  The Marcus-Lushnikov process is a finite stochastic particle system in which
each particle is entirely characterized by its mass. Each pair of particles
with masses $x$ and $y$ merges into a single particle at a given rate $K(x,y)$.
We consider a {\it strongly gelling} kernel behaving as $K(x,y)=x^\alpha y + x
y^\alpha$ for some $\alpha\in (0,1]$. In such a case, it is well-known that
{\it gelation} occurs, that is, giant particles emerge. Then two possible
models for hydrodynamic limits of the Marcus-Lushnikov process arise: the
Smoluchowski equation, in which the giant particles are inert, and the Flory
equation, in which the giant particles interact with finite ones. We show that,
when using a suitable cut-off coagulation kernel in the Marcus-Lushnikov
process and letting the number of particles increase to infinity, the possible
limits solve either the Smoluchowski equation or the Flory equation. We also
study the asymptotic behaviour of the largest particle in the Marcus-Lushnikov
process without cut-off and show that there is only one giant particle. This
single giant particle represents, asymptotically, the lost mass of the solution
to the Flory equation.


  Low-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC) exhibit great
photocatalytic performance and tunability. In this work, using first-principles
simulations based on density functional theory (DFT), we demonstrate that
external electric bias can be employed to further improve the photocatalytic
hydrogen production efficiency of the six AB$_{2}$ (A=Mo, W and B=S, Se, Te)
TMDC monolayers by exploiting their piezoelectric response. In particular, when
subjected to a proper amount of electrically induced tensile biaxial strain,
most TMDC monolayers turn into potentially ideal photocatalyst towards the
hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The beneficial effects of introducing
tensile biaxial strain on the TMDC monolayers are not limited to the reduction
of the band gap and proper adjustment of the band edge positions, but also to
the modification of the H adsorption free energy in such a way that the HER
reaction is noticeably favored.


  We present a method to construct semi-numerical ``simulations'', which can
efficiently generate realizations of halo distributions and ionization maps at
high redshifts. Our procedure combines an excursion-set approach with
first-order Lagrangian perturbation theory and operates directly on the linear
density and velocity fields. As such, the achievable dynamic range with our
algorithm surpasses the current practical limit of N-body codes by orders of
magnitude. This is particularly significant in studies of reionization, where
the dynamic range is the principal limiting factor. We test our halo-finding
and HII bubble-finding algorithms independently against N-body simulations with
radiative transfer and obtain excellent agreement. We compute the size
distributions of ionized and neutral regions in our maps. We find even larger
ionized bubbles than do purely analytic models at the same volume-weighted mean
hydrogen neutral fraction. We also generate maps and power spectra of 21-cm
brightness temperature fluctuations, which for the first time include
corrections due to gas bulk velocities. We find that velocities widen the tails
of the temperature distributions and increase small-scale power, though these
effects quickly diminish as reionization progresses. We also include some
preliminary results from a simulation run with the largest dynamic range to
date: a 250 Mpc box that resolves halos with masses M >~ 2.2 x10^8 M_sun. We
show that accurately modeling the late stages of reionization requires such
large scales. The speed and dynamic range provided by our semi-numerical
approach will be extremely useful in the modeling of early structure formation
and reionization.


  We investigate the dynamical properties of a superfluid gas of trapped
fermionic atoms in the BCS phase. As a simple example we consider the reaction
of the gas to a slow rotation of the trap. It is shown that the currents
generated by the rotation can be understood within a two-fluid model similar to
the one used in the theory of superconductors, but with a position dependent
ratio of normal and superfluid densities. The rather general result of this
paper is that already at very low temperatures, far below the critical one, an
important normal-fluid component appears in the outer regions of the gas. This
renders the experimental observation of superfluidity effects more difficult
and indicates that reliable theoretical predictions concerning other dynamical
properties, like the frequencies of collective modes, can only be made by
taking into account temperature effects.


  The mean radial component of relative velocity (MRV) between pairs of
inertial particles is studied, where the particles are advected by turbulent
flow and undergo collision-and-coagulation. A previously proposed
phenomenological model of MRV for low-inertia particles
\citep{saw2022intricate} is corrected (improved) and shown to produce better
predictions of the MRV as a function of particle separation distance $r$. Using
direct numerical simulation (DNS), the relationship between the MRV and
particle/turbulent parameters is studied. For particles with near-zero Stokes
numbers ($St$), the MRV is roughly independent of $St$. At larger $St$, the
magnitude of MRV increases with $St$, particularly when $St>0.2$. Assuming that
the relative particle velocities are derived from fluid velocity differences
associated with a nominal resonant length scale, an empirical relation between
$St$ is obtained: $d+\alpha St^{\beta}$, where $\beta\approx1.86$. Coupled with
this empirical result, the aforementioned MRV model could be extended to
predict MRV for any finite $St$, and we show that the predictions are accurate
against the DNS results. Our results also suggest that the extended model could
also accurately account for possible Reynolds number ($Re_{\lambda}$) effect by
simply allowing $\alpha$ and $\beta$ to be functions of $Re_{\lambda}$.
Additionally, when the particle diameter is smaller than the Kolmogorov length
scale, the MRV for particles with the same St is independent of the particle
diameter. The analysis under different Reynolds numbers
($Re_{\lambda}=84,124,189$) reveals that for particles with $St\ll1$, the MRV
is $Re_{\lambda}$-independent. For larger $St$, $Re_{\lambda}$ dependence is
observed such that the coefficients $\alpha$ and $\beta$ decrease with
$Re_{\lambda}.


  We present three-dimensional self-gravitating smoothed-particle hydrodynamics
(SPH) simulations of an isothermal gaseous disc interacting with an embedded
planet. Discs of varying stability are simulated with planets ranging from 10
Earth-masses to 2 Jupiter-masses. The SPH technique provides the large dynamic
range needed to accurately capture the large scale behavior of the disc as well
as the small scale interaction of the planet with surrounding material. Most
runs used 10^5 gas particles, giving us the spatial resolution required to
observe the formation of planets. We find four regions in parameter space:
low-mass planets undergo Type I migration; higher-mass planets can form a gap;
the gravitational instability mode of planet formation in marginally stable
discs can be triggered by embedded planets; discs that are completely unstable
can fragment to form many planets. The disc stability is the most important
factor in determing which interaction a system will exhibit. For the stable
disc cases, our migration and accretion time-scales are shorter and scale
differently than previously suggested.


  Let $K$ be the attractor of the following IFS
  $$\{f_1(x)=\lambda x, f_2(x)=\lambda x +c-\lambda,f_3(x)=\lambda x
+1-\lambda\}, $$
  where $f_1(I)\cap f_2(I)\neq \emptyset, (f_1(I)\cup f_2(I))\cap
f_3(I)=\emptyset,$ and $I=[0,1]$ is the convex hull of $K$. The main results of
this paper are as follows: $$\sqrt{K}+\sqrt{K}=[0,2]$$ if and only if
$$\sqrt{c}+1\geq 2\sqrt{1-\lambda},$$ where
$\sqrt{K}+\sqrt{K}=\{\sqrt{x}+\sqrt{y}:x,y\in K\}$. If $c\geq (1-\lambda)^2$,
then $$\dfrac{K}{K}=\left\{\dfrac{x}{y}:x,y\in K, y\neq
0\right\}=\left[0,\infty\right).$$ As a consequence, we prove that the
following conditions are equivalent:
  (1) For any $u\in [0,1]$, there are some $x,y\in K$ such that $u=x\cdot y;$
  (2) For any $u\in [0,1]$, there are some $x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4,x_5,x_6,x_7,x_8,
x_9,x_{10}\in K$ such that $$u=x_1+x_2=x_3-x_4=x_5\cdot x_6=x_7\div
x_8=\sqrt{x_9}+\sqrt{x_{10}};$$
  (3) $c\geq (1-\lambda)^2$.


  This paper introduces a new method of partitioning the solution space of a
multi-objective optimisation problem for parallel processing, called Efficient
Projection Partitioning. This method projects solutions down into a single
dimension, greatly reducing the cost of partitioning the search space. We test
EPP on a variety of randomly generated multi-objective combinatorial
optimisation problems. The results are compared with the state of the art in
parallel partitioning, and we show that in all scenarios tested, our new
algorithm performs significantly better. Our proposed method allows the
generation of non-dominated sets of larger problems with more decision
variables or objective functions through the use of highly parallel
computational infrastructure. Source code is provided to allow others to
utilise, build upon and improve the algorithm


  In this paper, we present a system that employs a wearable acoustic sensor
and a deep convolutional neural network for detecting coughs. We evaluate the
performance of our system on 14 healthy volunteers and compare it to that of
other cough detection systems that have been reported in the literature.
Experimental results show that our system achieves a classification sensitivity
of 95.1% and a specificity of 99.5%.


  We obtain, for the first time, a modular many-valued semantics for combined
logics, which is built directly from many-valued semantics for the logics being
combined, by means of suitable universal operations over partial
non-deterministic logical matrices. Our constructions preserve
finite-valuedness in the context of multiple-conclusion logics whereas,
unsurprisingly, it may be lost in the context of single-conclusion logics.
Besides illustrating our constructions over a wide range of examples, we also
develop concrete applications of our semantic characterizations, namely
regarding the semantics of strengthening a given many-valued logic with
additional axioms, the study of conditions under which a given logic may be
seen as a combination of simpler syntactically defined fragments whose calculi
can be obtained independently and put together to form a calculus for the whole
logic, and also general conditions for decidability to be preserved by the
combination mechanism.


  This work aims at presenting a Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) formulation
employing a spectral basis for two important models employed in cardiac
electrophysiology, namely the monodomain and bidomain models. The use of DG
methods is motivated by the characteristic of the mathematical solution of such
equations which often corresponds to a highly steep wavefront. Hence, the
built-in flexibility of discontinuous methods in developing adaptive
approaches, combined with the high-order accuracy, can well represent the
underlying physics. The choice of a semi-implicit time integration allows for a
fast solution at each time step. The article includes some numerical tests to
verify the convergence properties and the physiological behaviour of the
numerical solution. Also, a pseudo-realistic simulation turns out to fully
reconstruct the propagation of the electric potential, comprising the phases of
depolarization and repolarization, by overcoming the typical issues related to
the steepness of the wave front.


  A few years ago N.A'Campo invented a construction of a link from a real curve
immersed into a disk. In the case of the curve originating from the real
morsification method the link is isotopic to the link of the corresponding
singularity. There are some curves which do not occur in the singularity
theory. In this article we describe the Casson invariant of A'Campo's knots as
a J^{+/-}-type invariant of the immersed curves. Thus we get an integral
generalization of the Gusein-Zade--Natanzon theorem which says that the Arf
invariant of a singularity is equal to J^{-}/2(mod 2) of the corresponding
immersed curve. It turns out that this invariant is a second order invariant of
the mixed J^{+}- and J^{-}-types.


  We find the general solution of the equations of motion for the WZNW system
in curved space-time for arbitrary external gauge fields. Using the connection
between the WZNW system for $SL(2,R)$ group and 2D induced gravity we obtain
the general solution of the equations of motion for 2D induced gravity in
curved space-time from that of the WZNW system. We independently presented the
direct solution of 2D induced gravity equations of motion and obtain the same
result.


  We present first results of a simultaneous atmospheric turbulence measurement
campaign at the Calar Alto (Spain) 1.23m and 3.5m telescopes. A SCIDAR
instrument and the Calar Alto Adaptive Optics system ALFA were used at the
1.23m and 3.5m telescopes respectively to determine essential turbulence
parameters like the Fried parameter r_0, the isoplanatic angle theta_0, and, in
the case of SCIDAR, the C_n^2 profile of the atmosphere. Both closed-loop and
open-loop data were obtained with ALFA. The desired parameters were then
calculated from this. This paper shows a comparison of the results obtained
from the two different systems for several times during a period of three
nights.


  High-energy phenomena in the cosmos, and in particular processes leading to
the emission of gamma- rays in the energy range 10 MeV - 100 GeV, play a very
special role in the understanding of our Universe. This energy range is indeed
associated with non-thermal phenomena and challenging particle acceleration
processes. The technology involved in detecting gamma-rays is challenging and
drives our ability to develop improved instruments for a large variety of
applications. GAMMA-LIGHT is a Small Mission which aims at an unprecedented
advance of our knowledge in many sectors of astrophysical and Earth studies
research. The Mission will open a new observational window in the low-energy
gamma-ray range 10-50 MeV, and is configured to make substantial advances
compared with the previous and current gamma-ray experiments (AGILE and Fermi).
The improvement is based on an exquisite angular resolution achieved by
GAMMA-LIGHT using state-of-the-art Silicon technology with innovative data
acquisition. GAMMA-LIGHT will address all astrophysics issues left open by the
current generation of instruments. In particular, the breakthrough angular
resolution in the energy range 100 MeV - 1 GeV is crucial to resolve patchy and
complex features of diffuse sources in the Galaxy as well as increasing the
point source sensitivity. This proposal addresses scientific topics of great
interest to the community, with particular emphasis on multifrequency
correlation studies involving radio, optical, IR, X-ray, soft gamma-ray and TeV
emission. At the end of this decade several new observatories will be
operational including LOFAR, SKA, ALMA, HAWK, CTA. GAMMA-LIGHT will "fill the
vacuum" in the 10 MeV-10 GeV band, and will provide invaluable data for the
understanding of cosmic and terrestrial high-energy sources.


  An inequality for the lower bound of the average number of hyperfine
component $\mu =0$ particles in the ground state of spin-1 condensates under a
magnetic field has been derived in ref.\cite{tasa13}. It is shown in this
comment that, in a broad domain of parameters usually accessed in experiments,
the lower bound appears to be negative.
  Thus the applicability of the inequality is very limited.


  AI-generated content (AIGC) methods aim to produce text, images, videos, 3D
assets, and other media using AI algorithms. Due to its wide range of
applications and the demonstrated potential of recent works, AIGC developments
have been attracting lots of attention recently, and AIGC methods have been
developed for various data modalities, such as image, video, text, 3D shape (as
voxels, point clouds, meshes, and neural implicit fields), 3D scene, 3D human
avatar (body and head), 3D motion, and audio -- each presenting different
characteristics and challenges. Furthermore, there have also been many
significant developments in cross-modality AIGC methods, where generative
methods can receive conditioning input in one modality and produce outputs in
another. Examples include going from various modalities to image, video, 3D
shape, 3D scene, 3D avatar (body and head), 3D motion (skeleton and avatar),
and audio modalities. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of AIGC
methods across different data modalities, including both single-modality and
cross-modality methods, highlighting the various challenges, representative
works, and recent technical directions in each setting. We also survey the
representative datasets throughout the modalities, and present comparative
results for various modalities. Moreover, we also discuss the challenges and
potential future research directions.


  The study of heavy flavor production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is
an extreme experimental challenge but provides important information on the
properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.
Heavy-quarks are believed to be produced in the initial stages of the
collision, and are essential on the understanding of parton energy loss in the
dense medium created in such environment. Moreover, heavy-quarks can help to
investigate fundamental properties of QCD in elementary p+p collisions. In this
work we review recent results on heavy flavor production and their interaction
with the hot and dense medium at RHIC.


  We construct a family of $S_n$ modules indexed by $c\in\{1,\dots,n\}$ with
the property that upon restriction to $S_{n-1}$ they recover the classical
parking function representation of Haiman. The construction of these modules
relies on an $S_n$-action on a set that is closely related to the set of
parking functions. We compute the characters of these modules and use the
resulting description to classify them up to isomorphism. In particular, we
show that the number of isomorphism classes is equal to the number of divisors
$d$ of $n$ satisfying $ d\neq 2 \: (\!\!\!\!\mod 4)$. In the cases $c=n$ and
$c=1$, we compute the number of orbits. Based on empirical evidence, we
conjecture that when $c=1$, our representation is $h$-positive and is in fact
the (ungraded) extension of the parking function representation constructed by
Berget and Rhoades.


  Solar cells with a heterojunction between colloidal CuInS$_2$ and ZnO
nanocrystals are an innovative concept in solution-processed photovoltaics, but
the conversion efficiency cannot compete yet with devices employing lead
chalcogenide quantum dots. Here, we present a detailed study on the charge
collection in CuInS$_2$/ZnO solar cells. An inverted device architecture was
utilized, in which the ZnO played an additional role as optical spacer layer.
Variations of the ZnO thickness were exploited to create different charge
generation profiles within the light-harvesting CuInS$_2$ layer, which strongly
affected both the external and internal quantum efficiency. By the
reconstruction of these experimental findings with the help of a purely optical
model, we were able to draw conclusions on the spatial dependency of the charge
collection probability. We provide evidence that only carriers generated within
a narrow zone of circa 40 nm near the CuInS$_2$/ZnO interface contribute to the
external photocurrent. The remaining part of the absorber can be considered as
"dead zone" for charge collection, which reasonably explains the limited device
performance and indicates a direction for future research. From the methodical
point of view, the optical modeling approach developed in the present work has
the advantage that no electrical input parameters are required and is believed
to be easily transferable to other material systems.


  The interaction between a quantum charge and a dynamic source of a magnetic
field is considered in the Aharonov-Bohm scenario. It is shown that, in weak
interactions with a post-selection of the source, the effective vector
potential is, generally, complex-valued. This leads to new experimental
protocols to detect the Aharonov-Bohm phase before the source is fully
encircled. While this does not necessarily change the nonlocal status of the
Aharonov-Bohm effect, it brings new insights into it. Moreover, we discuss how
these results might have consequences for the correspondence principle, making
complex vector potentials relevant to the study of classical systems.


  In the arithmetic of function fields Drinfeld modules play the role that
elliptic curves take on in the arithmetic of number fields. As higher
dimensional generalizations of Drinfeld modules, and as the appropriate
analogues of abelian varieties, G. Anderson introduced pure t-motives. In this
article we study the arithmetic of the later. We investigate which pure
t-motives are semisimple, that is, isogenous to direct sums of simple ones. We
give examples for pure t-motives which are not semisimple. Over finite fields
the semisimplicity is equivalent to the semisimplicity of the endomorphism
algebra, but also this fails over infinite fields. Still over finite fields we
study the endomorphism rings of pure t-motives and criteria for the existence
of isogenies. We obtain answers which are similar to Tate's famous results for
abelian varieties.


  The physics of high-energy colliders relies on the knowledge of different
non-perturbative parton correlators, such as parton distribution functions,
that encode the information on universal hadron structure and are thus the main
building blocks of any factorization theorem of the underlying process in such
collision. These functions are given in terms of gauge-invariant light-front
operators, they are non-local in both space and real time, and are thus
intractable by standard lattice techniques due to the well-known sign problem.
In this paper, we propose a quantum algorithm to perform a quantum simulation
of these type of correlators, and illustrate it by considering a space-time
Wilson loop. We discuss the implementation of the quantum algorithm in terms of
quantum gates that are accessible within actual quantum technologies such as
cold atoms setups, trapped ions or superconducting circuits.


  A determination of the fixed components, base points and irregularity is made
for arbitrary numerically effective divisors on any smooth projective rational
surface having an effective anticanonical divisor. All of the results are
proven over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic.
Applications, treated in separate papers, include questions involving: points
in good position, birational models of rational surfaces in projective space,
and resolutions for ideals of fat point subschemes of $P^2$.


  When convoking privacy, group membership verification checks if a biometric
trait corresponds to one member of a group without revealing the identity of
that member. Similarly, group membership identification states which group the
individual belongs to, without knowing his/her identity. A recent contribution
provides privacy and security for group membership protocols through the joint
use of two mechanisms: quantizing biometric templates into discrete embeddings
and aggregating several templates into one group representation. This paper
significantly improves that contribution because it jointly learns how to embed
and aggregate instead of imposing fixed and hard coded rules. This is
demonstrated by exposing the mathematical underpinnings of the learning stage
before showing the improvements through an extensive series of experiments
targeting face recognition. Overall, experiments show that learning yields an
excellent trade-off between security /privacy and verification /identification
performances.


  Inclusive and exclusive production of scalar and pseudoscalar mesons via
gluon-gluon fusion is considered. A new experimental test is proposed, which
can probe the polarization state of the gluons in exclusive production
processes and check the compatibility of the two-gluon exchange mechanism with
the properties of conventional Pomeron


  We establish equality between the essential spectrum of the Schroedinger
operator with magnetic field in the exterior of a compact arbitrary dimensional
domain and that of the operator defined in all the space, and discuss
applications of this equality.


  We present a System Dynamics (SD) model of the Covid-19 pandemic spread in
India. The detailed age-structured compartment-based model endogenously
captures various disease transmission pathways, expanding significantly from
the standard SEIR model. The model is customized for India by using the
appropriate population pyramid, contact rate matrices, external arrivals (as
per actual data), and a few other calibrated fractions based on the reported
cases of Covid-19 in India. Also, we have explicitly modeled, using independent
time-variant levers, the effects of testing, contact tracing, isolating
Covid-positive patients, quarantining, use of mask/better hygiene practices,
social distancing through contact rate reductions at distinct zones of home(H),
work(W), school(S) and other(O) locations. Simulation results show that, even
after an extended lock-down, some non-trivial number of infections (even
asymptomatic) will be left and the pandemic will resurface. Only tools that
work against the pandemic is high rate of testing of those who show Covid-19
like symptoms, isolating them if they are positive and contact tracing all
contacts of positive patients and quarantining them, in combination with use of
face masks and personal hygiene. A wide range of combination of effectiveness
of contact tracing, isolation, quarantining and personal hygiene measures help
minimize the pandemic impact and some imperfections in implementation of one
measure can be compensated by better implementation of other measures.


  We present the first public data release of the CALIFA survey. It consists of
science-grade optical datacubes for the first 100 of eventually 600 nearby
(0.005<z<0.03) galaxies, obtained with the integral-field spectrograph
PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto observatory. The
galaxies in DR1 already cover a wide range of properties in color-magnitude
space, morphological type, stellar mass, and gas ionization conditions. This
offers the potential to tackle a variety of open questions in galaxy evolution
using spatially resolved spectroscopy. Two different spectral setups are
available for each galaxy, (i) a low-resolution V500 setup covering the nominal
wavelength range 3745-7500A with a spectral resolution of 6.0A (FWHM), and (ii)
a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the nominal wavelength range
3650-4840A with a spectral resolution of 2.3A (FWHM). We present the
characteristics and data structure of the CALIFA datasets that should be taken
into account for scientific exploitation of the data, in particular the effects
of vignetting, bad pixels and spatially correlated noise. The data quality test
for all 100 galaxies showed that we reach a median limiting continuum
sensitivity of 1.0x10^-18erg/s/cm^2/A/arcsec^2 at 5635A and
2.2x10^-18erg/s/cm^2/A/arcsec^2 at 4500A for the V500 and V1200 setup
respectively, which corresponds to limiting r and g band surface brightnesses
of 23.6mag/arcsec^2 and 23.4mag/arcsec^2, or an unresolved emission-line flux
detection limit of roughly 1x10^-17erg/s/cm^2/arcsec^2 and
0.6x10^-17erg/s/cm^2/arcsec^2, respectively. The median spatial resolution is
3.7", and the absolute spectrophotometric calibration is better than 15%
(1sigma). We also describe the available interfaces and tools that allow easy
access to this first public CALIFA data.


  Nonlinear dimensionality reduction methods have demonstrated top-notch
performance in many pattern recognition and image classification tasks. Despite
their popularity, they suffer from highly expensive time and memory
requirements, which render them inapplicable to large-scale datasets. To
leverage such cases we propose a new method called "Path-Based Isomap". Similar
to Isomap, we exploit geodesic paths to find the low-dimensional embedding.
However, instead of preserving pairwise geodesic distances, the low-dimensional
embedding is computed via a path-mapping algorithm. Due to the much fewer
number of paths compared to number of data points, a significant improvement in
time and memory complexity without any decline in performance is achieved. The
method demonstrates state-of-the-art performance on well-known synthetic and
real-world datasets, as well as in the presence of noise.


  Considerable efforts have been recently devoted to combining ultracold atoms
and nanophotonic devices to obtain not only better scalability and figures of
merit than in free-space implementations, but also new paradigms for
atom-photon interactions. Dielectric waveguides offer a promising platform for
such integration because they enable tight transverse confinement of the
propagating light, strong photon-atom coupling in single-pass configurations
and potentially long-range atom-atom interactions mediated by the guided
photons. However, the preparation of non-classical quantum states in such
atom-waveguide interfaces has not yet been realized. Here, by using arrays of
individual caesium atoms trapped along an optical nanofibre, we observe a
single collective atomic excitation coupled to a nanoscale waveguide. The
stored collective entangled state can be efficiently read out with an external
laser pulse, leading to on-demand emission of a single photon into the guided
mode. We characterize the emitted single photon via the suppression of the
two-photon component and confirm the single character of the atomic excitation,
which can be retrieved with an efficiency of about 25%. Our results demonstrate
a capability that is essential for the emerging field of waveguide quantum
electrodynamics, with applications to quantum networking, quantum nonlinear
optics and quantum many-body physics.


  The Bp star HD94660 is a single-lined spectroscopic binary. Some authors have
suggested that the unseen companion of at least 2M_sun may be a compact object.
We intend to study this multiple system in detail, especially to learn more
about the so-far unseen companion. We have collected and analyzed PIONIER
H-band data from the Very Large Telescope Interferometer, TESS visible
photometric data, and X-ray observations with Chandra of HD94660. Using
PIONIER, we were able to detect the companion to HD94660, which is absent from
high quality spectra at visible wavelengths, with a magnitude difference of 1.8
in the H band at a separation of 18.72mas. The TESS light curve shows
variations with a period of 2.1d and also flaring. The Chandra spectrum is well
described by emission from hot thermal plasma, yet might include a non-thermal
component. The X-ray properties are compatible with a magnetically active
companion, while some magnetospheric contribution from the primary is also
possible. We can rule out that the companion to HD94660 is a compact source. It
is also very unlikely that this companion is a single star, as the estimated
mass of more than 2M_sun, the magnitude difference of 1.8 in the H band, and
its non-detection in visible spectra are difficult to realize in a single
object. One alternative could be a pair of late F stars, which would also be
responsible for the detected photometric variations. Interferometric
observations over the full binary orbit are necessary to determine the real
mass of the companion and to add constraints on the overall geometry of the
system.


  In this paper, we discuss approaches for integrating Computational Creativity
(CC) with research in large language and vision models (LLVMs) to address a key
limitation of these models, i.e., creative problem solving. We present
preliminary experiments showing how CC principles can be applied to address
this limitation through augmented prompting. With this work, we hope to foster
discussions of Computational Creativity in the context of ML algorithms for
creative problem solving in LLVMs. Our code is at:
https://github.com/lnairGT/creative-problem-solving-LLMs


  Much of our understanding of dark matter halos comes from the assumption that
the mass-to-light ratio (M/L) of spiral disks is constant. The best way to test
this hypothesis is to measure the disk surface mass density directly via the
kinematics of old disk stars. To this end, we have used planetary nebulae (PNe)
as test particles and have measured the vertical velocity dispersion (sigma_z)
throughout the disks of five nearby, low-inclination spiral galaxies: IC 342,
M74 (NGC 628), M83 (NGC 5236), M94 (NGC 4736), and M101 (NGC 5457). By using HI
to map galactic rotation and the epicyclic approximation to extract sigma_z
from the line-of-sight dispersion, we find that, with the lone exception of
M101, our disks do have a constant M/L out to ~3 optical scale lengths.
However, once outside this radius, sigma_z stops declining and becomes flat
with radius. Possible explanations for this behavior include an increase in the
disk mass-to-light ratio, an increase in the importance of the thick disk, and
heating of the thin disk by halo substructure. We also find that the disks of
early type spirals have higher values of M/L and are closer to maximal than the
disks of later-type spirals, and that the unseen inner halos of these systems
are better fit by pseudo-isothermal laws than by NFW models.


  We study the discrete semiclassical orthogonal polynomials of class s=1. By
considering all possible solutions of the Pearson equation, we obtain five
canonical families. We also consider limit relations between these and other
families of orthogonal polynomials.


  Movement experience and the coordination of perception and action are the
basis of developing body awareness, emotion, motivation and cognition and the
sense of self. The four limbs play a key role in the developing sense of body
ownership, agency and peripersonal space. Neonatal limb movements were
investigated respective processes of self-organization and developing body
awareness. Application of symbolic dynamics to kinematic data of radial
distance trajectories of the hands and feet determined 16 coordination patterns
according to the distance of the effectors to the body center. From time series
analysis of occurrence and recurrence of these configurations of 25 movement
episodes of 14 infants both characteristics of self-organization as well as
features assumed to provide neonates with experiences involved in the
development of body awareness were found. With increasing age a shift from
configurations with proximal to distal positions suggests a role of the
proximal-distal dimension in movement development. We conclude that
self-organization in spontaneous movements provides neonates with perceptual
body- and self-specifying stimuli involved in developing body awareness and
postulate the involvement of emotional and cognitive processes.


  Autonomous and intelligent systems (AIS) facilitate a wide range of
beneficial applications across a variety of different domains. However,
technical characteristics such as unpredictability and lack of transparency, as
well as potential unintended consequences, pose considerable challenges to the
current governance infrastructure. Furthermore, the speed of development and
deployment of applications outpaces the ability of existing governance
institutions to put in place effective ethical-legal oversight. New approaches
for agile, distributed and multilevel governance are needed. This work presents
a practical framework for multilevel governance of AIS. The framework enables
mapping actors onto six levels of decision-making including the international,
national and organizational levels. Furthermore, it offers the ability to
identify and evolve existing tools or create new tools for guiding the behavior
of actors within the levels. Governance mechanisms enable actors to shape and
enforce regulations and other tools, which when complemented with good
practices contribute to effective and comprehensive governance.


  The metallicity dependence of the wide-binary fraction in stellar populations
plays a critical role in resolving the open question of wide binary formation.
In this paper, we investigate the metallicity ([Fe/H]) and age dependence of
the wide-binary fraction (binary separations between $10^3$ and $10^4$ AU) for
field F and G dwarfs within 500 pc by combining their metallicity and radial
velocity measurements from LAMOST DR5 with the astrometric information from
Gaia DR2. We show that the wide-binary fraction strongly depends on the
metallicity: as metallicity increases, the wide-binary fraction first
increases, peaks at [Fe/H]$\simeq 0$, and then decreases at the high
metallicity end. The wide-binary fraction at [Fe/H]$=0$ is about two times
larger than that at [Fe/H]$=-1$ and [Fe/H]$=+0.5$. This metallicity dependence
is dominated by the thin-disk stars. Using stellar kinematics as a proxy of
stellar age, we show that younger stars have a higher wide-binary fraction at
fixed metallicity close to solar. We propose that multiple formation channels
are responsible for the metallicity and age dependence. In particular, the
positive metallicity correlation at [Fe/H]$<0$ and the age dependence may be
due to the denser formation environments and higher-mass clusters at earlier
times. The negative metallicity correlation at [Fe/H]$>0$ can be inherited from
the similar metallicity dependence of close binaries, and radial migration may
play a role in enhancing the wide-binary fraction around the solar metallicity.


  Information diffusion in networks can be used to model many real-world
phenomena, including rumor spreading on online social networks, epidemics in
human beings, and malware on the Internet. Informally speaking, the source
localization problem is to identify a node in the network that provides the
best explanation of the observed diffusion. Despite significant efforts and
successes over last few years, theoretical guarantees of source localization
algorithms were established only for tree networks due to the complexity of the
problem. This paper presents a new source localization algorithm, called the
Short-Fat Tree (SFT) algorithm. Loosely speaking, the algorithm selects the
node such that the breadth-first search (BFS) tree from the node has the
minimum depth but the maximum number of leaf nodes. Performance guarantees of
SFT under the independent cascade (IC) model are established for both tree
networks and the Erdos-Renyi (ER) random graph. On tree networks, SFT is the
maximum a posterior (MAP) estimator. On the ER random graph, the following
fundamental limits have been obtained: $(i)$ when the infection duration
$<\frac{2}{3}t_u,$ SFT identifies the source with probability one
asymptotically, where $t_u=\left\lceil\frac{\log n}{\log \mu}\right\rceil+2$
and $\mu$ is the average node degree, $(ii)$ when the infection duration
$>t_u,$ the probability of identifying the source approaches zero
asymptotically under any algorithm; and $(iii)$ when infection duration $<t_u,$
the BFS tree starting from the source is a fat tree. Numerical experiments on
tree networks, the ER random graphs and real world networks with different
evaluation metrics show that the SFT algorithm outperforms existing algorithms.


  We compute the three-loop helicity amplitudes for the scattering of four
gluons in QCD. We employ projectors in the 't Hooft-Veltman scheme and
construct the amplitudes from a minimal set of physical building blocks, which
allows us to keep the computational complexity under control. We obtain
relatively compact results that can be expressed in terms of harmonic
polylogarithms. In addition, we consider the Regge limit of our amplitude and
extract the gluon Regge trajectory in full three-loop QCD. This is the last
missing ingredient required for studying single-Reggeon exchanges at
next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy.


  We consider the Dirichlet problem in an ellipsoidal cylinder when the data
function is entire. Under an additional assumption that the order of the data
function is less than one, we show that there is a solution that extends as an
entire harmonic function.


  We show that the Picard group $Pic(A(1))$ of the stable category of modules
over $\mathbb{C}$-motivic $A(1)$ is isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}^4$. By
comparison, the Picard group of classical $A(1)$ is $\mathbb{Z}^2 \oplus
\mathbb{Z}/2$. One extra copy of $\mathbb{Z}$ arises from the motivic
bigrading. The joker is a well-known exotic element of order $2$ in the Picard
group of classical $A(1)$. The $\mathbb{C}$-motivic joker has infinite order.


  We explore the possibility of improving probabilistic models in structured
prediction. Specifically, we combine the models with constrained decoding
approaches in the context of token classification for information extraction.
The decoding methods search for constraint-satisfying label-assignments while
maximizing the total probability. To do this, we evaluate several existing
approaches, as well as propose a novel decoding method called Lazy-$k$. Our
findings demonstrate that constrained decoding approaches can significantly
improve the models' performances, especially when using smaller models. The
Lazy-$k$ approach allows for more flexibility between decoding time and
accuracy. The code for using Lazy-$k$ decoding can be found here:
https://github.com/ArthurDevNL/lazyk.


  The Crab pulsar has been widely studied across the electromagnetic spectrum
from radio to gamma-ray energies. The exact nature of the emission processes
taking place in the pulsar is a matter of broad debate. Above a few GeV the
energy spectrum turns over suddenly. The shape of this cutoff can provide
unique insight in to the particle acceleration processes taking place in the
pulsar magnetosphere. Here we discuss the detection of pulsed gamma-rays from
the Crab Pulsar above 100 GeV with the VERITAS telescopes in the context of
measurements made with the Fermi space telescope below 10 GeV. Limits on the
level of flux enhancement of emission correlated with giant radio pulses and
dispersion due to Lorentz invariance violation effects will also be presented.


  Infinite time Turing machines are extended in several ways to allow for
iterated oracle calls. The expressive power of these machines is discussed and
in some cases determined.


  Let $T$ be an algebraic automorphism of $\mathbb{T}^{m}$ having the following
property: the characteristic polynomial of its matrix is irreducible over
$\mathbb{Q}$, and a Pisot number $\beta$ is one of its roots. We define the
mapping $\phi_{\mathbf{t}}$ acting from the two-sided $\beta$-compactum onto
$\mathbb{T}^{m}$ as follows: \[ \phi_{\mathbf{t}}(\bar{\epsilon})=
\sum_{k\in\mathbb{Z}}\epsilon_{k}T^{-k}\mathbf{t}, \] where $\mathbf{t}$ is a
fundamental homoclinic point for $T$, i.e., a point homoclinic to $\mathbf{0}$
such that the linear span of its orbit is the whole homoclinic group (provided
such a point exists). We call such a mapping an arithmetic coding of $T$. This
paper is aimed to show that under some natural hypothesis on $\beta$ (which is
apparently satisfied for all Pisot units) the mapping $\phi_{\mathbf{t}}$ is
bijective a.e. with respect to the Haar measure on the torus. Besides, we study
the case of more general parameters $\mathbf{t}$, not necessarily fundamental,
and relate the number of preimages of $\phi_{\mathbf{t}}$ to certain
number-theoretic quantities. We also give several full criteria for $T$ to
admit a bijective arithmetic coding. This work continues the study begun in
[Sidorov & Vershik, Journal Dynam. Control Systems 4 (1998), 365-399] for the
special case $m=2$.


  The quantization of magnetic flux in superconductors is usually seen as
vortices penetrating the sample. While vortices are unstable in bulk type I
superconductors, restricting the superconductor causes a variety of vortex
structures to appear. We present a systematic study of giant vortex states in
type I superconductors obtained by numerically solving the Ginzburg-Landau
equations. The size of the vortices is seen to increase with decreasing film
thickness. In type I superconductors, giant vortices appear at intermediate
thicknesses but they do not form a well-defined vortex lattice. In the thinnest
type I films, singly quantized vortices seem to be stabilized by the geometry
of the sample instead of an increase in the effective Ginzburg-Landau
parameter.


  NV centers in diamond are a promising platform for highly sensitive quantum
sensors for magnetic fields and other physical quantities. The quest for high
sensitivity combined with high spatial resolution leads naturally to dense
ensembles of NV centers, and hence to strong, long-range interactions between
them. Hence, simulating strongly interacting NVs becomes essential. However,
obtaining the exact dynamics for a many-spin system is a challenging task due
to the exponential scaling of the Hilbert space dimension, a problem that is
exacerbated when the system is modelled as an open quantum system. In this
work, we employ the Matrix Product Density Operator (MPDO) method to represent
the many-body mixed state and to simulate the dynamics of an ensemble of NVs in
the presence of strong long-range couplings due to dipole-dipole forces. We
benchmark different time-evolution algorithms in terms of numerical accuracy
and stability. Subsequently, we simulate the dynamics in the strong interaction
regime, with and without dissipation.


  We consider a non-relativistic particle in a one-dimensional box with all
possible quantum boundary conditions that make the kinetic-energy operator
selfadjoint. We determine the Wigner functions of the corresponding
eigenfunctions and analyze in detail their classical limit in the high-energy
regime. We show that the quantum boundary conditions split into two classes:
all local and regular boundary conditions collapse to the same classical
boundary condition, while singular non-local boundary conditions slightly
persist in the classical limit.


  The spatial resolution of images of living samples obtained by fluorescence
microscopes is physically limited due to the diffraction of visible light,
which makes the study of entities of size less than the diffraction barrier
(around 200 nm in the x-y plane) very challenging. To overcome this limitation,
several deconvolution and super-resolution techniques have been proposed.
Within the framework of inverse problems, modern approaches in fluorescence
microscopy reconstruct a super-resolved image from a temporal stack of frames
by carefully designing suitable hand-crafted sparsity-promoting regularisers.
Numerically, such approaches are solved by proximal gradient-based iterative
schemes. Aiming at obtaining a reconstruction more adapted to sample geometries
(e.g. thin filaments), we adopt a plug-and-play denoising approach with
convergence guarantees and replace the proximity operator associated with the
explicit image regulariser with an image denoiser (i.e. a pre-trained network)
which, upon appropriate training, mimics the action of an implicit prior. To
account for the independence of the fluctuations between molecules, the model
relies on second-order statistics. The denoiser is then trained on covariance
images coming from data representing sequences of fluctuating fluorescent
molecules with filament structure. The method is evaluated on both simulated
and real fluorescence microscopy images, showing its ability to correctly
reconstruct filament structures with high values of peak signal-to-noise ratio
(PSNR).


  We propose a semiclassical method to calculate S-matrix elements for
two-stage gravitational transitions involving matter collapse into a black hole
and evaporation of the latter. The method consistently incorporates
back-reaction of the collapsing and emitted quanta on the metric. We illustrate
the method in several toy models describing spherical self-gravitating shells
in asymptotically flat and AdS space-times. We find that electrically neutral
shells reflect via the above collapse-evaporation process with probability
exp(-B), where B is the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the intermediate black
hole. This is consistent with interpretation of exp(B) as the number of black
hole states. The same expression for the probability is obtained in the case of
charged shells if one takes into account instability of the Cauchy horizon of
the intermediate Reissner-Nordstrom black hole. Our semiclassical method opens
a new systematic approach to the gravitational S-matrix in the non-perturbative
regime.


  We prove a Tannaka duality theorem for $(\infty,1)$-categories. This is a
duality between certain derived group stacks, or more generally certain derived
gerbes, and symmetric monoidal $(\infty,1)$-categories endowed with particular
structure. This duality theorem is defined over commutative ring spectra and
subsumes the classical statement. We show how the classical theory, and its
extension over arbitrary rings, arises as a special case of our more general
theory. The application to perfect complexes is explored.


  The present paper outlines theoretical principles of the post-Newtonian
mechanics in the expanding universe. It is based upon the gauge-invariant
theory of the Lagrangian perturbations of cosmological manifold caused by an
isolated astronomical N-body system. We postulate that the background manifold
is described by Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric governed by
two primary components - the dark matter and the dark energy. The dark matter
is treated as an ideal fluid. The dark energy is described by a single scalar
field with a potential which is hold unspecified as long as the theory permits.
The Lagrangian of the dark matter and that of the scalar field are formulated
in terms of the field variables. We use variational calculus to derive the
gauge-invariant field equations of the post-Newtonian celestial mechanics of an
isolated astronomical system in an expanding universe. These equations
generalize the field equations of the post-Newtonian theory in
asymptotically-flat spacetime by taking into account the cosmological effects
explicitly. We introduce a new cosmological gauge which generalizes the
harmonic gauge of the post-Newtonian theory in asymptotically-flat spacetime.
This gauge significantly simplifies the gravitational field equations and
allows finding out the approximations where the field equations can be fully
decoupled and solved analytically. The residual gauge freedom is explored. The
results of the present paper can be useful in the solar system for calculating
more precise ephemerides of the solar system bodies on extremely long time
intervals, in galactic astronomy to study the dynamics of clusters of galaxies,
and in gravitational wave astronomy for discussing the impact of cosmology on
generation and propagation of gravitational waves emitted by coalescing
binaries and/or merging galactic nuclei.


  As a model of a novel superconductor Na_xCoO_2\cdotyH_2O, a single-band t-J
model on a triangular lattice is studied, using a variational Monte Carlo
method. We calculate the energies of various superconducting (SC) states,
changing the doping rate \delta and sign of t for small J/|t|. Symmetries of s,
d, and d+id (p+ip and f) waves are taken up as candidates for singlet (triplet)
pairing. In addition, the possibility of Nagaoka ferromagnetism and
inhomogeneous phases is considered. It is revealed that, among the SC states,
the d+id wave always has the lowest energy, which result supports previous
mean-field studies. There is no possibility of triplet pairing, although the
f-wave state becomes stable against a normal state in a special case
(\delta=0.5 and t<0). For t<0, the complete ferromagnetic state is dominant in
a wide range of \delta and J/|t|, which covers the realistic parameter region
of superconductivity.


  We give a cross-disciplinary survey on ``population'' Monte Carlo algorithms.
In these algorithms, a set of ``walkers'' or ``particles'' is used as a
representation of a high-dimensional vector. The computation is carried out by
a random walk and split/deletion of these objects. The algorithms are developed
in various fields in physics and statistical sciences and called by lots of
different terms -- ``quantum Monte Carlo'', ``transfer-matrix Monte Carlo'',
``Monte Carlo filter (particle filter)'',``sequential Monte Carlo'' and
``PERM'' etc. Here we discuss them in a coherent framework. We also touch on
related algorithms -- genetic algorithms and annealed importance sampling.


  Recent results relating to ray dynamics in ocean acoustics are reviewed.
Attention is focussed on long-range propagation in deep ocean environments. For
this class of problems, the ray equations may be simplified by making use of a
one-way formulation in which the range variable appears as the independent
(time-like) variable. Topics discussed include integrable and non-integrable
ray systems, action-angle variables, nonlinear resonances and the KAM theorem,
ray chaos, Lyapunov exponents, predictability, nondegeneracy violation, ray
intensity statistics, semiclassical breakdown, wave chaos, and the connection
between ray chaos and mode coupling. The Hamiltonian structure of the ray
equations plays an important role in all of these topics.


  The purpose of this paper is to analyze the capabilities, functionalities and
appropriateness of Altmetric.com as a data source for the bibliometric analysis
of books in comparison to PlumX. We perform an exploratory analysis on the
metrics the Altmetric Explorer for Institutions platform offers for books. We
use two distinct datasets of books: the Book Collection included in
Altmetric.com and the Clarivate's Master Book List, to analyze Altmetric.com's
capabilities to download and merge data with external databases. Finally, we
compare our findings with those obtained in a previous study performed in
PlumX. Altmetric.com combines and orderly tracks a set of data sources combined
by DOI identifiers to retrieve metadata from books, being Google Books its main
provider. It also retrieves information from commercial publishers and from
some Open Access initiatives, including those led by university libraries such
as Harvard Library. We find issues with linkages between records and mentions
or ISBN discrepancies. Furthermore, we find that automatic bots affect greatly
Wikipedia mentions to books. Our comparison with PlumX suggests that none of
these tools provide a complete picture of the social attention generated by
books and are rather complementary than comparable tools.


  We discuss the interpretation of distortions to stellar spectral lines with
particular attention to line bisectors in the presence of an orbiting planetary
companion. We present a simple model whereby light reflected by the companion
can cause temporal variations to the observed line profiles. These distortions
have a characteristic signature depending on the inclination angle of the
system. For the known close-in extrasolar giant planets, the expected amplitude
of the effect might not be far from current detection capabilities. This method
could be used to directly detect the presence of the companion, yielding the
orbital inclination and hence the planetary mass. Futhermore, a detection would
measure a combination of the planetary radius and albedo, from which a minimum
radius may be deduced.


  We present updated results on the nucleon electromagnetic form factors and
axial coupling calculated using CLS ensembles with $N_\mathrm{f}=2+1$ dynamical
flavours of Wilson fermions. The measurements are performed on large, fine
lattices with a pseudoscalar mass reaching down to 200 MeV. The
truncated-solver method is employed to reduce the variance of the measurements.
Estimation of the matrix elements is challenging due to large contamination
from excited states and further investigation is necessary to bring these
effects under control.


  We formulate the massive overlap fermions on anisotropic lattices.
  We find that the dispersion relation for the overlap fermion resembles the
continuum form in the low-momentum region once the bare parameters are properly
tuned. The quark self-energy and the quark field renormalization constants are
calculated to one-loop in bare lattice perturbation theory.
  We argue that massive domain wall quarks might be helpful in lattice QCD
studies on heavy-light hadron spectroscopy.


  The Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment was designed to observe the
Sun-as-a-star in the extreme ultraviolet; a wavelength range that has remained
spectrally unresolved for many years. It has provided a wealth of data on solar
flares, perhaps most uniquely, on the Lyman spectrum of hydrogen at high
cadence and moderate spectral resolution. In this paper we concentrate on the
analysis of Lyman continuum (LyC) observations and its temporal evolution in a
sample of six major solar flares. By fitting both the pre-flare and flare
excess spectra with a blackbody function we show that the color temperature
derived from the slope of LyC reveals temperatures in excess of 10$^{4}$ K in
the six events studied; an increase of a few thousand Kelvin above quiet-Sun
values (typically $\sim$8000-9500 K). This was found to be as high as 17000 K
for the 2017 September 6 X9.3 flare. Using these temperature values, and
assuming a flaring area of 10$^{18}$ cm$^{2}$, estimates of the departure
coefficient of hydrogen, $b_1$, were calculated. It was found that $b_1$
decreased from 10$^{2}$-10$^{3}$ in the quiet-Sun, to around unity during the
flares. This implies that LyC is optically thick and formed in local
thermodynamic equilibrium during flares. It also emanates from a relatively
thin ($\lesssim$100 km) shell formed at deeper, denser layers than in the
quiescent solar atmosphere. We show that in terms of temporal coverage and
resolution, EVE gives a more comprehensive picture of the response of the
chromosphere to the flare energy input with respect to those of the
Skylab/Harvard College Observatory spatially resolved observations of the
1970's.


  The uniform structure on a differential space defined by a family of
generators is considered.


  Monocular 3D human pose and shape estimation is an ill-posed problem since
multiple 3D solutions can explain a 2D image of a subject. Recent approaches
predict a probability distribution over plausible 3D pose and shape parameters
conditioned on the image. We show that these approaches exhibit a trade-off
between three key properties: (i) accuracy - the likelihood of the ground-truth
3D solution under the predicted distribution, (ii) sample-input consistency -
the extent to which 3D samples from the predicted distribution match the
visible 2D image evidence, and (iii) sample diversity - the range of plausible
3D solutions modelled by the predicted distribution. Our method, HuManiFlow,
predicts simultaneously accurate, consistent and diverse distributions. We use
the human kinematic tree to factorise full body pose into ancestor-conditioned
per-body-part pose distributions in an autoregressive manner. Per-body-part
distributions are implemented using normalising flows that respect the manifold
structure of SO(3), the Lie group of per-body-part poses. We show that
ill-posed, but ubiquitous, 3D point estimate losses reduce sample diversity,
and employ only probabilistic training losses. Code is available at:
https://github.com/akashsengupta1997/HuManiFlow.


  We discuss how the virtuality of the struck particle may affect the final
state interactions in electron-nucleus scattering. The extent to which short
range correlations inhibit rescattering taking place within the range of the
repulsive core of the NN interaction is quantitatively analyzed. The possible
modifications of the nucleon-nucleon scattering amplitude associated with the
virtuality is also studied, within the framework of a nonrelativistic model.
The results suggest that the on shell approximation can be safely employed in
the kinematical region relevant to the analysis of the available inclusive data
at large momentum transfer and low energy loss.


  This paper studies ensembling in the era of Large Vision-Language Models
(LVLMs). Ensembling is a classical method to combine different models to get
increased performance. In the recent work on Encyclopedic-VQA the authors
examine a wide variety of models to solve their task: from vanilla LVLMs, to
models including the caption as extra context, to models augmented with
Lens-based retrieval of Wikipedia pages. Intuitively these models are highly
complementary, which should make them ideal for ensembling. Indeed, an oracle
experiment shows potential gains from 48.8% accuracy (the best single model)
all the way up to 67% (best possible ensemble). So it is a trivial exercise to
create an ensemble with substantial real gains. Or is it?


  Self-adjoint Schr\"odinger operators with $\delta$ and $\delta'$-potentials
supported on a smooth compact hypersurface are defined explicitly via boundary
conditions. The spectral properties of these operators are investigated,
regularity results on the functions in their domains are obtained, and
analogues of the Birman--Schwinger principle and a variant of Krein's formula
are shown. Furthermore, Schatten--von Neumann type estimates for the
differences of the powers of the resolvents of the Schr\"odinger operators with
$\delta$ and $\delta'$-potentials, and the Schr\"odinger operator without a
singular interaction are proved. An immediate consequence of these estimates is
the existence and completeness of the wave operators of the corresponding
scattering systems, as well as the unitary equivalence of the absolutely
continuous parts of the singularly perturbed and unperturbed Schr\"odinger
operators. In the proofs of our main theorems we make use of abstract methods
from extension theory of symmetric operators, some algebraic considerations and
results on elliptic regularity.


  Eccentric Keplerian discs are believed to be unstable to three-dimensional
hydrodynamical instabilities driven by the time-dependence of fluid properties
around an orbit. These instabilities could lead to small-scale turbulence, and
ultimately modify the global disc properties. We use a local model of an
eccentric disc, derived in a companion paper, to compute the nonlinear vertical
("breathing mode") oscillations of the disc. We then analyse their linear
stability to locally axisymmetric disturbances for any disc eccentricity and
eccentricity gradient using a numerical Floquet method. In the limit of small
departures from a circular reference orbit, the instability of an isothermal
disc is explained analytically. We also study analytically the small-scale
instability of an eccentric neutrally stratified polytropic disc with any
polytropic index using a WKB approximation. We find that eccentric discs are
generically unstable to the parametric excitation of small-scale inertial
waves. The nonlinear evolution of these instabilities should be studied in
numerical simulations, where we expect them to lead to a decay of the disc
eccentricity and eccentricity gradient as well as to induce additional
transport and mixing. Our results highlight that it is essential to consider
the three-dimensional structure of eccentric discs, and their resulting
vertical oscillatory flows, in order to correctly capture their evolution.


  Ultrahigh peak power femtosecond laser pulses create extreme states of matter
that are currently being probed with great interest. Plasma optics have been
proposed for shaping and amplifying high-power pulses, but they are subject to
huge modulations and fluctuations due to the very nature of excitation at high
intensities. Multidimensional characterization (spatial and temporal) of
relativistic plasma dynamics is therefore crucial to understand the
spatio-temporal structure of intense femtosecond pulses shaped by plasma
optics. This is, however, extremely difficult to achieve, particularly at the
low repetition rates typical at 100s terawatt to petawatt powers. Here, we
present a single-shot, three-dimensional (3D) spatio-temporal and
spatio-spectral measurement of such pulses based on spectral interferometry. We
reconstruct the 3D temporal structure of the laser pulse simultaneously
resolving the complex plasma dynamics. We demonstrate our method by measuring
the sub-picosecond evolution of relativistic solid-density plasmas. Our
measurements reveal that different spatial regions of the plasma surface move
differently yet exhibit a collective behavior globally. This all-optical
measurement technique captures 3D spatio-temporal effects within pulses with
ultrahigh peak powers, all in a single shot, enabling further progress in
ultrahigh-intensity laser and plasma technologies.


  Increasing demand for algorithms that can learn quickly and efficiently has
led to a surge of development within the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
An important paradigm within AI is reinforcement learning (RL), where agents
interact with environments by exchanging signals via a communication channel.
Agents can learn by updating their behaviour based on obtained feedback. The
crucial question for practical applications is how fast agents can learn to
respond correctly. An essential figure of merit is therefore the learning time.
While various works have made use of quantum mechanics to speed up the agent's
decision-making process, a reduction in learning time has not been demonstrated
yet. Here we present a RL experiment where the learning of an agent is boosted
by utilizing a quantum communication channel with the environment. We further
show that the combination with classical communication enables the evaluation
of such an improvement, and additionally allows for optimal control of the
learning progress. This novel scenario is therefore demonstrated by considering
hybrid agents, that alternate between rounds of quantum and classical
communication. We implement this learning protocol on a compact and fully
tunable integrated nanophotonic processor. The device interfaces with
telecom-wavelength photons and features a fast active feedback mechanism,
allowing us to demonstrate the agent's systematic quantum advantage in a setup
that could be readily integrated within future large-scale quantum
communication networks.


  An important step in a phospholipid membrane pore formation by melittin
antimicrobial peptide is a reorientation of the peptide from a surface into a
transmembrane conformation. In this work we perform umbrella sampling
simulations to calculate the potential of mean force (PMF) for the
reorientation of melittin from a surface-bound state to a transmembrane state
and provide a molecular level insight into understanding peptide and lipid
properties that influence the existence of the free energy barrier. The PMFs
were calculated for a peptide to lipid (P/L) ratio of 1/128 and 4/128. We
observe that the free energy barrier is reduced when the P/L ratio increased.
In addition, we study the cooperative effect; specifically we investigate if
the barrier is smaller for a second melittin reorientation, given that another
neighboring melittin was already in the transmembrane state. We observe that
indeed the barrier of the PMF curve is reduced in this case, thus confirming
the presence of a cooperative effect.


  Yin, Rinaldo, and Fadnavis classified the extremal behavior of the
edge-triangle exponential random graph model by first taking the network size
to infinity, then the parameters diverging to infinity along straight lines.
Lubetzky and Zhao proposed an extension to the edge-triangle model by
introducing an exponent $\gamma > 0$ on the triangle homomorphism density
function. This allows non-trivial behavior in the positive limit, which is
absent in the standard edge-triangle model. The present work seeks to classify
the limiting behavior of this generalized edge-triangle exponential random
graph model. It is shown that for $\gamma \le 1$, the limiting set of graphons
come from a special class, known as Tur\'an graphons. For $\gamma > 1$, there
are large regions of the parameter space where the limit is not a Tur\'an
graphon, but rather has edge density between subsequent Tur\'an graphons.
Furthermore, for $\gamma$ large enough, the exact edge density of the limiting
set is determined in terms of a nested radical. Utilizing a result of Reiher,
intuition is given for the characterization of the extremal behavior in the
generalized edge-clique model.


  Recent work has demonstrated that using a carefully designed sensing matrix
rather than a random one, can improve the performance of compressed sensing. In
particular, a well-designed sensing matrix can reduce the coherence between the
atoms of the equivalent dictionary, and as a consequence, reduce the
reconstruction error. In some applications, the signals of interest can be well
approximated by a union of a small number of subspaces (e.g., face recognition
and motion segmentation). This implies the existence of a dictionary which
leads to block-sparse representations. In this work, we propose a framework for
sensing matrix design that improves the ability of block-sparse approximation
techniques to reconstruct and classify signals. This method is based on
minimizing a weighted sum of the inter-block coherence and the sub-block
coherence of the equivalent dictionary. Our experiments show that the proposed
algorithm significantly improves signal recovery and classification ability of
the Block-OMP algorithm compared to sensing matrix optimization methods that do
not employ block structure.


  In this paper we address the problem of handling inconsistencies in tables
with missing values (also called nulls) and functional dependencies. Although
the traditional view is that table instances must respect all functional
dependencies imposed on them, it is nevertheless relevant to develop theories
about how to handle instances that violate some dependencies. Regarding missing
values, we make no assumptions on their existence: a missing value exists only
if it is inferred from the functional dependencies of the table.
  We propose a formal framework in which each tuple of a table is associated
with a truth value among the following: true, false, inconsistent or unknown;
and we show that our framework can be used to study important problems such as
consistent query answering, table merging, and data quality measures - to
mention just a few. In this paper, however, we focus mainly on consistent query
answering, a problem that has received considerable attention during the last
decades.
  The main contributions of the paper are the following: (a) we introduce a new
approach to handle inconsistencies in a table with nulls and functional
dependencies, (b) we give algorithms for computing all true, inconsistent and
false tuples, (c) we investigate the relationship between our approach and
Four-valued logic in the context of data merging, and (d) we give a novel
solution to the consistent query answering problem and compare our solution to
that of table repairs.


  The number of neutrino induced upward going muons from a single Gamma Ray
Burst (GRB) expected to be detected by the proposed kilometer scale IceCube
detector at the South Pole location has been calculated. The effects of the
Lorentz factor, total energy of the GRB emitted in neutrinos and its distance
from the observer (red shift) on the number of neutrino events from the GRB
have been examined. The present investigation reveals that there is possibility
of exploring the early Universe with the proposed kilometer scale IceCube
neutrino telescope.


  This paper describes the WiLI-2018 benchmark dataset for monolingual written
natural language identification. WiLI-2018 is a publicly available, free of
charge dataset of short text extracts from Wikipedia. It contains 1000
paragraphs of 235 languages, totaling in 23500 paragraphs. WiLI is a
classification dataset: Given an unknown paragraph written in one dominant
language, it has to be decided which language it is.


  We determine the timescales associated with turbulent diffusion and
isotropization in closure models using anisotropically forced and freely
decaying turbulence simulations and to study the applicability of these models.
We compare the results from anisotropically forced three-dimensional numerical
simulations with the predictions of the closure models and obtain the turbulent
timescales mentioned above as functions of the Reynolds number. In a second set
of simulations, turning the forcing off enables us to study the validity of the
closures in freely decaying turbulence. Both types of experiments suggest that
the timescale of turbulent diffusion converges to a constant value at higher
Reynolds numbers. Furthermore, the relative importance of isotropization is
found to be about 2.5 times larger at higher Reynolds numbers than in the more
viscous regime.


  Mean king's problem is a kind of quantum state discrimination problems. In
the problem, we try to discriminate eigenstates of noncommutative observables
with the help of classical delayed information. The problem has been
investigated from the viewpoint of error detection and correction. We construct
higher-dimensional quantum error-correcting codes against error corresponding
to the noncommutative observables. Any code state of the codes provides a way
to discriminate the eigenstates correctly with the classical delayed
information.


  Geodynamic modelling and seismic studies have highlighted the possibility
that a thin layer of low seismic velocities, potentially molten, may sit atop
the core-mantle boundary but has thus far eluded detection. In this study we
employ normal modes, an independent data type to body waves, to assess the
visibility of a seismically slow layer atop the core-mantle boundary to normal
mode centre frequencies. Using forward modelling and a dataset of 353 normal
mode observations we find that some centre frequencies are sensitive to
one-dimensional kilometre-scale structure at the core-mantle boundary.
Furthermore, a global slow and dense layer 1 - 3 km thick is better-fitting
than no layer. The well-fitting parameter space is broad with a wide range of
possible seismic parameters, which precludes inferring a possible composition
or phase. Our methodology cannot uniquely detect a layer in the Earth but one
should be considered possible and accounted for in future studies.


  We introduce a new method to construct closed rigid (unobstructed)
associative submanifolds in the twisted connected sum $G_2$-manifolds [Kov03,
KL11, CHNP15]. More precisely, we prove a gluing theorem of asymptotically
cylindrical (ACyl) associative submanifolds in ACyl $G_2$-manifolds under a
hypothesis that can be interpreted as a transverse Lagrangian intersection
condition. This is analogous to the gluing theorem for $G_2$-instantons
introduced in [SW15]. We rephrase the hypothesis in the special cases where the
ACyl associative submanifolds are obtained from holomorphic curves or special
Lagrangians in ACyl Calabi-Yau $3$-folds. In this way we find many new
associative submanifolds which are diffeomorphic to $S^3$, $\mathbf R\mathbf
P^3$ or $\mathbf R\mathbf P^3\#\mathbf R\mathbf P^3$. To lay the foundation for
the gluing theorem we also study the moduli space of ACyl associative
submanifolds with a natural topology. We prove that the moduli space is locally
homeomorphic to the zero set of a smooth map between two finite dimensional
spaces whose index depends only on the asymptotic cross section.


  In this article we provide three new twist-deformed Newtonian
Schwarzschild-(Anti-)de Sitter models. They are defined on the
Lie-algebraically as well as on the canonically noncommutative space-times
respectively. Particularly we find the corresponding Hamiltonian functions and
the proper equations of motion. The relations between the models are discussed
as well.


  Asymmetric password based key exchange is a key exchange protocol where a
client and a server share a low entropic password while the server additionally
owns a high entropic secret for a public key. There are simple solutions for
this (e.g. Halevi and Krawczyk (ACM TISSEC 1999) and its improvement by
Boyarsky (CCS 1999)). In this paper, we consider a new threat to this type of
protocol: if a server's high entropic secret gets compromised (e.g., due to
cryptanalysis, virus attack or a poor management), the adversary might {\em
quickly} break lots of passwords and cause uncountable damage. In this case,
one should not expect the protocol to be secure against an off-line dictionary
attack since, otherwise, the protocol is in fact a secure password-only key
exchange where the server also only has a password (by making the server high
entropic secret public). Of course a password-only key exchange does not suffer
from this threat as the server does not have a high entropic secret at all.
However, known password-only key exchange are not very efficient (note: we only
consider protocols without random oracles). This motivates us to study
efficient and secure asymmetric password key exchange that avoids the new
threat. In this paper, we first provide a formal model for the new threat,
where essentially we require that the active adversary can break $\ell$
passwords in $\alpha\ell |{\cal D}|$ steps (for $\alpha<1/2$) only with a
probability negligibly close to $\exp(-\beta\ell)$ for some $\beta>0$. Then, we
construct a framework of asymmetric password based key exchange. We prove that
our protocol is secure in the usual sense. We also show that it prevents the
new threat. To do this, we introduce a new technique by abstracting a
probabilistic experiment from the main proof and providing a neat analysis of
it.


  We explore the possibility of using the method of classical integral
transforms to solve a class of $q$-difference-differential equations. The
Laplace and the Mellin transform of $q$-derivatives are derived. The results
show that the Mellin transform of the $q$-derivative resembles most closely the
corresponding expression in classical analysis, and it could therefore be
useful in solving certain $q$-difference equations.


  The Large Charge sector of Conformal Field Theory (CFT) can generically be
described through a semiclassical expansion around a superfluid background. In
this work, focussing on $U(1)$ invariant Wilson-Fisher fixed points, we study
the spectrum of spinning large charge operators. For sufficiently low spin
these correspond to the phonon excitations of the superfluid state. We discuss
the organization of these states into conformal multiplets and the form of the
corresponding composite operators in the free field theory limit. The latter
entails a mapping, built order-by-order in the inverse charge $n^{-1}$, between
the Fock space of vacuum fluctuations and the Fock space of fluctuations around
the superfluid state. We discuss the limitations of the semiclassical method,
and find that the phonon description breaks down for spins of order $n^{1/2}$
while the computation of observables is valid up to spins of order $n$.
Finally, we apply the semiclassical method to compute some conformal 3-point
and 4-point functions, and analyze the conformal block decomposition of the
latter with our knowledge of the operator spectrum.


  We investigate the capability of Symplectic quandles to detect causality for
(2+1)-dimensional globally hyperbolic spacetimes (X). Allen and Swenberg showed
that Alexander-Conway polynomial is insufficient to distinguish connected sum
of two Hopf links from the links in the family of Allen-Swenberg 2-sky like
links, suggesting that it can not always detect causality in X. We find that
symplectic quandles, combined with Alexander-Conway polynomial, can distinguish
these two type of links, thereby suggesting their ability to detect causality
in X. The fact that symplectic quandles can capture causality in the
Allen-Swenberg example is intriguing since the theorem of Chernov and
Nemirovski, which states that Legendrian linking equals causality, is proved
using Contact Geometry methods.


  A new analytical approach to the motion and radiation of (comparable mass)
binary systems has been introduced in 1999 under the name of Effective One Body
(EOB) formalism. We review the basic elements of this formalism, and discuss
some of its recent developments. Several recent comparisons between EOB
predictions and Numerical Relativity (NR) simulations have shown the aptitude
of the EOB formalism to provide accurate descriptions of the dynamics and
radiation of various binary systems (comprising black holes or neutron stars)
in regimes that are inaccessible to other analytical approaches (such as the
last orbits and the merger of comparable mass black holes). In synergy with NR
simulations, post-Newtonian (PN) theory and Gravitational Self-Force (GSF)
computations, the EOB formalism is likely to provide an efficient way of
computing the very many accurate template waveforms that are needed for
Gravitational Wave (GW) data analysis purposes.


  We propose GLL-based context-free path querying algorithm which handles
queries in Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) using Recursive State Machines
(RSM). Utilization of EBNF allows one to combine traditional regular
expressions and mutually recursive patterns in constraints natively. The
proposed algorithm solves both the reachability-only and the all-paths problems
for the all-pairs and the multiple sources cases. The evaluation on realworld
graphs demonstrates that utilization of RSMs increases performance of query
evaluation. Being implemented as a stored procedure for Neo4j, our solution
demonstrates better performance than a similar solution for RedisGraph.
Performance of our solution of regular path queries is comparable with
performance of native Neo4j solution, and in some cases our solution requires
significantly less memory.


  We study the densest subgraph problem and give algorithms via multiplicative
weights update and area convexity that converge in $O\left(\frac{\log
m}{\epsilon^{2}}\right)$ and $O\left(\frac{\log m}{\epsilon}\right)$
iterations, respectively, both with nearly-linear time per iteration. Compared
with the work by Bahmani et al. (2014), our MWU algorithm uses a very different
and much simpler procedure for recovering the dense subgraph from the
fractional solution and does not employ a binary search. Compared with the work
by Boob et al. (2019), our algorithm via area convexity improves the iteration
complexity by a factor $\Delta$ -- the maximum degree in the graph, and matches
the fastest theoretical runtime currently known via flows (Chekuri et al.,
2022) in total time. Next, we study the dense subgraph decomposition problem
and give the first practical iterative algorithm with linear convergence rate
$O\left(mn\log\frac{1}{\epsilon}\right)$ via accelerated random coordinate
descent. This significantly improves over
$O\left(\frac{m\sqrt{mn\Delta}}{\epsilon}\right)$ time of the FISTA-based
algorithm by Harb et al. (2022). In the high precision regime
$\epsilon\ll\frac{1}{n}$ where we can even recover the exact solution, our
algorithm has a total runtime of $O\left(mn\log n\right)$, matching the exact
algorithm via parametric flows (Gallo et al., 1989). Empirically, we show that
this algorithm is very practical and scales to very large graphs, and its
performance is competitive with widely used methods that have significantly
weaker theoretical guarantees.


  The Levy-type distributions are derived using the principle of maximum
Tsallis nonextensive entropy both in the full and half spaces. The rates of
convergence to the exact Levy stable distributions are determined by taking the
N-fold convolutions of these distributions. The marked difference between the
problems in the full and half spaces is elucidated analytically. It is found
that the rates of convergence depend on the ranges of the Levy indices. An
important result emerging from the present analysis is deduced if interpreted
in terms of random walks, implying the dependence of the asymptotic long-time
behaviors of the walks on the ranges of the Levy indices if N is identified
with the total time of the walks.


  Magnetic reconnection is prevalent in magnetized plasmas in space and
laboratories. Despite significant investigations on reconnection in
electron-ion plasmas, studies of reconnection in magnetized plasmas with
negatively charged dust grains are quite sparse. Here we report the first fully
kinetic simulations of collisionless reconnection in a three-species (i.e.,
electron, proton, and negatively charged dust grain) dusty plasma, through
which the discovery of double Hall pattern is made. The double Hall pattern
consists of a traditional Hall quadruple current in between the ion and
electron diffusion region, and a reversed Hall current in between the boundary
of the ion and dust diffusion region. The analysis of the reconnection rate is
also given. This study may be applicable to explain observations of planetary
magnetospheres and the astrophysical objects, and may be realized in the
laboratory studies of dusty plasmas.


  Small amounts of star formation in elliptical galaxies are suggested by
several results: surprisingly young ages from optical line indices, cooling
X-ray gas, and mid-IR dust emission. Such star formation has previously been
difficult to directly detect, but using UV Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide
Field Camera 3 (WFC3) imaging, we have identified individual young stars and
star clusters in four nearby ellipticals. This technique is orders of magnitude
more sensitive than other methods, allowing detections of star formation to
10^(-5) Msun/yr. Ongoing star formation is detected in all galaxies, including
three ellipticals that have previously exhibited potential signposts of star
forming conditions (NGC 4636, NGC 4697, and NGC 4374), as well as the typical
"red and dead" NGC 3379. The current star formation in our closest targets,
where we are most complete, is between 1-8x10^(-5) Msun/yr. The star formation
history was roughly constant from 0.5-1.5 Gyr (at 3-5x10^(-4) Msun/yr), but
decreased by a factor of several in the past 0.3 Gyr. Most star clusters have a
mass between 10^2 - 10^4 Msun. The specific star formation rates of ~10^(-16)
yr^(-1) (at the present day) or ~10^(-14) yr^(-1) (when averaging over the past
Gyr) imply that a fraction 10^(-8) of the stellar mass is younger than 100 Myr
and 10^(-5) is younger than 1 Gyr, quantifying the level of frosting of recent
star formation over the otherwise passive stellar population. There is no
obvious correlation between either the presence or spatial distribution of
postulated star formation indicators and the star formation we detect.


  In this note we study the automorphism group of a smooth Danielewski surface
$D_p= \{(x,y,z) \in \mathbb{A}^3 \mid xy = p(z) \} \subset \mathbb{A}^3$, where
$p \in \mathbb{C}[z]$ is a polynomial without multiple roots and $deg (p) \ge
3$. It is known that two such generic surfaces $D_p$ and $D_q$ have isomorphic
automorphism groups. Moreover, $\mathrm{Aut}(D_p)$ is generated by algebraic
subgroups and there is a natural isomorphism $\phi \colon \mathrm{Aut}(D_p)
\xrightarrow{\sim} \mathrm{Aut}(D_q)$ which restricts to an isomorphism of
algebraic groups $G \xrightarrow{\sim} \phi(G)$ for any algebraic subgroup $G
\subset \mathrm{Aut}(D_p)$. In contrast, we prove that $\mathrm{Aut}(D_p)$ and
$\mathrm{Aut}(D_q)$ are isomorphic as ind-groups if and only if $D_p \cong D_q$
as a variety. Moreover, we show that any automorphism of the ind-group
$\mathrm{Aut}(D_p)$ is inner.


  The Quintessence model is one of the simplest and better known alternatives
to Einstein's theory for gravity. The properties of the solutions have been
studied in great detail in the background, linear and non-linear contexts in
cosmology. Here we discuss new phenomenology that is induced by adding
disformal terms to the interactions. Among other results, we show analytically
and using cosmological simulations ran with the code \texttt{Isis} that the
model posses a mechanism through which is it possible to obtain repulsive fifth
forces, which are opposite to gravity. Although the equations are very complex,
we also find that most of the new phenomenology can be explained by studying
background quantities. We used our simulation data to test approximate
relations that exist between the metric and scalar field perturbations as well
as between the fifth force and gravity. Excellent agreement was found between
exact and approximated solutions, which opens the way for running disformal
gravity cosmological simulations using simply a Newtonian solver. These results
could not only help us to find new ways of testing gravity, but also provide
new motivations for building alternative models.


  I discuss different theories of massive star formation: formation from
massive cores, competitive Bondi-Hoyle accretion, and protostellar collisions.
I summarize basic features of the Turbulent Core Model (TCM). I then introduce
the Orion Kleinmann-Low (KL) region, embedded in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC)
and one of the nearest regions of massive star formation. The KL region
contains three principal radio sources, known as "I", "n" and "BN". BN is known
to be a runaway star, almost certainly set in motion by dynamical ejection
within the ONC from a multiple system of massive stars, that would leave behind
a recoiling, hard, massive, probably eccentric binary. I review the debate
about whether this binary is Theta^1C, the most massive star in the ONC, or
source "I", and argue that it is most likely to be Theta^1C, since this is now
known be a recoiling, hard, massive, eccentric binary, with properties that
satisfy the energy and momentum constraints implied by BN's motion. Source "n"
is a relatively low-mass protostar with extended radio emission suggestive of a
bipolar outflow. Source "I", located near the center of the main gas
concentration in the region, the Orion Hot Core, is the likely location of a
massive protostar that is powering the KL region, and I discuss how its basic
properties are consistent with predictions from the TCM. In this scenario, the
radio emission from source "I" is the base of a bipolar outflow that is ionized
by the massive protostar and should be elongated along the axis of the outflow.


  The European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) will deliver 27000 fully
coherent, high brilliance X-ray pulses per second each with a duration below
100 fs. This will allow the recording of diffraction patterns of single
molecules and the study of ultra-fast processes. One of the detector systems
under development for the XFEL is the Adaptive Gain Integrating Pixel Detector
(AGIPD), which consists of a pixel array with readout ASICs bump-bonded to a
silicon sensor with pixels of 200 {\mu}m \times 200 {\mu}m. The particular
requirements for the detector are a high dynamic range (0, 1 up to 10E5 12 keV
photons/XFEL-pulse), a fast read-out and radiation tolerance up to doses of 1
GGy of 12 keV X-rays for 3 years of operation. At this X-ray energy no bulk
damage in silicon is expected. However fixed oxide charges in the SiO2 layer
and interface traps at the Si-SiO2 interface will build up. As function of the
12 keV X-ray dose the microscopic defects in test structures and the macro-
scopic electrical properties of segmented sensors have been investigated. From
the test structures the oxide charge density, the density of interface traps
and their properties as function of dose have been determined. It is found that
both saturate (and even decrease) for doses above a few MGy. For segmented
sensors surface damage introduced by the X-rays increases the full depletion
voltage, the surface leakage current and the inter-pixel capacitance. In
addition an electron accumulation layer forms at the Si-SiO2 interface which
increases with dose and decreases with applied voltage. Using TCAD simulations
with the dose dependent damage parameters obtained from the test struc- tures
the results of the measurements can be reproduced. This allows the optimization
of the sensor design for the XFEL requirements.


  The treewidth of a graph is a useful combinatorial measure of how close the
graph is to a tree. We prove that a quantum circuit with $T$ gates whose
underlying graph has treewidth $d$ can be simulated deterministically in
$T^{O(1)}\exp[O(d)]$ time, which, in particular, is polynomial in $T$ if
$d=O(\log T)$. Among many implications, we show efficient simulations for
log-depth circuits whose gates apply to nearby qubits only, a natural
constraint satisfied by most physical implementations. We also show that
one-way quantum computation of Raussendorf and Briegel (Physical Review
Letters, 86:5188--5191, 2001), a universal quantum computation scheme with
promising physical implementations, can be efficiently simulated by a
randomized algorithm if its quantum resource is derived from a small-treewidth
graph.


  The recent paper by V. G. Kogan and J. Schmalian Phys. Rev. B 83, 054515
(2011) argues that the widely used two-component Ginzburg-Landau (GL) models
are not correct, and further concludes that in the regime which is described by
a GL theory there could be no disparity in the coherence lengths of two
superconducting components. This would in particular imply that (in contrast to
$U(1)\times U(1)$ superconductors), there could be no "type-1.5"
superconducting regime in U(1) multiband systems for any finite interband
coupling strength. We point out that these claims are incorrect and based on an
erroneous scheme of reduction of a two-component GL theory. We also attach a
separate rejoinder on reply by Kogan and Schmalian. In their reply Phys. Rev. B
86, 016502 (2012) to our comment Phys. Rev. B 86, 016501 (2012) Kogan and
Schmalian did not refute or, indeed, discuss the main points of criticism in
the comment. Unfortunately they instead advance new incorrect claims regarding
two-band and type-1.5 superconductivity. The main purpose of the attached
rejoinder is to discuss these new incorrect claims.


  In this note, we provide a short and robust proof of the Clausius-Mossotti
formula for the effective conductivity in the dilute regime, together with an
optimal error estimate. The proof makes no assumption on the underlying point
process besides stationarity and ergodicity, and can be applied to dilute
systems in many other contexts.


  The high-temperature phase of Yang-Mills theory in Landau gauge is studied
using Dyson-Schwinger equations. The propagators of the gluon and the
Faddeev-Popov ghosts are obtained at finite and infinite temperature, partially
analytically. The results are in good agreement with lattice results. It is
found that the infrared properties are only quantitatively affected by
temperature. The confinement of at least soft gluons transverse to the heat
bath is established, in accordance with the Kugo-Ojima and Gribov-Zwanziger
confinement scenarios. This is confirmed by investigating the corresponding
Schwinger functions. The hard modes are nearly inert even at temperatures of
the order of the phase transition temperature. In addition, the thermodynamic
potential is analyzed and solutions for 3d-Yang-Mills theory are obtained. It
is conjectured that Yang-Mills theory likely undergoes a first order phase
transition, which changes a strongly interacting system into another. The
phases differ mainly by the properties of the chromoelectric sector.


  We present a new method of proving the Diophantine extremality of various
dynamically defined measures, vastly expanding the class of measures known to
be extremal. This generalizes and improves the celebrated theorem of Kleinbock
and Margulis ('98) resolving Sprind\v{z}uk's conjecture, as well as its
extension by Kleinbock, Lindenstrauss, and Weiss ('04), hereafter abbreviated
KLW. As applications we prove the extremality of all hyperbolic measures of
smooth dynamical systems with sufficiently large Hausdorff dimension, and of
the Patterson--Sullivan measures of all nonplanar geometrically finite groups.
The key technical idea, which has led to a plethora of new applications, is a
significant weakening of KLW's sufficient conditions for extremality.
  In Part I, we introduce and develop a systematic account of two classes of
measures, which we call $quasi$-$decaying$ and $weakly$ $quasi$-$decaying$. We
prove that weak quasi-decay implies strong extremality in the matrix
approximation framework (which has received much attention in recent years),
thus proving a conjecture of KLW. We also prove the "inherited exponent of
irrationality" version of this theorem, describing the relationship between the
Diophantine properties of certain subspaces of the space of matrices and
measures supported on these subspaces.
  In subsequent papers, we exhibit numerous examples of quasi-decaying
measures, in support of the thesis that "almost any measure from dynamics
and/or fractal geometry is quasi-decaying". In addition to the examples
described above, we also prove (for example) that Gibbs measures (including
conformal measures) of infinite iterated function systems are quasi-decaying,
even if the systems in question do not satisfy the open set condition. We also
discuss examples of non-extremal measures coming from dynamics, illustrating
where the theory must halt.


  We study the late time flow structure of Richtmyer-Meshkov instability.
Recent numerical work has suggested a self-similar collapse of the development
of this instability at late times, independent of the initial surface profile.
Using the form of collapse suggested, we derive an analytic expression for the
mass-velocity relation in the spikes, and a global theory for the late time
flow structure. We compare these results with fluid dynamical simulation.


  Chiral symmetry breaking in Quantum Chromodynamics is associated with the low
lying spectral modes of the Dirac operator according to the Banks-Casher
relation. Here we study how removal of a variable number of low lying modes
from the valence quark sector affects the masses of the ground states and first
excited states of baryons and mesons in two flavor lattice QCD.