Search

In some scenarios, the dark matter relic abundance is set by the semi-annihilation of two dark matter particles into one dark matter particle and one Standard Model particle. These semi-annihilations might still be occurring today in the Galactic Center at a significant rate, generating a flux of boosted dark matter particles. We investigate the possible signals of this flux component in direct detection and neutrino experiments for sub-GeV dark matter masses. We show that for typical values of the semi-annihilation cross-section, the sensitivity of current experiments to the spin-independent dark matter-proton scattering cross-section can be several orders of magnitude larger than current constraints from cosmic-ray boosted dark matter. We also argue that the upcoming DARWIN and DUNE experiments may probe scattering cross-sections as low as $10^{-37}\,{\rm cm}^2$ for masses between 30 MeV and 1 GeV., Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures

We deal with negative square moments of Dirichlet $L$-functions. Summing over characters modulo $q$, we obtain an asymptotic formula for the negative second moment of $L(1,\chi)$ involving conductors. As an application, we give the improved lower bound on the success probability of the algorithm which recovers a short generator of the input generator of a principal ideal sampled from a specific Gaussian distribution in cyclotomic number fields., Comment: 21 pages, 1 table

This study presents the first observation of a mixed mode of charge transfer during an upward positive flash, which was initiated from the S\"antis Tower in Switzerland. High-speed camera footage, along with current and electric field measurements, revealed a downward-propagating recoil leader connecting to the grounded current-carrying plasma channel at a junction height of < 1 km above the tip of the tower. This event triggered the "return stroke"-like main pulse associated with Type 1 upward positive flashes, leading us to propose a mixed mode of charge transfer (normally observed in upward negative flashes) as the physical mechanism at play. Furthermore, the observed pulse shared characteristics with both mixed-mode and M-component -type initial continuous current (ICC) pulses, challenging existing classification criteria, and supporting the notion of a singular mode of charge transfer with a range of junction-dependent pulse characteristics, as opposed to two distinct modes. The recoil leader itself was accompanied by a sequence of fast electric field pulses indicative of step-like propagation, also an observational first. These findings contribute to improving our understanding of the mechanisms of charge transfer in upward lightning flashes.

People feel attached to places that are meaningful to them, which psychological research calls "place attachment." Place attachment is associated with self-identity, self-continuity, and psychological well-being. Even small cues, including videos, images, sounds, and scents, can facilitate feelings of connection and belonging to a place. Telepresence robots that allow people to see, hear, and interact with a remote place have the potential to establish and maintain a connection with places and support place attachment. In this paper, we explore the design space of robotic telepresence to promote place attachment, including how users might be guided in a remote place and whether they experience the environment individually or with others. We prototyped a telepresence robot that allows one or more remote users to visit a place and be guided by a local human guide or a conversational agent. Participants were 38 university alumni who visited their alma mater via the telepresence robot. Our findings uncovered four distinct user personas in the remote experience and highlighted the need for social participation to enhance place attachment. We generated design implications for future telepresence robot design to support people's connections with places of personal significance., Comment: Proceedings of the 29th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI 2025)

Minimal dark matter is an attractive candidate for dark matter because it is stabilized without the need to impose additional symmetries. It is known that the mass of the $SU(2)_L$ quintuplet fermion dark matter is predicted to be around 14 TeV, based on the thermal production mechanism. In this work, we embed the quintuplet dark matter within non-supersymmetric $SU(5)$ grand unified theories. We find that two pairs of colored sextet fermions are required at the $\mathcal{O}(1-10)~\mathrm{TeV}$ scale to achieve gauge coupling unification, with the unification scale near the reduced Planck scale. These colored sextet fermions become metastable because their interactions are suppressed by the unification scale. Our model can be tested through comprehensive searches for colored sextet fermions in collider experiments, as well as through indirect and direct detection methods for minimal dark matter., Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure

Solving the inverse problem in spiral galaxies, that allows the derivation of the spatial distribution of dust, gas and stars, together with their associated physical properties, directly from panchromatic imaging observations, is one of the main goals of this work. To this end we used radiative transfer models to decode the spatial and spectral distribution of the nearby face-on galaxies M101 and NGC 3938. In both cases we provide excellent fits to the surface-brightness distributions derived from GALEX, SDSS, 2MASS, Spitzer and Herschel imaging observations. Together with previous results from M33, NGC 628, M51 and the Milky Way, we obtain a small statistical sample of modelled nearby galaxies that we analyse in this work. We find that in all cases Milky Way-type dust with Draine-like optical properties provide consistent and successful solutions. We do not find any "submm excess", and no need for modified dust-grain properties. Intrinsic fundamental quantities like star-formation rates (SFR), specific SFR (sSFR), dust opacities and attenuations are derived as a function of position in the galaxy and overall trends are discussed. In the SFR surface density versus stellar mass surface density space we find a structurally resolved relation (SRR) for the morphological components of our galaxies, that is steeper than the main sequence (MS). Exception to this is for NGC 628, where the SRR is parallel to the MS., Comment: 31 pages

The $M1$ transition strengths between excited $2^+$ states of the neutron-rich, radioactive nuclide $^{132}$Te have been studied through direct lifetime measurements using the Doppler-shift attenuation method in a two-neutron transfer reaction on a $^{130}$Te target. An unambiguous identification of the lowest-lying mixed-symmetry $2^+$ state has been achieved on the basis of the large $B(M1;2^+_2\rightarrow2^+_1$)=0.18(2) $\mu_\mathrm{N}^2$ transition strength, in agreement with shell-model calculations. Results are compared to the shell model, and the analysis of both, data and calculations, unambiguously identifies the second-excited $2^+$ state of $^{132}$Te as the one-quadrupole phonon mixed-symmetry state of this isotope. A lowering of the energy and $B(M1;2^+_\mathrm{ms}\rightarrow 2^+_1)$ strength within the $N$=80 isotones toward the $Z$=50 shell closure is observed, which goes alongside with the lowering of the $E2$ collectivity approaching the magic proton shell.

We measure the two-dimensional elastic modulus $E^\text{2D}$ of atomically clean defect-engineered graphene with a known defect distribution and density in correlated ultra-high vacuum experiments. The vacancies are introduced via low-energy (< 200 eV) Ar ion irradiation and the atomic structure is obtained via semi-autonomous scanning transmission electron microscopy and image analysis. Based on atomic force microscopy nanoindentation measurements, a decrease of $E^\text{2D}$ from 286 to 158 N/m is observed when measuring the same graphene membrane before and after an ion irradiation-induced vacancy density of $1.0\times 10^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$. This decrease is significantly greater than what is predicted by most theoretical studies and in stark contrast to some measurements presented in the literature. With the assistance of atomistic simulations, we show that this softening is mostly due to corrugations caused by local strain at vacancies with two or more missing atoms, while the influence of single vacancies is negligible. We further demonstrate that the opposite effect can be measured when surface contamination is not removed before defect engineering, Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures

Interferometry of atomic matter waves is an essential tool in fundamental sciences [1-5] and for applied quantum sensors [6-10]. The sensitivity of interferometers scales with the momentum separation of the diffracted matter waves, leading to the development of large-momentum transfer beam splitters [11,12]. However, despite decades of research, crystalline gratings used since the first atomic diffraction experiments are still unmatched regarding momentum transfer [13]. So far, diffraction through such gratings has only been reported for subatomic particles, but never for atoms. Here, we answer to this century-old challenge by demonstrating diffraction of helium and hydrogen atoms at kiloelectronvolt energies through single-layer graphene at normal incidence. Despite the atoms' high kinetic energy and coupling to the electronic system of graphene, we observe diffraction patterns featuring coherent scattering of up to eight reciprocal lattice vectors. Diffraction in this regime is possible due to the short interaction time of the projectile with the atomically-thin crystal, limiting the momentum transfer to the grating. Our demonstration is the atomic counterpart of the first transmission experiments with electrons by Thomson and Reid [14,15], unlocking new potentials in atom diffraction. We expect our findings to inspire studies of decoherence in an uncharted energy regime and the development of new matter-wave-based sensors.

Density functional theory with linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) basis sets is useful for studying large atomic systems, especially when it comes to computationally highly demanding time-dependent dynamics. We have implemented the Ehrenfest molecular dynamics (ED) method with the approximate approach of Tomfohr and Sankey within the projector augmented-wave code GPAW. We apply this method to small molecules as well as larger periodic systems, and elucidate its limits, advantages, and disadvantages in comparison to the existing implementation of Ehrenfest dynamics with a real-space grid representation. For modest atomic velocities, LCAO-ED shows satisfactory accuracy at a much reduced computational cost. This method will be particularly useful for modeling ion irradiation processes that require large amounts of vacuum in the simulation cell.

Energy is a critical driver of modern economic systems. Accurate energy price forecasting plays an important role in supporting decision-making at various levels, from operational purchasing decisions at individual business organizations to policy-making. A significant body of literature has looked into energy price forecasting, investigating a wide range of methods to improve accuracy and inform these critical decisions. Given the evolving landscape of forecasting techniques, the literature lacks a thorough empirical comparison that systematically contrasts these methods. This paper provides an in-depth review of the evolution of forecasting modeling frameworks, from well-established econometric models to machine learning methods, early sequence learners such LSTMs, and more recent advancements in deep learning with transformer networks, which represent the cutting edge in forecasting. We offer a detailed review of the related literature and categorize forecasting methodologies into four model families. We also explore emerging concepts like pre-training and transfer learning, which have transformed the analysis of unstructured data and hold significant promise for time series forecasting. We address a gap in the literature by performing a comprehensive empirical analysis on these four family models, using data from the EU energy markets, we conduct a large-scale empirical study, which contrasts the forecasting accuracy of different approaches, focusing especially on alternative propositions for time series transformers.

In this talk, we discuss the phenomenology of radiative 3-loop seesaw models. The 3-loop suppression allows the new particles to have masses at the TeV scale, along with relatively large Yukawa couplings, while retaining consistency with neutrino masses and mixing, as observed in neutrino oscillation experiments. This leads to a rich phenomenology, especially in searches for charged lepton flavor violation, where the models predict sizable rates, well within future experimental reach. The models provide viable fermionic or scalar dark matter candidates, as is typical within the scotogenic paradigm. We discuss specific realizations in which the W-mass anomaly and the baryon asymmetry of the Universe can be accommodated, while complying with current constraints imposed by electroweak precision observables, charged-lepton flavor violation and neutrinoless double-beta decay., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Talk given at the 42nd International Conference on High Energy Physics - ICHEP2024 (18-24 July 2024, Prague, Czech Republic)

The first very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) detections at 870$\mu$m wavelength (345$\,$GHz frequency) are reported, achieving the highest diffraction-limited angular resolution yet obtained from the surface of the Earth, and the highest-frequency example of the VLBI technique to date. These include strong detections for multiple sources observed on inter-continental baselines between telescopes in Chile, Hawaii, and Spain, obtained during observations in October 2018. The longest-baseline detections approach 11$\,$G$\lambda$ corresponding to an angular resolution, or fringe spacing, of 19$\mu$as. The Allan deviation of the visibility phase at 870$\mu$m is comparable to that at 1.3$\,$mm on the relevant integration time scales between 2 and 100$\,$s. The detections confirm that the sensitivity and signal chain stability of stations in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) array are suitable for VLBI observations at 870$\mu$m. Operation at this short wavelength, combined with anticipated enhancements of the EHT, will lead to a unique high angular resolution instrument for black hole studies, capable of resolving the event horizons of supermassive black holes in both space and time., Comment: Corresponding author: S. Doeleman

Here we report on the first measurements of the $\gamma$-ray strength functions and nuclear level densities of ${}^{112,114}$Sn performed at the 9~MV Tandem accelerator facilities at IFIN-HH using the Oslo method. We extract thermodynamic properties as well as both gross and fine properties of the pygmy dipole resonance for systematic comparison in the chain of Sn isotopes. The results are compared with microscopic models implemented in the TALYS reaction code, and the fully microscopic quasiparticle-phonon model for the underlying nuclear structure of the dipole strength in ${}^{112,114}$Sn. The experimental data and theoretical results are further included into the cross-section and reaction rate calculations for the $(\mathrm{n},\gamma)$ production reaction of the $p$-process nuclei ${}^{112,114}$Sn showing a significant increase in reaction rates at high temperatures compared to existing nuclear databases., Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures

In recent years there have been a growing interest in online auditing of information flow over social networks with the goal of monitoring undesirable effects, such as, misinformation and fake news. Most previous work on the subject, focus on the binary classification problem of classifying information as fake or genuine. Nonetheless, in many practical scenarios, the multi-class/label setting is of particular importance. For example, it could be the case that a social media platform may want to distinguish between ``true", ``partly-true", and ``false" information. Accordingly, in this paper, we consider the problem of online multiclass classification of information flow. To that end, driven by empirical studies on information flow over real-world social media networks, we propose a probabilistic information flow model over graphs. Then, the learning task is to detect the label of the information flow, with the goal of minimizing a combination of the classification error and the detection time. For this problem, we propose two detection algorithms; the first is based on the well-known multiple sequential probability ratio test, while the second is a novel graph neural network based sequential decision algorithm. For both algorithms, we prove several strong statistical guarantees. We also construct a data driven algorithm for learning the proposed probabilistic model. Finally, we test our algorithms over two real-world datasets, and show that they outperform other state-of-the-art misinformation detection algorithms, in terms of detection time and classification error., Comment: 42 pages

We show that certain moduli spaces of vector bundles over blown-up primary Hopf surfaces admit no compact components. These are the moduli spaces used by Andrei Teleman in his work on the classification of class $VII$ surfaces., Comment: The paper is published

The multipole expansion can be formulated in spherical and Cartesian coordinates. By constructing an explicit map linking both formulations in isotropic media, we discover a lack of equivalence between them in anisotropic media. In isotropic media, the Cartesian multipole tensor can be reduced to a spherical tensor containing fewer entries. In anisotropic media, however, the loss of propagation symmetry prevents this reduction. Consequently, non-harmonic sources radiate fields that can be projected onto a finite set of Cartesian multipole moments but require potentially infinitely many spherical moments. For harmonic sources, the link between the two approaches provides a systematic way to construct the spherical multipole expansion from the Cartesian one. The lack of equivalence between both approaches results in physically significant effects wherever the field propagation includes the Laplace operator. We demonstrate this issue in an electromagnetic radiation inverse problem in anisotropic media, including an analysis of a large-anisotropy regime and an introduction to vector spherical harmonics. We show that the use of the Cartesian approach increases the efficiency and interpretability of the model. The proposed approach opens the door to wider applications of the multipole expansion and new degrees of freedom in anisotropic media., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures

The Blandford-Znajek (BZ) process is electromagnetic energy release from rotating black holes (BHs) along magnetic field lines threading them and widely believed to drive relativistic jets. This process is successfully demonstrated in general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations with the coordinate system regular on the event horizon, by which one can estimate the outward Poynting flux, although the direct energy release through the horizon shown in the simulations does not provide an intuitive picture. We revisit the mechanism of BH energy reduction by utilizing the coordinate system singular on the horizon, in which the falling membrane of past accreted matter should exist above the horizon. We find that the Poynting flux is produced at the boundary between the falling membrane and the magnetically-dominated inflow, and the front of the inflow creates the negative electromagnetic energy, which reduces the rotational energy of spacetime. We also clarify that the poloidal electric current does not form a closed circuit within the magnetically-dominated flow. Previous interpretations of the BZ process and possibilities of the ideal MHD violation and BH charging are also discussed., Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures; submitted to PTEP

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause a range of cognitive and communication challenges that negatively affect social participation in both face-to-face interactions and computer-mediated communication. In particular, individuals with TBI report barriers that limit access to participation on social media platforms. To improve access to and use of social media for users with TBI, we introduce the Social Media Accessibility and Rehabilitation Toolkit (\textbf{SMART-TBI}). The toolkit includes five aids (Writing Aid, Interpretation Aid, Filter Mode, Focus Mode, and Facebook Customization) designed to address the cognitive and communicative needs of individuals with TBI. We asked eight users with moderate-severe TBI and five TBI rehabilitation experts to evaluate each aid. Our findings revealed potential benefits of aids and areas for improvement, including the need for psychological safety, privacy control, and balancing business and accessibility needs; and overall mixed reactions among the participants to AI-based aids., Comment: In Proceedings The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS'24)

We report the first observation of the nearby giant radio galaxy NGC 315 using a global VLBI array consisting of 22 radio antennas located across five continents, including high-sensitivity stations, at 22 GHz. Utilizing the extensive $(u,v)$-coverage provided by the array, coupled with the application of a recently developed super-resolution imaging technique based on the regularized maximum likelihood method, we were able to transversely resolve the NGC 315 jet at parsec scales for the first time. Previously known for its central ridge-brightened morphology at similar scales in former VLBI studies, the jet now clearly exhibits a limb-brightened structure. This finding suggests an inherent limb-brightening that was not observable before due to limited angular resolution. Considering that the jet is viewed at an angle of $\sim50^\circ$, the observed limb-brightening is challenging to reconcile with the magnetohydrodynamic models and simulations, which predict that the Doppler-boosted jet edges should dominate over the non-boosted central layer. The conventional jet model that proposes a fast spine and a slow sheath with uniform transverse emissivity may pertain to our observations. However, in this model, the relativistic spine would need to travel at speeds of $\Gamma\gtrsim6.0-12.9$ along the de-projected jet distance of (2.3-10.8) $\times 10^3$ gravitational radii from the black hole. We propose an alternative scenario that suggests higher emissivity at the jet boundary layer, resulting from more efficient particle acceleration or mass loading onto the jet edges, and consider prospects for future observations with even higher angular resolution., Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

It is shown that the space of finite-to-finite holomorphic correspondences on an OT-manifold is discrete. When the OT-manifold has no proper infinite complex-analytic subsets, it then follows by known model-theoretic results that its cartesian powers have no interesting complex-analytic families of subvarieties. The methods of proof, which are similar to [Moosa, Moraru, and Toma ``An essentially saturated surface not of K\"ahler-type", {\em Bull. of the LMS}, 40(5):845--854, 2008], require studying finite unramified covers of OT-manifolds., Comment: The paper is published

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a ubiquitous diagnostic test. Conventional task-specific ECG analysis models require large numbers of expensive ECG annotations or associated labels to train. Transfer learning techniques have been shown to improve generalization and reduce reliance on labeled data. We present ECG-FM, an open foundation model for ECG analysis, and conduct a comprehensive study performed on a dataset of 1.66 million ECGs sourced from both publicly available and private institutional sources. ECG-FM adopts a transformer-based architecture and is pretrained on 2.5 million samples using ECG-specific augmentations and contrastive learning, as well as a continuous signal masking objective. Our transparent evaluation includes a diverse range of downstream tasks, where we predict ECG interpretation labels, reduced left ventricular ejection fraction, and abnormal cardiac troponin. Affirming ECG-FM's effectiveness as a foundation model, we demonstrate how its command of contextual information results in strong performance, rich pretrained embeddings, and reliable interpretability. Due to a lack of open-weight practices, we highlight how ECG analysis is lagging behind other medical machine learning subfields in terms of foundation model adoption. Our code is available at https://github.com/bowang-lab/ECG-FM/., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, 10 tables

We present a study of the scattering of a monochromatic helical laser beam, described by a Laguerre-Gauss solution of the Maxwell equations, on an electron sheet, initially at rest in the focal plane of the laser; the interaction is described in the framework of a local plane wave approximation. We calculate the scattered electromagnetic field observed in an arbitrary point at a large distance from the laser focal spot, by adding coherently the contributions of each electron in the electron sheet. Due to the interference effects, the radiation is emitted only into the forward direction, within a narrow cone, and it has a spatial structure that we analyze theoretically and numerically. For circularly polarized incident fields, the structure is also helical, with a helical index which depends on the helical index of the incident radiation and the harmonic order. These structures can be observed experimentally, as each harmonic order is emitted with a different frequency, and within cones of different opening angles. Our findings are in agreement with experimental results in the literature which demonstrate the generation of OAM carrying photons by radiation scattering on electrons.

While the traditional formulation of machine learning tasks is in terms of performance on average, in practice we are often interested in how well a trained model performs on rare or difficult data points at test time. To achieve more robust and balanced generalization, methods applying sharpness-aware minimization to a subset of worst-case examples have proven successful for image classification tasks, but only using deep neural networks in a scenario where the most difficult points are also the least common. In this work, we show how such a strategy can dramatically break down under more diverse models, and as a more robust alternative, instead of typical sharpness we propose and evaluate a training criterion which penalizes poor loss concentration, which can be easily combined with loss transformations such as CVaR or DRO that control tail emphasis.

The afterglows of gamma-ray bursts are non-thermal electron synchrotron emissions from relativistic shocks. The origin of strong magnetic field in the emission region remains elusive, and two field amplification mechanisms via the plasma kinetic and magnetohydrodynamic instabilities have been discussed. The polarimetric observations are a powerful probe to distinguish these two mechanisms. So far, most theoretical works have focused on the former mechanism and constructed afterglow polarization models with microscopic-scale turbulence whose coherence length is much smaller than the thickness of the blast wave. In this work, focusing on the latter mechanism, we utilize our semi-analytic model of the synchrotron polarization with large-scale turbulence whose coherence length is comparable to the thickness of the blast wave to investigate the effect of magnetic field anisotropy and the observer viewing angle. We find that the polarization in our large-scale turbulence model can exhibit both behaviors characteristic of the microscopic-scale turbulence model and those not seen in the microscopic-scale model. Then we find that the large-scale model could explain all the polarimetric observational data to date that seem to be forward shock emission. We also examine the effect of ordered-field component, and find that polarization degree and polarization angle constant in time are realized only when the energy density ratio of the ordered and fluctuated components is $\gtrsim 50$. In this case, however, the polarization degree is much higher than the observed values., Comment: Submitted to ApJ, comments welcome

We survey old and new results on the existence of moduli spaces of semistable coherent sheaves both in algebraic and in complex geometry.

We study the moduli stacks of slope-semistable torsion-free coherent sheaves that admit reflexive, respectively locally free, Seshadri graduations on a smooth projective variety. We show that they are open in the stack of coherent sheaves and that they admit good moduli spaces when the field characteristic is zero. In addition, in the locally free case we prove that the resulting moduli space is a quasi-projective scheme., Comment: v2: Added remarks 3.1 and 3.2 on openness in the analytic case, small notational change

Automatic cell tracking in dense environments is plagued by inaccurate correspondences and misidentification of parent-offspring relationships. In this paper, we introduce a novel cell tracking algorithm named DenseTrack, which integrates deep learning with mathematical model-based strategies to effectively establish correspondences between consecutive frames and detect cell division events in crowded scenarios. We formulate the cell tracking problem as a deep learning-based temporal sequence classification task followed by solving a constrained one-to-one matching optimization problem exploiting the classifier's confidence scores. Additionally, we present an eigendecomposition-based cell division detection strategy that leverages knowledge of cellular geometry. The performance of the proposed approach has been evaluated by tracking densely packed cells in 3D time-lapse image sequences of bacterial biofilm development. The experimental results on simulated as well as experimental fluorescence image sequences suggest that the proposed tracking method achieves superior performance in terms of both qualitative and quantitative evaluation measures compared to recent state-of-the-art cell tracking approaches.

Mosaic crystals, with their high integrated reflectivities, are widely-employed in spectrometers used to diagnose high energy density systems. X-ray Thomson scattering (XRTS) has emerged as a powerful diagnostic tool of these systems, providing in principle direct access to important properties such as the temperature via detailed balance. However, the measured XRTS spectrum is broadened by the spectrometer instrument function (IF), and without careful consideration of the IF one risks misdiagnosing system conditions. Here, we consider in detail the IF of 40 $\mu$m and 100 $\mu$m mosaic HAPG crystals, and how the broadening varies across the spectrometer in an energy range of 6.7-8.6 keV. Notably, we find a strong asymmetry in the shape of the IF towards higher energies. As an example, we consider the effect of the asymmetry in the IF on the temperature inferred via XRTS for simulated 80 eV CH plasmas, and find that the temperature can be overestimated if an approximate symmetric IF is used. We therefore expect a detailed consideration of the full IF will have an important impact on system properties inferred via XRTS in both forward modelling and model-free approaches., Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures

Radio galaxies are a subclass of active galactic nuclei that drive relativistic jets from their center and are observed in radio to very-high-energy gamma rays. The emission mechanisms and regions are still unknown. High-energy gamma rays can be explained by the emission from the magnetically arrested disks (MADs) around the central supermassive black hole, for which the magnetic flux threading the black hole is in a saturation level, although the emission from the MADs does not explain the optical and X-ray data. We construct a two-zone multi-wavelength emission model in which optical and X-rays come from jets, while mm/sub-mm and gamma rays come from MADs. Our model takes into account the particle injection by the magnetic reconnection at the jet base close to the black hole and particle entrainment from the ambient gas at the jet emission zone. We apply our model to M87 and find that our model can explain the simultaneous multi-wavelength data, except for the radio data which could be explained if we extend our one-zone emission model to a one-dimensional one. We also find that the strong plasma entrainment is necessary to explain the multi-wavelength data. Our model will be tested by variability analysis among the multi-wavelength data., Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, 2 table, revised version

We consider the moment of quadratic twists of the M\"obius function of the form \[ S_k(X,Y) = \sum_{d\leq X} \left( \sum_{n\leq Y} \left(\frac{8d}{n}\right) \mu(n)\right)^k, \] where $\left(\frac{8d}{\cdot}\right)$ is the Kronecker symbol and $d$ runs over positive, odd and square-free integers. We give unconditional results for their asymptotic behaviors., Comment: 12 pages

In 2016, Cramer, Ducas, Peikert and, Regev proposed an efficient algorithm for recovering short generators of principal ideals in $q$-th cyclotomic fields with $q$ being a prime power. In this paper, we improve their analysis of the dual basis of the log-cyclotomic-unit lattice under the Generalised Riemann Hypothesis and in the case that $q$ is a prime number by the negative square moment of Dirichlet $L$-functions at $s=1$. As an implication, we obtain a better lower bound on the success probability for the algorithm in this special case. In order to prove our main result, we also give an analysis of the behaviour of negative $2k$-th moments of Dirichlet $L$-functions at $s=1$., Comment: 16 pages

The truncated Wigner approximation (TWA) enables us to investigate bosonic quantum many-body dynamics, including open quantum systems described by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) equation. In the TWA, the Weyl-Wigner transformation, a way of mapping from quantum-mechanical operators to $c$-numbers, of the GKSL equation leads to the Fokker-Planck equation, which we calculate by reducing it to the corresponding stochastic differential equations. However, the Fokker-Planck equation is not always reduced to the stochastic differential equations depending on details of jump operators. In this work, we clarify the condition for obtaining the stochastic differential equations from the Fokker-Planck equation and derive analytical expressions of these equations for a system with an arbitrary Hamiltonian with jump operators that do not couple different states. This result enables us to shortcut the conventional complicated calculations in applying the TWA. In the course of the derivation, we formulate the GKSL equation by using the path-integral representation based on the Weyl-Wigner transformation, which gives us a clear interpretation of the relation between the TWA and quantum fluctuations and allows us to calculate the non-equal time correlation functions in the TWA. In the benchmark calculations, we numerically confirm that the relaxation dynamics of physical quantities including the non-equal time correlation functions obtained in our formulation agrees well with the exact ones in the numerically solvable models., Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures

Radiative seesaw models are examples of interesting and testable extensions of the Standard Model to explain the light neutrino masses. In radiative models at 1-loop level, such as the popular scotogenic model, in order to successfully reproduce neutrino masses and mixing, one has to rely either on unnaturally small Yukawa couplings or on a very small mass splitting between the CP-even and CP-odd components of the neutral scalar mediators. We discuss here scotogenic-like models where light-active neutrino masses arise at the three-loop level, providing a more natural explanation for their smallness. The proposed models are consistent with the neutrino oscillation data and allow to successfully accommodate the measured dark matter relic abundance. Depending on the specific realization, it is also possible to explain the W-mass anomaly and to generate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe via leptogenesis. The models lead to rich phenomenology, predicting sizable charged-lepton flavor violation rates, potentially observable in near future experiments, while satisfying all current constraints imposed by neutrinoless double-beta decay, charged-lepton flavor violation and electroweak precision observables., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to the 2024 Electroweak session of the 58th Rencontres de Moriond

Two-dimensional materials, including transition metal dichalcogenides, are attractive for a variety of applications in electronics as well as photonics and have recently been envisioned as an appealing platform for phonon polaritonics. However, their direct characterization in the terahertz spectral region, of interest for retrieving, e.g., their phonon response, represents a major challenge, due to the limited sensitivity of typical terahertz spectroscopic tools and the weak interaction of such long-wavelength radiation with sub-nanometer systems. In this work, by exploiting an ad-hoc engineered metallic surface enabling a ten-thousand-fold local absorption boost, we perform enhanced terahertz spectroscopy of a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide (tungsten diselenide) and extract its dipole-active phonon resonance features. In addition, we use these data to obtain the monolayer effective permittivity around its phonon resonance. Via the direct terahertz characterization of the phonon response of such two-dimensional systems, this method opens the path to the rational design of phonon polariton devices exploiting monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides.

In this work, we address the impact of a small lepton number violation on charged lepton electric dipole moments - EDMs. Low-scale seesaw models protected by lepton number symmetry and leading to pseudo-Dirac pairs in the neutrino heavy spectrum provide a natural explanation for the smallness of neutrino masses with potentially testable consequences. Among which, it was thought that the small mass gap in each pair of pseudo-Dirac neutrinos may induce important contribution to the charged lepton EDMs. Recently, it has been shown that the contribution from some of the Feynman diagrams to charged lepton EDMs exactly cancel by virtue of the Ward-Takahashi identity in quantum electrodynamics. We thus consider here the Standard Model minimally extended with pairs of pseudo-Dirac sterile fermions and derive the complete analytical formula at two loops for the charged lepton EDMs. In addition, we numerically evaluate the order of the predicted EDMs consistent with the experimental bounds and constraints such as neutrino oscillation data, charged lepton flavour violating processes, sterile neutrino direct searches, meson decays, sterile neutrino decays, and cosmological and astrophysical observations. We find that, in the minimal setup accommodating neutrino data (masses and mixings) with only two pseudo-Dirac pairs, the predicted electron EDM is $\mathcal{O}(10^{-36})~e\hspace{0.05cm}\mathrm{cm}$, at most, which is much smaller than the current experimental bound and even future sensitivity. Hopefully, the electron EDM might reach future sensitivity, once extra pseudo-Dirac neutrinos are taken into account. The analytical formulae we derive are generic to any model involving pseudo-Dirac pairs in the heavy neutrino spectrum., Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures

The nearby elliptical galaxy M87 contains one of the only two supermassive black holes whose emission surrounding the event horizon has been imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). In 2018, more than two dozen multi-wavelength (MWL) facilities (from radio to gamma-ray energies) took part in the second M87 EHT campaign. The goal of this extensive MWL campaign was to better understand the physics of the accreting black hole M87*, the relationship between the inflow and inner jets, and the high-energy particle acceleration. Understanding the complex astrophysics is also a necessary first step towards performing further tests of general relativity. The MWL campaign took place in April 2018, overlapping with the EHT M87* observations. We present a new, contemporaneous spectral energy distribution (SED) ranging from radio to very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays, as well as details of the individual observations and light curves. We also conduct phenomenological modelling to investigate the basic source properties. We present the first VHE gamma-ray flare from M87 detected since 2010. The flux above 350 GeV has more than doubled within a period of about 36 hours. We find that the X-ray flux is enhanced by about a factor of two compared to 2017, while the radio and millimetre core fluxes are consistent between 2017 and 2018. We detect evidence for a monotonically increasing jet position angle that corresponds to variations in the bright spot of the EHT image. Our results show the value of continued MWL monitoring together with precision imaging for addressing the origins of high-energy particle acceleration. While we cannot currently pinpoint the precise location where such acceleration takes place, the new VHE gamma-ray flare already presents a challenge to simple one-zone leptonic emission model approaches, and emphasises the need for combined image and spectral modelling., Comment: 46 pages, 23 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics on August. 29, 2024

Medical errors in clinical text pose significant risks to patient safety. The MEDIQA-CORR 2024 shared task focuses on detecting and correcting these errors across three subtasks: identifying the presence of an error, extracting the erroneous sentence, and generating a corrected sentence. In this paper, we present our approach that achieved top performance in all three subtasks. For the MS dataset, which contains subtle errors, we developed a retrieval-based system leveraging external medical question-answering datasets. For the UW dataset, reflecting more realistic clinical notes, we created a pipeline of modules to detect, localize, and correct errors. Both approaches utilized the DSPy framework for optimizing prompts and few-shot examples in large language model (LLM) based programs. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of LLM based programs for medical error correction. However, our approach has limitations in addressing the full diversity of potential errors in medical documentation. We discuss the implications of our work and highlight future research directions to advance the robustness and applicability of medical error detection and correction systems.

This paper outlines our submission to the MEDIQA2024 Multilingual and Multimodal Medical Answer Generation (M3G) shared task. We report results for two standalone solutions under the English category of the task, the first involving two consecutive API calls to the Claude 3 Opus API and the second involving training an image-disease label joint embedding in the style of CLIP for image classification. These two solutions scored 1st and 2nd place respectively on the competition leaderboard, substantially outperforming the next best solution. Additionally, we discuss insights gained from post-competition experiments. While the performance of these two solutions have significant room for improvement due to the difficulty of the shared task and the challenging nature of medical visual question answering in general, we identify the multi-stage LLM approach and the CLIP image classification approach as promising avenues for further investigation.

Monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has recently become the focus of intense research as a material to host quantum emitters. Although it is well known that such emission is associated with point defects, so far no conclusive correlation between the spectra and specific defects has been demonstrated. Here, we prepare atomically clean suspended hBN samples and subject them to low-energy ion irradiation. The samples are characterized before and after irradiation via automated scanning transmission electron microscopy imaging to assess the defect concentrations and distributions. We find an intrinsic defect concentration of ca. 0.03/nm2 (with ca. 55% boron and 8% nitrogen single vacancies, 20% double vacancies and 16% more complex vacancy structures). To be able to differentiate between these and irradiation-induced defects, we create a significantly higher (but still moderate) concentration of defects with the ions (0.30/nm2), and now find ca. 55% boron and 12% nitrogen single vacancies, 14% double vacancies, and 18% more complex vacancy structures. The results demonstrate that already the simplest irradiation provides selectivity for the defect types, and open the way for future experiments to explore changing the selectivity by modifying the irradiation parameters., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We prove uniform boundedness statements for semistable pure sheaves on projective manifolds. For example, we prove that the set of isomorphism classes of pure sheaves of dimension 2 that are slope semistable with respect to ample classes that vary in a compact set $K$ are bounded. We also prove uniform boundedness for pure sheaves of higher dimension, but with restrictions on the compact set $K$. As applications we get new statements about moduli spaces of semistable sheaves, and the wall-chamber structure that governs their variation., Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure

Many modern manufacturing companies have evolved from a single production site to a multi-factory production environment that must handle both geographically dispersed production orders and their multi-site production steps. The availability of a range of machines in different locations capable of performing the same operation and shipping times between factories have transformed planning systems from the classic Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) to Distributed Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem (DFJSP). As a result, the complexity of production planning has increased significantly. In our work, we use Quantum Annealing (QA) to solve the DFJSP. In addition to the assignment of production orders to production sites, the assignment of production steps to production sites also takes place. This requirement is based on a real use case of a wool textile manufacturer. To investigate the applicability of this method to large problem instances, problems ranging from 50 variables up to 250 variables, the largest problem that could be embedded into a D-Wave quantum annealer Quantum Processing Unit (QPU), are formulated and solved. Special attention is dedicated to the determination of the Lagrange parameters of the Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) model and the QPU configuration parameters, as these factors can significantly impact solution quality. The obtained solutions are compared to solutions obtained by Simulated Annealing (SA), both in terms of solution quality and calculation time. The results demonstrate that QA has the potential to solve large problem instances specific to the industry., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

We present SpaceHopper, a three-legged, small-scale robot designed for future mobile exploration of asteroids and moons. The robot weighs 5.2kg and has a body size of 245mm while using space-qualifiable components. Furthermore, SpaceHopper's design and controls make it well-adapted for investigating dynamic locomotion modes with extended flight-phases. Instead of gyroscopes or fly-wheels, the system uses its three legs to reorient the body during flight in preparation for landing. We control the leg motion for reorientation using Deep Reinforcement Learning policies. In a simulation of Ceres' gravity (0.029g), the robot can reliably jump to commanded positions up to 6m away. Our real-world experiments show that SpaceHopper can successfully reorient to a safe landing orientation within 9.7 degree inside a rotational gimbal and jump in a counterweight setup in Earth's gravity. Overall, we consider SpaceHopper an important step towards controlled jumping locomotion in low-gravity environments., Comment: To be published in the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

Long gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are produced by the collapse of some very massive stars, which emit ultra-relativistic jets. When the jets collide with the interstellar medium they decelerate and generate the so-called afterglow emission, which has been observed to be polarised. In this work we study the polarimetric evolution of GRB 210610B afterglow, at $z = 1.1341$. This allows to evaluate the role of geometric and/or magnetic mechanisms in the GRB afterglow polarisation. We observed GRB 210610B using imaging polarimetry with CAFOS on the 2.2 m Calar Alto Telescope and FORS2 on the 4 $\times$ 8.1 m Very Large Telescope. Complementary optical spectroscopy was obtained with OSIRIS on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We study the GRB light-curve from X-rays to optical bands and the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED). This allows us to strongly constrain the line-of-sight extinction. Finally, we study the GRB host galaxy using optical/NIR data to fit the SED and derive its integrated properties. GRB 210610B had a bright afterglow with a negligible line-of-sight extinction. Polarimetry was obtained at three epochs: during an early plateau phase, at the time when the light curve breaks, and after the light curve steepened. We observe an initial polarisation of $\sim 4\%$ that goes to zero at the time of the break, and then increases again to $\sim 2\%$ with a change of the position angle of $54 \pm 9$ deg. The spectrum show features with very low equivalent widths, indicating a small amount of material in the line-of-sight within the host. The lack of dust and the low amount of material on the line-of-sight to GRB 210610B allow us to study the intrinsic polarisation of the GRB optical afterglow. We find the GRB polarisation signals are consistent with ordered magnetic fields in refreshed shock or/and hydrodynamics-scale turbulent fields in the forward shock., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics 23 Feb 2024