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).

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 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 $T=1.5T_c$.

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.

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.

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.

LiteBIRD, the Lite (Light) satellite for the study of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection, is a space mission for primordial cosmology and fundamental physics. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) selected LiteBIRD in May 2019 as a strategic large-class (L-class) mission, with an expected launch in the late 2020s using JAXA's H3 rocket. LiteBIRD is planned to orbit the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2, where it will map the cosmic microwave background polarization over the entire sky for three years, with three telescopes in 15 frequency bands between 34 and 448 GHz, to achieve an unprecedented total sensitivity of $2.2\, \mu$K-arcmin, with a typical angular resolution of 0.5^○ at 100 GHz. The primary scientific objective of LiteBIRD is to search for the signal from cosmic inflation, either making a discovery or ruling out well-motivated inflationary models. The measurements of LiteBIRD will also provide us with insight into the quantum nature of gravity and other new physics beyond the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. We provide an overview of the LiteBIRD project, including scientific objectives, mission and system requirements, operation concept, spacecraft and payload module design, expected scientific outcomes, potential design extensions, and synergies with other projects.

This work contains the first measurement of the anti-3He and anti-3H inelastic cross sections on matter, measured with the ALICE experiment at the LHC. It also evaluates the effect of the measurements of inelastic cross sections on matter on the propagation of antinuclei through the galaxy, and thus determines the transparency of the galaxy to antinuclei from different sources.

In this work, we study the annihilation of a pair of ‘t Hooft-Polyakov monopoles due to confinement by a string. We analyze the regime in which the scales of monopoles and strings are comparable. We compute the spectrum of the emitted gravitational waves and find it to agree with the previously calculated pointlike case for wavelengths longer than the system width and before the collision. However, we observe that in a head-on collision, monopoles are never recreated. Correspondingly, not even once the string oscillates. Instead, the system decays into waves of Higgs and gauge fields. We explain this phenomenon by the loss of coherence in the annihilation process. Due to this, the entropy suppression makes the recreation of a monopole pair highly improbable. We argue that in a similar regime, analogous behavior is expected for the heavy quarks connected by a QCD string. There too, instead of restretching a long string after the first collapse, the system hadronizes and decays in a high multiplicity of mesons and glueballs. We discuss the implications of our results.

Figure

CRESST is a leading direct detection sub-GeVc^-2 dark matter experiment. During its second phase, cryogenic bolometers were used to detect nuclear recoils off the CaWO₄ target crystal nuclei. The previously established electromagnetic background model relies on Secular Equilibrium (SE) assumptions. In this work, a validation of SE is attempted by comparing two likelihood-based normalisation results using a recently developed spectral template normalisation method based on Bayesian likelihood. Albeit we find deviations from SE in some cases we conclude that these deviations are artefacts of the fit and that the assumptions of SE is physically meaningful.

Core-collapse Supernovae (SNe) are one of the most energetic events in the Universe, during which almost all the star's binding energy is released in the form of neutrinos. These particles are direct probes of the processes occurring in the stellar core and provide unique insights into the gravitational collapse. RES-NOVA will revolutionize how we detect neutrinos from astrophysical sources, by deploying the first ton-scale array of cryogenic detectors made from archaeological lead. Pb offers the highest neutrino interaction cross-section via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE νNS). Such process will enable RES-NOVA to be equally sensitive to all neutrino flavours. For the first time, we propose the use archaeological Pb as sensitive target material in order to achieve an ultra-low background level in the region of interest (O(1 keV)). All these features make possible the deployment of the first cm-scale neutrino telescope for the investigation of astrophysical sources. In this contribution, we will characterize the radiopurity level and the performance of a small-scale proof-of-principle detector of RES-NOVA, consisting in a PbWO₄ crystal made from archaeological-Pb operated as cryogenic detector.

The dark matter annihilation cross section can be amplified by orders of magnitude if the annihilation occurs into a narrow resonance, or if the dark-matter particles experience a long-range force before annihilation (Sommerfeld effect). We show that when both enhancements are present they factorize completely, that is, all long-distance non-factorizable effects cancel at leading order in the small-velocity and narrow-width expansion. We then investigate the viability of ``super-resonant'' annihilation from the coaction of both mechanisms in Standard Model Higgs portal and simplified MSSM-inspired dark-matter scenarios.

We propose to replace the exact amplitudes used in Monte Carlo event generators for trained machine learning regressors, with the aim of speeding up the evaluation of slow amplitudes. As a proof of concept, we study the process g g →Z Z , whose leading-order amplitude is loop induced. We show that gradient boosting machines like XGBoost can predict the fully differential distributions with errors below 0.1%, and with prediction times O (10³) faster than the evaluation of the exact function. This is achieved with training times ∼ 23 minutes and regressors of size ≲ 22 Mb . We also find that XGBoost performs well over the entire phase space, while interpolation gives much larger errors in regions where the function is peaked. These results suggest a possible new avenue to speed up Monte Carlo event generators.

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 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.

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.

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.

Context. The characterization of the dynamical state of galaxy clusters is key to studying their evolution, evaluating their selection, and using them as a cosmological probe. In this context, the offsets between different definitions of the center have been used to estimate the cluster disturbance.
Aims: Our goal is to study the distribution of the offset between the X-ray and optical centers in clusters of galaxies. We study the offset for clusters detected by the extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (eROSITA) on board the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observatory. We aim to connect observations to predictions by hydrodynamical simulations and N-body models. We assess the astrophysical effects affecting the displacements.
Methods: We measured the offset for clusters observed in the eROSITA Final Equatorial-Depth Survey (eFEDS) and the first eROSITA all-sky survey (eRASS1). We focus on a subsample of 87 massive eFEDS clusters at low redshift, with M_500c > 1×10¹⁴ M_⊙ and 0.15 < z < 0.4. We compared the displacements in such sample to those predicted by the TNG and the Magneticum simulations. We additionally link the observations to the offset parameter X_off measured for dark matter halos in N-body simulations, using the hydrodynamical simulations as a bridge.
Results: We find that, on average, the eFEDS clusters show a smaller offset compared to eRASS1 because the latter contains a larger fraction of massive and disturbed structures. We measured an average offset of Δ_X−O = 76.3_−27.1^+30.1 kpc, when focusing on the subsample of 87 eFEDS clusters. This is in agreement with the predictions from TNG and Magneticum, and the distribution of X_off from dark matter only (DMO) simulations. However, the tails of the distributions are different. Using Δ_{X − O} to classify relaxed and disturbed clusters, we measured a relaxed fraction of 31% in the eFEDS subsample. Finally, we found a correlation between the offset measured on hydrodynamical simulations and X_off measured on their parent dark-matter-only run and we calibrated the relation between them.
Conclusions: We conclude that there is good agreement between the offsets measured in eROSITA data and the predictions from simulations. Baryonic effects cause a decrement (increment) in the low (high) offset regime compared to the X_off distribution from dark matter-only simulations. The offset-X_off relation provides an accurate prediction of the true X_off distribution in Magneticum and TNG. It allows for the offsets to be introduced in a cosmological context with a new method in order to marginalize over selection effects related to the cluster dynamical state.

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.

We bootstrap the symbol of the maximal-helicity-violating four-particle form factor for the chiral part of the stress-tensor supermultiplet in planar N =4 super-Yang-Mills theory at two loops. When minimally normalized, this symbol involves only 34 letters and obeys the extended Steinmann relations in all partially overlapping three-particle momentum channels. In addition, the remainder function for this form factor exhibits an antipodal self-duality: It is invariant under the combined operation of the antipodal map defined on multiple polylogarithms—which reverses the order of the symbol letters—and a simple kinematic map. This self-duality holds on a four-dimensional parity-preserving kinematic hypersurface. It implies the antipodal duality recently noticed between the three-particle form factor and the six-particle amplitude in this theory.

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.

We take a major step towards computing D-dimensional one-loop amplitudes in general gauge theories, compatible with the principles of unitarity and the color-kinematics duality. For n-point amplitudes with either supersymmetry multiplets or generic non-supersymmetric matter in the loop, simple all-multiplicity expressions are obtained for the maximal cuts of kinematic numerators of n-gon diagrams. At n = 6, 7 points with maximal supersymmetry, we extend the cubic-diagram numerators to encode all contact terms, and thus solve the long-standing problem of simultaneously realizing the following properties: color-kinematics duality, manifest locality, optimal power counting of loop momenta, quadratic rather than linearized Feynman propagators, compatibility with double copy as well as all graph symmetries. Color-kinematics dual representations with similar properties are presented in the half-maximally supersymmetric case at n = 4, 5 points. The resulting gauge-theory integrands and their supergravity counterparts obtained from the double copy are checked to reproduce the expected ultraviolet divergences.

The standard perturbation theory (SPT) approach to gravitational clustering is based on a fluid approximation of the underlying Vlasov-Poisson dynamics, taking only the zeroth and first cumulant of the phase-space distribution function into account (density and velocity fields). This assumption breaks down when dark matter particle orbits cross and leads to well-known problems, e.g., an anomalously large backreaction of small-scale modes onto larger scales that compromises predictivity. We extend SPT by incorporating second and higher cumulants generated by orbit crossing. For collisionless matter, their equations of motion are completely fixed by the Vlasov-Poisson system, and thus we refer to this approach as Vlasov Perturbation Theory (VPT). Even cumulants develop a background value, and they enter the hierarchy of coupled equations for the fluctuations. The background values are in turn sourced by power spectra of the fluctuations. The latter can be brought into a form that is formally analogous to SPT, but with an extended set of variables and linear as well as nonlinear terms, that we derive explicitly. In this paper, we focus on linear solutions, which are far richer than in SPT, showing that modes that cross the dispersion scale set by the second cumulant are highly suppressed. We derive stability conditions on the background values of even cumulants from the requirement that exponential instabilities be absent. We also compute the expected magnitude of averaged higher cumulants for various halo models and show that they satisfy the stability conditions. Finally, we derive self-consistent solutions of perturbations and background values for a scaling universe and study the convergence of the cumulant expansion. The VPT framework provides a conceptually straightforward and deterministic extension of SPT that accounts for the decoupling of small-scale modes.

Context. In recent years, a new hot topic has emerged in the star and planet formation field, namely, the interaction between the circumstellar disk and its birth cloud. The birth environments of young stars leave strong imprints on the star itself and their surroundings. In this context, we present a detailed analysis of the rich circumstellar environment around the young Herbig Ae/Be star T CrA.
Aims: Our aim is to understand the nature of the stellar system and the extended circumstellar structures, as seen in scattered light images.
Methods: We conducted our analysis on the basis of a set of combined archival data and new adaptive optics images at a high contrast and high resolution.
Results: The scattered light images reveal the presence of a complex environment around T CrA, composed of a bright, forward-scattering rim of the disk's surface that is seen at very high inclinations, along with a dark lane of the disk midplane, bipolar outflows, and streamer features that are likely tracing infalling material from the surrounding birth cloud onto the disk. The analysis of the light curve suggests that the star is a binary with a period of 29.6 yr, confirming previous assertions based on spectro-astrometry. The comparison of the scattered light images with the ALMA continuum and ¹²CO (2-1) line emission shows that the disk is in Keplerian rotation and the northern side of the outflowing material is receding, while the southern side is approaching the observer. The overall system lies on different geometrical planes. The orbit of the binary star is perpendicular to the outflows and is seen edge on. The disk is itself seen edge-on, with a position angle of ~7°. The direction of the outflows seen in scattered light is in agreement with the direction of the more distant molecular hydrogen emission-line objects (MHOs) associated with the star. Modeling of the spectral energy distribution using a radiative transfer scheme is in good agreement with the proposed configuration, as well as the hydrodynamical simulation performed using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics code.
Conclusions: We find evidence of streamers of accreting material around T CrA. These streamers connect the filament, along which T CrA is forming along with the outer parts of the disk, suggesting that the strong misalignment between the inner and outer disk is due to a change in the direction of the angular momentum of the material accreting on the disk during the late phase of star formation. This impacts the accretion taking place in the components of the binary, favoring the growth of the primary with respect the secondary, in contrast to the case of aligned disks.

Reduced images 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/671/A82

We generalize existing constraints on primordial black holes to dark objects with extended sizes using the aLIGO design sensitivity. We show that LIGO is sensitive to dark objects with radius O (10 −10³ km ) if they make up more than ∼O (10^-2−10^-3) of dark matter.

Enzyme-enriched condensates can organize the spatial distribution of their substrates by catalyzing nonequilibrium reactions. Conversely, an inhomogeneous substrate distribution induces enzyme fluxes through substrate-enzyme interactions. We find that condensates move toward the center of a confining domain when this feedback is weak. Above a feedback threshold, they exhibit self-propulsion, leading to oscillatory dynamics. Moreover, catalysis-driven enzyme fluxes can lead to interrupted coarsening, resulting in equidistant condensate positioning, and to condensate division.

Entropy production is a necessary ingredient for addressing the overpopulation of thermal relics. It is widely employed in particle physics models for explaining the origin of dark matter. A long-lived particle that decays to the known particles, while dominating the universe, plays the role of the dilutor. We point out the impact of its partial decay to dark matter on the primordial matter power spectrum. For the first time, we derive a stringent limit on the branching ratio of the dilutor to dark matter from large scale structure observation using the sloan digital sky survey data. This offers a novel tool for testing models with a dark matter dilution mechanism. We apply it to the left-right symmetric model and show that it firmly excludes a large portion of parameter space for right-handed neutrino warm dark matter.

We report on our study of SN 2022xxf during the first four months of its evolution. The light curves (LCs) display two humps at similar maximum brightness separated by 75d, unprecedented for a broad-lined Type Ic supernova (SN IcBL). SN~2022xxf is the most nearby SN IcBL to date (in NGC~3705, $z = 0.0037$, 20 Mpc). Optical and NIR photometry and spectroscopy are used to identify the energy source powering the LC. Nearly 50 epochs of high S/N-ratio spectroscopy were obtained within 130d, comprising an unparalleled dataset for a SN IcBL, and one of the best-sampled SN datasets to date. The global spectral appearance and evolution of SN~2022xxf points to typical SN Ic/IcBL, with broad features (up to $\sim14000$ km~s$^{-1}$) and a gradual transition from the photospheric to the nebular phase. However, narrow emission lines (corresponding to $\sim1000-2500$ km~s$^{-1}$) are present from the time of the second rise, suggesting slower-moving circumstellar material (CSM). These lines are subtle, but some are readily noticeable at late times such as in Mg~I $\lambda$5170 and [O~I] $\lambda$5577. Unusually, the near-infrared spectra show narrow line peaks, especially among features formed by ions of O and Mg. We infer the presence of CSM that is free of H and He. We propose that the radiative energy from the ejecta-CSM interaction is a plausible explanation for the second LC hump. This interaction scenario is supported by the color evolution, which progresses to the blue as the light curve evolves along the second hump, and the slow second rise and subsequent rapid LC drop. SN~2022xxf may be related to an emerging number of CSM-interacting SNe Ic, which show slow, peculiar LCs, blue colors, and subtle CSM interaction lines. The progenitor stars of these SNe likely experienced an episode of mass loss shortly prior to explosion consisting of H/He-free material.

We calculate chromoelectric and chromomagnetic correlators in quenched QCD at 1.5 T_c and 10⁴T_c , with the aim to estimate the heavy quark diffusion coefficient at leading order in the inverse heavy quark mass expansion, κ_E , as well as the coefficient of the first mass-suppressed correction, κ_B. We use gradient flow for noise reduction. At 1.5 T_c we obtain 1.70 ≤κ_E/T³≤3.12 and 1.03 <κ_B/T³<2.61 . The latter implies that the mass-suppressed effects in the heavy quark diffusion coefficient are 20% for bottom quarks and 34% for charm quarks at this temperature.

Euclid's photometric galaxy cluster survey has the potential to be a very competitive cosmological probe. The main cosmological probe with observations of clusters is their number count, within which the halo mass function (HMF) is a key theoretical quantity. We present a new calibration of the analytic HMF, at the level of accuracy and precision required for the uncertainty in this quantity to be subdominant with respect to other sources of uncertainty in recovering cosmological parameters from Euclid cluster counts. Our model is calibrated against a suite of N-body simulations using a Bayesian approach taking into account systematic errors arising from numerical effects in the simulation. First, we test the convergence of HMF predictions from different N-body codes, by using initial conditions generated with different orders of Lagrangian Perturbation theory, and adopting different simulation box sizes and mass resolution. Then, we quantify the effect of using different halo finder algorithms, and how the resulting differences propagate to the cosmological constraints. In order to trace the violation of universality in the HMF, we also analyse simulations based on initial conditions characterised by scale-free power spectra with different spectral indexes, assuming both Einstein-de Sitter and standard ΛCDM expansion histories. Based on these results, we construct a fitting function for the HMF that we demonstrate to be sub-percent accurate in reproducing results from 9 different variants of the ΛCDM model including massive neutrinos cosmologies. The calibration systematic uncertainty is largely sub-dominant with respect to the expected precision of future mass-observation relations; with the only notable exception of the effect due to the halo finder, that could lead to biased cosmological inference.

Cosmology inference of galaxy clustering at the field level with the EFT likelihood in principle allows for extracting all non-Gaussian information from quasi-linear scales, while robustly marginalizing over any astrophysical uncertainties. A pipeline in this spirit is implemented in the \texttt{LEFTfield} code, which we extend in this work to describe the clustering of galaxies in redshift space. Our main additions are: the computation of the velocity field in the LPT gravity model, the fully nonlinear displacement of the evolved, biased density field to redshift space, and a systematic expansion of velocity bias. We test the resulting analysis pipeline by applying it to synthetic data sets with a known ground truth at increasing complexity: mock data generated from the perturbative forward model itself, sub-sampled matter particles, and dark matter halos in N-body simulations. By fixing the initial-time density contrast to the ground truth, while varying the growth rate $f$, bias coefficients and noise amplitudes, we perform a stringent set of checks. These show that indeed a systematic higher-order expansion of the velocity bias is required to infer a growth rate consistent with the ground truth within errors. Applied to dark matter halos, our analysis yields unbiased constraints on $f$ at the level of a few percent for a variety of halo masses at redshifts $z=0,\,0.5,\,1$ and for a broad range of cutoff scales $0.08\,h/\mathrm{Mpc} \leq \Lambda \leq 0.20\,h/\mathrm{Mpc}$. Importantly, deviations between true and inferred growth rate exhibit the scaling with halo mass, redshift and cutoff that one expects based on the EFT of Large Scale Structure. Further, we obtain a robust detection of velocity bias through its effect on the redshift-space density field and are able to disentangle it from higher-derivative bias contributions.

Light (anti-) nuclei are a powerful tool both in collider physics and astrophysics. In searches for new and exotic physics, the expected small astrophysical backgrounds at low energies make these antinuclei ideal probes for, e.g., dark matter. At the same time, their composite structure and small binding energies imply that they can be used in collider experiments to probe the hadronisation process and two-particle correlations. For the proper interpretation of such experimental studies, an improved theoretical understanding of (anti-) nuclei production in specific kinematic regions and detector setups is needed. In this work, we develop a coalescence framework for (anti-) deuteron production which accounts for both the emission volume and momentum correlations on an event-by-event basis. This framework goes beyond the equal-time approximation, which has been commonly assumed in femtoscopy experiments and (anti-) nucleus production models until now. Using PYTHIA~8 as an event generator, we find that the equal-time approximation leads to an error of O(10%) in low-energy processes like $\Upsilon$ decays, while the errors are negligible at LHC energies. The framework introduced in this work paves the way for tuning event generators to (anti-) nuclei measurements.

We investigate shock structures driven by merger events in high-resolution simulations that result in a galaxy with a virial mass M ≈ 10¹² M _⊙. We find that the sizes and morphologies of the internal shocks resemble remarkably well those of the newly detected class of odd radio circles (ORCs). This would highlight a so-far overlooked mechanism to form radio rings, shells, and even more complex structures around elliptical galaxies. Mach numbers of ${ \mathcal M }$ = 2-3 for such internal shocks are in agreement with the spectral indices of the observed ORCs. We estimate that ~5% of galaxies could undergo merger events, which occasionally lead to such prominent structures within the galactic halo during their lifetime, explaining the low number of observed ORCs. At the time when the shock structures are matching the physical sizes of the observed ORCs, the central galaxies are typically classified as early-type galaxies, with no ongoing star formation, in agreement with observational findings. Although the energy released by such mergers could potentially power the observed radio luminosity already in Milky Way-like halos, our predicted luminosity from a simple, direct shock acceleration model is much smaller than the observed one. Considering the estimated number of candidates from our cosmological simulations and the higher observed energies, we suggest that the proposed scenario is more likely for halo masses around 10¹³ M _⊙ in agreement with the observed stellar masses of the galaxies at the center of ORCs. Such shocks might be detectable with next-generation X-ray instruments like the Line Emission Mapper (LEM).

Modeling of strong gravitational lenses is a necessity for further applications in astrophysics and cosmology. With the large number of detections in current and upcoming surveys, such as the Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), it is pertinent to investigate automated and fast analysis techniques beyond the traditional and time-consuming Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling methods. Building upon our (simple) convolutional neural network (CNN), we present here another CNN, specifically a residual neural network (ResNet), that predicts the five mass parameters of a singular isothermal ellipsoid (SIE) profile (lens center x and y, ellipticity e_x and e_y, Einstein radius θ_E) and the external shear (γ_{ext, 1}, γ_{ext, 2}) from ground-based imaging data. In contrast to our previous CNN, this ResNet further predicts the 1σ uncertainty for each parameter. To train our network, we use our improved pipeline to simulate lens images using real images of galaxies from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey (HSC) and from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field as lens galaxies and background sources, respectively. We find very good recoveries overall for the SIE parameters, especially for the lens center in comparison to our previous CNN, while significant differences remain in predicting the external shear. From our multiple tests, it appears that most likely the low ground-based image resolution is the limiting factor in predicting the external shear. Given the run time of milli-seconds per system, our network is perfectly suited to quickly predict the next appearing image and time delays of lensed transients. Therefore, we use the network-predicted mass model to estimate these quantities and compare to those values obtained from our simulations. Unfortunately, the achieved precision allows only a first-order estimate of time delays on real lens systems and requires further refinement through follow-up modeling. Nonetheless, our ResNet is able to predict the SIE and shear parameter values in fractions of a second on a single CPU, meaning that we are able to efficiently process the huge amount of galaxy-scale lenses expected in the near future.

The network code is available under https://github.com/shsuyu/HOLISMOKES-public/tree/main/HOLISMOKES_IX

We present nonlinear solutions of Vlasov perturbation theory (VPT), describing gravitational clustering of collisionless dark matter with dispersion and higher cumulants induced by orbit crossing. We show that VPT can be cast into a form that is formally analogous to standard perturbation theory (SPT), but including additional perturbation variables, nonlinear interactions, and a more complex propagation. VPT nonlinear kernels have a crucial decoupling property: for fixed total momentum, the kernels become strongly suppressed when any of the individual momenta cross the dispersion scale into the nonlinear regime. This screening of UV modes allows us to compute nonlinear corrections to power spectra even for cosmologies with very blue power-law input spectra, for which SPT diverges. We compare predictions for the density and velocity divergence power spectra as well as the bispectrum at one-loop order to N -body results in a scaling universe with spectral indices -1 ≤n_s≤+2 . We find a good agreement up to the nonlinear scale for all cases, with a reach that increases with the spectral index n_s. We discuss the generation of vorticity as well as vector and tensor modes of the velocity dispersion, showing that neglecting vorticity when including dispersion would lead to a violation of momentum conservation. We verify momentum conservation when including vorticity, and compute the vorticity power spectrum at two-loop order, necessary to recover the correct large-scale limit with slope n_w=2 . Comparing to our N -body measurements confirms the cross-over from k⁴ to k² scaling at large scales. Our results provide a proof-of-principle that perturbative techniques for dark matter clustering can be systematically improved based on the known underlying collisionless dynamics.

Peptides have essential structural and catalytic functions in living organisms. The formation of peptides requires the overcoming of thermodynamic and kinetic barriers. In recent years, various formation scenarios that may have occurred during the origin of life have been investigated, including iron(III)-catalyzed condensations. However, iron(III)-catalysts require elevated temperatures and the catalytic activity in peptide bond forming reactions is often low. It is likely that in an anoxic environment such as that of the early Earth, reduced iron compounds were abundant, both on the Earth's surface itself and as a major component of iron meteorites. In this work, we show that reduced iron activated by acetic acid mediates efficiently peptide formation. We recently demonstrated that, compared to water, liquid sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a superior reaction medium for peptide formations. We thus investigated both and observed up to four amino acid/peptide coupling steps in each solvent. Reaction with diglycine (G2) formed 2.0 % triglycine (G3) and 7.6 % tetraglycine (G4) in 21 d. Addition of G3 and dialanine (A2) yielded 8.7 % G4. Therefore, this is an efficient and plausible route for the formation of the first peptides as simple catalysts for further transformations in such environments.

In life, molecular architectures, like the cytoskeletal proteins or the nucleolus, catalyze the conversion of chemical fuels to perform their functions. For example, tubulin catalyzes the hydrolysis of GTP to form a dynamic cytoskeletal network. In contrast, myosin uses the energy obtained by catalyzing the hydrolysis of ATP to exert forces. Artificial examples of such beautiful architectures are scarce partly because synthetic chemically fueled reaction cycles are relatively rare. Here, we introduce a new chemical reaction cycle driven by the hydration of a carbodiimide. Unlike other carbodiimide-fueled reaction cycles, the proposed cycle forms a transient 5(4H)-oxazolone. The reaction cycle is efficient in forming the transient product and is robust to operate under a wide range of fuel inputs, pH, and temperatures. The versatility of the precursors is vast, and we demonstrate several molecular designs that yield chemically fueled droplets, fibers, and crystals. We anticipate that the reaction cycle can offer a range of other assemblies and, due to its versatility, can also be incorporated into molecular motors and machines.

The wavelength dependence of the Kormendy relation (KR) is well characterised at low redshift but poorly studied at intermediate redshifts. The KR provides information on the evolution of the population of early-type galaxies (ETGs). Therefore, by studying it, we may shed light on the assembly processes of these objects and their size evolution. As studies at different redshifts are generally conducted in different rest-frame wavebands, it is important to investigate whether the KR is dependent on wavelength. Knowledge of such a dependence is fundamental to correctly interpreting the conclusions we might draw from these studies. We analyse the KRs of the three Hubble Frontier Fields clusters, Abell S1063 (z = 0.348), MACSJ0416.1-2403 (z = 0.396), and MACS J1149.5+2223 (z = 0.542), as a function of wavelength. This is the first time the KR of ETGs has been explored consistently over such a large range of wavelengths at intermediate redshifts. We exploit very deep HST photometry, ranging from the observed B-band to the H-band, and MUSE integral field spectroscopy. We improve the structural parameter estimation we performed in a previous work by means of a newly developed Python package called morphofit. With its use on cluster ETGs, we find that the KR slopes increase smoothly with wavelength from the optical to the near-infrared (NIR) bands in all three clusters, with the intercepts becoming fainter at lower redshifts due to the passive ageing of the ETG stellar populations. The slope trend is consistent with previous findings at lower redshifts. The slope increase with wavelength implies that smaller ETGs are more centrally concentrated than larger ETGs in the NIR with respect to the optical regime. As different bands probe different stellar populations in galaxies, the slope increase also implies that smaller ETGs have stronger internal gradients with respect to larger ETGs.

In today's modern wide-field galaxy surveys, there is the necessity for parametric surface brightness decomposition codes characterised by accuracy, small degree of user intervention, and high degree of parallelisation. We try to address this necessity by introducing morphofit, a highly parallelisable Python package for the estimate of galaxy structural parameters. The package makes use of wide-spread and reliable codes, namely SExtractor and GALFIT. It has been optimised and tested in both low-density and crowded environments, where blending and diffuse light makes the structural parameters estimate particularly challenging. morphofit allows the user to fit multiple surface brightness components to each individual galaxy, among those currently implemented in the code. Using simulated images of single Sérsic and bulge plus disk galaxy light profiles with different bulge-to-total luminosity (B/T) ratios, we show that morphofit is able to recover the input structural parameters of the simulated galaxies with good accuracy. We also compare its estimates against existing literature studies, finding consistency within the errors. We use the package in Tortorelli et al. 2023 to measure the structural parameters of cluster galaxies in order to study the wavelength dependence of the Kormendy relation of early-type galaxies. The package is available on github (this https URL) and on the Pypi server (this https URL).

Accurate knowledge of the redshift distributions of faint samples of galaxies selected by broad-band photometry is a prerequisite for future weak lensing experiments to deliver precision tests of our cosmological model. The most direct way to measure these redshift distributions is spectroscopic follow-up of representative galaxies. For this to be efficient and accurate, targets have to be selected such that they systematically cover a space defined by apparent colours in which there is little variation in redshift at any point. 4C3R2 will follow this strategy to observe over 100 000 galaxies selected by their KiDS-VIKING ugriZYJHKs photometry over a footprint identical to that of the WAVES survey, to constrain the colour-redshift relation with high multiplicity across two-thirds of the colour space of future Euclid and Rubin samples.

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.

We present the initial results of an ongoing survey with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array targeting the CO(J = 1-0) transition in a sample of 30 submillimeter-selected, dusty star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at z = 2-5 with existing mid-J CO detections from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array, of which 17 have been fully observed. We detect CO(1-0) emission in 11 targets, along with three tentative (~1.5σ-2σ) detections; three galaxies are undetected. Our results yield total molecular gas masses of 6-23 × 10¹⁰ (α _CO/1) M _⊙, with gas mass fractions, f _gas = M _mol/(M _*+M _mol), of 0.1-0.8 and a median depletion time of (140 ± 70) Myr. We find median CO excitation ratios of r ₃₁ = 0.75 ± 0.39 and r ₄₁ = 0.63 ± 0.44, with significant scatter. We find no significant correlation between the excitation ratio and a number of key parameters such as redshift, CO(1-0) line width, or Σ_SFR. We only find a tentative positive correlation between r ₄₁ and the star-forming efficiency, but we are limited by our small sample size. Finally, we compare our results to predictions from the SHARK semi-analytical model, finding a good agreement between the molecular gas masses, depletion times, and gas fractions of our sources and their SHARK counterparts. Our results highlight the heterogeneous nature of the most massive SFGs at high redshift, and the importance of CO(1-0) observations to robustly constrain their total molecular gas content and interstellar medium properties.

The interaction of defects can lead to a phenomenon of erasure. During this process, a lower-dimensional object gets absorbed and dissolved by a higher-dimensional one. The phenomenon is very general and has a wide range of implications, both cosmological and fundamental. In particular, all types of strings, such as cosmic strings, QCD flux tubes, or fundamental strings, get erased when encountering a defect, either solitonic or a D-brane that deconfines their fluxes. This leads to a novel mechanism of cosmic string breakup, accompanied by gravitational and electromagnetic radiations. The arguments based on loss of coherence and the entropy count suggest that the erasure probability is very close to one, and strings never make it through the deconfining layer. We confirm this by a numerical simulation of the system, which effectively captures the essence of the phenomenon: a 2+1-dimensional problem of interaction between a Nielsen-Olesen vortex of a U(1) Higgs model and a domain wall, inside which the U(1) gauge group is un-Higgsed and the magnetic flux is deconfined. In accordance with the entropy argument, in our simulation, the vortex never makes it across the wall.

Thermal electrons have gyroradii many orders of magnitude smaller than the finite width of a shock, thus need to be pre-accelerated before they can cross it and be accelerated by diffusive shock acceleration. One region where pre-acceleration may occur is the inner foreshock, which upstream electrons must pass through before any potential downstream crossing. In this paper, we perform a large-scale particle-in-cell simulation that generates a single shock with parameters motivated from supernova remnants. Within the foreshock, reflected electrons excite the oblique whistler instability and produce electromagnetic whistler waves, which comove with the upstream flow and as nonlinear structures eventually reach radii of up to 5 ion-gyroradii. We show that the inner electromagnetic configuration of the whistlers evolves into complex nonlinear structures bound by a strong magnetic field around four times the upstream value. Although these nonlinear structures do not in general interact with cospatial upstream electrons, they resonate with electrons that have been reflected at the shock. We show that they can scatter, or even trap, reflected electrons, confining around 0.8% of the total upstream electron population to the region close to the shock where they can undergo substantial pre-acceleration. This acceleration process is similar to, yet approximately three times more efficient than, stochastic shock drift acceleration.

Non-thermal emission from relativistic cosmic ray (CR) electrons gives insight into the strength and morphology of intra-cluster magnetic fields, as well as providing powerful tracers of structure formation shocks. Emission caused by CR protons on the other hand still challenges current observations and is therefore testing models of proton acceleration at intra-cluster shocks. Large-scale simulations including the effects of CRs have been difficult to achieve and have been mainly reduced to simulating an overall energy budget, or tracing CR populations in post-processing of simulation output and has often been done for either protons or electrons. We introduce CRESCENDO: Cosmic Ray Evolution with SpeCtral Electrons aND prOtons, an efficient on-the-fly Fokker-Planck solver to evolve distributions of CR protons and electrons within every resolution element of our simulation. The solver accounts for CR (re-)acceleration at intra-cluster shocks, based on results of recent particle-in-cell simulations, adiabatic changes, and radiative losses of electrons. We show its performance in test cases as well as idealized galaxy cluster (GC) simulations. We apply the model to an idealized GC merger following best-fitting parameters for CIZA J2242.4 + 5301-1 and study CR injection, radio relic morphology, spectral steepening, and synchrotron emission.

We investigate the accuracy and precision of triaxial dynamical orbit models by fitting 2D mock observations of a realistic N-body merger simulation resembling a massive early-type galaxy with a supermassive black hole. We show that we can reproduce the triaxial N-body merger remnant's correct black hole mass, stellar mass-to-light ratio and total enclosed mass (inside the half-light radius) for several different tested orientations with an unprecedented accuracy of 5-10 per cent. Our dynamical models use the entire non-parametric line-of-sight velocity distribution (LOSVD) rather than parametric LOSVDs or velocity moments as constraints. Our results strongly suggest that state-of-the-art integral-field projected kinematic data contain only minor degeneracies with respect to the mass and anisotropy recovery. Moreover, this also demonstrates the strength of the Schwarzschild method in general. We achieve the proven high recovery accuracy and precision with our newly developed modelling machinery by combining several advancements: (i) our new semiparametric deprojection code probes degeneracies and allows us to constrain the viewing angles of a triaxial galaxy; (ii) our new orbit modelling code SMART uses a 5-dim orbital starting space to representatively sample in particular near-Keplerian orbits in galaxy centres; (iii) we use a generalized information criterion AIC_p to optimize the smoothing and to compare different mass models to avoid biases that occur in χ²-based models with varying model flexibilities.

In the past few years, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has provided the first-ever event horizon-scale images of the supermassive black holes (BHs) M87* and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). The next-generation EHT project is an extension of the EHT array that promises larger angular resolution and higher sensitivity to the dim, extended flux around the central ring-like structure, possibly connecting the accretion flow and the jet. The ngEHT Analysis Challenges aim to understand the science extractability from synthetic images and movies to inform the ngEHT array design and analysis algorithm development. In this work, we compare the accretion flow structure and dynamics in numerical fluid simulations that specifically target M87* and Sgr A*, and were used to construct the source models in the challenge set. We consider (1) a steady-state axisymmetric radiatively inefficient accretion flow model with a time-dependent shearing hotspot, (2) two time-dependent single fluid general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations from the H-AMR code, (3) a two-temperature GRMHD simulation from the BHAC code, and (4) a two-temperature radiative GRMHD simulation from the KORAL code. We find that the different models exhibit remarkably similar temporal and spatial properties, except for the electron temperature, since radiative losses substantially cool down electrons near the BH and the jet sheath, signaling the importance of radiative cooling even for slowly accreting BHs such as M87*. We restrict ourselves to standard torus accretion flows, and leave larger explorations of alternate accretion models to future work.

We study stellar population and structural properties of massive log (M_⋆/M_⊙) > 11 galaxies at z ≈ 2.7 in the Magneticum and IllustrisTNG hydrodynamical simulations and GAEA semi-analytic model. We find stellar mass functions broadly consistent with observations, with no scarcity of massive, quiescent galaxies at z ≈ 2.7, but with a higher quiescent galaxy fraction at high masses in IllustrisTNG. Average ages of simulated quiescent galaxies are between ≈0.8 and ${1.0\, \textrm {Gyr}}$, older by a factor ≈2 than observed in spectroscopically confirmed quiescent galaxies at similar redshift. Besides being potentially indicative of limitations of simulations in reproducing observed star formation histories, this discrepancy may also reflect limitations in the estimation of observed ages. We investigate the purity of simulated UVJ rest-frame colour-selected massive quiescent samples with photometric uncertainties typical of deep surveys (e.g. COSMOS). We find evidence for significant contamination (up to ${60\, \rm {per\, cent}}$) by dusty star-forming galaxies in the UVJ region that is typically populated by older quiescent sources. Furthermore, the completeness of UVJ-selected quiescent samples at this redshift may be reduced by $\approx {30\, \rm {per\, cent}}$ due to a high fraction of young quiescent galaxies not entering the UVJ quiescent region. Massive, quiescent galaxies in simulations have on average lower angular momenta and higher projected axis ratios and concentrations than star-forming counterparts. Average sizes of simulated quiescent galaxies are broadly consistent with observations within the uncertainties. The average size ratio of quiescent and star-forming galaxies in the probed mass range is formally consistent with observations, although this result is partly affected by poor statistics.

In this paper, we present COMET, a Gaussian process emulator of the galaxy power spectrum multipoles in redshift space. The model predictions are based on one-loop perturbation theory and we consider two alternative descriptions of redshift-space distortions: one that performs a full expansion of the real- to redshift-space mapping, as in recent effective field theory models, and another that preserves the non-perturbative impact of small-scale velocities by means of an effective damping function. The outputs of COMET can be obtained at arbitrary redshifts, for arbitrary fiducial background cosmologies, and for a large parameter space that covers the shape parameters ω_c, ω_b, and n_s, as well as the evolution parameters h, A_s, Ω_K, w₀, and w_a. This flexibility does not impair COMET's accuracy, since we exploit an exact degeneracy between the evolution parameters that allows us to train the emulator on a significantly reduced parameter space. While the predictions are sped up by two orders of magnitude, validation tests reveal an accuracy of $0.1\, {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ for the monopole and quadrupole ($0.3\, {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ for the hexadecapole), or alternatively, better than $0.25\, \sigma$ for all three multipoles in comparison to statistical uncertainties expected for the Euclid survey with a tenfold increase in volume. We show that these differences translate into shifts in mean posterior values that are at most of the same size, meaning that COMET can be used with the same confidence as the exact underlying models. COMET is a publicly available PYTHON package that also provides the tree-level bispectrum multipoles and Gaussian covariance matrices.

In this paper we consider signal-background interference effects in Higgs-mediated diphoton production at the LHC. After reviewing earlier works that show how to use these effects to constrain the Higgs boson total decay width, we provide predictions beyond NLO accuracy for the interference and related observables, and study the impact of QCD radiative corrections on the Higgs width determination. In particular, we use the so-called soft-virtual approximation to estimate interference effects at NNLO in QCD. The inclusion of these effects reduces the NNLO prediction for the total Higgs cross-section in the diphoton channel by about 1.7%. We study in detail the impact of QCD corrections on the Higgs-boson line-shape and its implications for the Higgs boson width extraction. In particular, we find that the shift of the Higgs resonance peak arising from interference effects gets reduced by about 30% with respect to the NLO prediction. Assuming an experimental resolution of about 150 MeV on interference-induced modifications of the Higgs-boson line-shape, our NNLO analysis shows that one could constrain the Higgs-boson total width to about 10-20 times its Standard Model value.

The quest to understand the fundamental building blocks of nature and their interactions is one of the oldest and most ambitious of human scientific endeavors. CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) represents a huge step forward in this quest. The discovery of the Higgs boson, the observation of exceedingly rare decays of $B$ mesons, and stringent constraints on many viable theories of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) demonstrate the great scientific value of the LHC physics program. The next phase of this global scientific project will be the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) which will collect data starting circa 2029 and continue through the 2030s. The primary science goal is to search for physics beyond the SM and, should it be discovered, to study its implications. In the HL-LHC era, the ATLAS and CMS experiments will record around 100 times as many collisions as were used to discover the Higgs boson (and at twice the energy). Both NSF and DOE are making large detector upgrade investments so the HL-LHC can operate in this high-rate environment. Similar investment in software R&D for acquiring, managing, processing and analyzing HL-LHC data is critical to maximize the return-on-investment in the upgraded accelerator and detectors. This report presents a strategic plan for a possible second 5-year funded phase (2023 through 2028) for the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics (IRIS-HEP) which will close remaining software and computing gaps to deliver HL-LHC science.

The direct detection of core-collapse supernova (SN) progenitor stars is a powerful way of probing the last stages of stellar evolution. However, detections in archival Hubble Space Telescope images are limited to about one per year. Here, we explore whether we can increase the detection rate by using data from ground-based wide-field surveys. Due to crowding and atmospheric blurring, progenitor stars can typically not be identified in pre-explosion images alone. Instead, we combine many pre-SN and late-time images to search for the disappearance of the progenitor star. As a proof of concept, we implement our search for ZTF data. For a few hundred images, we achieve limiting magnitudes of about 23 mag in the g and r band. However, no progenitor stars or long-lived outbursts are detected for 29 SNe within z<0.01, and the ZTF limits are typically several magnitudes less constraining than detected progenitors in the literature. Next, we estimate progenitor detection rates for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) with the Vera C. Rubin telescope by simulating a population of nearby SNe. The background from bright host galaxies reduces the nominal LSST sensitivity by, on average, 0.4 mag. Over the ten-year survey, we expect the detection of about 50 red supergiant progenitors and several yellow and blue supergiants. The progenitors of SNe Ib and Ic are detectable if they are brighter than -4.7 mag or -4.0 mag in the LSST i band, respectively. In addition, we expect the detection of hundreds of pre-SN outbursts depending on their brightness and duration.

We analyze Hα or CO rotation curves extending out to several galaxy effective radii for 100 massive, large, star-forming disk galaxies (SFGs) across the peak of cosmic galaxy star formation (z ~ 0.6-2.5), more than doubling the previous sample presented by Genzel et al. and Price et al. The observations were taken with SINFONI and KMOS integral-field spectrographs at the ESO-Very Large Telescope, LUCI-LBT, NOEMA-IRAM, and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We fit the major-axis kinematics with beam-convolved, forward models of turbulent rotating disks with bulges embedded in dark matter (DM) halos, including the effects of pressure support. The fraction of dark to total matter within the disk effective radius (R _e ~ 5 kpc), f _DM(R _e) = V ² _DM(R _e)/V ² _circ(R _e) decreases with redshift: at z ~ 1 (z ~ 2) the median DM fraction is 0.38 ± 0.23 (0.27 ± 0.18), and a third (half) of all galaxies are maximal disks with f _DM(R _e) < 0.28. DM fractions correlate inversely with the baryonic surface density, and the low DM fractions can be explained with a flattened, or cored, inner DM density distribution. At z ~ 2, there is ≈40% less DM mass on average within R _e compared to expected values based on cosmological stellar-mass-halo-mass relations. The DM deficit is more evident at high star formation rate surface densities (≳2.5 M _⊙ yr^-1 kpc²) and galaxies with massive bulges (≥10¹⁰ M _⊙). A combination of stellar or active galactic nucleus feedback, and/or heating due to dynamical friction, may drive the DM from cuspy into cored mass distributions, pointing to an efficient buildup of massive bulges and central black holes at z ~ 2 SFGs.

We present a calculation of all matching coefficients for N-jettiness beam functions at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N³LO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Our computation is performed starting from the respective collinear splitting kernels, which we integrate using the axial gauge. We use reverse unitarity to map the relevant phase-space integrals to loop integrals, which allows us to employ multi-loop techniques including integration-by-parts identities and differential equations. We find a canonical basis and use an algorithm to establish non-trivial partial fraction relations among the resulting master integrals, which allows us to reduce their number substantially. By use of regularity conditions, we express all necessary boundary constants in terms of an independent set, which we compute by direct integration of the corresponding integrals in the soft limit. In this way, we provide an entirely independent calculation of the matching coefficients which were previously computed in ref. [1].

We report a comprehensive study of the cyanopolyyne chemistry in the prototypical prestellar core L1544. Using the 100 m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, we observe three emission lines of HC₃N, nine lines of HC₅N, five lines of HC₇N, and nine lines of HC₉N. HC₉N is detected for the first time toward the source. The high spectral resolution (~0.05 km s^-1) reveals double-peak spectral line profiles with the redshifted peak a factor 3-5 brighter. Resolved maps of the core in other molecular tracers indicate that the southern region is redshifted. Therefore, the bulk of the cyanopolyyne emission is likely associated with the southern region of the core, where free carbon atoms are available to form long chains, thanks to the more efficient illumination of the interstellar field radiation. We perform a simultaneous modeling of the HC₅N, HC₇N, and HC₉N lines to investigate the origin of the emission. To enable this analysis, we performed new calculation of the collisional coefficients. The simultaneous fitting indicates a gas kinetic temperature of 5-12 K, a source size of 80″, and a gas density larger than 100 cm^-3. The HC₅N:HC₇N:HC₉N abundance ratios measured in L1544 are about 1:6:4. We compare our observations with those toward the well-studied starless core TMC-1 and with the available measurements in different star-forming regions. The comparison suggests that a complex carbon chain chemistry is active in other sources and is related to the presence of free gaseous carbon. Finally, we discuss the possible formation and destruction routes in light of the new observations.

The flavor evolution of a neutrino gas can show "slow" or "fast" collective motion. In terms of the usual Bloch vectors to describe the mean-field density matrices of a homogeneous neutrino gas, the slow two-flavor equations of motion (EOMs) are P_˙ω=(ω B +μ P )×P_ω, where ω =Δ m²/2 E , μ =√{2 }G_F(n_ν+n_{ν ¯}), B is a unit vector in the mass direction in flavor space, and P =∫d ω P_ω. For an axisymmetric angle distribution, the fast EOMs are D_˙v=μ (D₀-v D₁)×D_v, where D_v is the Bloch vector for lepton number, v =cos θ is the velocity along the symmetry axis, D₀=∫d v D_v, and D₁=∫d v v D_v. We discuss similarities and differences between these generic cases. Both systems can have pendulumlike instabilities (soliton solutions), both have similar Gaudin invariants, and both are integrable in the classical and quantum case. Describing fast oscillations in a frame comoving with D₁ (which itself may execute pendulumlike motions) leads to transformed EOMs that are equivalent to an abstract slow system. These conclusions carry over to three flavors.

A primary new capability of JWST is the ability to penetrate the dust in star-forming galaxies to identify and study the properties of young star clusters that remain embedded in dust and gas. In this Letter we combine new infrared images taken with JWST with our optical Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of the starbursting barred (Seyfert2) spiral galaxy NGC 1365. We find that this galaxy has the richest population of massive young clusters of any known galaxy within 30 Mpc, with ~30 star clusters that are more massive than 10⁶ M _⊙ and younger than 10 Myr. Sixteen of these clusters are newly discovered from our JWST observations. An examination of the optical images reveals that 4 of 30 (~13%) are so deeply embedded that they cannot be seen in the Hubble I band (A _V ≳ 10 mag), and that 11 of 30 (~37%) are missing in the HST B band, so age and mass estimates from optical measurements alone are challenging. These numbers suggest that massive clusters in NGC 1365 remain completely obscured in the visible for ~1.3 ± 0.7 Myr and are either completely or partially obscured for ~3.7 ± 1.1 Myr. We also use the JWST observations to gain new insights into the triggering of star cluster formation by the collision of gas and dust streamers with gas and dust in the bar. The JWST images reveal previously unknown structures (e.g., bridges and overshoot regions from stars that form in the bar) that help us better understand the orbital dynamics of barred galaxies and associated star-forming rings. Finally, we note that the excellent spatial resolution of the NIRCAM F200W filter provides a better way to separate barely resolved compact clusters from individual stars based on their sizes.

With the advent of high-cadence, all-sky automated surveys, supernovae (SNe) are now discovered closer than ever to their dates of explosion. However, young premaximum light follow-up spectra of Type Ic SNe (SNe Ic), probably arising from the most-stripped massive stars, remain rare despite their importance. In this Letter, we present a set of 49 optical spectra observed with the Las Cumbres Observatory through the Global Supernova Project for 6 SNe Ic, including a total of 17 premaximum spectra, of which 8 are observed more than a week before V-band maximum light. This data set increases the total number of publicly available premaximum-light SN Ic spectra by 25%, and we provide publicly available SNID templates that will significantly aid in the fast identification of young SNe Ic in the future. We present a detailed analysis of these spectra, including Fe II 5169 velocity measurements, O I 7774 line strengths, and continuum shapes. We compare our results to published samples of stripped SNe in the literature and find one SN in our sample that stands out. SN 2019ewu has a unique combination of features for an SN Ic: an extremely blue continuum, high absorption velocities, a P Cygni-shaped feature almost 2 weeks before maximum light that TARDIS radiative transfer modeling attributes to C II rather than Hα, and weak or nonexistent O I 7774 absorption feature until maximum light.

Heavy QCD axions are well-motivated extensions of the QCD axion that address the quality problem while still solving the strong CP problem. Owing to the gluon coupling, critical for solving the strong CP problem, these axions can be produced in significant numbers in beam dump and collider environments for axion decay constants as large as PeV, relevant for addressing the axion quality problem. In addition, if these axions have leptonic couplings, they can give rise to long-lived decay into lepton pairs, in particular, dominantly into muons above the dimuon threshold and below the GeV scale in a broad class of axion models. Considering existing constraints, primarily from rare meson decays, we demonstrate that current and future neutrino facilities and long-lived particle searches have the potential to probe significant parts of the heavy QCD axion parameter space via dimuon final states.

We present a general framework for calculating post-Minskowskian, classical, conservative Hamiltonians for N non-spinning bodies in general relativity from relativistic scattering amplitudes. Novel features for N > 2 are described including the subtraction of tree-like iteration contributions and the calculation of non-trivial many-body Fourier transform integrals needed to construct position space potentials. A new approach to calculating these integrals as an expansion in the hierarchical limit is described based on the method of regions. As an explicit example, we present the O (G²) 3-body momentum space potential in general relativity as well as for charged bodies in Einstein-Maxwell. The result is shown to be in perfect agreement with previous post-Newtonian calculations in general relativity up to O (G²v⁴). Furthermore, in appropriate limits the result is shown to agree perfectly with relativistic probe scattering in multi-center extremal black hole backgrounds and with the scattering of slowly-moving extremal black holes in the moduli space approximation.

JWST observations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission provide some of the deepest and highest resolution views of the cold interstellar medium (ISM) in nearby galaxies. If PAHs are well mixed with the atomic and molecular gas and illuminated by the average diffuse interstellar radiation field, PAH emission may provide an approximately linear, high-resolution, high-sensitivity tracer of diffuse gas surface density. We present a pilot study that explores using PAH emission in this way based on Mid-Infrared Instrument observations of IC 5332, NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496 from the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS-JWST Treasury. Using scaling relationships calibrated in Leroy et al., scaled F1130W provides 10-40 pc resolution and 3σ sensitivity of Σ_gas ~ 2 M _⊙ pc^-2. We characterize the surface densities of structures seen at <7 M _⊙ pc^-2 in our targets, where we expect the gas to be H I-dominated. We highlight the existence of filaments, interarm emission, and holes in the diffuse ISM at these low surface densities. Below ~10 M _⊙ pc^-2 for NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496 the gas distribution shows a "Swiss cheese"-like topology due to holes and bubbles pervading the relatively smooth distribution of the diffuse ISM. Comparing to recent galaxy simulations, we observe similar topology for the low-surface-density gas, though with notable variations between simulations with different setups and resolution. Such a comparison of high-resolution, low-surface-density gas with simulations is not possible with existing atomic and molecular gas maps, highlighting the unique power of JWST maps of PAH emission.

We present a high-resolution view of bubbles within the Phantom Galaxy (NGC 628), a nearby (~10 Mpc), star-forming (~2 M _⊙ yr^-1), face-on (i ~ 9°) grand-design spiral galaxy. With new data obtained as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS)-JWST treasury program, we perform a detailed case study of two regions of interest, one of which contains the largest and most prominent bubble in the galaxy (the Phantom Void, over 1 kpc in diameter), and the other being a smaller region that may be the precursor to such a large bubble (the Precursor Phantom Void). When comparing to matched-resolution Hα observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, we see that the ionized gas is brightest in the shells of both bubbles, and is coincident with the youngest (~1 Myr) and most massive (~10⁵ M _⊙) stellar associations. We also find an older generation (~20 Myr) of stellar associations is present within the bubble of the Phantom Void. From our kinematic analysis of the H I, H₂ (CO), and H II gas across the Phantom Void, we infer a high expansion speed of around 15 to 50 km s^-1. The large size and high expansion speed of the Phantom Void suggest that the driving mechanism is sustained stellar feedback due to multiple mechanisms, where early feedback first cleared a bubble (as we observe now in the Precursor Phantom Void), and since then supernovae have been exploding within the cavity and have accelerated the shell. Finally, comparison to simulations shows a striking resemblance to our JWST observations, and suggests that such large-scale, stellar-feedback-driven bubbles should be common within other galaxies.

We compute the two-loop corrections to the helicity amplitudes for the coupling of a massive vector boson to a massless quark-antiquark pair and a gluon, accounting for vector and axial-vector couplings of the vector boson and distinguishing isospin non-singlet and singlet contributions. A new four-dimensional basis for the decomposition of the amplitudes into 12 invariant tensor structures is introduced. The associated form factors are then computed up to two loops in QCD using dimensional regularization. After performing renormalization and infrared subtraction, the finite parts of the renormalized non-singlet vector and axial-vector form factors are shown agree with each other, and to reproduce the previously known two-loop amplitudes. The singlet axial-vector amplitude receives a contribution from the axial anomaly from two loops onwards. This amplitude is computed for massless and massive internal quarks. Our results provide the last missing two-loop amplitudes entering the NNLO QCD corrections of vector-boson-plus-jet production at hadron colliders.

Shape measurements of galaxies and galaxy clusters are widespread in the analysis of cosmological simulations. But the limitations of those measurements have been poorly investigated. In this Letter, we explain why the quality of the shape measurement does not only depend on the numerical resolution, but also on the density gradient. In particular, this can limit the quality of measurements in the central regions of haloes. We propose a criterion to estimate the sensitivity of the measured shapes based on the density gradient of the halo and to apply it to cosmological simulations of collisionless and self-interacting dark matter. By this, we demonstrate where reliable measurements of the halo shape are possible and how cored density profiles limit their applicability.

Large-scale bars can fuel galaxy centers with molecular gas, often leading to the development of dense ringlike structures where intense star formation occurs, forming a very different environment compared to galactic disks. We pair ~0.″3 (30 pc) resolution new JWST/MIRI imaging with archival ALMA CO(2-1) mapping of the central ~5 kpc of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 to investigate the physical mechanisms responsible for this extreme star formation. The molecular gas morphology is resolved into two well-known bright bar lanes that surround a smooth dynamically cold gas disk (R _gal ~ 475 pc) reminiscent of non-star-forming disks in early-type galaxies and likely fed by gas inflow triggered by stellar feedback in the lanes. The lanes host a large number of JWST-identified massive young star clusters. We find some evidence for temporal star formation evolution along the ring. The complex kinematics in the gas lanes reveal strong streaming motions and may be consistent with convergence of gas streamlines expected there. Indeed, the extreme line widths are found to be the result of inter-"cloud" motion between gas peaks; SCOUSEPY decomposition reveals multiple components with line widths of <σ _CO,scouse> ≈ 19 km s^-1 and surface densities of $\langle \,{{\rm{\Sigma }}}_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2},\mathrm{scouse}}\rangle \,\approx \,800\,{M}_{\odot }\,{\mathrm{pc}}^{-2}$ , similar to the properties observed throughout the rest of the central molecular gas structure. Tailored hydrodynamical simulations exhibit many of the observed properties and imply that the observed structures are transient and highly time-variable. From our study of NGC 1365, we conclude that it is predominantly the high gas inflow triggered by the bar that is setting the star formation in its CMZ.

Much like passive materials, active systems can be affected by the presence of imperfections in their microscopic order, called defects, that influence macroscopic properties. This suggests the possibility to steer collective patterns by introducing and controlling defects in an active system. Here we show that a self-assembled, passive nematic is ideally suited to control the pattern formation process of an active fluid. To this end, we force microtubules to glide inside a passive nematic material made from actin filaments. The actin nematic features self-assembled half-integer defects that steer the active microtubules and lead to the formation of macroscopic polar patterns. Moreover, by confining the nematic in circular geometries, chiral loops form. We find that the exact positioning of nematic defects in the passive material deterministically controls the formation and the polarity of the active flow, opening the possibility of efficiently shaping an active material using passive defects.

In the first paper of this series, we proposed a model-independent framework for characterising the architecture of planetary systems at the system level. There are four classes of planetary system architecture: similar, mixed, anti-ordered, and ordered. In this paper, we investigate the formation pathways leading to these four architecture classes. To understand the role of nature versus nurture in sculpting the final (mass) architecture of a system, we apply our architecture framework to synthetic planetary systems - formed via core-accretion - using the Bern model. General patterns emerge in the formation pathways of the four architecture classes. Almost all planetary systems emerging from protoplanetary disks whose initial solid mass was less than one Jupiter mass are similar. Systems emerging from heavier disks may become mixed, anti-ordered, or ordered. Increasing dynamical interactions (planet-planet, planet-disk) tends to shift a system's architecture from mixed to anti-ordered to ordered. Our model predicts the existence of a new metallicity-architecture correlation. Similar systems have very high occurrence around low-metallicity stars. The occurrence of the anti-ordered and ordered classes increases with increasing metallicity. The occurrence of mixed architecture first increases and then decreases with increasing metallicity. In our synthetic planetary systems, the role of nature is disentangled from the role of nurture. Nature (or initial conditions) pre-determines whether the architecture of a system becomes similar; otherwise nurture influences whether a system becomes mixed, anti-ordered, or ordered. We propose the `Aryabhata formation scenario' to explain some planetary systems which host only water-rich worlds. We finish this paper with a discussion of future observational and theoretical works that may support or refute the results of this paper.

Using a new sample of extremely metal poor systems, the EMPRESS survey has recently reported a primordial helium abundance that is 3 σ smaller than the prediction from the standard big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) scenario. This measurement could be interpreted as a hint for a primordial lepton asymmetry in the electron neutrino flavor. Motivated by the EMPRESS results, we present a comprehensive analysis of the lepton asymmetry using measurements of the abundances of primordial elements, along with cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from Planck. Assuming that there is no dark radiation in our Universe, we find an electron neutrino chemical potential ξ_νe=0.043 ±0.015 , which deviates from zero by 2.9 σ . If no assumption is made on the abundance of dark radiation in the Universe, the chemical potential is ξ_νe=0.046 ±0.021 , which deviates from zero by 2.2 σ . We also find that this result is rather insensitive to the choice of nuclear reaction rates. If the true helium abundance corresponds to the EMPRESS central value, future CMB observations from the Simons Observatory and CMB-S4 will increase the significance for a nonzero lepton asymmetry to 4 σ and 5 σ respectively, assuming no dark radiation, or to 3 σ when no assumption is made on the abundance of dark radiation.

We train graph neural networks on halo catalogs from Gadget N-body simulations to perform field-level likelihood-free inference of cosmological parameters. The catalogs contain ≲5000 halos with masses ≳10¹⁰ h ^-1 M _⊙ in a periodic volume of ${(25\,{h}^{-1}\,\mathrm{Mpc})}^{3}$ ; every halo in the catalog is characterized by several properties such as position, mass, velocity, concentration, and maximum circular velocity. Our models, built to be permutationally, translationally, and rotationally invariant, do not impose a minimum scale on which to extract information and are able to infer the values of Ω_m and σ ₈ with a mean relative error of ~6%, when using positions plus velocities and positions plus masses, respectively. More importantly, we find that our models are very robust: they can infer the value of Ω_m and σ ₈ when tested using halo catalogs from thousands of N-body simulations run with five different N-body codes: Abacus, CUBEP³M, Enzo, PKDGrav3, and Ramses. Surprisingly, the model trained to infer Ω_m also works when tested on thousands of state-of-the-art CAMELS hydrodynamic simulations run with four different codes and subgrid physics implementations. Using halo properties such as concentration and maximum circular velocity allow our models to extract more information, at the expense of breaking the robustness of the models. This may happen because the different N-body codes are not converged on the relevant scales corresponding to these parameters.

Clusters of galaxies are sensitive to the most nonlinear peaks in the cosmic density field. The weak gravitational lensing of background galaxies by clusters can allow us to infer their masses. However, galaxies associated with the local environment of the cluster can also be intrinsically aligned due to the local tidal gradient, contaminating any cosmology derived from the lensing signal. We measure this intrinsic alignment in Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 redMaPPer clusters. We find evidence of a non-zero mean radial alignment of galaxies within clusters between redshift 0.1-0.7. We find a significant systematic in the measured ellipticities of cluster satellite galaxies that we attribute to the central galaxy flux and other intracluster light. We attempt to correct this signal, and fit a simple model for intrinsic alignment amplitude ($A_{\textrm{IA}}$) to the measurement, finding $A_{\textrm{IA}}=0.15\pm 0.04$, when excluding data near the edge of the cluster. We find a significantly stronger alignment of the central galaxy with the cluster dark matter halo at low redshift and with higher richness and central galaxy absolute magnitude (proxies for cluster mass). This is an important demonstration of the ability of large photometric data sets like DES to provide direct constraints on the intrinsic alignment of galaxies within clusters. These measurements can inform improvements to small-scale modeling and simulation of the intrinsic alignment of galaxies to help improve the separation of the intrinsic alignment signal in weak lensing studies.

Many essential building blocks of life, including amino acids, sugars, and nucleosides, require

aldehydes for prebiotic synthesis. Pathways for their formation under early earth conditions

are therefore of great importance. We investigated the formation of aldehydes by an

experimental simulation of primordial early earth conditions, in line with the metal-sulfur

world theory in an acetylene-containing atmosphere. We describe a pH-driven, intrinsically

autoregulatory environment that concentrates acetaldehyde and other higher molecular

weight aldehydes. We demonstrate that acetaldehyde is rapidly formed from acetylene over a

nickel sulfide catalyst in an aqueous solution, followed by sequential reactions progressively

increasing the molecular diversity and complexity of the reaction mixture. Interestingly,

through inherent pH changes, the evolution of this complex matrix leads to auto-stabilization

of de novo synthesized aldehydes and alters the subsequent synthesis of relevant biomo-

lecules rather than yielding uncontrolled polymerization products. Our results emphasize the

impact of progressively generated compounds on the overall reaction conditions and

strengthen the role of acetylene in forming essential building blocks that are fundamental for

the emergence of terrestrial life.

Understanding the sequence-dependent DNA damage formation requires probing a complete pool of sequences over a wide dose range of the damage-causing exposure. We used high throughput sequencing to simultaneously obtain the dose dependence and quantum yields for oligonucleotide damages for all possible 4096 DNA sequences with hexamer length. We exposed the DNA to ultraviolet radiation at 266 nm and doses of up to 500 absorbed photons per base. At the dimer level, our results confirm existing literature values of photodamage, whereas we now quantified the susceptibility of sequence motifs to UV irradiation up to previously inaccessible polymer lengths. This revealed the protective effect of the sequence context in preventing the formation of UV-lesions. For example, the rate to form dipyrimidine lesions is strongly reduced by nearby guanine bases. Our results provide a complete picture of the sensitivity of oligonucleotides to UV irradiation and allow us to predict their abundance in high-UV environments.

We discuss the potential of the multi-tracer technique to improve observational constraints of the local primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) parameter $f_{\rm NL}$ from the galaxy power spectrum. For two galaxy samples $A$ and $B$, we show the constraining power is $\propto |b_1^B b_\phi^A - b_1^A b_\phi^B|$, where $b_1$ and $b_\phi$ are the linear and PNG galaxy bias parameters. This allows for significantly improved constraints compared to the traditional expectation $\propto |b_1^A - b_1^B|$ based on naive universality-like relations where $b_\phi \propto b_1$. Using IllustrisTNG galaxy simulation data, we find that different equal galaxy number splits of the full sample lead to different $|b_1^B b_\phi^A - b_1^A b_\phi^B|$, and thus have different constraining power. Of all of the strategies explored, splitting by $g-r$ color is the most promising, more than doubling the significance of detecting $f_{\rm NL}b_\phi \neq 0$. Importantly, since these are constraints on $f_{\rm NL}b_\phi$ and not $f_{\rm NL}$, they do not require priors on the $b_\phi(b_1)$ relation. For direct constraints on $f_{\rm NL}$, we show that multi-tracer constraints can be significantly more robust than single-tracer to $b_\phi$ misspecifications and uncertainties; this relaxes the precision and accuracy requirements for $b_\phi$ priors. Our results present new opportunities to improve our chances to detect and robustly constrain $f_{\rm NL}$, and strongly motivate galaxy formation simulation campaigns to calibrate the $b_\phi(b_1)$ relation.

We use the BOSS DR12 galaxy power spectrum to constrain compensated isocurvature perturbations (CIP), which are opposite-sign primordial baryon and dark matter perturbations that leave the total matter density unchanged. Long-wavelength CIP $\sigma(\vec{x})$ enter the galaxy density contrast as $\delta_g(\vec{x}) \supset b_\sigma\sigma(\vec{x})$, with $b_\sigma$ the linear CIP galaxy bias parameter. We parameterize the CIP spectra as $P_{\sigma\sigma} = A^2P_{\mathcal{R}\mathcal{R}}$ and $P_{\sigma\mathcal{R}} = \xi\sqrt{P_{\sigma\sigma}P_{\mathcal{R}\mathcal{R}}}$, where $A$ is the CIP amplitude and $\xi$ is the correlation with the curvature perturbations $\mathcal{R}$. We find a significance of detection of $Ab_\sigma \neq 0$ of $1.8\sigma$ for correlated ($\xi = 1$) and $3.7\sigma$ for uncorrelated ($\xi = 0$) CIP. Large-scale data systematics have a bigger impact for uncorrelated CIP, which may explain the large significance of detection. The constraints on $A$ depend on the assumed priors for the $b_\sigma$ parameter, which we estimate using separate universe simulations. Assuming $b_\sigma$ values representative of all halos we find $\sigma_A = 145$ for correlated CIP and $\sigma_{|A|} = 475$ for uncorrelated CIP. Our strongest uncorrelated CIP constraint is for $b_\sigma$ representative of the $33\%$ most concentrated halos, $\sigma_{|A|} = 197$, which is better than the current CMB bounds $|A| \lesssim 360$. We also discuss the impact of the local primordial non-Gaussianity parameter $f_{\rm NL}$ in CIP constraints. Our results demonstrate the power of galaxy data to place tight constraints on CIP, and motivate works to understand better the impact of data systematics, as well as to determine theory priors for $b_\sigma$.

Context. To assume hydrostatic equilibrium between the intracluster medium and the gravitational potential of galaxy clusters is an extensively used method to investigate their total masses.
Aims: We want to test hydrostatic masses obtained with an observational code in the context of the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma/eROSITA survey.
Methods: We used the hydrostatic modeling code MBProj2 to fit surface-brightness profiles to simulated clusters with idealized properties as well as to a sample of 93 clusters taken from the Magneticum Pathfinder simulations. We investigated the latter under the assumption of idealized observational conditions and also for realistic eROSITA data quality. The comparison of the fitted cumulative total mass profiles and the true mass profiles provided by the simulations allows us to gain knowledge both about the validity of hydrostatic equilibrium in each cluster and the reliability of our approach. Furthermore, we used the true profiles for gas density and pressure to compute hydrostatic mass profiles based on theory for every cluster.
Results: For an idealized cluster that was simulated to fulfill perfect hydrostatic equilibrium, we find that the cumulative total mass at the true r₅₀₀ and r₂₀₀ can be reproduced with deviations of less than 7%. For the clusters from the Magneticum Pathfinder simulations under idealized observational conditions, the median values of the fitted cumulative total masses at the true r₅₀₀ and r₂₀₀ are in agreement with our expectations, taking into account the hydrostatic mass bias. Nevertheless, we find a tendency towards steeper cumulative total mass profiles in the outskirts than expected. For realistic eROSITA data quality, this steepness problem intensifies for clusters with high redshifts and leads to excessive cumulative total masses at r₂₀₀. For the hydrostatic masses based on the true profiles known from the simulations, we find good agreement with our expectations concerning the hydrostatic mass.

Comparing Galactic chemical evolution models to the observed elemental abundances in the Milky Way, we show that neutron star mergers can be a leading r-process site only if at low metallicities such mergers have very short delay times and significant ejecta masses that are facilitated by the masses of the compact objects. Namely, black hole-neutron star mergers, depending on the black hole spins, can play an important role in the early chemical enrichment of the Milky Way. We also show that none of the binary population synthesis models used in this Letter, i.e., COMPAS, StarTrack, Brussels, ComBinE, and BPASS, can currently reproduce the elemental abundance observations. The predictions are problematic not only for neutron star mergers, but also for Type Ia supernovae, which may point to shortcomings in binary evolution models.

Context. While it is generally assumed that Class II sources evolve largely in isolation from their environment, many still lie close to molecular clouds and may continue to interact with them. This may result in late accretion of material onto the disk that can significantly influence disk processes and planet formation.
Aims: In order to systematically study late infall of gas onto disks, we identify candidate Class II sources in close vicinity to a reflection nebula (RN) that may be undergoing this process.
Methods: First we targeted Class II sources with known kilo-au scale gas structures - possibly due to late infall of material - and we searched for RNe in their vicinity in optical and near-infrared images. Second, we compiled a catalogue of Class II sources associated with RNe and looked for the large-scale CO structures in archival ALMA data. Using the catalogues of protostars and RNe, we also estimated the probability of Class II sources interacting with surrounding material.
Results: All of the sources with large-scale gas structures also exhibit some reflection nebulosity in their vicinity. Similarly, at least five Class II objects associated with a prominent RNe, and for which adequate ALMA observations are available, were found to have spirals or stream-like structures which may be due to late infall. We report the first detection of these structures around S CrA.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that a non-negligible fraction of Class II disks in nearby star-forming regions may be associated with RNe and could therefore be undergoing late accretion of gas. Surveys of RNe and kilo-au scale gas structures around Class II sources will allow us to better understand the frequency and impact of late-infall phenomena.

This work presents the results from extending the long-term monitoring program of stellar motions within the Galactic Center to include stars with separations of 2-7 arcsec from the compact radio source, Sgr A*. In comparison to the well studied inner 2 arcsec, a longer baseline in time is required to study these stars. With 17 years of data, a sufficient number of positions along the orbits of these outer stars can now be measured. This was achieved by designing a source finder to track the positions of ∼2000 stars in NACO/VLT adaptive-optics-assisted images of the Galactic Center from 2002 to 2019. Of the studied stars, 54 exhibit significant accelerations toward Sgr A*, most of which have separations of between 2 and 3 arcsec from the black hole. A further 20 of these stars have measurable radial velocities from SINFONI/VLT stellar spectra, which allows for the calculation of the orbital elements for these stars, thus increasing the number of known orbits in the Galactic Center by ∼40%. With orbits, we can consider which structural features within the Galactic Center nuclear star cluster these stars belong to. Most of the stars have orbital solutions that are consistent with the known clockwise rotating disk feature. Further, by employing Monte Carlo sampling for stars without radial velocity measurements, we show that many stars have a subset of possible orbits that are consistent with one of the known disk features within the Galactic Center.

We analyse $Z^\prime$ contributions to FCNC processes at the one-loop level. In analogy to the CKM matrix we introduce two $3\times3$ unitary matrices $\hat\Delta_d(Z^\prime)$ and $\hat\Delta_u(Z^\prime)$ which are also hermitian. They govern the flavour interactions mediated by $Z^\prime$ between down-quarks and up-quarks, respectively, with $\hat\Delta_d(Z^\prime)=\hat\Delta_u(Z^\prime)\equiv \hat\Delta_L(Z^\prime)$ for left-handed currents due to the unbroken $\text{SU(2)}_L$ gauge symmetry. This assures the suppression of these contributions to all $Z^\prime$ mediated FCNC processes at the one-loop level. As, in contrast to the GIM mechanism, one-loop $Z^\prime$ contributions to flavour observables in $K$ and $B_{s,d}$ systems are governed by down-quark masses, they are ${\cal O}(m^2_b/M^2_{Z^\prime})$ and negligible. With the ${\cal O}(m^2_t/M^2_{Z^\prime})$ suppression they are likely negligible also in the $D$ system. We present an explicit parametrization of $\hat\Delta_L(Z^\prime)$ in terms of two mixing angles and two complex phases that distinguishes it profoundly from the CKM matrix. This framework can be generalized to purely leptonic decays with matrices analogous to the PMNS matrix but profoundly different from it. Interestingly, the breakdown of flavour universality between the first two generations and the third one, both for quark and lepton couplings to $Z^\prime$, is identified as a consequence of $\hat\Delta_L(Z^\prime)$ being hermitian. The importance of the unitarity for both $\hat\Delta_L(Z^\prime)$ and the CKM matrix in the light of the Cabibbo anomaly is emphasized.

The Euclid space telescope will survey a large dataset of cosmic voids traced by dense samples of galaxies. In this work we estimate its expected performance when exploiting angular photometric void clustering, galaxy weak lensing, and their cross-correlation. To this aim, we implemented a Fisher matrix approach tailored for voids from the Euclid photometric dataset and we present the first forecasts on cosmological parameters that include the void-lensing correlation. We examined two different probe settings, pessimistic and optimistic, both for void clustering and galaxy lensing. We carried out forecast analyses in four model cosmologies, accounting for a varying total neutrino mass, M_ν, and a dynamical dark energy (DE) equation of state, w(z), described by the popular Chevallier-Polarski-Linder parametrization. We find that void clustering constraints on h and Ω_b are competitive with galaxy lensing alone, while errors on n_s decrease thanks to the orthogonality of the two probes in the 2D-projected parameter space. We also note that, as a whole, with respect to assuming the two probes as independent, the inclusion of the void-lensing cross-correlation signal improves parameter constraints by 10 − 15%, and enhances the joint void clustering and galaxy lensing figure of merit (FoM) by 10% and 25%, in the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios, respectively. Finally, when further combining with the spectroscopic galaxy clustering, assumed as an independent probe, we find that, in the most competitive case, the FoM increases by a factor of 4 with respect to the combination of weak lensing and spectroscopic galaxy clustering taken as independent probes. The forecasts presented in this work show that photometric void clustering and its cross-correlation with galaxy lensing deserve to be exploited in the data analysis of the Euclid galaxy survey and promise to improve its constraining power, especially on h, Ω_b, the neutrino mass, and the DE evolution.

This paper is published on behalf of the Euclid Consortium.

We discuss the gravitational wave spectrum produced by first-order phase transitions seeded by domain wall networks. This setup is important for many two-step phase transitions as seen for example in the singlet extension of the standard model. Whenever the correlation length of the domain wall network is larger than the typical bubble size, this setup leads to a gravitational wave signal that is shifted to lower frequencies and with an enhanced amplitude compared to homogeneous phase transitions without domain walls. We discuss our results in light of the recent PTA hints for gravitational waves.

$Z^\prime$ models belong to the ones that can most easily explain the anomalies in $b\to s \mu^+\mu^-$ transitions. However, such an explanation by a single $Z^\prime$ gauge boson, as done in the literature, is severly constrained by the $B^0_s-\bar B_s^0$ mixing. Also the recent finding, hat the mass differences $\Delta M_s$, $\Delta M_d$, the CP-violating parameter $\varepsilon_K$, and the mixing induced CP-asymmetries $S_{\psi K_S}$ and $S_{\psi \phi}$ can be simultaneously well described within the SM without new physics (NP) contributions, is a challenge for $Z^\prime$ models with a single $Z^\prime$ contributing at tree-level to quark mixing. We point out that including a second $Z^\prime$ in the model allows to eliminate simultaneously tree-level contributions to the five $\Delta F=2$ observables used in the determination of the CKM parameters while leaving the room for NP in $\Delta M_K$ and $\Delta M_D$. The latter one can be removed at the price of infecting $\Delta M_s$ or $\Delta M_d$ by NP which is presently disfavoured. This pattern is transparently seen using the new mixing matrix for $Z^\prime$ interactions with quarks. This strategy allows significant tree-level contributions to $K$, $B_s$ and $B_d$ decays thereby allowing to explain the existing anomalies in $b\to s\mu^+\mu^-$ transitions and the anticipated anomaly in the ratio $\varepsilon'/\varepsilon$ much easier than in $Z^\prime$-Single scenarios. The proposed $Z^\prime$-Tandem mechanism bears some similarities to the GIM mechanism for the suppression of the FCNCs in the SM with the role of the charm quark played here by the second $Z^\prime$. However, it differs from the latter profoundly in that only NP contributions to quark mixing are eliminated at tree-level. We discuss briefly the implied flavour patterns in $K$ and $B$ decay observables in this NP scenario.

Context. The BL Lac object 1ES 0647+250 is one of the few distant γ-ray emitting blazars detected at very high energies (VHEs; ≳100 GeV) during a non-flaring state. It was detected with the MAGIC telescopes during a period of low activity in the years 2009−2011 as well as during three flaring activities in the years 2014, 2019, and 2020, with the highest VHE flux in the last epoch. An extensive multi-instrument data set was collected as part of several coordinated observing campaigns over these years.
Aims: We aim to characterise the long-term multi-band flux variability of 1ES 0647+250, as well as its broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) during four distinct activity states selected in four different epochs, in order to constrain the physical parameters of the blazar emission region under certain assumptions.
Methods: We evaluated the variability and correlation of the emission in the different energy bands with the fractional variability and the Z-transformed discrete correlation function, as well as its spectral evolution in X-rays and γ rays. Owing to the controversy in the redshift measurements of 1ES 0647+250 reported in the literature, we also estimated its distance in an indirect manner through a comparison of the GeV and TeV spectra from simultaneous observations with Fermi-LAT and MAGIC during the strongest flaring activity detected to date. Moreover, we interpret the SEDs from the four distinct activity states within the framework of one-component and two-component leptonic models, proposing specific scenarios that are able to reproduce the available multi-instrument data.
Results: We find significant long-term variability, especially in X-rays and VHE γ rays. Furthermore, significant (3−4σ) correlations were found between the radio, optical, and high-energy (HE) γ-ray fluxes, with the radio emission delayed by about ∼400 days with respect to the optical and γ-ray bands. The spectral analysis reveals a harder-when-brighter trend during the non-flaring state in the X-ray domain. However, no clear patterns were observed for either the enhanced states or the HE (30 MeV < E < 100 GeV) and VHE γ-ray emission of the source. The indirect estimation of the redshift yielded a value of z = 0.45 ± 0.05, which is compatible with some of the values reported in the literature. The SEDs related to the low-activity state and the three flaring states of 1ES 0647+250 can be described reasonably well with the both one-component and two-component leptonic scenarios. However, the long-term correlations indicate the need for an additional radio-producing region located about 3.6 pc downstream from the gamma-ray producing region.

The nucleosynthetic isotope dichotomy between carbonaceous (CC) and non-carbonaceous (NC) meteorites has been interpreted as evidence for spatial separation and the coexistence of two distinct planet-forming reservoirs for several million years in the solar protoplanetary disk. The rapid formation of Jupiter's core within one million years after the formation of calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) has been suggested as a potential mechanism for spatial and temporal separation. In this scenario, Jupiter's core would open a gap in the disk and trap inward-drifting dust grains in the pressure bump at the outer edge of the gap, separating the inner and outer disk materials from each other. We performed simulations of dust particles in a protoplanetary disk with a gap opened by an early-formed Jupiter core, including dust growth and fragmentation as well as dust transport, using the dust evolution software DustPy. Our numerical experiments indicate that particles trapped in the outer edge of the gap rapidly fragment and are transported through the gap, contaminating the inner disk with outer disk material on a timescale that is inconsistent with the meteoritic record. This suggests that other processes must have initiated or at least contributed to the isotopic separation between the inner and outer Solar System.

Context: Type II supernovae provide a direct way to estimate distances through the expanding photosphere method, which is independent of the cosmic distance ladder. A recently introduced Gaussian process-based method allows for a fast and precise modelling of spectral time series, which puts accurate and computationally cheap Type II-based absolute distance determinations within reach. Aims: The goal of the paper is to assess the internal consistency of this new modelling technique coupled with the distance estimation empirically, using the spectral time series of supernova siblings, i.e. supernovae that exploded in the same host galaxy. Methods: We use a recently developed spectral emulator code, which is trained on \textsc{Tardis} radiative transfer models and is capable of a fast maximum likelihood parameter estimation and spectral fitting. After calculating the relevant physical parameters of supernovae we apply the expanding photosphere method to estimate their distances. Finally, we test 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\%. Conclusions: Even though the literature data we used was not tailored for 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.

Low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN) are special among their kind due to the profound structural changes that the central engine experiences at low accretion rates (≲ 10⁻³ in Eddington units). The disappearance of the accretion disc - the blue bump - leaves behind a faint optical nuclear continuum whose nature has been largely debated. This is mainly due to serious limitations on the observational side imposed by the starlight contamination from the host galaxy and the absorption by hydrogen, preventing the detection of these weak nuclei in the infrared (IR) to ultraviolet (UV) range. We addressed these challenges by combining multi-wavelength sub-arcsecond resolution observations - able to isolate the genuine nuclear continuum - with nebular lines in the mid-IR, which allowed us to indirectly probe the shape of the extreme UV continuum. We found that eight of the nearest prototype LLAGN are compatible with pure compact jet emission over more than ten orders of magnitude in frequency. This consists of self-absorbed synchrotron emission from radio to the UV plus the associated synchrotron self-Compton component dominating the emission in the UV to X-ray range. Additionally, the LLAGN continua show two particular characteristics when compared with the typical jet spectrum seen in radio galaxies: (i) a very steep spectral slope in the IR-to-optical/UV range (−3.7 < α₀ < −1.3; F_ν ∝ ν^α₀); and (ii) a very high turnover frequency (0.2-30 THz; 1.3 mm-10 μm) that separates the optically thick radio emission from the optically thin continuum in the IR-to-optical/UV range. These attributes can be explained if the synchrotron continuum is mainly dominated by thermalised particles at the jet base or the corona with considerably high temperatures, whereas only a small fraction of the energy (∼20%) would be distributed along the high-energy power-law tail of accelerated particles. On the other hand, the nebular gas excitation in LLAGN is in agreement with photo-ionisation from inverse Compton radiation (α_x ∼ −0.7), which would dominate the nuclear continuum shortwards of ∼3000 Å, albeit a possible contribution from low-velocity shocks (< 500 km s⁻¹) to the line excitation cannot be discarded. No sign of a standard hot accretion disc is seen in our sample of LLAGN, nevertheless, a weak cold disc (< 3000 K) is detected at the nucleus of the Sombrero galaxy, though its contribution to the nebular gas excitation is negligible. Our results suggest that the continuum emission in LLAGN is dominated at all wavelengths by undeveloped jets, powered by a thermalised particle distribution with high energies, on average. This is in agreement with their compact morphology and their high turnover frequencies. This behaviour is similar to that observed in peaked-spectrum radio sources and also compact jets in quiescent black hole X-ray binaries. Nevertheless, the presence of extended jet emission at kiloparsec scales for some of the objects in the sample is indicative of past jet activity, suggesting that these nuclei may undergo a rejuvenation event after a more active phase that produced their extended jets. These results imply that the dominant channel for energy release in LLAGN is mainly kinetic via the jet, rather than the radiative one. This has important implications in the context of galaxy evolution, since LLAGN probably represent a major but underestimated source of kinetic feedback in galaxies.

The flux distribution of the nine LLAGN in the sample 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/670/A22

In this work we derive constraints on interacting dark matter-dark radiation models from a full-shape analysis of BOSS-DR12 galaxy clustering data, combined with Planck legacy cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements. We consider a set of models parameterized within the effective theory of structure formation (ETHOS), quantifying the lifting of the $S_8$ tension in view of KiDS weak-lensing results. The most favorable scenarios point to a fraction $f\sim 10-100\%$ of interacting dark matter as well as a dark radiation temperature that is smaller by a factor $\xi\sim 0.1-0.15$ compared to the CMB, leading to a reduction of the tension to the $\sim 1\sigma$ level. The temperature dependence of the interaction rate favored by relaxing the $S_8$ tension is realized for a weakly coupled unbroken non-Abelian $SU(N)$ gauge interaction in the dark sector. To map our results onto this $SU(N)$ model, we compute higher-order corrections due to Debye screening. We find a lower bound $\alpha_d\equiv g_d^2/(4\pi)\gtrsim 10^{-8} (10^{-9})$ for dark matter mass $1000 (1)$ GeV for relaxing the $S_8$ tension, consistent with upper bounds from galaxy ellipticities and compatible with self-interactions relevant for small-scale structure formation.

Resistive strip Micromegas (MICRO-MEsh GAseous Structure) detectors provide even at square meter sizes a high spatial resolution for the reconstruction of Minimum Ionizing Particles (MIPs) like muons. Micromegas detectors consist of three parallel planar structures. A cathode, a grounded mesh and a segmented anode structure form the detector. Square meter sizes challenge the high-voltage stability during operation, especially when using the frequently used gas mixture of Ar:CO₂ (93:7 vol%) with low quencher content. To improve the HV-stability and to enhance the discharge quenching different gas mixtures have been investigated. A very promising one has an 2% admixture of isobutane forming the ternary gas Ar:CO₂:iC₄H₁₀ (93:5:2 vol%). Long term irradiation studies investigating both gas mixtures interrupted by cosmic muon tracking efficiency measurements have been performed by irradiation with neutrons and gammas from a 10 GBq Am-Be source for a period of two years. The comparison shows gain increase under Ar:CO₂:iC₄H₁₀ and a considerably improved HV-stable operation of the detector. It is investigated for any performance deterioration for each of the two gas mixtures with focus on pulse-height and changes of efficiency.

MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) is an alternative to the standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) paradigm which proposes an alteration of Newton's laws of motion at low accelerations, characterized by a universal acceleration scale a₀. It attempts to explain observations of galactic rotation curves and predicts a specific scaling relation of the baryonic and total acceleration in galaxies, referred to as the Rotational Acceleration Relation (RAR), which can be equivalently formulated as a Mass Discrepancy Acceleration Relation (MDAR). The appearance of these relations in observational data such as SPARC has lead to investigations into the existence of similar relations in cosmological simulations using the standard ΛCDM model. Here, we report the existence of an RAR and MDAR similar to that predicted by MOND in ΛCDM using a large sample of galaxies extracted from a cosmological, hydrodynamical simulation (Magneticum). Furthermore, by using galaxies in Magneticum at different redshifts, a prediction for the evolution of the inferred acceleration parameter a₀ with cosmic time is derived by fitting a MOND force law to these galaxies. In Magneticum, the best fit for a₀ is found to increase by a factor ≃3 from redshift z = 0 to z = 2.3. This offers a powerful test from cosmological simulations to distinguish between MOND and ΛCDM observationally.

The CRESST experiment employs cryogenic calorimeters for the sensitive measurement of nuclear recoils induced by dark matter particles. The recorded signals need to undergo a careful cleaning process to avoid wrongly reconstructed recoil energies caused by pile-up and read-out artefacts. We frame this process as a time series classification task and propose to automate it with neural networks. With a data set of over one million labeled records from 68 detectors, recorded between 2013 and 2019 by CRESST, we test the capability of four commonly used neural network architectures to learn the data cleaning task. Our best performing model achieves a balanced accuracy of 0.932 on our test set. We show on an exemplary detector that about half of the wrongly predicted events are in fact wrongly labeled events, and a large share of the remaining ones have a context-dependent ground truth. We furthermore evaluate the recall and selectivity of our classifiers with simulated data. The results confirm that the trained classifiers are well suited for the data cleaning task.

We present a detailed overview of the science goals and predictions for the Prime-Cam direct-detection camera-spectrometer being constructed by the CCAT-prime collaboration for dedicated use on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST). The FYST is a wide-field, 6 m aperture submillimeter telescope being built (first light in late 2023) by an international consortium of institutions led by Cornell University and sited at more than 5600 m on Cerro Chajnantor in northern Chile. Prime-Cam is one of two instruments planned for FYST and will provide unprecedented spectroscopic and broadband measurement capabilities to address important astrophysical questions ranging from Big Bang cosmology through reionization and the formation of the first galaxies to star formation within our own Milky Way. Prime-Cam on the FYST will have a mapping speed that is over 10 times greater than existing and near-term facilities for high-redshift science and broadband polarimetric imaging at frequencies above 300 GHz. We describe details of the science program enabled by this system and our preliminary survey strategies.