title:
Toeplitz operators, pseudo-homogeneous symbols and moment maps on the
  complex projective space

abstract:
  Following previous works for the unit ball, we define quasi-radial
pseudo-homogeneous symbols on the projective space and obtain the corresponding
commutativity results for Toeplitz operators. A geometric interpretation of
these symbols in terms of moment maps is developed. This leads us to the
introduction of a new family of symbols, extended pseudo-homogeneous, that
provide larger commutative Banach algebras generated by Toeplitz operators.
This family of symbols provides new commutative Banach algebras generated by
Toeplitz operators on the unit ball.


title:
Multilayer modeling of the aureole photometry during the Venus transit:
  comparison between SDO/HMI and VEx/SOIR data

abstract:
  The mesosphere of Venus is a critical range of altitudes in which complex
temperature variability has been extensively studied by the space mission Venus
Express (Vex) during its eight-years mission (2006-2014). Data collected at
different epochs and latitudes show evidence of short and medium timescale
variability as well as latitudinal differences. Spatial and temporal
variability is also predicted in mesospheric and thermosphere terminator models
with lower boundary conditions at 70 km near cloud tops. The Venus transit on
June 5-6 2012 was the first to occur with a spacecraft in orbit around Venus.
It has been shown that sunlight refraction in the mesosphere of Venus is able
to provide useful constraints on mesospheric temperatures at the time of the
transit. The European Space Agency's Venus Express provided space-based
observations of Venus during the transit. Simultaneously, the Venus aureole
photometry was observed using ground-based facilities and solar telescopes
orbiting Earth (NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory, JAXA HINODE). As the properties
of spatial and temporal variability of the mesosphere are still debated, the
opportunity of observing it at all latitudes at the same time, offered by the
transit, is rather unique. In this first paper, we establish new methods for
analyzing the photometry of the so-called aureole that is produced by
refraction of the solar light, and we investigate the choice of physical models
that best reproduce the observations. We obtain an independent constraint of
4.8 +/- 0.5 km for the aerosol scale height in the upper haze region above 80
km. We show that a full multiple-layer approach is required to adequately
reproduce the aureole photometry, which appears to be sensitive to several
second-order variations in the vertical refractivity.


title:
Dynamic Controllability of Conditional Simple Temporal Networks is
  PSPACE-complete

abstract:
  Even after the proposal of various solution algorithms, the precise
computational complexity of checking whether a Conditional Temporal Network is
Dynamically Controllable had still remained widely open. This issue gets
settled in this paper which provides constructions, algorithms, and bridging
lemmas and arguments to formally prove that: (1) the problem is PSPACE-hard,
and (2) the problem lies in PSPACE.


title:
Species substitution, graph suspension, and graded Hopf algebras of
  painted tree polytopes

abstract:
  Combinatorial Hopf algebras of trees exemplify the connections between
operads and bialgebras. Painted trees were introduced recently as examples of
how graded Hopf operads can bequeath Hopf structures upon compositions of
coalgebras. We put these trees in context by exhibiting them as the minimal
elements of face posets of certain convex polytopes. The full face posets
themselves often possess the structure of graded Hopf algebras (with one-sided
unit). We can enumerate faces using the fact that they are structure types of
substitutions of combinatorial species. Species considered here include ordered
and unordered binary trees and ordered lists (labeled corollas). Some of the
polytopes that constitute our main results are well known in other contexts.
First we see the classical permutohedra, and then certain generalized
permutohedra: specifically the graph associahedra of suspensions of certain
simple graphs. As an aside we show that the stellohedra also appear as liftings
of generalized permutohedra: graph composihedra for complete graphs. Thus our
results give examples of Hopf algebras of tubings and marked tubings of graphs.
We also show an alternative associative algebra structure on the graph tubings
of star graphs.


title: Solving Set Cover with Pairs Problem Using Quantum Annealing

abstract:
  Here we consider using quantum annealing to solve Set Cover with Pairs (SCP),
an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that play an important role in
networking, computational biology, and biochemistry. We show an explicit
construction of Ising Hamiltonians whose ground states encode the solution of
SCP instances. We numerically simulate the time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger
equation in order to test the performance of quantum annealing for random
instances and compare with that of simulated annealing. We also discuss
explicit embedding strategies for realizing our Hamiltonian construction on the
D-wave type restricted Ising Hamiltonian based on Chimera graphs. Our embedding
on the Chimera graph preserves the structure of the original SCP instance and
in particular, the embedding for general complete bipartite graphs and logical
disjunctions may be of broader use than that the specific problem we deal with.


title:
Surveying college introductory physics students' attitudes and
  approaches to problem solving

abstract:
  Students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving in physics can greatly
impact their actual problem solving practices and also influence their
motivation to learn and ultimately the development of expertise. We developed
and validated an attitudes and approaches to problem solving (AAPS) survey and
administered it to students in the introductory physics courses in a typical
large research university in the US. Here, we discuss the development and
validation of the survey and analysis of the student responses to the survey
questions in introductory physics courses. The introductory physics students'
responses to the survey questions were also compared with those of physics
faculty members and physics PhD students. We find that introductory students
are in general less expert-like than the physics faculty members and PhD
students. Moreover, on some AAPS survey questions, the responses of students
and faculty have unexpected trends. Those trends were interpreted via in


title: Reduced particle settling speed in turbulence

abstract:
  We study the settling of finite-size rigid spheres in sustained homogeneous
isotropic turbulence (HIT) by direct numerical simulations using an immersed
boundary method to account for the dispersed solid phase. We study semi-dilute
suspensions at different Galileo numbers, Ga. The Galileo number is the ratio
between buoyancy and viscous forces, and is here varied via the solid-to-fluid
density ratio. The focus is on particles that are slightly heavier than the
fluid. We find that in HIT, the mean settling speed is less than that in
quiescent fluid; in particular, it reduces by 6%-60% with respect to the
terminal velocity of an isolated sphere in quiescent fluid as the ratio between
the latter and the turbulent velocity fluctuations is decreased. Analysing the
fluid-particle relative motion, we find that the mean settling speed is
progressively reduced while reducing the density ratio due to the increase of
the vertical drag induced by the particle cross-flow velocity. Unsteady effects
contribute to the mean overall drag by about 6%-10%. The probability density
functions of particle velocities and accelerations reveal that these are
closely related to the features of the turbulent flow. The particle mean-square
displacement in the settling direction is found to be similar for all Ga if
time is scaled by (2a)/u' (where 2a is the particle diameter and u' is the
turbulence velocity root mean square).


title: Quantitative model for the generic 3D shape of ICMEs at 1 AU

abstract:
  Interplanetary imagers provide 2D projected views of the densest plasma parts
of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) while in situ measurements
provide magnetic field and plasma parameter measurements along the spacecraft
trajectory, so along a 1D cut. As such, the data only give a partial view of
their 3D structures. By studying a large number of ICMEs, crossed at different
distances from their apex, we develop statistical methods to obtain a
quantitative generic 3D shape of ICMEs. In a first approach we theoretically
obtain the expected statistical distribution of the shock-normal orientation
from assuming simple models of 3D shock shapes, including distorted profiles,
and compare their compatibility with observed distributions. In a second
approach we use the shock normal and the flux rope axis orientations, as well
as the impact parameter, to provide statistical information across the
spacecraft trajectory. The study of different 3D shock models shows that the
observations are compatible with a shock symmetric around the Sun-apex line as
well as with an asymmetry up to an aspect ratio around 3. Moreover, flat or
dipped shock surfaces near their apex can only be rare cases. Next, the sheath
thickness and the ICME velocity have no global trend along the ICME front.
Finally, regrouping all these new results and the ones of our previous
articles, we provide a quantitative ICME generic 3D shape, including the global
shape of the shock, the sheath and the flux rope. The obtained quantitative
generic ICME shape will have implications for several aims. For example, it
constrains the output of typical ICME numerical simulations. It is also a base
to develop deeper studies of the transport of high energy solar and cosmic
particles during an ICME propagation, as well as for modeling and forecasting
space weather conditions near Earth.


title:
Topological complexity (within 1) of the space of isometry classes of
  planar n-gons for sufficiently large n

abstract:
  Hausmann and Rodriguez classified spaces of isometry classes of planar n-gons
according to their genetic code, which is a collection of sets (called genes)
containing n. Omitting the n yields what we call gees. We prove that, for a set
of gees with largest gee of size k>0, the topological complexity (TC) of the
associated space of n-gons is either 2n-5 or 2n-6 if n>2k+2. We present
evidence that suggests that it is very rare that the TC is not equal to 2n-5 or
2n-6.


title:
Fast 3C 279 gamma flares by a merging medium size black hole jet aligned
  to the AGN one by tidal torque?

abstract:
  The shorter-than-Schwarzschild 3C 279 variability flare on June 2015 is very
puzzling. Its nature cannot be due to any NS merging nor to a medium sized
(hundred million solar mass) BH collapse. Our preliminary model is based on the
long-life (a third of a year) merging of a medium size BH (hundred of solar
mass) jet spiralling toward the largest AGN one, (billion solar mass), that is
dragging by tidal torques the medium small size BH jet along the main AGN 3C
279 one. The tidal torque is aligning both jets toward Earth. The twin
overlapping blazars may offer at once a long and a short scale variability
consistent with the surprising Fermi discovers.


title:
Integrable geometric flows of interacting curves/surfaces, multilayer
  spin systems and the vector nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation

abstract:
  In this paper, we study integrable multilayer spin systems, namely, the
multilayer M-LIII equation. We investigate their relation with the geometric
flows of interacting curves and surfaces in some space $R^{n}$. Then we present
their the Lakshmanan equivalent counterparts. We show that these equivalent
counterparts are, in fact, the vector nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (NLSE).
It is well-known that the vector NLSE is equivalent to the $\Gamma$-spin
system. Also, we have presented the transformations which give the relation
between solutions of the $\Gamma$-spin system and the multilayer M-LIII
equation. It is interesting to note that the integrable multilayer M-LIII
equation contains constant magnetic field ${\bf H}$. It seems that this
constant magnetic vector plays an important role in theory of "integrable
multilayer spin system" and in nonlinear dynamics of magnetic systems. Finally,
we present some classes of integrable models of interacting vortices.


title: On the residue of Eisenstein classes of Siegel varieties

abstract:
  Eisenstein classes of Siegel varieties are motivic cohomology classes defined
as pull-backs by torsion sections of the polylogarithm prosheaf on the
universal abelian scheme. By reduction to the Hilbert-Blumenthal case, we prove
that the Betti realization of these classes on Siegel varieties of arbitrary
genus have non-trivial residue on zero dimensional strata of the Baily-Borel
compactification. A direct corollary is the non-vanishing of a higher regulator
map.


title: Abelian varieties and transversal index theorems

abstract:
  We interpret the "explicit formula" in the sense of analytic number theory
for the zeta function of an ordinary abelian variety of dimension g over a
finite field as a transversal index theorem on a (2g+1)-dimensional Riemannian
foliated space. This generalizes a work of Deninger for elliptic curves.


title:
Angular dependence of the domain wall depinning field in the sensors
  with segmented corners

abstract:
  Rotating domain wall based sensors that have recently been developed are
based on a segmented looping geometry. In order to determine the crucial
pinning of domain walls in this special geometry, we investigate the depinning
under different angles of an applied magnetic field and obtain the angular
dependence of the depinning field of the domain walls. Due to the geometry, the
depinning field not only exhibits a 180$^\circ$-periodicity but a more complex
dependence on the angle. The depinning field depends on two different angles
associated with the initial state and the segmented geometry of the corner. We
find that depending on the angle of the applied field two different switching
processes occur and we can reproduce the angular dependence using a simple
model calculation.


title: Magnetorotationally driven wind cycles in local disc models

abstract:
  Jets, from the protostellar to the AGN context, have been extensively studied
but their connection to the turbulent dynamics of the underlying accretion disc
is poorly understood. Following a similar approach to Lesur et al. (2013), we
examine the role of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in the production
and acceleration of outflows from discs. Via a suite of one-dimensional
shearing-box simulations of stratified discs we show that magneto-centrifugal
winds exhibit cyclic activity with a period of 10-20 Omega^{-1}, a few times
the orbital period. The cycle seems to be more vigorous for strong vertical
field; it is robust to the variation of relevant parameters and independent of
numerical details. The convergence of these solutions (in particular the mass
loss rate) with vertical box size is also studied. By considering a sequence of
magnetohydrostatic equilibria and their stability, the periodic activity may be
understood as the succession of the following phases: (a) a dominant MRI
channel mode, (b) strong magnetic field generation, (c) consequent wind
launching, and ultimately (d) vertical expulsion of the excess magnetic field
by the expanding and accelerating gas associated with the wind. We discuss
potential connections between this behaviour and observed time-variability in
disk-jet systems.


title: Multilevel ensemble Kalman filtering for spatially extended models

abstract:
  This work embeds a multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) sampling strategy into the
Monte Carlo step of the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), thereby yielding a
multilevel ensemble Kalman filter (MLEnKF) which has provably superior
asymptotic cost to a given accuracy level. The development of MLEnKF for
finite-dimensional state-spaces in the work [20] is here extended to models
with infinite-dimensional state- spaces in the form of spatial fields. A
concrete example is given to illustrate the results.


title:
Global rigidity of 2-dimensional direction-length frameworks with
  connected rigidity matroids

abstract:
  A two-dimensional direction-length framework $(G,p)$ consists of a multigraph
$G=(V;D,L)$ whose edge set is formed of "direction" edges $D$ and "length"
edges $L$, and a realisation $p$ of this graph in the plane. The edges of the
framework represent geometric constraints: length edges fix the distance
between their endvertices, whereas direction edges specify the gradient of the
line through both endvertices. A direction-length framework $(G,p)$ is globally
rigid if every framework $(G,q)$ which satisfies the same direction and length
constraints as $(G,p)$ can be obtained by translating $(G,p)$ in the plane,
and/or rotating $(G,p)$ by $180^{\circ}$.
  In this paper, we characterise global rigidity for generic direction-length
frameworks whose associated rigidity matroid is connected, by showing that such
frameworks are globally rigid if and only if every 2-separation of the
underlying graph is direction-balanced.


title: Binary forms with three different relative ranks

abstract:
  Suppose $f(x,y)$ is a binary form of degree $d$ with coefficients in a field
$K \subseteq \mathbb C$. The $K$-rank of $f$ is the smallest number of $d$-th
powers of linear forms over $K$ of which $f$ is a $K$-linear combination. We
prove that for $d \ge 5$, there always exists a form of degree $d$ with at
least three different ranks over various fields. The $K$-rank of a form $f$
(such as $x^3y^2$) may depend on whether -1 is a sum of two squares in $K$.


title:
The generalized plane piezoelectric problem: Theoretical formulation and
  application to heterostructure nanowires

abstract:
  We present a systematic methodology for the reformulation of a broad class of
three-dimensional (3D) piezoelectric problems into a two-dimensional (2D)
mathematical form. The sole underlying hypothesis is that the system geometry
and material properties as well as the applied loads (forces and charges) and
boundary conditions are translationally invariant along some direction. This
class of problems is commonly denoted here as the generalized plane
piezoelectric (GPP) problem. The first advantage of the generalized plane
problems is that they are more manageable from both analytical and
computational points of view. Moreover, they are flexible enough to accommodate
any geometric cross section, crystal class symmetry, axis orientation and a
wide range of boundary conditions. As an illustration we present numerical
simulation of indefinite lattice-mismatched core-shell nanowires made of
diamond Ge/Si and zincblende piezoelectric InN/GaN materials. The remarkable
agreement with exact 3D simulations of finite versions of those systems reveal
the GPP approach as a reliable procedure to study accurately and with moderate
computing resources the strain and electric field distribution in elongated
piezoelectric systems.


title: Local Deformation of Matrix Words

abstract:
  In this document we study some local deformation properties of matrix
representations of the universal C$^*$-algebras denoted by
$\mathbb{I}^{m}_\varepsilon[p_1,\ldots,p_m]$ and
$\mathbb{S}^{m-1}_\varepsilon[p_1,\ldots,p_m]$, and that we call {\bf Semi-Soft
Cubes} and {\bf Semi-Soft Spheres} respectively.
  We will use some C$^*$-algebraic technology to study the local deformation
properties of matrix words in particular representations of Semi-Soft Cubes and
Spheres, we will then use these results to study the local deformation
properties of generic matrix equations on words.
  Some geometrical aspects of the local deformation of matrix words will be
addressed, and some connections with matrix numerical analysis and
computational physics will be outlined as well.


title:
Topological flat bands in time-periodically driven uniaxial strained
  graphene nanoribbons

abstract:
  We study the emergence of electronic non-trivial topological flat bands in
time-periodically driven strained graphene within a tight binding approach
based on the Floquet formalism. In particular, we focus on uniaxial spatially
periodic strain since it can be mapped onto an effective one-dimensional
system. Also, two kinds of time-periodic driving are considered: a short pulse
(delta kicking) and a sinusoidal variation (harmonic driving). We prove that
for special strain wavelengths, the system is described by a two level Dirac
Hamiltonian. Even though the study case is gapless, we find that topologically
non-trivial flat bands emerge not only at zero-quasienergy but also at $\pm\pi$
quasienergy, the latter being a direct consequence of the periodicity of the
Floquet space. Both kind of flat bands are thus understood as dispersionless
bands joining two inequivalent touching band points with opposite Berry phase.
This is confirmed by explicit evaluation of the Berry phase in the touching
band points' neighborhood. Using that information, the topological phase
diagram of the system is built. Additionally, the experimental feasibility of
the model is discussed and two methods for the experimental realization of our
model are proposed.


title: The triple system Zeta Aquarii

abstract:
  Zeta Aquarii is a bright and nearby (28 pc) triple star with a 26-year
astrometric subsystem. Almost a half of the outer 540-year visual orbit has
been covered in 238 years of its observations. Both inner and outer orbits are
revised here taking into account recent direct resolution of the inner pair
Aa,Ab. The inner orbit has a high eccentricity of 0.87 and is inclined to the
outer orbit by 140+-10 degrees, suggesting that Kozai-Lidov cycles take place.
The masses of the stars Aa, B, and Ab are 1.4, 1.4, and 0.6 solar. The age of
the system is about 3 Gyr, and the two main components have just left the main
sequence. Hypothetically, this system could have formed by a dynamical capture
of the small star Ab in the twin binary Aa,B.


title: TLR-exosomes exhibit distinct kinetics and effector function

abstract:
  The innate immune system is vital to rapidly responding to pathogens and
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a critical component of this response.
Nanovesicular exosomes play a role in immunity, but to date their exact
contribution to the dissemination of the TLR response is unknown. Here we show
that exosomes from TLR stimulated cells (TLR-exosomes) can largely recapitulate
TLR activation in distal cells in vitro. We can abrogate the
action-at-a-distance signaling of exosomes by UV irradiation, demonstrating
that RNA is crucial for their effector function. We are the first to show that
exosomes derived from poly(I:C) stimulated cells induce in vivo macrophage
M1-like polarization within murine lymph nodes. These TLR-exosomes demonstrate
enhanced trafficking to the node and preferentially recruit neutrophils as
compared to control-exosomes. This work definitively establishes the
differential effector function for TLR-exosomes in communicating the activation
state of the cell of origin.


title:
Expansion of harmonically trapped interacting particles and time
  dependence of the contact

abstract:
  We study the expansion of an interacting atomic system at zero temperature,
following its release from an isotropic three-dimensional harmonic trap and
calculate the time dependence of its density and momentum distribution, with
special focus on the behavior of the contact parameter. We consider different
quantum systems, including the unitary Fermi gas of infinite scattering length,
the weakly interacting Bose gas, and two interacting particles with highly
asymmetric mass imbalance. In all cases analytic results can be obtained, which
show that the initial value of the contact, fixing the $1/k^4$ tail of the
momentum distribution, disappears for large expansion times. Our results raise
the problem of understanding the recent experiment of Chang \textit{et al.}
[Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{117}, 235303 (2016)] carried out on a weakly
interacting Bose gas of metastable $^4$He atoms, where a $1/r^4$ tail in the
density distribution was observed after a large expansion time, implying the
existence of the $1/k^4$ tail in the asymptotic momentum distribution.


title: Charge collection efficiency mapping of interdigitated 4H-SiC detectors

abstract:
  The Ion Beam Induced Charge Collection (IBIC) technique was used to map the
charge collection efficiency (CCE) of a 4H-SiC photodetector with coplanar
interdigitated Schottky barrier electrodes and a common ohmic contact on the
back side. IBIC maps were obtained using focused proton beams with energies of
0.9 MeV and 1.5 MeV, at different bias voltages and different sensitive
electrode configurations (charge collection at the top Schottky or at the back
Ohmic contact). These different experimental conditions have been modeled using
a two dimensional finite element code to solve the adjoint carrier continuity
equations and the results obtained have been compared with experimental
results. The excellent consistency between the simulated and experimental CCE
maps allows an exhaustive interpretation of the charge collection mechanisms
occurring in pixellated or strip detectors.


title: IBIC analysis of CdTe/CdS solar cells

abstract:
  This paper reports on the investigation of the electronic properties of a
thin film CdS/CdTe solar cell with the Ion Beam Induced Charge (IBIC)
technique. The device under test is a thin film (total thickness around 10 um)
multilayer heterojunction solar cell, displaying an efficiency of 14% under
AM1.5 illumination conditions. The IBIC measurements were carried out using
focused 3.150 MeV He ions raster scanned onto the surface of the back
electrode. The charge collection efficiency (CCE) maps show inhomogeneous
response of the cell to be attributed to the polycrystalline nature of the CdTe
bulk material. Finally, the evolution of the IBIC signal vs. the ion fluence
was studied in order to evaluate the radiation hardness of the CdS/CdTe solar
cells in view of their use in solar modules for space applications.


title:
Single-Shot Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy in Pulsed High Magnetic
  Fields

abstract:
  We have developed a single-shot terahertz time-domain spectrometer to perform
optical-pump/terahertz-probe experiments in pulsed, high magnetic fields up to
30 T. The single-shot detection scheme for measuring a terahertz waveform
incorporates a reflective echelon to create time-delayed beamlets across the
intensity profile of the optical gate beam before it spatially and temporally
overlaps with the terahertz radiation in a ZnTe detection crystal. After
imaging the gate beam onto a camera, we can retrieve the terahertz time-domain
waveform by analyzing the resulting image. To demonstrate the utility of our
technique, we measured cyclotron resonance absorption of optically excited
carriers in the terahertz frequency range in intrinsic silicon at high magnetic
fields, with results that agree well with published values.


title: Interpolations of Smoke and Liquid Simulations

abstract:
  We present a novel method to interpolate smoke and liquid simulations in
order to perform data-driven fluid simulations. Our approach calculates a dense
space-time deformation using grid-based signed-distance functions of the
inputs. A key advantage of this implicit Eulerian representation is that it
allows us to use powerful techniques from the optical flow area. We employ a
five-dimensional optical flow solve. In combination with a projection
algorithm, and residual iterations, we achieve a robust matching of the inputs.
Once the match is computed, arbitrary in between variants can be created very
efficiently. To concatenate multiple long-range deformations, we propose a
novel alignment technique. Our approach has numerous advantages, including
automatic matches without user input, volumetric deformations that can be
applied to details around the surface, and the inherent handling of topology
changes. As a result, we can interpolate swirling smoke clouds, and splashing
liquid simulations. We can even match and interpolate phenomena with
fundamentally different physics: a drop of liquid, and a blob of heavy smoke.


title:
The Analytical Solution of the Schr\"odinger Particle in Multiparameter
  Potential

abstract:
  In this study, we present analytical solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation
with the Multiparameter potential containing the different types of physical
potential via the asymptotic iteration method (AIM) by applying a Pekeris-type
approximation to the centrifugal potential. For any n and l (states) quantum
numbers, we get the bound state energy eigenvalues numerically and the
corresponding eigenfunctions.Furthermore, we compare our results with the ones
obtained in previous works and it is seen that our numerical results are in
good agreement with the literature.


title: Separated Nets in Nilpotent Groups

abstract:
  In this paper we generalize several results on separated nets in Euclidean
space to separated nets in connected simply connected nilpotent Lie groups. We
show that every such group $G$ contains separated nets that are not biLipschitz
equivalent. We define a class of separated nets in these groups arising from a
generalization of the cut-and-project quasi-crystal construction and show that
generically any such separated net is bounded displacement equivalent to a
separated net of constant covolume. In addition, we use a generalization of the
Laczkovich criterion to provide `exotic' perturbations of such separated nets.


title: Duality and helicity: the photon wave function approach

abstract:
  The photon wave equation proposed in terms of the Riemann-Silberstein vector
is derived from a first-order Dirac/Weyl-type action principle. It is symmetric
w.r.t. duality transformations, but the associated Noether quantity vanishes.
Replacing the fields by potentials and using instead a quadratic
Klein-Gordon-type Lagrangian allows us to recover the double-Chern-Simons
expression of conserved helicity and is shown to be equivalent to recently
proposed alternative frameworks. Applied to the potential-modified theory the
Dirac/Weyl-type approach yields again zero conserved charge, whereas the
Klein-Gordon-type approach applied to the original setting yields Lipkin's
"zilch".


title: Applying Naive Bayes Classification to Google Play Apps Categorization

abstract:
  There are over one million apps on Google Play Store and over half a million
publishers. Having such a huge number of apps and developers can pose a
challenge to app users and new publishers on the store. Discovering apps can be
challenging if apps are not correctly published in the right category, and, in
turn, reduce earnings for app developers. Additionally, with over 41 categories
on Google Play Store, deciding on the right category to publish an app can be
challenging for developers due to the number of categories they have to choose
from. Machine Learning has been very useful, especially in classification
problems such sentiment analysis, document classification and spam detection.
These strategies can also be applied to app categorization on Google Play Store
to suggest appropriate categories for app publishers using details from their
application.
  In this project, we built two variations of the Naive Bayes classifier using
open metadata from top developer apps on Google Play Store in other to classify
new apps on the store. These classifiers are then evaluated using various
evaluation methods and their results compared against each other. The results
show that the Naive Bayes algorithm performs well for our classification
problem and can potentially automate app categorization for Android app
publishers on Google Play Store


title: Summary of WG6: Spin Physics

abstract:
  The working group on Spin Physics at the XXIV International Workshop on
Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects (DIS2016) witnessed a
significant progress in the theoretical and experimental investigations aiming
at unveiling the innermost structure of the proton. Results ranged from
proton's one-dimensional representation to its multi-dimensional imaging. In
this contribution, we summarize a selection of the topics discussed and of the
results presented. For details, we refer to the individual contributions
collected in the proceedings of this workshop.


title: Probabilistically Robust SWIPT for Secrecy MISOME Systems

abstract:
  This paper considers simultaneous wireless information and power transfer
(SWIPT) in a multiple-input single-output (MISO) downlink system consisting of
one multi-antenna transmitter, one single-antenna information receiver (IR),
multiple multi-antenna eavesdroppers (Eves) and multiple single-antenna
energy-harvesting receivers (ERs). The main objective is to keep the
probability of the legitimate user's achievable secrecy rate outage as well as
the ERs' harvested energy outage caused by channel state information (CSI)
uncertainties below some prescribed thresholds. As is well known, the secrecy
rate outage constraints present a significant analytical and computational
challenge. Incorporating the energy harvesting (EH) outage constraints only
intensifies that challenge. In this paper, we address this challenging issue
using convex restriction approaches which are then proved to yield rank-one
optimal beamforming solutions. Numerical results reveal the effectiveness of
the proposed schemes.


title: Pieri rules for Schur functions in superspace

abstract:
  The Schur functions in superspace $s_\Lambda$ and $\bar s_\Lambda$ are the
limits $q=t=0$ and $q=t=\infty$ respectively of the Macdonald polynomials in
superspace. We prove Pieri rules for the bases $s_\Lambda$ and $\bar
s_{\Lambda}$ (which happen to be essentially dual). As a consequence, we derive
the basic properties of these bases such as dualities, monomial expansions, and
tableaux generating functions.


title: Bitonic st-orderings for Upward Planar Graphs

abstract:
  Canonical orderings serve as the basis for many incremental planar drawing
algorithms. All these techniques, however, have in common that they are limited
to undirected graphs. While $st$-orderings do extend to directed graphs,
especially planar $st$-graphs, they do not offer the same properties as
canonical orderings. In this work we extend the so called bitonic
$st$-orderings to directed graphs. We fully characterize planar $st$-graphs
that admit such an ordering and provide a linear-time algorithm for recognition
and ordering. If for a graph no bitonic $st$-ordering exists, we show how to
find in linear time a minimum set of edges to split such that the resulting
graph admits one. With this new technique we are able to draw every upward
planar graph on $n$ vertices by using at most one bend per edge, at most $n -
3$ bends in total and within quadratic area.


title:
H2 O incorporation in the phosphorene/a-SiO2 interface: A
  first-principles study

abstract:
  Based on first-principles calculations, we investigate the energetic
stability and the electronic properties of (i) a single layer phosphorene (SLP)
adsorbed on the amorphous sio2 surface (SLP/a-sio2), and (ii) the further
incorporation of water molecules at the phosphorene/a-sio2 interface. In (i),
we find that the phosphorene sheet bonds to a-sio2 through van der Waals
interactions, even upon the presence of oxygen vacancy on the surface. The
\slp/a-\sio\ system presents a type-I band alignment, with the valence
(conduction) band maximum (minimum) of the phosphorene lying within the energy
gap of the a-\sio\ substrate. The structural, and the surface-potential
corrugations promote the formation of electron-rich and -poor regions on the
phosphorene sheet and at the SLP/a-sio2 interface. Such charge density puddles
have been strengthened by the presence of oxygen vacancies in a-sio2. In (ii),
due to the amorphous structure of the surface, we have considered a number of
plausible geometries of water embedded in the SLP/a-sio2 interface. There is an
energetic preference to the formation of hydroxyl (OH) groups on the a-sio2
surface. Meanwhile, upon the presence of oxygenated water or interstitial
oxygen in the phosphorene sheet, we find the formation of metastable OH bonded
to the phosphorene, and the formation of energetically stable P--O--Si chemical
bonds at the SLP/a-sio2 interface. Further x-ray absorption spectra (XAS)
simulations have been done, aiming to provide additional structural/electronic
informations of the oxygen atoms forming hydroxyl groups or P--O--Si chemical
bonds at the interface region.


title: Globalizing F-invariants

abstract:
  In this paper we define and study the global Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity and
the global F-signature of prime characteristic rings which are not necessarily
local. Our techniques are made meaningful by extending many known theorems
about Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity and F-signature to the non-local case.


title: Infinite type toric varieties and Voronoi Tilings

abstract:
  An infinite type toric variety is a normal toric variety given by a fan with
infinitely many cones. We construct examples in this paper coming from
representation theory of loop groups. The fans that appear are cones on Voronoi
tilings on a vector space equipped with an inner product. We also explain the
affine analogue of the connection between a generic torus orbit closure in a
flag variety and the closure a maximal torus in the wonderful compactification.


title:
Discrete hierarchy of sizes and performances in the exchange-traded fund
  universe

abstract:
  Using detailed statistical analyses of the size distribution of a universe of
equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs), we discover a discrete hierarchy of sizes,
which imprints a log-periodic structure on the probability distribution of ETF
sizes that dominates the details of the asymptotic tail. This allows us to
propose a classification of the studied universe of ETFs into seven size layers
approximately organized according to a multiplicative ratio of 3.5 in their
total market capitalization. Introducing a similarity metric generalising the
Herfindhal index, we find that the largest ETFs exhibit a significantly
stronger intra-layer and inter-layer similarity compared with the smaller ETFs.
Comparing the performance across the seven discerned ETF size layers, we find
an inverse size effect, namely large ETFs perform significantly better than the
small ones both in 2014 and 2015.


title: On unimodular transformations of conservative L-systems

abstract:
  We study unimodular transformations of conservative $L$-systems. Classes
$\sM^Q$, $\sM^Q_\kappa$, $\sM^{-1,Q}_\kappa$ that are impedance functions of
the corresponding $L$-systems are introduced. A unique unimodular
transformation of a given $L$-system with impedance function from the mentioned
above classes is found such that the impedance function of a new $L$-system
belongs to $\sM^{(-Q)}$, $\sM^{(-Q)}_\kappa$, $\sM^{-1,(-Q)}_\kappa$,
respectively. As a result we get that considered classes (that are
perturbations of the Donoghue classes of Herglotz-Nevanlinna functions with an
arbitrary real constant $Q$) are invariant under the corresponding unimodular
transformations of $L$-systems. We define a coupling of an $L$-system and a so
called $F$-system and on its basis obtain a multiplication theorem for their
transfer functions. In particular, it is shown that any unimodular
transformation of a given $L$-system is equivalent to a coupling of this system
and the corresponding controller, an $F$-system with a constant unimodular
transfer function. In addition, we derive an explicit form of a controller
responsible for a corresponding unimodular transformation of an $L$-system.
Examples that illustrate the developed approach are presented.


title: Error Invariants for Concurrent Traces

abstract:
  Error invariants are assertions that over-approximate the reachable program
states at a given position in an error trace while only capturing states that
will still lead to failure if execution of the trace is continued from that
position. Such assertions reflect the effect of statements that are involved in
the root cause of an error and its propagation, enabling slicing of statements
that do not contribute to the error. Previous work on error invariants focused
on sequential programs. We generalize error invariants to concurrent traces by
augmenting them with additional information about hazards such as
write-after-write events, which are often involved in race conditions and
atomicity violations. By providing the option to include varying levels of
details in error invariants-such as hazards and branching information-our
approach allows the programmer to systematically analyze individual aspects of
an error trace.We have implemented a hazard-sensitive slicing tool for
concurrent traces based on error invariants and evaluated it on benchmarks
covering a broad range of real-world concurrency bugs. Hazard-sensitive slicing
significantly reduced the length of the considered traces and still maintained
the root causes of the concurrency bugs.


title: Conditions for entanglement purification with general two-qubit states

abstract:
  We present the convergence study of a recurrence entanglement purification
protocol using arbitrary two-qubit initial states. The protocol is based on a
rank two projector in the Bell basis which serves as a two-qubit operation
replacing the usual controlled-NOT gate. We show that the whole space of
two-qubit density matrices is mapped onto an invariant subspace characterized
by seven real parameters. By analyzing this type of density matrices we are
able to find general conditions for entanglement purification in the form of
two inequalities between pairs of diagonal elements and pairs of coherences. We
show that purifiable initial states do not necessary require a fidelity larger
than one half with respect to any maximally entangled pure state. Furthermore,
we find a family of states parametrized by their concurrence that can be
perfectly converted into a Bell state in just one step of the protocol with
probability proportional to the square of the concurrence.


title:
The role of convexity on saddle-point dynamics: Lyapunov function and
  robustness

abstract:
  This paper studies the projected saddle-point dynamics associated to a
convex-concave function, which we term saddle function. The dynamics consists
of gradient descent of the saddle function in variables corresponding to
convexity and (projected) gradient ascent in variables corresponding to
concavity. We examine the role that the local and/or global nature of the
convexity-concavity properties of the saddle function plays in guaranteeing
convergence and robustness of the dynamics. Under the assumption that the
saddle function is twice continuously differentiable, we provide a novel
characterization of the omega-limit set of the trajectories of this dynamics in
terms of the diagonal blocks of the Hessian. Using this characterization, we
establish global asymptotic convergence of the dynamics under local strong
convexity-concavity of the saddle function. When strong convexity-concavity
holds globally, we establish three results. First, we identify a Lyapunov
function (that decreases strictly along the trajectory) for the projected
saddle-point dynamics when the saddle function corresponds to the Lagrangian of
a general constrained convex optimization problem. Second, for the particular
case when the saddle function is the Lagrangian of an equality-constrained
optimization problem, we show input-to-state stability of the saddle-point
dynamics by providing an ISS Lyapunov function. Third, we use the latter result
to design an opportunistic state-triggered implementation of the dynamics.
Various examples illustrate our results.


title: My Random Walks in Anderson's Garden

abstract:
  Anderson's Garden is a drawing presented to Philip W. Anderson on the eve of
his 60th birthday celebration, in 1983. This cartoon (Fig. 1), whose author is
unknown, succinctly depicts some of Anderson's pre-1983 works, as a blooming
garden. As an avid reader of Anderson's papers, random walk in Anderson's
garden had become a part of my routine since graduate school days. This was of
immense help and prepared me for a wonderful collaboration with the gardener
himself, on the resonating valence bond (RVB) theory of High Tc cuprates and
quantum spin liquids, at Princeton. The result was bountiful - the first (RVB
mean field) theory for i) quantum spin liquids, ii) emergent fermi surfaces in
Mott insulators and iii) superconductivity in doped Mott insulators. Beyond
mean field theory - i) emergent gauge fields, ii) Ginzbuerg Landau theory with
RVB gauge fields, iii) prediction of superconducting dome, iv) an early
identification and study of a non-fermi liquid normal state of cuprates and so
on. Here I narrate this story, years of my gardening attempts and end with a
brief summary of my theoretical efforts to extend RVB theory of
superconductivity to encompass the recently observed very high Tc ~ 203 K
superconductivity in molecular solid H2S at high pressures ~ 200 GPa.


title:
Indefinite theta functions arising in Gromov-Witten Theory of elliptic
  orbifolds

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider natural geometric objects coming from Lagrangian
Floer theory and mirror symmetry. Lau and Zhou showed that some of the explicit
Gromov-Witten potentials computed by Cho, Hong, Kim, and Lau are essentially
classical modular forms. Recent work by Zwegers and two of the authors
determined modularity properties of several simpler pieces of the last, and
most mysterious, function by developing several identities between functions
with properties generalizing those of the mock modular forms in Zwegers'
thesis. Here, we complete the analysis of all pieces of Cho, Hong, Kim, and
Lau's functions, inspired by recent work of Alexandrov, Banerjee, Manschot, and
Pioline on similar functions. Combined with the work of Lau and Zhou, as well
as the aforementioned work of Zwegers and two of the authors, this affords a
complete understanding of the modularity transformation properties of the open
Gromov-Witten potentials of elliptic orbifolds of the form $\mathbb
P^1_{a,b,c}$ computed by Cho, Hong, Kim, and Lau. It is hoped that this will
provide a fuller picture of the mirror-symmetric properties of these orbifolds
in subsequent works.


title:
Game-Theoretic Modeling of Driver and Vehicle Interactions for
  Verification and Validation of Autonomous Vehicle Control Systems

abstract:
  Autonomous driving has been the subject of increased interest in recent years
both in industry and in academia. Serious efforts are being pursued to address
legal, technical and logistical problems and make autonomous cars a viable
option for everyday transportation. One significant challenge is the time and
effort required for the verification and validation of the decision and control
algorithms employed in these vehicles to ensure a safe and comfortable driving
experience. Hundreds of thousands of miles of driving tests are required to
achieve a well calibrated control system that is capable of operating an
autonomous vehicle in an uncertain traffic environment where multiple
interactions between vehicles and drivers simultaneously occur. Traffic
simulators where these interactions can be modeled and represented with
reasonable fidelity can help decrease the time and effort necessary for the
development of the autonomous driving control algorithms by providing a venue
where acceptable initial control calibrations can be achieved quickly and
safely before actual road tests. In this paper, we present a game theoretic
traffic model that can be used to 1) test and compare various autonomous
vehicle decision and control systems and 2) calibrate the parameters of an
existing control system. We demonstrate two example case studies, where, in the
first case, we test and quantitatively compare two autonomous vehicle control
systems in terms of their safety and performance, and, in the second case, we
optimize the parameters of an autonomous vehicle control system, utilizing the
proposed traffic model and simulation environment.


title:
Constructing and Constraining Wave Functions for Identical Quantum
  Particles

abstract:
  I address the problem of explaining why wave functions for identical
particles must be either symmetric or antisymmetric (the symmetry dichotomy)
within two interpretations of quantum mechanics which include particles
following definite trajectories in addition to, or in lieu of, the wave
function: Bohmian mechanics and Newtonian quantum mechanics (a.k.a. many
interacting worlds). In both cases I argue that, if the interpretation is
formulated properly, the symmetry dichotomy can be derived and need not be
postulated.


title:
Generalizing Serre's Splitting Theorem and Bass's Cancellation Theorem
  via free-basic elements

abstract:
  We give new proofs of two results of Stafford, which generalize two famous
Theorems of Serre and Bass regarding projective modules. Our techniques are
inspired by the theory of basic elements. Using these methods we further
generalize Serre's Splitting Theorem by imposing a condition to the splitting
maps, which has an application to the case of Cartier algebras.


title: The Frobenius problem for the shuffle operation

abstract:
  We characterize the finite sets S of words such that that the iterated
shuffle of S is co-finite and we give some bounds on the length of a longest
word not in the iterated shuffle of S.


title:
The UK Met Office GCM with a sophisticated radiation scheme applied to
  the hot Jupiter HD 209458b

abstract:
  To study the complexity of hot Jupiter atmospheres revealed by observations
of increasing quality, we have adapted the UK Met Office global circulation
model (GCM), the Unified Model (UM), to these exoplanets. The UM solves the
full 3D Navier-Stokes equations with a height-varying gravity, avoiding the
simplifications used in most GCMs currently applied to exoplanets. In this work
we present the coupling of the UM dynamical core to an accurate radiation
scheme based on the two-stream approximation and correlated-k method with
state-of-the-art opacities from ExoMol. Our first application of this model is
devoted to the extensively studied hot Jupiter HD 209458b. We have derived
synthetic emission spectra and phase curves, and compare them to both previous
models also based on state-of-the-art radiative transfer, and to observations.
We find a reasonable a agreement between observations and both our day side
emission and hot spot offset, however, our night side emission is too large.
Overall our results are qualitatively similar to those found by Showman et al.
(2009) with the SPARC/MITgcm, however, we note several quantitative
differences: Our simulations show significant variation in the position of the
hottest part of the atmosphere with pressure, as expected from simple timescale
arguments, and in contrast to the "vertical coherency" found by Showman et al.
(2009). We also see significant quantitative differences in calculated
synthetic observations. Our comparisons strengthen the need for detailed
intercomparisons of dynamical cores, radiation schemes and post-processing
tools to understand these differences. This effort is necessary in order to
make robust conclusions about these atmospheres based on GCM results.


title: Prospecting for chemical tags among open clusters

abstract:
  Determinations of the chemical composition of red giants in a large sample of
open clusters show that the abundances of the heavy elements La, Ce, Nd and Sm
but not so obviously Y and Eu vary from one cluster to another across a sample
all having about the solar metallicity. For La, Ce, Nd and Sm the amplitudes of
the variations at solar metallicity scale approximately with the main s-process
contribution to solar system material. Consideration of published abundances of
field stars suggest that such a spread in heavy element abundances is present
for the thin and thick disk stars of different metallicity. This new result
provides an opportunity to chemically tag stars by their heavy elements and to
reconstruct dissolved open clusters from the field star population.


title: Anomalous transport from holography: Part I

abstract:
  We revisit the transport properties induced by the chiral anomaly in a
charged plasma holographically dual to anomalous $U(1)_V\times U(1)_A$ Maxwell
theory in Schwarzschild-$AdS_5$. Off-shell constitutive relations for vector
and axial currents are derived using various approximations generalising most
of known in the literature anomaly-induced phenomena and revealing some new
ones. In a weak external field approximation, the constitutive relations have
all-order derivatives resummed into six momenta-dependent transport coefficient
functions: the diffusion, the electric/magnetic conductivity, and three anomaly
induced functions. The latter generalise the chiral magnetic and chiral
separation effects. Nonlinear transport is studied assuming presence of
constant background external fields. The chiral magnetic effect, including all
order nonlinearity in magnetic field, is proven to be exact when the magnetic
field is the only external field that is turned on. Non-linear corrections to
the constitutive relations due to electric and axial external fields are
computed.


title:
A statistical model of tristimulus measurements within and between OLED
  displays

abstract:
  We present an empirical model for noises in color measurements from OLED
displays. According to measured data the noise is not isotropic in the XYZ
space, instead most of the noise is along an axis that is parallel to a vector
from origin to measured XYZ vector. The presented empirical model is simple and
depends only on the measured XYZ values. Our tests show that the variations
between multiple panels of the same type have similar distribution as the
temporal noise in measurements from a single panel, but a larger magnitude.


title: Second-Order Switching Time Optimization for Switched Dynamical Systems

abstract:
  Switching time optimization arises in finite-horizon optimal control for
switched systems where, given a sequence of continuous dynamics, one minimizes
a cost function with respect to the switching times. We propose an efficient
method for computing the optimal switching times for switched linear and
nonlinear systems. A novel second-order optimization algorithm is introduced
where, at each iteration, the dynamics are linearized over an underlying time
grid to compute the cost function, the gradient and the Hessian efficiently.
With the proposed method, the most expensive operations at each iteration are
shared between the cost function and its derivatives, thereby greatly reducing
the computational burden. We implemented the algorithm in the Julia package
SwitchTimeOpt allowing the user to easily solve switching time optimization
problems. In the case of linear dynamics, many operations can be further
simplified and benchmarks show that our approach is able to provide optimal
solutions in just a few ms. In the case of nonlinear dynamics, two examples
show that our method provides optimal solutions with up to two orders of
magnitude time reductions over state-of-the-art approaches.


title: Exact triangles, Koszul duality, and coisotopic boundary conditions

abstract:
  We develop a theory of "arrowed" (operads and) dioperads, which are to exact
triangles as dioperads are to vector spaces. A central example to this paper is
the arrowed operad controlling "derived ideals" for any operad. The Koszul
duality theory of arrowed dioperads interacts well with rotation of exact
triangles, and in particular with "exact Stars of David," which are pairs of
exact triangles drawn on top of each other in an interesting way. Using this
framework, we give a cochain-level lift of the "relative Poincar\'e duality"
enjoyed by oriented manifolds with boundary; moreover, our cochain-level lift
satisfies a natural locality-type condition, and is uniquely determined by this
property. We discuss the meaning of the words "relative orientation" and
"coisotropic." We extend the AKSZ construction to bulk-boundary settings with
Poisson bulk fields and coisotropic boundary conditions.


title: Laplacian solitons on nilpotent Lie groups

abstract:
  We investigate the existence of closed $G_2$-structures which are solitons
for the Laplacian flow on nilpotent Lie groups. We obtain that seven of the
twelve Lie algebras admitting a closed $G_2$-structure do admit a Laplacian
soliton. Moreover, one of them admits a continuous family of Laplacian solitons
which are pairwise non-homothetic and the Laplacian flow evolution of four of
them is not diagonal.


title: A Note On Noeherian Rings

abstract:
  In this paper we introduce the definition of a noetherian disjoint ring and
that of a noetherian non-disjoint ring . For a noetherian ring R , with
nilradical N if P and Q represent the semiprime ideals of R called as the right
and the left krull-homogenous parts of N as defined in [8] , then we prove the
main theorem of this paper for the ring R whose statement is given below. Main
Theorem :- Let R be a Noetherian ring with nilradical N . Let P and Q represent
the right and the left krull-homogenous parts of N . Then the following hold
true for the ring R ; (a) If R is a disjoint ring , then the nilradical N of R
is a right and a left weakly ideal invariant ideal of R . Hence N is a right
and a left localizable semiprime ideal of R . (b) If R is a non-disjoint ring
then the following are equivalent conditions on R ;
  (i) N is a right and a left weakly ideal invariant ideal of R .
  (ii) P = Q is a right and a left localizable semiprime ideal of R .


title: Invisible Decays in Higgs Pair Production

abstract:
  Observation of Higgs pair production is an important long term objective of
the LHC physics program as it will shed light on the scalar potential of the
Higgs field and the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking. While numerous
studies have examined the impact of new physics on di-Higgs production, little
attention has been given to the well-motivated possibility of exotic Higgs
decays in this channel. Here we investigate the consequences of exotic
invisible Higgs decays in di-Higgs production. We outline a search sensitive to
such invisible decays in the $b\bar b+{\not \!\! E}_T$ channel. We demonstrate
that probing invisible branching ratios of order 10$\%$ during the LHC's
high-luminosity run will be challenging, but in resonance enhanced di-Higgs
production, this final state can become crucial to establish the existence of
physics beyond the Standard Model at collider energies. We also briefly discuss
the outlook for other exotic Higgs decay modes and the potential to observe
such exotic decays in the di-Higgs channel.


title:
Revealing the network of periodic orbits in galaxy models with a prolate
  or an oblate dark matter halo component

abstract:
  Locating the position of periodic orbits in galaxies is undoubtedly an issue
of paramount importance. We reveal the position and the stability of periodic
orbits of stars moving in the meridional plane $(R,z)$ of an axially symmetric
galactic model with a disk, a spherical nucleus, and a biaxial dark matter halo
component. In particular, we study how all the involved parameters of the
dynamical system influence the position and the stability of all resonant
families. To locate the position and measure the stability of periodic orbits
we use a highly sensitive numerical code which is able to identify resonant
periodic orbits of the type $n:m$. Two cases are studied for every parameter:
(i) the case where the dark matter halo component is prolate and (ii) the case
where an oblate dark matter halo is present. Our numerical exploration reveals
that all the dynamical quantities affect, more or less, the position and the
stability of the periodic orbits. It is shown that the mass of the nucleus, the
mass of the disk, the halo flattening parameter, the scale length of the halo,
the angular momentum, and the total orbital energy are the most influential
quantities, while the effect of all other parameters is much weaker.


title: VIS: the visible imager for Euclid

abstract:
  Euclid-VIS is the large format visible imager for the ESA Euclid space
mission in their Cosmic Vision program, scheduled for launch in 2020. Together
with the near infrared imaging within the NISP instrument, it forms the basis
of the weak lensing measurements of Euclid. VIS will image in a single r+i+z
band from 550-900 nm over a field of view of ~0.5 deg2. By combining 4
exposures with a total of 2260 sec, VIS will reach to deeper than mAB=24.5
(10sigma) for sources with extent ~0.3 arcsec. The image sampling is 0.1
arcsec. VIS will provide deep imaging with a tightly controlled and stable
point spread function (PSF) over a wide survey area of 15000 deg2 to measure
the cosmic shear from nearly 1.5 billion galaxies to high levels of accuracy,
from which the cosmological parameters will be measured. In addition, VIS will
also provide a legacy dataset with an unprecedented combination of spatial
resolution, depth and area covering most of the extra-Galactic sky. Here we
will present the results of the study carried out by the Euclid Consortium
during the period up to the Critical Design Review.


title: Counting lattice points in norm balls on higher rank simple Lie groups

abstract:
  We establish an error estimate for counting lattice points in Euclidean norm
balls (associated to an arbitrary irreducible linear representation) for
lattices in simple Lie groups of real rank at least two. Our approach utilizes
refined spectral estimates based on the existence of universal pointwise bounds
for spherical functions on the groups involved. We focus particularly on the
case of the special linear groups where we give a detailed proof of error
estimates which constitute the first improvement of the best current bound
established by Duke, Rudnick and Sarnak in 1991, and are nearly twice as good
in some cases.


title: Magnon Hall Effect without Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction

abstract:
  Topological magnon bands and magnon Hall effect in insulating collinear
ferromagnets are induced by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) even at
zero magnetic field. In the geometrically frustrated star lattice, a
coplanar/noncollinear $\mathbf q=0$ magnetic ordering may be present due to
spin frustration. This magnetic structure, however, does not exhibit
topological magnon effects even with DMI in contrast to collinear ferromagnets.
We show that a magnetic field applied perpendicular to the star plane induces a
non-coplanar spin configuration with nonzero spin scalar chirality, which
provides topological effects without the need of DMI. The non-coplanar spin
texture originates from the topology of the spin configurations and does not
need the presence of DMI or magnetic ordering, which suggests that this
phenomenon may be present in the chiral spin liquid phases of frustrated
magnetic systems. We propose that these anomalous topological magnon effects
can be accessible in Polymeric Iron (III) Acetate --- a star-lattice
antiferromagnet with both spin frustration and long-range magnetic ordering.


title:
Classifying orbits of low and high energy stars in axisymmetric disk
  galaxies

abstract:
  The ordered or chaotic character of orbits of stars moving in the meridional
$(R,z)$ plane of an analytic axisymmetric time-independent disk galaxy model
with an additional spherically symmetric central nucleus is investigated. Our
aim is to determine how the total energy influences the orbital structure of
the galaxy. For this purpose we monitor how the percentage of chaotic orbits as
well as the rates of orbits composing the main regular families evolve as a
function of the value of the energy. In order to distinguish with certainty
between chaotic and ordered motion we use the SALI method in extensive sets of
initial conditions of orbits. Moreover, a spectral method is applied for
identifying the various regular families and also for recognizing the secondary
resonances that bifurcate from them. Our numerical computations suggest that
for low energy levels the observed amount of chaos is high and the orbital
content is rather poor, while for high energy levels, corresponding to global
motion, regular motion dominates and many secondary higher resonances emerge.
We also compared our results with previous related work.


title:
Matching-Based Selection with Incomplete Lists for Decomposition
  Multi-Objective Optimization

abstract:
  The balance between convergence and diversity is a key issue of evolutionary
multi-objective optimization. The recently proposed stable matching-based
selection provides a new perspective to handle this balance under the framework
of decomposition multi-objective optimization. In particular, the stable
matching between subproblems and solutions, which achieves an equilibrium
between their mutual preferences, implicitly strikes a balance between the
convergence and diversity. Nevertheless, the original stable matching model has
a high risk of matching a solution with a unfavorable subproblem which finally
leads to an imbalanced selection result. In this paper, we propose an adaptive
two-level stable matching-based selection for decomposition multi-objective
optimization. Specifically, borrowing the idea of stable matching with
incomplete lists, we match each solution with one of its favorite subproblems
by restricting the length of its preference list during the first-level stable
matching. During the second-level stable matching, the remaining subproblems
are thereafter matched with their favorite solutions according to the classic
stable matching model. In particular, we develop an adaptive mechanism to
automatically set the length of preference list for each solution according to
its local competitiveness. The performance of our proposed method is validated
and compared with several state-of-the-art evolutionary multi-objective
optimization algorithms on 62 benchmark problem instances. Empirical results
fully demonstrate the competitive performance of our proposed method on
problems with complicated Pareto sets and those with more than three
objectives.


title:
Epitaxial thin films of pyrochlore iridate Bi_{2+x}Ir_{2-y}O_{7-delta}:
  structure, defects and transport properties

abstract:
  While pyrochlore iridate thin films are theoretically predicted to possess a
variety of emergent topological properties, experimental verification of these
predictions can be obstructed by the challenge in thin film growth. Here we
report on the pulsed laser deposition and characterization of thin films of a
representative pyrochlore compound Bi2Ir2O7. The films were epitaxially grown
on yttria-stabilized zirconia substrates and have lattice constants that are a
few percent larger than that of the bulk single crystals. The film composition
shows a strong dependence on the oxygen partial pressure.
Density-functional-theory calculations indicate the existence of Bi_Ir antisite
defects, qualitatively consistent with the high Bi: Ir ratio found in the
films. Both Ir and Bi have oxidation states that are lower than their nominal
values, suggesting the existence of oxygen deficiency. The iridate thin films
show a variety of intriguing transport characteristics, including multiple
charge carriers, logarithmic dependence of resistance on temperature,
antilocalization corrections to conductance due to spin-orbit interactions, and
linear positive magnetoresistance.


title:
A new fast algorithm for reproducing complex networks with community
  structure

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm allowing for generation of
networks with heterogeneity of both node degrees and community sizes. The
quality and efficiency of the algorithm is analyzed and compared to the other,
so far the most popular algorithm which was proposed by Lancichinetti et al. We
discuss the advantages and shortcomings of both algorithms indicating the areas
of their potential application.


title:
Fractal basins of attraction in the planar circular restricted
  three-body problem with oblateness and radiation pressure

abstract:
  In this paper we use the planar circular restricted three-body problem where
one of the primary bodies is an oblate spheroid or an emitter of radiation in
order to determine the basins of attraction associated with the equilibrium
points. The evolution of the position of the five Lagrange points is monitored
when the values of the mass ratio $\mu$, the oblateness coefficient $A_1$, and
the radiation pressure factor $q$ vary in predefined intervals. The regions on
the configuration $(x,y)$ plane occupied by the basins of attraction are
revealed using the multivariate version of the Newton-Raphson method. The
correlations between the basins of convergence of the equilibrium points and
the corresponding number of iterations needed in order to obtain the desired
accuracy are also illustrated. We conduct a thorough and systematic numerical
investigation demonstrating how the dynamical quantities $\mu$, $A_1$, and $q$
influence the basins of attractions. Our results suggest that the mass ratio
and the radiation pressure factor are the most influential parameters, while on
the other hand the structure of the basins of convergence are much less
affected by the oblateness coefficient.


title: Current-generating double layer shoe with a porous sole

abstract:
  We present a principle and a simple theory of a novel reverse
electroactuator, in which the electrical current is generated by pumping of an
electrolytic liquid into nonwetting pores of a polarized electrode. The theory
establishes the relationship between the variation of external pressure and the
electrical current. The effective current density is amplified by high porosity
of the electrode. The suggested principle can be implemented into a design of a
shoe which will be generating an AC current simply by walking. Estimates of
typical parameters and operation regimes of such device suggest that one can
easily generate a peak current density of ~17 mA/cm2. This would produce some
1.7 A from each shoe at 0.65 W average power density, without hampering
walking.


title:
The influence of the composition of tradeoffs on the generation of
  differentiated cells

abstract:
  We study the emergence of cell differentiation under the assumption of the
existence of a given number of tradeoffs between genes encoding different
functions. In the model the viability of colonies is determined by the
capability of their lower level units to perform different functions, which is
implicitly determined by external chemical stimuli. Due to the existence of
tradeoffs it can be evolutionarily advantageous to evolve the division of labor
whereby the cells can suppress their contributions to some of the activities
through the activation of regulatory genes, which in its turn inflicts a cost
in terms of fitness. Our simulation results show that cell differentiation is
more likely as the number of tradeoffs is increased but the outcome also
depends on their strength. We observe the existence of critical values for the
minimum number of tradeoffs and their strength beyond that maximum cell
differentiation can be attained. Remarkably, we observe the occurrence of a
maximum tradeoff strength beyond that the population is no longer viable
imposing an upper tolerable level of constraint at the system. This tolerance
is reduced as the number of tradeoffs grows.


title: The q-AGT-W relations via shuffle algebras

abstract:
  We construct the action of the q-deformed W-algebra on its level r
representation geometrically, using the moduli space of U(r) instantons on the
plane and the double shuffle algebra. We give an explicit LDU decomposition for
the action of W-algebra currents in the fixed point basis of the level r
representation, and prove a relation between the Carlsson-Okounkov Ext operator
and intertwiners for the deformed W-algebra. We interpret this result as a
q-deformed version of the AGT-W relations.


title: What makes ImageNet good for transfer learning?

abstract:
  The tremendous success of ImageNet-trained deep features on a wide range of
transfer tasks begs the question: what are the properties of the ImageNet
dataset that are critical for learning good, general-purpose features? This
work provides an empirical investigation of various facets of this question: Is
more pre-training data always better? How does feature quality depend on the
number of training examples per class? Does adding more object classes improve
performance? For the same data budget, how should the data be split into
classes? Is fine-grained recognition necessary for learning good features?
Given the same number of training classes, is it better to have coarse classes
or fine-grained classes? Which is better: more classes or more examples per
class? To answer these and related questions, we pre-trained CNN features on
various subsets of the ImageNet dataset and evaluated transfer performance on
PASCAL detection, PASCAL action classification, and SUN scene classification
tasks. Our overall findings suggest that most changes in the choice of
pre-training data long thought to be critical do not significantly affect
transfer performance.? Given the same number of training classes, is it better
to have coarse classes or fine-grained classes? Which is better: more classes
or more examples per class?


title:
Comment on "No-core configuration-interaction model for the isospin- and
  angular-momentum-projected states" by Satu{\l}a, Baczyk, Dobaczewski, and
  Konieczka

abstract:
  The authors state that results recently published by Carlsson and Toivanen
"seem to contradict" the conclusions of some of our work. We show that this
statement is based on a misinterpretation of the results of Carlsson and
Toivanen.


title: A nanofabricated, monolithic, path-separated electron interferometer

abstract:
  We report a self-aligned, monolithic electron interferometer, consisting of
two 45 nm thick silicon layers separated by 20 $\mu$m. This interferometer was
fabricated from a single crystal silicon cantilever on a transmission electron
microscope grid by gallium focused ion-beam milling. Using this interferometer,
we demonstrate beam path-separation, and obtain interference fringes in a
Mach-Zehnder geometry, in an unmodified 200 kV transmission electron
microscope. The fringes have a period of 0.32 nm, which corresponds to the
$\left[\bar{1}\bar{1}1\right]$ lattice planes of silicon, and a maximum
contrast of 15 %. This design can potentially be scaled to millimeter-scale,
and used in electron holography. It can also be applied to perform fundamental
physics experiments, such as interaction-free measurement with electrons.


title:
Escape and collision dynamics in the planar equilateral restricted
  four-body problem

abstract:
  We consider the planar circular equilateral restricted four body-problem
where a test particle of infinitesimal mass is moving under the gravitational
attraction of three primary bodies which move on circular orbits around their
common center of gravity, such that their configuration is always an
equilateral triangle. The case where all three primaries have equal masses is
numerically investigated. A thorough numerical analysis takes place in the
configuration $(x,y)$ as well as in the $(x,C)$ space in which we classify
initial conditions of orbits into four main categories: (i) bounded regular
orbits, (ii) trapped chaotic orbits, (iii) escaping orbits and (iv) collision
orbits. Interpreting the collision motion as leaking in the phase space we
related our results to both chaotic scattering and the theory of leaking
Hamiltonian systems. We successfully located the escape and the collision
basins and we managed to correlate them with the corresponding escape and
collision times of orbits. We hope our contribution to be useful for a further
understanding of the escape and collision properties of motion in this
interesting dynamical system.


title: Two-Particle Correlations in Heavy-Light Ion Collisions

abstract:
  We study the initial, high-energy scatterings in heavy ion collisions using
the saturation/Color Glass Condensate framework. We focus on two-particle
long-range rapidity correlations which are modeled as two-gluon correlations.
We calculate the two-gluon production cross section using the saturation
framework in the heavy-light ion regime, including all-order saturation effects
in the heavy nucleus while considering only two-orders in the light ion. The
two-gluon production cross section generates four types of long-range in
rapidity correlations: (i) geometric correlations, (ii) Hanbury Brown and Twiss
(HBT) like correlations accompanied by a back-to-back maximum, (iii) near-side
correlations, and (iv) away-side azimuthal correlations. The geometric
correlations (i) are due to the fact that nucleons are correlated by simply
being confined within the same nucleus. Correlations (iii) and (iv) have
exactly the same amplitudes along with azimuthal and rapidity shapes: one
centered around $\Delta \phi =0$ and the other one centered around $\Delta \phi
=\pi$ (here $\Delta \phi$ is the azimuthal angle between the two produced
gluons). The geometry dependence of the correlation function leads to stronger
azimuthal near- and away-side correlations in the tip-on-tip U+U collisions
than in the side-on-side U+U collisions, an exactly opposite behavior from the
correlations generated by the elliptic flow of the quark-gluon plasma: a study
of azimuthal correlations in the U+U collisions may help to disentangle the two
sources of correlations. Finally we rewrite our result for the two-gluon
production cross-section in a $k_T$-factorized form resulting in an expression
involving a convolution of one- and two-gluon Wigner distributions over the
transverse momenta and impact parameters. This differs from the
$k_T$-factorized forms used in the literature.


title: Bimodules in group graded rings

abstract:
  In this article we introduce the notion of a controlled group graded ring.
Let $G$ be a group, with identity element $e$, and let $R=\oplus_{g\in G} R_g$
be a unital $G$-graded ring. We say that $R$ is $G$-controlled if there is a
one-to-one correspondence between subsets of the group $G$ and (mutually
non-isomorphic) $R_e$-bimodules in $R$, given by $G \supseteq H \mapsto
\oplus_{h\in H} R_h$. For strongly $G$-graded rings, the property of being
$G$-controlled is stronger than that of being simple. We provide necessary and
sufficient conditions for a general $G$-graded ring to be $G$-controlled. We
also give a characterization of strongly $G$-graded rings which are
$G$-controlled. As an application of our main results we give a description of
all intermediate subrings $T$ with $R_e \subseteq T \subseteq R$ of a
$G$-controlled strongly $G$-graded ring $R$. Our results generalize results for
artinian skew group rings which were shown by Azumaya 70 years ago. In the
special case of skew group rings we obtain an algebraic analogue of a recent
result by Cameron and Smith on bimodules in crossed products of von Neumann
algebras.


title:
The Habitability of Proxima Centauri b: II: Environmental States and
  Observational Discriminants

abstract:
  Proxima Centauri b provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand the
evolution and nature of terrestrial planets orbiting M dwarfs. Although Proxima
Cen b orbits within its star's habitable zone, multiple plausible evolutionary
paths could have generated different environments that may or may not be
habitable. Here we use 1D coupled climate-photochemical models to generate
self-consistent atmospheres for evolutionary scenarios predicted in our
companion paper (Barnes et al., 2016). These include high-O2, high-CO2, and
more Earth-like atmospheres, with either oxidizing or reducing compositions. We
show that these modeled environments can be habitable or uninhabitable at
Proxima Cen b's position in the habitable zone. We use radiative transfer
models to generate synthetic spectra and thermal phase curves for these
simulated environments, and instrument models to explore our ability to
discriminate between possible planetary states. These results are applicable
not only to Proxima Cen b, but to other terrestrial planets orbiting M dwarfs.
Thermal phase curves may provide the first constraint on the existence of an
atmosphere, and JWST observations longward of 7 microns could characterize
atmospheric heat transport and molecular composition. Detection of ocean glint
is unlikely with JWST, but may be within the reach of larger aperture
telescopes. Direct imaging spectra may detect O4, which is diagnostic of
massive water loss and O2 retention, rather than a photosynthesis. Similarly,
strong CO2 and CO bands at wavelengths shortward of 2.5 {\mu}m would indicate a
CO2-dominated atmosphere. If the planet is habitable and volatile-rich, direct
imaging will be the best means of detecting habitability. Earth-like planets
with microbial biospheres may be identified by the presence of CH4 and either
photosynthetically produced O2 or a hydrocarbon haze layer.


title:
Dust-depletion sequences in damped Lyman-{\alpha} absorbers: a unified
  picture from low-metallicity systems to the Galaxy

abstract:
  We study metal depletion due to dust in the interstellar medium (ISM) to
infer the properties of dust grains and characterize the metal and dust content
of galaxies, down to low metallicity and intermediate redshift z. We provide
metal column densities and abundances of a sample of 70 damped Lyman-{\alpha}
absorbers (DLAs) towards quasars, observed at high spectral resolution with the
Very Large Telescope (VLT) Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES).
This is the largest sample of phosphorus abundances measured in DLAs so far. We
use literature measurements for Galactic clouds to cover the high-metallicity
end. We discover tight (scatter <= 0.2 dex) correlations between [Zn/Fe] and
the observed relative abundances from dust depletion. This implies that grain
growth in the ISM is an important process of dust production. These sequences
are continuous in [Zn/Fe] from dust-free to dusty DLAs, and to Galactic clouds,
suggesting that the availability of refractory metals in the ISM is crucial for
dust production, regardless of the star formation history. We observe [S/Zn] up
to ~ 0.25 dex in DLAs, which is broadly consistent with Galactic stellar
abundances. Furthermore, we find a good agreement between the nucleosynthetic
pattern of Galactic halo stars and our observations of the least dusty DLAs.
This supports recent star formation in low-metallicity DLAs. The derived
depletions of Zn, O, P, S, Si, Mg, Mn, Cr, and Fe correlate with [Zn/Fe], with
steeper slopes for more refractory elements. P is mostly not affected by dust
depletion. We present canonical depletion patterns, to be used as reference in
future studies of relative abundances and depletion. We derive the total
(dust-corrected) metallicity, typically -2 <= [M/H]tot <= 0 for DLAs, and
scattered around solar metallicity for the Galactic ISM. The dust-to-metal
ratio increases with metallicity... [abridged]


title: The Age of Information: Real-Time Status Updating by Multiple Sources

abstract:
  We examine multiple independent sources providing status updates to a monitor
through simple queues. We formulate an Age of Information (AoI) timeliness
metric and derive a general result for the AoI that is applicable to a wide
variety of multiple source service systems. For first-come first-served and two
types of last-come first-served systems with Poisson arrivals and exponential
service times, we find the region of feasible average status ages for multiple
updating sources. We then use these results to characterize how a service
facility can be shared among multiple updating sources. A new simplified
technique for evaluating the AoI in finite-state continuous-time queueing
systems is also derived. Based on stochastic hybrid systems, this method makes
AoI evaluation to be comparable in complexity to finding the stationary
distribution of a finite-state Markov chain.


title: On the purity of minor-closed classes of graphs

abstract:
  Given a graph $H$ with at least one edge, let $\operatorname{gap}_{H}(n)$
denote the maximum difference between the numbers of edges in two $n$-vertex
edge-maximal graphs with no minor $H$. We show that for exactly four connected
graphs $H$ (with at least two vertices), the class of graphs with no minor $H$
is pure, that is, $\operatorname{gap}_{H}(n) = 0$ for all $n \geq 1$; and for
each connected graph $H$ (with at least two vertices) we have the dichotomy
that either $\operatorname{gap}_{H}(n) = O(1)$ or $\operatorname{gap}_{H}(n) =
\Theta(n)$. Further, if $H$ is 2-connected and does not yield a pure class,
then there is a constant $c>0$ such that $\operatorname{gap}_{H}(n) \sim cn$.
We also give some partial results when $H$ is not connected or when there are
two or more excluded minors.


title:
Cosmological evolution of a complex scalar field with repulsive or
  attractive self-interaction

abstract:
  We study the cosmological evolution of a complex scalar field with a
self-interaction potential $V(|\varphi|^2)$, possibly describing
self-gravitating Bose-Einstein condensates, using a fully general relativistic
treatment. We generalize the hydrodynamic representation of the
Klein-Gordon-Einstein equations in the weak field approximation developed in
our previous paper. We establish the general equations governing the evolution
of a spatially homogeneous complex scalar field in an expanding background. We
show how they can be simplified in the fast oscillation regime and derive the
equation of state of the scalar field in parametric form for an arbitrary
potential. We explicitly consider the case of a quartic potential with
repulsive or attractive self-interaction and determine the phase diagram of the
scalar field. We show that the transition between the weakly self-interacting
regime and the strongly self-interacting regime depends on how the scattering
length of the bosons compares with their effective Schwarzschild radius. We
also constrain the parameters of the scalar field from astrophysical and
cosmological observations. Numerical applications are made for ultralight
bosons without self-interaction (fuzzy dark matter), for bosons with repulsive
self-interaction, and for bosons with attractive self-interaction (QCD axions
and ultralight axions).


title: Low Scale Inflation at High Energy Colliders and Meson Factories

abstract:
  Inflation occurring at energy densities less than (10$^{14}$ GeV)$^4$
produces tensor perturbations too small to be measured by cosmological surveys.
However, we show that it is possible to probe low scale inflation by measuring
the mass of the inflaton at low energy experiments. Detection prospects and
cosmological constraints are determined for low scale quartic hilltop models of
inflation paired with a curvaton field, which imprints the spectrum of scalar
perturbations observed in large scale structure and on the cosmic microwave
background. With cosmological constraints applied, low scale quartic inflation
at energies GeV--PeV, can be mapped to an MeV--TeV mass inflaton resonance,
discoverable through a Higgs portal coupling at upcoming collider and meson
decay experiments. It is demonstrated that low scale inflatons can have
detectably large couplings to Standard Model particles through a Higgs portal,
permitting prompt reheating after inflation, without spoiling, through
radiative corrections to the inflaton's self-coupling, the necessary flatness
of a low scale inflationary potential. A characteristic particle spectrum for a
quartic inflaton-curvaton pair is identified: to within an order of magnitude,
the mass of the curvaton can be predicted from the mass of the inflaton, and
vice-versa. Low scale inflation Higgs portal sensitivity targets are found for
experiments like the LHC, SHiP, BEPC, and KEKB.


title:
The Afterglow and Early-Type Host Galaxy of the Short GRB 150101B at
  z=0.1343

abstract:
  We present the discovery of the X-ray and optical afterglows of the
short-duration GRB 150101B, pinpointing the event to an early-type host galaxy
at z=0.1343 +/- 0.0030. This makes GRB 150101B the most nearby short GRB with
an early-type host galaxy discovered to date. Fitting the spectral energy
distribution of the host galaxy results in an inferred stellar mass of ~7x10^10
M_sol, stellar population age of ~2-2.5 Gyr, and star formation rate of <0.4
M_sol yr^-1. The host of GRB 150101B is one of the largest and most luminous
short GRB host galaxies, with a B-band luminosity of ~4.3L* and half-light
radius of ~8 kpc. GRB 150101B is located at a projected distance of 7.35 +/-
0.07 kpc from its host center, and lies on a faint region of its host
rest-frame optical light. Its location, combined with the lack of associated
supernova, is consistent with a NS-NS/NS-BH merger progenitor. From modeling
the evolution of the broad-band afterglow, we calculate isotropic-equivalent
gamma-ray and kinetic energies of ~1.3x10^49 erg and ~(6-14)x10^51 erg,
respectively, a circumburst density of ~(0.8-4)x10^-5 cm^-3, and a jet opening
angle of >9 deg. Using observations extending to ~30 days, we place upper
limits of <(2-4)x10^41 erg s^-1 on associated kilonova emission. We compare
searches following previous short GRBs to existing kilonova models, and
demonstrate the difficulty of performing effective kilonova searches from
cosmological short GRBs using current ground-based facilities. We show that at
the Advanced LIGO/VIRGO horizon distance of 200 Mpc, searches reaching depths
of ~23-24 AB mag are necessary to probe a meaningful range of kilonova models.


title:
Double Compton and Cyclo-Synchrotron in Super-Eddington Disks,
  Magnetized Coronae, and Jets

abstract:
  We present an extension to the general relativistic radiation
magnetohydrodynamic code HARMRAD to account for emission and absorption by
thermal cyclo-synchrotron, double Compton, bremsstrahlung, low-temperature OPAL
opacities as well as Thomson and Compton scattering. We approximate the
radiation field as a Bose-Einstein distribution and evolve it using the
radiation number-energy-momentum conservation equations in order to track
photon hardening. We perform various simulations to study how these extensions
affect the radiative properties of magnetically-arrested disks accreting at
Eddington to super-Eddington rates. We find that double Compton dominates
bremsstrahlung in the disk within a radius of $r\sim 15r_g$ (gravitational
radii) at a hundred times the Eddington accretion rate, and within smaller
radii at lower accretion rates. Double Compton and cyclo-synchrotron regulate
radiation and gas temperatures in the corona, while cyclo-synchrotron regulates
temperatures in the jet. Interestingly, as the accretion rate drops to
Eddington, an optically thin corona develops whose gas temperature of $T\sim
10^9$K is $\sim 100$ times higher than the disk's black body temperature. Our
results show the importance of double Compton and synchrotron in
super-Eddington disks, magnetized coronae, and jets.


title:
New Constraints on a complex relation between globular cluster colors
  and environment

abstract:
  We present an analysis of high-quality photometry for globular clusters (GCs)
in the Virgo cluster core region, based on data from the Next Generation Virgo
Cluster Survey (NGVS) pilot field, and in the Milky Way (MW) based on
VLT/X-Shooter spectrophotometry. We find significant discrepancies in
color-color diagrams between sub-samples from different environments,
confirming that the environment has a strong influence on the integrated colors
of GCs. GC color distributions along a single color are not sufficient to
capture the differences we observe in color-color space. While the average
photometric colors become bluer with increasing radial distance to the cD
galaxy M87, we also find a relation between the environment and the slope and
intercept of the color-color relations. A denser environment seems to produce a
larger dynamic range in certain color indices. We argue that these results are
not due solely to differential extinction, IMF variations, calibration
uncertainties, or overall age/metallicity variations. We therefore suggest that
the relation between the environment and GC colors is, at least in part, due to
chemical abundance variations, which affect stellar spectra and stellar
evolution tracks. Our results demonstrate that stellar population diagnostics
derived from model predictions which are calibrated on one particular sample of
GCs may not be appropriate for all extragalactic GCs. These results advocate a
more complex model of the assembly history of GC systems in massive galaxies
that goes beyond the simple bimodality found in previous decades.


title:
Confronting semi-analytic galaxy models with galaxy-matter correlations
  observed by CFHTLenS

abstract:
  Testing predictions of semi-analytic models of galaxy evolution against
observations help to understand the complex processes that shape galaxies. We
compare predictions from the Garching and Durham models implemented on the
Millennium Run with observations of galaxy-galaxy lensing (GGL) and
galaxy-galaxy-galaxy lensing (G3L) for various galaxy samples with stellar
masses in the range 0.5 < (M_* / 10^10 M_Sun) < 32 and photometric redshift
range 0.2 < z < 0.6 in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey
(CFHTLenS). We find that the predicted GGL and G3L signals are in qualitative
agreement with CFHTLenS data. Quantitatively, the models succeed in reproducing
the observed signals in the highest stellar mass bin (16 < ( M_* / 10^10 M_Sun)
< 32) but show different degrees of tension for the other stellar mass samples.
The Durham models are strongly excluded at the 95% confidence level by the
observations as they largely over-predict the amplitudes of the GGL and G3L
signals, probably because they predict too many satellite galaxies in massive
halos.


title:
In the Wake of Dark Giants: New Signatures of Dark Matter Self
  Interactions in Equal Mass Mergers of Galaxy Clusters

abstract:
  Merging galaxy clusters have been touted as one of the best probes for
constraining self-interacting dark matter, but few simulations exist to back up
this claim. We simulate equal mass mergers of 10$^{15}$ M$_\odot$ halos, like
the El Gordo and Sausage clusters, with cosmologically-motivated halo and
merger parameters, and with velocity-independent dark-matter self-interactions.
Although the standard lore for merging clusters is that self-interactions lead
to large separations between the galaxy and dark-matter distributions, we find
that maximal galaxy-dark matter offsets of $\lesssim~20$~kpc form for a
self-interaction cross section of $\sigma_\text{SI}/m_\chi$ = 1 cm$^2$/g. This
is an order of magnitude smaller than those measured in observed equal mass and
near equal mass mergers, and is likely to be even smaller for lower-mass
systems. While competitive cross-section constraints are thus unlikely to
emerge from offsets, we find other signatures of self-interactions which are
more promising. Intriguingly, we find that after dark matter halos coalesce,
the collisionless galaxies (and especially the Brightest Cluster Galaxy [BGC])
oscillate around the center of the merger remnant on stable orbits of 100 kpc
for $\sigma_\text{SI}/m_\chi = 1$~cm$^2$/g for at least several Gyr, well after
the clusters have relaxed. If BCG miscentering in relaxed clusters remains a
robust prediction of SIDM under the addition of gas physics, substructure,
merger mass ratios (e.g., 10:1 like the Bullet Cluster), and complex
cosmological merger histories, the observed BCG offsets may constrain
$\sigma_\text{SI}/m_\chi \lesssim$ 0.1 cm$^2$/g---the tightest constraint yet.


title: Bolometric Lightcurves of Peculiar Type II-P Supernovae

abstract:
  We examine the bolometric lightcurves of five Type II-P supernovae (SNe
1998A, 2000cb, 2006V, 2006au and 2009E) which are thought to originate from
blue supergiant progenitors using a new python package named SuperBoL. With
this code, we calculate SNe lightcurves using three different techniques common
in the literature: the quasi-bolometric method, which integrates the observed
photometry, the direct integration method, which additionally corrects for
unobserved flux in the UV and IR, and the bolometric correction method, which
uses correlations between observed colors and V-band bolometric corrections. We
present here the lightcurves calculated by SuperBoL along with previously
published lightcurves, as well as peak luminosities and Ni-56 yields. We find
that the direct integration and bolometric correction lightcurves largely agree
with previously published lightcurves, but with what we believe to be more
robust error calculations, with $0.2 \leq \delta L_{bol}/L_{bol} \leq 0.5$.
Peak luminosities and Ni-56 masses are similarly comparable to previous work.
SN 2000cb remains an unusual member of this sub-group, owing to the faster rise
and flatter plateau than the other supernovae in the sample. Initial
comparisons with the NLTE atmosphere code PHOENIX show that the direct
integration technique re-produces the luminosity of a model supernova spectrum
to ~5% when given synthetic photometry of the spectrum as input. Our code is
publicly available. The ability to produce bolometric lightcurves from observed
sets of broad-band light curves should be helpful in the interpretation of
other types of supernovae, particularly those that are not well characterized,
such as extremely luminous supernovae and faint fast objects.


title: Dark Sectors 2016 Workshop: Community Report

abstract:
  This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016,
summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter
and forces at masses beneath the weak-scale, the status of this broad
international field, the important milestones motivating future exploration,
and promising experimental opportunities to reach these milestones over the
next 5-10 years.