Spatial proton gradients create energy in biological systems and are likely a driving force for prebiotic systems. Due to the fast diffusion of protons, they are however difficult to create as steady state, unless driven by other non-equilibria such as thermal gradients. Here, we quantitatively predict the heat-flux driven formation of pH gradients for the case of a simple acid-base reaction system. To this end, we (i) establish a theoretical framework that describes the spatial interplay of chemical reactions with thermal convection, thermophoresis, and electrostatic forces by a separation of timescales, and (ii) report quantitative measurements in a purpose-built microfluidic device. We show experimentally that the slope of such pH gradients undergoes pronounced amplitude changes in a concentration-dependent manner and can even be inverted. The predictions of the theoretical framework fully reflect these features and establish an understanding of how naturally occurring non-equilibrium environmental conditions can drive pH gradients.

We describe a new table-top electrostatic storage ring concept for 30 keV polarized ions with fixed spin orientation. The device will ultimately be capable of measuring magnetic fields with a resolution of 10⁻²⁰ T with sub-mHz bandwidth. With the possibility to store different kinds of ions or ionic molecules and access to prepare and probe states of the systems using lasers and SQUIDs, it can be used to search for electric dipole moments (EDMs) of electrons and nucleons, as well as axion-like particle dark matter and dark photon dark matter. Its sensitivity potential stems from several hours of storage time, comparably long spin coherence times, and the possibility to trap up to 10⁹ particles in bunches with possibly different state preparations for differential measurements. As a dark matter experiment, it is most sensitive in the mass range of 10⁻¹⁰ to 10⁻¹⁹ eV, where it can potentially probe couplings orders of magnitude below current and proposed laboratory experiments.

We present BIFROST, an extended version of the GPU-accelerated hierarchical fourth-order forward symplectic integrator code FROST. BIFROST (BInaries in FROST) can efficiently evolve collisional stellar systems with arbitrary binary fractions up to $f_\mathrm{bin}=100~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ by using secular and regularized integration for binaries, triples, multiple systems, or small clusters around black holes within the fourth-order forward integrator framework. Post-Newtonian (PN) terms up to order PN3.5 are included in the equations of motion of compact subsystems with optional three-body and spin-dependent terms. PN1.0 terms for interactions with black holes are computed everywhere in the simulation domain. The code has several merger criteria (gravitational-wave inspirals, tidal disruption events, and stellar and compact object collisions) with the addition of relativistic recoil kicks for compact object mergers. We show that for systems with N particles the scaling of the code remains good up to N_GPU ~ 40 × N/10⁶ GPUs and that the increasing binary fractions up to 100 per cent hardly increase the code running time (less than a factor ~1.5). We also validate the numerical accuracy of BIFROST by presenting a number of star clusters simulations the most extreme ones including a core collapse and a merger of two intermediate mass black holes with a relativistic recoil kick.

Feeding with gas in streams is well established to be an important galaxy growth mechanism. Using an idealized set-up of an isolated galaxy, we study the impact of stream feeding (with 10⁷ M_⊙ Myr^-1 rate) on the star formation and outflows of disc galaxies with ~10¹¹ M_⊙ baryonic mass. The magnetohydrodynamical simulations are carried out with the PIERNIK code and include star formation, feedback from supernova, and cosmic ray advection and diffusion, on a uniform grid with 195 pc spatial resolution. We find that the introduction of a cold gas stream accreted by the disc enhances galactic star formation. Lower angular momentum streams result in more compact discs, higher star formation rates and stronger outflows. In agreement with previous studies, models including cosmic rays launch stronger outflows travelling much further into the galactic halo. Cosmic ray supported outflows are also cooler than supernova only driven outflows. With cosmic rays, the star formation is suppressed and the thermal pressure is reduced. We find evidence for two distinct outflow phases. The warm outflows have high angular momentum and stay close to the galactic disc, while the hot outflow phase has low angular momentum and escapes from the centre deep into the halo. Cosmic rays can therefore have a strong impact on galaxy evolution by removing low angular momentum, possibly metal enriched gas from the disc and injecting it into the circumgalactic medium.

M 31 has experienced a recent tumultuous merger history, as evidenced from the many substructures that are still present in its inner halo, particularly the G1-Clump, NE-, and W-shelves and the Giant Stream (GS). We present planetary nebulae (PNe) line-of-sight velocity (LOSV) measurements covering the entire spatial extent of these four substructures. We further use predictions for the satellite and host stellar particle phase space distributions for a major merger (mass ratio = 1:4) simulation to help interpret the data. The measured PN LOSVs for the two shelves and GS are consistent with those from red giant branch stars. Their projected radius versus LOSV phase space, links the formation of these substructures in a single unique event, consistent with a major merger. We find the G1-clump to be dynamically cold compared to the M 31 disc ($\rm \sigma _{LOS, PN}=27$ km s^-1), consistent with pre-merger disc material. Such a structure can not form in a minor merger (mass ratio ~1:20) and is therefore a smoking gun for the recent major merger event in M 31. The simulation also predicts the formation of a predominantly in situ halo from splashed-out pre-merger disc material, in qualitative agreement with observations of a metal-rich inner halo in M 31. Juxtaposed with previous results for its discs, we conclude that M 31 has had a recent (2.5-4 Gyr ago) 'wet' major merger with the satellite falling along the GS, heating the pre-merger disc to form the M 31 thicker disc, rebuilding the M 31 thin disc, and creating the aforementioned inner-halo substructures.

SMSS J114447.77-430859.3 (z = 0.83) has been identified in the SkyMapper Southern Survey as the most luminous quasar in the last $\sim 9\, \rm Gyr$ . In this paper, we report on the eROSITA/Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observations of the source from the eROSITA All Sky Survey, along with presenting results from recent monitoring performed using Swift, XMM-Newton, and NuSTAR. The source shows a clear variability by factors of ~10 and ~2.7 over time-scales of a year and of a few days, respectively. When fit with an absorbed power law plus high-energy cutoff, the X-ray spectra reveal a Γ = 2.2 ± 0.2 and $E_{\rm cut}=23^{+26}_{-5}\, \rm keV$ . Assuming Comptonization, we estimate a coronal optical depth and electron temperature of $\tau =2.5-5.3\, (5.2-8)$ and $kT=8-18\, (7.5-14)\, \rm keV$ , respectively, for a slab (spherical) geometry. The broadband SED is successfully modelled by assuming either a standard accretion disc illuminated by a central X-ray source, or a thin disc with a slim disc emissivity profile. The former model results in a black hole mass estimate of the order of $10^{10}\, \mathrm{ M}_\odot$ , slightly higher than prior optical estimates; meanwhile, the latter model suggests a lower mass. Both models suggest sub-Eddington accretion when assuming a spinning black hole, and a compact ($\sim 10\, r_{\rm g}$ ) X-ray corona. The measured intrinsic column density and the Eddington ratio strongly suggest the presence of an outflow driven by radiation pressure. This is also supported by variation of absorption by an order of magnitude over the period of $\sim 900 \ \rm d$ .

We analyse the full shape of anisotropic clustering measurements from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey quasar sample together with the combined galaxy sample from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We obtain constraints on the cosmological parameters independent of the Hubble parameter h for the extensions of the Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) models, focusing on cosmologies with free dark energy equation of state parameter w. We combine the clustering constraints with those from the latest cosmic microwave background data from Planck to obtain joint constraints for these cosmologies for w and the additional extension parameters - its time evolution w_a, the physical curvature density ω_K and the neutrino mass sum ∑m_ν. Our joint constraints are consistent with a flat ΛCDM cosmological model within 68 per cent confidence limits. We demonstrate that the Planck data are able to place tight constraints on the clustering amplitude today, σ₁₂, in cosmologies with varying w and present the first constraints for the clustering amplitude for such cosmologies, which is found to be slightly higher than the ΛCDM value. Additionally, we show that when we vary w and allow for non-flat cosmologies and the physical curvature density is used, Planck prefers a curved universe at 4σ significance, which is ~2σ higher than when using the relative curvature density Ω_K. Finally, when w is varied freely, clustering provides only a modest improvement (of 0.021 eV) on the upper limit of ∑m_ν.

We cross-correlate positions of galaxies measured in data from the first three years of the Dark Energy Survey with Compton-y maps generated using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Planck mission. We model this cross-correlation measurement together with the galaxy autocorrelation to constrain the distribution of gas in the Universe. We measure the hydrostatic mass bias or, equivalently, the mean halo bias-weighted electron pressure <b_hP_e >, using large-scale information. We find <b_hP_e > to be $[0.16^{+0.03}_{-0.04},0.28^{+0.04}_{-0.05},0.45^{+0.06}_{-0.10},0.54^{+0.08}_{-0.07},0.61^{+0.08}_{-0.06},0.63^{+0.07}_{-0.08}]$ meV cm^-3 at redshifts z ~ [0.30, 0.46, 0.62, 0.77, 0.89, 0.97]. These values are consistent with previous work where measurements exist in the redshift range. We also constrain the mean gas profile using small-scale information, enabled by the high-resolution of the SPT data. We compare our measurements to different parametrized profiles based on the cosmo-OWLS hydrodynamical simulations. We find that our data are consistent with the simulation that assumes an AGN heating temperature of 10^8.5 K but are incompatible with the model that assumes an AGN heating temperature of 10^8.0 K. These comparisons indicate that the data prefer a higher value of electron pressure than the simulations within r_500c of the galaxies' haloes.

Using numerical simulations, we investigate the gravitational evolution of filamentary molecular cloud structures and their condensation into dense protostellar cores. One possible process is the so-called edge effect, the pile-up of matter at the end of the filament due to self-gravity. This effect is predicted by theory but only rarely observed. To get a better understanding of the underlying processes we used a simple analytic approach to describe the collapse and the corresponding collapse time. We identify a model of two distinct phases. The first phase is free fall dominated, due to the self-gravity of the filament. In the second phase, after the turning point, the collapse is balanced by the ram pressure, produced by the inside material of the filament, which leads to a constant collapse velocity. This approach reproduces the established collapse time of uniform density filaments and agrees well with our hydrodynamic simulations. In addition, we investigate the influence of different radial density profiles on the collapse. We find that the deviations compared to the uniform filament are less than 10 per cent. Therefore, the analytic collapse model of the uniform density filament is an excellent general approach.

We present new GRIFFIN project hydrodynamical simulations that model the formation of galactic star cluster populations in low-metallicity (Z = 0.00021) dwarf galaxies, including radiation, supernova, and stellar wind feedback of individual massive stars. In the simulations, stars are sampled from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) down to the hydrogen-burning limit of 0.08 M_⊙. Mass conservation is enforced within a radius of 1 pc for the formation of massive stars. We find that massive stars are preferentially found in star clusters and follow a correlation set at birth between the highest initial stellar mass and the star cluster mass that differs from pure stochastic IMF sampling. With a fully sampled IMF, star clusters lose mass in the galactic tidal field according to mass-loss rates observed in nearby galaxies. Of the released stellar feedback, 60 per cent of the supernova material and up to 35 per cent of the wind material reside either in the hot interstellar medium (ISM) or in gaseous, metal-enriched outflows. While stellar winds (instantaneously) and supernovae (delayed) start enriching the ISM right after the first massive stars form, the formation of supernova-enriched stars and star clusters is significantly delayed (by >50 Myr) compared to the formation of stars and star clusters enriched by stellar winds. Overall, supernova ejecta dominate the enrichment by mass, while the number of enriched stars is determined by continuous stellar winds. These results present a concept for the formation of chemically distinct populations of stars in bound star clusters, reminiscent of multiple populations in globular clusters.

We present magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the star-forming multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) in stratified galactic patches with gas surface densities Σ_gas = 10, 30, 50, and 100 $\mathrm{M_\odot \, pc^{-2}}$. The SILCC project simulation framework accounts for non-equilibrium thermal and chemical processes in the warm and cold ISM. The sink-based star formation and feedback model includes stellar winds, hydrogen-ionizing UV radiation, core-collapse supernovae, and cosmic ray (CR) injection and diffusion. The simulations follow the observed relation between Σ_gas and the star formation rate surface density Σ_SFR. CRs qualitatively change the outflow phase structure. Without CRs, the outflows transition from a two-phase (warm and hot at 1 kpc) to a single-phase (hot at 2 kpc) structure. With CRs, the outflow always has three phases (cold, warm, and hot), dominated in mass by the warm phase. The impact of CRs on mass loading decreases for higher Σ_gas and the mass loading factors of the CR-supported outflows are of order unity independent of Σ_SFR. Similar to observations, vertical velocity dispersions of the warm ionized medium (WIM) and the cold neutral medium (CNM) correlate with the star formation rate as $\sigma _\mathrm{z} \propto \Sigma _\mathrm{SFR}^a$, with a ~ 0.20. In the absence of stellar feedback, we find no correlation. The velocity dispersion of the WIM is a factor ~2.2 higher than that of the CNM, in agreement with local observations. For $\Sigma _\mathrm{SFR} \gtrsim 1.5 \times 10^{-2}\, \mathrm{M}_\odot \, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}\, \mathrm{kpc}^{-2}$ the WIM motions become supersonic.

More than 50 per cent of solar-mass stars form in multiple systems. It is therefore crucial to investigate how multiplicity affects the star and planet formation processes at the protostellar stage. We report continuum and C¹⁸O (2-1) observations of the VLA 1623-2417 protostellar system at 50 au angular resolution as part of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Large Program FAUST. The 1.3 mm continuum probes the discs of VLA 1623A, B, and W, and the circumbinary disc of the A1 + A2 binary. The C¹⁸O emission reveals, for the first time, the gas in the disc envelope of VLA 1623W. We estimate the dynamical mass of VLA 1623W, M_dyn = 0.45 ± 0.08 M_⊙, and the mass of its disc, M_disc ~ 6 × 10^-3 M_⊙. C¹⁸O also reveals streamers that extend up to 1000 au, spatially and kinematically connecting the envelope and outflow cavities of the A1 + A2 + B system with the disc of VLA 1623W. The presence of the streamers, as well as the spatial (~1300 au) and velocity (~2.2 km s^-1) offsets of VLA 1623W, suggests that either sources W and A + B formed in different cores, interacting between them, or source W has been ejected from the VLA 1623 multiple system during its formation. In the latter case, the streamers may funnel material from the envelope and cavities of VLA 1623AB on to VLA 1623W, thus concurring to set its final mass and chemical content.

Neutrinos propagating in a dense neutrino gas, such as those expected in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) and neutron star mergers (NSMs), can experience fast flavor conversions on relatively short scales. This can happen if the neutrino electron lepton number (ν ELN ) angular distribution crosses zero in a certain direction. Despite this, most of the state-of-the-art CCSN and NSM simulations do not provide such detailed angular information and instead, supply only a few moments of the neutrino angular distributions. In this study we employ, for the first time, a machine learning (ML) approach to this problem and show that it can be extremely successful in detecting ν ELN crossings on the basis of its zeroth and first moments. We observe that an accuracy of ∼95 % can be achieved by the ML algorithms, which almost corresponds to the Bayes error rate of our problem. Considering its remarkable efficiency and agility, the ML approach provides one with an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the occurrence of fast flavor conversions in CCSN and NSM simulations on the fly. We also provide our ML methodologies on GitHub.

Thorne-$Ż$ytkow objects (T$Ż$O) are potential end products of the merger of a neutron star with a non-degenerate star. In this work, we have computed the first grid of evolutionary models of T$Ż$Os with the MESA stellar evolution code. With these models, we predict several observational properties of T$Ż$Os, including their surface temperatures and luminosities, pulsation periods, and nucleosynthetic products. We expand the range of possible T$Ż$O solutions to cover $3.45 \lesssim \log \left(T/K\right) \lesssim 3.65$ and $4.85 \lesssim \log \left(L/L_{\odot}\right) \lesssim 5.5$. Due to the much higher densities our T$Ż$Os reach compared to previous models, if T$Ż$Os form we expect them to be stable over a larger mass range than previously predicted, without exhibiting a gap in their mass distribution. Using the GYRE stellar pulsation code we show that T$Ż$Os should have fundamental pulsation periods of 1000--2000 days, and period ratios of $\approx$0.2--0.3. Models computed with a large 399 isotope fully-coupled nuclear network show a nucleosynthetic signal that is different to previously predicted. We propose a new nucleosynthetic signal to determine a star's status as a T$Ż$O: the isotopologues $^{44}\rm{Ti} \rm{O}_2$ and $^{44}\rm{Ti} \rm{O}$, which will have a shift in their spectral features as compared to stable titanium-containing molecules. We find that in the local Universe (~SMC metallicities and above) T$Ż$Os show little heavy metal enrichment, potentially explaining the difficulty in finding T$Ż$Os to-date.

We present new computations for Feynman integrals relevant to Higgs plus jet production at three loops, including first results for a non-planar class of integrals. The results are expressed in terms of generalised polylogarithms up to transcendental weight six. We also provide the full canonical differential equations, which allows us to make structural observations on the answer. In particular, we find a counterexample to previously conjectured adjacency relations, for a planar integral of the tennis-court type. Additionally, for a non-planar triple ladder diagram, we find two novel alphabet letters. This information may be useful for future bootstrap approaches.

Theoretically predicted yields of elements created by the rapid neutron capture (r-) process carry potentially large uncertainties associated with incomplete knowledge of nuclear properties and approximative hydrodynamical modelling of the matter ejection processes. We present an in-depth study of the nuclear uncertainties by varying theoretical nuclear input models that describe the experimentally unknown neutron-rich nuclei. This includes two frameworks for calculating the radiative neutron capture rates and 14 different models for nuclear masses, β-decay rates and fission properties. Our r-process nuclear network calculations are based on detailed hydrodynamical simulations of dynamically ejected material from NS-NS or NS-BH binary mergers plus the secular ejecta from BH-torus systems. The impact of nuclear uncertainties on the r-process abundance distribution and the early radioactive heating rate is found to be modest (within a factor of ~20 for individual A > 90 abundances and a factor of 2 for the heating rate). However, the impact on the late-time heating rate is more significant and depends strongly on the contribution from fission. We witness significantly higher sensitivity to the nuclear physics input if only a single trajectory is used compared to considering ensembles with a much larger number of trajectories (ranging between 150 and 300), and the quantitative effects of the nuclear uncertainties strongly depend on the adopted conditions for the individual trajectory. We use the predicted Th/U ratio to estimate the cosmochronometric age of six metal-poor stars and find the impact of the nuclear uncertainties to be up to 2 Gyr.

Modeling of strongly gravitationally lensed galaxies is often required in order to use them as astrophysical or cosmological probes. With current and upcoming wide-field imaging surveys, the number of detected lenses is increasing significantly such that automated and fast modeling procedures for ground-based data are urgently needed. This is especially pertinent to short-lived lensed transients in order to plan follow-up observations. Therefore, we present in a companion paper a neural network predicting the parameter values with corresponding uncertainties of a singular isothermal ellipsoid (SIE) mass profile with external shear. In this work, we also present a newly developed pipeline glee_auto.py that can be used to model any galaxy-scale lensing system consistently. In contrast to previous automated modeling pipelines that require high-resolution space-based images, glee_auto.py is optimized to work well on ground-based images such as those from the Hyper-Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program or the upcoming Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. We further present glee_tools.py, a flexible automation code for individual modeling that has no direct decisions and assumptions implemented on the lens system setup or image resolution. Both pipelines, in addition to our modeling network, minimize the user input time drastically and thus are important for future modeling efforts. We applied the network to 31 real galaxy-scale lenses of HSC and compare the results to traditional, Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling-based models obtained from our semi-autonomous pipelines. In the direct comparison, we find a very good match for the Einstein radius. The lens mass center and ellipticity show reasonable agreement. The main discrepancies pretrain to the external shear, as is expected from our tests on mock systems where the neural network always predicts values close to zero for the complex components of the shear. In general, our study demonstrates that neural networks are a viable and ultra fast approach for measuring the lens-galaxy masses from ground-based data in the upcoming era with ~10⁵ lenses expected.

In this paper, we investigate two-loop non-planar triangle Feynman integrals involving elliptic curves. In contrast to the Sunrise and Banana integral families, the triangle families involve non-trivial sub-sectors. We show that the methodology developed in the context of Banana integrals can also be extended to these cases and obtain $\varepsilon$-factorized differential equations for all sectors. The letters are combinations of modular forms on the corresponding elliptic curves and algebraic functions arising from the sub-sectors. With uniform transcendental boundary conditions, we express our results in terms of iterated integrals order-by-order in the dimensional regulator, which can be evaluated efficiently. Our method can be straightforwardly generalized to other elliptic integral families and have important applications to precision physics at current and future high-energy colliders.

Aims: We want to find the distribution of initial conditions that best reproduces disc observations at the population level.
Methods: We first ran a parameter study using a 1D model that includes the viscous evolution of a gas disc, dust, and pebbles, coupled with an emission model to compute the millimetre flux observable with ALMA. This was used to train a machine learning surrogate model that can compute the relevant quantity for comparison with observations in seconds. This surrogate model was used to perform parameter studies and synthetic disc populations.
Results: Performing a parameter study, we find that internal photoevaporation leads to a lower dependency of disc lifetime on stellar mass than external photoevaporation. This dependence should be investigated in the future. Performing population synthesis, we find that under the combined losses of internal and external photoevaporation, discs are too short lived.
Conclusions: To match observational constraints, future models of disc evolution need to include one or a combination of the following processes: infall of material to replenish the discs, shielding of the disc from internal photoevaporation due to magnetically driven disc winds, and extinction of external high-energy radiation. Nevertheless, disc properties in low-external-photoevaporation regions can be reproduced by having more massive and compact discs. Here, the optimum values of the α viscosity parameter lie between 3 × 10⁻⁴ and 10⁻³ and with internal photoevaporation being the main mode of disc dispersal.

Tables 3 and 4 are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/673/A78

Supernovae (SNe) that have been multiply imaged by gravitational lensing are rare and powerful probes for cosmology. Each detection is an opportunity to develop the critical tools and methodologies needed as the sample of lensed SNe increases by orders of magnitude with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The latest such discovery is of the quadruply imaged Type Ia SN 2022qmx (aka, "SN Zwicky") at z = 0.3544. SN Zwicky was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility in spatially unresolved data. Here we present follow-up Hubble Space Telescope observations of SN Zwicky, the first from the multicycle "LensWatch (www.lenswatch.org)" program. We measure photometry for each of the four images of SN Zwicky, which are resolved in three WFC3/UVIS filters (F475W, F625W, and F814W) but unresolved with WFC3/IR F160W, and present an analysis of the lensing system using a variety of independent lens modeling methods. We find consistency between lens-model-predicted time delays (≲1 day), and delays estimated with the single epoch of Hubble Space Telescope colors (≲3.5 days), including the uncertainty from chromatic microlensing (~1-1.5 days). Our lens models converge to an Einstein radius of ${\theta }_{{\rm{E}}}=({0.168}_{-0.005}^{+0.009})^{\prime\prime} $ , the smallest yet seen in a lensed SN system. The "standard candle" nature of SN Zwicky provides magnification estimates independent of the lens modeling that are brighter than predicted by $\sim {1.7}_{-0.6}^{+0.8}$ mag and $\sim {0.9}_{-0.6}^{+0.8}$ mag for two of the four images, suggesting significant microlensing and/or additional substructure beyond the flexibility of our image-position mass models.

Energetic jets that traverse the quark-gluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions serve as excellent probes to study this new state of deconfined QCD matter. Presently, however, our ability to achieve a crisp theoretical interpretation of the crescent number of jet observables measured in experiments is hampered by the presence of selection biases. The aim of this work is to minimize those selection biases associated to the modification of the quark- versus gluon-initiated jet fraction in order to assess the presence of other medium-induced effects, namely, color decoherence, by exploring the rapidity dependence of jet substructure observables. So far, all jet substructure measurements at midrapidity have shown that heavy-ion jets are narrower than vacuum jets. We show both analytically and with Monte Carlo simulations that if the narrowing effect persists at forward rapidities, where the quark-initiated jet fraction is greatly increased, this could serve as an unambiguous experimental observation of color decoherence dynamics in heavy-ion collisions.

Feedback mediated by cosmic rays (CRs) is an important process in galaxy formation. Because CRs are long-lived and because they are transported along the magnetic field lines independently of any gas flow, they can efficiently distribute their feedback energy within the galaxy. We present an in-depth investigation of (i) how CRs launch galactic winds from a disc that is forming in a $10^{11} \, \rm {M}_\odot$ halo and (ii) the state of CR transport inside the galactic wind. To this end, we use the AREPO moving-mesh code and model CR transport with the two-moment description of CR hydrodynamics. This model includes the CR interaction with the gyroresonant Alfvén waves that enable us to self-consistently calculate the CR diffusion coefficient and CR transport speeds based on coarse-grained models for plasma physical effects. This delivers insight into key questions such as whether the effective CR transport is streaming-like or diffusive-like, how the CR diffusion coefficient and transport speed change inside the circumgalactic medium, and to what degree the two-moment approximation is needed to faithfully capture these effects. We find that the CR-diffusion coefficient reaches a steady state in most environments with the notable exception of our newly discovered Alfvén-wave dark regions where the toroidal wind magnetic field is nearly perpendicular to the CR pressure gradient so that CRs are unable to excite the gyroresonant Alfvén waves. However, CR transport itself cannot reach a steady state and is not well described by either the CR streaming paradigm, the CR diffusion paradigm, or a combination of both.

We show that nonstandard neutrino self-interactions can lead to total flavor equipartition in a dense neutrino gas, such as those expected in core-collapse supernovae. In this first investigation of this phenomenon in the multiangle scenario, we demonstrate that such a flavor equipartition can occur on very short scales, and therefore very deep inside the newly formed proto-neutron star, with a possible significant impact on the physics of core-collapse supernovae. Our findings imply that future galactic core-collapse supernovae can appreciably probe nonstandard neutrino self-interactions, for certain cases even when they are many orders of magnitude smaller than the Standard Model terms.

Absorption features in stellar atmospheres are often used to calibrate photocentric velocities for the kinematic analysis of further spectral lines. The Li feature at ∼6708 Å is commonly used, especially in the case of young stellar objects, for which it is one of the strongest absorption lines. However, this complex line comprises two isotope fine-structure doublets. We empirically measured the wavelength of this Li feature in a sample of young stars from the PENELLOPE/VLT programme (using X-shooter, UVES, and ESPRESSO data) as well as HARPS data. For 51 targets, we fit 314 individual spectra using the STAR-MELT package, resulting in 241 accurately fitted Li features given the automated goodness-of-fit threshold. We find the mean air wavelength to be 6707.856 Å, with a standard error of 0.002 Å (0.09 km s⁻¹), and a weighted standard deviation of 0.026 Å (1.16 km s⁻¹). The observed spread in measured positions spans 0.145 Å, or 6.5 km s⁻¹, which is higher by up to a factor of six than the typically reported velocity errors for high-resolution studies. We also find a correlation between the effective temperature of the star and the wavelength of the central absorption. We discuss that exclusively using this Li feature as a reference for photocentric velocity in young stars might introduce a systematic positive offset in wavelength to measurements of further spectral lines. If outflow tracing forbidden lines, such as [O I] 6300 Å, is more blueshifted than previously thought, this then favours a disc wind as the origin for this emission in young stars.

Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programmes 105.207T and 106.20Z8.

In the context of a project aimed at characterizing the properties of the so-called Bulge Fossil Fragments (the fossil remnants of the bulge formation epoch), here we present the first determination of the metallicity distribution of Liller 1. For a sample of 64 individual member stars we used ESO- MUSE spectra to measure the equivalent width of the CaII triplet and then derive the iron abundance. To test the validity of the adopted calibration in the metal-rich regime, the procedure was first applied to three reference bulge globular clusters (NGC 6569, NGC 6440, and NGC 6528). In all the three cases, we found single-component iron distributions, with abundance values fully in agreement with those reported in the literature. The application of the same methodology to Liller 1 yielded, instead, a clear bimodal iron distribution, with a sub-solar component at $\text{[Fe/H]}= -0.48\,$dex ($\sigma = 0.22$) and a super-solar component at $\text{[Fe/H]}= +0.26\,$dex ($\sigma = 0.17$). The latter is found to be significantly more centrally concentrated than the metal-poor population, as expected in a self-enrichment scenario and in agreement with what found in another bulge system, Terzan 5. The obtained metallicity distribution is astonishingly similar to that predicted by the reconstructed star formation history of Liller 1, which is characterized by three main bursts and a low, but constant, activity of star formation over the entire lifetime. These findings provide further support to the possibility that, similar to Terzan 5, also Liller 1 is a Bulge Fossil Fragment.

We analyse the impact of positivity conditions on static spherically symmetric deformations of the Schwarzschild space-time. The metric is taken to satisfy, at least asymptotically, the Einstein equation in the presence of a non-trivial stress-energy tensor, on which we impose various physicality conditions. We systematically study and compare the impact of these conditions on the space-time deformations. The universal nature of our findings applies to both classical and quantum metric deformations with and without event horizons. We further discuss minimal realisations of the asymptotic stress energy tensor in terms of physical fields. Finally, we illustrate our results by discussing concrete models of quantum black holes.

Despite the observation of significant suppressions of b →s μ⁺μ^- branching ratios no clear sign of New Physics (NP) has been identified in Δ F =2 observables Δ M_{d ,s} , ε_K and the mixing induced CP asymmetries S_{ψ KS} and S_{ψ ϕ}. Assuming negligible NP contributions to these observables allows to determine CKM parameters without being involved in the tensions between inclusive and exclusive determinations of | V_cb| and | V_ub| . Furthermore this method avoids the impact of NP on the determination of these parameters present likely in global fits. Simultaneously it provides SM predictions for numerous rare K and B branching ratios that are most accurate to date. Analyzing this scenario within Z^' models we point out, following the 2009 observations of Monika Blanke and ours of 2020, that despite the absence of NP contributions to ε_K, significant NP contributions to K⁺→π⁺ν ν ¯ , K_L→π⁰ν ν ¯ , K_S→μ⁺μ^- , K_L→π⁰ℓ⁺ℓ^- , ε^'/ε and Δ M_K can be present. In the simplest scenario, this is guaranteed, as far as flavour changes are concerned, by a single non-vanishing imaginary left-handed Z^' coupling g_sd^L. This scenario implies very stringent correlations between the Kaon observables considered by us. In particular, the identification of NP in any of these observables implies automatically NP contributions to the remaining ones under the assumption of non-vanishing flavour conserving Z^' couplings to q q ¯ , ν ν ¯ , and μ⁺μ^- . A characteristic feature of this scenario is a strict correlation between K⁺→π⁺ν ν ¯ and K_L→π⁰ν ν ¯ branching ratios on a branch parallel to the Grossman-Nir bound. Moreover, Δ M_K is automatically suppressed as seems to be required by the results of the RBC-UKQCD lattice QCD collaboration. Furthermore, there is no NP contribution to K_L→μ⁺μ^- which otherwise would bound NP effects in K⁺→π⁺ν ν ¯ . Of particular interest are the correlations of K⁺→π⁺ν ν ¯ and K_L→π⁰ν ν ¯ branching ratios and of Δ M_K with the ratio ε^'/ε . We investigate the impact of renormalization group effects in the context of the SMEFT on this simple scenario.

We construct extended TQFTs associated to Rozansky-Witten models with target manifolds T^∗Cⁿ . The starting point of the construction is the 3-category whose objects are such Rozansky-Witten models, and whose morphisms are defects of all codimensions. By truncation, we obtain a (non-semisimple) 2-category C of bulk theories, surface defects, and isomorphism classes of line defects. Through a systematic application of the cobordism hypothesis we construct a unique extended oriented 2-dimensional TQFT valued in C for every affine Rozansky-Witten model. By evaluating this TQFT on closed surfaces we obtain the infinite-dimensional state spaces (graded by flavour and R-charges) of the initial 3-dimensional theory. Furthermore, we explicitly compute the commutative Frobenius algebras that classify the restrictions of the extended theories to circles and bordisms between them.

A long-standing observed curiosity of globular clusters (GCs) has been that both the number and total mass of GCs in a galaxy are linearly correlated with the galaxy's virial mass, whereas its stellar component shows no such linear correlation. This work expands on an empirical model for the numbers and ages of GCs in galaxies presented by Valenzuela et al. (2021) that is consistent with recent observational data from massive elliptical galaxies down to the dwarf galaxy regime. Applying the model to simulations, GC numbers are shown to be excellent tracers for the dark matter (DM) virial mass, even when distinct formation mechanisms are employed for blue and red GCs. Furthermore, the amount of DM smooth accretion is encoded in the GC abundances, therefore providing a measure for an otherwise nearly untraceable component of the formation history of galaxies.

Photoevaporative disc winds play a key role in our understanding of circumstellar disc evolution, especially in the final stages, and they might affect the planet formation process and the final location of planets. The study of transition discs (i.e. discs with a central dust cavity) is central for our understanding of the photoevaporation process and disc dispersal. However, we need to distinguish cavities created by photoevaporation from those created by giant planets. Theoretical models are necessary to identify possible observational signatures of the two different processes, and models to find the differences between the two processes are still lacking. In this paper we study a sample of transition discs obtained from radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of internally photoevaporated discs, and focus on the dust dynamics relevant for current ALMA observations. We then compared our results with gaps opened by super Earths/giant planets, finding that the photoevaporated cavity steepness depends mildly on gap size, and it is similar to that of a 1 M_J mass planet. However, the dust density drops less rapidly inside the photoevaporated cavity compared to the planetary case due to the less efficient dust filtering. This effect is visible in the resulting spectral index, which shows a larger spectral index at the cavity edge and a shallower increase inside it with respect to the planetary case. The combination of cavity steepness and spectral index might reveal the true nature of transition discs.

Strong-lensing time delays enable the measurement of the Hubble constant (H₀) independently of other traditional methods. The main limitation to the precision of time-delay cosmography is mass-sheet degeneracy (MSD). Some of the previous TDCOSMO analyses broke the MSD by making standard assumptions about the mass density profile of the lens galaxy, reaching 2% precision from seven lenses. However, this approach could potentially bias the H₀ measurement or underestimate the errors. For this work, we broke the MSD for the first time using spatially resolved kinematics of the lens galaxy in RXJ1131-1231 obtained from the Keck Cosmic Web Imager spectroscopy, in combination with previously published time delay and lens models derived from Hubble Space Telescope imaging. This approach allowed us to robustly estimate H₀, effectively implementing a maximally flexible mass model. Following a blind analysis, we estimated the angular diameter distance to the lens galaxy D_d = 865_-81⁺⁸⁵ Mpc and the time-delay distance D_Δt = 2180_-271⁺⁴⁷² Mpc, giving H₀ = 77.1_-7.1^+7.3 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 - for a flat Λ cold dark matter cosmology. The error budget accounts for all uncertainties, including the MSD inherent to the lens mass profile and line-of-sight effects, and those related to the mass-anisotropy degeneracy and projection effects. Our new measurement is in excellent agreement with those obtained in the past using standard simply parametrized mass profiles for this single system (H₀ = 78.3_-3.3^+3.4 km s^-1 Mpc^-1) and for seven lenses (H₀ = 74.2_-1.6^+1.6 km s^-1 Mpc^-1), or for seven lenses using single-aperture kinematics and the same maximally flexible models used by us (H₀ = 73.3_-5.8^+5.8 km s^-1 Mpc^-1). This agreement corroborates the methodology of time-delay cosmography.

Reduced Keck Cosmic Web Imager data analyzed in this paper are also available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/673/A9

We explore the Emergence Proposal for the moduli metric and the gauge couplings in a concrete model with 7 saxionic and 7 axionic moduli fields, namely the compactification of the type IIA superstring on a 6-dimensional toroidal orbifold. We show that consistency requires integrating out precisely the 12 towers of light particle species arising from KK and string/brane winding modes and one asymptotically tensionless string up to the species scale. After pointing out an issue with the correct definition of the species scale in the presence of string towers, we carry out the emergence computation and find that the KK and winding modes indeed impose the classical moduli dependence on the one-loop corrections, while the emergent string induces moduli dependent logarithmic suppressions. The interpretation of these results for the Emergence Proposal are discussed revealing a couple of new and still not completely settled aspects.

We present the first simulations of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) in axial symmetry (2D) with feedback from fast neutrino flavor conversion (FFC). Our schematic treatment of FFCs assumes instantaneous flavor equilibration under the constraint of lepton-number conservation. Systematically varying the spatial domain where FFCs are assumed to occur, we find that they facilitate SN explosions in low-mass (9-12 solar masses) progenitors that otherwise explode with longer time delays, whereas FFCs weaken the tendency to explode of higher-mass (around 20 solar masses) progenitors.

Surveys have looked for H alpha emission from accreting gas giants but found very few objects. Analyses of the detections and non-detections have assumed that the entire gas flow feeding the planet is in radial free-fall. However, hydrodynamical simulations suggest that this is far from reality. We calculate the H alpha emission from multidimensional accretion onto a gas giant, following the gas flow from Hill-sphere scales down to the circumplanetary disc (CPD) and the planetary surface. We perform azimuthally-symmetric radiation-hydrodynamics simulations around the planet and use modern tabulated gas and dust opacities. Crucially, contrasting with most previous simulations, we do not smooth the gravitational potential and do follow the flow down to the planetary surface, where grid cells are 0.01 Jupiter radii small radially. We find that only roughly one percent of the net gas inflow into the Hill sphere reaches directly the planet. As expected for ballistic infall trajectories, most of the gas falls at too large a distance on the CPD to generate H alpha. Including radiation transport removes the high-velocity sub-surface flow previously seen in hydrodynamics-only simulations, so that only the free planet surface and the inner regions of the CPD emit substantially H alpha. Unless magnetospheric accretion, which we neglect here, additionally produces H alpha, the corresponding H alpha production efficiency is much smaller than usually assumed, which needs to be taken into account when analysing (non-)detection statistics.

VISIONS is an ESO public survey of five nearby (d < 500 pc) star-forming molecular cloud complexes that are canonically associated with the constellations of Chamaeleon, Corona Australis, Lupus, Ophiuchus, and Orion. The survey was carried out with the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), using the VISTA Infrared Camera (VIRCAM), and collected data in the near-infrared passbands J (1.25 μm), H (1.65 μm), and K_S (2.15 μm). With a total on-sky exposure time of 49.4h VISIONS covers an area of 650 deg², it is designed to build an infrared legacy archive with a structure and content similar to the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) for the screened star-forming regions. Taking place between April 2017 and March 2022, the observations yielded approximately 1.15 million images, which comprise 19 TB of raw data. The observations undertaken within the survey are grouped into three different subsurveys. First, the wide subsurvey comprises shallow, large-scale observations and it has revisited the star-forming complexes six times over the course of its execution. Second, the deep subsurvey of dedicated high-sensitivity observations has collected data on areas with the largest amounts of dust extinction. Third, the control subsurvey includes observations of areas of low-to-negligible dust extinction. Using this strategy, the VISIONS observation program offers multi-epoch position measurements, with the ability to access deeply embedded objects, and it provides a baseline for statistical comparisons and sample completeness - all at the same time. In particular, VISIONS is designed to measure the proper motions of point sources, with a precision of 1 mas yr⁻¹ or better, when complemented with data from the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS). In this way, VISIONS can provide proper motions of complete ensembles of embedded and low-mass objects, including sources inaccessible to the optical ESA Gaia mission. VISIONS will enable the community to address a variety of research topics from a more informed perspective, including the 3D distribution and motion of embedded stars and the nearby interstellar medium, the identification and characterization of young stellar objects, the formation and evolution of embedded stellar clusters and their initial mass function, as well as the characteristics of interstellar dust and the reddening law.

Despite being one of the best-known galaxies, the distance to the Whirlpool Galaxy, M 51, is still debated. Current estimates range from 6.02 to 9.09 Mpc, and different methods yield discrepant results. No Cepheid distance has been published for M 51 to date. We aim to estimate a more reliable distance to M 51 through two independent methods: Cepheid variables and their period-luminosity relation, and an augmented version of the expanding photosphere method (EPM) on the Type IIP SN 2005cs. For the Cepheid variables, we analyse a recently published HST catalogue of stars in M 51. By applying light curve and colour-magnitude diagram-based filtering, we select a high-quality sample of M 51 Cepheids to estimate the distance through the period-luminosity relation. For SN 2005cs, an emulator-based spectral fitting technique is applied, which allows for the fast and reliable estimation of physical parameters of the supernova atmosphere. We augment the established framework of EPM with these spectral models to obtain a precise distance to M 51. The two resulting distance estimates are D_Cep = 7.59 +/- 0.30 Mpc and D_2005cs = 7.34 +/- 0.39 Mpc using the Cepheid period-luminosity relation and the spectral modelling of SN 2005cs respectively. This is the first published Cepheid distance for this galaxy. Given that these two estimates are completely independent, one may combine them, which yields D_M51 = 7.50 +/- 0.24 Mpc (3.2% uncertainty). Our distance estimates are in agreement with most of the results obtained previously for M 51, while being more precise than the earlier counterparts. They are however significantly lower than the TRGB estimates, which are often adopted for the distance to this galaxy. The results highlight the importance of direct cross-checks between independent distance estimates for quantifying systematic uncertainties.

Spiral arms are observed in numerous protoplanetary discs. These spiral arms can be excited by companions, either on bound or unbound orbits. We simulate a scenario where an unbound perturber, i.e. a flyby, excites spiral arms during a periastron passage. We run three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of a parabolic flyby encountering a gaseous protoplanetary disc. The perturber mass ranges from $10\, \rm M_J$ to $1\, \rm {\rm M}_{\odot }$. The perturber excites a two-armed spiral structure, with a more prominent spiral feature for higher mass perturbers. The two arms evolve over time, eventually winding up, consistent with previous works. We focus on analysing the pattern speed and pitch angle of these spirals during the whole process. The initial pattern speed of the two arms are close to the angular velocity of the perturber at periastron, and then it decreases over time. The pitch angle also decreases over time as the spiral winds up. The spirals disappear after several local orbital times. An inclined prograde orbit flyby induces similar disc substructures as a coplanar flyby. A solar-mass flyby event causes increased eccentricity growth in the protoplanetary disc, leading to an eccentric disc structure which dampens over time. The spirals' morphology and the disc eccentricity can be used to search for potential unbound stars or planets around discs where a flyby is suspected. Future disc observations at high resolution and dedicated surveys will help to constrain the frequency of such stellar encounters in nearby star-forming regions.

The upcoming ByCycle project on the VISTA/4MOST multi-object spectrograph will offer new prospects of using a massive sample of $\sim 1$ million high spectral resolution ($R$ = 20,000) background quasars to map the circumgalactic metal content of foreground galaxies (observed at $R$ = 4000 - 7000), as traced by metal absorption. Such large surveys require specialized analysis methodologies. In the absence of early data, we instead produce synthetic 4MOST high-resolution fibre quasar spectra. To do so, we use the TNG50 cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulation, combining photo-ionization post-processing and ray tracing, to capture MgII ($\lambda2796$, $\lambda2803$) absorbers. We then use this sample to train a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) which searches for, and estimates the redshift of, MgII absorbers within these spectra. For a test sample of quasar spectra with uniformly distributed properties ($\lambda_{\rm{MgII,2796}}$, $\rm{EW}_{\rm{MgII,2796}}^{\rm{rest}} = 0.05 - 5.15$ \AA, $\rm{SNR} = 3 - 50$), the algorithm has a robust classification accuracy of 98.6 per cent and a mean wavelength accuracy of 6.9 \AA. For high signal-to-noise spectra ($\rm{SNR > 20}$), the algorithm robustly detects and localizes MgII absorbers down to equivalent widths of $\rm{EW}_{\rm{MgII,2796}}^{\rm{rest}} = 0.05$ \AA. For the lowest SNR spectra ($\rm{SNR=3}$), the CNN reliably recovers and localizes EW$_{\rm{MgII,2796}}^{\rm{rest}}$ $\geq$ 0.75 \AA\, absorbers. This is more than sufficient for subsequent Voigt profile fitting to characterize the detected MgII absorbers. We make the code publicly available through GitHub. Our work provides a proof-of-concept for future analyses of quasar spectra datasets numbering in the millions, soon to be delivered by the next generation of surveys.

The fifth iteration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is set to obtain optical and near-infrared spectra of ~5 million stars of all ages and masses throughout the Milky Way. As a part of these efforts, APOGEE and BOSS Young Star Survey (ABYSS) will observe ~10⁵ stars with ages <30 Myr that have been selected using a set of homogeneous selection functions that make use of different tracers of youth. The ABYSS targeting strategy we describe in this paper is aimed to provide the largest spectroscopic census of young stars to date. It consists of eight different types of selection criteria that take the position on the H-R diagram, infrared excess, variability, as well as the position in phase space in consideration. The resulting catalog of ~200,000 sources (of which a half are expected to be observed) provides representative coverage of the young Galaxy, including both nearby diffuse associations as well as more distant massive complexes, reaching toward the inner Galaxy and the Galactic center.

We present five far- and near-ultraviolet spectra of the Type II plateau supernova, SN 2022acko, obtained 5, 6, 7, 19, and 21 days after explosion, all observed with the Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The first three epochs are earlier than any Type II plateau supernova has been observed in the far-ultraviolet revealing unprecedented characteristics. These three spectra are dominated by strong lines, primarily from metals, which contrasts with the relatively featureless early optical spectra. The flux decreases over the initial time series as the ejecta cools and line-blanketing takes effect. We model this unique dataset with the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiation transport code CMFGEN, finding a good match to the explosion of a low mass red supergiant with energy Ekin = 6 x 10^50 erg. With these models we identify, for the first time, the ions that dominate the early UV spectra. We also present optical photometry and spectroscopy, showing that SN 2022acko has a peak absolute magnitude of V = -15.4 mag and plateau length of ~115d. The spectra closely resemble those of SN 2005cs and SN 2012A. Using the combined optical and UV spectra, we report the fraction of flux redwards of the uvw2, U, B, and V filters on days 5, 7, and 19. We also create a spectral time-series of Type II supernovae in the ultraviolet, demonstrating the rapid decline of UV flux over the first few weeks of evolution. Future observations of Type II supernovae will continue to explore the diversity seen in the limited set of high-quality UV spectra.

Topology plays a fundamental role in our understanding of many-body physics, from vortices and solitons in classical field theory, to phases and excitations in quantum matter. Topological phenomena are intimately connected to the distribution of information content - that, differently from ordinary matter, is now governed by non-local degrees of freedom. However, a precise characterization of how topological effects govern the complexity of a many-body state - i.e., its partition function - is presently unclear. In this work, we show how topology and complexity are directly intertwined concepts in the context of classical statistical mechanics. In concrete, we present a theory that shows how the \emph{Kolmogorov complexity} of a classical partition function sampling carries unique, distinctive features depending on the presence of topological excitations in the system. We confront two-dimensional Ising and XY models on several topologies, and study the corresponding samplings as high-dimensional manifolds in configuration space, quantifying their complexity via the intrinsic dimension. While for the Ising model the intrisic dimension is independent of the real-space topology, for the XY model it depends crucially on temperature: across the Berezkinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition, complexity becomes topology dependent. In the BKT phase, it displays a characteristic dependence on the homology of the real-space manifold, and, for $g$-torii, it follows a scaling that is solely genus dependent. We argue that this behavior is intimately connected to the emergence of an order parameter in data space, the conditional connectivity, that displays scaling behavior. Our approach paves the way for an understanding of topological phenomena from the Kolmogorov complexity perspective, in a manner that is amenable to both quantum mechanical and out-of-equilibrium generalizations.

We report high quality H${\alpha}$/CO, imaging spectroscopy of nine massive, disk galaxies on the star forming, Main Sequence (henceforth 'SFGs'), near the peak of cosmic galaxy evolution (z~1.1-2.5), taken with the ESO-VLT, IRAM-NOEMA and ALMA. We fit the major axis position-velocity cuts with beam-convolved, forward models with a bulge, a turbulent rotating disk, and a dark matter (DM) halo. We include priors for stellar and molecular gas masses, optical light effective radii and inclinations, and DM masses from our previous rotation curve analyses of these galaxies. We then subtract the inferred 2D model-galaxy velocity and velocity dispersion maps from those of the observed galaxies. We investigate whether the residual velocity and velocity dispersion maps show indications for radial flows. We also carry out kinemetry, a model-independent tool for detecting radial flows. We find that all nine galaxies exhibit significant non-tangential flows. In six SFG, the inflow velocities ($v_r$~30-90 km s$^{-1}$, 10-30% of the rotational component) are along the minor axis of these galaxies. In two cases the inflow appears to be off the minor axis. The magnitudes of the radial motions are in broad agreement with the expectations from analytic models of gravitationally unstable, gas rich disks. Gravitational torques due to clump and bar formation, or spiral arms, drive gas rapidly inward and result in the formation of central disks and large bulges. If this interpretation is correct, our observations imply that gas is transported into the central regions on ~10 dynamical time scales.

We present the integrated 3-point correlation functions (3PCF) involving both the cosmic shear and the galaxy density fields. These are a set of higher-order statistics that describe the modulation of local 2-point correlation functions (2PCF) by large-scale features in the fields, and which are easy to measure from galaxy imaging surveys. Based on previous works on the shear-only integrated 3PCF, we develop the theoretical framework for modelling 5 new statistics involving the galaxy field and its cross-correlations with cosmic shear. Using realistic galaxy and cosmic shear mocks from simulations, we determine the regime of validity of our models based on leading-order standard perturbation theory with an MCMC analysis that recovers unbiased constraints of the amplitude of fluctuations parameter $A_s$ and the linear and quadratic galaxy bias parameters $b_1$ and $b_2$. Using Fisher matrix forecasts for a DES-Y3-like survey, relative to baseline analyses with conventional 3$\times$2PCFs, we find that the addition of the shear-only integrated 3PCF can improve cosmological parameter constraints by $20-40\%$. The subsequent addition of the new statistics introduced in this paper can lead to further improvements of $10-20\%$, even when utilizing only conservatively large scales where the tree-level models are valid. Our results motivate future work on the galaxy and shear integrated 3PCFs, which offer a practical way to extend standard analyses based on 3$\times$2PCFs to systematically probe the non-Gaussian information content of cosmic density fields.

In this manuscript, we elaborate on a procedure to derive $\epsilon$-factorised differential equations for multi-scale, multi-loop classes of Feynman integrals that evaluate to special functions beyond multiple polylogarithms. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach to diverse classes of problems, by working out $\epsilon$-factorised differential equations for single- and multi-scale problems of increasing complexity. To start we are reconsidering the well-studied equal-mass two-loop sunrise case, and move then to study other elliptic two-, three- and four-point problems depending on multiple different scales. Finally, we showcase how the same approach allows us to obtain $\epsilon$-factorised differential equations also for Feynman integrals that involve geometries beyond a single elliptic curve.

We present N-body simulations, including post-Newtonian dynamics, of dense clusters of low-mass stars harbouring central black holes (BHs) with initial masses of 50, 300, and 2000 M_⊙. The models are evolved with the N-body code BIFROST to investigate the possible formation and growth of massive BHs by the tidal capture of stars and tidal disruption events (TDEs). We model star-BH tidal interactions using a velocity-dependent drag force, which causes orbital energy and angular momentum loss near the BH. About ~20-30 per cent of the stars within the spheres of influence of the black holes form Bahcall-Wolf cusps and prevent the systems from core collapse. Within the first 40 Myr of evolution, the systems experience 500-1300 TDEs, depending on the initial cluster structure. Most (>95 per cent) of the TDEs originate from stars in the Bahcall-Wolf cusp. We derive an analytical formula for the TDE rate as a function of the central BH mass, density, and velocity dispersion of the clusters ($\dot{N}_{\mathrm{TDE}} \propto M\mathrm{_{BH}}\rho \sigma ^{-3}$). We find that TDEs can lead a 300 M_⊙ BH to reach $\sim 7000 \, \mathrm{{M}_{\odot }}$ within a Gyr. This indicates that TDEs can drive the formation and growth of massive BHs in sufficiently dense environments, which might be present in the central regions of nuclear star clusters.

The high-x data from the ZEUS Collaboration are used to extract parton density distributions of the proton deep in the perturbative regime of QCD. The data primarily constrain the up-quark valence distribution and new results are presented on its x dependence as well as on the momentum carried by the up quark. The results were obtained using Bayesian analysis methods which can serve as a model for future parton density extractions.

A new model grid containing 228016 synthetic red supergiant explosions (Type II supernovae) is introduced. Time evolution of spectral energy distributions from 1 to 50000 Å (100 frequency bins in a log scale) is computed at each time step up to 500 d after explosion in each model. We provide light curves for the filters of Vera C, Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the Zwicky Transient Facility, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, but light curves for any photometric filters can be constructed by convolving any filter response functions to the synthetic spectral energy distributions. We also provide bolometric light curves and photosphere information such as photospheric velocity evolution. The parameter space covered by the model grid is five progenitor masses (10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 M$_{\odot}$ at the zero-age main sequence, solar metallicity), ten explosion energies (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0 × 10⁵¹ erg), nine ⁵⁶Ni masses (0.001, 0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 M$_{\odot}$), nine mass-loss rates (10^-5.0, 10^-4.5, 10^-4.0, 10^-3.5, 10^-3.0, 10^-2.5, 10^-2.0, 10^-1.5, and 10^-1.0 M$_{\odot}$ yr^-1 with a wind velocity of 10 km s^-1), six circumstellar matter radii (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 × 10¹⁴ cm), and ten circumstellar structures (β = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0). ⁵⁶Ni is assumed to be uniformly mixed up to the half-mass of a hydrogen-rich envelope. This model grid can be a base for rapid characterizations of Type II supernovae with sparse photometric sampling expected in LSST through a Bayesian approach, for example. The model grid is available at doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pnvx0k6sj.

Context. Type II supernovae offer a direct way of estimating distances via the expanding photosphere method, which is independent of the cosmic distance ladder. A Gaussian process-based method was recently introduced, allowing for a fast and precise modelling of spectral time series and placing accurate and computationally cheap Type II-based absolute distance determinations within reach.
Aims: The goal of this work is to assess the internal consistency of this new modelling technique coupled with the distance estimation in an empirical way, using the spectral time series of supernova siblings, that is, supernovae that exploded in the same host galaxy.
Methods: We used a recently developed spectral emulator code, trained on TARDIS radiative transfer models that is capable of a fast maximum-likelihood parameter estimation and spectral fitting. After calculating the relevant physical parameters of supernovae, we applied the expanding photosphere method to estimate their distances. Finally, we tested the consistency of the obtained values by applying the formalism of Bayes factors.
Results: The distances to four different host galaxies were estimated based on two supernovae in each. The distance estimates are not only consistent within the errors for each of the supernova sibling pairs, but in the case of two hosts, they are precise to better than 5%. The analysis also showed that the main limiting factor of this estimation is the number and quality of spectra available for the individual objects, rather than the physical differences of the siblings.
Conclusions: Even though the literature data we used was not tailored to the requirements of our analysis, the agreement of the final estimates shows that the method is robust and is capable of inferring both precise and consistent distances. By using high-quality spectral time series, this method can provide precise distance estimates independent of the distance ladder, which are of high value for cosmology.

We explore the features of interpolating gauge for QCD. This gauge, defined by Doust and by Baulieu and Zwanziger, interpolates between Feynman gauge or Lorenz gauge and Coulomb gauge. We argue that it could be useful for defining the splitting functions for a parton shower beyond order $\as$ or for defining the infrared subtraction terms for higher order perturbative calculations.

We present results for the static energy in (2 +1 +1 )-flavor QCD over a wide range of lattice spacings and several quark masses, including the physical quark mass, with ensembles of lattice-gauge-field configurations made available by the MILC Collaboration. We obtain results for the static energy out to distances of nearly 1 fm, allowing us to perform a simultaneous determination of the scales r₁ and r₀, as well as the string tension σ . For the smallest three lattice spacings we also determine the scale r₂. Our results for r₀/r₁ and r₀√{σ } agree with published (2 +1 )-flavor results. However, our result for r₁/r₂ differs significantly from the value obtained in the (2 +1 )-flavor case, which is most likely due to the effect of the charm quark. We also report results for r₀, r₁, and r₂ in fm, with the former two being slightly lower than published (2 +1 )-flavor results. We study in detail the effect of the charm quark on the static energy by comparing our results on the finest two lattices with the previously published (2 +1 )-flavor QCD results at similar lattice spacing. We find that for r >0.2 fm our results on the static energy agree with the (2 +1 )-flavor result, implying the decoupling of the charm quark for these distances. For smaller distances, on the other hand, we find that the effect of the dynamical charm quark is noticeable. The lattice results agree well with the two-loop perturbative expression of the static energy incorporating finite charm mass effects. This is the first time that the decoupling of the charm quark is observed and quantitatively analyzed on lattice data of the static energy.

Under some assumptions on the hierarchy of relevant energy scales, we compute the nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) long-distance matrix elements (LDMEs) for inclusive production of J/ψ, ψ(2S), and Υ states based on the potential NRQCD (pNRQCD) effective field theory. Based on the pNRQCD formalism, we obtain expressions for the LDMEs in terms of the quarkonium wavefunctions at the origin and universal gluonic correlators, which do not depend on the heavy quark flavor or the radial excitation. This greatly reduces the number of nonperturbative unknowns and substantially enhances the predictive power of the nonrelativistic effective field theory formalism. We obtain improved determinations of the LDMEs for J/ψ, ψ(2S), and Υ states thanks to the universality of the gluonic correlators, and obtain phenomenological results for cross sections and polarizations at large transverse momentum that agree well with measurements at the LHC.

In Paper I, we showed that clumps in high-redshift galaxies, having a high star formation rate density (Σ_SFR), produce disks with two tracks in the [Fe/H]-[α/Fe] chemical space, similar to that of the Milky Way's (MW's) thin+thick disks. Here we investigate the effect of clumps on the bulge's chemistry. The chemistry of the MW's bulge is comprised of a single track with two density peaks separated by a trough. We show that the bulge chemistry of an N-body + smoothed particle hydrodynamics clumpy simulation also has a single track. Star formation within the bulge is itself in the high-Σ_SFR clumpy mode, which ensures that the bulge's chemical track follows that of the thick disk at low [Fe/H] and then extends to high [Fe/H], where it peaks. The peak at low metallicity instead is comprised of a mixture of in situ stars and stars accreted via clumps. As a result, the trough between the peaks occurs at the end of the thick disk track. We find that the high-metallicity peak dominates near the mid-plane and declines in relative importance with height, as in the MW. The bulge is already rapidly rotating by the end of the clump epoch, with higher rotation at low [α/Fe]. Thus clumpy star formation is able to simultaneously explain the chemodynamic trends of the MW's bulge, thin+thick disks, and the splash.

MadMiner is a Python package that implements a powerful family of multivariate inference techniques that leverage matrix element information and machine learning. This multivariate approach neither requires the reduction of high-dimensional data to summary statistics nor any simplifications to the underlying physics or detector response. In this paper, we address some of the challenges arising from deploying MadMiner in a real-scale HEP analysis with the goal of offering a new tool in HEP that is easily accessible. The proposed approach encapsulates a typical MadMiner pipeline into a parametrized yadage workflow described in YAML files. The general workflow is split into two yadage sub-workflows, one dealing with the physics simulations and the other with the ML inference. After that, the workflow is deployed using REANA, a reproducible research data analysis platform that takes care of flexibility, scalability, reusability, and reproducibility features. To test the performance of our method, we performed scaling experiments for a MadMiner workflow on the National Energy Research Scientific Computer (NERSC) cluster with an HT-Condor back-end. All the stages of the physics sub-workflow had a linear dependency between resources or wall time and the number of events generated. This trend has allowed us to run a typical MadMiner workflow, consisting of 11M events, in 5 hours compared to days in the original study.

Basis transformations often involve Fierz and other relations that are only valid in D =4 dimensions. In general D spacetime dimensions, however, evanescent operators have to be introduced in order to preserve such identities. Such evanescent operators contribute to one-loop basis transformations as well as to two-loop renormalization group running. We present a simple procedure on how to systematically change basis at the one-loop level by obtaining shifts due to evanescent operators. As an example we apply this method to derive the one-loop basis transformation from the Buras, Misiak and Urban basis useful for next-to-leading order QCD calculations, to the Jenkins, Manohar and Stoffer basis used in the matching to the standard model effective theory.

We present the first calculation for the hadroproduction of a W boson in association with a massive bottom (b ) quark-antiquark pair at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD perturbation theory. We exploit the hierarchy between the b -quark mass and the characteristic energy scale of the process to obtain a reliable analytic expression for the two-loop virtual amplitude with three massive legs, starting from the corresponding result available for massless b quarks. The use of massive b quarks avoids the ambiguities associated with the correct flavor assignment in massless calculations, paving the way to a more realistic comparison with experimental data. We present phenomenological results considering proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energy √{s }=13.6 TeV for inclusive W b b ¯ production and within a fiducial region relevant for the associated production of a W boson and a Higgs boson decaying into a b b ¯ pair, for which W b b ¯ production represents one of the most relevant backgrounds. We find that the NNLO corrections are substantial and that their inclusion is mandatory to obtain reliable predictions.

In view of the forthcoming High-Luminosity phase of the LHC, next-to-next-to-next-to-leading (N³LO) calculations for the most phenomenologically relevant processes become necessary. In this work, we take the first step towards this goal for H+jet production by computing the one- and two-loop helicity amplitudes for the two contributing processes, H → ggg, H →q q ¯g , in an effective theory with infinite top quark mass, to higher orders in the dimensional regulator. We decompose the amplitude in scalar form factors related to the helicity amplitudes and in a new basis of tensorial structures. The form factors receive contributions from Feynman integrals which were reduced to a novel canonical basis of master integrals. We derive and solve a set of differential equations for these integrals in terms of Multiple Polylogarithms (MPLs) of two variables up to transcendental weight six.

We generalize the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD calculations for the decay rates of h →g g and h →γ γ to the case of anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson. We demonstrate how this computation can be done in a consistent way within the framework of an electroweak chiral Lagrangian, based on a systematic power counting. It turns out that no additional coupling parameters arise at NLO in QCD beyond those already present at leading order. The impact of QCD is large for h →g g and the uncertainties from QCD are significantly reduced at NLO. h →γ γ is only mildly affected by QCD; here the NLO treatment practically eliminates the uncertainties. Consequently, our results will allow for an improved determination of anomalous Higgs couplings from these processes. The relation of our framework to a treatment in Standard Model effective field theory is also discussed.

Motivated by the improved results from the HPQCD lattice collaboration on the hadronic matrix elements entering ∆M_s,d in B_s^{,d 0}-B_¯s^{,d 0} mixings and the increase of the experimental branching ratio for B_s→ μ⁺μ^-, we update our 2016 analysis of various flavour observables in four 331 models, M1, M3, M13 and M16 based on the gauge group SU(3)_C× SU(3)_L× U(1)_X. These four models, which are distinguished by the quantum numbers, are selected among 24 331 models through their consistency with the electroweak precision tests and simultaneously by the relation C₉^NP=-bC₁₀^NP with 2 ≤ b ≤ 5, which after new result on B_s→ μ⁺μ^- from CMS is favoured over the popular relation C₉^NP=-C₁₀^NP predicted by several leptoquark models. In this context we investigate in particular the dependence of various observables on |V_cb|, varying it in the broad range [0.0386, 0.043], that encompasses both its inclusive and exclusive determinations. Imposing the experimental constraints from ε_K, ∆M_s, ∆M_d and the mixing induced CP asymmetries S_{ψ KS} and S_{ψ KS}, we investigate for which values of |V_cb| the four models can be made compatible with these data and what is the impact on B and K branching ratios. In particular we analyse NP contributions to the Wilson coefficients C₉ and C₁₀ and the decays B_s,d→ μ⁺μ^-, K⁺→π⁺ν ν ¯ and K_L→π⁰ν ν ¯. This allows us to illustrate how the value of |V_cb| determined together with other parameters of these models is infected by NP contributions and compare it with the one obtained recently under the assumption of the absence of NP in ε_K, ∆M_s, ∆M_d and S_{ψ KS}.

Context. The presence of radioactive ²⁶Al at 1.8 MeV reveals an ongoing process of nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way. Diffuse emission from its decay can be measured with gamma-ray telescopes in space. The intensity, line shape, and spatial distribution of the ²⁶Al emission allow for studies of these nucleosynthesis sources. The line parameters trace massive-star feedback in the interstellar medium thanks to its 1 My lifetime.
Aims: We aim to expand upon previous studies of the ²⁶Al emission in the Milky Way, using all available gamma-ray data, including single and double events collected with SPI on INTEGRAL from 2003 until 2020.
Methods: We applied improved spectral response and background as evaluated from tracing spectral details over the entire mission. The exposure for the Galactic ²⁶Al emission was enhanced using all event types measured within SPI. We redetermined the intensity of Galactic ²⁶Al emission across the entire sky, through maximum likelihood fits of simulated and model-built sky distributions to SPI spectra for single and for double detector hits.
Results: We found an all-sky flux of (1.84±0.03)×10⁻³ ph cm⁻² s⁻¹ in the 1.809 MeV line from ²⁶Al, determined via fitting to sky distributions from previous observations with COMPTEL. Significant emission from higher latitudes indicates an origin from nearby massive-star groups and superbubbles, which is also supported by a bottom-up population synthesis model. The line centroid is found at (1809.83±0.04 keV), while the line broadening from source kinematics integrated over the sky is (0.62±0.3) keV (FWHM).

When strong gravitational lenses are to be used as an astrophysical or cosmological probe, models of their mass distributions are often needed. We present a new, time-efficient automation code for the uniform modeling of strongly lensed quasars with GLEE, a lens-modeling software for multiband data. By using the observed positions of the lensed quasars and the spatially extended surface brightness distribution of the host galaxy of the lensed quasar, we obtain a model of the mass distribution of the lens galaxy. We applied this uniform modeling pipeline to a sample of nine strongly lensed quasars for which images were obtained with the Wide Field Camera 3 of the Hubble Space Telescope. The models show well-reconstructed light components and a good alignment between mass and light centroids in most cases. We find that the automated modeling code significantly reduces the input time during the modeling process for the user. The time for preparing the required input files is reduced by a factor of 3 from ~3 h to about one hour. The active input time during the modeling process for the user is reduced by a factor of 10 from ~ 10 h to about one hour per lens system. This automated uniform modeling pipeline can efficiently produce uniform models of extensive lens-system samples that can be used for further cosmological analysis. A blind test that compared our results with those of an independent automated modeling pipeline based on the modeling software Lenstronomy revealed important lessons. Quantities such as Einstein radius, astrometry, mass flattening, and position angle are generally robustly determined. Other quantities, such as the radial slope of the mass density profile and predicted time delays, depend crucially on the quality of the data and on the accuracy with which the point spread function is reconstructed. Better data and/or a more detailed analysis are necessary to elevate our automated models to cosmography grade. Nevertheless, our pipeline enables the quick selection of lenses for follow-up and further modeling, which significantly speeds up the construction of cosmography-grade models. This important step forward will help us to take advantage of the increase in the number of lenses that is expected in the coming decade, which is an increase of several orders of magnitude.

The origin of the diffuse gamma-ray background (DGRB), the one that remains after subtracting all individual sources from observed gamma-ray sky, is unknown. The DGRB possibly encompasses contributions from different source populations such as star-forming galaxies, starburst galaxies, active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, or galaxy clusters. Here, we combine cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulations of clusters of galaxies with the propagation of cosmic rays (CRs) using Monte Carlo simulations, in the redshift range z ≤ 5.0, and show that the integrated gamma-ray flux from clusters can contribute up to 100% of the DGRB flux observed by Fermi-LAT above 100 GeV, for CRs spectral indices α = 1.5 − 2.5 and energy cutoffs E_max=1 0¹⁶−1 0¹⁷ eV. The flux is dominated by clusters with masses 10¹³ ≲ M/M_⊙ ≲ 10¹⁵ and redshift z ≲ 0.3. Our results also predict the potential observation of high-energy gamma rays from clusters by experiments like the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC), the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), and potentially the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA).

In recent years, automatic classifiers of image cutouts (also called "stamps") have shown to be key for fast supernova discovery. The upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory will distribute about ten million alerts with their respective stamps each night, which it is expected to enable the discovery of approximately one million supernovae each year. A growing source of confusion for these classifiers is the presence of satellite glints, sequences of point-like-sources produced by rotating satellites or debris. The currently planned Rubin stamps will have a size smaller than the typical separation between these point sources. Thus, a larger field of view image stamp could enable the automatic identification of these sources. However, the distribution of larger field of view stamps would be limited by network bandwidth restrictions. We evaluate the impact of using image stamps of different angular sizes and resolutions for the fast classification of events (AGNs, asteroids, bogus, satellites, SNe, and variable stars), using available data from the Zwicky Transient Facility survey. We compare four scenarios: three with the same number of pixels (small field of view with high resolution, large field of view with low resolution, and a proposed multi-scale strategy) and a scenario with the full ZTF stamp that has a larger field of view and higher resolution. Our multi-scale proposal outperforms all the scenarios, with a macro f1-score of 87.39. We encourage Rubin and its Science Collaborations to consider the benefits of implementing multi-scale stamps as a possible update to the alert specification.

We describe a systematic approach to cast the differential equation for the l-loop equal mass banana integral into an ε-factorised form. With the known boundary value at a specific point we obtain systematically the term of order j in the expansion in the dimensional regularisation parameter ε for any loop l. The approach is based on properties of Calabi-Yau operators, and in particular on self-duality.

We compute the next-to-leading order (NLO) hard correction to the gluon self-energy tensor with arbitrary soft momenta in a hot and/or dense weakly coupled plasma in Quantum Chromodynamics. Our diagrammatic computations of the two-loop and power corrections are performed within the hard-thermal-loop (HTL) framework and in general covariant gauge, using the real-time formalism. We find that after renormalization our individual results are finite and gauge-dependent, and they reproduce previously computed results in Quantum Electrodynamics in the appropriate limit. Combining our results, we also recover a formerly known gauge-independent matching coefficient and associated screening mass in a specific kinematic limit. Our NLO results supersede leading-order HTL results from the 1980s and pave the way to an improved understanding of the bulk properties of deconfined matter, such as the equation of state.

We study the decay $J/\psi\to\pi^{+}\pi^{-}\pi^{0}$ within the framework of the Khuri-Treiman equations. We find that the BESIII experimental di-pion mass distribution in the $\rho(770)$-region is well reproduced with a once-subtracted $P$-wave amplitude. Furthermore, we show that $F$-wave contributions to the amplitude improve the description of the data in the $\pi\pi$ mass region around 1.5 GeV. We also present predictions for the $J/\psi\to\pi^{0}\gamma^{*}$ transition form factor.

The heavy quark diffusion coefficient is encoded in the spectral functions of the chromo-electric and the chromo-magnetic correlators, of which the latter describes the T/M contribution. We study these correlators at two different temperatures $T=1.5T_c$ and $T=10^4T_c$ in the deconfined phase of SU(3) gauge theory. We use gradient flow for noise reduction. We perform both continuum and zero flow time limits to extract the heavy quark diffusion coefficient. Our results imply that the mass suppressed effects in the heavy quark diffusion coefficient are 20% for bottom quarks and 34% for charm quark at $T=1.5T_c$.

The high-x data from the ZEUS Collaboration are used to extract parton density distributions of the proton deep in the perturbative regime of QCD. The data primarily constrain the up-quark valence distribution and new results are presented on its x dependence as well as on the momentum carried by the up quark. The results were obtained using Bayesian analysis methods which can serve as a model for future parton density extractions.

We present new Very Large Array observations, between 6.8 and 66 mm, of the edge-on Class I disk IRAS04302+2247. Observations at 6.8 mm and 9.2 mm lead to the detection of thermal emission from the disk, while shallow observations at the other wavelengths are used to correct for emission from other processes. The disk radial brightness profile transitions from broadly extended in previous Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 0.9 mm and 2.1 mm observations to much more centrally brightened at 6.8 mm and 9.2 mm, which can be explained by optical depth effects. The radiative transfer modeling of the 0.9 mm, 2.1 mm, and 9.2 mm data suggests that the grains are smaller than 1 cm in the outer regions of the disk, allowing us to obtain the first lower limit for the scale height of grains emitting at millimeter wavelengths in a protoplanetary disk. We find that the millimeter dust scale height is between 1 au and 6 au at a radius 100 au from the central star, while the gas scale height is estimated to be about 7 au, indicating a modest level of settling. The estimated dust height is intermediate between less evolved Class 0 sources, which are found to be vertically thick, and more evolved Class II sources, which show a significant level of settling. This suggests that we are witnessing an intermediate stage of dust settling.

Nucleon effective masses in neutron-rich matter are studied with the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (RBHF) theory in the full Dirac space. The neutron and proton effective masses for symmetric nuclear matter are 0.80, which agrees well with the empirical values. In neutron-rich matter, the effective mass of the neutron is found larger than that of the proton, and the neutron-proton effective mass splittings at the empirical saturation density are predicted as $0.187\alpha$ with $\alpha$ being the isospin asymmetry parameter. The result is compared to other ab initio calculations and is consistent with the constraints from the nuclear reaction and structure measurements, such as the nucleon-nucleus scattering, the giant resonances of $^{208}$Pb, and the Hugenholtz-Van Hove theorem with systematics of nuclear symmetry energy and its slope. The predictions of the neutron-proton effective mass splitting from the RBHF theory in the full Dirac space might be helpful to constrain the isovector parameters in phenomenological density functionals.

We build a deep learning framework that connects the local formation process of dark matter halos to the halo bias. We train a convolutional neural network (CNN) to predict the final mass and concentration of dark matter halos from the initial conditions. The CNN is then used as a surrogate model to derive the response of the halos' mass and concentration to long-wavelength perturbations in the initial conditions, and consequently the halo bias parameters following the "response bias" definition. The CNN correctly predicts how the local properties of dark matter halos respond to changes in the large-scale environment, despite no explicit knowledge of halo bias being provided during training. We show that the CNN recovers the known trends for the linear and second-order density bias parameters $b_1$ and $b_2$, as well as for the local primordial non-Gaussianity linear bias parameter $b_\phi$. The expected secondary assembly bias dependence on halo concentration is also recovered by the CNN: at fixed mass, halo concentration has only a mild impact on $b_1$, but a strong impact on $b_\phi$. Our framework opens a new window for discovering which physical aspects of the halo's Lagrangian patch determine assembly bias, which in turn can inform physical models of halo formation and bias.

We report early-time ultraviolet (UV) and optical spectroscopy of the young, nearby Type II supernova (SN) 2022wsp obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/STIS at about 10 and 20 days after the explosion. The SN 2022wsp UV spectra are compared to those of other well-observed Type II/IIP SNe, including the recently studied Type IIP SN 2021yja. Both SNe exhibit rapid cooling and similar evolution during early phases, indicating a common behavior among SNe II. Radiative-transfer modeling of the spectra of SN 2022wsp with the TARDIS code indicates a steep radial density profile in the outer layer of the ejecta, a supersolar metallicity, and a relatively high total extinction of E(B-V) = 0.35 mag. The early-time evolution of the photospheric velocity and temperature derived from the modeling agree with the behavior observed from other previously studied cases. The strong suppression of hydrogen Balmer lines in the spectra suggests interaction with a pre-existing circumstellar environment could be occurring at early times. In the SN 2022wsp spectra, the absorption component of the Mg II P Cygni profile displays a double-trough feature on day +10 that disappears by day +20. The shape is well reproduced by the model without fine-tuning the parameters, suggesting that the secondary blueward dip is a metal transition that originates in the SN ejecta.

During the last three decades the determination of the Unitarity Triangle (UT) was dominated by the measurements of its sides $R_b$ and $R_t$ through tree-level $B$ decays and the $\Delta M_d/\Delta M_s$ ratio, respectively, with some participation of the measurements of the angle $\beta$ through the mixing induced CP-asymmetries like $S_{\psi K_S}$ and $\varepsilon_K$. However, as pointed out already in 2002 by Fabrizio Parodi, Achille Stocchi and the present author, the most efficient strategy for a precise determination of the apex of the UT, that is $(\bar\varrho,\bar\eta)$, is to use the measurements of the angles $\beta$ and $\gamma$. The second best strategy would be the measurements of $R_b$ and $\gamma$. However, in view of the tensions between different determinations of $|V_{ub}|$ and $|V_{cb}|$, that enter $R_b$, the $(\beta,\gamma)$ strategy should be a clear winner once LHCb and Belle II will improve the measurements of these two angles. In this note we recall our finding of 2002 which should be finally realized in this decade through precise measurements of both angles by these collaborations. In this context we present two very simple formulae for $\bar\varrho$ and $\bar\eta$ in terms of $\beta$ and $\gamma$ which could be derived by high-school students, but to my knowledge never appeared in the literature on the UT, not even in our 2002 paper. We also emphasize the importance of precise measurements of both angles that would allow to perform powerful tests of the SM through numerous $|V_{cb}|$-independent correlations between $K$ and $B$ decay branching ratios $R_i(\beta,\gamma)$ recently derived by Elena Venturini and the present author. The simple findings presented here will appear in a subsection of a much longer contribution to the proceedings of KM50 later this year. I exhibited them here so that they are not lost in the latter.

Hot giant planets like MASCARA-1 b are expected to have thermally inverted atmospheres, that makes them perfect laboratory for the atmospheric characterization through high-resolution spectroscopy. Nonetheless, previous attempts of detecting the atmosphere of MASCARA-1 b in transmission have led to negative results. In this paper we aim at the detection of the optical emission spectrum of MASCARA-1 b. We used the high-resolution spectrograph PEPSI to observe MASCARA-1 (spectral type A8) near the secondary eclipse of the planet. We cross-correlated the spectra with synthetic templates computed for several atomic and molecular species. We obtained the detection of FeI, CrI and TiI in the atmosphere of MASCARA-1 b with a S/N ~7, 4 and 5 respectively, and confirmed the expected systemic velocity of ~13 km/s and the radial velocity semi-amplitude of MASCARA-1 b of ~200 km/s. The detection of Ti is of particular importance in the context of the recently proposed Ti cold-trapping below a certain planetary equilibrium temperature. We confirm the presence of an the atmosphere around MASCARA-1 b through emission spectroscopy. We conclude that the atmospheric non detection in transmission spectroscopy is due to the high gravity of the planet and/or to the overlap between the planetary track and its Doppler shadow.

We study weak gravitational lensing convergence maps produced from the MillenniumTNG (MTNG) simulations by direct projection of the mass distribution on the past backwards lightcone of a fiducial observer. We explore the lensing maps over a large dynamic range in simulation mass and angular resolution, allowing us to establish a clear assessment of numerical convergence. By comparing full physics hydrodynamical simulations with corresponding dark-matter-only runs we quantify the impact of baryonic physics on the most important weak lensing statistics. Likewise, we predict the impact of massive neutrinos reliably far into the non-linear regime. We also demonstrate that the "fixed & paired" variance suppression technique increases the statistical robustness of the simulation predictions on large scales not only for time slices but also for continuously output lightcone data. We find that both baryonic and neutrino effects substantially impact weak lensing shear measurements, with the latter dominating over the former on large angular scales. Thus, both effects must explicitly be included to obtain sufficiently accurate predictions for stage IV lensing surveys. Reassuringly, our results agree accurately with other simulation results where available, supporting the promise of simulation modelling for precision cosmology far into the non-linear regime.

[Abridged] Galaxy clusters are the most massive gravitationally-bound systems in the universe and are widely considered to be an effective cosmological probe. We propose the first Machine Learning method using galaxy cluster properties to derive unbiased constraints on a set of cosmological parameters, including Omega_m, sigma_8, Omega_b, and h_0. We train the machine learning model with mock catalogs including "measured" quantities from Magneticum multi-cosmology hydrodynamical simulations, like gas mass, gas bolometric luminosity, gas temperature, stellar mass, cluster radius, total mass, velocity dispersion, and redshift, and correctly predict all parameters with uncertainties of the order of ~14% for Omega_m, ~8% for sigma_8, ~6% for Omega_b, and ~3% for h_0. This first test is exceptionally promising, as it shows that machine learning can efficiently map the correlations in the multi-dimensional space of the observed quantities to the cosmological parameter space and narrow down the probability that a given sample belongs to a given cosmological parameter combination. In the future, these ML tools can be applied to cluster samples with multi-wavelength observations from surveys like CSST in the optical band, Euclid and Roman in the near-infrared band, and eROSITA in the X-ray band to constrain both the cosmology and the effect of the baryonic feedback.

We present the serendipitous discovery of a large double radio relic associated with the merging galaxy cluster PSZ2 G277.93+12.34 and a new odd radio circle, ORC J1027-4422, both found in deep MeerKAT 1.3 GHz wide-band data. The angular separation of the two arc-shaped cluster relics is 16 arcmin or 2.6 Mpc for a cluster redshift of z = 0.158. The thin southern relic, which shows a number of ridges/shocks including one possibly moving inwards, has a linear extent of 1.64 Mpc. In contrast, the northern relic is about twice as wide, twice as bright, but only has a largest linear size of 0.66 Mpc. Complementary SRG/eROSITA X-ray images reveal extended emission from hot intracluster gas between the two relics and around the narrow-angle tail (NAT) radio galaxy PMN J1033-4335 (z = 0.153) located just east of the northern relic. No radio halo associated with the PSZ2 cluster is detected. The radio morphologies of the NAT galaxy and the northern relic, which are also detected with the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder at 887.5 MHz, suggest both are moving in the same outward direction. The discovery of ORC J1027-4422 in a different part of the MeerKAT image makes it the 4th known single ORC. It has a diameter of 90" corresponding to 400 kpc at a tentative redshift of z = 0.3 and remains undetected in X-ray emission. We discuss similarities between galaxy and cluster mergers as the formation mechanisms for ORCs and radio relics, respectively.

The intrinsic alignment (IA) of observed galaxy shapes with the underlying cosmic web is a source of contamination in weak lensing surveys. Sensitive methods to identify the IA signal will therefore need to be included in the upcoming weak lensing analysis pipelines. Hydrodynamical cosmological simulations allow us to directly measure the intrinsic ellipticities of galaxies and thus provide a powerful approach to predict and understand the IA signal. Here we employ the novel, large-volume hydrodynamical simulation MTNG740, a product of the MillenniumTNG (MTNG) project, to study the IA of galaxies. We measure the projected correlation functions between the intrinsic shape/shear of galaxies and various tracers of large-scale structure, $w_{+g},\ w_{+m},\ w_{++}$ over the radial range $r_{\rm p} \in [0.02 , 200]\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ and at redshifts $z=0.0$, $0.5$ and $1.0$. We detect significant signal-to-noise IA signals with the density field for both elliptical and spiral galaxies. We also find significant intrinsic shear-shear correlations for ellipticals. We further examine correlations of the intrinsic shape of galaxies with the local tidal field. Here we find a significant IA signal for elliptical galaxies assuming a linear model. We also detect a weak IA signal for spiral galaxies under a quadratic tidal torquing model. Lastly, we measure the alignment between central galaxies and their host dark-matter halos, finding small to moderate misalignments between their principal axes that decline with halo mass.

First-principle simulations are at the heart of the high-energy physics research program. They link the vast data output of multi-purpose detectors with fundamental theory predictions and interpretation. This review illustrates a wide range of applications of modern machine learning to event generation and simulation-based inference, including conceptional developments driven by the specific requirements of particle physics. New ideas and tools developed at the interface of particle physics and machine learning will improve the speed and precision of forward simulations, handle the complexity of collision data, and enhance inference as an inverse simulation problem.

The integrated shear 3-point correlation function $\zeta_{\pm}$ measures the correlation between the local shear 2-point function $\xi_{\pm}$ and the 1-point shear aperture mass in patches of the sky. Unlike other higher-order statistics, $\zeta_{\pm}$ can be efficiently measured from cosmic shear data, and it admits accurate theory predictions on a wide range of scales as a function of cosmological and baryonic feedback parameters. Here, we develop and test a likelihood analysis pipeline for cosmological constraints using $\zeta_{\pm}$. We incorporate treatment of systematic effects from photometric redshift uncertainties, shear calibration bias and galaxy intrinsic alignments. We also develop an accurate neural-network emulator for fast theory predictions in MCMC parameter inference analyses. We test our pipeline using realistic cosmic shear maps based on $N$-body simulations with a DES Y3-like footprint, mask and source tomographic bins, finding unbiased parameter constraints. Relative to $\xi_{\pm}$-only, adding $\zeta_{\pm}$ can lead to $\approx 10-25\%$ improvements on the constraints of parameters like $A_s$ (or $\sigma_8$) and $w_0$. We find no evidence in $\xi_{\pm} + \zeta_{\pm}$ constraints of a significant mitigation of the impact of systematics. We also investigate the impact of the size of the apertures where $\zeta_{\pm}$ is measured, and of the strategy to estimate the covariance matrix ($N$-body vs. lognormal). Our analysis solidifies the strong potential of the $\zeta_{\pm}$ statistic and puts forward a pipeline that can be readily used to improve cosmological constraints using real cosmic shear data.

Recent observations have shown that the atmospheres of ultrahot Jupiters (UHJs) commonly possess temperature inversions, where the temperature increases with increasing altitude. Nonetheless, which opacity sources are responsible for the presence of these inversions remains largely observationally unconstrained. We used LBT/PEPSI to observe the atmosphere of the UHJ KELT-20 b in both transmission and emission in order to search for molecular agents which could be responsible for the temperature inversion. We validate our methodology by confirming a previous detection of Fe I in emission at 16.9σ. Our search for the inversion agents TiO, VO, FeH, and CaH results in non-detections. Using injection-recovery testing we set 4σ upper limits upon the volume mixing ratios for these constituents as low as ~1 × 10^-9 for TiO. For TiO, VO, and CaH, our limits are much lower than expectations from an equilibrium chemical model, while we cannot set constraining limits on FeH with our data. We thus rule out TiO and CaH as the source of the temperature inversion in KELT-20 b, and VO only if the line lists are sufficiently accurate. *Based on data acquired with the Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument (PEPSI) using the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona.

Earth and other rocky objects in the inner Solar system are depleted in carbon compared to objects in the outer Solar system, the Sun, or the ISM. It is believed that this is a result of the selective removal of refractory carbon from primordial circumstellar material. In this work, we study the irreversible release of carbon into the gaseous environment via photolysis and pyrolysis of refractory carbonaceous material during the disc phase of the early Solar system. We analytically solve the one-dimensional advection equation and derive an explicit expression that describes the depletion of carbonaceous material in solids under the influence of radial and vertical transport. We find both depletion mechanisms individually fail to reproduce Solar system abundances under typical conditions. While radial transport only marginally restricts photodecomposition, it is the inefficient vertical transport that limits carbon depletion under these conditions. We show explicitly that an increase in the vertical mixing efficiency, and/or an increase in the directly irradiated disc volume, favours carbon depletion. Thermal decomposition requires a hot inner disc (>500 K) beyond 3 au to deplete the formation region of Earth and chondrites. We find FU Ori-type outbursts to produce these conditions such that moderately refractory compounds are depleted. However, such outbursts likely do not deplete the most refractory carbonaceous compounds beyond the innermost disc region. Hence, the refractory carbon abundance at 1 au typically does not reach terrestrial levels. Nevertheless, under specific conditions, we find photolysis and pyrolysis combined to reproduce Solar system abundances.

The integrated shear 3-point correlation function $\zeta_{\pm}$ measures the correlation between the local shear 2-point function $\xi_{\pm}$ and the 1-point shear aperture mass in patches of the sky. Unlike other higher-order statistics, $\zeta_{\pm}$ can be efficiently measured from cosmic shear data, and it admits accurate theory predictions on a wide range of scales as a function of cosmological and baryonic feedback parameters. Here, we develop and test a likelihood analysis pipeline for cosmological constraints using $\zeta_{\pm}$. We incorporate treatment of systematic effects from photometric redshift uncertainties, shear calibration bias and galaxy intrinsic alignments. We also develop an accurate neural-network emulator for fast theory predictions in MCMC parameter inference analyses. We test our pipeline using realistic cosmic shear maps based on $N$-body simulations with a DES Y3-like footprint, mask and source tomographic bins, finding unbiased parameter constraints. Relative to $\xi_{\pm}$-only, adding $\zeta_{\pm}$ can lead to $\approx 10-25\%$ improvements on the constraints of parameters like $A_s$ (or $\sigma_8$) and $w_0$. We find no evidence in $\xi_{\pm} + \zeta_{\pm}$ constraints of a significant mitigation of the impact of systematics. We also investigate the impact of the size of the apertures where $\zeta_{\pm}$ is measured, and of the strategy to estimate the covariance matrix ($N$-body vs. lognormal). Our analysis solidifies the strong potential of the $\zeta_{\pm}$ statistic and puts forward a pipeline that can be readily used to improve cosmological constraints using real cosmic shear data.

We study gravitational back-reaction within relational time formulations of quantum mechanics by considering two versions of time: a time coordinate, modelled as a global quantum degree of freedom, and the proper time of a given physical system, modelled via an internal degree of freedom serving as a local quantum "clock". We show that interactions between coordinate time and mass-energy in a global Wheeler-DeWitt-like constraint lead to gravitational time dilation. In the presence of a massive object this agrees with time dilation in a Schwarzchild metric at leading order in $G$. Furthermore, if two particles couple independently to the time coordinate we show that Newtonian gravitational interaction between those particles emerges in the low energy limit. We also observe features of renormalization of high energy divergences.

A configurable calorimeter simulation for AI (COCOA) applications is presented, based on the Geant4 toolkit and interfaced with the Pythia event generator. This open-source project is aimed to support the development of machine learning algorithms in high energy physics that rely on realistic particle shower descriptions, such as reconstruction, fast simulation, and low-level analysis. Specifications such as the granularity and material of its nearly hermetic geometry are user-configurable. The tool is supplemented with simple event processing including topological clustering, jet algorithms, and a nearest-neighbors graph construction. Formatting is also provided to visualise events using the Phoenix event display software.

The singlet sector of the $O(N),$ $\phi^4$-model in AdS$_4$ at large-$N$, gives rise to a (non-local) dual conformal field theory on the conformal boundary of AdS$_4$, which is a deformation of the generalized free field. We identify and compute a AdS$_4$ 3-point 1-loop fish diagram that controls the exact large-$N$ dimensions and operator product coefficients (OPE) for all "double trace" operators as a function of the renormalized $\phi^4$-coupling. We find that the space of $\phi^4$-coupling is compact with a boundary at the bulk Landau pole where the lowest OPE coefficient diverges.

We revisit stellar energy-loss bounds on the Yukawa couplings $g_{\rm B,L}$ of baryophilic and leptophilic scalars $\phi$. The white-dwarf luminosity function yields $g_{\rm B}\lesssim 7 \times 10^{-13}$ and $g_{\rm L}\lesssim 4 \times 10^{-16}$, based on bremsstrahlung from ${}^{12}{\rm C}$ and ${}^{16}{\rm O}$ collisions with electrons. In models with a Higgs portal, this also implies a bound on the scalar-Higgs mixing angle $\sin \theta \lesssim 2 \times 10^{-10}$. Our new bounds apply for $m_\phi\lesssim {\rm 1~keV}$ and are among the most restrictive ones, whereas for $m_\phi\lesssim 0.5\,{\rm eV}$ long-range force measurements dominate. Besides a detailed calculation of the bremsstrahlung rate for degenerate and semi-relativistic electrons, we prove with a simple argument that non-relativistic bremsstrahlung by the heavy partner is suppressed relative to that by the light one by their squared-mass ratio. This large reduction was overlooked in previous much stronger bounds on $g_{\rm B}$. In an Appendix, we provide fitting formulas (few percent precision) for the bremsstrahlung emission of baryophilic and leptophilic scalars as well as axions for white-dwarf conditions, i.e., degenerate, semi-relativistic electrons and ion-ion correlations in the ``liquid'' phase.

Absorption features in stellar atmospheres are often used to calibrate photocentric velocities for kinematic analysis of further spectral lines. The Li feature at $\sim$ 6708 Å is commonly used, especially in the case of young stellar objects for which it is one of the strongest absorption lines. However, this is a complex line comprising two isotope fine-structure doublets. We empirically measure the wavelength of this Li feature in a sample of young stars from the PENELLOPE/VLT programme (using X-Shooter, UVES and ESPRESSO data) as well as HARPS data. For 51 targets, we fit 314 individual spectra using the STAR-MELT package, resulting in 241 accurately fitted Li features, given the automated goodness-of-fit threshold. We find the mean air wavelength to be 6707.856 Å, with a standard error of 0.002 Å (0.09 km/s) and a weighted standard deviation of 0.026 Å (1.16 km/s). The observed spread in measured positions spans 0.145 Å, or 6.5 km/s, which is up to a factor of six higher than typically reported velocity errors for high-resolution studies. We also find a correlation between the effective temperature of the star and the wavelength of the central absorption. We discuss how exclusively using this Li feature as a reference for photocentric velocity in young stars could potentially be introducing a systematic positive offset in wavelength to measurements of further spectral lines. If outflow tracing forbidden lines, such as [O i] 6300 Å, are actually more blueshifted than previously thought, this then favours a disk wind as the origin for such emission in young stars.

A new model grid containing 228,016 synthetic red supergiant explosions (Type II supernovae) is introduced. Time evolution of spectral energy distributions from 1 A to 50,000 A (100 frequency bins in a log scale) is computed at each time step up to 500 days after explosion in each model. We provide light curves for the filters of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), Sloan Digital Sky Servey (SDSS), and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, but light curves for any photometric filters can be constructed by convolving any filter response functions to the synthetic spectral energy distributions. We also provide bolometric light curves and photosphere information such as photospheric velocity evolution. The parameter space covered by the model grid is five progenitor masses (10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 Msun at the zero-age main sequence, solar metallicity), ten explosion energies (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0 x 10^51 erg), nine 56Ni masses (0.001, 0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 Msun), nine mass-loss rates (1e-5.0, 1e-4.5, 1e-4.0, 1e-3.5, 1e-3.0, 1e-2.5, 1e-2.0, 1e-1.5, and 1e-1.0 Msun/yr with a wind velocity of 10 km/s), six circumstellar matter radii (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 x 10^14 cm), and ten circumstellar structures (beta = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0). 56Ni is assumed to be uniformly mixed up to the half mass of a hydrogen-rich envelope. This model grid can be a base for rapid characterizations of Type II supernovae with sparse photometric sampling expected in LSST through a Bayesian approach, for example. The model grid is available at doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pnvx0k6sj.

Neutrinos propagating in a dense neutrino gas, such as those expected in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) and neutron star mergers (NSMs), can experience fast flavor conversions on relatively short scales. This can happen if the neutrino electron lepton number ($\nu$ELN) angular distribution crosses zero in a certain direction. Despite this, most of the state-of-the-art CCSN and NSM simulations do not provide such detailed angular information and instead, supply only a few moments of the neutrino angular distributions. In this study we employ, for the \emph{first} time, a machine learning (ML) approach to this problem and show that it can be extremely successful in detecting $\nu$ELN crossings on the basis of its zeroth and first moments. We observe that an accuracy of $\sim95\%$ can be achieved by the ML algorithms, which almost corresponds to the Bayes error rate of our problem. Considering its remarkable efficiency and agility, the ML approach provides one with an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the occurrence of FFCs in CCSN and NSM simulations \emph{on the fly}. We also provide our ML methodologies on \href{https://github.com/sajadabbar/ML-nu_FFI/tree/main}{GitHub}.

Spiral arms are observed in numerous protoplanetary discs. These spiral arms can be excited by companions, either on bound or unbound orbits. We simulate a scenario where an unbound perturber, i.e. a flyby, excites spiral arms during a periastron passage. We run three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of a parabolic flyby encountering a gaseous protoplanetary disc. The perturber mass ranges from $10\, \rm M_J$ to $1\, \rm M_{\odot}$. The perturber excites a two-armed spiral structure, with a more prominent spiral feature for higher mass perturbers. The two arms evolve over time, eventually winding up, consistent with previous works. We focus on analysing the pattern speed and pitch angle of these spirals during the whole process. The initial pattern speed of the two arms are close to the angular velocity of the perturber at periastron, and then it decreases over time. The pitch angle also decreases over time as the spiral winds up. The spirals disappear after several local orbital times. An inclined prograde orbit flyby induces similar disc substructures as a coplanar flyby. A solar-mass flyby event causes increased eccentricity growth in the protoplanetary disc, leading to an eccentric disc structure which dampens over time. The spirals' morphology and the disc eccentricity can be used to search for potential unbound stars or planets around discs where a flyby is suspected. Future disc observations at high resolution and dedicated surveys will help to constrain the frequency of such stellar encounters in nearby star-forming regions.

We study, in the context of the three-dimensional ${\cal N}=6$ Chern-Simons-matter (ABJM) theory, the infrared-finite functions that result from performing $L-1$ loop integrations over the $L$-loop integrand of the logarithm of the four-particle scattering amplitude. Our starting point are the integrands obtained from the recently proposed all-loop projected amplituhedron for the ABJM theory. Organizing them in terms of negative geometries ensures that no divergences occur upon integration if at least one loop variable is left unintegrated. We explicitly perform the integrations up to $L=3$, finding both parity-even and -odd terms. Moreover, we discuss a prescription to compute the cusp anomalous dimension $\Gamma_{\rm cusp}$ of ABJM in terms of the integrated negative geometries, and we use it to reproduce the first non-trivial order of $\Gamma_{\rm cusp}$. Finally, we show that the leading singularities that characterize the integrated results are conformally invariant.

We examine the influence of quadrupole moment of a slowly rotating neutron star (NS) on the oscillations of a fluid accretion disk (torus) orbiting a compact object the spacetime around which is described by the Hartle-Thorne geometry. Explicit formulae for non-geodesic orbital epicyclic and precession frequencies, as well as their simplified practical versions that allow for an expeditious application of the universal relations determining the NS properties, are obtained and examined. We demonstrate that the difference in the accretion disk precession frequencies for NSs of the same mass and angular momentum, but different oblateness, can reach up to tens of percent. Even higher differences can arise when NSs with the same mass and rotational frequency, but different equations of state (EoS), are considered. In particular, the Lense-Thirring precession frequency defined in the innermost parts of the accretion region can differ by more than one order of magnitude across NSs with different EoS. Our results have clear implications for models of the LMXBs variability.

Enzyme-catalyzed replication of nucleic acid sequences is a prerequisite for the survival and evolution of biological entities. Before the advent of protein synthesis, genetic information was most likely stored in and replicated by RNA. However, experimental systems for sustained RNA-dependent RNA-replication are difficult to realise, in part due to the high thermodynamic stability of duplex products and the low chemical stability of catalytic RNAs. Using a derivative of a group I intron as a model for an RNA replicase, we show that heated air-water interfaces that are exposed to a plausible CO₂-rich atmosphere enable sense and antisense RNA replication as well as template-dependent synthesis and catalysis of a functional ribozyme in a one-pot reaction. Both reactions are driven by autonomous oscillations in salt concentrations and pH, resulting from precipitation of acidified dew droplets, which transiently destabilise RNA duplexes. Our results suggest that an abundant Hadean microenvironment may have promoted both replication and synthesis of functional RNAs.

We extend the effective field theory for soft and collinear gravitons to interactions with fermionic matter fields. The full theory features a local Lorentz symmetry in addition to the usual diffeomorphisms, which requires incorporating the former into the soft-collinear gravity framework. The local Lorentz symmetry gives rise to Wilson lines in the effective theory that strongly resemble those in SCET for non-abelian gauge interactions, whereas the diffeomorphisms can be treated in the same fashion as in the case of scalar matter. The basic structure of soft-collinear gravity, which features a homogeneous soft background field, giving rise to a covariant derivative and multipole-expanded covariant Riemann-tensor interactions, remains unaltered and generalises in a natural way to fermion fields.

In order to predict the cosmological abundance of dark matter, an estimation of particle rates in an expanding thermal environment is needed. For thermal dark matter, the non-relativistic regime sets the stage for the freeze-out of the dark matter energy density. We compute transition widths and annihilation, bound-state formation, and dissociation cross sections of dark matter fermion pairs in the unifying framework of non-relativistic effective field theories at finite temperature, with the thermal bath modeling the thermodynamical behaviour of the early universe. We reproduce and extend some known results for the paradigmatic case of a dark fermion species coupled to dark gauge bosons. The effective field theory framework allows to highlight their range of validity and consistency, and to identify some possible improvements.

Simulating high-resolution detector responses is a storage-costly and computationally intensive process that has long been challenging in particle physics. Despite the ability of deep generative models to make this process more cost-efficient, ultra-high-resolution detector simulation still proves to be difficult as it contains correlated and fine-grained mutual information within an event. To overcome these limitations, we propose Intra-Event Aware GAN (IEA-GAN), a novel fusion of Self-Supervised Learning and Generative Adversarial Networks. IEA-GAN presents a Relational Reasoning Module that approximates the concept of an ''event'' in detector simulation, allowing for the generation of correlated layer-dependent contextualized images for high-resolution detector responses with a proper relational inductive bias. IEA-GAN also introduces a new intra-event aware loss and a Uniformity loss, resulting in significant enhancements to image fidelity and diversity. We demonstrate IEA-GAN's application in generating sensor-dependent images for the high-granularity Pixel Vertex Detector (PXD), with more than 7.5M information channels and a non-trivial geometry, at the Belle II Experiment. Applications of this work include controllable simulation-based inference and event generation, high-granularity detector simulation such as at the HL-LHC (High Luminosity LHC), and fine-grained density estimation and sampling. To the best of our knowledge, IEA-GAN is the first algorithm for faithful ultra-high-resolution detector simulation with event-based reasoning.

We characterize twelve young stellar objects (YSOs) located in the Lupus I region, spatially overlapping with the Upper Centaurus Lupus (UCL) sub-stellar association. The aim of this study is to understand whether the Lupus I cloud has more members than what has been claimed so far in the literature and gain a deeper insight into the global properties of the region. We selected our targets using the Gaia DR2 catalog based on their consistent kinematic properties with the Lupus I bona fide members. In our sample of twelve YSOs observed by X-shooter, we identified ten Lupus I members. We could not determine the membership status of two of our targets, namely Gaia DR2 6014269268967059840 and 2MASS J15361110-3444473 due to technical issues. We found out that four of our targets are accretors, among them, 2MASS J15551027-3455045, with a mass of ∼0.03 M_⊙, is one of the least massive accretors in the Lupus complex identified to date. Several of our targets (including accretors) are formed in situ and off-cloud with respect to the main filaments of Lupus I; hence, our study may hint that there are diffused populations of M dwarfs around Lupus I main filaments. In this context, we would like to emphasize that our kinematic analysis with Gaia catalogs played a key role in identifying the new members of the Lupus I cloud.

Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory at Paranal under program 105.20P9.001.

We present for the first time fully analytic results for multi-loop equal-mass ice cone graphs in two dimensions. By analysing the leading singularities of these integrals, we find that the maximal cuts in two dimensions can be organised into two copies of the same periods that describe the Calabi-Yau varieties for the equal-mass banana integrals. We obtain a conjectural basis of master integrals at an arbitrary number of loops, and we solve the system of differential equations satisfied by the master integrals in terms of the same class of iterated integrals that have appeared earlier in the context of equal-mass banana integrals. We then go on and show that, when expressed in terms of the canonical coordinate on the moduli space, our results can naturally be written as iterated integrals involving the geometrical invariants of the Calabi-Yau varieties. Our results indicate how the concept of pure functions and transcendental weight can be extended to the case of Calabi-Yau varieties. Finally, we also obtain a novel representation of the periods of the Calabi-Yau varieties in terms of the same class of iterated integrals, and we show that the well-known quadratic relations among the periods reduce to simple shuffle relations among these iterated integrals.

The prebiotic replication of DNA and RNA is a complex interplay between chemistry and the environment. Factors that have direct and indirect effects on prebiotic chemistry include temperature, concentration of monovalent and bivalent ions, the pH of water, ultraviolet irradiation and the presence of gaseous CO₂. We discuss various primordial conditions to host the first replication reactions on the early Earth, including heated rock pores, hydrothermal vents, evaporating water ponds, freezing-thawing ice compartments, ultraviolet irradiation and high CO₂ concentrations. We review how the interplay of replication chemistry with the strand separation and length selectivity of non-equilibrium physics can be provided by plausible geo-environments. Fast molecular evolution has been observed over a few hours in such settings when a polymerase protein is used as replicator. Such experimental findings make us optimistic that it will soon also be possible to probe evolution dynamics with much slower prebiotic replication chemistries using RNA. Our expectation is that the unique autonomous evolution dynamics provided by microfluidic non-equilibria make the origin of life understandable and experimentally testable in the near future.

Certain Feynman integrals are associated to Calabi-Yau geometries. We demonstrate how these integrals can be computed with the method of differential equations. The four-loop equal-mass banana integral is the simplest Feynman integral whose geometry is a nontrivial Calabi-Yau manifold. We show that its differential equation can be cast into an ϵ -factorized form. This allows us to obtain the solution to any desired order in the dimensional regularization parameter ϵ . The method generalizes to other Calabi-Yau Feynman integrals. Our calculation also shows that the four-loop banana integral is only minimally more complicated than the corresponding Feynman integrals at two or three loops.