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The effects leading to generation of quasi-stationary and propagating electromagnetic fields during the propagation of a laser-driven current discharge pulse in extended targets are considered. The results of numerical modeling describe the interaction of a relativistically intense ultrashort laser pulse with an extended dense target and its transformation into a powerful discharge current pulse. It is shown that under certain conditions such a pulse can be used to generate strong electromagnetic fields with certain spatio-temporal properties. Particular attention is paid to the influence of the discharge pulse parameters on the properties of the induced electromagnetic fields. Analysis of the discharge current profile in dependence on the target thickness is provided and the dynamics of discharge current pulse profile evolution is studied on the time scale $\sim 10$ ps, when the propagation distance is $\sim 3$ mm.

A structure of a laser pulse may significantly influence the dynamics of interacting particles. In the case of dilute plasma the particle dynamics may be considered in the single particle approximation. In this paper the problem of the angular momentum gain of a single particle in a focused structured pulse is considered for some certain cases, including radial and azimuthal polarizations, in the frameworks of the theoretical model, presented in [E. Dmitriev and Ph. Korneev, 'Angular momentum gain by electrons under the action of intense structured light', Physical Review A, vol. 110, p. 013514, (2024)], which includes solving of Maxwell's equations with a required accuracy and the high order perturbation theory. The obtained analytical results are compared to the results of numerical simulations. Angular dependence in the structure of the laser pulse is shown to be critically important for the orbital angular momentum gain of an ensemble of charged particles in a structured wave.

The work considers an optical scheme for collimation of high-energy proton beams using $\sim 10^5$ T scale magnetic fields induced in a miniature "snail" target by petawatt or multi-petawatt laser irradiation in ps or fs regime. Such magnetic fields are known to be frozen into hot plasma and exist on at least a hundred of picoseconds time-scale, allowing their use for control of charged particle beams. The high values of the magnetic field along with the compact size perfectly match conditions for an all-in-one optical setup, where first, the laser beam accelerates protons, by, e.g. Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA) mechanism, and second, the closely positioned snail target is driven to guide the proton beam. An important issue is that the laser drivers for both proton acceleration schemes and the magnetic field generation in the considered targets may have the same properties, and even be parts of one splitted beam. Numerical simulations show that the considered setup can be used for efficient collimation of $\simeq 100$ MeV protons. The collimation effect weakly depends on the fine magnetic field structure and can be observed both for a simple magneto-dipole field profile and for a more complex coaxial-like profiles accounting for the intricate structure of electric currents in the interaction region. The obtained results are interesting for the development of intense laser-driven sources of charged particle beams with low divergence and high energy of accelerated particles.

Protein MJ0366 is a hypothetical protein from Methanocaldococcus jannaschii that has a rare and complex knot in its structure. The knot is a right-handed trefoil knot that involves about half of the protein's residues. In this article, we investigate the thermal stability of protein MJ0366 using numerical simulations based on molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods. We compare the results with those of a similar unknotted protein and analyze the effects of the knot on the folding and unfolding processes. We show that the knot in protein MJ0366 increases its thermal stability by creating a topological barrier that prevents the protein from unfolding at high temperatures. We also discuss the possible biological implications of the knot for the function and evolution of protein MJ0366., Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures

Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in insulators and superconductors are known for their robust edge modes, linked to bulk invariants through the bulk-boundary correspondence. While this principle traditionally applies to gapped phases, recent advances have extended it to gapless systems, where topological edge states persist even in the absence of a bulk gap. We extend this framework to periodically driven chains with chiral symmetry, revealing the existence of topological edge zero- and pi-modes despite the lack of bulk gaps in the quasienergy spectrum. By examining the half-period decomposition of chiral evolutions, we construct topological invariants that circumvent the need to define the Floquet Hamiltonian, making them more suitable for generalization to the gapless regime. We provide explicit examples, including generalizations of the Kitaev chain and related spin models, where localized pi-modes emerge even when the bulk is gapless at the same quasi-energy as the edge modes. We numerically study the effect of interactions, which give a finite lifetime to the edge modes in the thermodynamic limit with the decay rate consistent with Fermi's Golden Rule., Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures

We present an experimental platform for linear-optical quantum information processing. Our setup utilizes multiphoton generation using a high-quality single-photon source, which is demultiplexed across multiple spatial channels, a custom-designed, programmable, low-loss photonic chip, and paired with high-efficiency single-photon detectors. We demonstrate the platform's capability in producing heralded arbitrary two-qubit dual-rail encoded states, a crucial building block for large-scale photonic quantum computers. The programmable chip was fully characterized through a calibration process that allowed us to create a numerical model accounting for fabrication imperfections and measurement errors. As a result, using on-chip quantum state tomography (QST), we achieved high-fidelity quantum state preparation, with a fidelity of 98.5\% specifically for the Bell state., Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures

We present a detailed derivation of the Poynting vector for Cauchy-Riemann beams propagating in free space considering a Gaussian modulation with $g \in \mathbb{C}$. The effect generated by this Gaussian modulation is a compression-expansion of the intensity distribution. It is shown that the parameter $g$ can reverse the direction of energy flux and eliminate the radial component, resulting in a purely azimuthal field. Additionally, we validate our analytical results through experimental verification.

It is shown that the textbook formula for the pressure of free massless fermions leads to negative values of the probability mass function of the distribution of the system of free massless fermions in the fermion number. The ways to resolve this paradox are proposed. A detailed analysis of the corresponding partition function indicates the presence of a Roberge-Weiss transition in the absence of strong interactions., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, to be published in "Physics of Particles and Nuclei"

We present a study of thin-film molybdenum resistors for NbN electronics operating at cryogenic temperatures. The key step is the 0.5-1.5 keV ion cleaning-activation of NbN before Mo deposition which allows to obtain a high-quality Mo/NbN interface which together with additional aluminum bandage layer in the area of contact pads allow to reduce contact resistance below 1 Ohm. The quality of the interfaces is confirmed by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray reflectometry.

Direct laser acceleration of electrons is considered in a strongly magnetized plasmoid with the magnetic field strength allowing for reaching the auto-resonance. The plasmoid may be optically created by irradiation of specially designed targets with an auxiliary intense laser beam at the previous stage of interaction in a possible all-optical setup. Specifics of the strongly magnetized plasma solenoid may be critically important for the resonant processes where a small deviation of the parameters destroys the matching conditions. The process of the autoresonant electron acceleration is analyzed for different configurations inherent in the possible realizations of the setup, estimates for the efficiency of acceleration and resonance magnetic fields are proposed. Despite the modifications of the autoresonance conditions and the presence of collective effects, generation of energetic electron bunches in a realistic setup may be possible and effective.

The problem of light waves interaction with charged particles becomes more and more complex starting with the case of plane waves, where the analytical solution is well known, to more natural, though more complicated situations which include focused or structured laser beams. Internal structure may introduce a new degree of freedom and qualitatively change the dynamics of interacting particles. For certain conditions, namely for the dilute plasma, description of single-particle dynamics in the focused structured laser beams is the first step and may serve as a good approximation on the way of understanding the global plasma response. Moreover, the general problem of integrability in complex systems starts from consideration of the integrals of motion for a single particle. The primary goal of this work is an understanding of the physics of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) absorption by a single particle in a focused structured light. A theoretical model of the process, including solutions of Maxwell equations with the required accuracy and a high-order perturbative approach to electron motion in external electromagnetic fields, is developed and its predictions are examined with numerical simulations for several exemplary electromagnetic field configurations. In particular, it was found that for the particles distributed initially with the azimuthal symmetry around the beam propagation direction, the transferred OAM has a smallness of the fourth order of the applied field amplitude, and requires an accurate consideration of the temporal laser pulse envelope.

We propose a novel method for changing the length of laser wakefield electron acceleration in a gas jet by a cylindrical blast wave created by a perpendicularly focused nanosecond laser pulse. The shock front destroys the wake thus stopping interaction between the laser pulse and accelerated electron bunch allowing one to directly control the interaction length and avoid dephasing. It also improves the electron beam quality through the plasma lensing effect between the two shock fronts. We demonstrated both experimentally and numerically how this approach can be used to form quasi-monoenergetic electron bunch with controlled energy and improved divergence as well as to track changes in the bunch parameters during acceleration.

Effective planning in the real world requires not only world knowledge, but the ability to leverage that knowledge to build the right representation of the task at hand. Decades of hierarchical planning techniques have used domain-specific temporal action abstractions to support efficient and accurate planning, almost always relying on human priors and domain knowledge to decompose hard tasks into smaller subproblems appropriate for a goal or set of goals. This paper describes Ada (Action Domain Acquisition), a framework for automatically constructing task-specific planning representations using task-general background knowledge from language models (LMs). Starting with a general-purpose hierarchical planner and a low-level goal-conditioned policy, Ada interactively learns a library of planner-compatible high-level action abstractions and low-level controllers adapted to a particular domain of planning tasks. On two language-guided interactive planning benchmarks (Mini Minecraft and ALFRED Household Tasks), Ada strongly outperforms other approaches that use LMs for sequential decision-making, offering more accurate plans and better generalization to complex tasks.

We introduce a programmable 8-port interferometer with the recently proposed error-tolerant architecture capable of performing a broad class of transformations. The interferometer has been fabricated with femtosecond laser writing and it is the largest programmable interferometer of this kind to date. We have demonstrated its advantageous error tolerance by showing an operation in a broad wavelength range from $920$ to $980$ nm, which is particularly relevant for quantum photonics due to efficient photon sources. Our work highlights the importance of developing novel architectures of programmable photonics for information processing., Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, 1 Table

The computation of damping rates of an oscillating fluid with a free surface in which viscosity is small and surface tension high is numerically challenging. A typical application requiring such computation is drop-on-demand (DoD) microfluidic devices that eject liquid metal droplets, where accurate knowledge of damping rates for the least-damped oscillation modes following droplet ejection is paramount for assessing jetting stability at higher jetting frequencies. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations often struggle to accurately predict meniscus damping unless a very fine discretization is adopted, so calculations are computationally expensive. The faster alternative we adopt is to compute damping rates directly from the eigenvalues of the linearized problem. The surface tension term in Stokes or sloshing problems requires approximation of meniscus displacements, which introduces additional complexity in their numerical solution. We consider the combined effects of viscosity and surface tension, approximate the meniscus displacements, and construct a finite element method to compute the fluid's oscillation modes. We prove that the method is free of spurious modes with zero or positive damping rates, and we implement it with Taylor-Hood elements for velocity and pressure, and with continuous piecewise quadratic elements for meniscus displacement. We verify the numerical convergence of the method by reproducing the solution to an analytical benchmark problem and two more complex examples with axisymmetric geometry. We obtain the spatial shape and temporal evolution (angular frequency and damping rate) of the set of least-damped oscillation modes in minutes, compared to days for a CFD simulation. The method's ability to quickly generate accurate estimates of fluid oscillation damping rates makes it suitable for integration into design loops for prototyping microfluidic nozzles.

The transverse field Ising model (TFIM) on the half-infinite chain possesses an edge zero mode. This work considers an impurity model -- TFIM perturbed by a boundary integrability breaking interaction. For sufficiently large transverse field, but in the ordered phase of the TFIM, the zero mode is observed to decay. The decay is qualitatively different from zero modes where the integrability breaking interactions are non-zero all along the chain. It is shown that for the impurity model, the zero mode decays by relaxing to a non-local quasi-conserved operator, the latter being exactly conserved when the opposite edge of the chain has no non-commuting perturbations so as to ensure perfect degeneracy of the spectrum. In the thermodynamic limit, the quasi-conserved operator vanishes, and a regime is identified where the decay of the zero mode obeys Fermi's Golden Rule. A toy model for the decay is constructed in Krylov space and it is highlighted how Fermi's Golden Rule may be recovered from this toy model.

We report a design and implementation of a resource-efficient spatial demultiplexer which produces 4 indistinguishable photons with efficiency of 39.7% per channel. Our scheme is based on a free-space storage/delay line which accumulates 4 photons and releases them by a controlled polarization rotation using a single Pockels cell., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures

Irradiation of a thin metallic wire with an intense femtosecond laser pulse creates a strong discharge wave that travels as a narrow pulse along the wire surface. The travelling discharge efficiently emits secondary radiation with spectral characteristics mostly defined by the wire geometry. Several exemplary designs are considered in the context of generation of intense terahertz radiation with controllable characteristics for various scientific and technological applications. The proposed setup benefits by its robustness, versatility and high conversion efficiency of laser energy to terahertz radiation, which reaches several percent.

Strong electromagnetic pulses (EMP) are generated from intense laser interactions with solid-density targets, and can be guided by the target geometry, specifically through conductive connections to the ground. We present an experimental characterization, by time- and spatial-resolved proton deflectometry, of guided electromagnetic discharge pulses along wires including a coil, driven by 0.5 ps, 50 J, 1e19 W/cm2 laser pulses. Proton-deflectometry data allows to time-resolve first the EMP due to the laser-driven target charging and then the return EMP from the ground through the conductive target stalk. Both EMPs have a typical duration of tens of ps and correspond to currents in the kA-range with electric-field amplitudes of multiple GV/m. The sub-mm coil in the target rod creates lensing effects on probing protons, due to both magnetic- and electric-field contributions. This way, protons of 10 MeV-energy range are focused over cm-scale distances. Experimental results are supported by analytical modelling and high-resolution numerical particle-in-cell simulations, unraveling the likely presence of a surface plasma, which parameters define the discharge pulse dispersion in the non-linear propagation regime.

We demonstrate that superconductors with broken inversion symmetry support a family of stable, spatially localized configurations of the self-knotted magnetic field. These solutions, that we term ``toroflux,'' are the superconducting counterparts of the Chandrasekhar-Kendall states (spheromaks) that appear in highly conducting, force-free astrophysical and nuclear-fusion plasmas. The superconducting torofluxes are solutions of superconducting models, in the presence of a parity-breaking Lifshitz invariant associated with the $O$ point-group symmetry. These solutions are characterized by a non-vanishing helicity of the magnetic field, and also by a toroidal dipole moment of the magnetic field. We demonstrate that a magnetic dipole or a ferromagnetic inclusion in the bulk of a noncentrosymmetric superconductor sources finite-energy toroflux solutions., Comment: Added discussion about additional observables; Replaced with a version in print in Phys. Rev. B; 18 pages, 5 figures

We present physics-based nozzle design rules to achieve high-throughput and stable jetting in drop-on-demand liquid metal 3D printing. The design rules are based on scaling laws that capture the change of meniscus oscillation relaxation time with geometric characteristics of the nozzle's inner profile. These characteristics include volume, cross-sectional area, and inner surface area of the nozzle. Using boundary layer theory for a simple geometry, we show that the meniscus settles faster when the ratio of inner surface area to volume is increased. High-fidelity multiphase flow simulations verify this scaling. We use these laws to explore several design concepts with parameterized classes of shapes that reduce the meniscus relaxation time while preserving desired droplet specs. Finally, we show that for various nozzle profile concepts, the optimal performance can be achieved by increasing the ratio of the circumferential surface area to the bulk volume to the extent that is allowable by manufacturing constraints., Comment: Under Review in Physics of Fluids, AIP Publishing