resistant) functions was introduced as a
unified measure of protection against both classical algebraic and fast
algebraic attacks. In this correspondence, we first give a decomposition of
symmetric Boolean functions, then we show that almost all symmetric Boolean
functions, including these functions with good algebraic immunity, behave badly
against fast algebraic attacks, and we also prove that no symmetric Boolean
functions are AAR functions. Besides, we improve the relations between
algebraic degree and algebraic immunity of symmetric Boolean functions.


  We construct a sample of nearly 30,000 main-sequence stars with 4500K
$<T\rm_{eff}<$ 5000K and stellar ages estimated by the chromospheric
activity$-$age relation. This sample is used to determine the age distribution
in the $R-Z$ plane of the Galaxy, where $R$ is the projected Galactocentric
distance in the disk midplane and $Z$ is the height above the disk midplane. As
$|Z|$ increases, the percentage of old stars becomes larger. It is known that
scale-height of Galactic disk increases as $R$ increases, which is called
flare. A mild flare from $R$ $\sim$ 8.0 to 9.0 kpc in stellar age distribution
is found. We also find that the velocity dispersion increases with age as
confirmed by previous studies. Finally we present spiral-shaped structures in
$Z-\upsilon_{Z}$ phase space in three stellar age bins. The spiral is clearly
seen in the age bin of [0, 1] Gyr, which suggests that a vertical perturbation
to the disk probably took place within the last $\sim$ 1.0 Gyr.


  The existence of a spatially resolved Star-Forming Main Sequence (rSFMS) and
a spatially resolved Mass-Metallicity Relation (rMZR) is now well established
for local galaxies. Moreover, gradients with metallicity decreasing with radius
seem to be common in local disc galaxies. These observations suggest that
galaxy formation is a self-regulating process, and provide constraints for
galaxy evolution models. Studying the evolution of these relations at higher
redshifts is still however very challenging. In this paper, we analyse three
gravitationally lensed galaxies at z = 0.6, 0.7 and 1, observed with MUSE and
SINFONI. These galaxies are highly magnified by galaxy clusters, which allow us
to observe resolved scaling relations and metallicity gradients on physical
scales of a couple of hundred parsecs, comparable to studies of local galaxies.
We confirm that the rSFMS is already in place at these redshifts on sub-kpc
scales, and establish, for the first time, the existence of the rMZR at higher
redshifts. We develop a forward-modelling approach to fit 2D metallicity
gradients of multiply imaged lensed galaxies in the image plane, and derive
gradients of -0.027+/-0.003, -0.019+/-0.003 and -0.039+/-0.060 dex/kpc. Despite
the fact that these are clumpy galaxies, typical of high redshift discs, the
metallicity variations in the galaxies are well described by global linear
gradients, and we do not see any difference in metallicity associated with the
star-forming clumps.


  One-atom-thick crystals are impermeable to atoms and molecules, but hydrogen
ions (thermal protons) penetrate through them. We show that monolayers of
graphene and boron nitride can be used to separate hydrogen ion isotopes.
Employing electrical measurements and mass spectrometry, we find that deuterons
permeate through these crystals much slower than protons, resulting in a
separation factor of ~10 at room temperature. The isotope effect is attributed
to a difference of about 60 meV between zero-point energies of incident protons
and deuterons, which translates into the equivalent difference in the
activation barriers posed by two dimensional crystals. In addition to providing
insight into the proton transport mechanism, the demonstrated approach offers a
competitive and scalable way for hydrogen isotope enrichment.


  Let $\mu$ be a doubling measure in $\mathbb{R}^n$. We investigate
quantitative relations between the rectifiability of $\mu$ and its distance to
flat measures. More precisely, for $x$ in the support $\Sigma$ of $\mu$ and $r
> 0$, we introduce a number $\alpha(x,r)\in (0,1]$ that measures, in terms of a
variant of the $L^1$-Wasserstein distance, the minimal distance between the
restriction of $\mu$ to $B(x,r)$ and a multiple of the Lebesgue measure on an
affine subspace that meets $B(x,r/2)$. We show that the set of points of
$\Sigma$ where $\int_0^1 \alpha(x,r) \frac{dr}{r} < \infty$ can be decomposed
into rectifiable pieces of various dimensions. We obtain additional control on
the pieces and the size of $\mu$ when we assume that some Carleson measure
estimates hold.
  Soit $\mu$ une mesure doublante dans $\mathbb{R}^n$. On \'etudie des
relations quantifi\'ees entre la rectifiabilit\'e de $\mu$ et la distance entre
$\mu$ et les mesures plates. Plus pr\'ecis\'ement, on utilise une variante de
la $L^1$-distance de Wasserstein pour d\'efinir, pour $x$ dans le support
$\Sigma$ de $\mu$ et $r>0$, un nombre $\alpha(x,r)$ qui mesure la distance
minimale entre la restriction de $\mu$ \`a $B(x,r)$ et une mesure de Lebesgue
sur un sous-espace affine passant par $B(x,r/2)$. On d\'ecompose l'ensemble des
points $x\in \Sigma$ tels que $\int_0^1 \alpha(x,r) \frac{dr}{r} < \infty$ en
parties rectifiables de dimensions diverses, et on obtient un meilleur
contr\^ole de ces parties et de la taille de $\mu$ quand les $\alpha(x,r)$
v\'erifient certaines conditions de Carleson.


  The statistical theory of multiple exciton generation in quantum dots which
is based on the Fermi approach to the problem of multiple particle in
nucleon-nucleon collisions is presented. Our estimates of the multiple exciton
generation efficiency in different quantum dots, induced by absorption of a
single photon, are in a good agreement with the experimental data.


  We investigate the twist-angle and gate dependence of the proximity exchange
coupling in twisted graphene on monolayer Cr$_2$Ge$_2$Te$_6$ from first
principles. The proximitized Dirac band dispersions of graphene are fitted to a
model Hamiltonian, yielding effective sublattice-resolved proximity-induced
exchange parameters ($\lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{A}$ and
$\lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{B}$) for a series of twist angles between
0$^{\circ}$ and 30$^{\circ}$. For aligned layers (0$^{\circ}$ twist angle), the
exchange coupling of graphene is the same on both sublattices,
$\lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{A} \approx \lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{B}
\approx 4$ meV, while the coupling is reversed at 30$^{\circ}$ (with
$\lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{A} \approx \lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{B}
\approx -4$ meV). Remarkably, at 19.1$^{\circ}$ the induced exchange coupling
becomes antiferromagnetic: $\lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{A} < 0,
\lambda_{\textrm{ex}}^\textrm{B} > 0$. Further tuning is provided by a
transverse electric field and the interlayer distance. The predicted proximity
magnetization reversal and emergence of an antiferromagnetic Dirac dispersion
make twisted graphene/Cr$_2$Ge$_2$Te$_6$ bilayers a versatile platform for
realizing topological phases and for spintronics applications.


  The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) is a near- and mid-infrared interferometer
project with the driving science goal of imaging directly the key stages of
planet formation, including the young proto-planets themselves. Here, we will
present an update on the work of the Science Working Group (SWG), including new
simulations of dust structures during the assembly phase of planet formation
and quantitative detection efficiencies for accreting and non-accreting young
exoplanets as a function of mass and age. We use these results to motivate two
reference PFI designs consisting of a) twelve 3m telescopes with a maximum
baseline of 1.2km focused on young exoplanet imaging and b) twelve 8m
telescopes optimized for a wider range of young exoplanets and protoplanetary
disk imaging out to the 150K H2O ice line. Armed with 4x8m telescopes, the
ESO/VLTI can already detect young exoplanets in principle and projects such as
MATISSE, Hi-5 and Heimdallr are important PFI pathfinders to make this
possible. We also discuss the state of technology development needed to make
PFI more affordable, including progress towards new designs for inexpensive,
small field-of-view, large aperture telescopes and prospects for Cubesat-based
space interferometry.


  Actor coordination armoured with a suitable protocol description language has
been a pressing problem in the actors community. We study the applicability of
multiparty session type (MPST) protocols for verification of actor programs. We
incorporate sessions to actors by introducing minimum additions to the model
such as the notion of actor roles and protocol mailbox. The framework uses
Scribble, which is a protocol description language based on multiparty session
types. Our programming model supports actor-like syntax and runtime
verification mechanism guaranteeing type-safety and progress of the
communicating entities. An actor can implement multiple roles in a similar way
as an object can implement multiple interfaces. Multiple roles allow for
inter-concurrency in a single actor still preserving its progress property. We
demonstrate our framework by designing and implementing a session actor library
in Python and its runtime verification mechanism.


  Brain-computer interface (BCI) has garnered the significant attention for
their potential in various applications, with event-related potential (ERP)
performing a considerable role in BCI systems. This paper introduces a novel
Distributed Inference System tailored for detecting task-wise single-trial ERPs
in a stream of satellite images. Unlike traditional methodologies that employ a
single model for target detection, our system utilizes multiple models, each
optimized for specific tasks, ensuring enhanced performance across varying
image transition times and target onset times. Our experiments, conducted on
four participants, employed two paradigms: the Normal paradigm and an AI
paradigm with bounding boxes. Results indicate that our proposed system
outperforms the conventional methods in both paradigms, achieving the highest
$F_{\beta}$ scores. Furthermore, including bounding boxes in the AI paradigm
significantly improved target recognition. This study underscores the potential
of our Distributed Inference System in advancing the field of ERP detection in
satellite image streams.


  Covering arrays are generalizations of orthogonal arrays that have been
widely studied and are used in software testing. The probabilistic method has
been employed to derive upper bounds on the sizes of minimum covering arrays
and give asymptotic upper bounds that are logarithmic on the number of columns
of the array. This corresponds to test suites with a desired level of coverage
of the parameter space where we guarantee the number of test cases is
logarithmic on the number of parameters of the system. In this paper, we study
variable strength covering arrays, a generalization of covering arrays that
uses a hypergraph to specify the sets of columns where coverage is required;
(standard) covering arrays is the special case where coverage is required for
all sets of columns of a fixed size $t$, its strength. We use the probabilistic
method to obtain upper bounds on the number of rows of a variable strength
covering array, given in terms of parameters of the hypergraph. We then compare
this upper bound with another one given by a density-based greedy algorithm on
different types of hypergraph such as $t$-designs, cyclic consecutive
hypergraphs, planar triangulation hypergraphs, and a more specific hypergraph
given by a clique of higher strength on top of a "base strength". The
conclusions are dependent on the class of hypergraph, and we discuss specific
characteristics of the hypergraphs which are more amenable to using different
versions of the Lov\'{a}sz local lemma.


  Controller Area Network (CAN) is one of the in-vehicle network protocols that
is used to communicate among Electronic Control Units (ECUs) and has been
de-facto standard. CAN is simple and has several vulnerabilities such as unable
to distinguish spoofing messages because it does not support any authentication
or sender identification properties. In previous work, some voltage-based
methods to identify the sender node have been proposed. The methods can
identify ECUs with high accuracy. However, the accuracy of source
identification depends on a feature that is extracted from a continuous
function of voltage use sampling. In general, as the sampling rate increases,
the accuracy of identification is improved. Though the amount of data used for
the identification increases too. Hence, it is desired to create an Intrusion
Detection System (IDS) that identifies ECUs using few sampling features as
there is a limited computing resource in vehicles. In this paper, we propose a
delay-time based sender identification method of ECUs. We confirm that the
proposed method achieved a true positive rate of 96.7% in CAN bus prototype
against spoofing attack from a compromised ECU, detecting spoofing attack from
an unmonitored ECU with a true positive rate of 98.0% in real-vehicle.


  Nonlinear QED interactions induce different polarization properties on a
given probe beam. We consider the polarization effects caused by the
photon-photon interaction in laser experiments, when a laser beam propagates
through a constant magnetic field or collides with another laser beam. We solve
the quantum Boltzmann equation within the framework of the Euler-Heisenberg
Lagrangian for both time-dependent and constant background field to explore the
time evolution of the Stokes parameters Q, U, and V describing polarization.
Assuming an initially linearly polarized probe laser beam, we also calculate
the induced ellipticity and rotation of the polarization plane.


  The behavior of chiral condensate in a hot and dense medium is investigated
within a phenomenological approach inspired by the AdS/CFT correspondence. We
find that it decreases when temperature and/or chemical potential are
increased, and it vanishes at some critical values. The locus of such critical
points is also drawn and discussed.


  The problem of covering minimum cost common bases of two matroids is
NP-complete, even if the two matroids coincide, and the costs are all equal to
1. In this paper we show that the following special case is solvable in
polynomial time: given a digraph $D=(V,A)$ with a designated root node $r\in V$
and arc-costs $c:A\to \mathbb{R}$, find a minimum cardinality subset $H$ of the
arc set $A$ such that $H$ intersects every minimum $c$-cost $r$-arborescence.
By an $r$-arborescence we mean a spanning arborescence of root $r$. The
algorithm we give solves a weighted version as well, in which a nonnegative
weight function $w:A\to \mathbb{R}_+$ (unrelated to $c$) is also given, and we
want to find a subset $H$ of the arc set such that $H$ intersects every minimum
$c$-cost $r$-arborescence, and $w(H)=\sum_{a\in H}w(a)$ is minimum. The running
time of the algorithm is $O(n^3T(n,m))$, where $n$ and $m$ denote the number of
nodes and arcs of the input digraph, and $T(n,m)$ is the time needed for a
minimum $s-t$ cut computation in this digraph. A polyhedral description is not
given, and seems rather challenging.


  The use of the binary tetrahedral group ($T^{'}$) as flavor symmetry is
discussed. I emphasize the CKM quark and PMNS neutrino mixings. I present a
novel formula for the Cabibbo angle.


  We investigate some properties of topological groups related to
disconnectedness or Archimedeanness. We prove or disprove the preservation of
those under operations as subgroups, quotients, products, etc.
Characterizations of non-Archimedeanness are obtained by using embedding into
universal groups. We also clarify the differences between the properties by
constructing miscellaneous Polish groups.


  We present preliminary results from a study with XMM-Newton of the galactic
serendipitous sources in a sample of 28 nearby Seyfert galaxies (with D < 22
Mpc). We concentrate here on a subset of four galaxies, namely: NGC3185,
NGC3486, NGC3941, and NGC4565. In these galaxies we found six ultraluminous
X-ray source (ULX). The large collecting area of XMM-Newton makes the
statistics sufficient to perform spectral fitting with simple models. We
shortly discuss the results obtained so far.


  We describe a generalization of Puff Field Theory to p+1 dimensions where 0
\le p \le 5. We then focus on the case of p=0, ``Puff Quantum Mechanics,'' and
construct a formulation independent of string theory.


  Recent studies have established that peaks in solar oscillation power spectra
are not Lorentzian in shape, but have a distinct asymmetry. Fitting a symmetric
Lorentzian profile to the peaks therefore produces a shift in frequency of the
modes. Accurate determination of low-frequency modes is essential to infer the
structure of the solar core by inversion of the mode frequencies. In this paper
we investigate how the changes in frequencies of low-degree modes obtained by
fitting symmetric and asymmetric peak profiles change the inferred properties
of the solar core. We use data obtained by the Global Oscillations at Low
Frequencies (GOLF) project on board the SoHO spacecraft. Two different solar
models and inversion procedures are used to invert the data to determine the
sound speed in the solar core. We find that for a given set of modes no
significant difference in the inferred sound-speed results from taking
asymmetry into account when fitting the low-degree modes.


  Using a density functional method, we investigate the properties of liquid
4He droplets doped with atoms (Ne and Xe) and molecules (SF_6 and HCN). We
consider the case of droplets having a quantized vortex pinned to the dopant. A
liquid drop formula is proposed that accurately describes the total energy of
the complex and allows one to extrapolate the density functional results to
large N. For a given impurity, we find that the formation of a
dopant+vortex+4He_N complex is energetically favored below a critical size
N_cr. Our result support the possibility to observe quantized vortices in
helium droplets by means of spectroscopic techniques.


  We describe an algorithm to find ribbon disks for alternating knots, and the
results of a computer implementation of this algorithm. The algorithm is
underlain by a slice link obstruction coming from Donaldson's diagonalisation
theorem. It successfully finds ribbon disks for slice two-bridge knots and for
the connected sum of any alternating knot with its reverse mirror, as well as
for 662,903 prime alternating knots of 21 or fewer crossings. We also identify
some examples of ribbon alternating knots for which the algorithm fails to find
ribbon disks, though a related search identifies all such examples known.
Combining these searches with known obstructions, we resolve the sliceness of
all but 3,276 of the over 1.2 billion prime alternating knots with 21 or fewer
crossings.


  Recent analyses of the broad spectral energy distributions (SED) of extensive
lobes of local radio-galaxies have confirmed the leptonic origin of their
Fermi/LAT gamma-ray emission, significantly constraining the level of hadronic
contribution. SED of distant (D > 125 Mpc) radio-galaxy lobes are currently
limited to the radio and X-ray bands, hence give no information on the presence
of non-thermal (NT) protons but are adequate to describe the properties of NT
electrons. Modeling lobe radio and X-ray emission in 3C 98, Pictor A, DA 240,
Cygnus A, 3C 326, and 3C 236, we fully determine the properties of intra-lobe
NT electrons and estimate the level of the related gamma-ray emission from
Compton scattering of the electrons off the superposed Cosmic Microwave
Background, Extragalactic Background Light, and source-specific radiation
fields.


  Runge's method is a tool to figure out integral points on curves effectively
in terms of height. This method has been generalised to varieties of any
dimension, unfortunately its conditions of application are often too
restrictive. In this paper, we provide a further generalisation intended to be
more flexible while still effective, and exemplify its applicability by giving
finiteness results for integral points on some Siegel modular varieties. As a
special case, we obtain a totally explicit finiteness result for integral
points on the Siegel modular variety $A_2(2)$.


  We present a grid of nova models that have an extremely large number of
species treated in non-LTE, and apply it to the analysis of an extensive time
series of ultraviolet spectroscopic data for Nova Cygni 1992. We use
ultraviolet colors to derive the time development of the effective temperature
of the expanding atmosphere during the fireball phase and the first ten days of
the optically thick wind phase. We find that the nova has a pure optically
thick wind spectrum until about 10 days after the explosion. During this
interval, we find that synthetic spectra based on our derived temperature
sequence agree very well with the observed spectra. We find that a sequence of
hydrogen deficient models provides an equally good fit providing the model
effective temperature is shifted upwards by ~1000 K. We find that high
resolution UV spectra of the optically thick wind phase are fit moderately well
by the models. We find that a high resolution spectrum of the fireball phase is
better fit by a model with a steep density gradient, similar to that of a
supernova, than by a nova model.


  The energy spectra of the b and bbar quarks in e+e- -> t tbar with t -> b W
(tbar -> bbar W) are calculated assuming CP violation in the production
process. Expressions for the corresponding CP violating asymmetries and optimal
observables that determine the imaginary parts of the electric and weak dipole
moment form factors of the top are derived. It is shown that polarization of
the initial lepton beams is essential to disentangle Im d^{\gamma}(s) and Im
d^{Z}(s). Numerical results are given in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard
Model with complex phases.


  We consider a massless, minimally-coupled quantum scalar field on a
Reissner-Nordstrom black hole background, and we study the leading asymptotic
behavior of the expectation value of the stress energy tensor operator
$\langle\hat{T}_{\mu\nu}\rangle_{ren}$ and of
$\langle\hat{\Phi}^{2}\rangle_{ren}$ near the inner horizon, in both the Unruh
and the Hartle-Hawking quantum states. We find that the coefficients of the
expected leading-order divergences of these expectation values vanish,
indicating that the modifications of the classical geometry due to quantum
vacuum effects might be weaker than expected. In addition, we calculate the
leading-order divergences of $\langle\hat{T}_{\mu\nu}\rangle_{ren}$ and of
$\langle\hat{\Phi}^{2}\rangle_{ren}$ in the Boulware state near the outer
(event) horizon, and we obtain analytical expressions that correspond to
previous numerical results.


  The Belle II experiment has been preparing for its first e+ e- collisions,
scheduled in April 2018. With a target luminosity 40 times greater than the
Belle experiment, the goal of Belle II is to open the door to a panorama of
measurements in heavy flavour physics and much more. The initial beams and the
commissioning of the SuperKEKB collider took place earlier in 2016. After
completing most of the detector assembly and performing test runs with cosmic
rays, the experiment is ready for initial collisions. Soon after in early 2019,
data collection with the full Belle II detector will commence and the largest
B-factory data sample will be collected.


  Event extraction lies at the cores of investment analysis and asset
management in the financial field, and thus has received much attention. The
2019 China conference on knowledge graph and semantic computing (CCKS)
challenge sets up a evaluation competition for event entity extraction task
oriented to the finance field. In this task, we mainly focus on how to extract
the event entity accurately, and recall all the corresponding event entity
effectively. In this paper, we propose a novel model, Sequence Enhanced BERT
Networks (SEBERTNets for short), which can inherit the advantages of the
BERT,and while capturing sequence semantic information. In addition, motivated
by recommendation system, we propose Hybrid Sequence Enhanced BERT Networks
(HSEBERTNets for short), which uses a multi-channel recall method to recall all
the corresponding event entity. The experimental results show that, the F1
score of SEBERTNets is 0.905 in the first stage, and the F1 score of
HSEBERTNets is 0.934 in the first stage, which demonstarate the effectiveness
of our methods.


  Recently measurements on various spin-1/2 quantum magnets such as
H$_3$LiIr$_2$O$_6$, LiZn$_2$Mo$_3$O$_8$, ZnCu$_3$(OH)$_6$Cl$_2$ and 1T-TaS$_2$
-- all described by magnetic frustration and quenched disorder but with no
other common relation -- nevertheless showed apparently universal scaling
features at low temperature. In particular the heat capacity C[H,T] in
temperature T and magnetic field H exhibits T/H data collapse reminiscent of
scaling near a critical point. Here we propose a theory for this scaling
collapse based on an emergent random-singlet regime extended to include
spin-orbit coupling and antisymmetric Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions.
We derive the scaling $C[H,T]/T \sim H^{-\gamma} F_q[T/H]$ with $F_q[x] =
x^{q}$ at small $x$, with $q \in$ (0,1,2) an integer exponent whose value
depends on spatial symmetries. The agreement with experiments indicates that a
fraction of spins form random valence bonds and that these are surrounded by a
quantum paramagnetic phase. We also discuss distinct scaling for magnetization
with a $q$-dependent subdominant term enforced by Maxwell's relations.


  One of the most active research areas in the world is the search for
effective materials for use in the fields of optoelectronics and photovoltaics.
The potential of materials like ATiO3 (A=Ti,Sr) is yet largely untapped. Ab
initio studies based on density functional theory (DFT) have been used to
comprehensively explore the structural, electronic, elastic, and optical
properties of Ti2O3 and SrTiO3. In this study, the ground state properties were
computed with spin-orbit coupling (SOC), without spin-orbit coupling, and with
the inclusion of Hubbard U parameter. The electronic bandgaps of Ti2O3 have
been found to be 0.059 eV without SOC, 0.131 eV with SOC, and 1.665 eV with
Hubbard U. Electronic bandgaps of 1.612 eV, 1.761 eV, and 2.769 eV have been
obtained for SrTiO3, respectively, without SOC, with SOC, and with Hubbard U.
In every single case, it has been found that Ti-4d orbitals predominate close
to the top of the valence band. The bandgap and estimated lattice constants for
ATiO3 (A=Ti,Sr) were not significantly affected by SOC. The mechanical
stability test showed that ATiO3 (A=Ti,Sr) is mechanically stable at zero
pressure. The optical band gap has been seen to increase when Hubbard U is
taken into account. In general, the Hubbard U parameter enhances bandgap and
optical property predictions. Ti2O3 and SrTiO3 are good UV-Vis absorbers and
appropriate for photovoltaic applications owing to the optical absorption
coefficient curves being found to cover the ultraviolet to visible (UV-Vis)
ranges.


  The authors consider the problem of estimating the density $g$ of independent
and identically distributed variables $X\_i$, from a sample $Z\_1, ..., Z\_n$
where $Z\_i=X\_i+\sigma\epsilon\_i$, $i=1, ..., n$, $\epsilon$ is a noise
independent of $X$, with $\sigma\epsilon$ having known distribution. They
present a model selection procedure allowing to construct an adaptive estimator
of $g$ and to find non-asymptotic bounds for its
$\mathbb{L}\_2(\mathbb{R})$-risk. The estimator achieves the minimax rate of
convergence, in most cases where lowers bounds are available. A simulation
study gives an illustration of the good practical performances of the method.


  We introduce the `Fourier transform' F_C on the isotropic cone C associated
to an indefinite quadratic form of signature (n_1,n_2) on R^n (n=n_1+n_2:
even). This transform is in some sense the unique and natural unitary operator
on L^2(C), as is the case with the Euclidean Fourier transform.
  Inspired by recent developments of algebraic representation theory of
reductive groups, we shed new light on classical analysis on the one hand, and
give the global formulas for the L^2-model of the minimal representation of the
simple Lie group G=O(n_1+1,n_2+1) on the other hand.
  The transform F_C expands functions on C into joint eigenfunctions of the n
commuting, self-adjoint, second order differential operators. We decompose F_C
into the singular Radon transform and the Mellin--Barnes integral, find its
distribution kernel, and establish the inversion and the Plancherel formula.
F_C reduces to the Hankel transform if G is O(n,2) or O(3,3).
  The unitary operator F_C together with the simple action of the conformal
transformation group generates the minimal representation of the indefinite
orthogonal group G. Various different models of the same representation have
been constructed by Kazhdan, Kostant, Binegar-Zierau, Gross-Wallach, Zhu-Huang,
Torasso, Brylinski, and Kobayashi-Orsted, and others. Among them, our model
built on L^2(C) generalizes the classic Schrodinger model of the Weil
representation.
  Yet another motif is special functions. Large group symmetries in the minimal
representation yield functional equations of various special functions. We find
explicit K-finite vectors on L^2(C), and give a new proof of the Plancherel
formula for Meijer's G-transforms.


  We report on the possibility to detect hinge spin polarization in magnetic
topological insulators by resistance measurements. By implementing a
three-dimensional model of magnetic topological insulators into a
multi-terminal device with ferromagnetic contacts near the top surface, local
spin features of the chiral edge modes are unveiled. We find local spin
polarization at the hinges that inverts sign between top and bottom surfaces.
At the opposite edge, the topological state with inverted spin polarization
propagates in the reverse direction. Large resistance switch between forward
and backward propagating states is obtained, driven by the matching between the
spin polarized hinges and the ferromagnetic contacts. This feature is general
to the ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic and canted-antiferromagnetic phases,
and enables the design of spin-sensitive devices, with the possibility of
reversing the hinge spin polarization of the currents.


  We discuss the relaxation dynamics of a simple lattice gas model for
glass-forming systems and show that with increasing density of particles this
dynamics slows down very quickly. By monitoring the trajectory of tagged
particles we find that their motion is very heterogeneous in space and time,
leading to regions in space in which there is a fast dynamics and others in
which it is slow. We determine how the geometric properties of these quickly
relaxing regions depend on density and time. Motivated by this heterogeneous
hopping dynamics, we use a simple model, a variant of a continuous time random
walk, to characterize the relaxation dynamics. In particular we find from this
model that for large displacements the self part of the van Hove function shows
an exponential tail, in agreement with recent findings from experiments and
simulations of glass-forming systems.


  Let A be a finite nonempty subset of an additive abelian group G, and let
\Sigma(A) denote the set of all group elements representable as a sum of some
subset of A. We prove that |\Sigma(A)| >= |H| + 1/64 |A H|^2 where H is the
stabilizer of \Sigma(A). Our result implies that \Sigma(A) = Z/nZ for every set
A of units of Z/nZ with |A| >= 8 \sqrt{n}. This consequence was first proved by
Erd\H{o}s and Heilbronn for n prime, and by Vu (with a weaker constant) for
general n.


  Let G be a semi-simple Lie group and Q a parabilic subgroup of its
complexification G^\mathbb C, then Z:=G^\mathbb C/Q is a compact complex
homogeneous manifold. Moreover, G as well as K^\mathbb C, the complexification
of the maximal compact subgroup of G, acts naturally on Z with finitely many
orbits. For any G-orbit, there exist a K^\mathbb C-orbit so that their
intersection is non-empty and compact. This duality relation with consideration
of cycle intersection at the boundary of a G-orbit lead to the definition of
the cycle space associated to any G-orbit. Methods involving Schubert
varieties, transversal Schubert slices together with geometric properties of a
certain complementary incidence hypersurface and results about the open orbits
yield a complete characterisation of the cycle space associated to an arbitrary
G-orbit. In particular, it is shown that all the cycle spaces except in a few
Hermitian cases are equivalent to the domain $\Omega_{AG}$. In the exceptional
Hermitian cases, the cycle spaces are equivalent to the associated bounded
domain.


  We present a new correspondence between a d-dimensional dynamical system and
a whole family of (d+1)-dimensional systems. This new scale-holographic
relation is built by the explicit introduction of a dimensionful constant which
determines the size of the additional dimension. Scale holography is
particularly useful for studying non-local theories, since the equivalent dual
system on the higher dimensional manifold can be made to be local, as we
illustrate with the specific example of the p-adic string.


  Multimodal emotion recognition has attracted much attention recently. Fusing
multiple modalities effectively with limited labeled data is a challenging
task. Considering the success of pre-trained model and fine-grained nature of
emotion expression, it is reasonable to take these two aspects into
consideration. Unlike previous methods that mainly focus on one aspect, we
introduce a novel multi-granularity framework, which combines fine-grained
representation with pre-trained utterance-level representation. Inspired by
Transformer TTS, we propose a multilevel transformer model to perform
fine-grained multimodal emotion recognition. Specifically, we explore different
methods to incorporate phoneme-level embedding with word-level embedding. To
perform multi-granularity learning, we simply combine multilevel transformer
model with Albert. Extensive experimental results show that both our multilevel
transformer model and multi-granularity model outperform previous
state-of-the-art approaches on IEMOCAP dataset with text transcripts and speech
signal.


  Following the optical imaging of the exoplanet candidate Fomalhaut b (Fom b),
we present a numerical model of how Fomalhaut's debris disk is gravitationally
shaped by an interior planet. The model is simple, adaptable to other debris
disks, and can be extended to accommodate multiple planets. If Fom b is the
dominant perturber of the belt, then to produce the observed disk morphology it
must have a mass < 3 Jupiter masses. If the belt and planet orbits are
apsidally aligned, our model predicts a planet mass of 0.5 Jupiter masses. The
inner edge of the debris disk at 133 AU lies at the periphery of Fom b's
chaotic zone, and the mean disk eccentricity of 0.11 is secularly forced by the
planet, supporting predictions made prior to the discovery of Fom b. However,
previous mass constraints based on disk morphology rely on several
oversimplifications. We explain why our constraint is more reliable. It is
based on a global model of the disk that is not restricted to the planet's
chaotic zone boundary. Moreover, we screen disk parent bodies for dynamical
stability over the system age of 100 Myr, and model them separately from their
dust grain progeny; the latter's orbits are strongly affected by radiation
pressure and their lifetimes are limited to 0.1 Myr by destructive grain-grain
collisions. The single planet model predicts that planet and disk orbits be
apsidally aligned. Fom b's nominal space velocity does not bear this out, but
the astrometric uncertainties may be large. If the apsidal misalignment is
real, our upper mass limit of 3 Jupiter masses still holds. The belt contains
at least 3 Earth masses of solids that are grinding down to dust. Such a large
mass in solids is consistent with Fom b having formed in situ.


  A blood turbine-pump system (iATVA), resembling a turbocharger was proposed
as a mechanical right-heart assist device without external drive power. In this
study, the iATVA system is investigated with particular emphasis on the blood
turbine flow dynamics. A time-resolved 2D particle image velocimetry (PIV)
set-up equipped with a beam splitter and two high speed cameras, allowed
simultaneous recordings from both the turbine and pump impellers at 7 different
phased-locked instances. The iATVA prototype is 3D printed using an optically
clear resin following our earlier PIV protocols. Results showed that
magnetically coupled impellers operated synchronously. As the turbine flow rate
increased from 1.6 to 2.4 LPM, the rotational speed and relative inlet flow
angle increase from 630 to 900 rpm, and 38 to 55% respectively. At the trailing
edges, backflow region spanned 3/5 of the total passage outlet flow, and an
extra leakage flow was observed at the leading edge. For this initial turbine
design, approximately, 75% of the turbine blade passage was not contributing to
the impulse operation mode. The maximum non-wall shear rate was ~2288 s-1 near
to the inlet exit, which is significantly lower than the commercial blood
pumps, encouraging further research and blood experiments of this novel
concept. Experimental results will improve the hydrodynamic design of the
turbine impeller and volute regions and will be useful in computational fluid
dynamics validation studies of similar passive devices.


  In its 16 years of scientific measurements, the Spitzer Space Telescope
performed a number of ground breaking and key infrared measurements of Solar
System objects near and far. Targets ranged from the smallest planetesimals to
the giant planets, and have helped us reform our understanding of these objects
while also laying the groundwork for future infrared space-based observations
like those to be undertaken by the James Webb Space Telescope in the 2020s. In
this first Paper, we describe how the Spitzer Space Telescope advanced our
knowledge of Solar System formation and evolution via observations of small
outer Solar System planetesimals, i.e., Comets, Centaurs, and Kuiper Belt
Objects (KBOs). Relics from the early formation era of our Solar System, these
objects hold important information about the processes that created them. The
key Spitzer observations can be grouped into 3 broad classes: characterization
of new Solar System objects (comets D/ISON 2012 S1, C/2016 R2, 1I/`Oumuamua);
large population surveys of known object sizes (comets, Centaurs, and KBOs);
and compositional studies via spectral measurements of body surfaces and
emitted materials (comets, Centaurs, and KBOs).


  The Two-Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) is a well-motivated theoretical framework
that provides additional sources of CP Violation (CPV) beyond the Standard
Model (SM). After studying the vacuum topology of a general (convex) 2HDM
potential, we unambiguously identify three origins of CPV: (I) Spontaneous CPV
(SCPV), where the vacuum manifold has at least two degenerate CPV minima
disconnected by domain walls, (ii) Explicit CPV (ECPV) with one single CPV
ground state, and (iii) Mixed Spontaneous and Explicit CPV (MCPV), where the
theory possesses more than one $non$-degenerate CPV local minimum. Most
importantly, we define a novel complex parameter $r_{\rm CP}$ whose norm and
phase control the three different realisations of CPV, at least at the tree
level. In all these scenarios, only two CPV phases can be made independent, as
any third CPV parameter will always be constrained via the CP-odd tadpole
condition. Since ECPV vanishes in 2HDMs where SM Higgs alignment is achieved
naturally through accidental continuous symmetries, we analyse the possibility
of maximising CPV through soft and explicit breaking of these symmetries. We
derive upper limits on key CPV parameters that quantify the degree of SM
misalignment from constraints due to the non-observation of an electron
Electric Dipole Moment (EDM). Finally, we delineate the CP-violating parameter
space of the so-constrained naturally aligned 2HDMs that can further be probed
at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).


  We describe a neural attention model with a learnable retinal sampling
lattice. The model is trained on a visual search task requiring the
classification of an object embedded in a visual scene amidst background
distractors using the smallest number of fixations. We explore the tiling
properties that emerge in the model's retinal sampling lattice after training.
Specifically, we show that this lattice resembles the eccentricity dependent
sampling lattice of the primate retina, with a high resolution region in the
fovea surrounded by a low resolution periphery. Furthermore, we find conditions
where these emergent properties are amplified or eliminated providing clues to
their function.


  In this note, we present a new look at translationally equivariant minimal
Lagrangian surfaces in the complex projective plane via the loop group method.


  We investigate finite-volume effects in the hadronic vacuum polarization,
with an eye toward the corresponding systematic error in the muon anomalous
magnetic moment. While it is well known that leading-order chiral perturbation
theory does not provide a good description of the hadronic vacuum polarization,
it turns out that it gives a much better representation of finite-volume
effects. Indications are that finite-volume effects cannot be ignored when the
aim is a few percent level accuracy for the hadronic contribution to the muon
anomalous magnetic moment, even when $m_\pi L \sim 4$ and $m_\pi \sim 200$ MeV.


  CoO2 is the parent compound for the superconductor NaxCoO2\cdot1.3H2O and was
widely believed to be a Mott insulator. We performed 59Co nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) and nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) studies on LixCoO2 (x =
0.35, 0.25, 0.12, and 0.0) to uncover the electronic state and spin
correlations in this series of compounds which was recently obtained through
electrochemical de-intercalation of Li from pristine LiCoO2. We find that
although the antiferromagnetic spin correlations systematically increase with
decreasing Li-content (x), the end member, CoO2 is a non-correlated metal that
well satisfies the Korringa relation for a Fermi liquid. Thus, CoO2 is not
simply located at the limit of x->0 for AxCoO2 (A = Li, Na) compounds. The
disappearance of the electron correlations in CoO2 is due to the three
dimensionality of the compound which is in contrast to the highly two
dimensional structure of AxCoO2.


  We investigate collective spin excitations in two-component fermion
condensates with special consideration of unequal populations of the two
components. The frequencies of monopole and dipole modes are calculated using
Thomas-Fermi theory and the scaling approximation. We demonstrate that spin
oscillations have more sensitivity to the interaction and the properties of the
condensates than the density oscillations.


  We propose a reduced-space elasto-dynamic solver that is well suited for
augmenting rigged character animations with secondary motion. At the core of
our method is a novel deformation subspace based on Linear Blend Skinning that
overcomes many of the shortcomings prior subspace methods face. Our skinning
subspace is parameterized entirely by a set of scalar weights, which we can
obtain through a small, material-aware and rig-sensitive generalized eigenvalue
problem. The resulting subspace can easily capture rotational motion and
guarantees that the resulting simulation is rotation equivariant. We further
propose a simple local-global solver for linear co-rotational elasticity and
propose a clustering method to aggregate per-tetrahedra non-linear energetic
quantities. The result is a compact simulation that is fully decoupled from the
complexity of the mesh.


  A Lorentz invariant framework is developed to model the cross spectrum of two
interferometers in a space-time that emerges from a Planck scale quantum system
with exact causal symmetry and holographic spacelike rotational correlations.
Space-time relationships between world lines are generated by entanglement of
geometrical states on causal diamonds. The entanglement is tied to a unique
observable signature: an exotic imaginary broad band cross spectrum, with a
frequency structure determined by the layout of the interferometers. The models
will be used to interpret data from the reconfigured Fermilab Holometer, and
for conceptual design of future experiments.


  Beamspace processing is an emerging technique to reduce baseband complexity
in massive multiuser (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication
systems operating at millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz frequencies. The
high directionality of wave propagation at such high frequencies ensures that
only a small number of transmission paths exist between user equipments and
basestation (BS). In order to resolve the sparse nature of wave propagation,
beamspace processing traditionally computes a spatial discrete Fourier
transform (DFT) across a uniform linear antenna array at the BS where each DFT
output is associated with a specific beam. In this paper, we study optimality
conditions of the DFT for sparsity-based beamspace processing with idealistic
mmWave channel models and realistic channels. To this end, we propose two
algorithms that learn unitary beamspace transforms using an $\ell^4$-norm-based
sparsity measure, and we investigate their optimality theoretically and via
simulations.


  We consider problems where $n$ people are communicating and a random subset
of them is trying to leak information, without making it clear who are leaking
the information. We introduce a measure of suspicion, and show that the amount
of leaked information will always be bounded by the expected increase in
suspicion, and that this bound is tight. We ask the question: Suppose a large
number of people have some information they want to leak, but they want to
ensure that after the communication, an observer will assign probability at
most $c$ to the events that each of them is trying to leak the information. How
much information can they reliably leak, per person who is leaking? We show
that the answer is $- \frac{\log(1-c)}{c} -\log(e)$ bits.


  Federated learning (FL) has attracted much attention as a privacy-preserving
distributed machine learning framework, where many clients collaboratively
train a machine learning model by exchanging model updates with a parameter
server instead of sharing their raw data. Nevertheless, FL training suffers
from slow convergence and unstable performance due to stragglers caused by the
heterogeneous computational resources of clients and fluctuating communication
rates. This paper proposes a coded FL framework to mitigate the straggler
issue, namely stochastic coded federated learning (SCFL). In this framework,
each client generates a privacy-preserving coded dataset by adding additive
noise to the random linear combination of its local data. The server collects
the coded datasets from all the clients to construct a composite dataset, which
helps to compensate for the straggling effect. In the training process, the
server as well as clients perform mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD),
and the server adds a make-up term in model aggregation to obtain unbiased
gradient estimates. We characterize the privacy guarantee by the mutual
information differential privacy (MI-DP) and analyze the convergence
performance in federated learning. Besides, we demonstrate a
privacy-performance tradeoff of the proposed SCFL method by analyzing the
influence of the privacy constraint on the convergence rate. Finally, numerical
experiments corroborate our analysis and show the benefits of SCFL in achieving
fast convergence while preserving data privacy.


  Differentially Private Stochastic Gradient Descent (DP-SGD) limits the amount
of private information deep learning models can memorize during training. This
is achieved by clipping and adding noise to the model's gradients, and thus
networks with more parameters require proportionally stronger perturbation. As
a result, large models have difficulties learning useful information, rendering
training with DP-SGD exceedingly difficult on more challenging training tasks.
Recent research has focused on combating this challenge through training
adaptations such as heavy data augmentation and large batch sizes. However,
these techniques further increase the computational overhead of DP-SGD and
reduce its practical applicability. In this work, we propose using the
principle of sparse model design to solve precisely such complex tasks with
fewer parameters, higher accuracy, and in less time, thus serving as a
promising direction for DP-SGD. We achieve such sparsity by design by
introducing equivariant convolutional networks for model training with
Differential Privacy. Using equivariant networks, we show that small and
efficient architecture design can outperform current state-of-the-art models
with substantially lower computational requirements. On CIFAR-10, we achieve an
increase of up to $9\%$ in accuracy while reducing the computation time by more
than $85\%$. Our results are a step towards efficient model architectures that
make optimal use of their parameters and bridge the privacy-utility gap between
private and non-private deep learning for computer vision.


  Always, if the number of states is equal to two; or if the number of receiver
actions is equal to two and i. The number of states is three or fewer, or ii.
The game is cheap talk, or ii. There are just two available messages for the
sender. A counterexample is provided for each failure of these conditions.


  We present a model for the triggering of Supernovae Ia (SN Ia) by a phase
transition to exact supersymmetry (susy) in the core of a white dwarf star. The
model, which accomodates the data on SN Ia and avoids the problems of the
standard astrophysical accretion based picture, is based on string landscape
ideas and assumes that the decay of the false broken susy vacuum is enhanced at
high density. In a slowly expanding susy bubble, the conversion of pairs of
fermions to pairs of degenerate scalars releases a significant amount of energy
which induces fusion in the surrounding normal matter shell. After cooling, the
absence of degeneracy pressure causes the susy bubble to collapse to a black
hole of about 0.1 solar mass or to some other stable susy object.


  We study which matrices are sums of idempotents over a field of non-zero
characteristic; in particular, we prove that any such matrix, provided it is
large enough, is actually a sum of five idempotents, and even of four when the
field is a prime one.


  We determine sizes and activation energies of k{\pi}-skyrmions on a discrete
lattice using the Landau- Lifshitz-Gilbert equation and the geodesic nudged
elastic band method. The employed atomic material parameters are based on the
skyrmionic material system Pd/Fe/Ir(111). We find that the critical magnetic
fields for collapse of the 2{\pi}-skyrmion and 3{\pi}-skyrmion are very close
to each other and considerably lower than the critical field of the
1{\pi}-skyrmion. The activation energy protecting the structures does not
strictly decrease with increasing k as it can be larger for the 3{\pi}-skyrmion
than for the 2{\pi}-skyrmion depending on the applied magnetic field.
Furthermore, we propose a method of switching the skyrmion order k by a
reversion of the magnetic field direction in samples of finite size.


  The present paper discusses the diffusion approximation of the linear
Boltzmann equation in cases where the collision frequency is not uniformly
large in the spatial domain. Our results apply for instance to the case of
radiative transfer in a composite medium with optically thin inclusions in an
optically thick background medium. The equation governing the evolution of the
approximate particle density coincides with the limit of the diffusion equation
with infinite diffusion coefficient in the optically thin inclusions.


  A comparison is given of the fundamental works of S. V. Vonsovsky on the
many-electron polar and s-d(f) exchange models with the subsequent development
of the theory of magnetism of transition and rare earth metals and their
compounds. Special attention is given to the derivation of different
many-electron models (by Heisenberg, Hubbard, Anderson) and to the
interrelation between them. Among the problems considered in this review, of
most importance are the many-electron approaches used in the description of
systems of d and f electrons, the atomic representation of X-operators, and the
problem of strong itinerant magnetism and formation of local moments. The
application of these concepts to highly correlated systems, in particular, to
the half-metallic ferromagnets and the Kondo lattices is discussed.


  The Heavy Photon Search (HPS) is an experiment to search for a hidden sector
photon, aka a heavy photon or dark photon, in fixed target electroproduction at
the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). The HPS experiment
searches for the e$^+$e$^-$ decay of the heavy photon with bump hunt and
detached vertex strategies using a compact, large acceptance forward
spectrometer, consisting of a silicon microstrip detector (SVT) for tracking
and vertexing, and a PbWO$_4$ electromagnetic calorimeter for energy
measurement and fast triggering. To achieve large acceptance and good vertexing
resolution, the first layer of silicon detectors is placed just 10 cm
downstream of the target with the sensor edges only 500 $\mu$m above and below
the beam. Placing the SVT in such close proximity to the beam puts stringent
requirements on the beam profile and beam position stability. As part of an
approved engineering run, HPS took data in 2015 and 2016 at 1.05 GeV and 2.3
GeV beam energies, respectively. This paper describes the beam line and its
performance during that data taking.


  The calculation of the neutron electric dipole moment within effective field
theories for physics beyond the Standard Model requires non-perturbative
hadronic matrix elements of effective operators composed of quark and gluon
fields. In order to use input from lattice computations, these matrix elements
must be translated from a scheme suitable for lattice QCD to the
minimal-subtraction scheme used in the effective-field-theory framework. The
accuracy goal in the context of the neutron electric dipole moment necessitates
at least a one-loop matching calculation. Here, we provide the one-loop
matching coefficients for the $CP$-odd three-gluon operator between two
different minimally subtracted 't Hooft-Veltman schemes and the gradient flow.
This completes our program to obtain the one-loop gradient-flow matching
coefficients for all $CP$-violating and flavor-conserving operators in the
low-energy effective field theory up to dimension six.


  The optical conductivity of graphene nanoribbons is analytical and exactly
derived. It is shown that the absence of translation invariance along the
transverse direction allows considerable intra-band absorption in a narrow
frequency window that varies with the ribbon width, and lies in the THz range
domain for ribbons 10-100nm wide. In this spectral region the absorption
anisotropy can be as high as two orders of magnitude, which renders the medium
strongly dichroic, and allows for a very high degree of polarization (up to
~85) with just a single layer of graphene. The effect is resilient to level
broadening of the ribbon spectrum potentially induced by disorder. Using a
cavity for impedance enhancement, or a stack of few layer nanoribbons, these
values can reach almost 100%. This opens a potential prospect of employing
graphene ribbon structures as efficient polarizers in the far IR and THz
frequencies.


  We explore some qualitative dynamics in the neighborhood of the
$3-dimensional$ two-fold symmetric singularity. We study the existence of an
one-parameter family of regular (pseudo) periodic orbits of such systems near a
reversible two-fold singularity.


  We use the lace expansion to study the long-distance decay of the two-point
function of weakly self-avoiding walk on the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ in
dimensions $d>4$, in the vicinity of the critical point, and prove an upper
bound $|x|^{-(d-2)}\exp[-c|x|/\xi]$, where the correlation length $\xi$ has a
square root divergence at the critical point. As an application, we prove that
the two-point function for weakly self-avoiding walk on a discrete torus in
dimensions $d>4$ has a "plateau." We also discuss the significance and
consequences of the plateau for the analysis of critical behaviour on the
torus.


  We study translational, breathing and twisting resonant modes of transverse
magnetic domain walls pinned at notches in ferromagnetic nanostrips. We
demonstrate that a mode's sensitivity to notches depends strongly on the
characteristics of that particular resonance. For example, the frequencies of
modes involving lateral motion of the wall are the ones which are most
sensitive to changes in the notch intrusion depth (especially at the narrower,
more strongly confined end of the domain wall). In contrast, the breathing
mode, whose dynamics are concentrated away from the notches is relatively
insensitive to changes in the notches' sizes. We also demonstrate a sharp drop
in the translational mode's frequency towards zero when approaching depinning
which is found, using a harmonic oscillator model, to be consistent with a
reduction in the local slope of the notch-induced confining potential at its
edge.


  We establish large deviations for dynamical Schr\"{o}dinger problems driven
by perturbed Brownian motions when the noise parameter tends to zero. Our
results show that Schr\"{o}dinger bridges charge exponentially small masses
outside of the support of the limiting law that agrees with the optimal
solution to the dynamical Monge-Kantorovich optimal transport problem. Our
proofs build on mixture representations of Schr\"{o}dinger bridges and
establishing exponential continuity of Brownian bridges with respect to the
initial and terminal points.


  We study fair allocation of indivisible goods to agents with unequal
entitlements. Fair allocation has been the subject of many studies in both
divisible and indivisible settings. Our emphasis is on the case where the goods
are indivisible and agents have unequal entitlements. This problem is a
generalization of the work by Procaccia and Wang wherein the agents are assumed
to be symmetric with respect to their entitlements. Although Procaccia and Wang
show an almost fair (constant approximation) allocation exists in their
setting, our main result is in sharp contrast to their observation. We show
that, in some cases with $n$ agents, no allocation can guarantee better than
$1/n$ approximation of a fair allocation when the entitlements are not
necessarily equal. Furthermore, we devise a simple algorithm that ensures a
$1/n$ approximation guarantee. Our second result is for a restricted version of
the problem where the valuation of every agent for each good is bounded by the
total value he wishes to receive in a fair allocation. Although this assumption
might seem w.l.o.g, we show it enables us to find a $1/2$ approximation fair
allocation via a greedy algorithm. Finally, we run some experiments on
real-world data and show that, in practice, a fair allocation is likely to
exist. We also support our experiments by showing positive results for two
stochastic variants of the problem, namely stochastic agents and stochastic
items.


  We analyze the spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in
the timescape cosmology: a potentially viable alternative to homogeneous
isotropic cosmologies without dark energy. We exploit the fact that the
timescape cosmology is extremely close to the standard cosmology at early
epochs to adapt existing numerical codes to produce CMB anisotropy spectra, and
to match these as closely as possible to the timescape expansion history. A
variety of matching methods are studied and compared. We perform Markov Chain
Monte Carlo analyses on the parameter space, and fit CMB multipoles $50 \le
\ell \le 2500$ to the Planck satellite data. Parameter fits include a dressed
Hubble constant, $H_0 = 61.0$ km/s/Mpc ($\pm$ 1.3% stat) ($\pm$ 8% sys), and a
present void volume fraction $f_{v0} = 0.627$ ($\pm$ 2.3% stat) ($\pm$ 13%
sys). We find best fit likelihoods which are comparable to that of the best fit
Lambda CDM cosmology in the same multipole range. In contrast to earlier
results, the parameter constraints afforded by this analysis no longer admit
the possibility of a solution to the primordial lithium abundance anomaly. This
issue is related to a strong constraint between the ratio of baryonic to
nonbaryonic dark matter and the ratio of heights of the second and third
acoustic peaks, which cannot be changed as long as the standard cosmology is
assumed up to the surface of last scattering. These conclusions may change if
backreaction terms are also included in the radiation-dominated primordial
plasma.


  We present a study to examine the sensitivity of a future $e^{-} e^{+}$
collider to the anomalous top flavour-changing neutral current (FCNC) to the
gluon. To separate signal from background a multivariate analysis is performed
on top-quark pair and background events, where one top quark is considered to
follow the dominant Standard Model (SM) decay, $t \rightarrow Wb$, and the
other top decays through FCNC, $t\rightarrow qg$, where $q$ is a $u-$ or a
$c-$quark. The analysis of fully-hadronic FCNC decay of the $t \bar{t}$ pair is
also presented. The $95\%$ confidence level limits on the top-quark anomalous
couplings are obtained for different values of the center-of-mass energies and
integrated luminosities.


  q-Matroids form the q-analogue of classical matroids. In this paper we
introduce various types of maps between q-matroids. These maps are not
necessarily linear, but they map subspaces to subspaces and respect the
q-matroid structure in certain ways. The various types of maps give rise to
different categories of q-matroids. We show that only one of these categories
possesses a coproduct. This is the category where the morphisms are linear weak
maps, that is, the rank of the image of any subspace is not larger than the
rank of the subspace itself. The coproduct in this category is the very
recently introduced direct sum of q-matroids.


  The greybody factors in BTZ black holes are evaluated from 2D CFT in the
spirit of AdS$_3$/CFT correspondence. The initial state of black holes in the
usual calculation of greybody factors by effective CFT is described as
Poincar\'{e} vacuum state in 2D CFT. The normalization factor which cannot be
fixed in the effective CFT without appealing to string theory is shown to be
determined by the normalized bulk-to-boundary Green function. The relation
among the greybody factors in different dimensional black holes is exhibited.
Two kinds of $(h,{\bar h})=(1,1)$ operators which couple with the boundary
value of massless scalar field are discussed.


  Recently it was realized that linear optics and photo-detectors with feedback
can be used for theoretically efficient quantum information processing. The
first of three steps toward efficient linear optics quantum computation (eLOQC)
was to design a simple non-deterministic gate, which upon post-selection based
on a measurement result implements a non-linear phase shift on one mode. Here a
computational strategy is given for finding non-deterministic gates for bosonic
qubits with helper photons. A more efficient conditional sign flip gate is
obtained.


  The nonexistence of semi-orthogonal decompositions in algebraic geometry is
known to be governed by the base locus of the canonical bundle. We study
another locus, namely the intersection of the base loci of line bundles that
are isomorphic to the canonical bundle in the N\'{e}ron-Severi group, and show
that it also governs the nonexistence of semi-orthogonal decompositions. As an
application by using algebraically moving techniques, we prove that the bounded
derived category of the $i$-th symmetric product of a smooth projective curve
$C$ has no nontrivial semi-orthogonal decompositions when the genus $g(C)\geq
2$ and $i\leq g(C)-1$. We prove indecomposability of derived categories of some
examples of elliptic surfaces with $P_{g}(X)=0$, and some natural examples of
minimal surfaces of general type. Finally, an inequality involving phases of
skyscraper sheaves for any Bridgeland stability condition is obtained.


  The Hard Lefschetz theorem is known to hold for the intersection cohomology
of the toric variety associated to a rational convex polytope. One can
construct the intersection cohomology combinatorially from the polytope, hence
it is well defined even for nonrational polytopes when there is no variety
associated to it. We prove the Hard Lefschetz theorem for the intersection
cohomology of a general polytope.


  By using a non-local model, fluid simulations can capture kinetic effects in
the parallel electron heat-flux better than is possible using flux limiters in
the usual diffusive models. Non-local and diffusive models are compared using a
test case representative of an ELM crash in the JET SOL, simulated in one
dimension. The non-local model shows substantially enhanced electron
temperature gradients, which cannot be achieved using a flux limiter. The
performance of the implementation, in the BOUT++ framework, is also analysed to
demonstrate its suitability for application in three-dimensional simulations of
turbulent transport in the SOL.