高能暂现源 · 每日文献综述

We describe ongoing efforts of high-redshift transient searches using multi-epoch NIRCam imaging (F200W+F444W) and NIRSpec MSA/PRISM spectroscopy from the NEXUS JWST multi-cycle Treasury program targeting the north ecliptic pole region. The transient search area covers $\sim 61.5\,{\rm arcmin^2}$ between the reference epoch and each subsequent NEXUS-Deep epoch at a cadence of $\sim2$~months. In the first year of observations from NEXUS, we detect 68 robust transients, with the host photometric redshift distribution declining rapidly at $z>2$ but extending to $z_{\rm phot}\approx 6$. In addition, we obtained secure spectroscopic redshifts for 37 transients ($\sim54\%$) from NIRSpec/PRISM and NIRCam/WFSS, with seventeen at $1 < z < 2$, eight at $2 < z < 3$, two at $3 < z < 4$, and one tentative host association at z = 6.151. Overall, the NEXUS program recovers observed supernova (SN) rates broadly consistent with other SN search programs with JWST. While NEXUS achieves the highest transient detection efficiency, 6.6 SNe per imaging hr ($2.6\times$ COSMOS-SN and $26\times$ JADES-SN), the limited filter coverage (F200W+F444W only) limits robust identification and classification of high-$z$ SNe for deep spectroscopic follow-up. We describe the details of the data reduction and transient detection pipeline, and report the Year-1 transient sample along with their light curves, available MSA spectroscopy, host association, and the raw detection rate. We also describe and release a new PSF photometry package that properly accounts for correlated pixel noise from combining drizzled images.

The First LHAASO Catalogue lists 90 sources of very-high-energy gamma-ray emission, many without an established counterpart at other frequencies, reopening the question of which Galactic accelerators produce the highest-energy cosmic rays. We search for low-frequency radio counterparts to the 55 1LHAASO sources that fall within the Galactic fields of the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey Data Release Three (LoTSS-DR3), using 144~MHz continuum maps at $6''$ and $20''$ resolution, complemented with archival data from other radio surveys where available. We present an overview of the radio emission towards all 55 sources, and identify the structures potentially associated with the gamma-ray emission. We report 24 new supernova remnant (SNR) candidates, nine flat-spectrum radio shells with faint or no infrared counterpart, and six sources with no clear Galactic radio emission present in the LOFAR maps. A bootstrap analysis shows that 23 of the 50 sources in the Galactic plane footprint (46\%, for $|b| \leq 5$) overlap a catalogued SNR, whereas random placement yields only $10.0\pm2.8$ matches even if the underlying Galactic SNR population is ten times larger than currently catalogued; in the outer Galaxy, where chance alignment is rarest, 4 of 12 sources coincide with an SNR against a null expectation of $\lesssim2$. We estimate that at least a quarter, and up to half, of the 1LHAASO Galactic-plane sources genuinely reside in SNR environments, consistent with a population dominated by pulsar wind nebulae, SNR--PWN composites, and cosmic-ray-illuminated clouds. Individual results include a new SNR candidate inside the TeV shell HESS~J1912+101, a radio candidate for the SNR hypothesised to explain the GeV emission of 1LHAASO~J1945+2424, and the first proposed counterparts of 1LHAASO~JJ0056+6343u and 1LHAASO~J2200+5643u.

Relativistic flows are common in astrophysics and often form shocks when different parts of the flow collide at relativistic relative velocities. Such collisions are often oblique, forming two shocks whose shocked fluids are separated by a contact discontinuity, which is treated here as an ideal reflecting ``wall'' where the flow on either side is modeled separately. The latter is modeled in the lab frame $S$ as a uniform cold planar shell propagating into vacuum at velocity $v_1=β_1c$ normal to its vacuum interface, colliding with the wall at an incidence angle $α_1$. The collision point $P$ moves along the wall at a velocity $v_p=v_{1}/\sinα_1$, and a boost along the wall at $v_p$ leads to a steady-state frame $S'$ where this problem is highly simplified. However, a ``super-luminal'' regime exists where $v_p>c\Leftrightarrow\tanα_1<Γ_{1}β_{1}=(1-β_{1}^2)^{-1/2}β_1$ and no steady-state frame $S'$ exists. It corresponds to only very small $α_1$ in the Newtonian regime, but nearly all $α_1$ in the relativistic regime. We solve this problem \textit{\textbf{fully analytically}} using integral conservation laws, in the attachmrnt region where point $P$ is attached to the wall. This region of parameter space is bound at high $α_1$ by the detachment line, which coincides with the sonic line for a cold initial shell. A weak-shock solution exist in all this region, while a strong-shock solution exists only in the sub-luminal attachment region -- between the luminal line and the detachment/sonic line where the two solutions coincide and beyond which point $P$ detaches from the wall and shocked fluid spills into the vacuum.

We present a systematic search for intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at $0.5 < z \lesssim 1$ using DESI DR1 spectroscopy.We identify 98 broad-line IMBH AGNs with black hole masses $M_\mathrm{BH}<10^6$ $M_{\odot}$ through quantitative spectral decomposition and broad-H$β$ selection. This sample spans $M_\mathrm{BH}=10^{5.5}-10^{6.0}$ $M_{\odot}$ and Eddington ratios from 1.2 to 9.0 extending systematic IMBH AGN searches to intermediate redshift. Compared with a consistently selected $z<0.6$ IMBH sample, the $0.5<z<1$ sources reach higher broad-H$β$ luminosities and substantially higher Eddington ratios, indicating more extreme accretion states at earlier cosmic times. They also show broader [O III] profiles and stronger blueshifted wing components, with these kinematic differences persisting after matching in black hole mass and Eddington ratio. These results reveal two distinct signatures of evolution among IMBH AGNs at $z<1$: ability of IMBHs to reach increasingly extreme accretion states toward higher redshift, and systematic changes in their ionized-gas kinematics. The former demonstrates that rapid, including super-Eddington, growth of IMBHs can persist to relatively late cosmic times, while the latter may indicate evolution in the ionized-gas environment and associated outflow activity of actively growing IMBHs. Together, these findings provide new constraints on the evolutionary pathways of IMBHs at $z<1$, and show that seed-mass black holes can continue to undergo rapid growth well after the cosmic dawn.

In this work, we study the polar perturbations of static, spherically symmetric neutron stars with anisotropic pressure in full general relativity, including linear-order perturbations of both the metric and the fluid. We calculate the $f$-mode frequencies and the corresponding damping times using a consistent treatment of the perturbation of the radial vector $k^α$. In particular, its Lagrangian perturbation $Δk^α$ is determined by the metric perturbations and the fluid Lagrangian displacement and is constrained to the $(\tilde{u},\tilde{k})$ plane, where $\tilde{u}^α$ is the normalized fluid four-velocity. This constraint introduces an additional dynamical degree of freedom into the perturbation equations. Considering three equations of state and the Horvat and Bowers-Liang prescriptions for pressure anisotropy, we find that the $f$-mode frequency increases with stellar mass, ranging from $1$ to $3$~kHz, while the damping time decreases, ranging from $0.5$ to $1.25$~s. Increasing anisotropy, in the sense of tangential pressure exceeding radial pressure, generally lowers the oscillation frequency, while its effect on the damping time depends on the anisotropy prescription: the damping time decreases with increasing anisotropy for the Horvat model but increases with increasing anisotropy for the Bowers-Liang model. We further find quasi-universal relations between the real and imaginary parts of the $f$-mode frequency, $Mω_R$ and $Mω_I$, and the stellar compactness $\mathcal{C}=M/R$, which are largely insensitive to the equation of state. Polynomial fits to these relations achieve an accuracy better than $10\%$, providing a simple phenomenological framework for constraining neutron-star pressure anisotropy through future asteroseismology observations.

The extragalactic background light (EBL), ranging from the infrared to the ultraviolet bands, is the second most intense photon field in the universe, surpassed only by the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It is primarily generated by starlight in galaxies, either directly or through absorption by dust and re-emission at longer wavelengths. Very high energy (VHE, $E$ > $100\,$GeV) photons can be absorbed via $γγ$ interactions with the EBL during their propagation across cosmological distances, providing an indirect method to probe the EBL by studying its impact on the energy spectra of distant VHE sources. This paper examines the robustness of EBL constraints derived from gamma-ray data, critically assessing the assumptions made in previous studies about the intrinsic source spectra, the uncertainties of the observations and the validity of the analysis tools. We find that earlier studies likely underestimated the uncertainties in the EBL intensity constraints, underscoring the need to account for systematic uncertainties comprehensively. By employing a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and a plausible model for unknown systematic errors, we compute more realistic uncertainties. Additionally, we discuss possible alternatives to set EBL constraints, relaxing the assumptions on the intrinsic spectra of gamma-ray sources, with the goal of achieving more robust constraints.

Neutron stars are among the densest objects in the universe, and the mass measurements are crucial to the understanding of their equation of state. Pulsars in tight binaries can be weighed dynamically, but accurate mass estimates are often hampered by uncertainties in orbital inclinations. In this paper, we report on multi-epoch optical monitoring of the pulsar binary, PSR J1048+2339, using the 0.5-m RIFT telescope at Lulin Observatory. Our observations reveal frequent optical flares with eclipses caused by the companion. Using the eclipse duration with archival photometric data and orbital ephemeris in the literature, we constrain the inclination to 78.0+/-1.0 degrees and the pulsar mass to 1.79 (+0.09, -0.08) solar masses. This measurement is among the most precise for any redback system to date, demonstrating a novel way to improve the pulsar mass measures with small aperture optical telescopes. Furthermore, the optical eclipse duration is significantly shorter than that measured in M/GeV gamma-rays, possibly suggesting that a fraction of the eclipsed gamma-ray emission originates from the apex of the intrabinary shock. Based on these constraints, we estimate the magnetic field strength of the companion to be 30-170 G. This is consistent with the high field strength implied by the X-ray orbital modulation observed.

In a companion paper, we demonstrated that static axion field gradients sourced by dense nuclear matter (\emph{axion hair}) can dominate the near-field electrodynamics of old rotation-powered pulsars, leading to new constraints on light QCD axions and on CP-violating axion-nucleon interactions. This article provides the extended theoretical and numerical framework underlying those results. We begin by providing a detailed description of the sourcing of axion hair from dense nuclear matter, computing self-consistent field profiles for each interaction across the relevant parameter space. We then study the modification to the electrodynamics induced in the polar gap region by these axion gradients; this is done at the analytic level by studying the modification induced by axion field gradients on the effective discharge parameter (computed in the force-free limit of the split monopole magnetic field configuration, and looking at leading deviations from the force-free limit for dipolar field configurations), and numerically by developing dedicated 1D particle-in-cell simulations which capture the leading order dynamical behavior near the star. Our results demonstrate that axion hair serves to either enhance acceleration, or enhance screening, where the relevant effect changes between the northern and southern hemispheres of the star, and between the field lines which support out-flowing and return currents.

Ultra-fast outflows (UFOs) from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are winds which reach velocities up to 0.3c, and show mass outflow rates of 0.01-1 $M_{\odot} yr^{-1}$ and kinetic energies of $10^{42-45}$ erg/s. Their extreme properties allow UFOs to carry substantial kinetic power, sufficient to drive AGN feedback by injecting energy and momentum into the interstellar medium, regulating the host galaxy evolution and the supermassive black hole growth. In this work, we present a detailed analysis of XMM-Newton X-ray spectra of the low-luminosity quasar Mrk205. We find evidence of multi-component ultra-fast outflows, traced by two components detected in the high-resolution data, showing velocities in the range of $\sim$0.07c to $\sim$0.1c. In addition, we marginally detected an ultra-fast outflow feature in the Fe K band. According to our analysis, Mrk 205 shows episodes of wind launches, rather than persistent winds. We further discuss whether the energy carried by the UFOs in Mrk 205 is capable of producing significant feedback on its host galaxy.

Thanks to the almost 400 gravitational wave events detected, we are currently able to grasp the fundamental features of black hole mass, spin, and distance distributions. However, such a fast increase in the precision of the measurements does not necessarily correspond to a better theoretical understanding of gravitational wave sources, especially in current scenarios where the number of free parameters is significantly larger than the number of inferred properties of the black hole population. In this work, we showcase how the landscape of theoretical models can be chipped away by complementary data-analysis strategies, in particular by studying the statistical properties of gravitational wave anisotropic distribution. Specifically, we show how gravitational wave clustering is sensitive to two unique features of each binary formation mechanism: the time-delay distribution and the properties of the binary hosts. First, we consider a model-agnostic scenario and show the impact that different time-delay distributions have on the gravitational wave bias. Then, we consider a realistic scenario where gravitational wave events are sourced either by isolated binary evolution or dynamical processes in globular clusters, and study how the gravitational wave bias is unique sensitive to the specific properties of the environment. In both scenarios, we show how the cross-correlation between galaxy and gravitational wave catalogs is able to distinguish between models with different time delays or with different binary sub-populations originated in specific formation channels.

We report on the discovery of a nulling pulsar, PSR J0052$-$7551, in archival MeerKAT L-band observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The discovery was made using the image-plane transient detection pipeline, TRON, which creates a residual image for each time sample and uses a heuristic pruning strategy to identify promising candidates in the resulting temporal image cube. The TRON pipeline triggered on the approximately minute timescale variability associated with the nulling behaviour of a canonical pulsar. Follow-up MeerKAT UHF-band beamformer observations revealed a pulsar with a spin period of 0.55 s and a measured period derivative of 6.1(6)$\times$10$^{-17}$s$\cdot$s$^{-1}$. The source is seen in projection toward the periphery of the SMC, and has a dispersion measure value of 29.24(2) pc$\cdot$cm$^{-3}$, which is on the order of the expected Milky Way contribution along the line of sight. We use a Gaussian Mixture Model to fit the nulling behaviour which yielded a nulling fraction of $\sim 32$%. We find that the null lengths are consistent with an exponential distribution indicating a stochastic process. Additionally, power spectra of the UHF visibility data reveal an unexplained quasi-periodic feature at ~5$-$7 s that cannot be attributed to the source itself, RFI, or standard instrumental effects. Following on from previous image-plane detections of pulsars by the TRON approach, which relied on either scintillation or eclipsing behaviour, this is the first detection triggered by nulling. This discovery confirms TRON's sensitivity to a wide range of astrophysical phenomena of medium timescale duration.

Evidence of a gravitational wave background suggests the existence of a population of sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), with characteristic angular separations on the order of 1-10 $μ$as. Spaceborne extensions of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and the next generation ground arrays introduce the possibility of directly imaging these SMBHBs. In this work, a binary Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) model is used to predict the detectability of SMBHBs with ground and spaceborne VLBI. We consider the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX), a proposal for a spaceborne VLBI mission, as our primary case study. We explore the detectable SMBHB parameter space and identify distinguishable binary signatures that could exist in the visibility domain. We find that for a flux-density-limited sample, ground array observations are more effective at detecting a wider region of the binary parameter space, with $M_\mathrm{tot} \gtrsim 10^9$ solar mass systems detectable out to redshift, $z=0.075$ and beyond. Conversely, inclusion of a spaceborne element such as BHEX, offering finer angular resolution ($\sim6\,μ$as) and sampling of the (u,v) plane not limited by Earth rotation synthesis, will provide significant benefits in constraining binary properties, resulting in improvements in characterisation of the separation and position angle of SMBHBs by a factor of $\sim4$. Near-future ground and/or spaceborne VLBI may achieve the first direct observation of a SMBHB, contributing significantly to multi-messenger studies of such systems with pulsar timing arrays and observations across the electromagnetic spectrum.

We present NRHJSur3dq8, a family of numerical-relativity (NR) surrogates for non-eccentric aligned-spin binary-black-hole waveforms inspired by an action-angle parameterization. The model provides both the dynamics: the Hamiltonian values, azimuthal action $J_φ(Φ)$, the orbital clock $τ(Φ)$ as functions of its phasing, and the radiative pieces: the waveforms, their near-analytic derivatives, and modeling errors associated with each. The surrogated variables are conditioned into pieces that vary slowly on the radiation-reaction timescale, represented on shared $hp$-adaptive Chebyshev elements, and regressed across the intrinsic parameters with a Gaussian-process model. A time-parameterized merger-ringdown set of elements is attached where the adiabatic description breaks down. Leave-one-out validation of the central NRHJSur3dq8_AA flavor against NR reaches a $(2,2)$ unweighted mismatch of $1.3^{+32}_{-1.2}\times10^{-6}$ and an all-mode mismatch of $2.3^{+59}_{-2.2}\times10^{-6}$ over the full inspiral-merger-ringdown span. Sky-averaged and SNR-weighted over $32$ orientations per simulation, the released model's full-IMR in-sample mismatch against the NR simulations used for training is $8.9\times10^{-7}$ to $2.8\times10^{-5}$ across total masses $40$-$120\,M_\odot$. Waveforms are hybridized using post-Newtonian waveforms. Beyond accuracy, NRHJSur3dq8 provides two capabilities uncommon in NR surrogates: nearly analytic derivatives of the strain with respect to the physical parameters, and a calibrated Gaussian-process predictive uncertainty of the model. A full non-hybridized inspiral-merger-ringdown waveform evaluates in $12$ ms on a single CPU call. Batched evaluation amortizes this to $0.39$ ms per waveform at a batch of $4096$, measured at a starting frequency of $20$ Hz.

We report a detailed analysis of the young stellar cluster Berkeley 59 using Fermi-LAT. Using an up-to-date source catalogue and background models, we found significant extended GeV emission around Berkeley 59, which can be modelled by a radial Gaussian of <inline-formula><tex-math>$1.02^{\circ }$</tex-math></inline-formula> radius with a significance of the extension of 10.6<inline-formula><tex-math>$\sigma$</tex-math></inline-formula>. We investigated the molecular, neutral, and ionized gas content and the hadronic origin. The gamma-ray spectrum of Berkeley 59 has a photon index of <inline-formula><tex-math>$2.88 \pm 0.06$</tex-math></inline-formula>. The derived gas mass from H<inline-formula><tex-math>$_2$</tex-math></inline-formula>, H I, and H II around Berkeley 59 is <inline-formula><tex-math>$\sim 6.34 \times 10^4 {\rm M}_{\odot }$</tex-math></inline-formula>. We derived the relationship between cosmic ray acceleration efficiency and diffusion coefficient. Our results suggest that the extended gamma-ray emission originates from cosmic rays accelerated by cluster winds interacting with surrounding gas.

Rotating black holes can amplify incident waves through superradiant scattering. When these waves are confined, repeated amplification gives rise to the black-hole bomb instability, whose nonlinear evolution remains poorly understood despite its central role in models of bosonic clouds around astrophysical black holes. Here, we reproduce the black-hole bomb mechanism in a laboratory setting using a gravity simulator based on a draining vortex in superfluid helium. Surface waves propagating on the superfluid interface experience an effective rotating spacetime and undergo repeated superradiant amplification within a cylindrical cavity. By tuning the temperature and flow parameters, we achieve exponential growth of a low-frequency resonant mode, followed by the arrest of the instability and the formation of a long-lived non-equilibrium steady state. Using spatially and temporally resolved measurements, we identify nonlinear frequency shifts, harmonic generation, and coherent three- and four-wave mixing that redistribute energy among interacting modes. This novel end state of the experimental black-hole bomb highlights the role of nonlinear wave interactions in quenching the runaway growth expected from linear theory and governing the system's late-time dynamics. Our results establish a laboratory framework for investigating the nonlinear evolution of black-hole bombs, with implications for analogous phenomena involving ultralight bosonic fields around rotating black holes.

We report on the identification of the optical counterpart to the recently discovered millisecond pulsar (MSP) NGC362D in the Galactic globular cluster NGC362 based on deep, multi-band, and multi-epoch Hubble Space Telescope observations. Our analysis robustly shows that this object is a very low-mass ($\sim0.18 M_{\odot}$) He white dwarf (WD) still in the pre-cooling phase. Interestingly, a detailed comparison with updated binary evolution models indicates that this object completed the mass-transfer phase only recently ($\sim0.6$ Gyr ago), thus strongly suggesting that COM-NGC362D is the youngest WD companion to a MSP identified to date. Remarkably, in this respect, the photometric properties of NGC362D show, for the first time in this class of objects, significant wavelength-dependent variations that are consistent with the presence of residual circumstellar material. This system therefore provides a valuable test case to directly probe the immediate aftermath of the MSP recycling process and to constrain the early evolutionary stages of proto-WD companions and their radio and optical properties. Our results suggest that residual material can produce radio and optical signatures that mimic those of systems with non-degenerate companions, potentially leading to the misclassification of young MSPs.

Minute- and sub-minute microlensing provides a direct probe of compact dark matter at asteroid-mass scales, where primordial black holes with MPBH <~ 10^-10 Msol would produce short-duration, finite-source-suppressed amplifications of stars in extragalactic fields. To enable these measurements, we present FLASH: Fast Lensing And Sub-minute High-accuracy photometry with JWST, a pipeline designed to recover such events from JWST/NIRCam imaging by preserving detector-ramp time information and performing high-precision crowded-field photometry. FLASH begins from Level 1 NIRCam data products, applies microlensing-oriented detector calibration (including improved treatment of non-linearity and position-dependent detector calibration), and extracts forced multi-band light curves in crowded fields. We apply the pipeline to two public JWST/NIRCam datasets targeting the disk of M31 with 21.5 s cadence: GO-4735 and GO-2609. Although these observations are suboptimal as a microlensing survey, they provide a stringent test of JWST time-domain performance in a high-surface-brightness, crowded stellar field. Using these data with our own microlensing simulations, we derive the first JWST-based microlensing constraints toward M31, finding fPBH <~ 100 for MPBH~ 10^-9 Msol. Our results demonstrate that JWST is a competitive platform for high-cadence microlensing and that a dedicated, continuous NIRCam monitoring program could substantially improve constraints on compact dark matter below the current ground-based frontier.

Doppler boosting allows blazars to be detected out to high-$z$, making them promising probes of the intergalactic medium through the 21 cm forest. We report 0.144$-$11 GHz observations of the most distant known blazar, VLASS J041009.05$-$013919.88 at z$\sim$7, obtained with the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) and the Very Large Array (VLA). The first uGMRT epoch (300$-$820 MHz, April 2023) revealed an inverted radio spectrum which, combined with earlier (2021$-$2022) VLA data (1.5$-$11 GHz), unveiled a double-peaked spectrum potentially indicative of multi-epoch jet activity. A second uGMRT campaign (August 2023), simultaneous with new VLA observations (1.5$-$11 GHz), instead revealed a flat low-frequency and a peaked high-frequency spectrum, ruling out this interpretation. While limited by the two uGMRT epochs, variability analysis favors intrinsic jet processes, indicating a highly relativistic, closely aligned jet ($θ<3$ deg, $δ>19.3$, $Γ>9.7$). The equipartition magnetic field ($> 1$ mG) exceeds the equivalent Cosmic Microwave Background field at $z\sim7$ (0.2 mG), indicating synchrotron losses dominate. The inferred Doppler boosting ($δ>19.3$) implies that J0410$-$0139 is intrinsically radio-weak. As a blazar, it traces a much larger parent population of radio quasars at $z\sim7$, detectable only with deep ($\leq μ$Jy) next-generation radio observations. LOFAR 144 MHz observations (April and July 2024) yielded $\sim$2 mJy, well below the $\sim$8 mJy predicted from uGMRT epochs, confirming strong variability at rest-frame $\sim$1 GHz. Low-frequency monitoring will be crucial for identifying high radio intensity states suitable for future 21 cm forest studies.

We develop an effective field theory of gravity in relativistic media. Integrating out the medium leaves vacuum gravity with updated Feynman rules: a graviton propagator dressed by the stress-energy two-point function of the environment, medium-induced bulk graviton vertices from higher correlators, and generalized worldline couplings encoded in matched Wilson coefficients. The diagram topologies are unchanged from vacuum, so different media (perfect fluids, collisionless matter, coherent scalar fields such as wave dark matter) are not different theories but different correlators inserted into the same diagrams. We derive the in-medium rules for a relativistic fluid and obtain the full 1PN Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann potential, the 1PN Stokes drag, the gravitational self-energy and a generalized Christodoulou memory whose new tensor structure records the direction of the surrounding flow, turning the permanent strain into an $\textit{astrophysical weathervane}$. The same rules activate phenomena forbidden in vacuum: the sound pole converts the symmetry-protected, non-running black-hole Love number into a resonant, running one, and opens the channel $h\to hh$ in a moving medium, yielding a closed-form decay rate and a birefringent $\textit{gravitational opacity}$ set by the local flow geometry. We assess observational prospects, from dephasing and tidal resonances within reach of the Einstein Telescope and LISA to proof-of-principle memory and opacity signatures.

We present a density-dependent generalization of the van der Waals hadron resonance gas model (DD-HRG) for describing both the hot hadronic matter created in heavy-ion collisions and the cold, dense matter inside neutron stars. Non-resonant interactions are incorporated through a generalized excluded-volume prescription with a density-dependent available-volume fraction, supplemented by an arbitrary density-dependent mean field. With isospin-dependent interaction parameters constrained by empirical properties of nuclear matter, the resulting equation of state extends the causality range to include neutron-star interiors and supports two-solar-mass stars. It also improves the description of lattice QCD thermodynamics and conserved-charge susceptibilities at vanishing baryochemical potential, with lattice data favoring reduced repulsion among strange baryons. This DD-HRG framework is available within the latest version of the open-source Thermal-FIST package.

The hydromagnetic structure of magnetically confined mountains on accreting white dwarfs is computed, alongside the effects of accretion on the reduction of the star's magnetic field. The equilibrium structure of the mountain is obtained by numerically solving the Grad-Shafranov equation with a self-consistent scheme that enforces magnetic flux freezing. For characteristic system parameters, it is shown that magnetic field lines are significantly deformed and dragged equatorwards by mountains with masses $\sim10^{-3}M_\odot$ that have a characteristic height of $\sim10^5\,\mathrm{cm}$. A mathematical relation is obtained for the maximum mass that a white dwarf can confine magnetically given the star's magnetic field and temperature. It is found that the accretion buries the star's magnetic field by reducing it by up to $10\%$ of its pre-accretion value. The star's magnetic field remains dominantly dipolar, but with added multipolar components.

Space-based gravitational-wave (GW) data may contain transient signals whose waveform morphologies are not known in advance. Extracting these signals is important for characterizing new sources and mitigating instrumental anomalies. However, existing deep neural network (DNN)-based extraction approaches rely on clean training targets and waveform-class-specific examples, which may limit their applicability when the transient morphology is not specified in advance. This work develops a Noise2Noise (N2N)-inspired self-supervised framework that learns from noisy observations without clean training targets and requires no transient-specific waveform templates at inference. A single model trained on noisy massive black-hole binary (MBHB) observations provides high-overlap MBHB recovery and recovers the dominant morphologies of instrumental glitches and other GW transient signals such as cosmic string bursts in source-confused test data. Beyond waveform recovery, when independent information identifies a candidate transient as instrumental, its extracted waveform can be subtracted from the data without an anomaly-specific template. In a simulated continuous data stream, this procedure substantially suppresses the injected-anomaly power within the glitch-dominated frequency band. These results support the use of self-supervised extraction for initial waveform estimation of candidate transients with unknown morphologies, enabling subsequent characterization and, where appropriate, conditional subtraction of instrumental anomalies.

We study a geometrically thin, optically thick Novikov--Thorne accretion disk and the gravitational capture cross sections of a quantum Oppenheimer--Snyder black hole immersed in an external, asymptotically uniform magnetic field. The exterior geometry carries a single quantum parameter, and we work over its entire admissible range, which contains a two-horizon black hole, an extremal configuration and a horizonless compact object, and which ends where the photon sphere disappears. Since the spacetime is static, the Wald potential is purely axial, so the field acts on the disk only through the Lorentz force on weakly charged accreting matter and all of its effects are controlled by a single magnetic coupling. We compute the charged circular orbits, the innermost stable circular orbit, the radiative flux, the effective temperature, the redshift factor, the differential and spectral luminosity and the radiative efficiency, together with the marginally bound orbit and the capture cross sections of massless, massive and charged particles. The construction is checked against the exact Schwarzschild limit and against the identity that relates the bolometric luminosity to the efficiency. The quantum parameter changes the disk observables only weakly, whereas the magnetic coupling raises the efficiency, the peak flux and the height of the spectral peak by large factors and shifts that peak to higher frequency. The two parameters act with opposite signs on absorption. The quantum parameter shrinks every capture cross section, while the magnetic coupling enlarges the one for massive particles and leaves the photon cross section unchanged, so that within this test-field model shadow observables respond to the quantum parameter alone. For charged particles the uniform field confines the motion, and no particle reaches the hole from beyond a magnetic shielding radius.

We iteratively model the GWTC-5.0 binary-black-hole census with three components. First, a physically normalized population from Rapster globular-cluster simulations spans cluster mass, metallicity, formation redshift, compactness, and natal black-hole spin. Hierarchical mergers reproduce higher-mass events and their larger effective-spin dispersion, provided black holes are born with zero natal spin. Second, a phenomenological field (isolated-binary) channel supplies the low-mass, preferentially aligned population. Its inclusion flattens the cluster compactness likelihood, permitting ordinary dense globular-cluster birth radii without requiring nuclear-cluster-like conditions. Finally, residual tension at $15$--$30 M_\odot$ motivates an intermediate-mass isotropic component representing field remnants reprocessed in clusters. This is a hypothesis, not a detection: current numerical support precludes a reliable evidence comparison. Physical normalization converts the high-mass rate into $\hat{f}_{\rm GC}\simeq0.39\%$, with local rates $R_{\rm cl}\simeq9.1$ and $R_{\rm field}\simeq16.0$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$. The model predicts linked mass-spectrum breaks near $35$ and $70 M_\odot$, a $q\simeq0.5$ feature from first-plus-second-generation pairings, and a symmetric effective-spin distribution that broadens sharply above $45 M_\odot$. These correlated, mass-resolved predictions can be tested as the gravitational-wave census grows.

Orbit-averaged equations are widely used to model the gravitational-wave-driven evolution of compact binaries. Their validity relies on the radiation-reaction timescale being much longer than the orbital period, an assumption that can break down for highly eccentric systems. In this work, we investigate the impact of orbit averaging on merger-time estimates by comparing orbit-averaged and non-orbit-averaged prescriptions. We apply our analysis to two different astrophysically motivated populations of black hole binaries in hierarchical triple systems, where von Zeipel-Lidov-Kozai oscillations can drive the inner binary eccentricities close to unity. We find that merger-time estimates obtained with orbit-averaged equations remain remarkably accurate across a wide range of eccentricities, even when the orbital timescale exceeds the radiation-reaction timescale. Significant discrepancies arise only for the most extreme and compact binaries, simultaneously characterized by very high eccentricities and small semi-latus recta. In this regime, the merger time becomes strongly dependent on the initial orbital phase, with different phases yielding predictions that can differ by several orders of magnitude. We also compare our results with an orbit-averaged merger-time prescription specifically developed for hierarchical triple systems and find substantial differences between this prescription and both the generic orbit-averaged and non-orbit-averaged calculations in the high-eccentricity regime. While these results demonstrate the robustness of orbit-averaged merger-time estimates for most systems, they also highlight the potential importance of non-orbit-averaged effects when merger times are used to infer compact-binary delay-time distributions and formation channels.

Continuous gravitational waves are long-lived signals emitted by spinning neutron stars (NSs) or boson clouds around black holes. While the Milky Way is expected to host $\mathrm{O}(10^{8}-10^{9})$ NSs, only $\mathrm{O}(10^{3})$ are currently identified through electromagnetic observations. This large observational gap motivates searches based on alternative messengers. In particular, all-sky searches for continuous gravitational waves (GWs) offer a unique opportunity to detect NSs that are electromagnetically silent or otherwise undiscovered. By exploring a broad region of parameter space without any a priori source information, these searches can probe the vast hidden NS population of our Galaxy. In this work, we present a novel way to include a Neural Network (NN) classifier into an all-sky search strategy for isolated NSs. Starting from candidates produced by the FrequencyHough pipeline running on data from ground-based detectors such as LIGO and Virgo, the proposed method improves sensitivity without increasing computational cost and can be parallelized across multiple detectors to enhance detection probability and reduce false alarms. We analyze data from the third observing run (O3) --- April 1, 2019 to March 27, 2020 --- and focus on the frequency range [129, 229] Hz and spin-down interval [$-2.5\cdot10^{-9}, 1.0\cdot10^{-9}$] Hz/s. The model is trained on noise constructed to be statistically consistent with real O3 data and tested on real O3 data. Results show robust performance in distinguishing signal from noise, even at low strain, and successful identification of hardware injections outside the training spin-down range.

Recent observations of the local Little Red Dot (LRD) analog SDSS~J1025+1402 have revealed that the optical continuum is polarized at the ~1.5% level, while broad Halpha has lower polarization (~0.7%) and a different polarization angle. We explain these properties in a scenario in which LRDs are dust-obscured Little Blue Dots (LBDs) viewed at high inclination and powered by super-Eddington accretion. In this framework, electron scattering in the geometrically thick inner accretion flow produces intrinsic continuum polarization, while unpolarized emission from the outer thin disk dilutes the signal, particularly at optical wavelengths. A circumnuclear dust screen contributes dichroic polarization to both the continuum and broad-line emission. Broad Halpha lacks the intrinsic disk component and therefore has lower polarization and a different position angle. We show that this model quantitatively reproduces the observed polarization properties, although degeneracies between accretion rate and inclination remain. These results illustrate the potential of spectropolarimetry as a probe of accretion-flow geometry and orientation in the little-dot population, complementary to spectral-energy-distribution fitting and line diagnostics.

Constraining the plasma properties and energetics of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the inner corona is essential for understanding their early evolution, yet remains challenging because of limited observations. We investigate the mass and density evolution, and energy partitioning of two CMEs observed on 2025 September 14 and 16, and assess the potential of coordinated Proba-3/ASPIICS and Aditya-L1/VELC observations to constrain CME energetics in the low corona. We present the first coordinated observations of CMEs obtained simultaneously by Proba-3/ASPIICS and Aditya-L1/VELC. Using ASPIICS white-light observations, we estimate the CME mass, volume, number density, and the evolution of kinetic, thermal, and magnetic energies. Magnetic energies are estimated from observed CME properties using observationally constrained, physically motivated assumptions. Simultaneous VELC Fe XIV 5303 Angstorm observations provide independent estimates of the emission measure, electron number density, thermal energy, and CME lateral extent. The two events exhibit markedly different energy partitioning in the low corona. For the 14 September CME, the kinetic and magnetic energies are comparable, while the thermal energy remains nearly two orders of magnitude smaller, indicating limited plasma heating. In contrast, the 16 September CME exhibits a substantial thermal-energy enhancement, with thermal energy eventually becoming comparable to kinetic energy. For both CMEs, the estimated magnetic energy remains comparable to or exceeds the kinetic energy over the observed height. Our results demonstrate the scientific potential of synergetic ASPIICS and VELC observations for constraining CME mass, density, and energetics in the inner corona, providing new observational constraints on the early evolution of CMEs.

Binary black holes (BBHs) emit gravitational waves (GWs) as they inspiral towards merger. These GWs can be gravitationally lensed by large-scale structure along the line of sight, potentially creating multiple images of the same source with fixed time delays determined by the lensing geometry. As the BBHs inspiral, the GW frequency increases, leading to successive constructive and destructive interference between the multiple images. BBHs also have spins $\mathbf{S}_i$ that may be misaligned with their orbital angular momentum $\mathbf{L}$. As the BBHs inspiral, these misaligned spins cause $\mathbf{L}$ to precess about the total angular momentum $\mathbf{J}$, modulating the GW emission similar to pulsar emission resulting from a misaligned jet rotating in and out of the line of sight. We investigate the ability of a single L-shaped GW detector to distinguish between these two sources of modulation. We find that precessional modulation can mimic the lensing modulation between two images with comparable magnifications when the time delay between the images is short enough that fewer than three interference fringes occur during the time the GW signal spends in the sensitivity band of the detector. As strong lensing is rare for GW sources at moderate redshift while misaligned spins are common for BBHs produced in certain formation channels, ruling out precessional modulation is essential to identifying genuinely lensed systems.

In many scientific disciplines, weak signals of interest are obscured by dominant nuisance signals that are several orders of magnitude stronger. Recovering these weak signals requires subtracting the dominant ones; however, this calibration process inherently distorts or partially suppresses the underlying signal of interest. To address this problem, we propose the use of normalizing flow models to reconstruct calibration-affected weak signals. By leveraging the statistical invariance of the target signals and assuming minimal initial suppression, our framework effectively recovers the lost signal components. We provide a comprehensive theoretical overview of this normalizing flow-based recovery method and demonstrate its efficacy using simulated data.

We present a photometric and timing study of the near-period-gap SU~UMa-type dwarf nova YZ~Cancri, based on nearly continuous Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) photometry and long-baseline ground-based observations. Our main observational result is that the positive-superhump (SH) waveform follows a repeatable, stage-dependent sequence during superoutbursts (SOs). In the two well-covered TESS SOs, and consistently in the long-baseline ground-based SO sample, the plateau waveform evolves from an early saw-tooth profile (ST), through a double-humped profile with unequal maxima (DHd), to a more symmetric double-humped profile with nearly similar maxima (DHs). The global and time-resolved Lomb--Scargle periodograms show that power near the positive-SH time scale and its harmonics is concentrated during SOs, whereas quiescent and normal-outburst intervals lack a comparably persistent SH-band signal. The dense TESS maxima--minima timing sequence shows different clock stability in different waveform stages: precursor modulations have slightly longer local periods, the middle-to-late DHs plateau is the most regular timing interval, and the post-plateau evolution is affected by phase switching and possible secondary/late-SH contamination. The TESS data also reveal profile-clock coupling, with SH amplitude and rise/decay durations evolving together with the timing residuals. As a secondary timing constraint, we obtain a common TESS-timing-based mean positive-SH period of $P'_{\rm sh}=0.09043(27)$~d, corresponding to a SH excess of $4.03(31)\%$ and an approximate mass ratio of $q=0.175(11)$. The repeatable ST--DHd--DHs sequence makes YZ~Cnc a useful system near the lower edge of the period gap, and may trace the growth, redistribution, stabilization, and decay of the light source associated with an eccentric, precessing accretion disk during SOs.

Fast-light approximations neglect fluid evolution along rays, whereas slow-light modeling is indispensable for recovering the true magnetohydrodynamic state. However, full slow-light radiative transfer for extended general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) sources requires simultaneous access to many fluid snapshots and is memory-intensive. We introduce CoportSL, the first contribution-constrained hybrid slow-light framework for time-dependent full-Stokes imaging. It uses emission, absorption, and Faraday contributions to identify where fluid evolution must be retained, applies fast light elsewhere, and loads only snapshots spanning the relevant delays. Tests with M87*-like magnetically arrested disk GRMHD data show that the contribution-based region and delay-based snapshot restrictions each keep normalized full-image Stokes differences below $4\times10^{-3}$ relative to the corresponding complete calculation. At this accuracy, CoportSL requires 75.3% and 44.7% fewer snapshot layers for near-horizon and jet images, respectively; its per-frame slow-light transfer time remains comparable to fast light. For the two configurations, source-code estimates place the capacities of the principal data structures at 255-657 GiB for a fixed public ipole version and 20.2-37.3GiB for CoportSL, bringing both configurations within workstation-scale memory. Fast--slow comparisons further show close agreement in near-horizon variability, whereas jet variability follows similar overall trends but differs in local peaks and amplitudes; in both cases, fast light misses substantial full-Stokes spatial structure. As the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT) advances toward dynamical imaging and spatially resolved polarimetry, CoportSL provides a computationally practical way to model full-Stokes finite-light-travel-time signatures in extended black hole systems.

The origin of a cosmic ray particle with an ultra-high energy of 2.44 x 10^20 eV recorded by the Telescope Array is discussed by assuming that it is a heavy nucleus, namely an iron or silicon nucleus. Iron is chosen as a heaviest element in cosmic rays, while silicon is chosen to find out how much the theoretical results obtained vary with the mass of the heavy nucleus. Assuming extragalactic origin of the particle with such energy, the constraints on the distances to possible sources are analysed using a routine calculation of the cosmic ray propagation in extragalactic space. These possible sources are discussed.

The gravitational-wave (GW) census contains mass and spin structure consistent with contributions from black holes assembled through repeated mergers in dense environments. Connecting that structure to formation physics requires models that are both physically interpretable and tractable within population inference. We construct an autodifferentiable, physics-based phenomenological model in which each dense environment is represented by a coagulation response and a population of such environments produces an observable merger-rate density. Embedded in the gwkokab Poisson-likelihood framework, this model enables joint inference of natal-population and interaction parameters from the GW census. Applied to GWTC-5.0, the framework shows why simple pairwise coagulation models struggle to reproduce the observed high-mass, comparable-mass population and tests alternative interaction structures against the data, while retaining an explicitly modeled natal component.

Population synthesis based on the grid of pre-computed evolutionary sequences for close binaries is applied to the problem of formation of the Galactic population of stripped helium stars, the remnants of $5 \lessapprox M/M_\odot \lessapprox 24$ primary components of close binaries after RLOF. Stellar rotation is taken into account. For the current star formation rate in the Galaxy $2\,M_\odot yr^{-1}$, the estimate of the number of 1 to $7\,M_\odot$ objects with $T_{eff} \gtrapprox $25000K ranges from 14700 to 28500, while for the number of objects with masses from $2\,M_\odot$ to $7\,M_\odot$ it is 3200 to 5500, depending on the assumptions about formation of common envelopes and their outcomes. Other factors influencing the estimate are adopted star formation rate, distributions of close binaries over initial masses of primary components, mass ratios of components, orbital periods. Observational selection may severely limit the number of detectable objects. Angular velocities of rotation of companions to stripped helium stars are 60 to 80 per cent of the critical one. Using the models of initially homogeneous helium stars as approximations for the remnants after mass loss results in the underestimate of pre-supernovae masses.

A multimessenger method is developed for scheduling optical spectroscopy of ultracompact double white dwarf binaries from Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) data. The orbital parameters inferred from the gravitational wave (GW) signal are used to predict the argument of latitude $u(t)$, which sets the phase dependence of the radial velocity. With $u(t)$ known in advance, spectra can be taken at selected orbital phases. The GW and spectroscopic descriptions are linked by $u(t)=Φ_{\rm GW}(t)/2+δ_{e,ω}(t)+\mathcal{O}(e^2)$, where $Φ_{\rm GW}$ is the GW phase, $e$ the eccentricity, and $δ_{e,ω}$ the equation of the centre to $\mathcal{O}(e)$, which vanishes for a circular orbit. Radial velocities are regressed on $\cos u$; for double-lined binaries, the two slopes determine the semi-amplitudes $K_1$ and $K_2$. With the inclination and orbital period measured by LISA, both component masses follow from the semi-amplitudes through Kepler's third law, and the resulting chirp mass with the GW amplitude gives the source distance. We derive waveforms to first order in the Laplace--Lagrange parameters; the circular quadrupole waveform is recovered as $e\to0$. Using simulated LISA data for one circular and one eccentric system, we forecast how long $u(t)$ remains accurate enough for phase-resolved spectroscopy. Masses derived from the velocity amplitudes are free of the biases that tides, mass transfer, or acceleration along the line of sight introduce when $\dot f_{\rm GW}$ alone is used. For a four-year LISA observation, scheduling at quadrature remains viable for roughly a decade after the observation ends. Four years after the observation midpoint, the ephemeris predicts the orbital phase to $0.3$~s for the eccentric system and $0.9$~s for the circular one, compared with $1$--$30$~s for optical ephemerides propagated over the same baseline.

Work over the past two decades has unveiled the rich phenomenology of black hole binary mergers and subsequent ringdowns, involving a tapestry of quasinormal modes (QNMs), nonlinearities, tails, transients, and secular effects including gravitational memory. Here we develop a framework for analyzing nonlinear merger-ringdown features in the small-mass-ratio limit, where individual effects can be cleanly isolated. Specializing to the case of a quasicircular, nonspinning black hole binary, we find the waveform sharply divides into a pre-merger extended inspiral phase, a merger phase lasting roughly half a cycle, and a post-merger ringdown dominated by QNMs. We show quadratic QNMs dominate over linear overtones in the ringdown phase for comparable-to-intermediate mass ratios, and we highlight nonlinear effects of gravitational-wave memory, including cubic wave-zone phenomena analogous to horizon absorption effects.

S301 is the fastest known star in the Galaxy. It orbits Sgr A* every 8.68 yr on an e = 0.9832 orbit that carries it within 136 Schwarzschild radii at 25,600 km/s (GRAVITY Collaboration 2026). An orbit like that must precess, by the same Schwarzschild effect that turns Mercury's perihelion, whatever the spin of the black hole. We ask whether an astrometry-only GRAVITY+ campaign covering the 2031.8 and 2040.5 periapsis passages can catch it. We validate a relativistic light-curve model, design a 131-epoch Fisher-optimal cadence with a periapsis floor, fit a seven-parameter orbit including the light-travel-time delay, and build a systematic error budget. With white noise at the 207 microarcseconds achieved on S301, the fit recovers the injected rate, 0.2307 deg/yr, as 0.2324 +/- 0.0023 deg/yr (+/-0.0012 at the forecast 100 microarcseconds). Real astrometric noise is not white. We add per-run calibration offsets and a wandering Sgr A* photocentre at GRAVITY's published amplitudes, marginalize over the reference zero point, mass and distance, add the bounded systematics in quadrature, and inflate by the excess scatter of real GRAVITY orbit fits. What survives is 0.0074 deg/yr, a 31 sigma detection. The Sun hides the first periapsis for 153 d, at a cost to the period and periapsis epoch but not to the precession rate. Radial velocities are out of reach at S301's magnitude; photometry only validates the light-curve model. The spin of Sgr A* could shift the rate by 5.17-5.74 per cent and cannot be bounded, so the campaign is a spin-agnostic test of general relativity, and a forecast until the star comes round.

The recently discovered S301 star, with an orbital period of 8.7 years and eccentricity $e = 0.982$, reaches a pericenter of just $140\,R_{\mathrm{s}}$ --- approximately nine times closer than S2's $\sim 1200R_{\mathrm{s}}$ --- offering an unprecedented laboratory for testing strong-field gravity. We demonstrate that S301's stellar spin precession provides a novel probe of the PPN parameter $γ$, scaling as $(2γ_{\mathrm{PPN}} + 1)/3$ relative to general relativity (GR). For maximum projected velocity shifts of $46.1~\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$, next-generation spectrographs could constrain $γ_{\mathrm{PPN}}$ to $\sim 10\%$ precision. When combined with S301's orbital precession --- a substantial $\sim 1.95^\circ$ pericenter advance per orbit (GR prediction), approximately an order of magnitude larger than S2's $\sim 0.2^\circ$, constraining $(2β_{\mathrm{PPN}} + 2γ_{\mathrm{PPN}} - 1)/3$ --- the spin measurement breaks the $β$-$γ$ degeneracy. A MCMC analysis of projected S2 and S301 observations yields $σ_β\approx 2.3 \times 10^{-4}$, with the $γ$ precision limited by the spin precession measurement to $σ_γ\approx 0.1$. While the spin precession provides an independent consistency check, its true significance lies in probing gravity at $φ/c^2 \sim 10^{-4}$ and $v/c \sim 0.08$ --- four orders of magnitude stronger than Solar System tests and an order of magnitude stronger than current S-star constraints. This complementary approach opens a new window for testing the PPN framework in the strong-field regime and demonstrates the power of combining multiple stellar probes at the Galactic Center.

SOLAR-C, which is scheduled to launch in the late 2020s with the Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope (EUVST), will deliver EUV spectroscopy of the solar atmosphere with unprecedented temperature coverage and resolution. We present the optical design and mechanical impacts for the short-wavelength camera, and how our design choices affect scientific performance using complete forward modelling. We discuss the design and optical impact of the thin-film aluminium filter and supporting mesh, including diffraction and shadowing effects in spectral and spatial dimensions. We analyse this using our own Fourier optics method and analytical modelling, and quantify the scientific impact using forward modelling driven by a simulated solar atmosphere. We address the vulnerability of thin-film filters during launch depressurisation using vacuum chamber testing. We describe the stray-light baffle design and low-scatter coatings which suppress visible stray light.

We measure how accurately the characteristic halo mass of a rare, massive population can be recovered from clustering alone, using dark matter haloes in the Millennium simulation, where the true masses are known. Massive samples of 25 to 10000 haloes are cross-correlated against field reference samples of 5000 to 50000 haloes at six redshifts over $0 \leq z \leq 5.29$. The bias is measured at $r = 8\,h^{-1}\,\mathrm{Mpc}$ and inverted to return a characteristic mass, which we compare with the mean logarithmic halo mass measured directly from the simulation. Across 192 configurations the characteristic mass is recovered with a median absolute offset of $0.103$ dex. We show that (i) accuracy depends only weakly on the number of rare objects while the uncertainty falls from $\pm 0.71$ dex at 25 objects to $\pm 0.08$ dex at 10000; (ii) enlarging the smallest samples gives the greatest return, with a doubling from 25 to 50 objects reducing the uncertainty by about a third, against a tenth from 5000 to 10000; and (iii) the reference population carries an error of its own, which propagates coherently into every cross-correlation measured against it and is not reduced by observing more rare objects. Working with haloes rather than galaxies isolates the clustering measurement from the galaxy--halo connection, providing a benchmark before population-specific complications are introduced. For the best configurations, the uncertainty contributed by the calibration of the bias--mass relation, at $\sim 0.07$ dex, already matches that of the measurement itself.

We study the formation of primordial black holes (PBHs) from large primordial perturbations that re-enter the horizon during an epoch with equation of state ${\rm w}\geq1/3$. We consider a log-normal curvature power spectrum of finite width $Δ$ and determine the collapse amplitude by numerical-relativity simulations of a self-gravitating perfect fluid. Threshold scans are performed for five values of $\rm w$ and five spectral widths, and the resulting numerical thresholds are used in the PBH abundance and scalar-induced gravitational-wave (SIGW) calculations. For comparison, we also evaluate the semi-analytical $q$-function prescription. It reproduces the numerical trend close to radiation domination and for nearly monochromatic profiles, but it is not a reliable threshold estimator for generic finite-width profiles in stiffer backgrounds. We show how collapse thresholds increase with both $Δ$ and $\rm w$, changing the curvature amplitude required for PBHs to constitute all of the dark matter and, consequently, the normalization of the accompanying SIGW signal.

We study geometrically thin equatorial disc images in the static, axisymmetric q-metric spacetime using backward ray tracing. The Schwarzschild solution is recovered at $q=0$; for the nonzero deformations considered here, $r=2M$ is a curvature singularity rather than an event horizon. For a distant nearly face-on observer, we construct the first three equatorial transfer functions $r_m(b;q)$. In the {Schwarzschild} limit, the resolved third-crossing interval contains the critical impact parameter $b=3\sqrt{3}M$. As $q$ increases from $-0.3$ to $0.3$, the branch center shifts from $b_{3,c}/M\simeq3.716$ to $6.702$. In units of the physical monopole mass $\mathcal M=(1+q)M$, it instead decreases from $b_{3,c}/\mathcal M\simeq5.309$ to $5.156$. Much of the displacement in metric-parameter units therefore reflects the changing monopole scale. At fixed $\mathcal M$, the inclined first-intersection maps show that the contour dimensions increase with $q$, with larger relative changes near the inner disc. A prescribed power-law emissivity and relativistic frequency-shift weighting yield direct images whose integrated flux differs from the Schwarzschild value by at most $2.4\%$. Between the endpoint models, the horizontal median-flux position increases by $8.8\%$ and the interquartile width by $14.5\%$. Within this emission prescription, the residual deformation dependence appears mainly as a displacement and broadening of the brightness distribution. Higher-order radiative contributions are not included.

Ringdown gravitational waves probe black hole spacetimes via quasinormal modes (QNMs). Recent studies have reported oscillatory features in QNM-filtered waveforms, and have led to conflicting interpretations as to whether they represent a near-horizon "direct wave". Reexamining a particle plunging into a Kerr black hole, we show that the saddle-point approximation underlying the proposed interpretation fails near the horizon. Our exact analysis reveals that every source-induced horizon-mode pole is canceled by an infinite tower of Matsubara zeros, independently of orbital and black-hole parameters. The first four stages of this sequential screening are also confirmed by time-domain numerical integration. Thus, within the near-horizon perturbative framework, source-induced horizon-mode signals do not survive at late times.

The detection of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences provides a powerful opportunity to test general relativity in the strong-field regime and to search for signatures of alternative theories of gravity. In this work, we consider Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMd) theory, in which black holes can carry both electric and scalar (dilatonic) charges. We employ the effective field theory approach, together with a temporal Kaluza-Klein decomposition of the metric in terms of non-relativistic gravitational fields, to derive the conservative two-body Lagrangian for charged black-hole binaries in EMd theory through second post-Newtonian (PN) order. Our calculation extends the previously known conservative dynamics at 1PN order and includes the gravitational, electromagnetic, and dilaton interactions at 2PN order. We verify the result in the appropriate Einstein-Maxwell, scalar-tensor, and general relativistic limits, and perform an independent test-body-limit check of the static 2PN sector. These results provide the conservative dynamics needed for developing higher-accuracy waveform models and testing EMd theory with gravitational-wave observations.

The cosmic-ray database, CRDB, has provided data and meta-data to the community since 2013. We present a new release, CRDB v4.2, which includes data and time series published in the last three years (from AMS-02, CALET, DAMPE, LHAASO, etc.), datasets missed in previous releases, and all peer-reviewed ultra-high energy cosmic-ray data (both historical and recent datasets). These data and meta-data are available from the web interface or from the CRDB pip-installable Python library. This release includes results from more than 60 experiments and publications, corresponding to 4534 new data points and 131624 time-series data points.

The effect of active region parameters on the evolution of solar axial dipole is well understood. However, their effect on the solar equatorial dipole has not been studied in detail. Understanding the development of the equatorial dipole is important as it drives the interplanetary magnetic field on intracyclic timescales (~ 1yr). We study how the latitude, tilt angle, and the polarity separation affect the evolution of solar equatorial dipole. We use dipole flux transport (DFT), a matrix implementation of surface flux transport (SFT) model, to simulate the dipole evolution of synthetic bipolar magnetic regions (BMRs) with a wide range of tilt angles and latitudes. We also study the evolution of active regions in HMI SHARP database and their associated BMRs. We quantify the dipole evolution by means of the maximum and mean amplification and the growth and decay times of the equatorial dipole. Tilt angle controls the amplification of the equatorial dipole, with larger tilt angles leading to stronger equatorial dipole. Latitude controls the timescale at which the equatorial dipole grows and decays. Low-latitude regions produce the longest living equatorial dipole. We find that only 31% of anti-Joy regions experience amplification of equatorial dipole, compared with 96 of regularly tilted active regions. Latitudes and tilt angles of active regions can have considerable effect on the solar equatorial dipole. Systematic changes in their properties could increase/decrease the strength of the equatorial dipole relative to the solar activity, which could lead to similar relative change in geomagnetic activity. We suggest that large low-latitude coronal holes and relatively high geomagnetic activity in the declining phase of solar cycle 20, could be related to emergence of unusually low-latitude active regions that produced strong and persistent equatorial dipole.

The astrophysical origin of the gravitational wave background (GWB) reported by pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations has yet to be confirmed. A GWB signal made of the sum of individual gravitational wave (GW) from the population of supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHB) would show the imprint of a discrete Poissonian statistics in its spectral properties. In this work, we propose a tool based on the saddlepoint approximation method to estimate the distribution of characteristic strain for any given population model. This tool can be used for Bayesian inference or for a quick visualization of the statistics of the GWB from the output of more realistic semi-analytical models. We introduce the general family of variance mixture Gaussian distributions that models heavy-tailed behavior distributions that is expected for a non-Gaussian GWB signal. We show that setting the correct hierarchical priors to a Gaussian free spectrum PTA likelihood is effectively equivalent to a non-Gaussian likelihood. Using ideal simulations, we compare the performance of the saddlepoint approximation with a log-Normal distribution to infer the parameters of the astrophysical model from the statistics of the GWB and show that correctly modeling higher order moments is essential. Future PTA analyses should include the statistics of the GWB in their pipelines.

We investigate the presence of a Yukawa-like correction ($\propto \, αe^{- r/λ}$) to Newtonian gravity at the Galactic Center, using a multi-star fitting code, including the newly discovered star S$301$, to improve the constraints obtained using S$2$ orbit alone. We perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis using the astrometric and spectroscopic data of stars S$2$, S$55$, S$29$, S$38$ and S$301$ collected by GRAVITY, GRAVITY$^+$, NACO and SINFONI instruments, covering the period from $1992$ to $2025$. Compared to GRAVITY Collaboration 2025 (Paper I), in which only S$2$ was fitted, the tightest bound on the Yukawa coupling is again reached at $λ= 3\cdot10^{13}\,\rm m\ (\sim 200\,AU)$, where we find $|α| < 6 \cdot10^{-4}$, an improvement of roughly a factor five. The addition of S$301$ extends the constraint to short ranges that were inaccessible to S$2$, yielding $|α| < 0.004$ at $λ=10^{12}\,\rm m$ and $|α| < 0.006$ at $λ=5\cdot 10^{11}\,\rm m$, while S$29$, with its larger apoapsis, gives $|α| < 0.1$ at $λ\sim 2\cdot10^{15}\,\rm m$. The latter two represent the tightest limits at these scale lengths on a Yukawa correction obtained to date around a supermassive black hole.

Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) constrain population properties of supermassive binary black holes (SMBHBs) through the observation of the gravitational wave background (GWB). Unlike other approaches that interpolate population-synthesis libraries or only consider the mean of the strain spectrum, here we capture its full strain probability density directly from semi-analytic population models. We apply our new method to the semi-analytic SMBHB population model, independently reproducing the parameter estimation for this model performed by the NANOGrav Collaboration with their 15-yr data. We also show the extent to which discrete SMBHB contributions to the GWB resolve degeneracies in the population parameter space. Finally, using the source-count intensity as the intermediate product in our calculation, we map PTA observations, as a proof of principle, to the SMBHB model based on the galaxy merger prescriptions from numerical hydrodynamical simulations "Illustris". We find the effect of delay times $τ$ between kiloparsec and subparsec SMBHB separations following galaxy mergers, finding $h_{\rm c}$ spanning $(1$-$6)\times10^{-16}$ and $N_{\rm c}$ spanning $(0.3$-$7.1)\times10^{-3}$ for $τ$ up to 8 Gyr.

The evolution of the mass function of massive galaxy clusters is a well-established probe of cosmology. Using the eROSITA X-ray instrument on board the Spectrum Roentgen Gamma (SRG) mission, the western Galactic hemisphere of eROSITA's first All-Sky Survey (eRASS1) delivers a uniformly selected and securely confirmed sample of 5259 galaxy clusters spanning $0.1 < z < 0.8$. When combined with overlapping weak lensing data from DES Year 3, KiDS, and HSC for mass calibration, this dataset enables precise tests of the standard $Λ$CDM framework and beyond. In this work, we use the $0.1 < z < 0.45$ subsample of the eRASS1 cluster catalog to place constraints on an axion-like Early Dark Energy (EDE) scenario. Such models have been proposed as a possible mechanism to alleviate the tension between early- and late-Universe measurements of the Hubble constant. In this framework, a scalar field temporarily enhances the cosmic expansion rate around the epoch of recombination before rapidly diluting at later times, leaving distinct imprints on structure growth. We leverage these signatures to present the first constraints on EDE derived from galaxy cluster number counts. Using eRASS1 number counts alone, we obtain an upper limit on the maximum EDE fraction of $f_{\rm EDE} < 0.3$, consistent with primary CMB analyses. Combining our cluster analysis with primary CMB measurements, baryon acoustic oscillations, and CMB lensing, while notably excluding distance-ladder calibration data, yields results consistent with a nonzero EDE contribution and $H_0$ values compatible with late-Universe measurements. The most significant detection, at $\sim 3.2σ$, arises from the joint analysis of the eRASS1 sample with the full set of external datasets, yielding $f_{\rm EDE} = 0.10^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$ and $H_0 = 71.4 \pm 1.4$ km/s/Mpc. [ABRIDGED]

Accurately estimating the temperature distribution of solar coronal plasma, known as the Differential Emission Measure (DEM), is vital for understanding the thermodynamics of the corona and associated heating. However, recovering the DEM from multispectral observations like those from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a mathematically ill-posed, underdetermined problem, and traditional regularization-based inversion methods are computationally intensive and provide limited uncertainty quantification. We present a deep learning framework for DEM reconstruction that incorporates Monte Carlo Dropout to perform approximate Bayesian inference, yielding per-pixel empirical distributions over the DEM that characterize epistemic or systematic model uncertainty in the learned inversion. The network is trained with a dual-head architecture supervising both AIA image reconstruction and DEM fidelity, with non-negativity enforced by construction. The network is trained directly on real SDO/AIA observations along with the associated DEM solutions from regularized inversion. We validate performance against both synthetic thermal distributions and real coronal data, demonstrating accurate recovery of thermal structure across a range of plasma conditions, while maintaining significant computational efficiency over traditional inversion techniques. This method ensures physically legitimate, non-negative solutions and provides per-pixel uncertainties, making it a reliable, high-speed, and uncertainty-aware tool for large-scale solar data analysis.

Numerical relativity simulations provide the most accurate waveforms for binary black hole coalescences, but are prohibitively expensive for direct use in gravitational-wave data analysis. Surrogate models overcome this cost, and NRSur7dq4 is commonly used in parameter estimation for this reason. However, there is evidence in the literature that NRSur7dq4's accuracy could be improved in the merger-ringdown portion of the waveform, which is particularly important for the analysis of high-mass binary black hole events. Motivated by these observations, we construct NRSur7dq4v2, a multi-domain extension of NRSur7dq4 in which overlapping temporal subdomains allow tighter, independent error control over the inspiral and merger-ringdown portions of the waveform before they are smoothly combined. To assess the new model's performance in the merger-ringdown regime, we infer the mass and spin of the remnant black hole from quasi-normal fits to the ringdown portion of the surrogate waveform. We find that NRSur7dq4v2 produces significantly improved remnant mass and spin estimates, with gains of roughly factors of $3$ to $10$ over NRSur7dq4. Compared to NRSur7dq4, NRSur7dq4v2 also includes modes up to $\ell=5$, includes more accurate modeling of certain subdominant modes, and introduces a runtime model-complexity feature that gives users direct control over the tradeoff between evaluation cost and accuracy. Finally, alongside the model development, we have optimized the gwsurrogate package to achieve a fourfold speedup for precessing surrogates. The resulting precessing surrogates called through gwsurrogate are now slightly faster than their LALSimulation counterparts.

Peculiar velocities trace gravitational dynamics directly, complementing density-based clustering as wide-field spectroscopic surveys (DESI, Euclid, PFS) and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) measurements enter the precision era. Observational analyses of pairwise velocities and the pairwise kSZ signal remain largely restricted to linear and quasi-linear scales ($\gtrsim20-30$ $h^{-1}Mpc$), despite substantial cosmological information available at smaller separations. We present a simulation-calibrated likelihood for $v_{12}(r,a)$, built on the exact pair conservation equation and PyCAMB HMcode-2020 non-linear clustering, and validate it against the QUIJOTE and TNG300-3 suites across resolution, particle sampling, box size, and redshift. Using QUIJOTE, we show that extending the fit to non-linear scales tightens the $1σ$ uncertainty on $Ω_\mathrm{m}$ and $σ_8$ by $74\%$ and $81\%$ at $z=0.5$ ($r_{\rm min}=4$ $h^{-1}Mpc$), and by $70\%$ and $74\%$ at $z=0$ ($r_{\rm min}=8$ $h^{-1}Mpc$), relative to the linear-regime baseline ($r_{\rm min}=50$ $h^{-1}Mpc$) (all at fixed $r_{max}=140$ $h^{-1}Mpc$); $σ(fσ_8)$ tightens by up to $86\%$, and the joint $Ω_\mathrm{m}$-$fσ_8$ Figure-of-Merit improves by up to $9.1\times$ relative to the same baseline. These constraints are conditional on $h$ fixed at its QUIJOTE fiducial value, due to a near-degenerate response with $σ_8$; jointly sampling $h$ shifts and widens them substantially. This framework provides a validated route to exploiting that information in upcoming direct peculiar-velocity, redshift-space, and kSZ analyses.

Interest in axions and axion-like particles has resurged, driven by their role in solving the strong CP problem and their appeal as dark matter candidates. The luminosity of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) offers a key observable for probing these particle properties. This work aims to improve existing bounds on the axion-electron coupling by adopting a differential observable that is less sensitive to distance, interstellar extinction, the zero-point of bolometric corrections (BCs), and other systematic uncertainties. We use the bolometric magnitude difference between the TRGB and the RGB bump (RGBB) as a distance-independent constraint, applied to three globular clusters of intermediate-to-high metallicity: NGC 104 (47 Tuc), NGC 362, and NGC 5904 (M5). Using photometric catalogs of RGB stars, we determine V- and I-band magnitudes of both features and convert them to bolometric values. After validating that our stellar models reproduce the observed RGBB luminosity, we perform a maximum likelihood analysis with Monte Carlo simulations to propagate uncertainties and derive new bounds on the coupling. A combined analysis of the three clusters yields a maximum likelihood at g13 = gae/10^-13 = 0.8 and a 95% C.L. upper limit of 1.49. Although slightly less stringent than recent bounds from larger multi-cluster samples, this limit is substantially more robust. Under reasonable mass-loss assumptions, g13 > 7.5 is ruled out, as it predicts the disappearance of the HB and AGB phases routinely observed in globular clusters, a limit more than an order of magnitude stronger than current direct experimental bounds such as XENONnT. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this differential, distance-independent method for constraining physics beyond the Standard Model. Applying it to a wider sample of globular clusters would further refine the constraint on gae.

Following important experimental developments, tests of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background (DSNB) are entering a new phase that might lead to a discovery. This motivates the development of simple and broadly applicable tools for comparing theoretical predictions and interpreting experimental results. We show that, over the energy range relevant to current detectors, the DSNB is well described by an exponential spectrum, characterized by the differential flux at 20 MeV, $φ_{20}$, and a spectral energy scale, $E_0$. We fit the spectra of 24 representative models and demonstrate that the exponential description provides an excellent approximation. We then recast the recent Super-Kamiokande results in the $(φ_{20},E_0)$ plane, showing that model-specific best fits and upper bounds can be interpreted naturally within this framework. Our results indicate that, above realistic detection thresholds, and until the precision phase is reached, the observable DSNB is effectively a two-parameter phenomenon. We advocate that the $(φ_{20},E_0)$ parameterization be adopted as a standard, to be used routinely to report future theoretical predictions and experimental results.

We present the first XRISM spectroscopy of the core of Abell 1413 (z = 0.143), combining 104.7 ks of Resolve with archival XMM-Newton and Chandra spectra of a matched sky region. A1413 is hot, massive and relaxed but lacks a strong cool core (t_cool = 6.4 Gyr), a regime in which the low turbulence reported to date has been tested only once, in A3571. The Resolve spectrum requires a single velocity-broadened component with kT = 7.06 (+0.33, -0.43) keV and a line-of-sight velocity dispersion sigma_v = 170 (+25, -24) km/s (M_3D = 0.217). The bulk velocity relative to the brightest cluster galaxy, v_bulk = -24 +/- 26 (z_ICM) +/- 71 (z_BCG) km/s, is limited by the optical redshift rather than by Resolve, and disfavours coherent line-of-sight sloshing. The non-thermal pressure fraction, 2.5 +/- 0.7 per cent, implies a hydrostatic mass bias b < 2.5 per cent, comparable to the strong cool-core cluster A2029 (2.6 +/- 0.3 per cent) and, at matched sampling scale, if anything below it. With A3571 (1.3 +/- 0.3 per cent), to which A1413 rescales within 0.2 sigma, two weak cool cores now show that this quiescence does not require central cooling. The resolved Fe-K He-alpha complex gives Fe = 0.38 +/- 0.03 (stat) +/- 0.04 (sys) solar; Ni/Fe, separated from Fe K-beta for the first time, is solar, as is the pattern as a whole. The Ne, Mg and Si lines that set Ne/Fe, Mg/Fe and Si/Fe lie below 2 keV, where our instruments disagree by 10-20 per cent; we therefore do not regard the SNIa fraction as constrained.

Continuous-wave searches for rotating neutron stars usually cover wide parameter spaces and produce a large number of candidate signals. Stochastic sampling methods therefore play an important role in candidate follow-up and parameter estimation. We present the integration of the Bayesian inference library BILBY into the open-source continuous-wave analysis package PyFstat, enabling access to the broad range of stochastic samplers available through BILBY while preserving the existing PyFstat analysis infrastructure. The implementation is validated through injection studies in Gaussian noise for two representative single-stage follow-up configurations: candidates from a directed search and candidates from an all-sky search. Using the nested sampler DYNESTY, we obtain detection efficiencies consistent with the theoretical sensitivity predictions. In this setup, DYNESTY performs comparably to the existing PTEMCEE-based implementation of PyFstat for the directed case, and also provides an effective single-stage approach for the all-sky candidate follow-up considered here, where we did not identify a PTEMCEE setup with similar recovery performance. Percentile-percentile tests for DYNESTY further show well-calibrated credible intervals, demonstrating reliable parameter estimation. While a full exploration of DYNESTY settings, multi-stage setups, and other samplers is left for future work, these results demonstrate that this flexible and publicly available framework opens useful new possibilities for Bayesian continuous-wave analyses.

We investigate the dynamics of a neutral scalar particle in a charged traversable wormhole background, considering harmonic and modified harmonic oscillator couplings. By solving the Klein--Gordon equation, the radial problem is reduced to a generalized Heun equation, whose polynomial truncation yields the bound-state energy spectrum and quantized oscillator frequencies. Although the particle is electrically neutral, the energy spectrum depends indirectly on the wormhole charge through the geometric deformation of spacetime. We also analyze the dependence of the oscillator frequency on the angular momentum, throat parameter, electric charge, and the additional interaction parameter $V_{0}$. The appropriate limits recover the corresponding results for the uncharged wormhole and the standard harmonic oscillator.

Cluster weak-lensing analyses often compress two-dimensional lensing fields into azimuthally averaged radial profiles and evaluate nonlinear observables from the averaged convergence and shear. However, the ring average of a nonlinear observable generally differs from the mean-field prediction formed from the averaged fields. This difference, divided by the mean-field prediction, defines the fractional residual. For a complete ring, the difference begins at second order in angular fluctuations. For centered elliptical halos, rotational symmetry makes the shape contribution even in signed ellipticity, while the leading miscentering dipole is orthogonal to the shape quadrupole. We test these predictions using projected triaxial NFW halos at six mass-redshift grid points spanning $3\leq M_{200\mathrm c}/(10^{14}\,h^{-1}M_\odot)\leq20$ and $0.2\leq z_l\leq0.5$, for $z_s=1$. For the reference offset model, centering offsets follow a Rayleigh distribution with scale $0.05r_{200\mathrm c}$. For $0.366\leq R/r_{200\mathrm c}\leq1$, where at least $95\%$ of each population satisfies a conservative subcriticality criterion, we calculate the median of the fractional residuals across the retained halos for each population and radius. The largest population-median magnitudes are $0.90\%$ for reduced shear, $0.0093\%$ for inverse magnification, $0.64\%$ for magnification, and $0.18\%$ across the two magnification-bias cases $μ^{α-1}$ ($α=0.3, 1.4$). In the paired calculation at $z_s=2$, the maximum magnitude increases for every observable, consistent with weak-lensing power counting. Across both source planes and the common radial domain, every population median remains below $2\%$ in magnitude. This accuracy follows from first-order cancellation, rotational symmetry, and harmonic orthogonality, with further weak-lensing suppression of the remaining nonlinear terms.

During their evolution, stars follow a distinct path in luminosity--temperature space. Low-mass stars that have exhausted hydrogen in their core follow the so-called red-giant branch which is predominantly in the direction of increasing luminosity and decreasing surface temperature. The luminosity bump is a temporary decrease in luminosity against this otherwise increasing trend. The bump is present in both observations and stellar evolution models. However, with canonical physics included in the models, the bump in computed evolutionary tracks appears at higher luminosities than the observed bump. To understand why the bump appears later in the models than in observations, the physics of the bump needs to be unravelled. The end point of the bump is well-understood; however, the onset of the bump is still an enigma. Here, we report on the physical origin of the onset of the luminosity bump. We show that the difference in specific entropy at the mean molecular weight discontinuity decreases due to the discontinuity moving in. This decrease is attributed to the decrease in the ratio of the temperature to the pressure at smaller radii. Upon reaching a critical value the specific entropy difference at the mean molecular weight discontinuity is reduced sufficiently to reduce the specific entropy in the convective envelope. The latter is a key signature of the bump. Hence the evolution of the specific entropy at the mean molecular weight discontinuity provides a viable description for the onset of the bump.

We present stacked thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect measurements for three samples of galaxy groups and clusters: those traced by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Intstrument Data Release 1 (DESI DR1) luminous red galaxies (LRG) and the DESI DR1 Bright Galaxy Sample (BGS), and an eROMaPPer optically-selected sample from the DESI Legacy Imaging Survey. We use the latest Atacama Cosmology Telescope DR6 (ACT)+Planck component-separated internal linear combination (ILC) Compton-$y$ maps and ACT+Planck coadded 90, 150, and 220 GHz temperature maps to extract the tSZ signal within a $\sim2'$ disk aperture for sources binned by luminosity, richness, or mass. We measure the average tSZ signal with high statistical significance, with signal-to-noise ratios surpassing 38 for LRG, 27 for BGS, and 39 for the eROMaPPer sample using the 90 GHz ACT DR6+Planck map. We conduct a detailed study of systematics and foregrounds such as dust and cosmic infrared background (CIB) contamination, which remain a core challenge for tSZ analysis. For the LRG and BGS samples, we find that dust and radio source emission dominate the tSZ signal at scales near and below the disk aperture radius. Large-scale ($R>4'$) contamination from the CIB is less significant. We mitigate these contaminants to isolate the tSZ signal and use a combination of simulated and real measurements to develop Compton-$y-$optical depth ($\bar y-\bar τ$) scaling relations to infer optical depths, which are found to be in agreement with values measured using the pairwise kinematic SZ effect for the same tracer samples. The $\bar y-\bar τ$ scaling relation for the eROMaPPer sample is the first such relationship to be derived directly from SZ measurements.

The recent observations of the supermassive black holes M87* and Sagittarius A* by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration (EHT) have shown the need for robust, efficient, and accessible numerical tools to model light propagation in strongly curved spacetimes. Comparing theoretical accretion models with observational data relies heavily on ray-tracing algorithms that calculate the trajectories of photons traveling from a source plasma to a distant observer. In this paper, we present TARTARUS (Tracer for Astrophysical Ray Trajectories Around Relativistic Ultra-compact Sources), a new, highly modular, and extensible Python-based framework for computing null geodesics around compact objects. By leveraging Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation via Numba, TARTARUS bridges the gap between Python's high-level accessibility and the execution speed of compiled languages like C++ or FORTRAN. The code supports multiple native solvers (including adaptive embedded Runge-Kutta pairs, a Bulirsch-Stoer extrapolator, and a Verlet scheme), event-detection mechanics for handling structural intersections (e.g. event horizons and accretion disks), and support for both analytical and numerically generated background metrics. We demonstrate the code's physical accuracy and computational efficiency through some tests, including the evaluation of the Hamiltonian constraint conservation and ray-tracing of the shadow and the Novikov-Thorne thin accretion disks around a Kerr black hole.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has recently reported a nuclear-recoil candidate at $E_R=248\pm23_{\rm stat}\pm23_{\rm sys}\,{\rm keV}$ in an exposure of $2.84\,{\rm tonne\,yr}$. At this unusually high recoil energy, the spin-independent (SI) xenon response is strongly suppressed, motivating dark matter interactions with a harder recoil spectrum. We show that elastic spin-dependent (SD) scattering through the nonrelativistic operator $\mathcal O_4=\mathbf S_{\rm DM}\cdot\mathbf S_N$ provides a simple realization of such a spectrum. We consider singlet-doublet Majorana dark matter, for which a diagonal $Z$ coupling generates the required SD interaction. The accompanying Higgs-mediated SI interaction would generically produce too many low-energy recoils, but can be suppressed along a Higgs blind spot while retaining a nonzero $Z$ coupling. We find a region of the Higgs blind spot that simultaneously predicts an $\mathcal O(1)$ event rate in the LZ high-recoil window and reproduces the observed thermal relic abundance. The same SD interaction leads to solar capture, allowing this region to be tested independently with solar-neutrino searches. Current IceCube limits already probe part of the LZ-compatible thermal parameter space, while a viable region remains. Additional xenon exposure and improved solar-neutrino searches can therefore provide complementary tests of this interpretation.

The form and relationship between the mass distributions of Wolf-Rayet stars and black holes are analyzed using a direct method for estimating the distribution function from a sample of mass values with individual distributions obtained from current observations. It is shown that, taking into account the mass loss of WR stars by the end of this evolutionary stage, the mass distribution of black holes is close to that of the CO-cores of WR stars before gravitational collapse, $M_\mathrm{BH}\simeq M_\mathrm{CO}$.

In-situ measurements in space plasmas indicate that the velocity distributions of charged particles are not in thermal equilibrium, deviating from a standard Maxwellian mainly due to anisotropies and suprathermal populations which enhance high-energy tails. Although the Standard \k{appa}-Distribution (SKD) is well established in modeling these non-equilibrium distributions, its application is often viewed controversially due to certain unphysical implications, in particular divergent velocity moments. To address these issues, the Regularized \k{appa}-Distribution (RKD) was introduced. Such advanced, in general anisotropic RKDs are invoked here for the first time to investigate oblique firehose instabilities, including those induced by the temperature anisotropy of electrons and protons, the dominant species in space plasmas. In weakly collisional plasmas, both of these instabilities are expected to play significant roles in the self-regulation of the macroscopic properties of space plasmas (e.g. the expanding solar wind) reported by observations. Is not yet possible to resort to a general dispersion tensor related to RKD plasmas (whose derivation is still a challenge), instead the Arbitrary Linear Plasma Solver (ALPS) is exploited here. The unstable solutions obtained for the already established Maxwellian & SKDs successfully validate the capability of ALPS. For RKDs, the instabilities confirm the stimulating effect of suprathermal populations, with lower \k{appa} values generally enhancing the firehose growth rates. For the oblique electron firehose instability, RKDs substantially modify the competition between periodic & aperiodic branches only at intermediate angles & can sustain significantly increased growth rates of especially aperiodic modes at highly oblique propagation beyond both the Maxwellian unstable regime & the one that is accessible with SKDs.

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in "little red dots" (LRDs) discovered the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may result from runaway mergers of primordial black holes (PBHs) in clusters---through long--short mode coupling on small scales in the early Universe. In this framework, we derive the SMBH mass function, together with the compactness and overmassive features of LRDs. We also estimate that the dense gas residing in PBH clusters is consistent with LRD observations. In addition, SMBHs formed from PBH clusters can help accelerate galaxy formation at high redshifts, thus alleviating tension with $Λ$CDM cosmology.

Variability in O-type supergiants is a well known phenomena although their origin is not fully understood. In very massive, luminous stars, strange mode pulsations have been suggested to play a role in the variability. Here, we present a preliminary theoretical study of O-type supergiant models corresponding to the observed parameters of the star HD 152249, which shows line profile variability. Non-adiabatic linear stability analysis with respect to radial perturbations is carried out for the considered models of this star. Instabilities with growth rates of the order of dynamical timescale are found, with characteristics suggestive of strange modes. Non-linear simulations for selected models indicate that the instabilities could lead to significant envelope inflation, finite amplitude pulsation and may contribute to enhanced mass loss.

String T-duality, through its correspondence with path-integral duality, endows the low-energy propagator with a zero-point length $l_0=2π\sqrt{α'}$ that softens the short-distance behavior of gravitational fields. Motivated by the regular black-hole construction obtained from the corresponding smeared source, we formulate a T-duality-inspired Alcubierre geometry by identifying the warp profile with the complementary cumulative mass fraction of that source. For the effective one-scale choice $f(r_s)=1-r_s^3/(r_s^2+l^2)^{3/2}$, with $l^2=R^2+l_0^2$, the metric is $C^2$ at the bubble center and smooth elsewhere, while the energy density, its volume integral, and the York expansion are available in closed form. In particular, $E=-(15π/1024)v_s^2 l$ in geometric units and $|ρ_E|$ is bounded by a constant times $v_s^2/l^2$. Within this one-scale family, the model therefore removes the divergence associated with the profile-contraction limit $R\to 0$ at fixed velocity, because $l$ cannot fall below $l_0$. This should not be confused with a regularization of the conventional Alcubierre thin-wall limit at fixed macroscopic bubble radius, in which an independent wall thickness is taken to zero. We emphasize, however, that the construction is an effective ansatz rather than a derivation from string-corrected field equations: $R$ is a macroscopic profile scale, the choice $l^2=R^2+l_0^2$ is an interpolation, and the classical $l_0\to 0$ limit remains a smooth thick-walled profile rather than the distributional Alcubierre top hat. Exotic matter remains necessary, and neither semiclassical stability nor a modified quantum energy inequality is claimed without an explicit renormalized stress-tensor calculation.

It is known that the spacetime metric can be recovered from quantum-field correlators. We extend this programme by showing that the Einstein tensor can be directly written in terms of UV-regulated field correlations. The same correlation structure also directly determines the Ricci tensor, while higher coincidence derivatives recover the connection and Riemann tensor. We further show that the renormalized stress-energy tensor can be formulated within this framework, up to the standard finite renormalization freedom. These results provide a correlation-based organization of the semiclassical Einstein equations and advance the programme of formulating spacetime geometry in terms of quantum field correlations.

Galaxy clusters are among the most powerful laboratories to probe fundamental physics, from the formation of cosmic structures to the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and gravity. Realizing their full potential requires accurate and unbiased determinations of their mass profiles, a longstanding challenge in cluster cosmology. In this context, the kinematics of member galaxies in clusters has become a key tool to reconstruct the mass distribution and to investigate the dynamical properties of clusters. The advent of large spectroscopic datasets has enabled the application of increasingly sophisticated models and robust techniques, which make kinematic analyses competitive with other probes of cluster dynamics. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of cluster kinematics, covering the main methods to infer dynamical masses and mass profiles, their physical assumptions, and the impact of systematics such as deviation from dynamical equilibrium, triaxiality, and substructures. We discuss the complementarity with other techniques to investigate the structure of clusters and highlight recent applications to tests cosmological models. We focus in particular on the role of kinematical studies in constraining the dark sector (dark matter and dark energy) and in providing novel insights into the behavior of gravity at Mpc scales. Finally, we outline current limitations and future prospects, emphasizing that the combination of improved modeling and forthcoming spectroscopic surveys will establish cluster kinematics as a fundamental probe in the era of precision cosmology.

We present a novel approach to perform posterior sampling of the underlying stellar spectrum in high-resolution spectroscopic observations. Our method, postellar, coherently combines information from empirical observations and physics-based models, enabling more accurate spectral recovery while providing uncertainties that can be propagated into downstream analyses. This is accomplished by treating the intrinsic stellar spectrum as a latent variable and performing posterior sampling under a Gaussian likelihood with an informative prior constructed using a score-based diffusion model trained on PHOENIX stellar models. We validate the framework on synthetic SPIRou radial velocity (RV) observations generated from the empirical spectra of Barnard's Star and Proxima Centauri. Spectra inferred with postellar more accurately recover the ground truth than standard empirical templates. For medium signal-to-noise observations, postellar improves RV accuracy by up to a factor of three, while RVs derived from empirical templates tend to be biased. This method performs particularly well in low signal-to-noise and low-cadence regimes. The postellar framework is broadly applicable to other high-resolution spectroscopy science cases including stellar abundance analyses and exoplanet atmospheric characterization.

The helium abundance of a star has a dramatic effect on luminosity, internal structure, and evolutionary timescales, yet direct helium measurements are unavailable for most stars. In this work, we infer stellar helium abundances by comparing observed and predicted luminosities for a sample of subgiants with asteroseismic masses from the APOKASC sample and spectroscopic parameters from recent survey compilations. Stellar luminosities are predicted using grids of theoretical stellar evolution models and offsets are attributed to helium differences from the assumed model value. From this analysis, we see clear evidence of helium enrichment correlated with metallicity, $ΔY/ΔZ = 1.959 \pm 0.061$, with the dominant error source being systematic differences in stellar fundamental parameters. Our inferred enrichment slope exceeds the value implied by a solar-calibrated helium enrichment relation, suggesting that commonly adopted assumptions regarding helium enrichment may underestimate stellar helium abundances at high metallicity. We further show that adopting the revised enrichment law can alter predicted main-sequence lifetimes by up to $\sim$ 1 Gyr and, in some cases, modify stellar structure through changes in convective core development. These results demonstrate that uncertainties in helium enrichment propagate directly into stellar age determinations and highlight the importance of empirical helium constraints for stellar evolution models.

The bispectrum of galaxy distribution remains an underutilized statistic in cosmological data analysis. This can be attributed to mathematical and computational challenges associated with a proper modeling of the signal and its covariance. While recent theoretical advances have made it possible to analytically model the bispectrum signal and covariance using perturbation theory, a fully non-Gaussian analytical treatment of the covariance for a realistic survey with window remains elusive. The full bispectrum covariance of observed galaxies is a non-Gaussian six-point function with each of its legs convolved with a complex window function. Although it has so far proven intractable, the problem is well-posed. In this article, we present the derivation, implementation, and validation of a numerical routine for the analytic calculation of the bispectrum covariance for a spherical window, carried out by a large language model (LLM). The derivation uncovered terms that vanish in the windowless case but that dominate the covariance for triangles with survey scale modes. As a development benchmark for the implementation, we used the sample covariance of the halo bispectrum measured from 6000 fiducial Quijote halo catalogs in real space. Over several iterations of refinement, the LLM converged on a regime-specific numerical scheme for the covariance matrix calculation, mixing exact and approximate approaches, resulting in a highly optimized, tractable and accurate covariance across scales and shapes, using only tree-level models for the input polyspectra. Closing the loop still required human expertise, which illustrates what human-AI collaboration in research may look like in the near term.

Binary systems are extremely common and influence many areas of astrophysics, such as stellar evolution and cluster dynamics. In this work, we introduce flexAE, a framework that combines a classical autoencoder architecture with a dedicated classifier component. It is designed to distinguish between single stars and binary systems based on their broadband spectral energy distributions, using all available photometry simultaneously while accounting for observational uncertainties. We demonstrate the capability of flexAE by using it to identify unresolved main sequence binaries in the outskirts of the 47 Tucanae globular cluster (NGC 104) with photometric data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. We train the model on a simulated sample of single star and binary systems created with stellar atmosphere models. The model accurately reconstructs the photometric input features and achieves a classification accuracy of 0.85 on the simulated test set. We then apply the trained model to a sample of 1,424 cluster members found in Rubin DP1 with reliable $gri$ photometry, of which 32 are identified by the model as unresolved main sequence binaries. This corresponds to an observed binary fraction of $2.2^{+0.5}_{-0.3}$%. We estimate that the intrinsic main sequence binary fraction lies between $3.7^{+0.8}_{-0.5}$% and $7.5^{+1.5}_{-1.1}$%. The binary fraction stays constant between 18-36 arcmin (5.7-11.4 half-light radii) from the cluster center. We highlight that flexAE can be easily adapted for other use cases. This makes flexAE well-suited for large-scale binary classification in upcoming wide-field surveys, such as Rubin LSST. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/tobiasgeron/flexAE.

Accretion governs the growth of young stars and the early evolution of their circumstellar disks, yet population-level measurements of accretion are often hampered by heterogeneous diagnostics and by samples preferentially selected toward disk-bearing or accreting objects. This can impact the mass accretion rate-stellar mass ($\dot{M}$-$M_\star$) relation, particularly at substellar masses. We present a uniform analysis of accretion in the $\sim$2 Myr-old star-forming cluster IC 348 based on deep Hubble Space Telescope F656N imaging. Using H$α$ excess as a single, homogeneous accretion tracer, we derive accretion rates and robust upper limits for 200 cluster members spanning the stellar to substellar mass regime ($3\ M_\odot$ to $4\ M_{\rm Jup}$). Accretion is detected in $37\pm3\%$ of the sample, with fractions of $34\pm4\%$ among stellar members and $46\pm6\%$ among substellar objects. For accretors alone, the inferred $\dot{M}$-$M_\star$ relation is consistent with those measured in similarly aged regions such as Lupus. In contrast, including weak accretors and non-detections increases the scatter and flattens the slope while lowering the intercept, demonstrating the strong influence of the low-accretion tail on population-level accretion relations. For free-floating planetary-mass objects in IC 348, extrapolating the accretors-only fit overpredicts $\dot{M}$ by approximately an order of magnitude compared to the fit that includes upper limits, which instead implies mass accretion rates of $<10^{-12}$ $M_{\odot}\ \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. These results show that sample selection, specifically whether the sample is restricted to disk-bearing or accreting targets, or instead is drawn from a complete membership census, is a dominant factor shaping population-level accretion relations across a wide dynamic range in stellar mass.

We propose the use of sphere-and-plate Casimir force measurement setups to detect ultralight vector dark matter. We demonstrate that sub-picometer signals can be parametrically amplified to be detectable. We present a novel improvement that allows the continuous tuning of the natural frequency of the system, opening new research opportunities at the submicron scale. We show that the improved setup can determine the dark matter mass with high accuracy, significantly expand the detectable mass range, and achieve the best sensitivity to date in the $8\times10^{-14}\sim1\times10^{-12}{\rm~ eV}$ mass range.

We calibrate the Next Generation Palomar Spectrograph (NGPS) for precision stellar radial-velocity (RV) measurements using repeated observations of 24 Gaia-ESO RV standards spanning $G=11$-$18$. Because NGPS is mounted at the Hale telescope's Cassegrain focus, changes in instrumental flexure produce wavelength-solution shifts of tens of km s$^{-1}$, with substantial time and wavelength dependence. We develop a pipeline that measures these shifts directly from each science exposure, using telluric absorption features in the R and I channels and the [O I] 5577 Å sky-emission line in the G channel. This approach eliminates the need for frequent on-sky arc calibrations. The resulting wavelength-dependent flexure corrections reduce the median absolute discrepancy relative to Gaia-ESO RVs from tens of km s$^{-1}$ to 1.6 km s$^{-1}$. Telluric absorption provides substantially more reliable flexure calibration than sky emission lines, which do not track point-source illumination of the slit. The I channel, which contains both many telluric lines and strong photospheric lines across a range of spectral types, generally yields the most stable RVs. The achieved precision remains above the photon-noise limit, indicating that NGPS RV performance is currently limited by calibration and modeling systematics. These results demonstrate that NGPS is well-suited for accurate and precise stellar RV measurements across a wide range of astrophysical studies.

We revisit an interacting dark matter (DM) -- dark energy (DE) model characterized by the interaction function $Q = Γρ_x$, where $Γ$ is a constant coupling parameter and $ρ_x$ is the energy density of DE. This type of interaction is independent of the Hubble rate or other external parameters, but depends only on the fundamental properties of DE, such as its equation of state (EoS), $w_x$. We pay special attention to $w_x$ and study three distinct interacting scenarios distinguished by the nature of $w_x$, i.e. $w_x =-1$ (when DE corresponds to the vacuum energy), $w_{x} < -1$ (when DE has a phantom behavior), and $w_x > -1$ (quintessential DE). We constrain all of them using the most recent cosmological datasets, including CMB from Planck 2018, BAO from DESI DR2, and three compilations of SNIa (PantheonPlus, Union3, and DESY5). Our analyses reveal that evidence of interaction is supported in scenarios with $w_x =-1$ and $w_x < -1$ when all three datasets are combined, but from the Bayesian evidence analysis, $Λ$CDM remains favored over these interacting scenarios. Regarding the $S_8$ parameter, when $w_x > -1$, this interacting scenario leads to mildly lower estimates across all datasets.

We investigate the late-time energy deposited by a weak, spatially homogeneous anisotropic gravitational pulse in a massless Dirac field confined between two static parallel plates. The field satisfies MIT bag boundary conditions, while the prescribed geometry approaches Minkowski spacetime in both asymptotic time regions. Using a tetrad formulation, we show that the linear spin-connection contribution cancels for the traceless anisotropy, leaving a coupling to the shear component of the Dirac stress tensor. The pulse produces real fermion--antifermion pairs, whose deposited energy is evaluated through the corresponding Bogoliubov coefficients. Subtracting the production in unbounded space isolates a finite boundary-dependent contribution governed by the pulse duration relative to the characteristic spectral timescale set by the MIT gap. This contribution is negative in the adiabatic regime, where confinement suppresses excitations relative to the continuous free spectrum, and approaches zero from above in the impulsive limit. The resulting pressure correction is nonmonotonic and exhibits two sign changes, alternately reinforcing and reducing the ordinary attractive Casimir force. Unlike the bosonic vacuum-polarization memory previously obtained for the same class of backgrounds, the present effect is a dissipative fermionic memory carried by gravitationally created pairs. Here, memory denotes the persistent late-time modification of the quantum state after the pulse has vanished.

It is difficult to identify unresolved triple and higher-order systems beyond the solar vicinity. Star clusters yield controlled environments with known physical parameters, providing a way to explore homogeneous stellar samples. Combining modern optical and near-IR surveys, our main goal is to explore the region of the color-magnitude diagrams located above the sequence of equal-mass binaries, which is inhabited by unresolved triple and quadruple systems. Specifically, here we aim to discover and characterize the presence of multiple systems in the aged open star cluster Trumpler 19. We selected cluster members using Gaia astrometry and photometry from the VVVX and DECAPS2 surveys. We made optical and near-IR color-magnitude diagrams to select stars located >0.75 mag above the cluster main sequence, including suitable unresolved triple and quadruple systems. We confirm previous results that there is a sizable sequence of unresolved binaries in Trumpler 19. We also report the discovery of a sequence of unresolved multiple systems in this cluster, and confirm some of these multiple systems via radial velocities measured by the ESO KMOS VVVX-GalCen spectroscopic survey. The fraction of multiple stars in this cluster is comparable to that of the solar neighborhood, with the caveat that the local sample probes deeper down the main sequence. The fraction of unresolved triples and quadruples is also three times higher than that of the open cluster M 67, which is of a similar age and chemical composition. The discovery of unresolved triple systems in Trumpler 19 leads to our main conclusion that these systems were able to survive within the cluster for nearly 4 Gyr. In addition, this cluster contains more multiple systems than M 67, which has a similar total present mass. Further investigations are needed to unveil if this is a primordial feature or the result of dynamical evolution.

We present a homogeneous HST/ACS F555W/F814W time-series census of variable stars in two M101 disk fields, using a uniform multi-band reduction and reproducible variable-selection workflow for nearby SN-host galaxies. Supplementary archival F555W epochs are used only to refine selected long-period solutions. Candidates are selected with Lomb-Scargle period searches, Fourier light-curve modeling, two-band consistency statistics, artificial-star-test photometric corrections, and mode-aware Cepheid refinement. The final catalog contains 1417 variable-star candidates, including 1102 secure fundamental-mode and 78 secure first-overtone classical Cepheids. Of these secure Cepheids, 420 are newly identified relative to the Shappee & Stanek catalog. The catalog also contains luminous candidates outside the classical Cepheid locus. We release the catalog and source-level two-band light curves for studies of Cepheid physics, stellar variability, and distance-scale applications.

The detection of the redshifted 21 cm signal from neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization remains one of the central challenges in contemporary cosmology. Although upcoming radio interferometers are expected to measure 21 cm fluctuations at a few percent precision, an independent confirmation is essential to ensure robustness against instrumental systematics and foreground contamination. In this work, we propose a novel real-space stacking technique to detect the 21 cm signal, guided by the presence of dark gaps in quasar absorption spectra during the late stages of reionization ($z \sim 5.0$-$6.1$). Using a semi-numerical reionization model, we show that stacking 21 cm images on long dark gaps (length, $L > 32~h^{-1}\mathrm{cMpc}$ and threshold flux, $F_{\mathrm{th}} < 0.005$) should reveal a strong emission signal with a peak mean-subtracted 21 cm brightness temperature of $δ\tilde{T}_b \sim 2-3~ mK$ for a volume-weighted average neutral fraction of $x_{\mathrm{HI}} \sim 0.1$ at $z = 5.9$. We further extend our analysis to realistic reionization lightcones, incorporating thermal noise and foreground avoidance effects, generated for two different reionization histories. In an optimistic foreground avoidance scenario (wedge field of view $θ< 20^\circ$), a sample of roughly 100 dark gaps is sufficient to achieve a combined root-sum-square signal-to-noise ratio exceeding 10 for both reionization models, while a more conservative wedge avoidance may require more dark gaps for a solid detection. Given the large number of quasars known at $z > 6$, a detection of this stacked signal may thus already be within reach of existing optical (i.e., VLT, Keck) and 21 cm observatories (i.e., HERA, SKA). This synergistic approach offers a promising pathway towards a direct and statistically robust detection of the cosmological 21 cm signal.

The recent discovery of S301 provides an unique opportunity to investigate dark matter-baryon interaction in the innermost region of the Milky Way. S301 follows a highly eccentric orbit around Sgr~A*, and its pericenter distance is only around 12 AU with velocity about $25000\,{\rm km/s}$. These extreme properties make S301 highly sensitive to dark matter-baryon scattering in the center of galaxy, where the dark matter density may be strongly enhanced. We have calculated the orbit-averaged energy deposited rate in S301 via dark matter-proton scattering, and show that over a broad dark matter parameter space, cross sections satisfying the existing bounds from terrestrial experiments and astronomical observations can inject sufficient energy to modify the luminosity and evolution of S301. Our results establish S301 as an exceptionally sensitive probe of dark matter-baryon interactions and open a new avenue for probing dark matter interactions in high-density and high-velocity astrophysical environments.

Cyclic cosmologies replace inflation's single creation event with an eternal sequence of smooth turnarounds, but three problems have historically stood in their way: singular bounces, the blue tilt generic to single-field ekpyrotic contraction, and Tolman's observation that entropy production should make successive cycles longer and larger without bound. We resolve all three within one explicit model. A Randall-Sundrum brane with a timelike extra dimension regularizes the bounce without violating the null energy condition, and a single scalar field's potential carries the universe from a thawing dark-energy plateau through a sign-changing turnaround into a BKL-safe ekpyrotic contraction and back. We show that no correction internal to the brane's Friedmann equation, and no straight two-field trajectory, can rescue the spectral index from the generic ekpyrotic result $n_s\approx3$. We then build the minimal completion that can: a kinetically coupled entropy field, following the general mechanism of Ijjas, Lehners, and Steinhardt, whose coupling steepness has a closed-form, exact-scale-invariance value for this model's ekpyrotic potential, with only a percent-level offset needed to match the measured tilt $n_s=0.9649$. This fixes the local non-Gaussianity ($f_{\rm NL}\approx-0.02$) and tensor-to-scalar ratio ($r\approx7.6\times10^{-26}$). Matching the observed amplitude fixes the conversion coupling and brane tension to unremarkable values ($λ\approx5.7\times10^{-3}$, $ρ_c^{1/4}=10^{13}\,$GeV). Finally, because the brane construction is spatially flat, Tolman's entropy argument does not bound the number of cycles here: we derive $N_{\rm DE}\sim70$-80 e-folds of accelerated expansion needed each cycle to dilute the entropy produced back to a negligible density before the next contraction.

We present the X-ray surface brightness maps of the jet from the quasar PKS 0637-752, using two epochs of archival Chandra observations (1999 and 2017). We present, for the first time, a model of the faint inner jet extending from 3.4 to 7 arcsec from the core, interpreting its X-ray emission as inverse Compton scattering of cosmic microwave background photons by the synchrotron-emitting relativistic electrons. The inner jet contrasts with the bright outer part of the jet, dominated by several discrete knots for which upper limits to the Fermi gamma-ray flux rule out the inverse Compton mechanism. It is the first detailed inverse Compton model published for this inner jet. We examine three physically motivated scenarios, distinguished by the high-energy cutoff of the electron distribution, that can account for the observed radio, millimeter/submillimeter, and X-ray emission while remaining consistent with optical and gamma-ray upper limits. We also report for the first time X-rays from the radio lobe at the end of the receding jet.

In this paper, we investigate the optical properties of Kerr-Newman-Bertotti-Robinson (KN-BR) black holes. We use the separability of null geodesics to analyze unstable spherical photon orbits and determine the radial extent of the photon shell. Because the spacetime is not asymptotically flat, we construct the critical curve on the screen of a finite-distance zero-angular-momentum observer. We then perform backward ray tracing for a geometrically thin and optically thin disk that extends from the outer region to the event horizon, and examine the resulting images, intensity profiles, critical-curve areas, and inner-shadow areas. We find that the genuine neutral Kerr-BR$_0$ and specially charged Kerr-BR$_s$ configurations have nearly identical optical appearances. It is remarkable that for the KN-BR black holes increasing the electric charge reduces the characteristic image size in the Kerr-Newman limit but enlarges it in the magnetized configurations considered here. We also find that the external magnetic field strongly increases the apparent image scale, while the observer inclination affects the inner-shadow area more significantly than the critical-curve area. These results may provide useful theoretical insight for future observations aimed at identifying such exotic magnetized black holes.

Precise stellar masses and physical parameters for binary and multiple star systems require, respectively, well-constrained orbital solutions and independent stellar-atmosphere modeling. Existing open-source software addresses these separately, and hierarchical triple systems additionally require simultaneous fitting of their inner and outer orbits, a treatment few existing tools provide. We present PySeshat, an open-source Python package unifying binary and hierarchical-triple orbit determination with stellar SED fitting in a single, validated pipeline. The package fits visual, spectroscopic, and combined binary orbits by least-squares, and hierarchical-triple orbits through two parallel formalisms, one of which fits both inner and outer orbits simultaneously rather than sequentially. Both share a common Bayesian posterior-sampling layer. A second module fits two-component synthetic spectra to a binary's combined, unresolved photometry to recover each component's temperature and radius. The software was validated against twelve real, published benchmark systems, cross-checked against three independent orbit-fitting packages and real space-telescope archive data. All twelve benchmark systems reach fit quality consistent with their published solutions. Comparing the simultaneous and sequential triple-fitting formalisms on the same real systems shows the simultaneous approach is not merely preferable but necessary: one system's orbital configuration cannot be represented by the sequential formalism at all. Fitting four independently published systems' photometry reveals a degeneracy in recovering individual temperatures for near-twin-temperature stellar components from unresolved light, independent of how much photometric data is available. The package provides a validated, open, and extensible pipeline for binary and multiple star system analysis, publicly released and freely installable.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Collaboration has reported a $248$ keV nuclear-recoil candidate for which endothermic dark matter (DM) gives some of the largest local significances. We study Solar-capture constraints on three simple interpretations: a thermal Higgsino, a thermal pseudo-Dirac fermion with off-diagonal vector interactions, and neutron-philic endothermic spin-dependent scattering through $\mathcal{O}_4$. The canonical full-density thermal Higgsino is excluded: its LZ-preferred splitting near $0.38,\mathrm{MeV}$ lies below the IceCube requirement, $δ\gtrsim0.51$--$0.56,\mathrm{MeV}$. For the pseudo-Dirac benchmark we find $C_\odot=1.48\times10^{20},\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, but two-state kinetics strongly suppresses annihilation. Including thermally assisted $χ_1\toχ_2$ re-excitation gives a maximum $Γ_A\simeq4.1\times10^{14},\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, about $1.8\times10^5$ below the adopted IceCube $b\bar b$ limit. For neutron-philic $\mathcal{O}_4$ scattering at $m_χ=1$ TeV and $δ=300$ keV, finite-temperature capture gives $C_\odot=3.98\times10^{17},\mathrm{s}^{-1}$, with spin-response range $(1.77$--$9.72)\times10^{17},\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. Even in equilibrium, the upper edge remains about a factor $154$ below the adopted $b\bar b$ limit, while an aggressive no-finite-$q$ suppression plus upper-spin stress test still leaves a factor about $19$. The $b\bar b$ mapping is used as a representative hadronic template for the two non-Higgsino benchmarks. Solar capture therefore excludes the thermal-Higgsino interpretation but does not generically exclude endothermic explanations of the LZ candidate.

We investigate a fractional Bose Einstein condensate dark matter scenario in which an ultralight bosonic component forms a self gravitating core embedded in a predominantly cold dark matter halo. The stationary GPP system solved numerically beyond the TF approximation leads to energetically bound equilibrium configurations and good phenomenological fits to the selected rotation curves from 30 SPARC galaxies.

We propose a novel framework that simultaneously addresses the origin of Dirac neutrino masses and the nature of self-interacting dark matter (SIDM). The model is based on an $A_{4}$ modular symmetry to ensure the Diracness of neutrinos as well as the stability of the DM. The neutrino sector realizes a Dirac Inverse Seesaw mechanism where the smallness of the neutrino mass is governed by the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of a singlet scalar $φ$. This same scalar couples to a vector-like fermion DM candidate, inducing a tiny Majorana mass splitting that renders the DM pseudo-Dirac and inelastic. Crucially, the scalar also acts as a light mediator for DM self-interactions, potentially solving the small-scale structure problems of Cold DM. In light of the recent 248 keV nuclear-recoil event, LZ230616, observed by LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) DM direct detection experiment, we demonstrate that our inelastic SIDM parameter space naturally accommodates this signal via endothermic scattering kinematics. Furthermore, the spontaneous breaking of the dark parity required for this inelasticity produces a network of cosmological domain walls. We show that the explicit symmetry breaking needed to safely annihilate these walls generates a stochastic gravitational wave background. The non-holomorphic modular symmetry reduces the free parameters, correlating neutrino observables, addressing DM phenomenology, $ΔN_{\rm eff}$, and gravitational-wave signatures.

A star's radiation field is the main energy source of a planet-forming disk. Stellar photons---from X-rays to optical---are reprocessed in the inner protoplanetary disk enabling mid-IR diagnostics of the disk's physical conditions. Most pre-main-sequence stars accrete at moderate rates and emit X-rays efficiently. Such activity is expected to drive stochastic variability in the stellar spectrum. It is not clear to what extent such variability affects the thermochemical structure of protoplanetary disks. We aim to examine the effect of routine accretion variability and X-ray flares on the thermochemical structure and mid-IR line emission spectra of protoplanetary disks. We combine multiepoch, contemporaneous X-ray and NUV/optical observations of the DQ Tau binary with JWST/MIRI spectra of its circumbinary disk. We interpret the data and assess the effect of a varying stellar spectrum on the disk using a thermochemical model illustrative of the system. Synthetic fluxes of CO, CO2, HCN, and H2O are systematically stronger at periastron than at apastron due to an enhanced accretion luminosity. Variations in the integrated fluxes lie within a factor of two between epochs, in agreement with the JWST/MIRI spectra of DQ Tau. Routine stellar variability induces only modest changes in the disk's structure, yet it can still shift the snowline outwards by 17 percent relative to its apastron position. Because the JWST observations did not coincide with X-ray flares, our flare results rely on simulations: moderate-intensity flares leave most mid-IR molecular emission unchanged; in contrast, X-ray flares strongly enhance the abundances and mid-IR luminosities of H I, Ar II, and Ne II in the disk surface. Our results imply that the Spitzer/JWST line variability observed in non-outbursting systems is consistent with moderately variable stellar spectra driven by accretion and magnetospheric activity.

The discovery of Little Red Dots (LRDs) with JWST provides a new source population for cosmology in a largely unmapped period of cosmic history. LRDs are most numerous at $4\lesssim z\lesssim9$, thereby bridging existing low-redshift large-scale-structure measurements and the cosmic microwave background. In this epoch, the Universe is deep in the matter-dominated era, where dark energy is dynamically negligible and the expansion history is tightly predicted in $Λ$CDM, making these redshifts a clean test of the standard cosmological model. Recent measurements indicate that LRDs have number densities of $\bar n\sim10^{-4}$ $h^3$ Mpc$^{-3}$, a bias rising from $b\sim 3$ to $\sim8$ over this interval, and distinctive spectrophotometric signatures -- a remarkably favorable combination for baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements. Using a Fisher forecast with these fiducial inputs, we find that a wide-field spectroscopic survey of LRDs over a DESI-like (14,000 deg$^2$) footprint delivers a percent-level isotropic distance scale measurement of $D_V/r_d$ across four bins spanning $4\lesssim z\lesssim9$. LRDs are therefore a compelling target for future wide-field near- to mid-infrared spectroscopy aimed at mapping large-scale structure deep into the matter-dominated era.

We investigate the dynamical instability of rotating boson stars described by the Gross--Pitaevskii--Poisson equations with contact self-interactions. Through three-dimensional simulations, we confirm that the rotating boson star undergoes a quasiperiodic conversion between ring-like and twin-star-like density configurations in the early nonlinear stage. We develop a systematic linear stability analysis to identify the modes driving this instability and show that repulsive self-interactions could significantly increase the lifetime of the rotating boson stars. We further construct a three-mode Hamiltonian to describe the early nonlinear stage, which explains the quasiperiodic conversion. This analytical framework agrees reasonably well with the simulation results and provides a clear picture to understand the dynamics of rotating boson stars.

Total transmission modes (TTMs) are a class of reflectionless solutions to black hole perturbation equations, closely related to quasinormal modes (QNMs), and can exhibit significant sensitivity to weak environmental perturbations. In this work, we investigate the spectrum (in)stability of TTMs of Tangherlini black holes by introducing a localized Pöschl-Teller bump perturbation into the effective potential, and employ a modified Chebyshev-Lobatto grid to improve the numerical accuracy of the localized perturbation. For $d=14$, $\ell=2$, and $s=2$, the purely imaginary TTM exhibits relatively strong spectrum stability, whereas the genuine complex TTMs undergo significant migrations even for small perturbations, consistent with the spectrum stability revealed by previous pseudospectrum analyses.

Contact binary systems exhibit complex evolutionary behavior governed by mass transfer, angular momentum loss (AML), and Roche geometry. The fillout factor ($f$) is widely used as a descriptor of the degree of overcontact, yet its physical and statistical role remains nonuniformly defined across the literature. We used a compiled observational sample of W UMa-type contact binaries to construct a data-driven classification framework based on $f$ and its relation to fundamental system parameters. Unsupervised clustering applied to the one-dimensional $f$ distribution reveals a robust three-class structure corresponding to shallow-, medium-, and deep-contact configurations. The statistically determined boundaries are located at $f \simeq 0.257$ and $f \simeq 0.561$, with a stable silhouette score of $S \simeq 0.613$. The stability of this classification is confirmed through perturbation tests in $f$ and parameter-conditioned samples. A random forest regression model shows that 60.7\% of the variance in $f$ can be explained by the considered physical and geometric system parameters, with geometric parameters providing the largest predictive contribution. Among the considered parameters, the mass ratio emerges as the dominant predictor. The identified subclasses therefore appear to reflect a continuous geometric sequence rather than discrete physical states, governed by the progressive evolution of the Roche equipotential configuration under mass transfer and AML. Notably, the second boundary separating medium- and deep-contact systems shows lower stability than the first boundary, suggesting that the transition toward deep contact may be more sensitive to the physical composition of the analyzed sample.

A localized Gaussian or Pöschl-Teller bump is widely used to probe the sensitivity of Schwarzschild quasinormal modes, where it is typically added to both the Regge-Wheeler and Zerilli potentials. We show that such an additive prescription is generically incompatible with the Darboux transformation connecting the two parity sectors. The reason is that such a transformation restricts a parity-blind bump to a fixed family of bumps with an unavoidable $r^{-2}$ tail, excluding any Gaussian or Pöschl-Teller profile with arbitrary amplitude, center, or width in the additive prescription. We give the complete classification of Darboux-admissible axial and polar pairs of bumps and propose two consistent scenarios: Darboux generator prescription in which a Gaussian or Pöschl-Teller profile is retained as a generator of the bump pair rather than as the bump itself, and Riccati completion prescription in which a Gaussian or Pöschl-Teller profile is regarded as one of the bump pair and its partner will be solved from the Riccati equation. Our frequency-domain calculations confirm that a finite and spurious axial-polar splitting of quasinormal modes will be produced if the Darboux-consistent scenarios are absent, while the centroid shift of the fundamental mode is nearly unchanged.

The conformal interacting dark energy (CIDE) model is investigated by introducing a scalar field representing dark energy (DE) coupled to dark matter (DM) via a conformal transformation, thereby yielding a class of scalar-tensor theories. The interaction term ${Q}$, that indicts the flow of energy between the dark sectors is proportional to the trace of the energy momentum tensor of the DM fluid, $T^{\mathrm{DM}}_{μν}$, as ${Q}=\frac{C'(φ)}{2C(φ)}g^{μν}T^{\mathrm{DM}}_{μν}$, where $C(φ)$ is the conformal function of a scalar potential (coupling) field. We assume the power-law parametrization $C(φ)\propto (1+φ)^m$, with $m$ a coupling parameter, and determine the direction and magnitude of the energy flow between the DM and DE components. The dynamical nature of DE is modeled by the two conformal interacting scenarios, CIDE and $w$CIDE, with $w$ the DE equation of state parameter. To test the viability of each model, we constrain them using a combination of early- and late-time cosmological data, namely: CMB measurements from the South Pole Telescope, Planck 2018, and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (DR6) (\texttt{CMB SPA}); BAO data from the Dark Energy Survey (\texttt{DESI DR2 BAO}); and Supernova Type Ia distance compilations (\texttt{PantheonPlus, PantheonPlus + SH0ES, Union3}, and \texttt{DES Dovekie}). Parameter inference is performed with Monte Carlo Markov Chain (\texttt{MCMC}) simulations using \texttt{COBAYA} and a modified \texttt{CLASS}. Further statistical analysis using the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) is summarized to assess the viability of the model in comparison with the standard cosmological model, investigating the model's potential to alleviate the $H_0$ and $S_8$ tensions.

In this study, we explore the thermodynamic topology of black holes within the Sharma-Mittal entropy framework. Our study covers several black hole solutions, including charged and uncharged black holes in $d$-dimensional, as well as Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström black holes. By introducing the Sharma-Mittal entropy characterized by two parameters $δ$ and $R$, we explore how deviations from the standard Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics modify the thermodynamic structure and stability properties of these systems. Using Duan's $Φ$-mapping theory, we compute the corresponding topological numbers and classify black holes into distinct topological categories according to the winding number $W$. Moreover, our analysis shows that, within the Sharma-Mittal formalism, the topological classification is independent of spacetime dimension in the case $d>4$, although dimensions higher than four exhibit distinct features compared to the four-dimensional Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström black holes, reveal different behavior of thermodynamic topology under generalized statistics.

An ultra-slow-roll phase during inflation could potentially produce the right abundance of primordial black holes (PBHs) for them to form all of dark matter (DM). We consider such a scenario, carefully treating the transitions from slow to ultra slow roll inflation and back, using a parametrisation of the inflaton potential that can describe inflation from the time when CMB scales crossed out of the horizon until its end. A $δN$ analysis shows that this model can possess $O(1)$ non-Gaussianity. When computing the primordial black hole abundance, we keep the full non-linear relation between curvature perturbations and the density contrast and consider the non-Gaussianity to all orders. We find that $O(1)$ non-Gaussianity is sufficient to enhance the PBH abundance by orders of magnitude, leading to reduced gravitational wave (GW) signals for fixed PBH abundance. The signal to noise ratio is computed for future gravitational wave observatories. We find that, in spite of the reduced strength, the GW signal is well above the sensitivity of LISA if PBHs form a significant component of DM.

We study the possibility of explaining the recently reported high-energy nuclear recoil event by the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration within the framework of singlet-doublet scalar dark matter (DM). Considering DM to be the CP even mass eigenstate formed out of a scalar doublet and a real scalar singlet, both being odd under an unbroken $Z_2$ symmetry, we find the parameter space of the model consistent with correct relic abundance and direct-detection limits on elastic scattering rates. A large part of the parameter space can also lead to inelastic up-scattering of DM with a rate and recoil energy consistent with the recent LZ event. Depending upon the singlet-doublet mixing, the model allows a much wider range of currently allowed parameter space compared to the pure scalar doublet DM limit. Presence of $Z_2$-odd right-handed neutrinos also leads to other interesting phenomenology related to the origin of light neutrino masses and leptogenesis.

We compute the large overtone quasinormal frequencies $ω_n$ of asymptotically AdS black holes with interior near-singularity Kasner epochs. We show that the Kasner exponents can be extracted cleanly from the large $n$ behaviour of the dispersion $\partial ω_n/\partial k^2$ at $k=0$, where $k$ is a boundary momentum. We show that Kasner transitions, as occur in BKL near-singularity chaos, are audible in the quasinormal frequencies and reveal a map between overtone number $n$ and proper time to the singularity. Our results are obtained using a WKB analysis that isolates non-analytic exponents, determined by the near-singularity spacetime, from non-universal data such as the optical distance from the boundary to the singularity. We check our formulae in several numerical models.

We present R-matrix photoabsorption cross sections for Li-like oxygen O VI and He-like oxygen O VII and examine how plasma broadening modifies them as a function of temperature and density in astrophysical and laboratory high-energy-density (HED) plasma sources. All atomic systems are subject to plasma environment effects, and the propagation of radiation depends on photoabsorption via bound-bound transitions as spectral lines and autoionizing resonances in bound-free photoionization cross sections. We identify and illustrate low and high temperature-density limits for the onset of plasma broadening in O VI and O VII, demonstrating general features and methodology applicable across a broad range of plasma conditions. Calculations are presented along two representative isotherms corresponding to the solar base of convection zone (BCZ) at $T = 1 \times 10^6$ and $2 \times 10^6$ K, and electron densities $N_e = 10^{18}$-$10^{23}$ cm$^{-3}$. Autoionizing resonances progressively dissolve into the continuum with increasing electron density at each isotherm, flattening and merging into the background cross sections at BCZ conditions, at much lower densities than bound-bound line features require. Illustrative examples are given for energy regions containing Rydberg resonance series, including large photoexcitation-of-core (PEC) resonances. Comparisons with previous Opacity Project results reveal that (i) the R-matrix photoionization cross sections cover a much higher energy range where a significantly richer spectrum of autoionizing resonances are present that are not included in OP, and (ii) the corresponding monochromatic opacities show significant quantitative differences. This work is generally applicable to modeling HED plasmas in astrophysics, and to the analysis of transmission spectra in laboratory experiments on inertial confinement fusion (ICF) devices.

We define Filament-Arm Node Systems (FANS), a new class of cosmic-web objects consisting of multiple filament arms connected to a common node, and use their geometry to construct an object-based test of cosmic chirality. With the cosmic-web node providing a natural reference point, FANS span characteristic scales of ~60Mpc/h, allowing the coherent winding of their arms around the node to be measured directly. We define cosmic spirality as the amplitude of this winding and handedness as its signed clockwise (CW) or counter-clockwise (CCW) sense. We further introduce an axis-conditioned extrinsic estimator that searches for the projected signature of a coherent three-dimensional axial pattern of the handedness field, corresponding to a preferred axis of winding. Applying these measurements to two distinct SDSS filament reconstructions, and assessing their significance with sign-flip nulls and 27 controlled variations of the FANS construction parameters, we find no significant preference for CW or CCW winding, either globally or around a preferred axis. The data are therefore consistent with parity symmetry, as expected in standard LCDM cosmology. We additionally find that cosmic spirality decreases with cosmic time, a trend that may reflect the gravitational straightening of filament arms. These first constraints establish FANS as a new probe of cosmic-web symmetry and large-scale morphology and provide a baseline for future parity tests with the much larger filament samples expected from upcoming surveys.

A supergravity solution in the literature is an artifact that cannot be verified without re-deriving it: conventions might not be clearly stated, papers have typos, algebra is tedious. SolutionsX is a Mathematica package that turns an xAct environment, whatever physics it may describe, into a stored, machine-verifiable record: code that replays in a fresh kernel, carries its own verification, and can later be fetched for re-use or extension. The shipped examples are supergravity theories and their solutions, but the scope is anything xAct reaches: abstract tensors, differential forms, spinors in any dimension. We follow one published solution through the entire workflow, benchmark the package's component engine against xAct's, and report on three blind runs of an agentic workflow in which an AI coding agent, given the package and a small toolkit, correctly codified a recent paper in under three hours. A database of such records is useful to researchers today and gives agents worked examples to learn from. The package acts as an internal verifier during the thought process of an agent: a claim is checked in the kernel before it is made.

Weak gravitational lensing shear and convergence trace the distribution of baryonic and dark matter across space, making them a powerful probe of cosmic structure. Inferring shear and convergence from images is a challenging inverse problem. The prevailing approach to this task estimates shear from weighted averages of galaxy ellipticities, calibrates these estimates to account for systematic biases, and transforms them to reconstruct convergence, a multistage procedure that requires substantial computational resources and meticulous handling of statistical uncertainties. As an alternative, we propose a probabilistic approach to field-level weak lensing inference in which we train a deep neural network to directly map a multiband image to a variational distribution over the underlying tomographic shear and convergence fields. This neural posterior estimation (NPE) procedure implicitly marginalizes over nuisance variables in the cosmological forward model and does not require evaluating the likelihood function. It is also amortized, so it enables rapid posterior inference for astronomical surveys once the neural network is trained. When evaluated on synthetic images from the LSST-DESC DC2 Simulated Sky Survey, NPE produces well-calibrated variational distributions for shear and convergence that are consistent with the ground truth. We describe how maps sampled from these variational distributions could be used in a subsequent simulation-based inference procedure to approximate the posterior distribution over cosmological parameters.

Galaxy clusters are the most powerful strong lenses: they greatly magnify the flux of distant and faint sources. Strong lensing also allows for the reconstruction of their mass distribution with-1% level accuracy and enables investigating cosmological parameters. The number of known systems of this type is bound to increase in the next years thanks to wide imaging surveys. Using simulations in this context is crucial to validate the analysis methods before they are applied to real data, and to train machine learning algorithms that can handle large volumes of images. In this work, we present a simulated set of one hundred images of galaxy clusters that we have produced with a novel code for simulating cluster-scale strong lenses. One of the main novelties of our approach, distinguishing it from other existing codes, is the use of empirical relations, derived from state-of-the-art observations, for modelling the characteristics, such as morphology, color, and spatial distribution of the cluster member population. This allows us to reliably reproduce the complexity of real observations. The simulations are partly carried out with the latest version of SkyLens, a code that creates mock observations of strong lensing events in different systems and observational setups. The main improvements we introduce are the use of the message passage interface (MPI) paradigm, a standard for parallel programming that leverages the use of several processors to perform some given task, and the implementation of score-based diffusion models to augment the images of the background sources. Together, they lead to more efficient and realistic image simulations. We also present the validation of the code and simulations by comparing the properties of the mock clusters to those of real ones. [Abridged]

The formation of massive stars serves an important field of study, requiring research into whether these stars need to form together within clusters of low-mass stars or if they are able to form independently. Currently, there has been an increase in the number of massive stars found far from clusters in the Milky Way (MW) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The existence of isolation and composition in binary systems is an uncommon phenomenon among massive stars, and their rare occurrence presents valuable insights that are regarded as evidence in this field. This research looks for ways to increase the catalogue of identified massive stars in eclipsing binaries, particularly those that show significant indications of isolation. For the definition of the first step, we are analysing the eight double-lined spectroscopic binaries in the SMC, as detailed in the OGLE variable star catalogues, with the goal of identifying their astrophysical properties. Later, we examine the expected locations and characteristics of binary stars thought to be part of a cluster, using absolute parameters and a cross-validation approach to determine the connection between kinematic analysis and these parameters. If the kinematic connection with the cluster and the physical parameters match precisely with the cluster's isochrone, such stars could act as reliable standard candles for determining the cluster's distance and age.

Metric-affine gravity provides a natural geometric framework in which spacetime curvature, torsion, and non-metricity are treated as independent degrees of freedom, leading to novel cosmological dynamics beyond General Relativity. A generic consequence of such theories is the emergence of effective interactions among the cosmological fluids, even in the absence of explicit phenomenological couplings. Interestingly, the above happens while the Standard Model of Particle physics remains unmodified. In this work, we investigate interacting cosmological models that arise from metric-affine gravity and analyze their implications for the background evolution of the Universe. We derive the modified continuity equations governing the matter, radiation, and dark-energy components, highlighting the geometric origin of energy exchange in the dark sector. We discuss how these interactions modify the expansion history and can effectively mimic evolving dark-energy behavior. The resulting cosmological scenarios are confronted with the most recent observational data from Type Ia Supernovae (Pantheon+), Cosmic Chronometers, and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (DESI DR2). Moreover, using model selection criteria, e.g., Akaike Information Criterion, Bayesian Information Criterion and the Bayesian Evidence, we compare the aforementioned models against the standard $Λ$CDM model. We find that the proposed framework performs slightly better than $ΛCDM$, in the light of the data sets considered here. Our analysis demonstrates that metric-affine-induced interactions constitute a viable and theoretically motivated alternative for the description of the Universe.

Complex organic molecules (COMs) are typically observed in the warm inner envelopes of Class 0 protostars. In more evolved Class I sources, COM emission is confined to the compact inner disk and obscured by high dust opacity, but the FU Orionis-type binary L1551 IRS 5 offers a valuable opportunity to probe disk chemistry, as its outburst luminosity thermally sublimates ices out to large radii. We sought to spatially resolve the origins of COMs in this system to distinguish between central radiative heating and shock-induced chemistry driven by heterogeneous accretion pathways. We analyzed high-angular-resolution ALMA archival data, focusing on COMs (e.g., CH3OH, CH3OCHO) and the shock tracer SO, and compared their spatial morphologies and kinematics to diagnose the excitation conditions associated with different accretion flows. We find that the COM emission in L1551 IRS 5 arises from both radiative heating and localized accretion shocks. In the northern source, the widespread low-excitation COM emission is primarily consistent with thermal heating by the recent outburst. This source also exhibits dual-mode accretion with distinct chemical signatures, with COMs along the spiral arm tracing steady equatorial circumbinary disk-to-circumstellar disk accretion and high-excitation COMs with bright SO along the eastern disk surface tracing a vertical envelope-to-disk streamer impact. In the southern source, methanol is confined to the southeastern streamer impact site, whereas SO forms a ring-like structure at the tidal truncation radius. We attribute this difference to differential chemical survival timescales. L1551 IRS 5 thus serves as an ideal laboratory to investigate how shock chemistry and binary-regulated accretion shape the chemical structure of protostellar disks.

We explored potential associations between ongoing mass transfer and the pulsation properties of $δ$ Scuti primaries in a sample of 17 oscillating eclipsing Algol systems. For this purpose, we combined binary modelling, updated O-C analyses, and frequency characterization based on TESS photometry. To ensure homogeneity, the $T_{\rm eff}$ of the components were derived using a consistent SED fitting approach. From the binary solutions and O-C diagrams, we determined the mass transfer indicators (Q, dP/dt, and dM/dt) and examined their relations with the dominant pulsation period and amplitude. For the full sample, the results indicate weak to moderate positive trends, with the strongest relation found between logdP/dt and logPpuls, while the relations involving dM/dt and pulsation amplitudes are weaker and statistically insignificant. After excluding the two prominent outliers, R CMa and BW Del, the correlations between logPpuls and the mass transfer indicators become statistically more significant, including relations with dP/dt, Q, and dM/dt under both conservative and non-conservative assumptions. These relationships may reflect the indirect effects of mass transfer on the structure of the accreting primary and on the orbital configuration, potentially reducing tidal constraints and allowing shifts toward longer pulsation periods. However, the large dispersion and limited sample size indicate that these relationships remain poorly constrained. Our results suggest that pulsation properties are primarily governed by intrinsic stellar parameters and the well established Porb-Ppuls relation, while ongoing mass transfer may contribute as a secondary factor. Although the present sample does not allow firm conclusions regarding the role of mass transfer, this study provides a homogeneous observational framework for future investigations based on larger samples and improved constraints.

Long Period Variables (LPVs) are Asymptotic Giant Branch stars with periods >100 days. Around one third to half of LPVs display a Long Secondary Period (LSP) that is 5-10 times the length of the main periods. The exact cause of LSPs are unknown, with one potential explanation lying in cross-harmonics caused by the interaction of two simultaneously occurring periods. In this paper, we use the Fourier analysis software VStar to examine the visual range photometric light curves obtained through the American Association of Variable Star Observers of a sample of 5 stars. We find that one star, V CVn, displays a secondary period over 20 times the length of its main period, inconsistent with traditional LSPs. To test if cross-harmonics can result in an LSP or VCVn's extra-long secondary period, we then construct evolutionary tracks and pulsation models of LPVs using Modules for Evolution in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and GYRE. After examining the interactions of the fundamental pulsation mode and the first 4 overtones with each other, we do not find evidence that LSPs or V CVn's extra-long secondary period could be caused by cross-harmonics.

We introduce a merger tree builder, CTree. Its key feature is the identification of progenitors using the evolutionary information encoded in object branches, rather than relying solely on the instantaneous particle membership in a single snapshot. In this sense, CTree can be described as a branch-wise merger tree builder. Specifically, CTree extracts particles associated with objects over a defined timescale and uses this information to compute the merit functions employed in the progenitor search across multiple snapshots. During this process, CTree requires only the identifiers of particles and objects. This ensures high compatibility with different halo and galaxy catalogues and also with pre-existing merger trees. To identify `core' particles that remain bound to the host halo over extended physical timescales, CTree employs a simple and efficient algorithm that does not rely on explicit radial or binding-energy information. The timescale adopted for core particle extraction and the number of snapshots used in the progenitor search can be user-configured. Basic validation tests using suites of dark matter-only simulations demonstrate that CTree produces stable and physically consistent halo merger trees, particularly in high-density regions or in simulations with high output cadence. The code is written in C++ and employs a hybrid message passing interface and OpenMP parallelization, making it well-suited for high-resolution cosmological simulations. The code is publicly available and actively maintained to improve performance, reliability, and compatibility.

We analyze high-cadence spectropolarimetric observations of solar plage obtained with the Visible Spectro-Polarimeter (ViSP) on the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) to investigate low-chromospheric waves sampled by the Na I D1 5896 Angstrom and Ca II 8542 Angstrom lines. Observations were taken at an oblique viewing angle, providing sensitivity to transverse motions. Magnetic oscillations within plage elements exhibit significant line-of-sight (LOS) RMS amplitudes of approximately 9 G on average in the Na I D1 line, whereas the corresponding Ca II oscillations are only marginally above the noise level. Adaptive profile tracking provided line-core intensities and Doppler velocities, the weak-field approximation provided LOS magnetic fields, and non-LTE inversions provided mass densities and formation heights. Cross-spectral analysis shows velocity-intensity phase distributions coupled at -90 degrees, consistent with compressive oscillations. The velocity phases in Na I-Ca II indicate upward propagation and the phase speeds are predominantly sub-Alfvenic, consistent with slow magnetoacoustic waves. Although the slit geometry prevents a definitive identification of the tube eigenmode, the differing magnetic phase relationships suggest a height-dependent sausage-like behavior in the coupling between the magnetic and compressive perturbations. Additionally, our inferred wave fluxes are insufficient to heat active-region plage.

The evolution of galaxy cluster abundance is a powerful probe of cosmology, but its efficacy depends on our ability to understand and control for systematics in the selection and mass estimation of clusters. We study redMaPPer-selected clusters in the Cardinal simulation, which simulates the DES Y3 observational conditions. Specifically, we investigate the line-of-sight velocity distributions of cluster member galaxies in 12,272 simulated clusters. We find that a significant fraction of clusters, 35%, have velocity dispersions that are high compared to their richness with an offset of $\sim 400$ km s$^{-1}$ between the outliers and the main population. A similar population of velocity dispersion outliers was found in the DES Y3 data. Nearly all of the outliers (98%) in a low-richness subsample have non-Gaussian velocity distributions, and they are more likely than the main population to have significant velocity substructure. These clusters also tend to have higher redshifts than clusters with typical velocity dispersions, and they show a larger scatter between halo mass and richness. Overall, our results point to a significant contamination of redMaPPer-selected samples from line of sight structure, particularly at high redshifts and low richness. Comparison to the Buzzard simulations shows similar results.

We investigate extremal black holes with scalar hair in the generic Einstein-Euler-Heisenberg (EEH)-scalar theory with two scalar couplings to the Maxwell term. One is an exponential coupling with coupling constant $α$ and the other is its polynomial coupling. We first construct scalarized black holes on the cold (C)-horizon of EEH black holes described by mass $M$ and magnetic charge $P$ both at the linear level, through the existence curves $α_n(q)$ with $q=P/M$, and as fully backreaction solutions. As extremality ($q=q_e$) is approached, all existence curves accumulate, following $α_n-α_c\sim 1/\ln^2(q_e-q)$, at the critical branch $α_c$ fixed by the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound for the near-horizon (AdS$_2\times S^2$) throat. We obtain scalarized extremal black hole (SEBH) with constant secondary hair and it is recovered exactly from the entropy function approach working on the near-horizon throat. Its entropy is an attractor invariant, being independent of the asymptotic modulus, so the scalar hair remains secondary. Exploiting this constant scalar, we seek further SEBHs with scalar hair keeping its charge $Q_s$ for the zero asymptotic scalar ($φ_\infty=0$). In the $(q,α)$ plane, we observe that these extremal solutions occupy $q\ge q_e$. Hence, the existence curves $α_n(q)$ existing for $q\le q_e$ and the extremal branches bound the scalarized domain from opposite sides and they meet only at $q=q_e$.

High-redshift quasars ($z>5$) are crucial for studying early black hole growth and reionisation. SDSS Data Release 16 catalogues 655 such sources with multiple redshift estimators. We systematically examined this subsample and found 480 sources (73.2\%) where pipeline redshift (Z\_DR16Q) disagrees with the derived estimate (Z\_FIT) significantly. Visual inspection confirms that 125 of these (19.1\% of the total) are actually low-redshift active galactic nuclei. In 114 cases, broad Mg\,{\sc ii} with C\,{\sc iii} and C\,{\sc iv} was misidentified as Ly$α$; in 11 cases, H$α$ was misidentified as Ly$α$. This error is immediately revealed by the absence of Gunn--Peterson trough blueward of Ly$α$. Crucially, Z\_FIT recovers correct redshift in the affected sources where emission lines are prominent, indicating the algorithm is sound; the issue lies in community preference for Z\_DR16Q or Z\_SPEC. We urge caution against uncritical use of pipeline redshifts for $z>5$ DR16Q sources and recommend Z\_FIT as the preferred estimator.

Active region atmospheres host many oscillatory phenomena. The chromosphere is delimited by steep temperature gradients at the photosphere and transition region, where magnetoacoustic waves are trapped and can form standing oscillations within this resonant cavity. We aim to detect the signature of the resonant nodes of standing waves, which are expected to produce sudden jumps in the oscillatory phase and power dips. Spectroscopic temporal series of H$α$ in a pore were acquired with the Swedish Solar Telescope. The velocity and temperature fluctuations at multiple atmospheric heights were inferred from the analysis of the intensity at many spectral positions along the line wings. Wavelet analysis was employed to characterize the phase differences and the power at different heights. The phase shift between velocity and temperature shows a $\pm90^{\circ}$ value, which is consistent with standing oscillations. Robust evidence of the presence of a nodal layer in the temperature at around the height probed by the intensity at H$α\pm0.30$ Å is found, such as the detection of 180$^{\circ}$ jumps in the phase of the temperature oscillations and remarkable power dips at the same atmospheric layer. The exact height of the resonant nodes depends on the spatial location and time. We generally find a mixture of standing and propagating waves. This is consistent with a leaky resonator where waves are partially reflected at the transition region, while some of them are able to propagate into the corona. For the first time, we report the detection and characterization of resonant nodes in the solar chromosphere. This result provides strong observational support for the chromospheric resonant cavity model and paves the way for the development of new seismological techniques to investigate the structure of active region chromospheres.

We present a simple model of a higher dimensional spacetime in which the 4d submanifold is a FLRW metric, while the extra dimensions are compactified to a hypersphere. We calculate the Friedmann equations of this model finding that the extra dimensions interact in a non-trivial way with the 4d submanifold evolution. We prove that what is observed as Dark Energy could be explained only as an effect due to the Gaussian curvature and the expansion rate of the extra dimensions. We calculate the luminosity distance in this model and derive the acceleration parameter q. We find that Ωm and q are in some sense dressed by terms coming from the extra dimensions, thus a Universe filled only with matter (both luminous and dark) and with extra dimensions can explain the observational data. We find that the extra dimensions do not affect the CMB spectrum, but this is not a solution to the Hubble tension. We fit our model to SNe data and find evidence for the presence of 3-4 extra dimensions which are presently contracting.

Rotating black holes in dynamical Chern-Simons gravity are known nonperturbatively mainly through numerical solutions, which limits their direct use in strong-field applications. We construct a Kerr-referenced analytical parametrization of the near-general-relativistic numerical branch using a compact radial coordinate, low-order angular multipoles, and continued fractions. The resulting two-parameter family accurately reproduces the numerical metric throughout the validated weak-coupling and moderate-spin domain. Independent off-grid solutions confirm that the parametrization retains its accuracy away from the calibration set. We further assess the model through equatorial light rings, critical impact parameters, and full two-dimensional null-geodesic ray tracing without assuming separability. The resulting shadow observables closely match those obtained from the numerical geometries. This parametrization therefore provides a practical analytical metric for geodesic and strong-field calculations without relying on a slow-rotation expansion.

We investigate the Casimir effect of a complex scalar field on a two-dimensional sphere threaded by a fixed Wu--Yang magnetic monopole at the center. In this background the charged scalar field is a section of a nontrivial complex line bundle over $S^2$, reflecting the monopole's nontrivial topology. We solve the Klein--Gordon equation analytically and compute the Casimir energy using a generalized Abel--Plana formula for multivalued functions. We find that the monopole can reverse the sign of the Casimir pressure, turning an attractive force into a repulsive one when the monopole strength is sufficiently large. This behavior persists across a broad range of curvature couplings and suggests that Wu--Yang monopoles may provide a source of repulsive vacuum stress, with possible implications for gravitational and cosmological settings.

We present an iteration algorithm for vacuum and Einstein scalar-field equations in double-null gauge, which transform the non-linear PDE into systems of ODE. The numerical realization combines characteristic constraint solves, LGL spectral elements, pole-free spherical operators, Galerkin projection, and independent first-order residual and consistency checks.

The matter power spectrum is one of the primary statistical descriptors of the large-scale distribution of matter in the Universe and provides a powerful probe of cosmic structure formation. Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing offer an integrated view of the matter distribution over a wide range of redshifts, enabling the reconstruction of the underlying matter power spectrum. In this work, we reconstruct the reference linear matter power spectrum $ P_\text{lin}(k,0)$ from the baseline joint CMB lensing measurements of Planck PR4, ACT DR6, and SPT-3G using a covariance-weighted modified Richardson-Lucy(MRL) deconvolution algorithm. The reconstructed spectrum is found to be consistent with the fiducial linear prediction on large scales, while exhibiting a systematic enhancement for $k \gtrsim 0.1\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, where nonlinear gravitational evolution becomes important. To investigate this behavior, we introduce a scale-dependent correction factor, $A(k)$, defined through $P(k)=A(k)\,P_{\rm nl}(k),$ where $P_{\rm nl}(k)$ is the fiducial nonlinear matter power spectrum obtained from 2LPT simulations. The reconstructed correction factor remains consistent with unity within $2σ$ confidence over the reconstructed range, indicating that the observed enhancement is well explained by the standard nonlinear evolution of the matter power spectrum. In addition, the reconstruction shows agreement with the fiducial BAO template around the BAO feature at $k\sim(0.04-0.06)\ {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, indicating that some BAO-scale information survives the lensing projection.

Within finite-temperature effective potential framework, we study the effects of PBHs on vacuum decay, the associated gravitational wave spectrum, and the baryon asymmetry. For the PBHs considered, the Hawking temperatures are below the ambient temperature, and their dominant effect is taken to be the gravitational distortion of the Higgs field configuration. Relative to flat spacetime, the PBH background reduces the vacuum decay exponent, enhances the gravitational wave peak amplitude, and shifts the peak frequency downward. For PBH masses of roughly $10^{11}~{\rm g}-10^{13}~{\rm g}$, the sphaleron energy is reduced, while the small PBH abundance renders the associated washout negligible. Additionally, over roughly the same mass range, PBH-emitted BSM particle decays generate a baryon asymmetry too small to spoil the agreement between the baryon abundances inferred from BBN and CMB.

Asteroseismic estimates of the magnetic field strength in the radiative interior of red giant stars depend strongly on the internal stellar structure derived from models. Since red giant branch merger products have been shown to be able to possess a different core structure than single stars of the same mass, we investigate how a mass-gain history influences our estimates of an internal magnetic field strength. We construct stellar models with and without a mass-gain event after the onset of the RGB evolutionary phase with masses of $1.1\,M_\odot \le M \le 2\,M_\odot$. First, by assuming a weak magnetic field, we investigate the influence of a mass-gain event on the global sensitivity of the oscillation frequencies to the magnetic field. We find that mass-gain models can be several times more sensitive to the field than single-star models of identical total mass at masses above $1.6\,M_\odot$. Therefore, considering a mass-gain evolutionary history for merger candidates allows a significant correction to the magnetic field strength. In the presence of strong magnetic fields, we also show that the critical field strength needed to suppress mixed dipole modes is significantly lower if a mass-gain event has occurred (for stars with masses $M\gtrsim1.6\,M_\odot$). The massive end of the suppressed stars' distribution is therefore strongly favored by a merger origin. We conclude that properly constraining the stellar evolutionary history is essential when aiming to constrain internal field strength estimates from asteroseismic observations.

SDSS J0946+1006 is an attractive target for measuring cosmological parameters through lens modelling. It is the best-studied galaxy-scale strong gravitational lens with multiple sources whose redshift separations are well-suited to constraining the dark energy equation of state. However, multi-plane lens models with free cosmological parameters risk a multi-plane mass-sheet degeneracy, although this can be lifted by a non-lensing deflector density profile tracer. We simultaneously reconstruct near-infrared and near-ultraviolet HST imaging whilst including a velocity dispersion measurement from VLT-MUSE to constrain the foreground deflector. Imaging is reconstructed faithfully regardless of whether the inferred kinematics are realistic, though we find the kinematic constraint essential for shifting the preferred cosmology into a region not in significant tension with other dark energy probes. Deflector density profile perturbations, via substructure and multipolar halo shape deformations, have only a modest effect on inferred cosmology. Combining our fiducial model with Planck CMB data yields $w=-1.01^{+0.08}_{-0.13}$; or, combined with Pantheon SNe Ia, $w=-0.99^{+0.13}_{-0.15}$. We further show that this system proves a remarkably valuable complementary probe in the $w_{0}$-$w_{a}$ plane of an evolving dark energy model, and that the DESI BAO tension with $Λ$CDM seen when combined with other datasets is not reproduced when combined with this lens, yielding $(w_{0}, w_{a})=(-0.87^{+0.10}_{-0.11}, -0.22^{+0.28}_{-0.25})$. The system's third source, visible with MUSE, only weakly constrains $w$CDM but may strengthen $w_{0}w_{a}$CDM constraints, though further mass-model complexity along its line of sight is required. Overall, kinematics-informed multi-plane lens modelling is a robust route to competitive dark energy constraints, even with a single system.

We revisit gravitational decoherence of matter superpositions using the leading soft sector of the graviton $S$-matrix. Starting from Weinberg's soft theorem and the overlap of coherent radiation states, we derive, for branch configurations with the same total four-momentum, a gauge-invariant, nonnegative leading-soft decoherence exponent and evaluate the polarization sum and angular integrals exactly at this order. In the vacuum, coherence between branches with distinguishable soft radiation vanishes as the infrared cutoff is removed. The leading nonrelativistic term is purely quadrupolar as a consequence of energy--momentum conservation. We extend the analysis to single- and two-mode squeezed graviton states, including the two-mode case motivated by inflation. Squeezing can enhance or suppress decoherence depending on the relative phase, while phase averaging gives an enhancement governed by the graviton occupation. For a phase-averaged relic background with an approximately flat energy-density spectrum over the relevant soft frequency band, the sharp-cutoff identification of the infrared scale with the inverse observation time gives a contribution that grows with the gravitational-wave energy density and with the fourth power of the observation time. These results connect soft-graviton scattering, infrared quantum information, and decoherence in nonvacuum gravitational backgrounds.

We present $\href{https://github.com/akmeena766/LensFactory.jl}{\texttt{LensFactory.jl}}$, an efficient, open-source, general-purpose strong lens modeling package written in Julia. It supports single- and multi-plane lensing with a wide range of analytic lens profiles, and its modular design, built on Julia's multiple dispatch, makes it straightforward to add new profiles or inference methods, while native multi-threading parallelizes the computationally expensive steps, enabling full cluster-scale lens reconstructions within hours on a desktop-class machine. We validate the mass-reconstruction pipeline of $\href{https://github.com/akmeena766/LensFactory.jl}{\texttt{LensFactory.jl}}$ on two simulated galaxy clusters (Ares and Hera), recovering the convergence and magnification maps well where the lensing constraints lie, and on the JWST-observed cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327, obtaining a strong lens model (image-plane RMS of 0.46'') consistent with previously published results. In addition, we introduce singularity maps as a complementary diagnostic for comparing lens models, probing differences in the higher-order derivatives of the lensing potential, which remain largely unconstrained by standard observables such as image positions, time delays, and flux ratios. $\href{https://github.com/akmeena766/LensFactory.jl}{\texttt{LensFactory.jl}}$ is accompanied by a set of worked examples covering all core functionality.

This work analyzes the detection prospects for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in dark matter (DM) density spike around the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in Andromeda galaxy M31 in microwave band. WIMP annihilation produces relativistic electrons and positrons, which generate the synchrotron emission in strong magnetic field of the accretion flow medium at microwave frequencies. Properties of this emission, as well as their dependence on DM and medium parameters, were modeled. Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) sensitivity to this emission and underlying WIMP parameters was estimated. It was obtained that M31* in microwave band represents the unique target, where DM spike signal can be detected in case of realistic spike and halo density profiles. In such case ALMA may reach the thermal s-wave annihilating WIMPs with masses up to around 1 TeV with just 10--100 hours exposure. Optimistic parameter configurations may allow probing all possible WIMP masses up to 100 TeV. Related systematic uncertainties are discussed.

Transiting dust and debris around white dwarfs provide a direct view of planetary disruption. We report six previously non-variable white dwarfs that underwent single, deep obscuration events, including ZTF~J2327+0019, which fully disappeared for more than a year. These discoveries raise the number of confirmed debris-transit white dwarfs to 20. In addition, the systematic search of negative alerts from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), followed by photometric and spectroscopic observations, also identified three hot ($T\approx 55000$--$92000$ K) irregular variables as candidate debris hosts. The six confirmed events last weeks to years, reach transit depths of 25--100%, and show no recurrence over the 8-yr ZTF baseline. They are therefore much deeper and longer lived than the recurring, minute-scale transits typical of previously known systems. The observed reddening is consistent with dust extinction, and high-speed photometry reveals minute-scale structure in several systems, indicating rapidly moving material close to the white dwarf. ZTF~J2327+0019 also shows a simultaneous WISE infrared brightening, the first observed coincidence of infrared brightening and optical obscuration in a white dwarf. Two of the six hosts, one DAZ and one DBZ, are strongly metal enriched, with accretion rates among the highest known for their spectral types and minimum accreted masses of $3.5\times 10^{19}$ and $2\times 10^{24}$ g. We interpret the one-off transit events as collisions between planetesimal remnants and pre-existing circumstellar debris that trigger collisional cascades: short-timescale variability traces dust-producing fragments crossing the star, while slower changes trace the build-up and clearing of an optically thick dusty structure. In contrast, ZTF~J0436+5728 shows a coherent 5.910-h period, consistent with a rocky body shedding material near the tidal-disruption radius.

About 50 years ago, one thousand ring-like structures (called stellar-rings) were discovered by Isserstedt (1968). They were believed to be groups of young stars formed by shell-like triggered star formation, which would make them excellent tracers of spiral arms, for example. Neglected for 40 years, we used highly accurate kinematic, astrometric, and photometric data to investigate the four most prominent stellar rings. The aim is to investigate if those structures are indeed physically related groups of stars. We used proper motions and parallaxes from the Gaia DR2 to calculate distances and to search for common properties. Color-magnitude diagrams using BVJHKs measurements were investigated and isochrones fitted. None of the four stellar rings consists of a physically related group of young stars. The location of stars in the line-of-sight mimics a ring-like structure on the sky. The color-magnitude diagrams are typical for an integrated field population and not for a young star cluster, for example. The currently available data are sufficient to analyze ring-like structures with a high statistical significance. This allows a new search for such structures in the Milky Way.

Can a universe undergo a regular Euclidean-Lorentzian signature transition when the gravitational coupling itself is dynamical? We address this question in scalar-tensor gravity with nonminimal coupling $F(φ)R$. Although the spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) sector can be mapped to the Einstein frame for $F>0$ and a nondegenerate scalar redefinition, not all transition properties are frame independent. For a finite, positive, and sufficiently regular conformal factor, the existence and transverse character of the type change are preserved, whereas the extrinsic geometry is not. We therefore use the Einstein frame as a solution-generating representation and impose total geodesy in the physical Jordan frame. We construct two exactly integrable classes of solutions. In the oscillator-ghost-oscillator branch, the scalar field is stationary at the transition and Jordan-frame total geodesy follows under suitable regularity assumptions on the conformal factor. In the critical exponential-potential branch, the scalar is generically nonstationary and total geodesy instead requires \begin{equation*} H_E\big|_Σ= \frac12 \left( \frac{d\ln F}{dψ} \right)_Σ\dotψ_Σ. \end{equation*} We also distinguish this condition from the stronger smoothness requirements of a Kossowski-Kriele-type transverse metric. Finally, while the canonical Einstein-frame scalar does not allow effective phantom evolution, the dynamical nonminimal coupling can generate a locally superaccelerating Jordan-frame regime near the transition when $\left(\frac{d\ln F}{dψ}\right)_Σ>0$ for the chosen oscillator branch. Thus signature change persists beyond Einstein gravity, with regularity and effective cosmological behavior remaining intrinsically frame sensitive.

Currently, the only second-order gravitational self-force calculations have been based on directly solving the perturbative Einstein equations in the Lorenz gauge. That method relied on the complete separability of the Einstein equations in a Schwarzschild background. In this paper, we present a new scheme based on the second-order Teukolsky equation. Crucially, this method promises to extend (reasonably straightforwardly) to the more realistic case of a Kerr background. Here we implement the scheme in the simplest setting of quasicircular orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole. In addition to working with the Teukolsky equation, our scheme incorporates several other advances over previous second-order self-force calculations: compactified hyperboloidal slicing, transformation to a Bondi-Sachs gauge, and a combination of spectral and variation-of-parameters methods. We also use these tools to re-examine the infrared divergences that arise in second-order Lorenz-gauge calculations, showing they are less pronounced in the Teukolsky case and completely eliminated in the Bondi-Sachs gauge. We conclude by calculating the asymptotic energy fluxes and benchmarking them against previous Lorenz-gauge calculations.

We investigate three flavor neutrino phenomena in an effective holonomy corrected Schwarzschild geometry. We derive the weak-deflection angle through second post-Minkowskian order, obtain the semiclassical phases along radial and nonradial trajectories, and formulate the two-image flavor probability by including magnifications, Fermat phases, and wave packet overlap. The cross path phase acquires a logarithmic holonomy contribution and can retain information about the absolute neutrino mass scale. We also characterize flavor mode correlations and trajectory-flavor entanglement through the balance among path predictability, interference visibility, and I-concurrence. Neutrino-antineutrino annihilation outside an effective neutrinosphere is examined, with holonomy entering the integrated power through the radial proper volume measure. For a solar mass lens and $10\,\mathrm{MeV}$ neutrinos, the numerical results show displaced oscillation fringes and a geometry dependent redistribution among the electron, muon, and tau channels. The electron-neutrino trajectory-flavor concurrence reaches approximately $0.23$, with an entropy near $0.10$ bit, while remaining weakly sensitive to the mass ordering in the selected configuration. By contrast, the annihilation power increases monotonically, reaching an increase of approximately $39.3\%$ relative to Schwarzschild spacetime (for a particular configuration, i.e., $λ=2$ and $M/R_ν=1/3$). Furthermore, at fixed source parameters and $M/R_ν=1/3$, an assumed maximum excess of $10\%$ in the integrated annihilation power relative to Schwarzschild yields the conditional bounds $a/(2M)\leq0.2879$ and $|λ|\leq0.6358$.

Gravitational-wave searches do more than identify individual sources - they provide a way to infer the underlying astrophysical populations that produce them. Currently, Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) constrain the supermassive black-hole binary (SMBHB) merger-rate density through both the stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) and searches for individual SMBHB signals. The latter implies converting source upper limits into rate upper limits using detection efficiencies estimated empirically. We instead develop a hierarchical Bayesian framework that places the SMBHB merger-rate density model directly inside the PTA likelihood. The unknown catalog of individual SMBHB merger signals is modeled as a Poisson point process on source-parameter space, so that the number of merger signals is inferred from the data rather than imposed by a detection threshold. We describe two computational routes: a catalog-marginal likelihood based on analyses with fixed numbers of candidate sources, and an explicit transdimensional sampling approach that jointly samples population hyperparameters, latent merger signals, and noise. We validate the method with a toy merger-only population model and then apply it to an astrophysical SMBHB merger-rate density model that jointly predicts the SGWB amplitude and the expected merger-catalog size. In simulations, an individual merger signal adds complementary information to the SGWB and can tighten constraints on the merger-rate population.

Searches for parity violation (PV) in the Universe's large-scale structure have recently been carried out using parity-odd modes of the galaxy 4-Point Correlation Function (4PCF). Here, we introduce a new estimator for a 3-Point Correlation Function (3PCF) that is sensitive to PV. The construction exploits the handedness of triangles formed on 2D spherical shells, where mirror-image configurations cannot be related by proper rotations within the surface. By dotting the oriented area vector with an externally-defined normal vector to the shell, we obtain sensitivity to PV. We present a discrete estimator for this statistic and also show how to correct for the survey geometry. This parity-odd 3PCF provides a complementary test of PV in galaxy surveys and a potential cross-check of PV 4PCF measurements.

Baryonic feedback redistributes gas around dark matter halos, suppressing the matter power spectrum at scales now probed by weak lensing surveys. X-ray observations directly trace this hot gas, and are one of the main probes of its distribution and properties. We present a forward-modelling framework, built on the baryonification model, linking the three-dimensional gas density and temperature profiles of groups and clusters to observed X-ray surface brightness and luminosity profiles on one side, and to matter power spectrum suppression on the other. We validate the model against independent three-dimensional density reconstructions from the literature, and examine our temperature and metallicity treatment in the group-scale regime. Applying this framework to the SZ-selected CHEX-MATE and X-ray-selected eFEDs samples, we measure gas fractions across the group-to-cluster mass range while accounting for X-ray selection effects, with the first published gas fractions based on CHEX-MATE data. Combining both samples, we derive a joint constraint on the hot gas fraction retained by groups and clusters as a function of mass and on the baryonic suppression of the matter power spectrum. We find $f_{\rm gas} = 0.029 \pm 0.006$ at $M_{500c} = 3\times 10^{13}M_\odot$, $f_{\rm gas} = 0.078 \pm 0.004$ at $M_{500c} = 3\times 10^{14}M_\odot$, and suppression of 6% at $k=1\,h/\rm Mpc$ and 23% at $k=5\,h/\rm Mpc$. Our findings are consistent with recent kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich results, hinting at strong feedback. We also show that the $L_X$-$M$ relation is degenerate with feedback strength, and that different feedback scenarios produce distinct X-ray profile shapes that map onto the same $L_X$-$M$ point. This work is a first step toward extending the framework to forward-model diffuse X-ray emission at the map level for simulation-based inference in upcoming wide-area X-ray surveys such as eROSITA.

[shortened] The thermal pressure profile of the intracluster medium is critical for cluster cosmology and understanding galaxy-cluster astrophysics. We determine the population-averaged pressure profile of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) selected clusters, characterize its intrinsic scatter, and measure its scaling with mass and redshift. We select 60 clusters from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) SZ catalog with $0.08<z<0.6$, requiring high signal-to-noise and 5 element resolution on Planck-SPT Compton-$y$ maps. We model spherical three-dimensional pressure profiles from the Compton-$y$ maps using a hierarchical Bayesian framework with restricted cubic splines. We adopt an updated weak-lensing-calibrated Compton-$Y$--mass scaling relation, effectively removing hydrostatic mass bias from the inferred masses. Our model accounts for cluster-to-cluster profile variations, line-of-sight foreground and background contributions, and outliers from intrinsically distinct clusters or projection effects. The code is publicly available. We derive the population-averaged pressure profile and find minimal intrinsic scatter at intermediate radii ($0.4 \le r/r_{500} \le 0.7$). Our pressure profile is approximately 40\% lower than previous estimates at all radii, due to the unbiased mass scaling. We find suggestive, though not conclusive, evidence that the adopted mass dependence may require revision by removing the additional $M^{0.12}$ scaling introduced by Arnaud et al. 2010. We constrain departures from self-similar evolution in the mean profile to less than 0.1--0.2 dex and evolution of the intrinsic scatter to less than 8\% per $Δz=0.1$.

Understanding the mechanisms responsible for quenching star formation in galaxies requires disentangling the roles of internal structure and large-scale environment. We investigate how galaxy morphology and specific star formation rate (sSFR) relate to the typical masses of host dark-matter halos (DMHs), and whether the halo--star formation connection depends on morphology. We analyse non-active galaxies in the VIPERS and Stripe 82 fields at $0.5 \leq z \leq 1.2$, combining DESI-based Sérsic classifications with stellar masses and SFRs from spectral energy distribution fitting. Galaxies are separated into disc- and bulge-dominated systems and divided into quantile-based sSFR bins designed to minimise stellar-mass differences between morphologies. Each bin is characterised by its median $Δ{\rm MS}=\log {\rm SFR}-\log {\rm SFR}_{\rm MS}$, and characteristic DMH masses are inferred from projected galaxy cross-correlations. The halo-mass relation with star formation activity depends strongly on morphology: disc-dominated galaxies show little variation in halo mass across the probed $Δ{\rm MS}$ range, whereas bulge-dominated galaxies occupy lower-mass halos at high $Δ{\rm MS}$ and higher, mutually consistent halo masses toward lower $Δ{\rm MS}$. These trends are unlikely to be driven mainly by stellar-mass differences. Typical halo mass alone therefore does not map cleanly onto quiescence; instead, the connection between halo environment and star formation activity is stronger in bulge-dominated than in disc-dominated galaxies.

We compile and recompute a subset of the landscape of constraints for macroscopic dark matter (macros), explicitly including the dependence on the fraction of dark matter in macros $f_{\rm dm}$. This allows us to map these constraints to scenarios with extended mass functions for the macros, which is a generic outcome for many of the assembly processes relevant to macro formation. We compute a number of examples of constraints for extended mass functions, finding that in many cases, wider mass functions can be severely constrained by just the interactions of the tails of the distributions. Finally, we present the code and data required for computing these limits and generating these plots in a publicly accessible repository.

We construct an action-consistent slow-rotation branch, through second order, for a traversable wormhole supported by a phantom scalar, a scalar-localized radial string sector, and a Kalb-Ramond two-form coupled nonminimally to both the Ricci scalar and Ricci tensor. For the regular benchmark branch, covariant asymptotic analysis shows a vanishing ADM mass, while the first-order axial mode carries finite Iyer-Wald angular momentum. The nonminimal contributions to the angular charge decay at infinity, so the covariant and metric definitions of angular momentum agree. At second order, no nonzero mass correction is resolved; at fixed asymptotic scalar charge, rotation increases the throat area and makes the throat oblate. The most distinctive result arises in the quadrupolar sector. A long-range polar Kalb-Ramond response couples to the localized background and generates a matter-supported metric tail that decays more slowly than the ordinary vacuum quadrupole. The same noninteger hierarchy appears in curvature and reduces the differentiability of the conformal completion at spatial infinity. Consequently, the Geroch-Hansen and asymptotically Cartesian mass-centered quadrupole constructions are not applicable in their standard smooth form to this branch, even though its global mass and angular-momentum charges remain well defined. This separates charge-level asymptotic flatness from smooth multipolar asymptotics and identifies fractional Kalb-Ramond hair as the leading rotational quadrupolar signature of the benchmark solution.

The four-dimensional Riemannian Gauss--Bonnet combination admits more than one continuation to a geometry with an independent affine connection. Two natural candidates, the metric-contracted representative and the double-epsilon representative, agree in their Levi-Civita limit, and we ask whether they also give the independent connection the same leading differential structure. In a metric-affine model with a scalar coupling $f(φ)$ to the Gauss--Bonnet term, we compare their quadratic two-derivative connection principal forms about the Levi-Civita locus. For the metric-contracted continuation, the principal form, evaluated on a twenty-four-dimensional hook-free torsion-free witness subspace at a timelike principal covector, has rank $18$ and nullity $6$ and is indefinite; the full torsion-free form at the same covector is therefore indefinite with rank at least $18$. Locally where $f(φ)\neq0$, the two-derivative principal symbol of the linearized connection equations is nonzero, which obstructs purely algebraic local elimination of the connection in the activated directions. For the double-epsilon continuation, the corresponding quadratic two-derivative form vanishes identically for an arbitrary perturbation of the connection about that locus, so its principal symbol vanishes with it, and that particular obstruction is absent, though its absence does not by itself establish algebraic eliminability. Thus the leading differential structure of the independent connection depends on the affine continuation of the Riemannian Gauss--Bonnet combination.

A spherical cloud of radial strings with non-zero constant tension has an energy density proportional to $r^{-2}$ and therefore produces a singular conical geometry rather than an asymptotically flat regular black hole. We show that this obstruction can be removed within the modified-measure formulation of strings. A continuum of radial worldsheets whose tensions are generated by a composite bulk tension scalar reduces, on a constrained $\mathrm{SO}(3)$ hedgehog branch, to Einstein gravity coupled to a nonlinear function $K(Y)$ and an auxiliary three-form. This construction gives model-independent conditions directly in terms of the radial tension $\mathcal{T}(r)$. Finite curvature at the centre requires $\mathcal{T}=\mathcal{O}(r^2)$, while the null energy condition forbids a faster leading power. Thus a positive regular centre satisfying the null energy condition is necessarily de Sitter. Finite ADM mass requires the tension to be screened at infinity, whereas the dominant energy condition cannot hold globally for a non-trivial positive profile screened faster than $r^{-2}$. An exact cubic profile realises these properties and gives a continuous family of asymptotically flat geometrically regular black holes whose first correction to Schwarzschild appears at order $r^{-4}$.

We present a novel model for inelastic dark matter in a simple extension of the Standard Model (SM) with a local $U(1)'$ baryon flavor symmetry, such as $U(1)_{B_i-B_j}$ with $i\neq j$. In this framework, we realize a realistic flavor structure for the mixing Yukawa couplings due to higher dimensional operators or renormalizable couplings between the SM quarks and extra vector-like quarks that are anomaly-free by themselves. We regard a Dirac singlet fermion as being dark matter and obtaining a small mass splitting for inelastic dark matter, only after the $U(1)'$ symmetry is broken spontaneously. In particular, in the scenarios of heavy dark matter of $1\,{\rm TeV}$ mass, we show that there is a consistent parameter space for explaining both the LZ nuclear recoil event and the correct relic density for dark matter and the existing collider and indirect detection bounds are satisfied at the same time. In this case, we predict a relatively light $Z'$ boson with $10-20\,{\rm GeV}$ mass and a weak gauge coupling, suggesting a dedicated search at colliders.

We introduce an operational framework for heat-exchange statistics between a quantum field and an Unruh-DeWitt detector in Minkowski spacetime. Using an interferometric protocol, we define the characteristic function of heat without projective measurements, consistently with relativistic causality. We derive perturbative expressions for this function and the heat distribution. In the vacuum, the statistics coincides with the low-intensity expansion of a unidirectional Poisson law, while for Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) states it has a bidirectional Poisson structure up to second order in perturbation theory. We study how fluctuation relations emerge from detector properties and field correlations, identifying regimes where they reduce to known heat-exchange fluctuation relations. We derive the entropic Landauer inequality as a specialization of the algebraic entropy-balance theorem of Jakšić and Pillet and verify it numerically within the perturbative detector-field interaction. We compare its tightness with a complementary Landauer bound derived from the full counting statistics of heat, analyzing their dependence on the detector's initial state and interaction time. We also formulate the first and second laws for the explicitly switched detector-field dynamics, identifying the external switching work that reconciles the field-energy gain with the detector-energy change. In the gapless and delta-switching regimes, where the dynamics admits a non-perturbative treatment, the characteristic function coincides with that of a bidirectional Poisson process, yielding an exact fluctuation theorem determined by the KMS condition. These results provide a consistent framework for heat statistics in relativistic quantum field theory and clarify the emergence of fluctuation relations.

Appeals to typicality are common in physics, but it is often unclear what it means for a physical state to be typical relative to a probability measure, and correspondingly unclear what a law that appeals to typicality asserts. Here we consider how one might characterize physical typicality using ideas from the theory of algorithmic randomness. As a concrete example, we show how taking a physical state to be typical relative to a computable measure when it is Martin-Löf random allows one to formulate the distribution postulate in Bohmian mechanics as a statistical constraining law of the theory. Using a toy model, we show how this constraint guarantees the standard Born statistics for computable experimental protocols. Algorithmic Bohmian mechanics (aBM) thus illustrates how algorithmic randomness may be used to provide precise content to a statistical law.

We present interferometric observations with the Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) of NGC 1333 IRAS 4B and 4B', two young stellar objects (YSOs) within the Perseus molecular cloud. YSOs, especially Class 0 protostars, are rich in gas-phase interstellar complex organic molecules (iCOMs), but relatively little is known about the spatial distribution of these important prebiotic molecules. Various molecules were imaged within IRAS 4B and the surrounding area in the 145 GHz spectral range, revealing hundreds of molecular transitions within the warm inner envelope of IRAS 4B. This work provides derived physical parameters (rotational temperature, column density, velocity shift with respect to local standard of rest, and full-width at half-maximum spectral line width) for 11 molecules toward IRAS 4B including methanol (CH$_3$OH and isotopologues), methyl formate (HCOOCH$_3$), dimethyl ether (CH$_3$OCH$_3$), acetaldehyde (CH$_3$CHO), ethanol (C$_2$H$_5$OH), glycolaldehyde (CH$_2$OHCHO), acetone (CH$_3$COCH$_3$), and isocyanic acid (HNCO). Out of these molecules, 10 are iCOMs (excluding HNCO) that trace the inner envelope of IRAS 4B and mark it as a rich source of organic material. There is a strong spatial correlation between the continuum emission of IRAS 4B and iCOM molecular emission and among various iCOMs with each other. Physical parameter and integrated intensity maps show that IRAS 4B is a binary protostar system that drives a jet in a north-south orientation and an outflow in a northwest-southeast orientation. IRAS 4B' also drives a west-east outflow but shows no evidence of molecular emission cospatial with its continuum emission.

All recent advances \cite{DRS}, \cite{S-Rita1}, \cite{S-Rita2}, \cite{Millet}, \cite{MaS}, \cite{MaS2} on the boundedness and decay for wave equations on subextremal Kerr spacetimes $\KK(a,m)$, with non-small angular rotation, rely in an essential way on Whiting's groundbreaking discovery of a powerful integro-differential transformation with the help of which he ruled out exponentially growing modes in \cite{W} (see also \cite{Yacov}, \cite{AMPW} and \cite{Rita} for further developments). We give a purely \textit{physical space}, generalized version, of the transformation which takes general solutions of {spin-$\sk$} wave equations in $\KK=\KK(a,m)$ to solutions of a secondary wave equation on a new metric manifold $\KKt=\KKt(a,m)$ with two stationary, asymptotically flat, ends. Moreover, for a certain subdomain $\DDt\subset\DDt_-$, which can be identified as the exterior of a black hole region, the new metric $\gt$ of $\KKt(a, m)$ is Lorentzian and the time translation $\T $ is timelike. Using the geometric properties of the two ends one can then deduce, by classical asymptotic Fourier analysis techniques, the desired bound for the flux of $ψ$ at the future event horizon. This estimate played a crucial role in our companion paper \cite{He-K1}.

We initiate the study of nonlinear wave equations on the Witten bubble spacetime (also known as the "bubble of nothing"), which is an $\mathrm{SO}(3,1)\times \mathrm{U}(1)$-symmetric solution to the Einstein vacuum equations in $(4 + 1)$ dimensions. This spacetime was introduced by Witten to model the semiclassical instability of the Kaluza--Klein spacetime $\mathbf{R}^{3+1}\times S^1$ (which is classically stable by work of Huneau--Stingo--Wyatt (arXiv:2307.15267)). We prove a small-data global existence result without symmetry assumptions and an improved decay result for $\mathrm{U}(1)$-symmetric solutions to a class of semilinear equations satisfying a version of the null condition. Key to the proof are novel estimates for the linear wave equation, which has been studied in the physics literature by Bhawal and Viveshwara and in the mathematics literature by Bachelot (arXiv:1601.03682).

Entangling rates describe a direct entangling channel, but give no information when that channel is forbidden. For finite-dimensional analytic pure-state dynamics, we show that the onset of genuine $(n+1)$-partite entanglement is determined by the contact order $m_\star$ between the physical trajectory and the $S|E$ product manifold. It is the first Taylor order that cannot be reproduced by any product curve, or equivalently the first nonvanishing order of the Fubini--Study distance from the product manifold. We derive a time-ordered recursion that removes curvature-induced kinematic terms and computes $m_\star$ from the Taylor coefficients of $H(t)$. This provides a geometric description of an entanglement cascade, in which new subsystems can join multipartite entanglement only after one or more interaction steps. A symmetry-protected three-qubit model realizes $m_\star=2$, and a three-mode bosonic example shows that genuine tripartite entanglement can arise even when the two newly formed reduced pairs remain separable.

We present a census of dust, molecular gas, and galaxy structure in 18 dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) at $z=3.09$ embedded in Ly$α$-traced cosmic web filaments in the core of the SSA22 proto-cluster, using multi-band ALMA, JWST imaging, and JVLA CO(1--0). Using up to six ALMA bands and Herschel/SPIRE data, we construct rest-frame far-infrared spectral energy distributions. The DSFGs span two orders of magnitude in far-infrared luminosity ($L_{\rm FIR}\sim10^{11}$--$10^{13}L_\odot$), with median values of $\log(L_{\rm FIR}/L_\odot)=11.56^{+0.32}_{-0.37}$ and $T_{\rm dust}=25^{+6}_{-3}{\rm K}$. For eight DSFGs with high-resolution ($\sim1$ kpc) JWST and ALMA imaging, we measure stellar and dust surface densities and find a positive correlation, suggesting that structural compaction of the stellar component proceeds together with that of the interstellar medium. We report 12 detections of CO(1--0), 18 of CO(3--2), four each of CO(8--7) and CO(9--8), and one of CO(12--11). The median brightness temperature ratio between CO(3--2) and CO(1--0) is $r_{31}=0.66^{+0.05}_{-0.04}$, consistent with field galaxies at similar redshifts. The high-$J$ CO lines show relatively low excitation, and the CO(8--7)/CO(3--2) ratio correlates with star-formation rate surface density, suggesting that molecular gas excitation is primarily regulated by star formation. Lower-mass galaxies show excess molecular gas fractions and depletion times relative to field scaling relations. By combining quiescent galaxy samples in the same field, we identify a sequence from gas-rich systems with low stellar surface density to gas-poor, compact systems with high stellar surface density. These results suggest that massive galaxy evolution in dense environments is governed by a baryon cycle linking gas supply, star formation, and structural transformation within the cosmic web environment.

Most massive stars form in binary systems, which profoundly influence their subsequent evolution. However, how such systems form remains poorly understood, with several competing scenarios proposed, including disk fragmentation, core fragmentation and capture. Determining the orbital architectures of massive binaries, particularly during their earliest embedded phases, is therefore crucial for distinguishing among these formation pathways, but direct measurements of their three-dimensional motions have remained exceptionally challenging. Here we present high-resolution, multi-epoch sub-millimeter-to-centimeter ALMA and JVLA observations of the massive protobinary IRAS 07299$-$1651, complemented by JWST and VLT infrared imaging. We detect orbital proper motion of the binary components, enabling a full three-dimensional orbital reconstruction. Combining orbital fitting, multi-wavelength continuum modelling, hydrogen recombination line kinematics and jet observations, we find that the preferred orbital solutions are highly eccentric and close to parabolic, while both circumstellar disks are strongly misaligned with the orbital plane. These properties are naturally explained by a ``core-merger'' scenario in which the two protostars originated independently from initially unbound cores that recently underwent a near-parabolic encounter, producing an eccentric binary with a current separation of about 200 au. These findings suggest that the core-merger process may represent an important pathway for forming eccentric massive binaries.

We obtain the singular ''mother'' black hole solution by solving the coupling between Einstein gravity with a cosmological constant and a nonlinear electromagnetic field. The thermodynamic quantities of the ''mother'' black hole are first derived in the unconstrained phase space $(S, q, α, P)$, after which the regularity condition $M = q^3/α$ is imposed to obtain the thermodynamic quantities of a class of spherically symmetric AdS regular black holes self-consistently. We distinguish two categories of thermodynamic quantities: fundamental conjugate variables defined by the first law, and thermodynamic response functions constructed from them. For response functions involving second-order derivatives -- in particular the heat capacity -- we show that the order of constraint imposition and derivative calculation cannot be interchanged, and the correct procedure is to first impose the constraint and then construct the response function. Within this framework, we find that when $P<P_c$, the $G$--$T$ diagram exhibits a behavior qualitatively different from the swallowtail behavior of the standard RN-AdS black hole. Instead, it exhibits an 8-shaped structure for $P<P_z$ and a C-shaped structure for $P_z<P<P_c$, corresponding to first-order and zeroth-order phase transitions between small and large black hole phases, respectively. Imposing the regularity condition thus leads to a richer phase structure for this class of black holes than the standard RN-AdS case.

The quantum mechanical problem of a particle in a infinite potential well with slanted walls is studied. The energy eigenvalues are determined by a transcendental equation involving the Airy function of the first kind. Two limiting cases are discussed. Next, the allowed energies are found by graphical and numerical methods. The graphical analysis hints that for large quantum numbers the consecutive energy levels get arbitrarily close together. This asymptotic behavior of the energy spectrum actually holds, as shown by means of an intuitive argument and confirmed by resorting to basic properties of Airy functions. In a sense, Bohr's correspondence principle is more accurately fulfilled than in the cases of the standard particle in a box or the harmonic oscillator. A state is regarded the more confined the less the probability of finding the particle in the classically forbidden region. For some stationary states the confinement degree is calculated and a comparison is made with the harmonic oscillator, for which the ground state is the least confined of all stationary states. In the symmetric case --- right and left walls of equal slope --- something unexpected happens: beyond a certain critical slope the ground state is no longer the least confined eigenstate. Over and above its interesting physical features, this problem provides students with the opportunity to get acquainted with Airy functions, which do not belong to the standard mathematical repertoire of physics undergraduates.

We construct exact static, spherically symmetric charged solutions in four-dimensional non-polynomial quasi-topological gravity coupled to Born-Infeld electrodynamics. We focus on the model $h(p)=p/(1+\ell^{2}p)$, whose vacuum branch develops a curvature singularity at a finite radius. We show that Born-Infeld nonlinearities can remove this singularity within a finite region of parameter space, yielding globally regular geometries with an asymptotically flat exterior and a finite-curvature AdS-type core. The regular sector contains both horizonless configurations and RBHs, separated by a degenerate-horizon boundary. We further identify a continuous branch of regular black holes with a triple-degenerate inner horizon and a simple outer event horizon, satisfying $κ_-=0$ and $κ_+\neq0$. This provides a converse example to cases in which introducing charge spoils the regularity of a vacuum regular black hole. In the present model, Born-Infeld electrodynamics instead removes the finite-radius singularity of a vacuum-singular gravitational branch while supporting globally regular charged geometries, including RBHs with nontrivial inner-horizon structure.

The surface $r=\infty$ of the Kerr-Bertotti-Robinson spacetime is not a genuine boundary. We construct its natural analytic extension and show that $r=+\infty$ of one KBR region is smoothly connected to $r=-\infty$ of a neighboring one. Repeated continuation produces an infinite chain of regions connected by wormhole-like bridges and exposes the neighboring ring singularity without an intervening horizon, which violates the weak cosmic censorship conjecture. We then study a test massless scalar field on a two-universe scattering segment to probe the stability of the spacetime. For axisymmetric perturbations, we analytically establish purely imaginary growing quasinormal modes for every $\ell$ and trace their origin to the chronology-violating region. In the $(\ell,m)=(2,2)$ sector, unstable branches occur for sufficiently large rotation and sufficiently small magnetic field. Their marginal real modes obey an exact horizon-flux balance, supporting a black-hole-bomb interpretation in which superradiant extraction is amplified by trapping within the double-barrier potential. The same cavity also supports families of weakly damped modes and may produce echo-like responses.

We evaluate the variations in the area and the entropy of Kerr-Taub-NUT black holes perturbed by bosonic and fermionic test fields. We demonstrate that the critical frequency for a test field at which the variation of the area vanishes is strictly larger than the superradiance limit for Kerr-Taub-NUT black holes. Therefore both bosonic fields in the relevant range and fermionic fields which do not exhibit superradiant scattering can induce a decrease in the area of a Kerr-Taub-NUT black hole. However, the entropy is not directly proportional to the area for Kerr-Taub-NUT black holes. Only fermionic fields with frequencies below the superradiance limit can induce an entropy decrease. The simultaneous loss of entropy by the black hole and the environment identifies a generic violation of the Generalized Second Law (GSL) for fermionic perturbations that fail to satisfy the Null Energy Condition (NEC). For bosonic perturbations that satisfy the NEC, we evaluate the limiting case, where a nearly extremal black hole is perturbed by a scalar field with frequency slightly above the superradiance limit. Our analysis reveals that the minimum increase in the black hole entropy compensates for the entropy loss of the environment, when one assigns Von Neumann entropy to the test field. The GSL remains valid for perturbations satisfying the NEC.

Recently, the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration reported the observation of a single dark matter (DM)-nucleus scattering event at a nuclear recoil energy of $248\pm23_{\rm stat}\pm23_{\rm sys}$ keV, corresponding to an exposure of 2.84 tonne-year. The absence of events at lower nuclear recoil energies in the predicted spectrum is naturally explained if the underlying process is inelastic DM-nucleus scattering. Motivated by this, we investigate the singlet-doublet fermion DM model, in which the DM consists of two pseudo-Dirac states: the Majorana nature of the lighter state forbids tree level $Z$-mediated elastic scattering identically, while the same states enable inelastic DM-nucleus scattering via $Z$ exchange, with any residual elastic scattering proceeding only through a suppressed Higgs-mediated channel. We further extend the model with a $Z_2$-even scalar triplet, which is responsible both for generating the pseudo-Dirac splitting and for realizing Majorana neutrino masses via the Type-II seesaw mechanism.

The spherically symmetric sector of broad classes of $D$-dimensional gravitational theories can be effectively described by general two-dimensional Horndeski theories. Exploiting this correspondence, we study the low-temperature dynamics of near-extremal black hole solutions of the parent theories by deriving a universal near-horizon effective description in terms of Jackiw--Teitelboim (JT) gravity. We explicitly show that the logarithmic quantum correction to the entropy, $S_{\rm JT}=\frac{3}{2}\log \left(T/T_{\rm breakdown} \right)$, previously derived for near-extremal black holes in Einstein gravity coupled to matter from the one-loop exact JT partition function, is universal across all models admitting an effective two-dimensional Horndeski description. We determine the general form of the scale at which this correction becomes dominant, $T_{\rm breakdown}$, in terms of the data of the $D$-dimensional theories. We illustrate our general results with charged black holes in Lovelock gravities and regular black holes in Quasitopological gravities.

We impose unitarity constraints on two-dimensional field theories whose symmetries form the quantum conformal Bondi-Metzner-Sachs algebra, which combines conformal symmetries with asymptotic symmetries of asymptotically flat spacetimes. Positivity constraints put bounds on the central charge, 0<c<2.053. Positivity of the associated vertex algebra allows only four central charges, c = 1, 3/2, 13/7, 2. Thus, only four candidates for unitary field theories remain. We calculate their spectra of primaries and show that they are compatible with BPS-like and holographic inequalities.

We provide a novel diffeomorphism-invariant approach to asymptotically safe metric quantum gravity. It is based on physics-informed renormalisation group flows with a renormalisation group kernel that guarantees diffeomorphism invariance at each renormalisation group step. Importantly, it also allows us to control and maintain the relevance counting of operators in metric quantum gravity. The resulting effective action is quantum diffeomorphism-invariant and background-independent. As a first non-trivial application, we compute the Reuter fixed point in a manifestly diffeomorphism-invariant way. This computation is augmented with a detailed discussion of regularisation dependence and a systematic estimate of the errors arising from approximations.

Understanding the internal dynamics of red giants is essential for studying angular momentum transport and magnetic field generation during stellar evolution. We present three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a $1M_{\odot}$ red giant at the bottom of the red giant branch using a star-in-a-box setup with the Pencil Code, together with ongoing efforts to refine the numerical model. By varying the rotation rate, we explore different Rossby numbers and identify systematic changes in the convective dynamics and large-scale flows. As the rotation increases, convective motions become more anisotropic, showing clear signatures of rotational constraint and a shift in the dominant convective scales. These changes are accompanied by variations in the differential rotation profile, reflecting the redistribution of angular momentum within the convective envelope. The impact of rotation is also evident in the growth rate and saturation level of the magnetic field, indicating a strong dependence of dynamo efficiency on the underlying flow structure. Together, these results highlight the interplay between convection, rotation, and large-scale flows in shaping magnetic activity in red giant stars.

A coherent wave component with extremely small initial self-energy can substantially change the first response of a contracting spacetime. We demonstrate this effect in Einstein--Maxwell--scalar theory with two commuting spacelike Killing fields. Along a critical family motivated by scalarized black-hole interiors, the estimated magnetic delay leaves time for longitudinal propagation to redistribute the incident field. Increasing a low-frequency component at fixed initial electromagnetic energy enhances the scalar response on one background and suppresses it on another. A calculation that propagates the field and its momentum, then their quadratic scalar and geometric sources, predicts this reversal before nonlinear evolution. At the first suppression comparison, the coherent profile error is $0.38\%$, against $46.9\%$ when cross terms are omitted. The selected response develops into a magnetic pulse with electric and scalar exchange. The critical geometry thus preserves incident coherence as information that predicts its first departure from a Kasner epoch.

We study a scalar field nonminimally coupled to metric-affine gravity within actions linear in the affine curvature and containing all independent parity-even and parity-odd terms quadratic in torsion and nonmetricity, including mixed contractions. We also include Nieh-Yan-like derivative couplings between the scalar-field derivative and the four torsion and nonmetricity vectors. We derive the connection, metric, and scalar-field equations and, since the connection equation is algebraic, eliminate the independent connection on the generic nondegenerate branch to obtain an equivalent metric scalar-tensor theory in which the non-Riemannian interactions are encoded in an effective kinetic function. We classify several sectors and find that the pure quadratic nonmetricity and pure quadratic torsion sectors separately leave the Einstein-frame kinetic function unchanged relative to the simplest metric-affine scalar-tensor model, whereas their simultaneous presence, the derivative couplings, and generic mixed torsion-nonmetricity interactions can modify it. In the derivative-coupling sector, projective consistency imposes a relation among the couplings. We then consider polynomial coupling functions and study the resulting canonical field redefinition and Einstein-frame potentials. In particular, we illustrate how derivative and mixed torsion--nonmetricity couplings reshape quadratic and quartic potentials in canonical-field space, and show that a quadratic Jordan-frame potential can be mapped, for a suitable choice of derivative and nonminimal couplings, into a natural-inflation potential after canonical normalization. Finally, we separately impose the cosmological principle, determine the reduced combinations of quadratic couplings and the scalar field hypermomentum, and obtain the corresponding modified cosmological equations in the simplest sectors.

Entanglement wedge reconstruction provides the sharpest formulation of bulk locality in AdS/CFT, identifying the entanglement wedge as the largest bulk region reconstructible from a boundary subregion. While this statement is well understood at leading order in the large N expansion through both modular flow and Petz map reconstruction, its extension beyond the semiclassical regime has remained unclear. In this work, we show that quantum error correction provides the natural framework for addressing this problem. At leading order, we reproduce the known leading-order reconstruction formulas, and by employing the twirled Petz map, we obtain a systematic and explicit method for incorporating subleading 1/N corrections. Beyond the leading approximation, we have obtained an explicit bi-local correction controlled by a subleading Petz kernel. Our results establish a controlled approach to bulk reconstruction beyond large N and sharpening the role of quantum error correction in holography. This framework provides a controlled path toward understanding bulk reconstruction in fully quantum gravitational settings.

We perform a pulsation analysis of OO Dra using Light Curve data from TESS and present the first identification of six dipole modes as doublets from the primary star in OO Dra. The phases and amplitudes of these pulsation modes were analytically reconstructed. Among the six identified doublets, four are pulsating in $Y_{10x}$ mode with pulsation axis along the tidal axis, and two in $Y_{10y}$ with a pulsation axis orthogonal to tidal axis and the angular momentum axis. Our findings suggest that the primary star in a non-synchronized, post mass-transfer OO Dra could be a tidally tilted $δ$ Scuti pulsator.

This commentary briefly reviews recent measurements from DAMPE and LHAASO on cosmic rays to explore why the spectra of different species change shape across the TeV-PeV energy range. DAMPE finds that several primary nuclei show spectral softening at a similar magnetic rigidity, while the combined proton and helium data from DAMPE and LHAASO reveal a more complex evolution at higher energies. By comparing these spectral features and composition changes, we discuss what they may tell us about the sources of Galactic cosmic rays and how these particles propagate through the Galaxy.

This work focuses on the analysis of particle dynamics and the thermodynamic properties associated with a particular branch of hairy black hole solutions. These solutions are obtained by using extended geometric deformation gravitational decoupling on the seed solution of the Schwarzschild solution. This resulting geometry satisfies the dominant energy condition and the condition $Q^{2}=2χ\ell M$. We analyze the motion of massive particles and photons in this geometry and the thermodynamics of this solution. In particular, for massless particles, we study the effective potential and determine the radii of the photon sphere and the shadow of the black hole. For massive particles, we calculate the specific energy and angular momentum of circular orbits, the ISCO, the radiative efficiency of an accretion disk, and representative particle trajectories. Finally, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of this hairy black hole geometry, including the Hawking temperature, the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, and the heat capacity in the fixed-$(Q,\ell)$ ensemble.

We discuss the cosmological dynamics of general teleparallel quadratic gravity. Using a suitable set of variables, we write the cosmological field equations as a homogeneous dynamical system. We find that this system generically features projective fixed points, where the dynamics can be solved analytically, and exhibits finite time singularities as well as an asymptotically vanishing cosmological expansion.

Magnetohydrodynamical simulations and interferometric observations toward young stellar objects reveal the accretion of gas that may alter the physical properties and chemical composition of protostellar disks. Our goal is to constrain the physical history and properties of late infalling gas, and assess its potential to change the physical and chemical properties of the disk. We carried out a core collapse simulation of 5 M$_{\odot}$ of gas endowed with tracer and sink particles during $\sim 3.6\times 10^{5}$ yr. We analyzed the properties of the rotationally supported disk, and the origin and physical history of the gas from which it is initially formed. We also selected the tracer particles that describe the late infall to analyze their origin and physical history, and compare them to the information obtained from the disk. The final mass of the sink reaches 1.02 M$_\odot$, while the mass of the disk stays fairly constant around 0.02 M$_\odot$. Throughout its evolution, the disk radius increases up to $\sim 40$ au and its density is reduced by a factor of $\sim 8$. Filaments that channel gas from the envelope to the disk and sink appear as a result of the magnetic interchange instability. Tracer particles can identify late infalling gas, whose physical properties resemble that of observed streamers and are only accreted in the final snapshots of the simulation. The origin and physical history of the late infalling gas are different from those of the gas that initially forms the disk. Core collapse simulations predict the appearance of filaments that connect the envelope to the disk. The late accretion of gas through these channels has properties similar to those of streamers and brings gas to the disk with a different physical history that could translate into a different chemical composition.

We present a deconvolution-based framework for testing scale-dependent departures of the late-time matter power spectrum from a fiducial cosmological model using $3\times2$pt measurements. We introduce a free-form scale-dependent modulation $A(k)$ of the fiducial nonlinear matter power spectrum and construct the linear response of binned galaxy-clustering, galaxy-galaxy-lensing, and cosmic-shear spectra to the discretized modulation $A(k)$. The response is evaluated with full-sky, beyond-Limber kernels including density, redshift-space-distortion, gravitational-shear, and intrinsic-alignment contributions. We reconstruct $A(k)$ using a regularized modified Richardson-Lucy algorithm, with weak diffusion in $\ln k$ and selection of the minimum-$χ^2$ solution along the iteration history. Using Rubin/LSST Year 10-like synthetic data, we find that oscillatory modulations with amplitudes $\gtrsim1\%$ can be recovered over $0.1\lesssim k\lesssim0.5\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, provided the oscillation frequency $f\lesssim10$ on $\log_{10}[k/(0.2\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1})]$. We further introduce a posterior-weighted consistency statistic calibrated with posterior-predictive null mocks, thereby accounting for cosmological and nuisance-parameter uncertainties without relying on Wilks' theorem. The null case is consistent with $A(k)=1$, while a $1\%$ oscillatory modulation is detected at $\sim 2.6σ$. These results demonstrate the potential of regularized deconvolution as a model-independent consistency test of the matter power spectrum in future $3\times2$pt surveys.

With microarcsecond precision, \textit{Gaia} has made the astrometric discovery of substellar companions feasible. However, follow-up observations are needed to check on orbital solutions and rule out astrophysical false positives. We validate and characterise a sample of 20 \textit{Gaia} Data Release 3 (DR3) astrometric candidates for substellar companions, with the dual goal of identifying false positives and deriving robust physical parameters for genuine companions. We performed high-resolution spectroscopy using FIES, NIRPS, and NEID at the Nordic Optical Telescope, the ESO 3.6m telescope, and the WIYN Telescope, respectively. Double-lined spectroscopic binaries were identified as false positives, and surviving systems were characterised through joint \textit{Gaia} astrometry and radial velocity modelling. Thirteen of the candidates proved to be near-twin binary stars for which the astrometric motion of the center of light is small enough to mimic that of a single star in response to a substellar companion. We confirm that six companions are brown dwarfs with masses in the range ${\sim}26$--$68\,M_\mathrm{Jup}$, two of them for the first time. In contrast to earlier studies of lower-mass \textit{Gaia} candidates, we find that the astrometric orbital solutions are generally reliable to within the stated uncertainties.

Most stars and planets form in massive star-forming regions, where disks are exposed to external far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation from nearby O- and B-type stars. The combined effects of stellar irradiation and external FUV fields on terrestrial planet-forming regions (< 10 au) across stellar masses remain unclear. We investigate how internal UV and X-ray irradiation and external FUV fields affect mid-infrared (mid-IR) gas emission and the atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratios inferred in T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be disks. We compute disk structures with ProDiMo and synthetic spectra with FLiTs, convolved to a representative JWST/MIRI-MRS resolution (R$\sim$2680). (1) We present the Internal and external irRadIation of diSks (IRIS) grid: four model sets spanning stellar masses of 0.3-4.0 solar masses, including stellar X-ray flares and an external FUV field of 1e4 G0 (Habing units). (2) We predict increasing flux densities with stellar mass for key atomic and molecular mid-IR tracers. (3) External FUV irradiation enhances CH3+ and H2 emission, whereas FUV-induced disk truncation yields inner disk chemistry resembling that of disks irradiated only by their host stars. (4) Mid-IR H2O, CO2, and C2H2 line ratios imply carbon-rich compositions (C/O$\sim$1-10) in the warm emitting layers of T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be disks, primarily reflecting stellar irradiation, with little sensitivity to external FUV irradiation. The IRIS grid provides a flexible framework for interpreting JWST and future Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) infrared disk observations across a broad range of stellar properties and irradiation conditions. Future models should include FUV-driven photoevaporative winds, X-ray radiative transfer, and time-dependent X-ray irradiation.

Motivated by the singularity theorems of Poincaré Gauge (PG) theory, we investigate extensions of the Holst quadratic model by introducing cubic order invariants constructed from the curvature and torsion tensors into the gravitational action. Such models are characterised by a kinetic structure that is governed by a pseudoscalar mode, whereas the remaining irreducible modes of torsion contribute through nonlinear interactions that can have important implications for the space-time geometry. In particular, in line with other well-known models of PG theory, the Birkhoff theorem does not hold in general, allowing for new exact static and spherically symmetric black hole solutions with dynamical torsion. Across the different torsion sectors, corresponding to the irreducible modes and parity components of the torsion field involved in the analysis, we find both singular and regular configurations. Among the singular solutions, we obtain Kiselev-like and Boulware-Deser-like geometries, as well as new geometries with distinct algebraic and Lambert $W$ metric corrections. In addition, we find regular black holes with both primary and secondary torsion hair, which evade the singularity theorems through violations of the causal convergence conditions induced by the nonlinear torsion interactions. Therefore, we show that Holst-type PG models can support a rich variety of black hole geometries, while providing explicit mechanisms for evading the singularity theorems of PG theory.

Uniform acceleration induces a thermal response to the Minkowski vacuum and can thereby modify quantum correlations. For measurement-induced nonlocality (MIN), a form of nonclassical correlation distinct from entanglement, previous field-mode analyses of bosonic fields found that it decreases with increasing acceleration and vanishes in the infinite-acceleration limit. This raises the question of whether the disappearance of MIN is a generic consequence of the Unruh effect or depends on the physical description of the accelerated quantum system. To address this question, we study two uniformly accelerating Unruh-DeWitt detectors interacting with a massless scalar field. We find that the response of MIN to the Unruh temperature depends sensitively on the initial detector state: it can decrease monotonically, vanish at an intermediate temperature and subsequently recover, or increase monotonically. Moreover, for a broad class of initial states, MIN approaches a nonzero value in the high-temperature limit. These results show that the suppression of MIN under strong acceleration is not universal. Instead, Unruh-induced detector dynamics gives rise to a state-dependent response in which measurement-induced nonlocality can be suppressed, restored, or enhanced.

In this article we provide a systematic reduction to static spherical symmetry for (classical) gauge theoretic models with structure group SU(2) x U(1), coupled to gravity. In particular, we derive the most general static spherically symmetric ansatz for the Einstein-Yang- Mills-Higgs-Dirac-Yukawa equation system. This model is reminiscent of the lepton sector of the Standard Model coupled to gravity. The resulting total system of ordinary differential equations is rather large, so that finding global solutions is non-trivial. For this reason, an open-source interactive solver GUI written in C++ is provided together with the article.

We establish spacetime counterparts of fill-in inequalities for spin initial data sets satisfying the dominant energy condition in dimensions three through seven, controlling the minimum and the integral of the norm of the spacetime mean curvature vector by intrinsic boundary data. The proof relies on a Reilly--MIT estimate for complete spin manifolds with compact boundary. As further consequences, under suitable nonnegativity assumptions, Gromov's hyperspherical-radius fill-in inequality and Bär's recent total mean-curvature estimate extend to complete, possibly noncompact spin manifolds with compact boundary.

This is a concise and compact introduction to a framework for spacetime, gravity, and fundamental physics based on the IKKT matrix model, focusing on conceptual and structural aspects. The approach rests on nontrivial vacua or matrix backgrounds, which serve as 3+1-dimensional noncommutative spacetime. We discuss a specific class of backgrounds describing expanding homogeneous and isotropic FLRW spacetime, which provide a solution of the one-loop effective action with finitely many dof per volume. Perturbations of the background give rise to fields propagating on spacetime governed by a weakly-coupled gauge theory, as well as a nonstandard description of (quantum) gravity leading to some IR modifications. Maximal supersymmetry of the model is essential to ensure effective locality.

Open clusters remain among the most powerful laboratories for calibrating how fundamental stellar properties such as rotation, magnetic activity, surface chemistry, and internal structure evolve over the pre-main-sequence to main-sequence and post-main-sequence stellar lifetime. Because cluster members share a common age, galactic environment, and initial composition, they provide empirical anchors upon which age-dating techniques such as gyrochronology, activity-age relations, and chemical clocks are built. This paper summarizes the Cool Stars 23 splinter session - Open Clusters as Laboratories for Cool Star Evolution, held on 15 June 2026 in Tokyo, Japan. The session comprised one invited review, ten contributed talks, and ten poster pop-up presentations, organized around three themes: the evolution of rotation, magnetic activity, and chemical abundances (Li-depletion, [C/N], [Y/Mg], and neutron-capture elements). We close with a summary of the open questions identified in the panel discussion and the observational and theoretical work that new surveys (e.g. Gaia DR4, 4MOST, WEAVE) and missions (e.g. PLATO, Roman) will enable over the coming years. Together, these efforts will help assess the current state of the field and shape its future directions.

Reconstructing the initial conditions (ICs) of the matter field for an observed volume gives a complete picture of that region's temporal evolution. IC reconstruction is common at low redshifts but largely unexplored during the epoch of reionization (EoR; $z\gtrsim 5$), partly due to difficulties modeling inhomogeneous cosmic radiation fields. Yet the EoR spans half the observable Universe, offering unmatched potential for astrophysics and cosmology. Here we quantify how well upcoming galaxy and 21cm observations can constrain ICs during the EoR. We develop $\tt TILING$ ($\bf T$omographic $\bf I$nference of $\bf L$inear $\bf I$Cs via $\bf N$etwork $\bf G$rafting): a hybrid machine learning pipeline that first produces a point estimate of the ICs, which then improves a score-based diffusion network for generating posterior samples. We train $\tt TILING$ on mock galaxy maps at varying UV magnitude limits, plus corresponding 21cm maps at varying noise levels and foreground "wedge" contamination. For fiducial survey choices, we achieve accurate IC reconstruction (posterior mean cross-correlation coefficients >0.8 and power spectrum errors under a few percent) down to $\text{k}\lesssim 0.2 \text{cMpc}^{-1}$. While 21cm interferometry aids recovery of IC power spectra, most constraining power, especially for IC Fourier phases, comes from galaxy maps, underscoring the need for complementary observations when interpreting the 21cm signal. We show how $\tt TILING$ can recover 21cm power spectrum modes excised by foreground contamination. Our framework can also: (i) guide follow-up observations of sub-volumes of interest; (ii) reconstruct galaxy evolution and reionization morphology for specific volumes; and (iii) isolate the contribution to reionization from the vast majority of galaxies unobservable by optical/IR telescopes like $\it JWST$. Our code is publicly available.

Weak gravitational lensing is a premier cosmological probe, but its small-scale statistical power is compromised by baryonic feedback. Higher-order statistics capture non-Gaussian information that the power spectrum misses, yet their sensitivity to feedback remains a concern for Stage IV surveys. We quantify how unmodeled feedback biases the cosmological parameters inferred from the angular power spectrum (PS), starlet peak counts, and the starlet $\ell_1$-norm, and we determine the scale cuts needed to remove that bias. We also test the Bernardeau-Nishimichi-Taruya (BNT) transform as a strategy for more precise scale cuts. Our analysis is based on the cosmoGRID V1 suite, which imprints feedback on dark matter convergence maps with a baryon correction model, and on simulation-based inference with neural posterior estimation, carried out across footprints ranging from Stage III-like to the full sky. We find that biases grow with survey area, exceeding $2σ$ for all three statistics at Stage IV-like footprints, and removing them costs a substantial fraction of the signal. Restricted to these ``baryon-safe'' scales, the starlet $\ell_1$-norm still reaches a figure of merit almost twice that of the PS. The BNT transform localizes the baryonic sensitivity to the lowest transformed redshift bin and improves the PS figure of merit by a factor of $\sim$1.4, while its linear mixing of shape noise inflates the contours of the map-based higher-order statistics. Higher-order statistics therefore deliver a substantial gain over the power spectrum with no baryonic modeling at all, and an even larger one as modeling improves.

The cosmic microwave background birefringence angle $β$ is exactly degenerate with a common instrumental polarization-angle offset. The Minami--Komatsu(MK) likelihood separates these quantities using Galactic foreground polarization, so its inferred detector angles merit a diagnostic that does not reuse the foreground-$EB$ model. We develop a birefringence-blind differential estimator from antisymmetric and symmetric cross-spectra and apply it for the first time as an explicit consistency test of a foreground-assisted birefringence analysis. For a map pair, the common rotation cancels identically and the estimator measures $Δα_{ij}=α_i-α_j$; combining all pairs in a gauge-fixed network reconstructs the observable detector-dependent calibration pattern. Applied to eight Planck NPIPE detector-set maps, the differential reconstruction agrees with the MK pattern, giving $χ^2=8.18$ for seven degrees of freedom (PTE=0.32), with all shared-data residuals below $1.8σ$. Because both reconstructions use the same maps, this is an independent estimator and modeling route rather than an independent-data confirmation. The agreement therefore strengthens confidence in the calibration foundation of the MK-inferred $β$ without providing an independent absolute measurement of it. A conditional common-mode reconstruction gives $β=0.37\pm0.12^\circ$. The differential test uses existing data and can serve as a validation layer for future $EB$-based birefringence analyses.

Weak gravitational lensing provides a powerful way to map cosmic structure, but most current measurements rely on galaxy shape distortions from deep imaging surveys and are affected by systematics such as intrinsic alignments, photometric-redshift uncertainties and shape-measurement biases. Here we present a spectroscopic galaxy-galaxy lensing magnification measurement using Fundamental-Plane (FP) size residuals, $δ_r\equivΔ\log_{10}R_\mathrm{e}$, from 3.26 million DESI luminous red galaxy (LRG) sources behind DESI Bright Galaxy Survey lenses. The FP-like relation predicts the intrinsic sizes of LRGs from lensing-invariant quantities, including velocity dispersion $σ_0$ and surface brightness $I_\mathrm{e}$, with a scatter of about 0.06-0.07 dex. Lensing magnifies LRG sizes, giving the direct convergence response $δ_r(κ)=κ/\ln 10$, but we show that the full lensing response is modified by magnification bias, because fitting $R_\mathrm{e}$ with $I_\mathrm{e}$ inevitably induces a magnitude dependence in $\barδ_r(m)$. After calibrating this response, we recover surface-density profiles with uncertainties comparable to those from individual Stage-III shear surveys using 5-20 million higher-redshift sources. The corresponding excess surface-density profiles agree with shear-based measurements. We further show that the estimator is robust to size-measurement uncertainties, with a convergence multiplicative bias only $\simeq -0.2$ times the size bias. FP lensing therefore provides a clean, spectroscopic and complementary probe of cosmic structure.