title: Letter of Intent: Jinping Neutrino Experiment

abstract:
  Jinping Neutrino Experiment (Jinping) is proposed to significantly improve
measurements on solar neutrinos and geoneutrinos in China Jinping Laboratory -
a lab with a number of unparalleled features, thickest overburden, lowest
reactor neutrino background, etc., which identify it as the world-best
low-energy neutrino laboratory. The proposed experiment will have target mass
of 4 kilotons of liquid scintillator or water-based liquid scintillator, with a
fiducial mass of 2 kilotons for neutrino-electron scattering events and 3
kilotons for inverse-beta interaction events. A number of initial sensitivities
studies have been carried out, including on the transition phase for the solar
neutrinos oscillation from the vacuum to the matter effect, the discovery of
solar neutrinos from the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle, the resolution of
the high and low metallicity hypotheses, and the unambiguous separation on U
and Th cascade decays from the dominant crustal anti-electron neutrinos in
China.


title:
A model for particle production in nuclear reactions at intermediate
  energies: application to C-C collisions at 95 MeV/nucleon

abstract:
  A model describing nuclear collisions at intermediate energies is presented
and the results are compared with recently measured double differential cross
sections in C-C reactions at 95 MeV/nucleon. Results show the key role played
by geometrical effects and the memory of the entrance channel, in particular
the momentum distributions of the two incoming nuclei. Special attention is
paid to the description of processes occurring at mid-rapidity. To this end, a
random particle production mechanism by means of a coalescence process in
velocity space is considered in the overlap region of the two interacting
nuclei.


title:
The sup-norm vs. the norm of the coefficients: equivalence constants for
  homogeneous polynomials

abstract:
  Let $A_{p,r}^m(n)$ be the best constant that fulfills the following
inequality: for every $m$-homogeneous polynomial $P(z) = \sum_{|\alpha|=m}
a_{\alpha} z^{\alpha}$ in $n$ complex variables, $$\big( \sum_{|\alpha|=m}
|a_{\alpha}|^{r} \big)^{1/r} \leq A_{p,r}^m(n) \sup_{z \in B_{\ell_p^n}}
\big|P(z) \big| .$$ For every degree $m$, and a wide range of values of $ p,r
\in [1,\infty]$ (including any $r$ in the case $p \in [1,2]$, and any $r$ and
$p$ for the 2-homogeneous case), we give the correct asymptotic behavior of
these constants as $n$ (the number of variables) tends to infinity. Remarkably,
in many cases, extremal polynomials for these inequalities are not (as
traditionally expected) found using classical random unimodular polynomials,
and special combinatorial configurations of monomials are needed. Namely, we
show that Steiner polynomials (i.e., $m$-homogeneous polynomials such that the
multi-indices corresponding to the nonzero coefficients form partial Steiner
systems), do the work for certain range of values of $p,r$.
  As a byproduct, we present some applications of these estimates to the
interpolation of tensor products of Banach spaces, to the study of (mixed)
unconditionality in spaces of polynomials and to the multivariable von
Neumann's inequality.


title:
The bolometric light curves and physical parameters of stripped-envelope
  supernovae

abstract:
  The optical and optical/near-infrared pseudo-bolometric light curves of 85
stripped-envelope supernovae (SNe) are constructed using a consistent method
and a standard cosmology. The light curves are analysed to derive temporal
characteristics and peak luminosity $L_{\mathrm{p}}$, enabling the construction
of a luminosity function. Subsequently, the mass of $^{56}$Ni synthesised in
the explosion, along with the ratio of ejecta mass to ejecta kinetic energy,
are found. Analysis shows that host-galaxy extinction is an important factor in
accurately determining luminosity values as it is significantly greater than
Galactic extinction in most cases. It is found that broad-lined SNe~Ic
(SNe~Ic-BL) and gamma-ray burst SNe are the most luminous subtypes with a
combined median $L_{\mathrm{p}}$, in erg s$^{-1}$, of
log($L_{\mathrm{p}})=43.00$ compared to $42.51$ for SNe Ic, $42.50$ for SNe~Ib,
and $42.36$ for SNe~IIb. It is also found that SNe~Ic-BL synthesise
approximately twice the amount of $^{56}$Ni compared with SNe~Ic, Ib, and IIb,
with median $M_{\mathrm{Ni}} = 0.34$, 0.16, 0.14, and 0.11 M$_{\odot}$,
respectively. SNe~Ic-BL, and to a lesser extent SNe~Ic, typically rise from
$L_{\mathrm{p}}/2$ to $L_{\mathrm{p}}$ more quickly than SNe~Ib/IIb;
consequently, their light curves are not as broad.


title:
Optimization of a launcher integration process: a Markov decision
  process approach

abstract:
  This paper is dedicated to the numerical study of the optimization of an
industrial launcher integration process. It is an original case of
inventory-production system where a calendar plays a crucial role. The process
is modeled using the Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) framework. Classical
optimization procedures for MDPs cannot be used because of specificities of the
transition law and cost function. Two simulation-based algorithms are tuned to
fit this special case. We obtain a non trivial optimal policy that can be
applied in practice and significantly outperforms reference policies.


title:
MIMAC low energy electron-recoil discrimination measured with fast
  neutrons

abstract:
  MIMAC (MIcro-TPC MAtrix of Chambers) is a directional WIMP Dark Matter
detector project. Direct dark matter experiments need a high level of
electron/recoil discrimination to search for nuclear recoils produced by
WIMP-nucleus elastic scattering. In this paper, we proposed an original method
for electron event rejection based on a multivariate analysis applied to
experimental data acquired using monochromatic neutron fields. This analysis
shows that a $10^5$ rejection power is reachable for electron/recoil
discrimination. Moreover, the efficiency was estimated by a Monte-Carlo
simulation showing that a 105 electron rejection power is reached with a
$86.49\pm 0.17$\% nuclear recoil efficiency considering the full energy range
and $94.67\pm0.19$\% considering a 5~keV lower threshold.


title: The Parameterized Complexity of the Minimum Shared Edges Problem

abstract:
  We study the NP-complete Minimum Shared Edges (MSE) problem. Given an
undirected graph, a source and a sink vertex, and two integers p and k, the
question is whether there are p paths in the graph connecting the source with
the sink and sharing at most k edges. Herein, an edge is shared if it appears
in at least two paths. We show that MSE is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the
treewidth of the input graph and the number k of shared edges combined. We show
that MSE is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to p, but does not admit a
polynomial-size kernel (unless NP is contained in coNP/poly). In the proof of
the fixed-parameter tractability of MSE parameterized by p, we employ the
treewidth reduction technique due to Marx, O'Sullivan, and Razgon [ACM TALG
2013].


title:
Five transiting hot Jupiters discovered using WASP-South, Euler and
  TRAPPIST: WASP-119 b, WASP-124 b, WASP-126 b, WASP-129 b and WASP-133 b

abstract:
  We have used photometry from the WASP-South instrument to identify 5 stars
showing planet-like transits in their light curves. The planetary nature of the
companions to these stars has been confirmed using photometry from the EulerCam
instrument on the Swiss Euler 1.2-m telescope and the TRAPPIST telescope, and
spectroscopy obtained with the CORALIE spectrograph. The planets discovered are
hot Jupiter systems with orbital periods in the range 2.17 to 5.75 days, masses
from 0.3M$_{\rm Jup}$ to 1.2M$_{\rm Jup}$ and with radii from 1R$_{\rm Jup}$ to
1.5R$_{\rm Jup}$. These planets orbit bright stars (V = 11-13) with spectral
types in the range F9 to G4. WASP-126 is the brightest planetary system in this
sample and hosts a low-mass planet with a large radius (0.3 M$_{\rm Jup}$ ,
0.95R$_{\rm Jup}$), making it a good target for transmission spectroscopy. The
high density of WASP-129 A suggests that it is a helium-rich star similar to
HAT-P-11 A. WASP-133 has an enhanced surface lithium abundance compared to
other old G-type stars, particularly other planet host stars. These planetary
systems are good targets for follow-up observations with ground-based and
space-based facilities to study their atmospheric and dynamical properties.


title: Structure of modular invariant subalgebras in free Araki-Woods factors

abstract:
  We show that any amenable von Neumann subalgebra of any free Araki-Woods
factor that is globally invariant under the modular automorphism group of the
free quasi-free state is necessarily contained in the almost periodic free
summand.


title: Goldilocks domains, a weak notion of visibility, and applications

abstract:
  In this paper we introduce a new class of domains in complex Euclidean space,
called Goldilocks domains, and study their complex geometry. These domains are
defined in terms of a lower bound on how fast the Kobayashi metric grows and an
upper bound on how fast the Kobayashi distance grows as one approaches the
boundary. Strongly pseudoconvex domains and weakly pseudoconvex domains of
finite type always satisfy this Goldilocks condition, but we also present
families of Goldilocks domains that have low boundary regularity or have
boundary points of infinite type. We will show that the Kobayashi metric on
these domains behaves, in some sense, like a negatively curved Riemannian
metric. In particular, it satisfies a visibility condition in the sense of
Eberlein and O'Neill. This behavior allows us to prove a variety of results
concerning boundary extension of maps and to establish Wolff-Denjoy theorems
for a wide collection of domains.


title: Inferring the perturbation time from biological time course data

abstract:
  Time course data are often used to study the changes to a biological process
after perturbation. Statistical methods have been developed to determine
whether such a perturbation induces changes over time, e.g. comparing a
perturbed and unperturbed time course dataset to uncover differences. However,
existing methods do not provide a principled statistical approach to identify
the specific time when the two time course datasets first begin to diverge
after a perturbation; we call this the perturbation time. Estimation of the
perturbation time for different variables in a biological process allows us to
identify the sequence of events following a perturbation and therefore provides
valuable insights into likely causal relationships.
  In this paper, we propose a Bayesian method to infer the perturbation time
given time course data from a wild-type and perturbed system. We use a
non-parametric approach based on Gaussian Process regression. We derive a
probabilistic model of noise-corrupted and replicated time course data coming
from the same profile before the perturbation time and diverging after the
perturbation time. The likelihood function can be worked out exactly for this
model and the posterior distribution of the perturbation time is obtained by a
simple histogram approach, without recourse to complex approximate inference
algorithms. We validate the method on simulated data and apply it to study the
transcriptional change occurring in Arabidopsis following inoculation with P.
syringae pv. tomato DC3000 versus the disarmed strain DC3000hrpA.
  An R package, DEtime, implementing the method is available at
https://github.com/ManchesterBioinference/DEtime along with the data and code
required to reproduce all the results.


title:
Short-term variability and mass loss in Be stars I. BRITE satellite
  photometry of $\eta$ and $\mu$ Centauri

abstract:
  Empirical evidence for the involvement of nonradial pulsations (NRP's) in the
mass loss from Be stars ranges from (i) a singular case (\object{$\mu$ Cen}) of
repetitive mass ejections triggered by multi-mode beating to (ii) several
photometric reports about enormous numbers of pulsation modes popping up during
outbursts and on to (iii) effective single-mode pulsators.
  The BRITE Constellation of nanosatellites was used to obtain mmag photometry
of the Be stars $\eta$ and \object{$\mu$ Cen}.
  In the low-inclination star \object{$\mu$ Cen}, light pollution by variable
amounts of near-stellar matter prevented any new insights into the variability
and other properties of the central star. In the equator-on star \object{$\eta$
Cen}, BRITE photometry and {\sc Heros} echelle spectroscopy from the 1990s
reveal an intricate clockwork of star-disk interactions. The mass transfer is
modulated with the frequency difference of two NRP modes and an amplitude three
times as large as the amplitude sum of the two NRP modes. This process feeds a
high-amplitude circumstellar activity running with the incoherent and slightly
lower so-called \v{S}tefl frequency. The mass loss-modulation cycles are
tightly coupled to variations in the value of the \v{S}tefl frequency and in
its amplitude, albeit with strongly drifting phase differences.
  The observations are well described by the decomposition of the mass loss
into a pulsation-related engine in the star and a viscosity-dominated engine in
the circumstellar disk. Arguments are developed that large-scale
gas-circulation flows occur at the interface. The propagation rates of these
eddies manifest themselves as \v{S}tefl frequencies. Bursts in power spectra
during mass-loss events can be understood as the noise inherent to these gas
flows.


title: The Price of an Electroweak Monopole

abstract:
  In a recent paper, Cho, Kim and Yoon (CKY) have proposed a version of the
SU(2) $\times$ U(1) Standard Model with finite-energy monopole and dyon
solutions. The CKY model postulates that the effective U(1) gauge coupling $\to
\infty$ very rapidly as the Englert-Brout-Higgs vacuum expectation value $\to
0$, but in a way that is incompatible with LHC measurements of the Higgs boson
$H \to \gamma \gamma$ decay rate. We construct generalizations of the CKY model
that are compatible with the $H \to \gamma \gamma$ constraint, and calculate
the corresponding values of the monopole and dyon masses. We find that the
monopole mass could be $< 5.5$ TeV, so that it could be pair-produced at the
LHC and accessible to the MoEDAL experiment.


title: Optimizing parameter constraints: a new tool for Fisher matrix forecasts

abstract:
  In a Bayesian context, theoretical parameters are correlated random
variables. Then, the constraints on one parameter can be improved by either
measuring this parameter more precisely - or by measuring the other parameters
more precisely. Especially in the case of many parameters, a lengthy process of
guesswork is then needed to determine the most efficient way to improve one
parameter's constraints. In this short article, we highlight an extremely
simple analytical expression that replaces the guesswork and that facilitates a
deeper understanding of optimization with interdependent parameters.


title:
Topological aspects of symmetry breaking in triangular-lattice Ising
  antiferromagnets

abstract:
  Using a specially designed Monte Carlo algorithm with directed loops, we
investigate the triangular lattice Ising antiferromagnet with coupling beyond
nearest neighbour. We show that the first-order transition from the stripe
state to the paramagnet can be split, giving rise to an intermediate nematic
phase in which algebraic correlations coexist with a broken symmetry.
Furthermore, we demonstrate the emergence of several properties of a more
topological nature such as fractional edge excitations in the stripe state, the
proliferation of double domain walls in the nematic phase, and the Kasteleyn
transition between them. Experimental implications are briefly discussed.


title: Optical control of charged exciton states in tungsten disulfide

abstract:
  A method is presented for optically preparing WS2 monolayers to luminesce
from only the charged exciton (trion) state--completely suppressing the neutral
exciton. When isolating the trion state, we observed changes in the Raman A1g
intensity and an enhanced feature on the low energy side of the E12g peak.
Photoluminescence and optical reflectivity measurements confirm the existence
of the prepared trion state. This technique also prepares intermediate regimes
with controlled luminescence amplitudes of the neutral and charged exciton.
This effect is reversible by exposing the sample to air, indicating the change
is mitigated by surface interactions with the ambient environment. This method
provides a tool to modify optical emission energy and to isolate physical
processes in this and other two-dimensional materials.


title: A group-invariant version of Lehmer's conjecture on heights

abstract:
  We state and prove an equivariant version of Lehmer's conjecture on heights,
generalizing papers by Zagier (1993) and Dresden (1998) which are special cases
of this theorem. We also extend their three cases to a full classification of
all groups satisfying the condition that the set of all orbits for which every
non-zero element lies on the unit circle is finite and non-empty.


title: $L^q$ norms of Fekete and related polynomials

abstract:
  A Littlewood polynomial is a polynomial in $\mathbb{C}[z]$ having all of its
coefficients in $\{-1,1\}$. There are various old unsolved problems, mostly due
to Littlewood and Erd\H{o}s, that ask for Littlewood polynomials that provide a
good approximation to a function that is constant on the complex unit circle,
and in particular have small $L^q$ norm on the complex unit circle. We consider
the Fekete polynomials \[ f_p(z)=\sum_{j=1}^{p-1}(j\mid p)\,z^j, \] where $p$
is an odd prime and $(\,\cdot\mid p)$ is the Legendre symbol (so that
$z^{-1}f_p(z)$ is a Littlewood polynomial). We give explicit and recursive
formulas for the limit of the ratio of $L^q$ and $L^2$ norm of $f_p(z)$ when
$q$ is an even positive integer and $p\to\infty$. To our knowledge, these are
the first results that give these limiting values for specific sequences of
nontrivial Littlewood polynomials and infinitely many $q$. Similar results are
given for polynomials obtained by cyclically permuting the coefficients of
Fekete polynomials and for Littlewood polynomials whose coefficients are
obtained from additive characters of finite fields. These results vastly
generalise earlier results on the $L^4$ norm of these polynomials.


title: Contagious Sets in Random Graphs

abstract:
  We consider the following activation process in undirected graphs: a vertex
is active either if it belongs to a set of initially activated vertices or if
at some point it has at least $r$ active neighbors. A \emph{contagious set} is
a set whose activation results with the entire graph being active. Given a
graph $G$, let $m(G,r)$ be the minimal size of a contagious set.
  We study this process on the binomial random graph $G:=G(n,p)$ with $p: =
\frac{d}{n}$ and $1 \ll d \ll \left(\frac{n \log \log n}{\log^2
n}\right)^{\frac{r-1}{r}}$. Assuming $r > 1$ to be a constant that does not
depend on $n$, we prove that $$m(G,r) =
\Theta\left(\frac{n}{d^{\frac{r}{r-1}}\log d}\right),$$ with high probability.
We also show that the threshold probability for $m(G,r)=r$ to hold is
$p^*=\Theta\left(\frac{1}{(n \log^{r-1} n)^{1/r}}\right)$.


title:
Reforming the international system of units: On our way to redefine the
  base units solely from fundamental constants and beyond

abstract:
  Our purpose is to offer a logical analysis of the system of units and to
explore possible paths towards a consistent and unified system with an original
perspective. The path taken here builds on the fact that, thanks to optical or
matter-wave interferometry, any measurement can be reduced to a dimensionless
phase measurement and we follow this simple guiding line. We finally show how
one could progress even further on the path of a synthetic framework for
fundamental metrology based upon pure geometry in five dimensions.


title: On approximation of joint fixed points

abstract:
  For a given partially ordered set (poset) and a given family of mappings of
the poset into itself, we study the problem of the description of joint fixed
points of this family. Well-known Tarski's theorem gives the structure of the
set of joint fixed points of isotone automorphisms on a complete lattice. This
theorem has several generalizations (see., e.g., Markowsky, Ronse) that weaken
demands on the order structure and upgrade in an appropriate manner the
assertion on the structure of the set of joint fixed points. However, there is
a lack of the statements similar to Kantorovich or Kleene theorems, describing
the set of joint fixed points in terms of convergent sequences of the operator
degrees. The paper provids conditions on the poset and on the family; these
conditions ensure that the iterative sequences of elements of this family
approximate the set of joint fixed points. The result obtained develops in a
constructive direction the mentioned theorems on joint fixed points.


title: The Global Solar Dynamo

abstract:
  A brief summary of the various observations and constraints that underlie
solar dynamo research are presented. The arguments that indicate that the solar
dynamo is an alpha-omega dynamo of the Babcock-Leighton type are then shortly
reviewed. The main open questions that remain are concerned with the subsurface
dynamics, including why sunspots emerge at preferred latitudes as seen in the
familiar butterfly wings, why the cycle is about 11 years long, and why the
sunspot groups emerge tilted with respect to the equator (Joy's law). Next, we
turn to magnetic helicity, whose conservation property has been identified with
the decline of large-scale magnetic fields found in direct numerical
simulations at large magnetic Reynolds numbers. However, magnetic helicity
fluxes through the solar surface can alleviate this problem and connect theory
with observations, as will be discussed.


title: Time-of-flight Fourier UCN spectrometer

abstract:
  We describe a new time-of-flight Fourier spectrometer for investigation of
UCN diffraction by a moving grating. The device operates in the regime of a
discrete set of modulation frequencies. The results of the first experiments
show that the spectrometer may be used for obtaining UCN energy spectra in the
energy range of 60$\div$200 neV with a resolution of about 5 neV. The accuracy
of determination of the line position was estimated to be several units of
$10^{-10}$ eV


title:
Magnetic ground state and spin fluctuations in MnGe chiral magnet as
  studied by Muon Spin Rotation

abstract:
  We have studied by muon spin resonance ({\mu}SR) the helical ground state and
fluctuating chiral phase recently observed in the MnGe chiral magnet. At low
temperature, the muon polarization shows double period oscillations at short
time scales. Their analysis, akin to that recently developed for MnSi [A. Amato
et al., Phys. Rev. B 89, 184425 (2014)], provides an estimation of the field
distribution induced by the Mn helical order at the muon site. The refined muon
position agrees nicely with ab initio calculations. With increasing
temperature, an inhomogeneous fluctuating chiral phase sets in, characterized
by two well separated frequency ranges which coexist in the sample. Rapid and
slow fluctuations, respectively associated with short range and long range
ordered helices, coexist in a large temperature range below T$_{N}$ = 170 K. We
discuss the results with respect to MnSi, taking the short helical period,
metastable quenched state and peculiar band structure of MnGe into account.


title: Be Stars as Seen Through Telescopes in Survey Mode (I)

abstract:
  In spite of the almost all-encompassing variability of Be stars, surveys play
a steadily increasing role in complementing the insights gained from
single-star studies. The definition of classical Be stars as recently augmented
by \cite{Rivinius2013} enables unambiguous identification of Be stars in a much
increased range of observations. Results of targeted surveys are briefly
reviewed for the effects of metallicity, binarity, and evolution. It still
remains to be seen whether Be stars are safe benchmarks for the calibration of
evolutionary models with rapid rotation.


title: Asymptotics and local constancy of characters of p-adic groups

abstract:
  In this paper we study quantitative aspects of trace characters $\Theta_\pi$
of reductive $p$-adic groups when the representation $\pi$ varies. Our approach
is based on the local constancy of characters and we survey some other related
results. We formulate a conjecture on the behavior of $\Theta_\pi$ relative to
the formal degree of $\pi$, which we are able to prove in the case where $\pi$
is a tame supercuspidal. The proof builds on J.-K.~Yu's construction and the
structure of Moy-Prasad subgroups.


title: Category Free Category Theory and Its Philosophical Implications

abstract:
  There exists a dispute in philosophy, going back at least to Leibniz, whether
is it possible to view the world as a network of relations and relations
between relations with the role of objects, between which these relations hold,
entirely eliminated. Category theory seems to be the correct mathematical
theory for clarifying conceptual possibilities in this respect. In this theory,
objects acquire their identity either by definition, when in defining category
we postulate the existence of objects, or formally by the existence of identity
morphisms. We show that it is perfectly possible to get rid of the identity of
objects by definition, but the formal identity of objects remains as an
essential element of the theory. This can be achieved by defining category
exclusively in terms of morphisms and identity morphisms (objectless, or object
free, category) and, analogously, by defining category theory entirely in terms
of functors and identity functors (categoryless, or category free, category
theory). With objects and categories eliminated, we focus on the "philosophy of
arrows" and the roles various identities play in it (identities as such,
identities up to isomorphism, identities up to natural isomorphism...). This
perspective elucides a contrast between "set ontology" and "categorical
ontology".


title:
Quenched invariance principle for random walks with time-dependent
  ergodic degenerate weights

abstract:
  We study a continuous-time random walk, $X$, on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ in an
environment of dynamic random conductances taking values in $(0, \infty)$. We
assume that the law of the conductances is ergodic with respect to space-time
shifts. We prove a quenched invariance principle for the Markov process $X$
under some moment conditions on the environment. The key result on the
sublinearity of the corrector is obtained by Moser's iteration scheme.


title: On Betti numbers of flag complexes with forbidden induced subgraphs

abstract:
  We analyze the asymptotic extremal growth rate of the Betti numbers of clique
complexes of graphs on n vertices not containing a fixed forbidden induced
subgraph H.
  In particular, we prove a theorem of the alternative: for any H the growth
rate achieves exactly one of five possible exponentials, that is, independent
of the field of coefficients, the nth root of the maximal total Betti number
over n-vertex graphs with no induced copy of H has a limit, as n tends to
infinity, and, ranging over all H, exactly five different limits are attained.
  For the interesting case where H is the 4-cycle, the above limit is 1, and we
prove a slightly superpolynomial upper bound.


title: Twist expansion of forward Drell-Yan process

abstract:
  We present a twist expansion of differential cross-sections of the forward
Drell-Yan process at the high energies. The expansion of all invariant
form-factors is performed assuming GBW saturation model and the saturation
scale plays the role of the hadronic scale of OPE. Some expilicit predictions
for LHC experiments are given. It is shown also how the Lam-Tung relation is
broken at twist 4 what provides a sensitive probe for searching of higher
twists.


title:
Dynamics following a linear ramps in the $O(N)$ model: dynamical
  transition and statistics of excitations

abstract:
  Non-thermal dynamical critical behavior can arise in isolated quantum systems
brought out of equilibirum by a change in time of their parameters. While this
phenomenon has been studied in a variety of systems in the case of a sudden
quench, here we consider its sensitivity to a change of protocol by considering
the experimentally relevant case of a linear ramp in time. Focusing on the
$O(N)$ model in the large $N$ limit, we show that a dynamical phase transition
is always present for all ramp durations and discuss the resulting crossover
between the sudden quench transition and one dominated by the equilibrium
quantum critical point. We show that the critical behavior of the statistics of
the excitations, signaling the non-thermal nature of the transition are robust
against changing protocol. An intriguing crossover in the equal time
correlation function, related to an anomalous coarsening is also discussed.


title:
A double oracle approach for minmax regret optimization problems with
  interval data

abstract:
  In this paper, we provide a generic anytime lower bounding procedure for
minmax regret optimization problems. We show that the lower bound obtained is
always at least as accurate as the lower bound recently proposed by Chassein
and Goerigk (2015). This lower bound can be viewed as the optimal value of a
linear programming relaxation of a mixed integer programming formulation of
minmax regret optimization, but the contribution of the paper is to compute
this lower bound via a double oracle algorithm (McMahan et al., 2003) that we
specify. The double oracle algorithm is designed by relying on a game theoretic
view of robust optimization, similar to the one developed by Mastin et al.
(2015), and it can be efficiently implemented for any minmax regret
optimization problem whose standard version is "easy". We describe how to
efficiently embed this lower bound in a branch and bound procedure. Finally, we
apply our approach to the robust shortest path problem. Our numerical results
show a significant gain in the computation times compared to previous
approaches in the literature.


title:
Constraints on the Coupling between Dark Energy and Dark Matter from CMB
  data

abstract:
  We investigate a phenomenological non-gravitational coupling between dark
energy and dark matter, where the interaction in the dark sector is
parameterized as an energy transfer either from dark matter to dark energy or
the opposite. The models are constrained by a whole host of updated
cosmological data: cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies and
polarization, high-redshift supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift
space distortions and gravitational lensing. Both models are found to be
compatible with all cosmological observables, but in the case where dark matter
decays into dark energy, the tension with the independent determinations of
$H_0$ and $\sigma_8$, already present for standard cosmology, increases: this
model in fact predicts lower $H_0$ and higher $\sigma_8$, mostly as a
consequence of the higher amount of dark matter at early times, leading to a
stronger clustering during the evolution. Instead, when dark matter is fed by
dark energy, the reconstructed values of $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$ nicely agree with
their local determinations, with a full reconciliation between high- and
low-redshift observations. A non-zero coupling between dark energy and dark
matter, with an energy flow from the former to the latter, appears therefore to
be in better agreement with cosmological data.


title:
Diverse anisotropy of phonon transport in two-dimensional IV-VI
  compounds: A comparative study

abstract:
  New classes two-dimensional (2D) materials beyond graphene, including layered
and non-layered, and their heterostructures, are currently attracting
increasing interest due to their promising applications in nanoelectronics,
optoelectronics and clean energy, where thermal transport property is one of
the fundamental physical parameters. In this paper, we systematically
investigated the phonon transport properties of 2D orthorhombic group IV-VI
compounds of $GeS$, $GeSe$, $SnS$ and $SnSe$ by solving the Boltzmann transport
equation (BTE) based on first-principles calculations. Despite the similar
puckered (hinge-like) structure along the armchair direction as phosphorene,
the four monolayer compounds possess diverse anisotropic properties in many
aspects, such as phonon group velocity, Young's modulus and lattice thermal
conductivity ($\kappa$), etc. Especially, the $\kappa$ along the zigzag and
armchair directions of monolayer $GeS$ shows the strongest anisotropy while
monolayer $SnS$ and $SnSe$ shows an almost isotropy in phonon transport. The
origin of the diverse anisotropy is fully studied and the underlying mechanism
is discussed in detail. With limited size, the $\kappa$ could be effectively
lowered, and the anisotropy could be effectively modulated by nanostructuring,
which would extend the applications in nanoscale thermoelectrics and thermal
management. Our study offers fundamental understanding of the anisotropic
phonon transport properties of 2D materials, and would be of significance for
further study, modulation and aplications in emerging technologies.


title:
Lattice calculation of the leading strange quark-connected contribution
  to the muon $g-2$

abstract:
  We present results for the leading hadronic contribution to the muon
anomalous magnetic moment due to strange quark-connected vacuum polarisation
effects. Simulations were performed using RBC--UKQCD's $N_f=2+1$ domain wall
fermion ensembles with physical light sea quark masses at two lattice spacings.
We consider a large number of analysis scenarios in order to obtain solid
estimates for residual systematic effects. Our final result in the continuum
limit is $a_\mu^{(2)\,{\rm
had},\,s}=53.1(9)\left(^{+1}_{-3}\right)\times10^{-10}$.


title:
Randomized Quasi-Newton Updates are Linearly Convergent Matrix Inversion
  Algorithms

abstract:
  We develop and analyze a broad family of stochastic/randomized algorithms for
inverting a matrix. We also develop specialized variants maintaining symmetry
or positive definiteness of the iterates. All methods in the family converge
globally and linearly (i.e., the error decays exponentially), with explicit
rates. In special cases, we obtain stochastic block variants of several
quasi-Newton updates, including bad Broyden (BB), good Broyden (GB),
Powell-symmetric-Broyden (PSB), Davidon-Fletcher-Powell (DFP) and
Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS). Ours are the first stochastic versions
of these updates shown to converge to an inverse of a fixed matrix. Through a
dual viewpoint we uncover a fundamental link between quasi-Newton updates and
approximate inverse preconditioning. Further, we develop an adaptive variant of
randomized block BFGS, where we modify the distribution underlying the
stochasticity of the method throughout the iterative process to achieve faster
convergence. By inverting several matrices from varied applications, we
demonstrate that AdaRBFGS is highly competitive when compared to the well
established Newton-Schulz and minimal residual methods. In particular, on
large-scale problems our method outperforms the standard methods by orders of
magnitude. Development of efficient methods for estimating the inverse of very
large matrices is a much needed tool for preconditioning and variable metric
optimization methods in the advent of the big data era.


title: On the mass and origin of Chariklo's rings

abstract:
  Observations in 2013 and 2014 of the Centaur 10199 Chariklo and its ring
system consistently indicated that the radial width of the inner, more massive
ring varies with longitude. That strongly suggests that this ring has a finite
eccentricity despite the fast differential precession that Chariklo's large
quadrupole moment should induce. If the inferred apse alignment is maintained
by the ring's self-gravity, as it is for the Uranian rings, we estimate a ring
mass of a few times 10^16 g and a typical particle size of a few meters. These
imply a short collisional spreading time of ~10^5 years, somewhat shorter than
the typical Centaur dynamical lifetime of a few Myrs and much shorter than the
age of the solar system. In light of this time constraint, we evaluate
previously suggested ring formation pathways including collisional ejection and
satellite disruption. We also investigate in detail a contrasting formation
mechanism, the lofting of dust particles off Chariklo's surface into orbit via
outflows of sublimating CO and/or N_2 triggered after Chariklo was scattered
inward by giant planets. This latter scenario predicts that rings should be
common among 100-km class Centaurs but rare among Kuiper belt objects and
smaller Centaurs. It also predicts that Centaurs should show seasonal
variations in cometary activity with activity maxima occurring shortly after
equinox.


title: Hypergraph Versals

abstract:
  Let H be a hypergraph on n vertices with the property that no edge contains
another. We prove some results for a special case of the Isolation Lemma when
the label set for the edges of H can only take two values. Given any set of
vertices S and an edge e, the weight of S in e is the size of e plus the size
of the intersection of S and e. A versal S for an edge e is a set of vertices
with weight in e smaller than the weight in any other edge. We show that H
always has at least n + 1 versals except if H is either the set of all
singletons T_n or the complement of T_n or the 4-cycle graph. In those
exceptional cases there are only n versals.


title: On Quantum Obfuscation

abstract:
  Encryption of data is fundamental to secure communication in the modern
world. Beyond encryption of data lies obfuscation, i.e., encryption of
functionality. It is well-known that the most powerful means of obfuscating
classical programs, so-called ``black-box obfuscation',' is provably impossible
[Barak et al '12]. However, several recent results have yielded candidate
schemes that satisfy a definition weaker than black-box, and yet still have
numerous applications.
  In this work, we initialize the rigorous study of obfuscating programs via
quantum-mechanical means. We define notions of quantum obfuscation which
encompass several natural variants. The input to the obfuscator can describe
classical or quantum functionality, and the output can be a circuit description
or a quantum state. The obfuscator can also satisfy one of a number of
obfuscation conditions: black-box, information-theoretic black-box,
indistinguishability, and best possible; the last two conditions come in three
variants: perfect, statistical, and computational. We discuss many
applications, including CPA-secure quantum encryption, quantum
fully-homomorphic encryption, and public-key quantum money.
  We then prove several impossibility results, extending a number of
foundational papers on classical obfuscation to the quantum setting. We prove
that quantum black-box obfuscation is impossible in a setting where adversaries
can possess more than one output of the obfuscator. In particular, generic
transformation of quantum circuits into black-box-obfuscated quantum circuits
is impossible. We also show that statistical indistinguishability obfuscation
is impossible, up to an unlikely complexity-theoretic collapse. Our proofs
involve a new tool: chosen-ciphertext-secure encryption of quantum data, which
was recently shown to be possible assuming quantum-secure one-way functions
exist [Alagic et al '16].


title:
Dark Energy and Dark Matter from Yang-Mills Condensate and the
  Peccei-Quinn mechanism

abstract:
  We analyze a model of cold axion Dark Matter weakly coupled with a dark gluon
condensate, reproducing Dark Energy. We first review how to recover the Dark
Energy behavior using the functional renormalization group approach, and ground
our study on the properties of the effective Lagrangian, to be determined
non-perturbatively. Then, within the context of $G_{SM}\times SU(2)_{D}\times
U(1)_{PQ}$, we consider YMC interactions with QCD axions. We predict a transfer
of Dark Energy density into Dark Matter density in a cosmological time that can
be tested in the next generation of experiments dedicated to Dark Energy
measures.


title:
High-energy resummation effects in the production of Mueller-Navelet
  dijet at the LHC

abstract:
  We study the production of two forward jets with a large interval of rapidity
at hadron colliders, which was proposed by Mueller and Navelet as a possible
test of the high energy dynamics of QCD, within a complete next-to-leading
logarithm framework. We show that using the Brodsky-Lepage-Mackenzie procedure
to fix the renormalization scale leads to a very good description of the recent
CMS data at the LHC for the azimuthal correlations of the jets. We show that
the inclusion of next-to-leading order corrections to the jet vertex
significantly reduces the importance of energy-momentum non-conservation which
is inherent to the BFKL approach, for an asymmetric jet configuration. Finally,
we argue that the double parton scattering contribution is negligible in the
kinematics of actual CMS measurements.


title:
Revealing transversity GPDs through the photoproduction of a photon and
  a $\rho$ meson

abstract:
  Photoproduction of a pair of particles with large invariant mass is a natural
extension of collinear QCD factorization theorems which have been much studied
for deeply virtual Compton scattering and deeply virtual meson production. We
discuss the production of a photon and a meson, where the wide angle Compton
scattering on a meson subprocess factorizes from generalized parton
distribution. We calculate at dominant twist and leading order in $\alpha_s$,
the production cross-section of a transversely polarized $\rho$ meson which is
sensitive to chiral-odd GPDs, and show that it may be measurable in near future
JLab experiments.


title:
Enhanced violation of the Collins-Gisin-Linden-Massar-Popescu inequality
  with optimized time-bin-entangled ququarts

abstract:
  High-dimensional quantum entanglement is drawing attention because it enables
us to perform quantum information tasks that are robust against noises. To test
the nonlocality of entangled qudits, the Collins-Gisin-Linden-Massar-Popescu
(CGLMP) inequality has been proposed and demonstrated using qudits based on
orbital angular momentum, time-energy uncertainty, and frequency bins. Here, we
report the generation and observation of time-bin entangled ququarts. We
implemented a measurement for the CGLMP inequality test using cascaded delay
Mach-Zehnder interferometers fabricated by using planar lightwave circuit
technology, with which we achieved a precise and stable measurement for
time-bin-entangled ququarts. In addition, we generated an optimized entangled
state by modulating the pump pulse intensities, with which we can observe the
theoretical maximum violation for the CGLMP inequality test. As a result, we
successfully observed a Bell-type parameter $S_4 = 2.774 \pm 0.025$ violating
the CGLMP inequality for the maximally entangled state and an enhanced
Bell-type parameter $S_4 = 2.913 \pm 0.023$ for the optimized entangled state.


title: p-adic L-functions for unitary groups

abstract:
  This paper completes the construction of $p$-adic $L$-functions for unitary
groups. More precisely, in 2006, the last three named authors proposed an
approach to constructing such $p$-adic $L$-functions (Part I). Building on more
recent results, including the first named author's construction of Eisenstein
measures and $p$-adic differential operators, Part II of the present paper
provides the calculations of local $\zeta$-integrals occurring in the Euler
product (including at $p$). Part III of the present paper develops the
formalism needed to pair Eisenstein measures with Hida families in the setting
of the doubling method.


title:
Scalable Isocontour Visualization in Road Networks via Minimum-Link
  Paths

abstract:
  Isocontours in road networks represent the area that is reachable from a
source within a given resource limit. We study the problem of computing
accurate isocontours in realistic, large-scale networks. We propose polygons
with minimum number of segments that separate reachable and unreachable
components of the network. Since the resulting problem is not known to be
solvable in polynomial time, we introduce several heuristics that are simple
enough to be implemented in practice. A key ingredient is a new practical
linear-time algorithm for minimum-link paths in simple polygons. Experiments in
a challenging realistic setting show excellent performance of our algorithms in
practice, answering queries in a few milliseconds on average even for long
ranges.


title: Dynamics of Plant Growth; A Theory Based on Riemannian Geometry

abstract:
  In this work, a new model for macroscopic plant tissue growth based on
dynamical Riemannian geometry is presented. We treat 1D and 2D tissues as
continuous, deformable, growing geometries for sizes larger than 1mm. The
dynamics of the growing tissue are described by a set of coupled tensor
equations in non-Euclidean (curved) space. These coupled equations represent a
novel feedback mechanism between growth and curvature dynamics.
  For 1D growth, numerical simulations are compared to two measures of root
growth. First, modular growth along the simulated root shows an elongation zone
common to many species of plant roots. Second, the relative elemental growth
rate (REGR) calculated in silico exhibits temporal dynamics recently
characterized in high-resolution root growth studies but which thus far lack a
biological hypothesis to explain them. Namely, the REGR can evolve from a
single peak localized near the root tip to a double-peak structure. In our
model, this is a direct consequence of considering growth as both a geometric
reaction-diffusion process and expansion due to a distributed source of new
materials.
  In 2D, we study a circularly symmetric growing disk with emergent negative
curvatures. These results are compared against thin disk experiments, which are
a proxy model for plant leaves. These results also apply to the curvature
evolution and the inhomogeneous growth pattern of the Acetabularia cap. Lastly,
we extend the model to anisotropic disks and predict the growth dynamics for a
2D curved surface which develops an elongated shape with localized ruffling.
  Our model also provides several measures of the dynamics of tissue growth.
These include the time evolution of the metric and velocity field, which are
dynamical variables in the model, as well as expansion, shear and rotation
which are deformation tensors characterizing the growth of the tissue.


title: Fibers of Polynomial Mappings Over Rn

abstract:
  We prove results on fibers of polynomial mappings Rn ! Rn and deduce when
such mappings are surjective under certain conditions.


title: Yang-Mills Theory and the ABC Conjecture

abstract:
  We establish a precise correspondence between the ABC Conjecture and N=4
super-Yang-Mills theory.
  This is achieved by combining three ingredients: (i) Elkies' method of
mapping ABC-triples to elliptic curves in his demonstration that ABC implies
Mordell/Faltings; (ii) an explicit pair of elliptic curve and associated Belyi
map given by Khadjavi-Scharaschkin; and (iii) the fact that the bipartite
brane-tiling/dimer model for a gauge theory with toric moduli space is a
particular dessin d'enfant in the sense of Grothendieck.
  We explore this correspondence for the highest quality ABC-triples as well as
large samples of random triples. The Conjecture itself is mapped to a statement
about the fundamental domain of the toroidal compactification of the string
realization of N=4 SYM.


title:
Comments on 'Phonon and magnetic structure in {\delta}-plutonium from
  density-functional theory' by P. S\"oderlind et al

abstract:
  In their recent paper [S\"oderlind, P. et al., Sci. Rep. 5, 15958 (2015)],
S\"oderlind et al. discuss two subjects from a theoretical point of view: the
phonon spectra and the possible magnetic structure of {\delta}-plutonium (Pu).
Here, we comment on the second subject. S\"oderlind et al. compare the Pu
magnetic form factor F(Q) calculated via density functional theory (DFT) with
measurements of F(Q) by neutron spectroscopy [Janoschek, M. et al., Sci. Adv.
1, e1500188 (2015)]. In particular, this comparison does not consider a number
of experimental facts established in the neutron spectroscopy study.


title: Cofinite Connectedness and Cofinite Group Actions

abstract:
  We have defined and established a theory of cofinite connectedness of a
cofinite graph. Many of the properties of connectedness of topological spaces
have analogs for cofinite connectedness. We have seen that if $G$ is a cofinite
group and Gamma=Gamma(G,X) is the Cayley graph. Then Gamma can be given a
suitable cofinite uniform topological structure so that $X$ generates $G$,
topologically iff Gamma is cofinitely connected.
  Our immediate next concern is developing group actions on cofinite graphs.
Defining the action of an abstract group over a cofinite graph in the most
natural way we are able to characterize a unique way of uniformizing an
abstract group with a cofinite structure, obtained from the cofinite structure
of the graph in the underlying action, so that the aforesaid action becomes
uniformly continuous.


title: Asynchronous Methods for Deep Reinforcement Learning

abstract:
  We propose a conceptually simple and lightweight framework for deep
reinforcement learning that uses asynchronous gradient descent for optimization
of deep neural network controllers. We present asynchronous variants of four
standard reinforcement learning algorithms and show that parallel
actor-learners have a stabilizing effect on training allowing all four methods
to successfully train neural network controllers. The best performing method,
an asynchronous variant of actor-critic, surpasses the current state-of-the-art
on the Atari domain while training for half the time on a single multi-core CPU
instead of a GPU. Furthermore, we show that asynchronous actor-critic succeeds
on a wide variety of continuous motor control problems as well as on a new task
of navigating random 3D mazes using a visual input.


title: Constraints on Cosmology and Gravity from the Dynamics of Voids

abstract:
  The Universe is mostly composed of large and relatively empty domains known
as cosmic voids, whereas its matter content is predominantly distributed along
their boundaries. The remaining material inside them, either dark or luminous
matter, is attracted to these boundaries and causes voids to expand faster and
to grow emptier over time. Using the distribution of galaxies centered on voids
identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and adopting minimal assumptions on
the statistical motion of these galaxies, we constrain the average matter
content $\Omega_\mathrm{m}=0.281\pm0.031$ in the Universe today, as well as the
linear growth rate of structure $f/b=0.417\pm0.089$ at median redshift
$\bar{z}=0.57$, where $b$ is the galaxy bias ($68\%$ C.L.). These values
originate from a percent-level measurement of the anisotropic distortion in the
void-galaxy cross-correlation function, $\varepsilon = 1.003\pm0.012$, and are
robust to consistency tests with bootstraps of the data and simulated mock
catalogs within an additional systematic uncertainty of half that size. They
surpass (and are complementary to) existing constraints by unlocking
cosmological information on smaller scales through an accurate model of
nonlinear clustering and dynamics in void environments. As such, our analysis
furnishes a powerful probe of deviations from Einstein's general relativity in
the low-density regime which has largely remained untested so far. We find no
evidence for such deviations in the data at hand.


title:
Vortex crossing, trapping and pinning in superconducting nanowires of a
  NbSe$_2$ two-dimensional crystal

abstract:
  Nanowires of two-dimensional (2D) crystals of type-II superconductor NbSe$_2$
prepared by electron-beam lithography were studied, focusing on the effect of
the motion of Abrikosov vortices. We present magnetoresistance measurements on
these nanowires and show features related to vortex crossing, trapping, and
pinning. The vortex crossing rate was found to vary non-monotonically with the
applied field, which results in non-monotonic magnetoresistance variations in
agreement with theoretical calculations in the London approximation. Above the
lower critical field, $H_{c1}$, the crossing rate is also influenced by
vortices trapped by sample boundaries or pinning centers, leading to
sample-specific magnetoresistance patterns. We show that the local pinning
potential can be modified by intentionally introducing surface adsorbates,
making the magnetoresistance pattern a "magneto fingerprint" of the
sample-specific configuration of vortex pinning centers in a 2D crystal
superconducting nanowire.


title:
First-order phase transitions in outbreaks of co-infectious diseases and
  the extended general epidemic process

abstract:
  In co-infections, positive feedback between multiple diseases can accelerate
outbreaks. In a recent letter Chen, Ghanbarnejad, Cai, and Grassberger (CGCG)
introduced a spatially homogeneous mean-field model system for such
co-infections, and studied this system numerically with focus on the possible
existence of discontinuous phase transitions. We show that their model
coincides in mean-field theory with the homogenous limit of the extended
general epidemic process (EGEP). Studying the latter analytically, we argue
that the discontinuous transition observed by CGCG is basically a spinodal
phase transition and not a first-order transition with phase-coexistence. We
derive the conditions for this spinodal transition along with predictions for
important quantities such as the magnitude of the discontinuity. We also shed
light on a true first-order transition with phase-coexistence by discussing the
EGEP with spatial inhomogeneities.


title:
Efficient Estimation of Semiparametric Transformation Models for the
  Cumulative Incidence of Competing Risks

abstract:
  The cumulative incidence is the probability of failure from the cause of
interest over a certain time period in the presence of other risks. A
semiparametric regression model proposed by Fine and Gray (1999) has become the
method of choice for formulating the effects of covariates on the cumulative
incidence. Its estimation, however, requires modeling of the censoring
distribution and is not statistically efficient. In this paper, we present a
broad class of semiparametric transformation models which extends the Fine and
Gray model, and we allow for unknown causes of failure. We derive the
nonparametric maximum likelihood estimators (NPMLEs) and develop simple and
fast numerical algorithms using the profile likelihood. We establish the
consistency, asymptotic normality, and semiparametric efficiency of the NPMLEs.
In addition, we construct graphical and numerical procedures to evaluate and
select models. Finally, we demonstrate the advantages of the proposed methods
over the existing ones through extensive simulation studies and an application
to a major study on bone marrow transplantation.


title:
Semiparametric Regression Analysis of Interval-Censored Competing Risks
  Data

abstract:
  Interval-censored competing risks data arise when each study subject may
experience an event or failure from one of several causes and the failure time
is not observed exactly but rather known to lie in an interval between two
successive examinations. We formulate the effects of possibly time-varying
covariates on the cumulative incidence or sub-distribution function (i.e., the
marginal probability of failure from a particular cause) of competing risks
through a broad class of semiparametric regression models that captures both
proportional and non-proportional hazards structures for the sub-distribution.
We allow each subject to have an arbitrary number of examinations and
accommodate missing information on the cause of failure. We consider
nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation and devise a fast and stable
EM-type algorithm for its computation. We then establish the consistency,
asymptotic normality, and semiparametric efficiency of the resulting estimators
by appealing to modern empirical process theory. In addition, we show through
extensive simulation studies that the proposed methods perform well in
realistic situations. Finally, we provide an application to a study on HIV-1
infection with different viral subtypes.


title: Free skew Boolean intersection algebras and set partitions

abstract:
  We show that atoms of the $n$-generated free left-handed skew Boolean
intersection algebra are in a bijective correspondence with pointed partitions
of non-empty subsets of $\{1,2,\dots, n\}$. Furthermore, under the canonical
inclusion into the $k$-generated free algebra, where $k\geq n$, an atom of the
$n$-generated free algebra decomposes into an orthogonal join of atoms of the
$k$-generated free algebra in an agreement with the containment relation on the
respective partitions. As a consequence of these results, we describe the
structure of finite free left-handed skew Boolean intersection algebras and
express several their combinatorial characteristics in terms of Bell numbers
and Stirling numbers of the second kind. We also look at the infinite case. For
countably many generators, our constructions lead to the `partition analogue'
of the Cantor tree whose boundary is the `partition variant' of the Cantor set.


title:
Low-Resistance 2D/2D Ohmic Contacts: A Universal Approach to
  High-Performance WSe2, MoS2, and MoSe2 Transistors

abstract:
  We report a new strategy for fabricating 2D/2D low-resistance ohmic contacts
for a variety of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) using van der Waals
assembly of substitutionally doped TMDs as drain/source contacts and TMDs with
no intentional doping as channel materials. We demonstrate that few-layer WSe2
field-effect transistors (FETs) with 2D/2D contacts exhibit low contact
resistances of ~ 0.3 k ohm.um, high on/off ratios up to > 109, and high drive
currents exceeding 320 uA um-1. These favorable characteristics are combined
with a two-terminal field-effect hole mobility ~ 2x102 cm2 V-1 s-1 at room
temperature, which increases to >2x103 cm2 V-1 s-1 at cryogenic temperatures.
We observe a similar performance also in MoS2 and MoSe2 FETs with 2D/2D drain
and source contacts. The 2D/2D low-resistance ohmic contacts presented here
represent a new device paradigm that overcomes a significant bottleneck in the
performance of TMDs and a wide variety of other 2D materials as the channel
materials in post-silicon electronics.


title: On the characterization of abelian varieties in characteristic $p>0$

abstract:
  This article is superseded by 1703.06631. We keep this version here since
some of the arguments for the special cases treated here are different than
those of 1703.06631.


title: Random Forest DBSCAN for USPTO Inventor Name Disambiguation

abstract:
  Name disambiguation and the subsequent name conflation are essential for the
correct processing of person name queries in a digital library or other
database. It distinguishes each unique person from all other records in the
database. We study inventor name disambiguation for a patent database using
methods and features from earlier work on author name disambiguation and
propose a feature set appropriate for a patent database. A random forest was
selected for the pairwise linking classifier since they outperform Naive Bayes,
Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines (SVM), Conditional Inference Tree,
and Decision Trees. Blocking size, very important for scaling, was selected
based on experiments that determined feature importance and accuracy. The
DBSCAN algorithm is used for clustering records, using a distance function
derived from random forest classifier. For additional scalability clustering
was parallelized. Tests on the USPTO patent database show that our method
successfully disambiguated 12 million inventor mentions within 6.5 hours.
Evaluation on datasets from USPTO PatentsView inventor name disambiguation
competition shows our algorithm outperforms all algorithms in the competition.


title: Quantization of inductively-shunted superconducting circuits

abstract:
  We present a method for calculating the energy levels of superconducting
circuits that contain highly anharmonic, inductively-shunted modes with
arbitrarily strong coupling. Our method starts by calculating the normal modes
of the linearized circuit and proceeds with numerical diagonalization in this
basis. As an example, we analyze the Hamiltonian of a fluxonium qubit
inductively coupled to a readout resonator. While elementary, this simple
example is nontrivial because it cannot be efficiently treated by the method
known as "black-box quantization," numerical diagonalization in the bare
harmonic oscillator basis, or perturbation theory. Calculated spectra are
compared to measured spectroscopy data, demonstrating excellent quantitative
agreement between theory and experiment.


title: Two-vector representation of a nondepolarizing Mueller matrix

abstract:
  A geometric view of the polarimetric properties of a nondepolarizing medium
is presented by means of a pair of vectors in the Poincar\'e sphere. An
alternative representation constituted by a set of vectors contained in the
equatorial plane of the Poincar\'e sphere is also defined and interpreted. The
analyses of the magnitudes and relative orientations of the constitutive
vectors of such simple representations allow for a classification of
nondepolarizing media.


title:
Fermi surface topology and negative longitudinal magnetoresistance
  observed in centrosymmetric NbAs2 semimetal

abstract:
  We report transverse and longitudinal magneto-transport properties of NbAs2
single crystals. Attributing to the electron-hole compensation, non-saturating
large transverse magnetoresistance reaches up to 8000 at 9 T at 1.8 K with
mobility around 1 to 2 m^2V^-1S^-1. We present a thorough study of
angular-dependent Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) quantum oscillations of NbAs2. Three
distinct oscillation frequencies are identified. First-principles calculations
reveal four types of Fermi pockets: electron alpha pocket, hole beta pocket,
hole gamma pocket and small electron delta pocket. Although the angular
dependence of alpha, beta and delta agree well with the SdH data, it is unclear
why the gamma pocket is missing in SdH. Negative longitudinal magnetoresistance
is observed which may be linked to novel topological states in this material,
although systematic study is necessary to ascertain its origin.


title:
Structure, non-stoichiometry, and geometrical frustration of
  alpha-tetragonal boron

abstract:
  Recent discoveries of supposedly pure alpha-tetragonal boron require to
revisit its structure. The system is also interesting with respect to a new
type of geometrical frustration in elemental crystals, which was found in
beta-rhombohedral boron. Based on density functional theory calculations, the
present study has resolved the structural and thermodynamic characteristics of
pure alpha-tetragonal boron. Different from beta-rhombohedral boron, the
conditions for stable covalent bonding (a band gap and completely filled
valence bands) are almost fulfilled at a composition B_52 with two 4c
interstitial sites occupied. This indicates that the ground state of pure
alpha-tetragonal boron is stoichiometric. However, the covalent condition is
not perfectly fulfilled because non-bonding in-gap states exist that cannot be
eliminated. The half occupation of the 4c sites yields a macroscopic amount of
residual entropy, which is as large as that of beta-rhombohedral boron.
Therefore, alpha-tetragonal boron can be classified as an elemental crystal
with geometrical frustration. Deviations from stoichiometry can occur only at
finite temperatures. Thermodynamic considerations show that deviations delta
from the stoichiometric composition B_(52+delta) are small and positive. For
reported high-pressure syntheses conditions delta is predicted to be about 0.1
to 0.2. An important difference between pure and C- or N-containing
alpha-tetragonal boron is found in the occupation of interstitial sites: the
pure form prefers to occupy the 4c sites, whereas in C- or N-containing forms a
mixture of 2a, 8h, and 8i sites are occupied. The present article provides
relations of site occupation, delta values, and lattice parameters, which
enable us to identify pure alpha-tetragonal and distinguish the pure form from
other ones.


title:
Resolved Companions of Cepheids: Testing the Candidates with X-Ray
  Observations

abstract:
  We have made {\it XMM-Newton\/} observations of 14 Galactic Cepheids that
have candidate resolved ($\geq$5$\arcsec$) companion stars based on our earlier
{\it HST\/} WFC3 imaging survey. Main-sequence stars that are young enough to
be physical companions of Cepheids are expected to be strong X-ray producers in
contrast to field stars. {\it XMM-Newton\/} exposures were set to detect
essentially all companions hotter than spectral type M0 (corresponding to 0.5 $
M_\odot$.) The large majority of our candidate companions were not detected in
X-rays, and hence are not confirmed as young companions. One resolved candidate
(S~Nor \#4) was unambiguously detected, but the Cepheid is a member of a
populous cluster. For this reason, it is likely that S~Nor \#4 is a cluster
member rather than a gravitationally bound companion. Two further Cepheids
(S~Mus and R~Cru) have X-ray emission that might be produced by either the
Cepheid or the candidate resolved companion. A subsequent {\it Chandra}
observation of S Mus shows that the X-rays are at the location of the
Cepheid/spectroscopic binary. R Cru and also
  V659 Cen (also X-ray bright) have possible companions closer than 5$\arcsec$
(the limit for this study) which are the likely source of X-rays. One final
X-ray detection (V473 Lyr) has no known optical companion, so the prime suspect
is the Cepheid itself. It is a unique Cepheid with a variable amplitude.


title:
Impact of curvature divergences on physical observers in a wormhole
  space-time with horizons

abstract:
  The impact of curvature divergences on physical observers in a black hole
space-time which, nonetheless, is geodesically complete is investigated. This
space-time is an exact solution of certain extensions of General Relativity
coupled to Maxwell's electrodynamics and, roughly speaking, consists on two
Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m (or Schwarzschild or Minkowski) geometries connected by
a spherical wormhole near the center. We find that, despite the existence of
infinite tidal forces, causal contact is never lost among the elements making
up the observer. This suggests that curvature divergences may not be as
pathological as traditionally thought.


title: On the generalized Riemann hypothesis II

abstract:
  Some of my previous publications were incomplete in the sense that non
trivial zeros belonging to a particular type of fundamental domain have been
inadvertently ignored. Due to this fact, I was brought to believe that
computations done by some authors in order to show counterexamples to RH were
affected of approximation errors. In this paper I illustrate graphically the
correctness of those computations and I fill the gaps in my publications.


title: Modelling the flaring emission at the Galactic Centre

abstract:
  The massive black hole at the Galactic Centre is known to be variable in
radio, millimeter, near-IR and X-rays. We investigate the physical processes
responsible for the variable observed emissions from the compact radio source
Sgr A*. We study the evolution of the variable emission region and present
light curves and time-resolved spectra of emissions from the accretion disk,
close to the event horizon, near the marginally stable orbit of a Kerr black
hole.


title:
Realizing Dark Matter and Higgs Inflation in Light of LHC Diphoton
  Excess

abstract:
  LHC Run-2 has provided intriguing di-photon signals of a new resonance around
750GeV, which, if not due to statistical fluctuations, must call for new
physics beyond the standard model (SM) at TeV scale. We propose a minimal
extension of the SM with a complex singlet scalar $\mathcal{S}$ and a doublet
of vector-like quarks. The scalar sector respects CP symmetry, with its CP-odd
imaginary component $\chi$ providing a natural dark matter (DM) candidate. The
real component of $\mathcal{S}$ serves as the new resonance (750GeV) and
explains the diphoton excess of the LHC Run-2. The new scalar degrees of
freedom of $\mathcal{S}$ help to stabilize the Higgs vacuum, and can realize
the Higgs inflation around GUT scale, consistent with the current cosmology
observations. We construct two representative samples A and B of our model for
demonstration. We study the mono-jet signals of the DM production from
invisible decays Re$(\mathcal{S}) \to \chi\chi$ at the LHC Run-2. We further
derive the DM relic density bound, and analyze the constraints from direct and
indirect DM detections.


title: Long-range attraction of particles adhered to lipid vesicles

abstract:
  Many biological systems fold thin sheets of lipid membrane into complex
three-dimensional structures. This microscopic origami is often mediated by the
adsorption and self-assembly of proteins on a membrane. As a model system to
study adsorption-mediated interactions, we study the collective behavior of
micrometric particles adhered to a lipid vesicle. We estimate the colloidal
interactions using a maximum likelihood analysis of particle trajectories. When
the particles are highly wrapped by a tense membrane, we observe strong
long-range attractions with a typical binding energy of 150 $k_B T$ and
significant forces extending a few microns.


title:
Petersson products of bases of spaces of cusp forms and estimates for
  Fourier coefficients

abstract:
  We prove a bound for the Fourier coefficients of a cusp form of integral
weight which is not a newform by computing an explicit orthogonal basis for the
space of cusp forms of given integral weight and level. In contrast to previous
work on special cases of this problem we use elementary methods for the
computation of Petersson products and avoid using the Rankin $L$-function.


title:
Obtaining personal data and asking for erasure: Do app vendors and
  website owners honour your privacy rights?

abstract:
  EU Directive 95/46/EC and the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation
grant Europeans the right of access to data pertaining to them. Consumers can
approach their service providers to obtain all personal data stored and
processed there. Furthermore, they can demand erasure (or correction) of their
data. We conducted an undercover field study to determine whether these rights
can be exerted in practice. We assessed the behaviour of the vendors of 150
smartphone apps and 120 websites that are popular in Germany. Our deletion
requests were fulfilled in 52 to 57% of the cases and less than half of the
data provision requests were answered satisfactorily. Further, we observed
instances of carelessness: About 20% of website owners would have disclosed our
personal data to impostors. The results indicate that exerting privacy rights
that have been introduced two decades ago is still a frustrating endeavour most
of the time.


title:
Analysing the impact of far-out side-lobes on the imaging performance of
  the SKA-LOW telescope

abstract:
  The Square Kilometre Array's Low Frequency instrument (SKA-LOW) will be the
most sensitive aperture array ever used for radio astronomy, and will operate
in the under-sampled regime for most of the frequency band where grating-lobes
pose particular challenges. To achieve the expected level of sensitivity for
SKA-LOW, it is particularly important to understand how interfering sources in
both near and far side-lobes of the station beam affect the imaging
performance. We discuss options for station designs, and adopting a random
element layout, we assess its effectiveness by investigating how sources far
from the main lobe of the station beam degrade images of the target field.
These sources have the effect of introducing a noise-like corruption to images,
which we call the Far Side-lobe Source Noise (FSSN). Using OSKAR, a
GPU-accelerated software simulator, we carried out end-to-end simulations using
an all-sky model and telescope configuration representative of the SKA-LOW
instrument. The FSSN is a function of both the station beam and the
interferometric point spread function, and decreases with increasing
observation time until the coverage of the aperture plane no longer improves.
Using apodisation to reduce the level of near-in side-lobes of the station beam
had a noticeable improvement on the level of FSSN at low frequencies. Our
results indicate that the effects of picking up sources in the side-lobes are
worse at low frequencies, where the array is less sparse.


title: Quadrupole order in the frustrated pyrochlore magnet Tb$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$

abstract:
  We have studied the hidden long-range order (LRO) of the frustrated
pyrochlore magnet Tb$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ by means of specific-heat experiments and
Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations, which has been discussed as the LRO of quadrupole
moments inherent to the non-Kramers ion of Tb$^{3+}$. We have found that the
sharp specific-heat peak is collapsed into a broad hump by magnetic fields
above 0.3 T for $H//[001]$. This result, qualitatively reproduced by MC
simulations, suggests that a field-induced magnetic state overcomes the
quadrupolar LRO state, as a similar case of a classical spin ice. The present
results support the interpretation that Tb$_{2+x}$Ti$_{2-x}$O$_{7+y}$ is a
unique material in the boundary between the quadrupolar ($x \geq x_c =
-0.0025$) and spin-liquid ($x \leq x_c$) states, where the magnetic field along
the [001] axis is a tuning parameter which induces the magnetic ordered state.


title: On a class of diagonal equations over finite fields

abstract:
  Using properties of Gauss and Jacobi sums, we derive explicit formulas for
the number of solutions to a diagonal equation of the form
$x_1^{2^m}+\dots+x_n^{2^m}=0$ over a finite field of characteristic $p\equiv\pm
3\pmod{8}$. All of the evaluations are effected in terms of parameters
occurring in quadratic partitions of some powers of $p$.


title:
Conformity-Driven Agents Support Ordered Phases in the Spatial Public
  Goods Game

abstract:
  We investigate the spatial Public Goods Game in the presence of
fitness-driven and conformity-driven agents. This framework usually considers
only the former type of agents, i.e., agents that tend to imitate the strategy
of their fittest neighbors. However, whenever we study social systems, the
evolution of a population might be affected also by social behaviors as
conformism, stubbornness, altruism, and selfishness. Although the term
evolution can assume different meanings depending on the considered domain,
here it corresponds to the set of processes that lead a system towards an
equilibrium or a steady-state. We map fitness to the agents' payoff so that
richer agents are those most imitated by fitness-driven agents, while
conformity-driven agents tend to imitate the strategy assumed by the majority
of their neighbors. Numerical simulations aim to identify the nature of the
transition, on varying the amount of the relative density of conformity-driven
agents in the population, and to study the nature of related equilibria.
Remarkably, we find that conformism generally fosters ordered cooperative
phases and may also lead to bistable behaviors.


title: A Multiscale Diffuse-Interface Model for Two-Phase Flow in Porous Media

abstract:
  In this paper we consider a multiscale phase-field model for
capillarity-driven flows in porous media. The presented model constitutes a
reduction of the conventional Navier-Stokes-Cahn-Hilliard phase-field model,
valid in situations where interest is restricted to dynamical and equilibrium
behavior in an aggregated sense, rather than a precise description of
microscale flow phenomena. The model is based on averaging of the equation of
motion, thereby yielding a significant reduction in the complexity of the
underlying Navier-Stokes-Cahn-Hilliard equations, while retaining its
macroscopic dynamical and equilibrium properties. Numerical results are
presented for the representative 2-dimensional capillary-rise problem
pertaining to two closely spaced vertical plates with both identical and
disparate wetting properties. Comparison with analytical solutions for these
test cases corroborates the accuracy of the presented multiscale model. In
addition, we present results for a capillary-rise problem with a non-trivial
geometry corresponding to a porous medium.


title:
Landscape-Inversion Phase Transition in Dipolar Colloids: Tuning the
  Structure and Dynamics of 2D Crystals

abstract:
  We study the 2D crystalline phases of paramagnetic colloidal particles with
dipolar interactions and constrained on a periodic substrate. Combining theory,
simulation, and experiments we demonstrate a new scenario of first-order phase
transitions that occurs via a complete inversion of the energy landscape,
featuring non-conventional properties that allow for: (i) tuning of crystal
symmetry; (ii) control of dynamical properties of different crystalline orders
via tuning of their relative stability with an external magnetic field; (iii)
an equivalent but independent control of the same dynamic properties via
temporal modulations of that field; and (iv) non-standard phase-ordering
kinetics involving spontaneous formation of transient metastable domains.


title:
Nuclear spin correlations and collective excitations in supercritical
  H$_2$

abstract:
  Nuclear spins are known to experience spontaneous long-range correlations
only below 2.5 mili-Kelvin in superfluid $^3$He. Here we present the first
evidence of nuclear spin coupling in molecular hydrogen (H$_2$) at 74-92 Kelvin
using neutron scattering, showing a fundamental change in nature from the
incoherent scattering universally expected from hydrogen, which reflects single
particle properties of uncorrelated nuclear spins, to coherent, with a peak
materializing on the elastic line, indicating H$_2$-H$_2$ nuclear spin
correlations. In this novel phase, the dynamic response of the system also
changes nature, and collective excitations with an effective mass of nine H$_2$
are observed with inelastic scattering at momentum transfers up to 37
\AA$^{-1}$, corresponding to length scales smaller than the H-H bond, where
previous experiments have always found single atom excitations. This novel
behavior has only been observed from H$_2$ within the subnanometer sized
graphitic pores of a carbon material, marking the first demonstration that a
confined materials environment can be used to control nuclear spin
correlations.


title: On the Spiral Structures in Heavy-Ion Collisions

abstract:
  It is well established that many galaxies, like our Milky Way, exhibit spiral
patterns. The entire galactic disc rotates about the galactic centre with
different speeds; higher closer to the centre, lower at greater distances -
that is, galactic discs do not rotate like a solid compact disc. The spiral
arms are the part of the galactic disc where many young stars are being born.
Since young stars are also brightest, we can see the spiral structure of other
galaxies from afar. Typically spiral galaxies are copiously observed at
redshifts z ~ 1. The recently observed grand-design galaxy Q2343-BX442 at
z=2.18, however, implies uncertain origin of its spiral structure. Indeed such
"old" galaxies usually look rather clumpy because of their dynamically hot
discs. In this report, based on self-similarity, we argue that spiral
structures may also appear in heavy-ion collisions as messengers of phase
transitions. Thus, spiral structures in galactic patterns may be traced back to
a few microseconds after the Big Bang.


title: Linewidths in excitonic absorption spectra of cuprous oxide

abstract:
  We present a theoretical calculation of the absorption spectrum of cuprous
oxide $\left(\mathrm{Cu_{2}O}\right)$ based on the general theory developed by
Y. Toyozawa. An inclusion not only of acoustic phonons but also of optical
phonons and of specific properties of the excitons in $\mathrm{Cu_{2}O}$ like
the central-cell corrections for the $1S$-exciton allows us to calculate the
experimentally observed line widths in experiments by T. Kazimierczuk et al
[Nature 514, 343, (2014)] within the same order of magnitude, which
demonstrates a clear improvement in comparison to earlier work on this topic.
We also discuss a variety of further effects, which explain the still
observable discrepancy between theory and experiment but can hardly be included
in theoretical calculations.


title: Soliton-like magnetization textures in non-collinear antiferromagnets

abstract:
  We show that proper control of magnetization textures can be achieved in
noncollinear antiferromagnets. This opens the versatile toolbox of domain-wall
manipulation in the context of a different family of materials. In this way, we
show that noncollinear antiferromagnets are a good prospect for applications in
the context of antiferromagnetic spintronics. As in many noncollinear
antiferromagnets, the order parameter field takes values in SO(3). By
performing a gradient expansion in the energy functional we derive an effective
theory that accounts for the physics of the magnetization of long-wavelength
excitations. We apply our formalism to static and dynamic textures such as
domain walls and localized oscillations, and identify topologically protected
textures that are spatially localized. Our results are applicable to the
exchange-bias materials Mn3X, with X = Ir, Rh, Pt.


title:
Exploiting plume structure to decode gas source distance using
  metal-oxide gas sensors

abstract:
  Estimating the distance of a gas source is important in many applications of
chemical sensing, like e.g. environmental monitoring, or chemically-guided
robot navigation. If an estimation of the gas concentration at the source is
available, source proximity can be estimated from the time-averaged gas
concentration at the sensing site. However, in turbulent environments, where
fast concentration fluctuations dominate, comparably long measurements are
required to obtain a reliable estimate. A lesser known feature that can be
exploited for distance estimation in a turbulent environment lies in the
relationship between source proximity and the temporal variance of the local
gas concentration - the farther the source, the more intermittent are gas
encounters. However, exploiting this feature requires measurement of changes in
gas concentration on a comparably fast time scale, that have up to now only
been achieved using photo-ionisation detectors. Here, we demonstrate that by
appropriate signal processing, off-the-shelf metal-oxide sensors are capable of
extracting rapidly fluctuating features of gas plumes that strongly correlate
with source distance. We show that with a straightforward analysis method it is
possible to decode events of large, consistent changes in the measured signal,
so-called 'bouts'. The frequency of these bouts predicts the distance of a gas
source in wind-tunnel experiments with good accuracy. In addition, we found
that the variance of bout counts indicates cross-wind offset to the centreline
of the gas plume. Our results offer an alternative approach to estimating gas
source proximity that is largely independent of gas concentration, using
off-the-shelf metal-oxide sensors. The analysis method we employ demands very
few computational resources and is suitable for low-power microcontrollers.


title: Implications of recent progress in heavy-quark hadroproduction

abstract:
  We discuss recent theoretical progress in heavy-quark hadro-production, in
particular focusing on processes involving charm-quarks, and on their
implications in different fields of particle phenomenology, from collider to
astroparticle physics.


title: On the theories of McDuff's II$_1$ factors

abstract:
  Recently, Boutonnet, Chifan, and Ioana proved that McDuff's family of
continuum many pairwise nonisomorphic separable II$_1$ factors are in fact
pairwise non-elementarily equivalent by proving that any ultrapowers of two
distinct members of the family are nonsiomorphic. We use Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse
games to provide an upper bound on the quantifier-depth of sentences which
distinguish these theories.


title:
Random Feature Maps via a Layered Random Projection (LaRP) Framework for
  Object Classification

abstract:
  The approximation of nonlinear kernels via linear feature maps has recently
gained interest due to their applications in reducing the training and testing
time of kernel-based learning algorithms. Current random projection methods
avoid the curse of dimensionality by embedding the nonlinear feature space into
a low dimensional Euclidean space to create nonlinear kernels. We introduce a
Layered Random Projection (LaRP) framework, where we model the linear kernels
and nonlinearity separately for increased training efficiency. The proposed
LaRP framework was assessed using the MNIST hand-written digits database and
the COIL-100 object database, and showed notable improvement in object
classification performance relative to other state-of-the-art random projection
methods.


title: A short note on Merlin-Arthur protocols for subset sum

abstract:
  In the subset sum problem we are given n positive integers along with a
target integer t. A solution is a subset of these integers summing to t. In
this short note we show that for a given subset sum instance there is a proof
of size $O^*(\sqrt{t})$ of what the number of solutions is that can be
constructed in $O^*(t)$ time and can be probabilistically verified in time
$O^*(\sqrt{t})$ with at most constant error probability. Here, the $O^*()$
notation omits factors polynomial in the input size $n\log(t)$.


title: Multispeed Klein-Gordon systems in dimension three

abstract:
  We consider long time evolution of small solutions to general multispeed
Klein-Gordon systems in 3+1 dimensions. We prove that such solutions are always
global and scatter to a linear flow, thus extending previous partial results.
The main new ingredients of our method is an improved linear dispersion
estimate exploiting the asymptotic spherical symmetry of Klein-Gordon waves,
and a corresponding bilinear oscillatory integral estimate.


title: Sampling in de Branges Spaces and Naimark Dilation

abstract:
  We consider the problem of sampling in de Branges spaces and develop some
necessary conditions and some sufficient conditions for sampling sequences,
which generalize some well-known sampling results in the Paley-Wiener space.
These conditions are obtained by identifying the main construction with Naimark
dilation of frames--embedding the de Branges space into a larger de Branges
space while embedding the kernel functions associated with a sampling sequence
into a Riesz basis for the larger space.


title: Slow and Ordinary Provability for Peano Arithmetic

abstract:
  The notion of slow provability for Peano Arithmetic ($\mathsf{PA}$) was
introduced by S.D. Friedman, M. Rathjen, and A. Weiermann. They studied the
slow consistency statement $\mathrm{Con}_{\mathsf{s}}$ that asserts that a
contradiction is not slow provable in $\mathsf{PA}$. They showed that the
logical strength of $\mathsf{PA}+\mathrm{Con}_{\mathsf{s}}$ lies strictly
between that of $\mathsf{PA}$ and $\mathsf{PA}$ together with its ordinary
consistency: $\mathsf{PA}\subsetneq
\mathsf{PA}+\mathrm{Con}_{\mathsf{s}}\subsetneq \mathsf{PA}+\mathrm{Con}$.
  This paper is a further investigation into slow provability and its interplay
with ordinary provability in $\mathsf{PA}$. We study three variants of slow
provability. The associated consistency statement of each of these yields a
theory that lies strictly between $\mathsf{PA}$ and $\mathsf{PA}+\mathrm{Con}$
in terms of logical strength. We investigate Turing-Feferman progressions based
on these variants of slow provability. We show that for our three notions, the
Turing-Feferman progression reaches $\mathsf{PA}+\mathrm{Con}$ in a different
numbers of steps, namely $\varepsilon_0$, $\omega$, and $2$. For each of the
three slow provability predicates, we also determine its joint provability
logic with ordinary $\mathsf{PA}$-provability.


title:
The Dirichlet problem for the slab with entire data and a difference
  equation for harmonic functions

abstract:
  It is shown that the Dirichlet problem for the slab $(a,b) \times
\mathbb{R}^{d}$ with entire boundary data has an entire solution. The proof is
based on a generalized Schwarz reflection principle. Moreover, it is shown that
for a given entire harmonic function $g$ the inhomogeneous difference equation
$h\left( t+1,y\right) -h\left(t,y\right) =g\left(t,y\right)$ has an entire
harmonic solution $h$.


title:
Bilayer SnS$_{2}$: Easy-tunable Stacking Sequence by Charging and
  Loading Pressure

abstract:
  Employing density functional theory-based methods, we investigate monolayer
and bilayer structures of hexagonal SnS$_{2}$, which is recently synthesized
monolayer metal dichalcogenide. Comparison of 1H and 1T phases of monolayer
SnS$_{2}$ confirms the ground state to be the 1T phase. In its bilayer
structure we examine different stacking configurations of the two layers. It is
found that the interlayer coupling in bilayer SnS$_{2}$ is weaker than that of
typical transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) so that alternative stacking
orders have similar structural parameters and they are separated with low
energy barriers. Possible signature of the stacking order in SnS$_{2}$ bilayer
has been sought in the calculated absorbance and reflectivity spectra. We also
study the effects of the external electric field, charging, and loading
pressure on the characteristic properties of bilayer SnS$_{2}$. It is found
that (i) the electric field increases the coupling between the layers at its
prefered stacking order, so the barrier height increases, (ii) the bang gap
value can be tuned by the external E-field and under sufficient E-field, the
bilayer SnS$_{2}$ can become semi-metal, (iii) the most favorable stacking
order can be switched by charging and (iv) a loading pressure exceeding 3 GPa
changes the stacking order. E-field tunable bandgap and easy-tunable stacking
sequence of SnS$_{2}$ layers make this 2D crystal structure a good candidate
for field effect transistor and nanoscale lubricant applications.


title: Bulk amplitude and degree of divergence in 4d spin foams

abstract:
  We study the 4-d holomorphic Spin Foam amplitude on arbitrary connected
2-complexes and degrees of divergence. With recently developed tools and
truncation scheme, we derive a formula for a certain class of graphs, which
allows us to write down the value of bulk amplitudes simply based on graph
properties. We then generalize the result to arbitrary connected 2-complexes
and extract a simple expression for the degree of divergence only in terms of
combinatorial properties and topological invariants. The distinct behaviors of
the model in different regions of parameter space signal phase transitions. In
the regime which is of physical interest for recovering diffeomorphsim symmetry
in the continuum limit, the most divergent configurations are melonic graphs.
We end with a discussion of physical implications.


title: On dimer models and coamoebas

abstract:
  We describe the relationship between dimer models on the real two-torus and
coamoebas of curves in (\CC^\times)^2. We show, inter alia, that the dimer
model obtained from the shell of the coamoeba is a deformation retract of the
closed coaomeba if and only if the number of connected components of the
complement of the closed coamoeba is maximal. Furthermore, we show that in
general the closed coamoeba of the characteristic polynomial of a dimer model
does not have the maximal number of components of its complement.


title:
Leveraging Mid-Level Deep Representations For Predicting Face Attributes
  in the Wild

abstract:
  Predicting facial attributes from faces in the wild is very challenging due
to pose and lighting variations in the real world. The key to this problem is
to build proper feature representations to cope with these unfavourable
conditions. Given the success of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) in image
classification, the high-level CNN feature, as an intuitive and reasonable
choice, has been widely utilized for this problem. In this paper, however, we
consider the mid-level CNN features as an alternative to the high-level ones
for attribute prediction. This is based on the observation that face attributes
are different: some of them are locally oriented while others are globally
defined. Our investigations reveal that the mid-level deep representations
outperform the prediction accuracy achieved by the (fine-tuned) high-level
abstractions. We empirically demonstrate that the midlevel representations
achieve state-of-the-art prediction performance on CelebA and LFWA datasets.
Our investigations also show that by utilizing the mid-level representations
one can employ a single deep network to achieve both face recognition and
attribute prediction.


title:
Derived Commutator Complete Algebras and Relative Koszul Duality for
  Operads

abstract:
  We prove that a connected commutator (or NC) complete associative algebra can
be recovered in the derived setting from its abelianization together with its
natural induced structure. Specifically, we prove an equivalence between
connected derived commutator complete associative algebras and connected
commutative algebras equipped with a coaction of the comonad arising from the
adjunction between associative and commutative algebras. This provides a Koszul
dual description of connected derived commutator (or NC) complete associative
algebras and furthermore may be interpreted as a theory of relative Koszul
duality for the associative operad relative to the commutative operad. We also
prove analogous results in the setting of En-algebras. That is, we develop a
theory of commutator complete En-algebras and a theory of relative Koszul
duality for the En operad relative to the commutative operad. We relate the
derived commutator filtration on associative and En-algebras to the filtration
on the associative and En operad whose associated graded is the Poisson and
shifted Poisson operad Pn. We argue that the derived commutator filtration on
associative algebras (and En-algebras) are a relative analogue of the
Goodwillie tower of the identity functor on the model category of associative
algebras (and En-algebras) relative to the model category of commutative
algebras.


title: Rapidity renormalized TMD soft and beam functions at two loops

abstract:
  We compute the transverse momentum dependent (TMD) soft function for the
production of a color-neutral final state at the LHC within the rapidity
renormalization group (RRG) framework to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO).
We use this result to extract the universal renormalized TMD beam functions
(aka TMDPDFs) in the same scheme and at the same order from known results in
another scheme. We derive recurrence relations for the logarithmic structure of
the soft and beam functions, which we use to cross check our calculation. We
also explicitly confirm the non-Abelian exponentiation of the TMD soft function
in the RRG framework at two loops. Our results provide the ingredients for
resummed predictions of pT-differential cross sections at NNLL' in the RRG
formalism. The RRG provides a systematic framework to resum large (rapidity)
logarithms through (R)RG evolution and to assess the associated perturbative
uncertainties.


title:
Pipe3D, a pipeline to analyse integral field spectroscopy data: II.
  Analysis sequence and CALIFA dataproducts

abstract:
  We present Pipe3D, an analysis pipeline based on the FIT3D fitting tool,
devel- oped to explore the properties of the stellar populations and ionized
gas of Integral Field Spectroscopy data. Pipe3D was created to provide with
coherent, simple to distribute, and comparable dataproducts, independently of
the origin of the data, focused on the data of the most recent IFU surveys
(e.g., CALIFA, MaNGA, and SAMI), and the last generation IFS instruments (e.g.,
MUSE). Along this article we describe the different steps involved in the
analysis of the data, illustrating them by showing the dataproducts derived for
NGC 2916, observed by CALIFA and P-MaNGA. As a practical use of the pipeline we
present the complete set of dataproducts derived for the 200 datacubes that
comprises the V500 setup of the CALIFA Data Release 2 (DR2), making them freely
available through the network
(ftp://ftp.caha.es/CALIFA/dataproducts/DR2/Pipe3D). Finally, we explore the
hypothesis that the properties of the stellar populations and ionized gas of
galaxies at the effective radius are representative of the overall average
ones, finding that this is indeed the case.


title:
Thermal conductivity and impurity scattering in the accreting neutron
  star crust

abstract:
  We calculate the thermal conductivity of electrons for the strongly
correlated multi-component ion plasma expected in the outer layers of neutron
star's crust employing a Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) approach. This allows
us to isolate the low energy response of the ions and use it to calculate the
electron scattering rate and the electron thermal conductivity. We find that
the scattering rate is enhanced by a factor 2-4 compared to earlier
calculations based on the simpler electron-impurity scattering formalism. This
findings directly impacts the interpretation of thermal relaxation observed in
transiently accreting neutron stars and has implications for the composition
and nuclear reactions in the crust that occur during accretion.