title:
Distribution of high-dimensional entanglement via an intra-city
  free-space link

abstract:
  Quantum entanglement is a fundamental resource in quantum information
processing and its distribution between distant parties is a key challenge in
quantum communications. Increasing the dimensionality of entanglement has been
shown to improve robustness and channel capacities in secure quantum
communications. Here we report on the distribution of genuine high-dimensional
entanglement via a 1.2-km-long free-space link across Vienna. We exploit
hyperentanglement, that is, simultaneous entanglement in polarization and
energy-time bases, to encode quantum information, and observe high-visibility
interference for successive correlation measurements in each degree of freedom.
These visibilities impose lower bounds on entanglement in each subspace
individually and certify four-dimensional entanglement for the hyperentangled
system. The high-fidelity transmission of high-dimensional entanglement under
real-world atmospheric link conditions represents an important step towards
long-distance quantum communications with more complex quantum systems and the
implementation of advanced quantum experiments with satellite links.


title: Non-linear shrinkage estimation of large-scale structure covariance

abstract:
  In many astrophysical settings covariance matrices of large datasets have to
be determined empirically from a finite number of mock realisations. The
resulting noise degrades inference and precludes it completely if there are
fewer realisations than data points. This work applies a recently proposed
non-linear shrinkage estimator of covariance to a realistic example from
large-scale structure cosmology. After optimising its performance for the usage
in likelihood expressions, the shrinkage estimator yields subdominant bias and
variance comparable to that of the standard estimator with a factor $\sim 50$
less realisations. This is achieved without any prior information on the
properties of the data or the structure of the covariance matrix, at negligible
computational cost.


title:
Characterization of YbNi$_4$(P$_{1-{\it x}}$As$_{\it x}$)$_2$, $x = 0,
  0.2$ single crystals grown by Czochralski method

abstract:
  We have investigated large single crystals of YbNi$_4$P$_2$ that were grown
from a levitating melt by the Czochralski method. The new samples facilitate
the determination of the absolute values of the electrical resistivity. Phase
pure polycrystalline samples of the non-magnetic reference LuNi$_4$P$_2$ were
prepared and the electrical resistivity was measured. Furthermore we have grown
a single crystal of the As substituted compound YbNi$_4$(P$_{1-{\it
x}}$As$_{\it x}$)$_2$, $x = 0.2$ and investigated the homogenity of the As
distribution.


title: Semi-regular varieties and variational Hodge conjecture

abstract:
  We know that semi-regular sub-varieties satisfy the variational Hodge
conjecture i.e., given a family of smooth projective varieties $\pi:\mathcal{X}
\to B$, a special fiber $\mathcal{X}_o$ and a semi-regular subvariety $Z
\subset \mathcal{X}_o$, the cohomology class corresponding to $Z$ remains a
Hodge class (as $\mathcal{X}_o$ deforms along $B$) if and only if $Z$ remains
an algebraic cycle. In this article, we investigate examples of such
sub-varieties. In particular, we prove that any smooth projective variety $Z$
of dimension $n$ is a semi-regular sub-variety of a smooth projective
hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{2n+1}$ of large enough degree.


title: Conditions for the existence of stable strange quark matter

abstract:
  We discuss the possible existence of absolutely stable strange quark matter
within three different types of chiral models. We will show that confinement
plays a crucial role in determining the conditions for the Bodmer-Witten
hypothesis to hold true. We discuss also which are the phenomenological
signatures, related to measurements of masses and radii of compact stars, which
would prove the existence of strange quark stars.


title: Determinant morphism for singular varieties

abstract:
  Let X be a projective variety (possibly singular) over an algebraically
closed field of any characteristic and F be a coherent sheaf. In this article,
we define the determinant of F such that it agrees with the classical
definition of determinant in the case X is non-singular. We study how the
Hilbert polynomial of the determinant varies in families of singular varieties.
We focus on singular families such that every fiber is a normal, projective
variety. Unlike in the case of smooth varieties, the Hilbert polynomial of the
determinant does not remain constant in singular families. However, we show
that it exhibits an upper semi-continuous behaviour. Using this we give a
determinant morphism defined over flat families of coherent sheaves. This
morphism coincides with the classical determinant morphism in the smooth case.
Finally, we give applications to moduli spaces of semi-stable sheaves on $X$
and to Hilbert schemes of curves.


title: Twisted Hodge filtration: Curvature of the determinant

abstract:
  Given a holomorphic family $f:\mathcal{X} \to S$ of compact complex manifolds
and a relative ample line bundle $L\to \mathcal{X}$, the higher direct images
$R^{n-p}f_*\Omega^p_{\mathcal{X}/S}(L)$ carry a natural hermitian metric. Using
the explicit formula for the curvature tensor of these direct images, we prove
that the determinant of the twisted Hodge filtration $F^p_L=\oplus_{i\geq
p}R^{n-i}\Omega^i_{\mathcal{X}/S}(L)$ is (semi-) positive on the base $S$ if
$L$ itself is (semi-) positive on $\mathcal{X}$.


title: Time Evolution of Elemental Ratios in Solar Energetic Particle events

abstract:
  Heavy ion ratio abundances in Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events,
e.g.~Fe/O, often exhibit decreases over time. Using particle instruments on the
ACE, SOHO and STEREO spacecraft, we analysed heavy ion data from 4 SEP events
taking place between December 2006 and December 2014. We constructed 36
different ionic pairs and studied their time evolution in each event. We
quantified the temporal behaviour of abundant SEP ratios by fitting the data to
derive a decay time constant $B$. We also considered the ratio of ionic
mass--to--charge for each pair, the $S$ value given e.g.~for Fe/O by $S_{\rm
Fe/O} = (M/Q)_{\rm Fe}\big/(M/Q)_{\rm O}$. We found that the temporal behaviour
of SEP ratios is ordered by the value of $S$: ratios with $S>1$ showed
decreases over time (i.e.~$B<0$) and those with $S<1$ showed increases ($B>0$).
We plotted $B$ as a function of $S$ and observed a clear monotonic dependence:
ratios with a large $S$ decayed at a higher rate. A prominent discontinuity at
$S=2.0$ (corresponding to He/H) was found in 3 of the 4 events, suggesting
anomalous behaviour of protons. The X/H ratios often show an initial increase
followed by a decrease, and decay at a slower rate. We discuss possible causes
of the observed $B$ versus $S$ trends within current understanding of SEP
propagation.


title:
A scalable and efficient covariate selection criterion for mixed effects
  regression models with unknown random effects structure

abstract:
  We propose a new model selection criterion for mixed effects regression
models that is computable when the model is fitted with a two-step method, even
when the structure and the distribution of the random effects are unknown. The
criterion is especially useful in the early stage of the model building process
when one needs to decide which covariates should be included in a mixed effects
regression model but has no knowledge of the random effect structure. This is
particularly relevant in substantive fields where variable selection is guided
by information criteria rather than regularization. The calculation of the
criterion requires only the evaluation of cluster-level log-likelihoods and
does not rely on heavy numerical integration. We provide theoretical and
numerical arguments to justify the method and we illustrate its usefulness by
analyzing data on a socio-economic study of young American Indians.


title:
Non Bunch Davies group coherent states, and their quantum signatures in
  CMB observables

abstract:
  We approach the problem of finding generalized states for matter fields in a
de Sitter universe, moving from a group theoretical point of view. This has
profound consequences for cosmological perturbations during inflation, and for
other CMB observables. In a systematic derivation, we find all the allowed
generalities that such a state may have, within the requirements of coherent
states. Furthermore, we show their relation to the more familiar excited
initial states, often used in inflation.


title:
Unveiling Magnetic Interactions of Ruthenium Trichloride via
  Constraining Direction of Orbital moments: Potential Routes to Realize
  Quantum Spin Liquid

abstract:
  Recent experiments reveal that the honeycomb ruthenium trichloride
{\alpha}-RuCl3 is a prime candidate of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL).
However, there is no theoretical model which can properly describe its
experimental dynamical response, due to the lack of a full understanding of its
magnetic interactions. Here, we propose a general scheme to calculate the
magnetic interactions in systems (e.g., {\alpha}-RuCl3) with non-negligible
orbital moments by constraining the directions of orbital moments. With this
scheme, we put forward a minimal J1-K1-{\Gamma}1-J3-K3 model for {\alpha}-RuCl3
and find that: (I) The third nearest neighbor (NN) antiferromagnetic Heisenberg
interaction J3 stabilizes the zigzag antiferromagnetic order; (II) The NN
symmetric off-diagonal exchange {\Gamma}1 plays a pivotal role in determining
the preferred direction of magnetic moments and generating the spin wave gap.
Exact diagonalization study on this model shows that the Kitaev QSL can be
realized by suppressing the NN symmetric off-diagonal exchange {\Gamma}1 and
the third NN Heisenberg interaction J3. Thus, we not only propose a powerful
general scheme for investigating the intriguing magnetism of Jeff=1/2 magnets,
but also point out future directions for realizing the Kitaev QSL in the
honeycomb ruthenium trichloride {\alpha}-RuCl3.


title: Structured Filtering

abstract:
  A major challenge facing existing sequential Monte-Carlo methods for
parameter estimation in physics stems from the inability of existing approaches
to robustly deal with experiments that have different mechanisms that yield the
results with equivalent probability. We address this problem here by proposing
a form of particle filtering that clusters the particles that comprise the
sequential Monte-Carlo approximation to the posterior before applying a
resampler. Through a new graphical approach to thinking about such models, we
are able to devise an artificial-intelligence based strategy that automatically
learns the shape and number of the clusters in the support of the posterior. We
demonstrate the power of our approach by applying it to randomized gap
estimation and a form of low circuit-depth phase estimation where existing
methods from the physics literature either exhibit much worse performance or
even fail completely.


title: Theory of deflagration in disordered media

abstract:
  The conventional theory of burning works well in the case of uniform media
where all system parameters are spatially independent. We develop a theory of
burning in disordered media. In this case, rare regions (hot spots) where the
burning process is more effective than on average may control the heat
propagation in an explosive sample. We show that most predictions of the theory
of burning are quite different from the conventional case. In particular, we
show that a system of randomly distributed hot spots exhibits a dynamic phase
transition, which is similar to the percolation transition. Depending on
parameters of the system the phase transition can be either first or second
order. These two regimes are separated by a tricritical point. The above
results may be applicable to dynamics of any over-heated disordered system with
a first order phase transition.


title:
On link diagrams that are minimal with respect to Reidemeister moves I
  and II

abstract:
  In this paper, a link diagram is said to be minimal if no Reidemeister move I
or II can be applied to it to reduce the number of crossings. We show that for
an arbitrary diagram D of a link without a trivial split component, a minimal
diagram obtained by applying Reidemeister moves I and II to D is unique. The
proof also shows that the number of crossings of such a minimal diagram is
unique for any diagram of any link. As the unknot admits infinitely many
non-trivial minimal diagrams, we see that every link has infinitely many
minimal diagrams, by considering the connected sums with such diagrams. We show
that for a link without a trivial split component, an arbitrary Reidemeister
move III either does not change the associated minimal diagram or can be
reduced to a special type of a move up to Reidemeister moves I and II.


title:
A generalization of Ramanujan's congruence to modular forms of prime
  level

abstract:
  We prove congruences between cuspidal newforms and Eisenstein series of prime
level, which generalize Ramanujan's congruence. Such congruences were recently
found by Billerey and Menares, and we refine them by specifying the
Atkin-Lehner eigenvalue of the newform involved. We show that similar
refinements hold for the level raising congruences between cuspidal newforms of
different levels, due to Ribet and Diamond. The proof relies on studying the
new subspace and the Eisenstein subspace of the space of period polynomials for
the congruence subgroup $\Gamma_0(N)$, and on a version of Ihara's lemma.


title:
I Spy with My Little Eye: Analysis and Detection of Spying Browser
  Extensions

abstract:
  Several studies have been conducted on understanding third-party user
tracking on the web. However, web trackers can only track users on sites where
they are embedded by the publisher, thus obtaining a fragmented view of a
user's online footprint. In this work, we investigate a different form of user
tracking, where browser extensions are repurposed to capture the complete
online activities of a user and communicate the collected sensitive information
to a third-party domain. We conduct an empirical study of spying browser
extensions on the Chrome Web Store. First, we present an in-depth analysis of
the spying behavior of these extensions. We observe that these extensions steal
a variety of sensitive user information, such as the complete browsing history
(e.g., the sequence of web traversals), online social network (OSN) access
tokens, IP address, and user geolocation. Second, we investigate the potential
for automatically detecting spying extensions by applying machine learning
schemes. We show that using a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), the sequences of
browser API calls can be a robust feature, outperforming hand-crafted features
(used in prior work on malicious extensions) to detect spying extensions. Our
RNN based detection scheme achieves a high precision (90.02%) and recall
(93.31%) in detecting spying extensions.


title: Asynchronous Stochastic Gradient MCMC with Elastic Coupling

abstract:
  We consider parallel asynchronous Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling
for problems where we can leverage (stochastic) gradients to define continuous
dynamics which explore the target distribution. We outline a solution strategy
for this setting based on stochastic gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling
(SGHMC) which we alter to include an elastic coupling term that ties together
multiple MCMC instances. The proposed strategy turns inherently sequential HMC
algorithms into asynchronous parallel versions. First experiments empirically
show that the resulting parallel sampler significantly speeds up exploration of
the target distribution, when compared to standard SGHMC, and is less prone to
the harmful effects of stale gradients than a naive parallelization approach.


title:
NC $SO(2,3)_\star$ gravity: noncommutativity as a source of curvature
  and torsion

abstract:
  Noncommutative (NC) gravity is constructed on the canonical noncommutative
(Moyal-Weyl) space-time as a noncommutative $SO(2,3)_\star$ gauge theory. The
NC gravity action consists of three different terms: the first term is of
Mac-Dowell Mansouri type, while the other two are generalizations of the
Einstein-Hilbert action and the cosmological constant term. The expanded NC
gravity action is then calculated using the Seiberg-Witten (SW) map and the
expansion is done up second order in the deformation parameter. We analyze in
details the low energy sector of the full model. We calculate the equations of
motion, discuss their general properties and present one solution: the NC
correction to Minkowski space-time. Using this solution, we explain breaking of
the diffeomorphism symmetry as a consequence of working in a particular
coordinate system given by the Fermi normal coordinates.


title: Cahn-Hilliard on Surfaces: A Numerical Study

abstract:
  The Cahn-Hilliard system has been used to describe a wide number of phase
separation processes, from co-polymer systems to lipid membranes. In this work
the convergence properties of a closest-point based scheme is investigated. In
place of solving the original fourth-order system directly, two coupled
second-order systems are solved. The system is solved using an incomplete
Schur-decomposition as a preconditioner. The results indicate that with a
sufficiently high-order time discretization the method only depends on the
underlying spatial resolution.


title: Unequal-Time Correlators for Cosmology

abstract:
  Measurements of the power spectrum from large-scale structure surveys have to
date assumed an equal-time approximation, where the full cross-correlation
power spectrum of the matter density field evaluated at different times (or
distances) has been approximated either by the power spectrum at a fixed time,
or in an improved fashion, by a geometric mean $P(k; r_1, r_2)=[P(k; r_1) P(k;
r_2)]^{1/2}$. In this paper we investigate the expected impact of the geometric
mean ansatz, and present an application in assessing the impact on weak
gravitational lensing cosmological parameter inference, using a perturbative
unequal-time correlator. As one might expect, we find that the impact of this
assumption is greatest at large separations in redshift $\Delta z > 0.3$ where
the change in the amplitude of the matter power spectrum can be as much as $10$
percent for $k > 5h$Mpc$^{-1}$. However, of more concern is that the
corrections for small separations, where the clustering is not close to zero,
may not be negligibly small. In particular, we find that for a Euclid- or
LSST-like weak lensing experiment the assumption of equal-time correlators may
result in biased predictions of the cosmic shear power spectrum, and that the
impact is strongly dependent on the amplitude of the intrinsic alignment
signal. To compute unequal-time correlations to sufficient accuracy will
require advances in either perturbation theory to high $k$-modes, or extensive
use of simulations.


title: Holographic Ward identities for symmetry breaking in two dimensions

abstract:
  We investigate symmetry breaking in two-dimensional field theories which have
a holographic gravity dual. Being at large N, the Coleman theorem does not hold
and Goldstone bosons are expected. We consider the minimal setup to describe a
conserved current and a charged operator, and we perform holographic
renormalization in order to find the correct Ward identities describing
symmetry breaking. This involves some subtleties related to the different
boundary conditions that a vector can have in the three-dimensional bulk. We
establish which is the correct prescription that yields, after renormalization,
the same Ward identities as in higher dimensions.


title:
Comment on "Wigner phase space description of a Morse oscillator'' [J.
  Chem. Phys. 77, 4604 (1982)]

abstract: Comment on ``Wigner phase space description of a Morse oscillator''


title:
Connecting Dark Matter Annihilation to the Vertex Functions of Standard
  Model Fermions

abstract:
  We consider scenarios in which dark matter is a Majorana fermion which
couples to Standard Model fermions through the exchange of charged mediating
particles. The matrix elements for various dark matter annihilation processes
are then related to one-loop corrections to the fermion-photon vertex, where
dark matter and the charged mediators run in the loop. In particular, in the
limit where Standard Model fermion helicity mixing is suppressed, the cross
section for dark matter annihilation to various final states is related to
corrections to the Standard Model fermion charge form factor. These corrections
can be extracted in a gauge-invariant manner from collider cross sections.
Although current measurements from colliders are not precise enough to provide
useful constraints on dark matter annihilation, improved measurements at future
experiments, such as the International Linear Collider, could improve these
constraints by several orders of magnitude, allowing them to surpass the limits
obtainable by direct observation.


title: Neutral Gas Accretion onto Nearby Galaxies

abstract:
  While there is no lack of evidence for the accretion of stellar systems onto
nearby galaxies, direct evidence for the accretion of gas without stars is
scarce. Here we consider an inventory of starless gas "clouds" in and around
galaxies of the Local Group to discern their general properties and see how
they might appear in distant systems. The conclusion is that accreting gas
without stars is detected almost entirely within the circumgalactic medium of
large galaxies and is rare otherwise. If our Local Group is any example, the
best place to detect starless gas clouds is relatively close to galaxies.


title: A simple squared-error reformulation for ordinal classification

abstract:
  In this paper, we explore ordinal classification (in the context of deep
neural networks) through a simple modification of the squared error loss which
not only allows it to not only be sensitive to class ordering, but also allows
the possibility of having a discrete probability distribution over the classes.
Our formulation is based on the use of a softmax hidden layer, which has
received relatively little attention in the literature. We empirically evaluate
its performance on the Kaggle diabetic retinopathy dataset, an ordinal and
high-resolution dataset and show that it outperforms all of the baselines
employed.


title: Gas Accretion and Star Formation Rates

abstract:
  Cosmological numerical simulations of galaxy evolution show that accretion of
metal-poor gas from the cosmic web drives the star formation in galaxy disks.
Unfortunately, the observational support for this theoretical prediction is
still indirect, and modeling and analysis are required to identify hints as
actual signs of star-formation feeding from metal-poor gas accretion. Thus, a
meticulous interpretation of the observations is crucial, and this
observational review begins with a simple theoretical description of the
physical process and the key ingredients it involves, including the properties
of the accreted gas and of the star-formation that it induces. A number of
observations pointing out the connection between metal-poor gas accretion and
star-formation are analyzed, specifically, the short gas consumption time-scale
compared to the age of the stellar populations, the fundamental metallicity
relationship, the relationship between disk morphology and gas metallicity, the
existence of metallicity drops in starbursts of star-forming galaxies, the
so-called G dwarf problem, the existence of a minimum metallicity for the
star-forming gas in the local universe, the origin of the alpha-enhanced gas
forming stars in the local universe, the metallicity of the quiescent BCDs, and
the direct measurements of gas accretion onto galaxies. A final section
discusses intrinsic difficulties to obtain direct observational evidence, and
points out alternative observational pathways to further consolidate the
current ideas.


title:
Fermion scattering amplitudes from gauge-invariant actions for open
  superstring field theory

abstract:
  We calculate on-shell scattering amplitudes involving fermions at the tree
level in open superstring field theory. We confirm that four-point and
five-point amplitudes in the world-sheet path integral with the standard
prescription using picture-changing operators are reproduced. For the
four-point amplitudes, we find that the quartic interaction required by gauge
invariance adjusts the different assignment of picture-changing operators in
the $s$-channel and in the $t$-channel of Feynman diagrams with two cubic
vertices. For the five-point amplitudes, the correct amplitudes are reproduced
in a more intricate way via the quartic and quintic interactions. Our
calculations can be interpreted as those for a complete action with a
constraint on the Ramond sector or as those for the covariant formulation
developed by Sen with spurious free fields.


title: Not Normal: the uncertainties of scientific measurements

abstract:
  Judging the significance and reproducibility of quantitative research
requires a good understanding of relevant uncertainties, but it is often
unclear how well these have been evaluated and what they imply. Reported
scientific uncertainties were studied by analysing 41000 measurements of 3200
quantities from medicine, nuclear and particle physics, and interlaboratory
comparisons ranging from chemistry to toxicology. Outliers are common, with
5{\sigma} disagreements up to five orders of magnitude more frequent than
naively expected. Uncertainty-normalized differences between multiple
measurements of the same quantity are consistent with heavy-tailed Student-t
distributions that are often almost Cauchy, far from a Gaussian Normal bell
curve. Medical research uncertainties are generally as well evaluated as those
in physics, but physics uncertainty improves more rapidly, making feasible
simple significance criteria such as the 5{\sigma} discovery convention in
particle physics. Contributions to measurement uncertainty from mistakes and
unknown problems are not completely unpredictable. Such errors appear to have
power-law distributions consistent with how designed complex systems fail, and
how unknown systematic errors are constrained by researchers. This better
understanding may help improve analysis and meta-analysis of data, and help
scientists and the public have more realistic expectations of what scientific
results imply.


title: Searching for two-dimensional Weyl superconductors in heterostructures

abstract:
  Two-dimensional Weyl superconductor is the most elusive member of a group of
materials with Weyl fermions as low-energy excitations. Here, we propose to
realize this state in a heterostructure consisting of thin films of half-metal
and spin-singlet superconductor. In particular, for the $d$-wave case, a very
robust two-dimensional Weyl superconductor (dWSC) is realized independent of
the orientation of the spontaneous magnetization of the half-metal. The
quasiparticle spectra of the dWSC show interesting evolution with the direction
of the magnetization, featured by a series of Lifshitz transitions in the
zero-energy contour of the quasiparticle spectrum. For a general magnetization
orientation of the half-metal, the state is a combination of a superconducting
component and a normal fluid component and is different from all known forms of
pairings. In addition, we find a transition between type-I and type-II Weyl
nodes. This is also the first example of a type-II Weyl node in the presence of
superconducting correlation. The symmetries and topological properties of the
system are analyzed. We also study the phases in the heterostructure with the
half-metal replaced by a ferromagnetic metal with a partially spin-polarized
Fermi surface.


title: A Market Driver Volatility Model via Policy Improvement Algorithm

abstract:
  In the over-the-counter market in derivatives, we sometimes see large numbers
of traders taking the same position and risk. When there is this kind of
concentration in the market, the position impacts the pricings of all other
derivatives and changes the behaviour of the underlying volatility in a
nonlinear way. We model this effect using Heston's stochastic volatility model
modified to take into account the impact. The impact can be incorporated into
the model using a special product called a market driver, potentially with a
large face value, affecting the underlying volatility itself. We derive a
revised version of Heston's partial differential equation which is to be
satisfied by arbitrary derivatives products in the market. This enables us to
obtain valuations that reflect the actual market and helps traders identify the
risks and hold appropriate assets to correctly hedge against the impact of the
market driver.


title: Single crystal growth and characterization of GdRh$_2$Si$_2$

abstract:
  High-temperature indium flux growth was applied to prepare single crystals of
GdRh$_2$Si$_2$ by a modified Bridgman method leading to mm-sized single
crystals with a platelet habitus. Specific heat and susceptibility data of
GdRh$_2$Si$_2$ exhibit a pronounced anomaly at $T_N = 107\rm \,K$, where the
AFM ordering sets in. Magnetic measurements on the single crystals were
performed down to $T = 2$\,K in external fields from B = 0 - 9\,T applied along
the $[100]$-, $[110]$- and $[001]$-direction of the tetragonal lattice. The
effective magnetic moment determined from a Curie-Weiss fit agrees well with
values from literature, and is larger than the theoretically predicted value.
Electrical transport data recorded for current flow parallel and perpendicular
to the $[001]$-direction show a large anisotropy below $T_N$. The residual
resistivity ratio $\rm RRR=\rho_{300K}/\rho_{0}\sim 23$ demonstrates that we
succeeded in preparing high-quality crystals using high-temperature indium
flux-growth.


title:
Direct method for measuring and witnessing quantum entanglement of
  arbitrary two-qubit states through Hong-Ou-Mandel interference

abstract:
  We describe a direct method for experimental determination of the negativity
of an arbitrary two-qubit state with 11 measurements performed on multiple
copies of the two-qubit system. Our method is based on the experimentally
accessible sequences of singlet projections performed on up to four qubit
pairs. In particular, our method permits the application of the Peres-Horodecki
separability criterion to an arbitrary two-qubit state. We explicitly
demonstrate that measuring entanglement in terms of negativity requires three
measurements more than detecting two-qubit entanglement. The reported minimal
set of interferometric measurements provides a complete description of
bipartite quantum entanglement in terms of two-photon interference. This set is
smaller than the set of 15 measurements needed to perform a complete quantum
state tomography of an arbitrary two-qubit system. Finally, we demonstrate that
the set of 9 Makhlin's invariants needed to express the negativity can be
measured by performing 13 multicopy projections. We demonstrate that these
invariants are both a useful theoretical concept for designing specialized
quantum interferometers and that their direct measurement within the framework
of linear optics does not require performing complete quantum state tomography.


title: Vorticity generation in the Universe: A perturbative approach

abstract:
  We compute the generation of vorticity from velocity dispersion in the dark
matter fluid. For dark matter at zero temperature Helmholtz's theorem dictates
that no vorticity is generated and we therefore allow the dark matter fluid to
have a non-vanishing velocity dispersion. This implies a modification to the
usual hydrodynamical system (continuity and Euler equations): we have to
consider the Boltzmann hierarchy up to the second moment. This means that the
Euler equation is modified with a source term that describes the effect of
non-zero velocity dispersion. We write an equation for the Eulerian vorticity
in Lagrangian coordinates and show that it has a growing mode already at second
order in perturbation theory. We compute the power spectrum of the vorticity
and the rotational velocity at second order in perturbation theory.


title:
Can nonstandard interactions jeopardize the hierarchy sensitivity of
  DUNE ?

abstract:
  We study the effect of non-standard interactions (NSIs) on the propagation of
neutrinos through the Earth matter and how it affects the hierarchy sensitivity
of the DUNE experiment. We emphasize on the special case when the diagonal NSI
parameter $\epsilon_{ee} = -1$, nullifying the standard matter effect. We show
that, if in addition, CP violation is maximal then this gives rise to an exact
intrinsic hierarchy degeneracy in the appearance channel, irrespective of the
baseline and energy. Introduction of off-diagonal NSI parameter, $\epsilon_{e
\tau}$, shifts the position of this degeneracy to a different $\epsilon_{ee}$.
Moreover the unknown magnitude and phases of the off-diagonal NSI parameters
can give rise to additional degeneracies. Overall, given the current model
independent limits on NSI parameters, the hierarchy sensitivity of DUNE can get
seriously impacted. However, a more precise knowledge on the NSI parameters,
specially $\epsilon_{ee}$, can give rise to an improved sensitivity.
Alternatively, if NSI exists in nature, and still DUNE shows hierarchy
sensitivity, certain ranges of the NSI parameters can be excluded.
Additionally, we briefly discussed the implications of $\epsilon_{ee} = -1$ (in
the Earth) on MSW effect in the Sun.


title: How to avoid a compact set

abstract:
  A first-order expansion of the $\mathbb{R}$-vector space structure on
$\mathbb{R}$ does not define every compact subset of every $\mathbb{R}^n$ if
and only if topological and Hausdorff dimension coincide on all closed
definable sets. Equivalently, if $A \subseteq \mathbb{R}^k$ is closed and the
Hausdorff dimension of $A$ exceeds the topological dimension of $A$, then every
compact subset of every $\mathbb{R}^n$ can be constructed from $A$ using
finitely many boolean operations, cartesian products, and linear operations.
The same statement fails when Hausdorff dimension is replaced by packing
dimension.


title:
Precision long-term measurements of beta-decay-rate ratios in a
  controlled environment

abstract:
  We report on measurements of relative beta-decay rates of Na-22, Cl-36,
Co-60, Sr-90, Cs-137 monitored for more than one year. The radioactive samples
are mounted in an automated sample changer that sequentially positions the five
samples in turn, with high spatial precision, in front of each of four
Geiger-M\"uller tubes. The sample wheel, detectors, and associated electronics
are housed inside a sealed chamber held at constant absolute pressure,
humidity, and temperature to isolate the experiment from environmental
variations. The statistical uncertainty in the count rate approaches a few
times 0.01% with two weeks of averaging. Other sources of error are on a
similar scale. The data are analyzed in variety of ways, comparing count rates
of the various samples on one or more detectors, and comparing count rates of a
particular sample across multiple detectors. We observe no statistically
significant variations in the ratios of decay rates, either annual or at
higher-frequency, at a level above 0.01%.


title:
Limits of Multiplicities in Excellent Filtrations and Tensor Product
  Decompositions for Affine Kac-Moody Algebras

abstract:
  We express the multiplicities of the irreducible summands of certain tensor
products of irreducible integrable modules for an affine Kac-Moody algebra over
a simply laced Lie algebra as sums of multiplicities in appropriate excellent
filtrations (Demazure flags). As an application, we obtain expressions for the
outer multiplicities of tensor products of two fundamental modules for
$\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_2$ in terms of partitions with bounded parts, which
subsequently lead to certain partition identities.


title:
A line search algorithm for Wind field adjustment with incomplete data
  and RBF approximation

abstract:
  The problem of concern in this work is the construction of free divergence
fields given scattered horizontal components. As customary, the problem is
formulated as a PDE constrained least squares problem. The novelty of our
approach is to construct the so called adjusted field, as the unique solution
along an appropriately chosen descent direction. The latter is obtained by the
adjoint equation technique. It is shown that the classical adjusted field of
Sasaki's is a particular case. On choosing descent directions, the underlying
mass consistent model leads to the solution of an elliptic problem which is
solved by means of a Radial Basis Functions method. Finally some numerical
results for wind field adjustment are presented.


title:
Stability and error analysis for a diffuse interface approach to an
  advection-diffusion equation on a moving surface

abstract:
  In this paper we analyze a fully discrete numerical scheme for solving a
parabolic PDE on a moving surface. The method is based on a diffuse interface
approach that involves a level set description of the moving surface. Under
suitable conditions on the spatial grid size, the time step and the interface
width we obtain stability and error bounds with respect to natural norms.
Furthermore, we present test calculations that confirm our analysis.


title:
Steady-state Diffusion Approximations for Discrete-time Queue in
  Hospital Inpatient Flow Management

abstract:
  In this paper, we analyze a discrete-time queue that is motivated from
studying hospital inpatient flow management, where the customer count process
captures the midnight inpatient census. The stationary distribution of the
customer count has no explicit form and is difficult to compute in certain
parameter regimes. Using the Stein's method framework, we identify a continuous
random variable to approximate the steady-state customer count. The continuous
random variable corresponds to the stationary distribution of a diffusion
process with state-dependent diffusion coefficients. We characterize the error
bounds of this approximation under a variety of system load conditions -- from
lightly loaded to heavily loaded. We also identify the critical role that the
service rate plays in the convergence rate of the error bounds. We perform
extensive numerical experiments to support the theoretical findings and to
demonstrate the approximation quality. In particular, we show that our
approximation performs better than those based on constant diffusion
coefficients when the number of servers is small, which is relevant to decision
making in a single hospital ward.


title:
Kondo correlations formation and the local magnetic moment dynamics in
  the Anderson model

abstract:
  We investigated the typical time scales of the Kondo correlations formation
for the single-state Anderson model, when coupling to the reservoir is switched
on at the initial time moment. The influence of the Kondo effect appearance on
the system non-stationary characteristics was analyzed and discussed.


title: Moduli of fibered surface pairs from twisted stable maps

abstract:
  We use the theory of twisted stable maps to Deligne-Mumford stacks to
construct compactifications of the moduli space of pairs $(X \to C, S + F)$
where $X \to C$ is a fibered surface, $S$ is a sum of sections, $F$ is a sum of
marked fibers, and $(X, S + F)$ is a stable pair in the sense of the minimal
model program. This generalizes the work of Abramovich-Vistoli, who
compactified the moduli space of fibered surfaces without marked fibers.
Furthermore, we compare our compactification to Alexeev's space of stable maps
and the KSBA compactification of stable pairs. As an application, we describe
the boundary of the compactification of the moduli space of elliptic surfaces.


title:
FW/CADIS-$\Omega$: An angle-informed hybrid method for deep-penetration
  radiation transport

abstract:
  A new method for generating variance reduction parameters for strongly
anisotropic, deep-penetration radiation shielding studies is presented. This
method generates an alternate form of the adjoint scalar flux quantity,
$\phi^{\dagger}_{\Omega}$, which is used by both CADIS and FW-CADIS to generate
variance reduction parameters for local and global response functions,
respectively. The new method, called CADIS-$\Omega$, was implemented in the
Denovo/ADVANTG software suite, and results are presented for a concrete
labyrinth test problem. Results indicate that the flux generated by
CADIS-$\Omega$ incorporates localized angular anisotropies in the flux
effectively. CADIS-$\Omega$ outperformed CADIS in the test problem while
obtaining accurate results. This initial work indicates that CADIS-$\Omega$ may
be highly useful for shielding problems with strong angular anisotropies. A
future test plan to fully characterize the new method is proposed, which should
reveal more about the types of realistic problems for which the CADIS-$\Omega$
will be suited.


title:
Symmetries in superintegrable deformations of oscillator/Coulomb
  systems: "holomorphic factorization"

abstract:
  We propose a unified description for the constants of motion for
superintegrable deformations of the oscillator and Coulomb systems on
N-dimensional Euclidean space, sphere and hyperboloid. We also consider the
duality between these generalized systems and present some example.


title:
Gluino reach and mass extraction at the LHC in radiatively-driven
  natural SUSY

abstract:
  Radiatively-driven natural SUSY (RNS) models enjoy electroweak naturalness at
the $10\%$ level while respecting LHC sparticle and Higgs mass constraints.
Gluino and top squark masses can range up to several TeV (with other squarks
even heavier) but a set of light Higgsinos are required with mass not too far
above $m_h\sim 125$ GeV. Within the RNS framework, gluinos dominantly decay via
${\tilde g} \to t{\tilde t}_1^{*},\ \bar{t}{\tilde t}_1 \to t\bar{t}{\widetilde
Z}_{1,2}$ or $t\bar{b}{\widetilde W}_1^-+c.c.$, where the decay products of the
higgsino-like ${\widetilde W}_1$ and ${\widetilde Z}_2$ are very soft. Gluino
pair production is, therefore, signalled by events with up to four hard
$b$-jets and large ${\not\!\!{E_T}}$. We devise a set of cuts to isolate a
relatively pure gluino sample at the (high luminosity) LHC and show that in the
RNS model with very heavy squarks, the gluino signal will be accessible for
$m_{{\tilde g}} < 2400 \ (2800)$ GeV for an integrated luminosity of 300 (3000)
fb$^{-1}$. We also show that the measurement of the rate of gluino events in
the clean sample mentioned above allows for a determination of $m_{{\tilde g}}$
with a statistical precision of $2.5-5\%$ (depending on the integrated
luminosity and the gluino mass) over the range of gluino masses where a
$5\sigma$ discovery is possible at the LHC.


title: Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks

abstract:
  The ability to learn tasks in a sequential fashion is crucial to the
development of artificial intelligence. Neural networks are not, in general,
capable of this and it has been widely thought that catastrophic forgetting is
an inevitable feature of connectionist models. We show that it is possible to
overcome this limitation and train networks that can maintain expertise on
tasks which they have not experienced for a long time. Our approach remembers
old tasks by selectively slowing down learning on the weights important for
those tasks. We demonstrate our approach is scalable and effective by solving a
set of classification tasks based on the MNIST hand written digit dataset and
by learning several Atari 2600 games sequentially.


title: Collective Phenomena in $pp$ and $ep$ Scattering

abstract:
  Bjorken scaling violation in deep inelastic electron-proton scattering (DIS)
is related to the rise of hadronic cross sections by using the additive quark
model. Of special interest is the connection between saturation in the low-$x$
behavior of the DIS structure functions (SF) and possible slow-down of the $pp$
cross section rise due to saturation effects. We also identify saturation
effects in the DIS SF with phase transition that can be described by the Van
der Waals equation of state.


title:
Global Existence and Exponential Stability for a Nonlinear Thermoelastic
  Kirchhoff-Love Plate

abstract:
  We study an initial-boundary-value problem for a quasilinear thermoelastic
plate of Kirchhoff \& Love-type with parabolic heat conduction due to Fourier,
mechanically simply supported and held at the reference temperature on the
boundary. For this problem, we show the short-time existence and uniqueness of
classical solutions under appropriate regularity and compatibility assumptions
on the data. Further, we use barrier techniques to prove the global existence
and exponential stability of solutions under a smallness condition on the
initial data. It is the first result of this kind established for a quasilinear
non-parabolic thermoelastic Kirchhoff & Love plate in multiple dimensions.


title: A Benchmark for Endoluminal Scene Segmentation of Colonoscopy Images

abstract:
  Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third cause of cancer death worldwide.
Currently, the standard approach to reduce CRC-related mortality is to perform
regular screening in search for polyps and colonoscopy is the screening tool of
choice. The main limitations of this screening procedure are polyp miss-rate
and inability to perform visual assessment of polyp malignancy. These drawbacks
can be reduced by designing Decision Support Systems (DSS) aiming to help
clinicians in the different stages of the procedure by providing endoluminal
scene segmentation. Thus, in this paper, we introduce an extended benchmark of
colonoscopy image, with the hope of establishing a new strong benchmark for
colonoscopy image analysis research. We provide new baselines on this dataset
by training standard fully convolutional networks (FCN) for semantic
segmentation and significantly outperforming, without any further
post-processing, prior results in endoluminal scene segmentation.


title:
HealthAdvisor: Recommendation System for Wearable Technologies enabling
  Proactive Health Monitoring

abstract:
  Proactive monitoring of one's health could avoid serious diseases as well as
better maintain the individual's well-being. In today's IoT world, there has
been numerous wearable technological devices to monitor/measure different
health attributes. However, with that increasing number of attributes and
wearables, it becomes unclear to the individual which ones they should be
using. The aim of this paper is to provide a recommendation engine for
personalized recommended wearables for any given individual. The way the engine
works is through first identifying the diseases that this person is at risk of,
given his/her attributes and medical history. We built a machine learning
classification model for this task. Second, these diseases are mapped to the
attributes that need to be measured in order to monitor such diseases. Third,
we map these measurements to the appropriate wearable technologies. This is
done via a textual analytics model that we developed that uses available
information of different wearables to map the aforementioned measurements to
these wearables. The output can be used to recommend the wearables to
individuals as well as provide a feedback to wearable developers for common
measurements that do not have corresponding wearables today.


title: Weakly interacting particle systems on inhomogeneous random graphs

abstract:
  We consider weakly interacting diffusions on time varying random graphs. The
system consists of a large number of nodes in which the state of each node is
governed by a diffusion process that is influenced by the neighboring nodes.
The collection of neighbors of a given node changes dynamically over time and
is determined through a time evolving random graph process. A law of large
numbers and a propagation of chaos result is established for a multi-type
population setting where at each instant the interaction between nodes is given
by an inhomogeneous random graph which may change over time. This result covers
the setting in which the edge probabilities between any two nodes is allowed to
decay to $0$ as the size of the system grows. A central limit theorem is
established for the single-type population case under stronger conditions on
the edge probability function.


title: Gas Accretion and Galactic Chemical Evolution: Theory and Observations

abstract:
  This chapter reviews how galactic inflows influence galaxy metallicity. The
goal is to discuss predictions from theoretical models, but particular emphasis
is placed on the insights that result from using models to interpret
observations. Even as the classical G-dwarf problem endures in the latest round
of observational confirmation, a rich and tantalizing new phenomenology of
relationships between $M_*$, $Z$, SFR, and gas fraction is emerging both in
observations and in theoretical models. A consensus interpretation is emerging
in which star-forming galaxies do most of their growing in a quiescent way that
balances gas inflows and gas processing, and metal dilution with enrichment.
Models that explicitly invoke this idea via equilibrium conditions can be used
to infer inflow rates from observations, while models that do not assume
equilibrium growth tend to recover it self-consistently. Mergers are an overall
subdominant mechanism for delivering fresh gas to galaxies, but they trigger
radial flows of previously-accreted gas that flatten radial gas-phase
metallicity gradients and temporarily suppress central metallicities. Radial
gradients are generically expected to be steep at early times and then
flattened by mergers and enriched inflows of recycled gas at late times.
However, further theoretical work is required in order to understand how to
interpret observations. Likewise, more observational work is needed in order to
understand how metallicity gradients evolve to high redshifts.


title:
Existence and smoothness for a class of $n$D models in elasticity theory
  of small deformations

abstract:
  We consider a model for deformations of a homogeneous isotropic body, whose
shear modulus remains constant, but its bulk modulus can be a highly nonlinear
function. We show that for a general class of such models, in an arbitrary
space dimension, the respective PDE problem has a unique solution. Moreover,
this solution enjoys interior smoothness. This is the first regularity result
for elasticity problems that covers the most natural space dimension $3$ and
that captures behaviour of many typical elastic materials (considered in the
small deformations) like rubber, polymer gels or concrete.


title: Restricted Strong Convexity Implies Weak Submodularity

abstract:
  We connect high-dimensional subset selection and submodular maximization. Our
results extend the work of Das and Kempe (2011) from the setting of linear
regression to arbitrary objective functions. For greedy feature selection, this
connection allows us to obtain strong multiplicative performance bounds on
several methods without statistical modeling assumptions. We also derive
recovery guarantees of this form under standard assumptions. Our work shows
that greedy algorithms perform within a constant factor from the best possible
subset-selection solution for a broad class of general objective functions. Our
methods allow a direct control over the number of obtained features as opposed
to regularization parameters that only implicitly control sparsity. Our proof
technique uses the concept of weak submodularity initially defined by Das and
Kempe. We draw a connection between convex analysis and submodular set function
theory which may be of independent interest for other statistical learning
applications that have combinatorial structure.


title: Gas Accretion Traced in Absorption in Galaxy Spectroscopy

abstract:
  The positive velocity shift of absorption transitions tracing diffuse
material observed in a galaxy spectrum is an unambiguous signature of gas flow
toward the host system. Spectroscopy probing, e.g., NaI D resonance lines in
the rest-frame optical or MgII and FeII in the near-ultraviolet is in principle
sensitive to the infall of cool material at temperatures ~ 100-10,000 K
anywhere along the line of sight to a galaxy's stellar component. However,
secure detections of this redshifted absorption signature have proved
challenging to obtain due to the ubiquity of cool gas outflows giving rise to
blueshifted absorption along the same sightlines. In this chapter, we review
the bona fide detections of this phenomenon. Analysis of NaI D line profiles
has revealed numerous instances of redshifted absorption observed toward
early-type and/or AGN-host galaxies, while spectroscopy of MgII and FeII has
provided evidence for ongoing gas accretion onto >5% of luminous, star-forming
galaxies at z ~ 0.5-1. We then discuss the potentially ground-breaking benefits
of future efforts to improve the spectral resolution of such studies, and to
leverage spatially-resolved spectroscopy for new constraints on inflowing gas
morphology.


title:
Incomplete determinantal processes: from random matrix to Poisson
  statistics

abstract:
  We study linear statistics of a class of determinantal processes which
interpolate between Poisson and GUE/Ginibre statistics in dimension 1 or 2.
These processes are obtained by performing an independent Bernoulli percolation
on the particle configuration of of a log-gas confined in a general potential.
We show that, depending on the expected number of deleted particles, there is a
universal transition for mesoscopic statistics. Namely, at small scales, the
point process still behaves according to random matrix theory, while, at large
scales, it needs to be renormalized because the variance of any linear
statistic diverges. The crossover is explicitly characterized as the
superposition of a H^{1/2}- or H^1- correlated Gaussian noise and an
independent Poisson process. The proof consists in computing the limits of the
cumulants of linear statistics using the asymptotics of the correlation kernel
of the process.


title:
Energy-efficient 8-point DCT Approximations: Theory and Hardware
  Architectures

abstract:
  Due to its remarkable energy compaction properties, the discrete cosine
transform (DCT) is employed in a multitude of compression standards, such as
JPEG and H.265/HEVC. Several low-complexity integer approximations for the DCT
have been proposed for both 1-D and 2-D signal analysis. The increasing demand
for low-complexity, energy efficient methods require algorithms with even lower
computational costs. In this paper, new 8-point DCT approximations with very
low arithmetic complexity are presented. The new transforms are proposed based
on pruning state-of-the-art DCT approximations. The proposed algorithms were
assessed in terms of arithmetic complexity, energy retention capability, and
image compression performance. In addition, a metric combining performance and
computational complexity measures was proposed. Results showed good performance
and extremely low computational complexity. Introduced algorithms were mapped
into systolic-array digital architectures and physically realized as digital
prototype circuits using FPGA technology and mapped to 45nm CMOS technology.
All hardware-related metrics showed low resource consumption of the proposed
pruned approximate transforms. The best proposed transform according to the
introduced metric presents a reduction in power consumption of 21--25%.


title:
A comprehensive revisit of the $\rho$ meson with improved Monte-Carlo
  based QCD sum rules

abstract:
  We improve the Monte-Carlo based QCD sum rules by introducing the rigorous
H\"older-inequality-determined sum rule window and a Breit-Wigner type
parametrization for the phenomenological spectral function. In this improved
sum rule analysis methodology, the sum rule analysis window can be determined
without any assumptions on OPE convergence or the QCD continuum.Therefore an
unbiased prediction can be obtained for the phenomenological parameters (the
hadronic mass and width etc.). We test the new approach in the $\rho$ meson
channel with re-examination and inclusion of $\alpha_s$ corrections to
dimension-4 condensates in the OPE. We obtain results highly consistent with
experimental values. We also discuss the possible extension of this method to
some other channels.


title: Multiplets of Superconformal Symmetry in Diverse Dimensions

abstract:
  We systematically analyze the operator content of unitary superconformal
multiplets in $d > 3$ spacetime dimensions. We present a simple, general, and
efficient algorithm that generates all of these multiplets by correctly
eliminating possible null states. The algorithm is conjectural, but passes a
vast web of consistency checks. We apply it to tabulate a large variety of
superconformal multiplets. In particular, we classify and construct all
multiplets that contain conserved currents or free fields, which play an
important role in superconformal field theories (SCFTs). Some currents that are
allowed in conformal field theories cannot be embedded in superconformal
multiplets, and hence they are absent in SCFTs. We use the structure of
superconformal stress tensor multiplets to show that SCFTs with more than 16
Poincar\'e supercharges cannot arise in $d \geq 4$, even when the corresponding
superconformal algebras exist. We also show that such theories do arise in $d =
3$, but are necessarily free.


title: On Three-Dimensional Quiver Gauge Theories of Type B

abstract:
  We study three-dimensional supersymmetric quiver gauge theories with a
non-simply laced global symmetry primarily focusing on framed affine $B_{N}$
quiver theories. Using a supersymmetric partition function on a three sphere,
and its transformation under S-duality, we study the three-dimensional ADHM
quiver for $SO(2N+1)$ instantons with a half-integer Chern-Simons coupling. The
theory after S-duality has no Lagrangian, and can not be represented by a
single quiver, however its partition function can be conveniently described by
a collection of framed affine ${B}_{N}$ quivers. This correspondence can be
conjectured to generalize three-dimensional mirror symmetry to theories with
nontrivial Chern-Simons terms. In addition, we propose a formula for the
superconformal index of a theory described by a framed affine $B_N$ quiver.


title: Discrete Translates in Function Spaces

abstract:
  We construct a Schwartz function $\varphi$ such that for every exponentially
small perturbation of integers $\Lambda$, the set of translates
$\{\varphi(t-\lambda), \lambda\in\Lambda\}$ spans the space $L^p(R)$, for every
$p > 1$. This result remains true for more general function spaces $X$, whose
norm is "weaker" than $L^1$ (on bounded functions).


title:
The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation
  Spectroscopic Survey: constraining modified gravity

abstract:
  We use baryon acoustic oscillation and redshift space distortion from the
completed Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, corresponding to data
release 12 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, combined sample analysis in
combination with cosmic microwave background, supernova and redshift space
distortion measurements from additional spectroscopic surveys to test
deviations from general relativity. We present constraints on several
phenomenological models of modified gravity: First, we parametrise the growth
of structure using the growth index $\gamma$, finding $\gamma=0.566\pm0.058$
(68\% C.L.). Second, we modify the relation of the two Newtonian potentials by
introducing two additional parameters, $G_M$ and $G_L$. In this approach, $G_M$
refers to modifications of the growth of structure whereas $G_L$ to
modification of the lensing potential. We consider a power law to model the
redshift dependency of $G_M$ and $G_L$ as well as binning in redshift space,
introducing four additional degrees of freedom, $G_M(z<0.5)$, $G_M(z>0.5)$,
$G_L(z<0.5)$, $G_L(z>0.5)$. At 68\% C.L. we measure $G_M=0.980 \pm 0.096$ and
$G_L=1.082 \pm 0.060$ for a linear model, $G_M= 1.01\pm 0.36$ and $G_L=1.31 \pm
0.19$ for a cubic model as well as $G_M(z<0.5)=1.26 \pm 0.32$,
$G_M(z>0.5)=0.986\pm0.022$, $G_L(z<0.5)=1.067\pm0.058$ and
$G_L(z>0.5)=1.037\pm0.029$. Thirdly, we investigate general scalar tensor
theories of gravity, finding the model to be mostly unconstrained by current
data. Assuming a one-parameter $f(R)$ model we can constrain $B_0< 7.7 \times
10^{-5}$ (95\% C.L). For all models we considered we find good agreement with
general relativity.


title: Regular patterns in the information flow of local dephasing channels

abstract:
  Consider local dephasing processes of a qubit that interacts with a
structured reservoir of frequency modes or a thermal bath, with Ohmic-like
spectral density (SD). It is known that non-Markovian evolution appears
uniquely above a temperature-dependent critical value of the Ohmicity
parameter, and non-Markovianity can be induced by properly engineering the
external environment. In the same scenario, we find that the flow of quantum
information shows regular patterns: alternate directions appear in
correspondence of periodical intervals of the Ohmicity parameter $\alpha_0$.
The information flows back into the system over long times for
$2+4n<\alpha_0<4+4n$, at zero temperature, and for $3+4n<\alpha_0<5+4n$, at
non-vanishing temperatures, where $n=0,1,2,\ldots$. Otherwise, the long time
information flows into the environment. In the transition from vanishing to
arbitrary non-vanishing temperature, the long time back-flow of information is
stable for $3+4n<\alpha_0<4+4n$, while it is reverted for $2+4n<\alpha_0<3+4n$
and $4+4n<\alpha_0<5+4n$. The patterns of the information flow are not altered
if the low frequency Ohmic-like profiles of the SDs are perturbed with
additional factors that consist in arbitrary powers of logarithmic forms.
Consequently, the flow of information can be controlled, directed and reverted
over long times by engineering a wide variety of reservoirs that includes and
continuously departs from the Ohmic-like structure at low frequencies.
Non-Markovianity and recoherence appear according to the same rules along with
the back-flow of information.


title:
Perspective Transformer Nets: Learning Single-View 3D Object
  Reconstruction without 3D Supervision

abstract:
  Understanding the 3D world is a fundamental problem in computer vision.
However, learning a good representation of 3D objects is still an open problem
due to the high dimensionality of the data and many factors of variation
involved. In this work, we investigate the task of single-view 3D object
reconstruction from a learning agent's perspective. We formulate the learning
process as an interaction between 3D and 2D representations and propose an
encoder-decoder network with a novel projection loss defined by the perspective
transformation. More importantly, the projection loss enables the unsupervised
learning using 2D observation without explicit 3D supervision. We demonstrate
the ability of the model in generating 3D volume from a single 2D image with
three sets of experiments: (1) learning from single-class objects; (2) learning
from multi-class objects and (3) testing on novel object classes. Results show
superior performance and better generalization ability for 3D object
reconstruction when the projection loss is involved.


title:
Observation of quantum-limited spin transport in strongly interacting
  two-dimensional Fermi gases

abstract:
  We measure the transport properties of two-dimensional ultracold Fermi gases
during transverse demagnetization in a magnetic field gradient. Using a
phase-coherent spin-echo sequence, we are able to distinguish bare spin
diffusion from the Leggett-Rice effect, in which demagnetization is slowed by
the precession of spin current around the local magnetization. When the
two-dimensional scattering length is tuned to be comparable to the inverse
Fermi wave vector $k_F^{-1}$, we find that the bare transverse spin diffusivity
reaches a minimum of $1.7(6)\hbar/m$, where $m$ is the bare particle mass. The
rate of demagnetization is also reflected in the growth rate of the s-wave
contact, observed using time-resolved spectroscopy. At unitarity, the contact
rises to $0.28(3) k_F^2$ per particle, measuring the breaking of scaling
symmetry. Our observations support the conjecture that in systems with strong
scattering, the local relaxation rate is bounded from above by $k_B T/\hbar$.


title:
Observer design for triangular systems under weak observability
  assumptions

abstract:
  This paper presents results on the solvability of the observer design problem
for general nonlinear triangular systems with inputs, under weak observability
assumptions. The local state estimation is exhibited by means of a delayed
time-varying Luenberger-type system. In order to achieve the global estimation,
a switching sequence of observers is designed.


title:
Summary - TerpreT: A Probabilistic Programming Language for Program
  Induction

abstract:
  We study machine learning formulations of inductive program synthesis; that
is, given input-output examples, synthesize source code that maps inputs to
corresponding outputs. Our key contribution is TerpreT, a domain-specific
language for expressing program synthesis problems. A TerpreT model is composed
of a specification of a program representation and an interpreter that
describes how programs map inputs to outputs. The inference task is to observe
a set of input-output examples and infer the underlying program. From a TerpreT
model we automatically perform inference using four different back-ends:
gradient descent (thus each TerpreT model can be seen as defining a
differentiable interpreter), linear program (LP) relaxations for graphical
models, discrete satisfiability solving, and the Sketch program synthesis
system. TerpreT has two main benefits. First, it enables rapid exploration of a
range of domains, program representations, and interpreter models. Second, it
separates the model specification from the inference algorithm, allowing proper
comparisons between different approaches to inference.
  We illustrate the value of TerpreT by developing several interpreter models
and performing an extensive empirical comparison between alternative inference
algorithms on a variety of program models. To our knowledge, this is the first
work to compare gradient-based search over program space to traditional
search-based alternatives. Our key empirical finding is that constraint solvers
dominate the gradient descent and LP-based formulations.
  This is a workshop summary of a longer report at arXiv:1608.04428


title: Nilpotent Lie algebras and systolic growth of nilmanifolds

abstract:
  Introduced by Gromov in the nineties, the systolic growth of a Lie group
gives the smallest possible covolume of a lattice with a given systole.
  In a simply connected nilpotent Lie group, this function has polynomial
growth, but can grow faster than the volume growth. We express this systolic
growth function in terms of discrete cocompact subrings of the Lie algebra,
making it more practical to estimate.
  After providing some general upper bounds, we develop methods to provide
nontrivial lower bounds. We provide the first computations of the asymptotics
of the systolic growth of nilpotent groups for which this is not equivalent to
the volume growth. In particular, we provide an example for which the degree of
growth is not an integer; it has dimension 7. Finally, we gather some open
questions.


title: Fourier transform spectroscopy of a spin-orbit coupled Bose gas

abstract:
  We describe a Fourier transform spectroscopy technique for directly measuring
band structures, and apply it to a spin-1 spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein
condensate. In our technique, we suddenly change the Hamiltonian of the system
by adding a spin-orbit coupling interaction and measure populations in
different spin states during the subsequent unitary evolution. We then
reconstruct the spin and momentum resolved spectrum from the peak frequencies
of the Fourier transformed populations. In addition, by periodically modulating
the Hamiltonian, we tune the spin-orbit coupling strength and use our
spectroscopy technique to probe the resulting dispersion relation. The
frequency resolution of our method is limited only by the coherent evolution
timescale of the Hamiltonian and can otherwise be applied to any system, for
example, to measure the band structure of atoms in optical lattice potentials.


title: High-contrast Kerr Frequency Combs

abstract:
  Kerr frequency combs with depressed harmonic at the optical pump frequency
are theoretically explained and experimentally demonstrated. This result is
achieved in a MgF$_2$ photonic belt resonator having reduced density of modes
in its spectrum and configured with the add-drop optical couplers. \copyright
2016 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship


title: Small energy Ginzburg-Landau minimizers in ${\mathbb R}^3$

abstract:
  We prove that a local minimizer of the Ginzburg-Landau energy in ${\mathbb
R}^3$ satisfying the condition $\liminf_{R\to\infty}E(u;B_R)/RlnR < 2\pi$ must
be constant. The main tool is a new sharp eta-ellipticity result for minimizers
in dimension three that might be of independent interest.


title:
H\"older continuity of Tauberian constants associated with discrete and
  ergodic strong maximal operators

abstract:
  This paper concerns the smoothness of Tauberian constants of maximal
operators in the discrete and ergodic settings. In particular, we define the
discrete strong maximal operator $\tilde{M}_S$ on $\mathbb{Z}^n$ by \[
  \tilde{M}_S f(m) := \sup_{0 \in R \subset \mathbb{R}^n}\frac{1}{\#(R \cap
\mathbb{Z}^n)}\sum_{ j\in R \cap \mathbb{Z}^n} |f(m+j)|,\qquad m\in
\mathbb{Z}^n, \] where the supremum is taken over all open rectangles in
$\mathbb{R}^n$ containing the origin whose sides are parallel to the coordinate
axes. We show that the associated Tauberian constant $\tilde{C}_S(\alpha)$,
defined by \[ \tilde{C}_S(\alpha) := \sup_{\substack{E \subset \mathbb{Z}^n \\
0 < \#E < \infty} } \frac{1}{\#E}\#\{m \in \mathbb{Z}^n:\, \tilde{M}_S\chi_E(m)
> \alpha\}, \] is H\"older continuous of order $1/n$. Moreover, letting $U_1,
\ldots, U_n$ denote a non-periodic collection of commuting invertible
transformations on the non-atomic probability space $(\Omega, \Sigma, \mu)$ we
define the associated maximal operator $M_S^\ast$ by \[ M^\ast_{S}f(\omega) :=
\sup_{0 \in R \subset \mathbb{R}^n}\frac{1}{\#(R \cap \mathbb{Z}^n)}\sum_{(j_1,
\ldots, j_n)\in R}|f(U_1^{j_1}\cdots U_n^{j_n}\omega)|,\qquad \omega\in\Omega.
\] Then the corresponding Tauberian constant $C^\ast_S(\alpha)$, defined by \[
C^\ast_S(\alpha) := \sup_{\substack{E \subset \Omega \\ \mu(E) > 0}}
\frac{1}{\mu(E)}\mu(\{\omega \in \Omega :\, M^\ast_S\chi_E(\omega) > \alpha\}),
\] also satisfies $C^\ast_S \in C^{1/n}(0,1).$ We will also see that, in the
case $n=1$, that is in the case of a single invertible, measure preserving
transformation, the smoothness of the corresponding Tauberian constant is
characterized by the operator enabling arbitrarily long orbits of sets of
positive measure.


title: Defect in the Joint Spectrum of Hydrogen due to Monodromy

abstract:
  In addition to the well known case of spherical coordinates the hydrogen atom
separates in three further coordinate systems. Separating in a particular
coordinate system defines a system of three commuting operators. We show that
the joint spectrum of the Hamilton operator, and the $z$-components of the
angular momentum and quantum Laplace-Runge-Lenz vectors obtained from
separation in prolate spheroidal coordinates has quantum monodromy for energies
sufficiently close to the ionization threshold. This means that one cannot
globally assign quantum numbers to the joint spectrum. Whereas the principal
quantum number $n$ and the magnetic quantum number $m$ correspond to the
Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization of globally defined classical actions a third
quantum number cannot be globally defined because the third action is globally
multi valued.


title: Learning with Hierarchical Gaussian Kernels

abstract:
  We investigate iterated compositions of weighted sums of Gaussian kernels and
provide an interpretation of the construction that shows some similarities with
the architectures of deep neural networks. On the theoretical side, we show
that these kernels are universal and that SVMs using these kernels are
universally consistent. We further describe a parameter optimization method for
the kernel parameters and empirically compare this method to SVMs, random
forests, a multiple kernel learning approach, and to some deep neural networks.


title: Primordial Sex Facilitates the Emergence of Evolution

abstract:
  Compartments are ubiquitous throughout biology, yet their importance
stretches back to the origin of cells. In the context of origin of life, we
assume that a protocell, a compartment enclosing functional components,
requires $N$ components to be evolvable. We take interest in the timescale in
which a minimal evolvable protocell is produced. We show that when protocells
fuse and share information, the time to produce an evolvable protocell scales
algebraically in $N$, in contrast to an exponential scaling in the absence of
fusion. We discuss the implications of this result for origins of life, as well
as other biological processes.


title: Weak annihilation rare radiative B-decays

abstract:
  We give predictions for the branching ratios of several rare radiative
B-decays which proceed only through weak annihilation mechanism. In addition to
previous analysis we estimate the branching ratios of $\bar{B}^0_s\to
D^{*0}\gamma$ and $B_c^-\to\rho^-\gamma$ decays and obtain $2.87\cdot 10^{-9}$
and $2.59\cdot 10^{-7}$ for them correspondingly. The accuracy of the
predictions is at the level of 20\%.


title: Learning Operations on a Stack with Neural Turing Machines

abstract:
  Multiple extensions of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have been proposed
recently to address the difficulty of storing information over long time
periods. In this paper, we experiment with the capacity of Neural Turing
Machines (NTMs) to deal with these long-term dependencies on well-balanced
strings of parentheses. We show that not only does the NTM emulate a stack with
its heads and learn an algorithm to recognize such words, but it is also
capable of strongly generalizing to much longer sequences.


title: A New Set of Financial Instruments

abstract:
  In complete markets, there are risky assets and a riskless asset. It is
assumed that the riskless asset and the risky asset are traded continuously in
time and that the market is frictionless. In this paper, we propose a new
method for hedging derivatives assuming that a hedger should not always rely on
trading existing assets that are used to form a linear portfolio comprised of
the risky asset, the riskless asset, and standard derivatives, but rather
should design a set of specific, most-suited financial instruments for the
hedging problem. We introduce a sequence of new financial instruments best
suited for hedging jump-diffusion and stochastic volatility market models. The
new instruments we introduce are perpetual derivatives. More specifically, they
are options with perpetual maturities. In a financial market where perpetual
derivatives are introduced, there is a new set of partial and partial-integro
differential equations for pricing derivatives. Our analysis demonstrates that
the set of new financial instruments together with a risk measure called the
tail-loss ratio measure defined by the new instrument's return series can be
potentially used as an early warning system for a market crash.


title: Pseudo-Finsler spaces modeled on a pseudo-Minkowski space

abstract:
  We adopt a vierbein formalism to study pseudo-Finsler spaces modeled on a
pseudo-Minkowski space. We show that it is possible to obtain closed
expressions for most of the geometric objects of the theory, including
Berwald's curvature, Landsberg's tensor, Douglas' curvature, non-linear
connection and Ricci scalar. These expressions are particularly convenient in
computations since they factor the dependence on the base and the fiber. As an
illustration, we study Lorentz-Finsler spaces modeled on the Bogoslovsky
Lorentz-Minkowski space, and give sufficient conditions which guarantee the
Berwald property. We then specialize to a recently proposed Finslerian pp-wave
metric. Finally, the paper points out that non-trivial Berwald spaces have
necessarily indicatrices which admit some non-trivial linear group of
symmetries.


title:
Multiplicity of positive solutions for a critical quasilinear Neumann
  problem

abstract:
  We establish the multiplicity of positive solutions to a quasilinear Neumann
problem in expanding balls and hemispheres with critical exponent in the
boundary condition.


title:
Form factors and differential distributions in rare radiative leptonic
  B-decays

abstract:
  We study rare radiative leptonic decays $B_{(s)}\to e^+e^-\gamma$ and
$B_{(s)}\to \mu^+\mu^-\gamma$ within relativistic quark model. In addition to
previous analysis we give the estimations of the branching ratios for four
values of the minimal photon energy, which correspond to photon selection
criteria of the Belle and LHCb detectors. We find out that the branching ratios
only slightly change. The highest values corresponding to $E^\gamma_{min}=80
\textrm{MeV}$ are ${\cal B}(\bar B^0_s\to e^+e^-\gamma)=18.5\times10^{-9}$ and
${\cal B}(B^0_s\to \mu^+\mu^-\gamma)=11.9\times10^{-9}$. We present the
distribution of the forward-backward asymmetry.


title: Noetherian algebras of quantum differential operators

abstract:
  We consider algebras of quantum differential operators, for appropriate
bicharacters on a polynomial algebra in one indeterminate and for the
coordinate algebra of quantum $n$-space for $n\geq 3$. In the former case a set
of generators for the quantum differential operators was identified in work by
the first author and T. C. McCune but it was not known whether the algebra is
Noetherian. We answer this question affirmatively, setting it in a more general
context involving the behaviour Noetherian condition under localization at the
powers of a single element. In the latter case we determine the algebra of
quantum differential operators as a skew group algebra of the group
$\mathbb{Z}^n$ over a quantized Weyl algebra. It follows from this description
that this algebra is a simple right and left Noetherian domain.


title:
Measuring and Analyzing the Shares of Economic Growth Sources in the
  Mining Sector of Iran: A Neoclassical Growth Accounting Approach

abstract:
  The purpose of this study is to measure the Total Factor Productivity (TFP)
growth and determine the share of each of the economic growth sources in the
mining sector of Iran. The time period of this study is 1355-1385 of the Solar
Hijri calendar (roughly overlaying with the time period of 1976-2006 of the
Gregorian calendar). In this paper, the shares of total factor productivity
growth (TFPG) and factors' accumulations in the economic growth of the mining
sector are estimated using a neoclassical growth accounting approach. Based on
the estimated restricted Cobb-Douglas production function and the results
obtained from the Solow residual equation, the annual growth rates of TFP were
measured for each year. According to the findings, the average annual growth
rate of TFP has been 2.94% during the time period of the present study. The
other findings of this study indicate that the average contributions of TFPG,
labor accumulation and capital accumulation in the economic growth of the
mining sector have been 56%, 23%, and 21%, respectively, during the time period
of the study. As such, it can be concluded that the policy of benefiting from
available factors in the mining sector together with the policy of accumulating
factors have simultaneously caused the value-added growth of this sector.
Therefore, considering the desired performance of the mining sector in terms of
its sizable productivity growth, it can be argued that the mining sector can
aid Iran's economic development plans to achieve their assigned economic
objectives, one of which is to increase the share of total factor productivity
growth in economic growth.


title: Gaia Shows That Messier 40 is Definitely Not a Binary Star

abstract:
  M40 has always been something of an oddity in the Messier Catalogue, since it
is just a pair of stars rather than an extended object. Doubts have also been
expressed as to whether it is even a physical binary. Here, we note that the
Hipparcos/Gaia parallaxes for these two stars remove all doubt: Messier 40
comprises a pair of entirely unrelated stars.


title: Scribbler: Controlling Deep Image Synthesis with Sketch and Color

abstract:
  Recently, there have been several promising methods to generate realistic
imagery from deep convolutional networks. These methods sidestep the
traditional computer graphics rendering pipeline and instead generate imagery
at the pixel level by learning from large collections of photos (e.g. faces or
bedrooms). However, these methods are of limited utility because it is
difficult for a user to control what the network produces. In this paper, we
propose a deep adversarial image synthesis architecture that is conditioned on
sketched boundaries and sparse color strokes to generate realistic cars,
bedrooms, or faces. We demonstrate a sketch based image synthesis system which
allows users to 'scribble' over the sketch to indicate preferred color for
objects. Our network can then generate convincing images that satisfy both the
color and the sketch constraints of user. The network is feed-forward which
allows users to see the effect of their edits in real time. We compare to
recent work on sketch to image synthesis and show that our approach can
generate more realistic, more diverse, and more controllable outputs. The
architecture is also effective at user-guided colorization of grayscale images.


title: Surface States in Holographic Weyl Semimetals

abstract:
  We study the surface states of a strongly coupled Weyl semimetal within
holography. By explicit numerical computation of an inhomogeneous holographic
Weyl semimetal we observe the appearance of an electric current restricted to
the surface in presence of electric chemical potential. The total current is
universal in the sense that it only depends on the topology of the phases
showing that the bulk-boundary correspondence holds even at strong coupling.
The implications of this result are subtle and may shed some light on anomalous
transport at weak coupling.


title:
Making the V in VQA Matter: Elevating the Role of Image Understanding in
  Visual Question Answering

abstract:
  Problems at the intersection of vision and language are of significant
importance both as challenging research questions and for the rich set of
applications they enable. However, inherent structure in our world and bias in
our language tend to be a simpler signal for learning than visual modalities,
resulting in models that ignore visual information, leading to an inflated
sense of their capability.
  We propose to counter these language priors for the task of Visual Question
Answering (VQA) and make vision (the V in VQA) matter! Specifically, we balance
the popular VQA dataset by collecting complementary images such that every
question in our balanced dataset is associated with not just a single image,
but rather a pair of similar images that result in two different answers to the
question. Our dataset is by construction more balanced than the original VQA
dataset and has approximately twice the number of image-question pairs. Our
complete balanced dataset is publicly available at www.visualqa.org as part of
the 2nd iteration of the Visual Question Answering Dataset and Challenge (VQA
v2.0).
  We further benchmark a number of state-of-art VQA models on our balanced
dataset. All models perform significantly worse on our balanced dataset,
suggesting that these models have indeed learned to exploit language priors.
This finding provides the first concrete empirical evidence for what seems to
be a qualitative sense among practitioners.
  Finally, our data collection protocol for identifying complementary images
enables us to develop a novel interpretable model, which in addition to
providing an answer to the given (image, question) pair, also provides a
counter-example based explanation. Specifically, it identifies an image that is
similar to the original image, but it believes has a different answer to the
same question. This can help in building trust for machines among their users.


title: A scalable preconditioner for a DPG method

abstract:
  We show how a scalable preconditioner for the primal discontinuous
Petrov-Galerkin (DPG) method can be developed using existing algebraic
multigrid (AMG) preconditioning techniques. The stability of the DPG method
gives a norm equivalence which allows us to exploit existing AMG algorithms and
software. We show how these algebraic preconditioners can be applied directly
to a Schur complement system of interface unknowns arising from the DPG method.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first massively scalable algebraic
preconditioner for DPG problems.


title:
The 2-degree Field Lensing Survey: photometric redshifts from a large
  new training sample to r<19.5

abstract:
  We present a new training set for estimating empirical photometric redshifts
of galaxies, which was created as part of the 2dFLenS project. This training
set is located in a 700 sq deg area of the KiDS South field and is randomly
selected and nearly complete at r<19.5. We investigate the photometric redshift
performance obtained with ugriz photometry from VST-ATLAS and W1/W2 from WISE,
based on several empirical and template methods. The best redshift errors are
obtained with kernel-density estimation, as are the lowest biases, which are
consistent with zero within statistical noise. The 68th percentiles of the
redshift scatter for magnitude-limited samples at r<(15.5, 17.5, 19.5) are
(0.014, 0.017, 0.028). In this magnitude range, there are no known ambiguities
in the colour-redshift map, consistent with a small rate of redshift outliers.
In the fainter regime, the KDE method produces p(z) estimates per galaxy that
represent unbiased and accurate redshift frequency expectations. The p(z) sum
over any subsample is consistent with the true redshift frequency plus Poisson
noise. Further improvements in redshift precision at r<20 would mostly be
expected from filter sets with narrower passbands to increase the sensitivity
of colours to small changes in redshift.


title:
A novel multiclassSVM based framework to classify lithology from well
  logs: a real-world application

abstract:
  Support vector machines (SVMs) have been recognized as a potential tool for
supervised classification analyses in different domains of research. In
essence, SVM is a binary classifier. Therefore, in case of a multiclass
problem, the problem is divided into a series of binary problems which are
solved by binary classifiers, and finally the classification results are
combined following either the one-against-one or one-against-all strategies. In
this paper, an attempt has been made to classify lithology using a multiclass
SVM based framework using well logs as predictor variables. Here, the lithology
is classified into four classes such as sand, shaly sand, sandy shale and shale
based on the relative values of sand and shale fractions as suggested by an
expert geologist. The available dataset consisting well logs (gamma ray,
neutron porosity, density, and P-sonic) and class information from four closely
spaced wells from an onshore hydrocarbon field is divided into training and
testing sets. We have used one-against-all strategy to combine the results of
multiple binary classifiers. The reported results established the superiority
of multiclass SVM compared to other classifiers in terms of classification
accuracy. The selection of kernel function and associated parameters has also
been investigated here. It can be envisaged from the results achieved in this
study that the proposed framework based on multiclass SVM can further be used
to solve classification problems. In future research endeavor, seismic
attributes can be introduced in the framework to classify the lithology
throughout a study area from seismic inputs.


title:
A Novel Framework based on SVDD to Classify Water Saturation from
  Seismic Attributes

abstract:
  Water saturation is an important property in reservoir engineering domain.
Thus, satisfactory classification of water saturation from seismic attributes
is beneficial for reservoir characterization. However, diverse and non-linear
nature of subsurface attributes makes the classification task difficult. In
this context, this paper proposes a generalized Support Vector Data Description
(SVDD) based novel classification framework to classify water saturation into
two classes (Class high and Class low) from three seismic attributes seismic
impedance, amplitude envelop, and seismic sweetness. G-metric means and program
execution time are used to quantify the performance of the proposed framework
along with established supervised classifiers. The documented results imply
that the proposed framework is superior to existing classifiers. The present
study is envisioned to contribute in further reservoir modeling.


title: Design and Performance of a Hybrid Fast and Thermal Neutron Detector

abstract:
  We report the performance and characterization of a custom-built hybrid
detector consisting of BC501A liquid scintillator for fast neutrons and BC702
scintillator for thermal neutrons. The calibration and the resolution of the
BC501A liquid scintillator detector are performed. The event identification via
Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) technique is developed in order to distinguish
gamma, fast and thermal neutrons. Monte Carlo simulation packages are developed
in GEANT4 to obtain actual neutron energy spectrum from the measured recoil
spectrum. The developed methods are tested by reconstruction of 241AmBe(\alpha,
n) neutron spectrum.


title: Universal statistics of selected values

abstract:
  Selection, the tendency of some traits to become more frequent than others in
a population under the influence of some (natural or artificial) agency, is a
key component of Darwinian evolution and countless other natural and social
phenomena. Yet a general theory of selection, analogous to the
Fisher-Tippett-Gnedenko theory of extreme events, is lacking. Here we introduce
a probabilistic definition of selection and show that selected values are
attracted to a universal family of limiting distributions. The universality
classes and scaling exponents are determined by the tail thickness of the
random variable under selection. Our results are supported by data from
molecular biology, agriculture and sport.

categories: q-bio.PE cond-mat.stat-mech math.ST stat.TH


title:
Novel Propagation Model of Degenerate Band Edge Modes Using Dual
  Non-identical Pair of Coupled Transmission Lines

abstract:
  We present a novel propagation medium using a pair of non-identical coupled
transmission lines. The medium is referred to as `butterfly' structure and is
composed of four coupled transmission lines. These four coupled transmission
lines generate higher-order dispersion modes by coupling the modes supported on
each of the transmission lines. When these transmission line pairs are placed
inside a circular waveguide, they support a strong TM01-like Degenerate Band
Edge mode. This property can be used to enhance coupling of the electron beams
to RF waves for high-power Traveling Wave Tubes. In this paper, we present the
slow wave characteristics and Degenerate Band Edge mode formation using the
coupled pair of transmission lines.


title: Strong constraints on self-interacting dark matter with light mediators

abstract:
  Coupling dark matter to light new particles is an attractive way to combine
thermal production with strong velocity-dependent self-interactions. Here we
point out that in such models the dark matter annihilation rate is generically
enhanced by the Sommerfeld effect, and we derive the resulting constraints from
the Cosmic Microwave Background and other indirect detection probes. For the
frequently studied case of s-wave annihilation these constraints exclude the
entire parameter space where the self-interactions are large enough to address
the small-scale problems of structure formation.


title:
Gauging spatial symmetries and the classification of topological
  crystalline phases

abstract:
  We put the theory of interacting topological crystalline phases on a
systematic footing. These are topological phases protected by space-group
symmetries. Our central tool is an elucidation of what it means to "gauge" such
symmetries. We introduce the notion of a "crystalline topological liquid", and
argue that most (and perhaps all) phases of interest are likely to satisfy this
criterion. We prove a Crystalline Equivalence Principle, which states that in
Euclidean space, crystalline topological liquids with symmetry group $G$ are in
one-to-one correspondence with topological phases protected by the same
symmetry $G$, but acting *internally*, where if an element of $G$ is
orientation-reversing, it is realized as an anti-unitary symmetry in the
internal symmetry group. As an example, we explicitly compute, using group
cohomology, a partial classification of bosonic symmetry-protected topological
(SPT) phases protected by crystalline symmetries in (3+1)-D for 227 of the 230
space groups. For the 65 space groups not containing orientation-reversing
elements (Sohncke groups), there are no cobordism invariants which may
contribute phases beyond group cohomology, and so we conjecture our
classification is complete.

categories: cond-mat.str-el cond-mat.mtrl-sci math-ph math.MP


title:
Data-driven, interpretable photometric redshifts trained on
  heterogeneous and unrepresentative data

abstract:
  We present a new method for inferring photometric redshifts in deep galaxy
and quasar surveys, based on a data driven model of latent spectral energy
distributions (SEDs) and a physical model of photometric fluxes as a function
of redshift. This conceptually novel approach combines the advantages of both
machine-learning and template-fitting methods by building template SEDs
directly from the training data. This is made computationally tractable with
Gaussian Processes operating in flux--redshift space, encoding the physics of
redshift and the projection of galaxy SEDs onto photometric band passes. This
method alleviates the need of acquiring representative training data or
constructing detailed galaxy SED models; it requires only that the photometric
band passes and calibrations be known or have parameterized unknowns. The
training data can consist of a combination of spectroscopic and deep many-band
photometric data, which do not need to entirely spatially overlap with the
target survey of interest or even involve the same photometric bands. We
showcase the method on the $i$-magnitude-selected, spectroscopically-confirmed
galaxies in the COSMOS field. The model is trained on the deepest bands (from
SUBARU and HST) and photometric redshifts are derived using the shallower SDSS
optical bands only. We demonstrate that we obtain accurate redshift point
estimates and probability distributions despite the training and target sets
having very different redshift distributions, noise properties, and even
photometric bands. Our model can also be used to predict missing photometric
fluxes, or to simulate populations of galaxies with realistic fluxes and
redshifts, for example. This method opens a new era in which photometric
redshifts for large photometric surveys are derived using a flexible yet
physical model of the data trained on all available surveys (spectroscopic and
photometric).


title: First Detection of Hydrogen in the \beta\ Pictoris Gas Disk

abstract:
  The young and nearby star \beta\ Pictoris (\beta\ Pic) is surrounded by a
debris disk composed of dust and gas known to host a myriad evaporating
exocomets, planetesimals and at least one planet. At an edge-on inclination, as
seen from Earth, this system is ideal for debris disk studies providing an
excellent opportunity to use absorption spectroscopy to study the planet
forming environment. Using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) instrument on
the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) we observe the most abundant element in the
disk, hydrogen, through the HI Lyman \alpha\ (Ly-\alpha\) line. We present a
new technique to decrease the contamination of the Ly-\alpha\ line by
geocoronal airglow in COS spectra. This Airglow Virtual Motion (AVM) technique
allows us to shift the Ly-\alpha\ line of the astrophysical target away from
the contaminating airglow emission revealing more of the astrophysical line
profile. The column density of hydrogen in the \beta\ Pic stable gas disk at
the stellar radial velocity is measured to be $\log(N_{\mathrm{H}}/1
\mathrm{cm}^2) \ll 18.5$. The Ly-\alpha\ emission line profile is found to be
asymmetric and we propose that this is caused by HI falling in towards the star
with a bulk radial velocity of $41\pm6$ km/s relative to \beta\ Pic and a
column density of $\log(N_{\mathrm{H}}/1 \mathrm{cm}^2) = 18.6\pm0.1$. The high
column density of hydrogen relative to the hydrogen content of CI chondrite
meteorites indicates that the bulk of the hydrogen gas does not come from the
dust in the disk. This column density reveals a hydrogen abundance much lower
than solar, which excludes the possibility that the detected hydrogen could be
a remnant of the protoplanetary disk or gas expelled by the star. We
hypothesise that the hydrogen gas observed falling towards the star arises from
the dissociation of water originating from evaporating exocomets.