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Image generative AI has garnered significant attention in recent years. In particular, the diffusion model, a core component of recent generative AI, produces high-quality images with rich diversity. In this study, we propose a novel CT reconstruction method by combining the denoising diffusion probabilistic model with iterative CT reconstruction. In sharp contrast to previous studies, we optimize the fidelity loss of CT reconstruction with respect to the latent variable of the diffusion model, instead of the image and model parameters. To suppress anatomical structure changes produced by the diffusion model, we shallow the diffusion and reverse processes, and fix a set of added noises in the reverse process to make it deterministic during inference. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method through sparse view CT reconstruction of 1/10 view projection data. Despite the simplicity of the implementation, the proposed method shows the capability of reconstructing high-quality images while preserving the patient's anatomical structure, and outperforms existing methods including iterative reconstruction, iterative reconstruction with total variation, and the diffusion model alone in terms of quantitative indices such as SSIM and PSNR. We also explore further sparse view CT using 1/20 view projection data with the same trained diffusion model. As the number of iterations increases, image quality improvement comparable to that of 1/10 sparse view CT reconstruction is achieved. In principle, the proposed method can be widely applied not only to CT but also to other imaging modalities such as MRI, PET, and SPECT., Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures

We provide a pedagogical review article on fundamentals and applications of the quantum dynamics in strong electromagnetic fields in QED and QCD. The fundamentals include the basic picture of the Landau quantization and the resummation techniques applied to the class of higher-order diagrams that are enhanced by large magnitudes of the external fields. We then discuss observable effects of the vacuum fluctuations in the presence of the strong fields, which consist of the interdisciplinary research field of nonlinear QED. We also discuss extensions of the Heisenberg-Euler effective theory to finite temperature/density and to non-Abelian theories with some applications. Next, we proceed to the paradigm of the dimensional reduction emerging in the low-energy dynamics in the strong magnetic fields. The mechanisms of superconductivity, the magnetic catalysis of the chiral symmetry breaking, and the Kondo effect are addressed from a unified point of view in terms of the renormalization-group method. We provide an up-to-date summary of the lattice QCD simulations in magnetic fields for the chiral symmetry breaking and the related topics as of the end of 2022. Finally, we discuss novel transport phenomena induced by chiral anomaly and the axial-charge dynamics. Those discussions are supported by a number of appendices., Comment: Prepared for an invited review article; Published version

In recent years, deep-learning-based image processing has emerged as a valuable tool for medical imaging owing to its high performance. However, the quality of deep-learning-based methods heavily relies on the amount of training data; the high cost of acquiring a large dataset is a limitation to their utilization in medical fields. Herein, based on deep learning, we developed a computed tomography (CT) modality conversion method requiring only a few unsupervised images. The proposed method is based on CycleGAN with several extensions tailored for CT images, which aims at preserving the structure in the processed images and reducing the amount of training data. This method was applied to realize the conversion of megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT) to kilovoltage computed tomography (kVCT) images. Training was conducted using several datasets acquired from patients with head and neck cancer. The size of the datasets ranged from 16 slices (two patients) to 2745 slices (137 patients) for MVCT and 2824 slices (98 patients) for kVCT. The required size of the training data was found to be as small as a few hundred slices. By statistical and visual evaluations, the quality improvement and structure preservation of the MVCT images converted by the proposed model were investigated. As a clinical benefit, it was observed by medical doctors that the converted images enhanced the precision of contouring. We developed an MVCT to kVCT conversion model based on deep learning, which can be trained using only a few hundred unpaired images. The stability of the model against changes in data size was demonstrated. This study promotes the reliable use of deep learning in clinical medicine by partially answering commonly asked questions, such as "Is our data sufficient?" and "How much data should we acquire?", Comment: 3+27 pages, 13 figures, version published in Medical Physics

We investigate the Landau-level structures encoded in the famous Heisenberg-Euler (HE) effective action in constant electromagnetic fields. We first discuss the HE effective actions for scalar and spinor QED, and then extend it to the QCD analogue in the covariantly constant chromo-electromagnetic fields. We identify all the Landau levels and the Zeeman energies starting out from the proper-time representations at the one-loop order, and derive the vacuum persistence probability for the Schwinger mechanism in the summation form over independent contributions of the all-order Landau levels. We find an enhancement of the Schwinger mechanism catalyzed by a magnetic field for spinor QED and, in contrast, a stronger exponential suppression for scalar QED due to the "zero-point energy" of the Landau quantization. For QCD, we identify the discretized energy levels of the transverse and longitudinal gluon modes on the basis of their distinct Zeeman energies, and explicitly confirm the cancellation between the longitudinal-gluon and ghost contributions in the Schwinger mechanism. We also discuss the unstable ground state of the perturbative gluon excitations known as the Nielsen-Olesen instability.

Statistical iterative reconstruction is expected to improve the image quality of megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT). However, one of the challenges of iterative reconstruction is its large computational cost. The purpose of this work is to develop a fast iterative reconstruction algorithm by combining several iterative techniques and by optimizing reconstruction parameters. Megavolt projection data was acquired from a TomoTherapy system and reconstructed using our statistical iterative reconstruction. Total variation was used as the regularization term and the weight of the regularization term was determined by evaluating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and visual assessment of spatial resolution using Gammex and Cheese phantoms. Gradient decent with an adaptive convergence parameter, ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM), and CPU/GPU parallelization were applied in order to accelerate the present reconstruction algorithm. The SNR and CNR of the iterative reconstruction were several times better than that of filtered back projection (FBP). The GPU parallelization code combined with the OSEM algorithm reconstructed an image several hundred times faster than a CPU calculation. With 500 iterations, which provided good convergence, our method produced a 512$\times$512 pixel image within a few seconds. The image quality of the present algorithm was much better than that of FBP for patient data. An image from the iterative reconstruction in TomoTherapy can be obtained within few seconds by fine-tuning the parameters. The iterative reconstruction with GPU was fast enough for clinical use, and largely improve the MVCT images., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures

We study non-perturbative aspects of QCD Kondo effect, which has been recently proposed for the finite density and strong magnetic field systems, using conformal field theory describing the low energy physics near the IR fixed point. We clarify the symmetry class of QCD Kondo effect both for the finite density and magnetic field systems, and show how the IR fixed point is non-perturbatively characterized by the boundary condition, which incorporates the impurity effect in Kondo problem. We also obtain the low temperature behavior of several quantities of QCD Kondo effect in the vicinity of the IR fixed point based on the conformal field theory analysis., Comment: 1+22 pages, 1 figure; discussion improved, refs. updated

We study the transport coefficients from the QCD Kondo effect in quark matter which contains heavy quarks as impurity particles. We estimate the coupling constant of the interaction between a light quark and a heavy quark at finite density and temperature by using the renormalization group equation up to two-loop order. We also estimate the coupling constant at zero temperature by using the mean-field approximation as non-perturbative treatment. To calculate the transport coefficients, we use the relativistic Boltzmann equation and apply the relaxation time approximation. We calculate the electric resistivity from the relativistic kinetic theory, and the viscosities from the relativistic hydrodynamics. We find that the electric resistivity is enhanced and the shear viscosity is suppressed due to the QCD Kondo effect at low temperature., Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures

We first examine the scaling argument for a renormalization-group (RG) analysis applied to a system subject to the dimensional reduction in strong magnetic fields, and discuss the fact that a four-Fermi operator of the low-energy excitations is marginal irrespective of the strength of the coupling constant in underlying theories. We then construct a scale-dependent effective four-Fermi interaction as a result of screened photon exchanges at weak coupling, and establish the RG method appropriately including the screening effect, in which the RG evolution from ultraviolet to infrared scales is separated into two stages by the screening-mass scale. Based on a precise agreement between the dynamical mass gaps obtained from the solutions of the RG and Schwinger-Dyson equations, we discuss an equivalence between these two approaches. Focusing on QED and Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, we clarify how the properties of the interactions manifest themselves in the mass gap, and point out an importance of respecting the intrinsic energy-scale dependences in underlying theories for the determination of the mass gap. These studies are expected to be useful for a diagnosis of the magnetic catalysis in QCD., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, version published in PLB

We apply conformal field theory analysis to the $k$-channel SU($N$) Kondo system, and find a peculiar behavior in the cases $N > k > 1$, which we call Fermi/non-Fermi mixing: The low temperature scaling is described as the Fermi liquid, while the zero temperature IR fixed point exhibits the non-Fermi liquid signature. We also show that the Wilson ratio is no longer universal for the cases $N > k > 1$. The deviation from the universal value of the Wilson ratio could be used as an experimental signal of the Fermi/non-Fermi mixing., Comment: 24 pages, no figures; minor changes, ref. added; typos corrected

The low-energy effective theories for gapped insulators are classified by three parameters: permittivity $\epsilon$, permeability $\mu$, and theta angle $\theta$. Crystals with periodic $\epsilon$ are known as photonic crystals. We here study the band structure of photons in a new type of crystals with periodic $\theta$ (modulo $2\pi$) in space, which we call the axion crystals. We find that the axion crystals have a number of new properties that the usual photonic crystals do not possess, such as the helicity-dependent mass gap and nonrelativistic gapless dispersion relation at small momentum. We briefly discuss possible realizations of axion crystals in condensed matter systems and high-energy physics., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, version published in JHEP

We investigate the mass spectra of open heavy flavor mesons in an external constant magnetic field within QCD sum rules. Spectral ans\"atze on the phenomenological side are proposed in order to properly take into account mixing effects between the pseudoscalar and vector channels, and the Landau levels of charged mesons. The operator product expansion is implemented up to dimension-5 operators. As a result, we find for neutral D mesons a significant positive mass shift that goes beyond simple mixing effects. In contrast, charged D mesons are further subject to Landau level effects, which together with the mixing effects almost completely saturate the mass shifts obtained in our sum rule analysis., Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures; published version

The "QCD Kondo effect" stems from the color exchange interaction in QCD with non-Abelian property, and can be realized in a high-density quark matter containing heavy-quark impurities. We propose a novel type of the QCD Kondo effect induced by a strong magnetic field. In addition to the fact that the magnetic field does not affect the color degrees of freedom, two properties caused by the Landau quantization in a strong magnetic field are essential for the "magnetically induced QCD Kondo effect"; (1) dimensional reduction to 1+1-dimensions, and (2) finiteness of the density of states for lowest energy quarks. We demonstrate that, in a strong magnetic field $B$, the scattering amplitude of a massless quark off a heavy quark impurity indeed shows a characteristic behavior of the Kondo effect. The resulting Kondo scale is estimated as $\Lambda_{\rm K} \simeq \sqrt{e_qB}\ \alpha_{s}^{1/3} {\rm{exp}}\{-{4}\pi/N_{c} \alpha_{s} {\rm{log}}( 4 \pi/\alpha_{s}) \}$ where $\alpha_{s}$ and $N_c$ are the fine structure constant of strong interaction and the number of colors in QCD, and $e_q$ is the electric charge of light quarks., Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, version published in PRD

We derive an analytic expression for one-loop effective action of QCD+QED at zero and finite temperatures by using the Schwinger's proper time method. The result is a nonlinear effective action not only for electromagnetic and chromo-electromagnetic fields but also the Polyakov loop, and thus reproduces the Euler-Heisenberg action in QED, QCD, and QED+QCD, and also the Weiss potential for the Polyakov loop at finite temperature. As applications of this "Euler-Heisenberg-Weiss" action in QCD+QED, we investigate quark pair productions induced by QCD+QED fields at zero temperature and the Polyakov loop in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields. Quark one-loop contribution to the effective potential of the Polyakov loop explicitly breaks the center symmetry, and is found to be enhanced by the magnetic field, which is consistent with the inverse magnetic catalysis observed in lattice QCD simulation., Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures, version published in PRD

We show that the Kondo effect occurs in light quark matter which contains heavy quarks as impurities. We consider a scattering between a heavy-flavor impurity and a light quark near a Fermi surface which is mediated by gluon-exchange interactions. We find that the scattering amplitude has a logarithmic infrared divergence originating from imperfect cancellation between quark-impurity and hole-impurity scatterings in a loop integral, implying the presence of a strongly coupled regime near the Fermi surface. Renormalization group method is used to find the Kondo scale where a running coupling constant hits a Landau pole. Following an illustration by a simple contact-interaction model, we examine gluon-exchange interactions on the basis of high density QCD., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Errors corrected; Results unchanged; Extended discussions inserted in Sec. IV; References added. Published in PRD

We investigate quarkonium mass spectra in external constant magnetic fields by using QCD sum rules. We first discuss a general framework of QCD sum rules necessary for properly extracting meson spectra from current correlators computed in the presence of strong magnetic fields, that is, a consistent treatment of mixing effects caused in the mesonic degrees of freedom. We then implement operator product expansions for pseudoscalar and vector heavy-quark current correlators by taking into account external constant magnetic fields as operators, and obtain mass shifts of the lowest-lying bound states $\eta_c$ and $J/\psi$ in the static limit with their vanishing spatial momenta. Comparing results from QCD sum rules with those from hadronic effective theories, we find that the dominant origin of mass shifts comes from a mixing between $\eta_c$ and $J/\psi$ with a longitudinal spin polarization, accompanied by other subdominant effects such as mixing with higher excited states and continua., Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures. Comments inserted in the last paragraph of Sec. II; One reference added; Published in PRD; Title slightly changed upon request by PRD

We investigate the properties of charmonia in strong magnetic fields by using QCD sum rules. We show how to implement the mixing effects between $\eta_c$ and $J/\psi$ on the basis of field-theoretical approaches, and then show that the sum rules are saturated by the mixing effects with phenomenologically determined parameters. Consequently, we find that the mixing effects are the dominant contribution to the mass shifts of the charmonia in strong magnetic fields., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Some descriptions improved. Published in PRL

We study the internal structure of resonance states in a complex 2D matrix model. We show that the geometry with "exceptional points" in the complex-parameter space can be useful to discuss parameter dependence of the structures within real-parameter subspace. By applying the model to hadron physics, we consider the Nc-dependence of hadron structures from the geometry on the complex-Nc plane., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Contribution to the proceedings of XV International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy (Hadron 2013), November 4-8 2013, Nara, Japan

We derive the analytic expression for the one-loop $SU(N_{c})$ QCD effective potential including $N_{f}$ flavor quarks which non-linearly interact with the chromo-magnetic background field and the external $U(1)_{em}$ magnetic field. After the renormalization of couplings and fields, we obtain the correct one-loop $\beta$ functions of both QCD and QED, and the resulting effective potential satisfies the renormalization group equation. We investigate the effect of the magnetic field on the QCD vacuum by using the effective potential, in particular for the color $SU(3)$ case with the three flavors ($u, d, s$). Our result shows that the chromo-magnetic field prefers to be parallel to the external magnetic field. Furthermore, quark loop contributions to the effective potential with the magnetic field enhance gluonic contributions, and then the chromo-magnetic condensate increases with an increasing magnetic field. This result supports the recent observed gluonic magnetic catalysis at zero-temperature in lattice QCD., Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures. Version published in Phys. Rev. D

We investigate decay and production of neutral pions in strong magnetic fields. In the presence of strong magnetic fields, transition between a neutral pion and a virtual photon becomes possible through the triangle diagram relevant for the chiral anomaly. We find that the decay mode of a neutral pion into two photons cannot persist in the dominant mode in strong magnetic fields, and that decay into a dilepton instead dominates over the other modes. We also investigate the effects of magnetic fields on prompt virtual photons created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. There is no anisotropy in the spectrum at the stage of creation of prompt virtual photons, but after traversing the strong magnetic field that is induced perpendicularly to the reaction plane, virtual photons turn into neutral pions, leading to an anisotropic spectrum of dileptons as a feasible signature in the measurement., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. A few comments and references added in version 2

We investigate an application of twisted boundary conditions for study of low-energy hadron-hadron interactions with L\"ushcer's finite size method. It allows us to calculate the phase shifts for elastic scattering of two hadrons at any small value of the scattering momentum even in a finite volume. We then can extract model independent information of low-energy scattering parameters such as the scattering length, the effective range and the effective volume from the $S$-wave and $P$-wave scattering phase shifts through the effective range expansion. This approach also enables us to examine the existence of near-threshold and narrow resonance states, of which characteristic is observed in many of newly discovered charmonium-like $XYZ$ mesons. As a simple example, we demonstrate our method for low-energy $J/\psi$-$\phi$ scatterings to search for Y(4140) resonance using 2+1 flavor PACS-CS gauge configurations at the lightest pion mass, $m_{\pi}=156$ MeV., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures; v2: version published in Phys. Rev. D

We investigated the origin of perpendicular magneto-crystalline anisotropy (MCA) in L10 ordered FeNi alloy using first-principles density-functional calculations. We found that the perpendicular MCA of L10-FeNi arises predominantly from the constituent Fe atoms, which is consistent with recent measurements of the anisotropy of the Fe orbital magnetic moment of L10-FeNi by x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. Analysis of the second-order perturbation of the spin-orbit interaction indicates that spin-flip excitations between the occupied majority-spin and unoccupied minority-spin bands make a considerable contribution to the perpendicular MCA as does the spin-conservation term in the minority-spin bands. Furthermore, the MCA energy increases as the in-plane lattice parameter decreases (increasing the axial ratio c/a). The increase in the MCA energy can be attributed to further enhancement of the spin-flip term due to modulation of the Fe d(xy) and d(x2-y2) orbital components around the Fermi level under the compressive in-plane distortion.

We discuss coexistence/mixing of different natures of hadronic composite (molecule) and elementary (quark-intrinsic) ones in hadron resonances. The discussions here are based on our previous publications on the origin of hadron resonances \cite{Hyodo:2008xr}, exotic $\bar D$ meson-nucleons as hadronic composites containing one anti-heavy quark \cite{Yamaguchi:2011xb}, and the study of $a_1$ as a typical example to show explicitly the mixing of the two different natures \cite{Nagahiro:2011jn}. In all cases, interactions are derived from the chiral dynamics of the light flavor sector. These interactions generate in various cases hadronic composite/molecule states, serving varieties of structure beyond the conventional quark model., Comment: Proceedings for Hadron Nuclear Physics (HNP) 2011, Pohang, Korea, February 21-24 (2011)

We study the parameter dependence of the internal structure of resonance states by formulating Complex two-dimensional (2D) Matrix Model, where the two dimensions represent two-levels of resonances. We calculate a critical value of the parameter at which "nature transition" with character exchange occurs between two resonance states, from the viewpoint of geometry on complex-parameter space. Such critical value is useful to know the internal structure of resonance states with variation of the parameter in the system. We apply the model to analyze the internal structure of hadrons with variation of the color number Nc from infinity to a realistic value 3. By regarding 1/Nc as the variable parameter in our model, we calculate a critical color number of nature transition between hadronic states in terms of quark-antiquark pair and mesonic molecule as exotics from the geometry on complex-Nc plane. For the large-Nc effective theory, we employ the chiral Lagrangian induced by holographic QCD with D4/D8/D8-bar multi-D brane system in the type IIA superstring theory., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, figures and appendixes added, results unchanged