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Social network analysis is pivotal for organizations aiming to leverage the vast amounts of data generated from user interactions on social media and other digital platforms. These interactions often reveal complex social structures, such as tightly-knit groups based on common interests, which are crucial for enhancing service personalization or fraud detection. Traditional methods like community detection and graph matching, while useful, often fall short of accurately identifying specific groups of users. This paper introduces a novel framework specifically designed to identify groups of users within transactional graphs by focusing on the contextual and structural nuances that define these groups.

We introduce VeloxQ, a fast and efficient solver for Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problems, which are central to numerous real-world optimization tasks. Unlike other physics-inspired approaches to optimization problems, such as quantum annealing and quantum computing, VeloxQ does not require substantial progress of technology to unlock its full potential. We benchmark VeloxQ against the state-of-the-art QUBO solvers based on emerging technologies. Our comparison includes quantum annealers, specifically D-Wave's Advantage, and Advantage2 prototype platforms, the digital-quantum algorithm designed to solve Higher-Order Unconstrained Binary Optimization (HUBO) developed by Kipu Quantum, physics-inspired algorithms: Simulated Bifurcation and Parallel Annealing and an algorithm based on tropical tensor networks. We also take into account modern developments of conventional algorithms: Branch and Bound algorithm, an optimal implementation of the brute-force algorithm and BEIT QUBO solver. Our results show that VeloxQ not only matches but often surpasses the mentioned solvers in solution quality and runtime. Additionally, VeloxQ demonstrates excellent scalability being the only solver capable of solving large-scale optimization problems, including up to $2\times 10^{8}$ sparsely connected variables, that are currently intractable for its competitors. These findings position VeloxQ as a powerful and practical tool for tackling large-scale QUBO and HUBO problems, offering a compelling alternative to existing quantum and classical optimization methods.

This paper explores ideas and provides a potential roadmap for the development and evaluation of physics-specific large-scale AI models, which we call Large Physics Models (LPMs). These models, based on foundation models such as Large Language Models (LLMs) - trained on broad data - are tailored to address the demands of physics research. LPMs can function independently or as part of an integrated framework. This framework can incorporate specialized tools, including symbolic reasoning modules for mathematical manipulations, frameworks to analyse specific experimental and simulated data, and mechanisms for synthesizing theories and scientific literature. We begin by examining whether the physics community should actively develop and refine dedicated models, rather than relying solely on commercial LLMs. We then outline how LPMs can be realized through interdisciplinary collaboration among experts in physics, computer science, and philosophy of science. To integrate these models effectively, we identify three key pillars: Development, Evaluation, and Philosophical Reflection. Development focuses on constructing models capable of processing physics texts, mathematical formulations, and diverse physical data. Evaluation assesses accuracy and reliability by testing and benchmarking. Finally, Philosophical Reflection encompasses the analysis of broader implications of LLMs in physics, including their potential to generate new scientific understanding and what novel collaboration dynamics might arise in research. Inspired by the organizational structure of experimental collaborations in particle physics, we propose a similarly interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to building and refining Large Physics Models. This roadmap provides specific objectives, defines pathways to achieve them, and identifies challenges that must be addressed to realise physics-specific large scale AI models.

We study transport in the spin chains by employing the Thouless approach based on the level sensitivity to the boundary conditions, $R$. Although spin transport in the integrable easy-axis XXZ model is diffusive, corresponding $R$ is much closer to ballistic chains than to chaotic diffusive systems. In the case of the grand canonical ensemble this observation can be rigorously justified, while in the case of the canonical ensemble it can be demonstrated by numerical calculations. Integrability breaking perturbation (IBP) strongly reduces $R$ which reveals a pronounced minimum at the crossover from anomalous diffusive to normal dissipative transport. This minimum coincides with the onset of the universality of the random matrix theory. Results for various IBP suggest a discontinuous jump of the spin conductivity in the thermodynamic limit, and moreover that its value universally decreases when the strength of IBP decreases., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures (including Supplementary Material)

A significant part of the Milky Way (MW) dwarf galaxies orbit within a Vast POlar Structure (VPOS) that is perpendicular to the Galactic disk, whose origin has not yet been identified. It includes the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and its six dynamically associated dwarf galaxies. Andromeda Galaxy (M31) experienced a major merger two to three billion years ago, and its accurate modelling predicts that an associated tidal tail is pointing toward the Galaxy. Here, we have tested a possible association between M31 tidal tail particles and MW dwarf galaxies, focusing first on the LMC and its associated dwarfs since they are less affected by ram pressure. We traced back these dwarf galaxy orbits by one billion years and calculated their association to the tidal tail particles in the 6D phase space, based on their proper motion from Gaia DR3. We find that for low-mass MW models (total mass smaller than 5 $\times 10^{11} M_{\odot}$), the separation in the 6D space can be less than 1$\sigma$ for most of the M31 modelling, while an important degree of freedom is provided by the still unknown proper motion of M31. We further discover that many other dwarfs could also be associated with the M31 tidal tails if their motions had been radially slowed down, as expected from the ram pressure exerted by the MW corona. This intriguing coincidence could explain the origin of the VPOS, which came from a matter exchange between M31 and MW., Comment: A&A, accepted 20th December 2024, 10 pages, 9 figures, and Appendix A, B, C, D & E

In this short paper we will discuss the similarities and differences between two semantic approaches to modal logics - non-deterministic semantics and restricted non-deterministic semantics. Generally speaking, both kinds of semantics are similar in the sense that they employ non-deterministic matrices as a starting point but differ significantly in the way extensions of the minimal modal logic M are constructed. Both kinds of semantics are many-valued and truth-values are typically expressed in terms of tuples of 0s and 1s, where each dimension of the tuple represents either truth/falsity, possibility/non-possibility, necessity/non-necessity etc. And while non-deterministic semantics for modal logic offers an intuitive interpretation of the truth-values and the concept of modality, with restricted non-deterministic semantics are more general in terms of providing extensions of M, including normal ones, in an uniform way. On the example of three modal logics, MK, MKT and MKT4, we will show the differences and similarities of those two approaches. Additionally, we will briefly discuss (current) restrictions of both approaches., Comment: In Proceedings NCL'24, arXiv:2412.20053

This semi-expository article presents an inductive method of computing initial ideals and Gr\"obner bases for families of ideals in a polynomial ring. This method starts from a given set of pairs $(I,J)$ where $I$ is any ideal and $J$ is a monomial ideal contained in the initial ideal of $I$. These containments become a system of equalities if one can establish a particular transition recurrence among the chosen ideals. We describe explicit constructions of such systems in two motivating cases -- namely, for the ideals of matrix Schubert varieties and their skew-symmetric analogues. Despite many formal similarities with these examples, for the symmetric versions of matrix Schubert varieties, it is an open problem to construct the same kind of transition system. We present several conjectures that would follow from such a construction, while also discussing the special obstructions arising in the symmetric case., Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures

We describe here a theory of a quantum dot in an electrically tunable MoSe$_2$/WSe$_2$ heterostructure. Van der Waals heterostructures allow for tuning their electronic properties beyond their monolayer counterparts. We start by determining their electronic structure using density functional theory. We obtain the type-II band alignment and close in energy conduction band minima (valleys) at the $K$ and $Q$ points in the Brillouin zone. The valence band maxima, also energetically close, are located at the $K$ and $\Gamma$ points. By analyzing the Kohn-Sham wavefunctions, we describe the layer, spin, and orbital contributions. Next, we construct an \textit{ab initio}-based tight-binding model, which helps us to better understand the complexity of the interlayer interactions. We determine the effect of a vertical electric field, showing that vertical gating enables control of valleys extrema and their occupancy. Finally, we employ the tight-binding model to investigate laterally gated quantum dots and analyze the influence of a perpendicular electric field on their energy spectrum. Our results demonstrate that tuning the electric field enables control over the valley character of the quantum dot states, selectively localizing them in either the $K$ or $Q$ valleys, as evidenced by their characteristic degeneracies and wavefunctions.

We compute meson spectral functions at finite temperature and density in the quark-meson model, supplemented with a computation of the phase diagram. In particular, we provide a detailed analysis of the non-analytic structure of the meson two-point functions which is of great relevance for phenomenological applications, such as moat regimes and inhomogeneous phases. Furthermore, it is also relevant from a field-theoretical standpoint as it provides an insight into the applicability of derivative expansions of the effective action to studies of general fermion-boson models, both at zero and finite chemical potential. Our computation is based on a functional renormalization group setup that preserves causality, all spacetime symmetries, and the Silver-Blaze property. The combination of these properties can only be achieved by a Callan-Symanzik regulator. Instead of momentum shell integrations, renormalization group flows generated by such a regulator describe the change of the theory induced by a change of the masses of the mesons and quarks. A particular focus of our work lies on the construction of controlled Callan-Symanzik flows in the presence of spontaneous and explicit chiral symmetry breaking by means of chiral Ward-Takahashi identities., Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures

Dense QCD matter may exhibit crystalline phases. Their existence is reflected in a moat regime, where mesonic correlations feature spatial modulations. We study the realtime properties of pions at finite temperature and density in QCD in order to elucidate the nature of this regime. We show that the moat regime arises from particle-hole-like fluctuations near the Fermi surface. This gives rise to a characteristic peak in the spectral function of the pion at nonzero \emph{spacelike} momentum. This peak can be interpreted as a new quasi particle, the moaton. In addition, our framework also allows us to directly test the stability of the homogeneous chiral phase against the formation of an inhomogeneous condensate in QCD. We find that the formation of such a phase is highly unlikely for baryon chemical potentials $\mu_B \leq 630$\,MeV., Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures

The existence of planes of satellite galaxies has been identified as a long-standing challenge to $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, due to the rarity of satellite systems in cosmological simulations that are as extremely flattened and as strongly kinematically correlated as observed structures. Here we investigate a recently proposed new metric to measure the overall degree of ''planarity'' of a satellite system, which was used to claim consistency between the Milky Way satellite plane and $\Lambda$CDM. We study the behavior of the ''planarity'' metric under several features of anisotropy present in $\Lambda$CDM satellite systems but unrelated to satellite planes. Specifically, we consider the impact of oblate or prolate distributions, the number of satellites, clustering of satellites, and radial and asymmetric distributions ('lopsidedness'). We also investigate whether the metric is independent of the orientation of the studied satellite system. We find that all of these features of anisotropy result in the metric inferring an increased degree of ''planarity'', despite none of them having any direct relation to satellite planes. The metric is also highly sensitive to the orientation of the studied system (or chosen coordinate system): there is almost no correlation between the metric's reported degrees of ''planarity'' for identical random systems rotated by 90{\deg}. Our results demonstrate that the new proposed metric is unsuitable to measure overall ''planarity'' in satellite systems. Consequently, no consistency of the observed Milky Way satellite plane with $\Lambda$CDM can be inferred using this metric., Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, submitted to A&A, in response to arXiv:2411.17813

We study the electron-positron to muon--anti-muon cross-section in the asymptotically safe Standard Model. In particular, we include the graviton contributions to the scattering amplitude, which is computed from momentum-dependent time-like one-particle-irreducible correlation functions. Specifically, we employ reconstruction techniques for the graviton spectral functions. We find that the full asymptotically safe quantum cross section decreases in the ultraviolet with the centre-of-mass energy, and is compatible with unitarity bounds. Importantly, our findings provide non-trivial evidence for the unitarity of the asymptotically safe Standard Model., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

We introduce DiFfRG (Discretisation Framework for functional Renormalisation Group flows), a comprehensive computational C++ framework for solving functional Renormalisation Group flows in very general truncation schemes. Its central features are threefold: Firstly, the use of Finite Element Methods (FEM) for efficient, easy to set up and quantitatively reliable computations of field dependences. Secondly, the (simultaneous) setup of large, fully momentum-dependent vertex expansions. Thirdly, efficient time-discretisation methods, incorporating insights from studies of solving theories which exhibit spontaneous symmetry breaking, going hand in hand with shocks and an exponential increase of the information flow velocity in field space. The framework provides a Mathematica package for automatic code generation of flow equations, finite and zero temperature integration routines with support for GPU hardware and extensive parallelisation capabilities. Detailed examples and tutorials are provided and discussed herein which showcase and introduce the framework to the user. We illustrate the capabilities of DiFfRG with four examples, with the complete codes fully included: finite temperature O(N) theory, a Quark-Meson model, SU(3) Yang-Mills theory and four-Fermi flows in the QCD phase diagram.

We propose a renormalisation group inspired normalising flow that combines benefits from traditional Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and standard normalising flows to sample lattice field theories. Specifically, we use samples from a coarse lattice field theory and learn a stochastic map to the targeted fine theory. The devised architecture allows for systematic improvements and efficient sampling on lattices as large as $128 \times 128$ in all phases when only having sampling access on a $4\times 4$ lattice. This paves the way for reaping the benefits of traditional MCMC methods on coarse lattices while using normalising flows to learn transformations towards finer grids, aligning nicely with the intuition of super-resolution tasks. Moreover, by optimising the base distribution, this approach allows for further structural improvements besides increasing the expressivity of the model.

We study, for the first time, the interplay between colour-confining and chiral symmetry-breaking dynamics in gauge-fermion systems with a general number of flavours and colours. Specifically, we work out the flavour dependence of the confinement and chiral symmetry breaking scales. We connect the QCD-like regime, in quantitative agreement with lattice data, with the perturbative conformal limit, thereby exploring uncharted region of theory space. This analysis is done within the first-principles functional renormalisation group approach to gauge-fermion systems and is facilitated by a novel approximation scheme introduced here. This novel scheme enables a relatively simple access to the confining dynamics. This allows us to investigate the whole landscape of many-flavour theories and to provide a cartography of their phase structure. In particular, we uncover a novel phase with the locking of confining and chiral dynamics at intermediate flavour numbers. We also explore the close-conformal region that displays a walking behaviour. Finally, we provide a quantitative estimate for the lower boundary of the conformal Caswell-Banks-Zaks window, with a $N^{\rm crit}_f(N_c=3)= 9.60^{+0.55}_{-0.53}$. This work offers a self-consistent framework for charting the landscape of strongly interacting gauge-fermion theories necessary to reliably study strongly coupled extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics., Comment: 49 pages, 28 figures

We study the causal structure of the quark propagator with the spectral DSE. The spectral gap equation is solved with the input of the spectral representation of the gluon and a causal STI-construction for the quark-gluon vertex. The latter includes a potential infrared enhancement of the vertex strength of the classical tensor structure that accommodates for the physical strength of chiral symmetry breaking. We find a critical vertex strength, below which the quark has a K\"all\'en-Lehmann representation. While the nature of the first singularity does not change above the critical strength, we find that the quark propagator features at least two additional pairs of complex conjugate poles that are located approximately at the sum of quark pole mass and peak position of the quark-gluon coupling. These additional poles lead to violations of causality, if they persist in $S$-matrix elements. While the vertex strength of the classical tensor structure in full QCD is below the critical one, that of commonly used vertex models, which rely solely on the classical vertex structure, is typically above it. Finally, we discuss how these additional poles could be avoided in full QCD, where part of chiral symmetry breaking is generated by the other tensor structures in the quark-gluon vertex., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures

We study the confining and deconfining phases of pure $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ lattice gauge theory with topological data analysis. This provides unique insights into long range correlations of field configurations across the confinement-deconfinement transition. Specifically, we analyze non-trivial structures in electric and magnetic field energy densities as well as Polyakov loop traces and a Polyakov loop-based variant of the topological density. The Betti curves for filtrations based on the electric and magnetic field energy densities reveal signals of electromagnetic dualities. These dualities can be associated with an interchange in the roles of local lumps of electric and magnetic energy densities around the phase transition. Moreover, we show that plaquette susceptibilities can manifest in the geometric features captured by the Betti curves. We also confront the results obtained for $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ with that for $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ and elaborate on the significant differences. Our results demonstrate that topological data analysis can discriminate phase transitions of different order for non-Abelian lattice gauge theories. Moreover, it provides unprecedented insights into the relevant structures in their vicinity., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures

To deepen our understanding of Quantum Gravity and its connections with black holes and cosmology, building a common language and exchanging ideas across different approaches is crucial. The Nordita Program "Quantum Gravity: from gravitational effective field theories to ultraviolet complete approaches" created a platform for extensive discussions, aimed at pinpointing both common grounds and sources of disagreements, with the hope of generating ideas and driving progress in the field. This contribution summarizes the twelve topical discussions held during the program and collects individual thoughts of speakers and panelists on the future of the field in light of these discussions., Comment: Collection of summaries of twelve topical panel discussions and individual thoughts of speakers and panelists, Nordita Scientific Program "Quantum Gravity: from gravitational EFTs to UV complete approaches". 62 pages + references, no figures

We revise the technique of semiclassical effective dynamics, in particular reexamining the evaluation of Poisson structure of the so-called central moments capturing quantum corrections, providing a systematic, pedagogical, and efficient algorithm for evaluation of said structure. The resulting closed formulae for Poisson brackets involve less summatios than recent results in the literature, thus being more optimal for applications. Found formulae are then applied to a general class of isotropic cosmological models with locally observable configuration variables for the admitted matter fields. In particular, this allowed to formulate a consistent and nontrivial limit or fiducial cell (infrared regulator) removal for models describing spatially noncompact spacetimes., Comment: 15 pages

We report the spectroscopic analysis of ten satellite galaxy candidates in the sphere of influence of the Sombrero galaxy (M104, NGC4594), based on data obtained with IFUM (Integral Field Units for Magellan). Based on their newly-observed recessional velocities, we confirm that nine of these candidates are satellite galaxies of M104, with one being a background dwarf galaxy. All ten dwarfs have stellar masses $2\times10^{7}\,M_{\odot}$ to $1\times10^{9}\,M_{\odot}$ and mean weighted metallicities $-1.7<\langle{[\mathrm{M/H}]}\rangle<-0.3$. Although these dwarfs are predominantly old, with stellar populations $\sim5-11\,$Gyr. However, this sample contains a local example of a low-mass "Green Pea" candidate, it exhibits extreme optical emission features and broad emission line features ($\sigma\sim250\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$) reminiscent of high-redshift Ly$\alpha$/LyC photon leaking galaxies. Using the newly-acquired recessional velocities of the nine satellites of M104, we find no evidence of coherent satellite motions unlike other nearby $L_*$ galaxy environments. Given the small sample, this results does not statistically rule out such coherent motions. There remain 60 satellite candidates of M104 for which future spectroscopy can more reliably test for such motion. Using the observed dwarf galaxies as tracers of the gravitational potential of M104, we estimate the dynamical mass of M104, $M_{dyn}=(12.4\pm6.5)\times10^{12}M_{\odot}$, and find that, making a reasonable estimate of M104's gas mass, $>90\%$ of its baryons are missing. These results agree with previous measurements of M104's dynamical mass., Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Accepted to the MNRAS

We introduce a new symmetry-preserving framework for the physics of heavy-light mesons, whose key element is the effective incorporation of flavour-dependent contributions into the corresponding bound-state and quark gap equations. These terms originate from the fully-dressed quark-gluon vertices appearing in the kernels of these equations, and provide a natural distinction between ``light" and ``heavy" quarks. In this approach, only the classical form factor of the quark-gluon vertex is retained, and is evaluated in the so-called ``symmetric" configuration. The standard Slavnov-Taylor identity links this form factor to the quark wave-function, allowing for the continuous transition from light to heavy quarks through the mere variation of the current quark mass in the gap equation. The method is used to compute the masses and decay constants of specific pseudoscalars and vector heavy-light systems, showing good overall agreement with both experimental data and lattice simulations., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, typos corrected and minor changes

The mass of galaxy clusters is a critical quantity for probing cluster cosmology and testing theories of gravity, but its measurement could be biased given assumptions are inevitable. In this paper, we employ and compare two mass proxies for galaxy clusters: thermodynamics of the intracluster medium and kinematics of member galaxies. We select 22 galaxy clusters from the cluster catalog in the first SRG/eROSITA All-Sky Survey (eRASS1) that have sufficient optical and near-infrared observations. We generate multi-band images in the energy range of (0.3, 7) keV for each cluster, and derive their temperature profiles, gas mass profiles and hydrostatic mass profiles using a parametric approach that does not assume dark matter halo models. With spectroscopically confirmed member galaxies collected from multiple surveys, we numerically solve the spherical Jeans equation for their dynamical mass profiles. Our results quantify the correlation between dynamical mass and line-of-sight velocity dispersion with an rms scatter of 0.14 dex. We find the two mass proxies lead to roughly the same total mass, with no observed systematic bias. As such, the $\sigma_8$ tension is not specific to hydrostatic mass or weak lensing shears, but also appears with galaxy kinematics. We also compare our hydrostatic masses with the latest weak lensing masses inferred with scaling relations. The comparison shows the weak lensing mass is significantly higher than our hydrostatic mass by $\sim$110%. This might explain the significantly larger value of $\sigma_8$ from the latest measurement using eRASS1 clusters than almost all previous estimates in the literature. Finally, we test the radial acceleration relation (RAR) established in disk galaxies. We confirm the missing baryon problem in the inner region of galaxy clusters using three independent mass proxies for the first time., Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, with 12-page appendix for additional figures and tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

A $n^d \xrightarrow{p} 1$ Quantum Random Access Code (QRAC) is a communication task where Alice encodes $n$ classical bits into quantum states of dimension $d$ and transmits them to Bob, who performs appropriate measurements to recover the required bit with probability $p$. In the presence of a noisy environment, the performance of a QRAC is degraded, losing the advantage over classical strategies. We propose a practical technique that enables noise tolerance in such scenarios, recovering the quantum advantage in retrieving the required bit. We perform a photonic implementation of a $2^2 \xrightarrow {\text{p}} 1$ QRAC using polarization-encoded qubits under an amplitude-damping channel, where simple operations allow for noise robustness showing the revival of the quantum advantage when the noisy channel degrades the performance of the QRAC. This revival can be observed by violating a suitable dimension witness, which is closely related to the average success probability of the QRAC. This technique can be extended to other applications in the so-called prepare-and-measure scenario, enhancing the semi-device-independent protocol implementations.

A recent study of the distribution of dwarf galaxies in the MATLAS sample in galaxy groups revealed an excess of flattened satellite structures, reminiscent of the co-rotating planes of dwarf galaxies discovered in the local Universe. If confirmed, this lends credence to the plane-of-satellite problem and further challenges the standard model of hierarchical structure formation. However, with only photometric data and no confirmation of the satellite membership, the study could not address the plane-of-satellite problem in full detail. Here we present spectroscopic follow-up observations of one of the most promising planes-of-satellites candidates in the MATLAS survey, the satellite system of NGC 474. Employing MUSE at the VLT and full spectrum fitting, we studied 13 dwarf galaxy candidates and confirmed nine to be members of the field around NGC 474. Measuring the stellar populations of all observed galaxies, we find that the MATLAS dwarfs have lower metallicities than the Local Group dwarfs at given luminosity. Two dwarf galaxies may form a pair of satellites based on their close projection and common velocity. Within the virial radius, we do not find a significant plane-of-satellites, however, there is a sub-population of six dwarf galaxies which seem to be anti-correlated in phase-space. Due to the low number of dwarf galaxies, this signal may arise by chance. With over 2000 dwarf galaxy candidates found in the MATLAS survey, this remains an intriguing data set to study the plane-of-satellites problem in a statistical fashion once more follow-up observations have been conducted., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)

We study the causal structure for spherically symmetric dust collapse within effective loop quantum gravity. We develop a general strategy (working beyond the dynamical model of our consideration) for constructing double null coordinates, allowing the extraction of conformal diagrams within single coordinate charts. With the methods introduced, we confirm that the homogeneous Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse scenario resembles the Reissner-Nordstr\"om-like picture. For the nonhomogenous collapse scenario, we construct the conformal diagrams, subsequently, we study its relevant properties, in particular, dust particles' trajectories, apparent horizons and shell-crossing singularities. We conclude that a considerable region of spacetime cannot be probed by the model's dynamics because of the formation of the shell-crossings. We also address the problem of the possible (non)-existence of timelike singularity known from the homogeneous collapse scenario., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures

The loop quantum gravitational collapse of the dust ball in presence of positive cosmological constant is investigated within the Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse scenario. The dust ball interior is described within the framework of loop quantum cosmology, while its exterior geometry is determined by the differentiability of the spacetime metric at the dust ball surface and the assumption of the (vacuum) exterior to be stationary. In order to determine the global causal structure of the investigated spacetime a robust (numerical) method of constructing Penrose-Carter diagrams is built. Unfortunately the presence of cosmological constant does not cure the problems already present in the case of it vanishing -- the exterior geometry resembles that of Reissner-Nordstr\"om-de Sitter black hole, in particular featuring timelike singularties., Comment: 5 figures, 18 pages

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides have emerged as prominent candidates to explore the complex interplay between the spin and the valleys degrees of freedom. The strong spin-orbit interaction and broken inversion symmetry within these materials lead to the spin-valley locking effect, in which carriers occupying the K and K' valleys of the reciprocal space must have opposite spin depending on which valley they reside. This effect is particularly strong for holes due to a larger spin-orbit gap in the valence band. By reducing the dimensionality of a monolayer of tungsten diselenide to 1D via electrostatic confinement, we demonstrate that spin-valley locking in combination with strong hole-hole interactions lead to a ferromagnetic state in which hole transport through the 1D system is spin-valley polarized, even without an applied magnetic field, and that the persistence of this spin-valley polarized configuration can be tuned by a global back-gate. This observation opens the possibility of implementing a robust and stable valley polarized system, essential for valleytronic applications.

We present a single-turn agent for graphical user interface (GUI) interaction tasks, using Vision-Language Model Florence-2-Base. The agent's primary task is identifying the screen coordinates of the UI element corresponding to the user's command. It demonstrates strong performance on Screenspot and OmniAct, while maintaining a compact size of 0.27B parameters and minimal latency. Relevant improvement comes from multi-task training and MLLM-based data augmentation. Manually annotated corpora are scarce, but we show that MLLM augmentation might produce better results. On Screenspot and OmniAct, our model outperforms both GUI-specific models (e.g., SeeClick) and MLLMs (e.g., GPT-4V)., Comment: The model is available at huggingface.co/Samsung/TinyClick

We investigate the formation of self-bound states in a one-dimensional dipolar Bose gas under the influence of both strong short-range repulsive and strong non-local attractive interactions. While conventional methods like the Bogoliubov de-Gennes (BdG) method typically fail in regimes with strong interactions due to significant quantum depletion, we reveal a particular scenario where the interplay of these strong interactions significantly mitigates quantum depletion, thus restoring the applicability of the BdG method. Remarkably, this restoration occurs even though the system exhibits pronounced anti-bunching, a feature usually linked with strongly correlated systems. By comparing our BdG results with exact ab initio calculations, we confirm the accuracy of the BdG approach in predicting the ground-state energy and correlation functions under these conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that adjusting the polarization direction of the dipoles allows for a tunable transition between a strongly interacting regime and the novel balanced regime explored in this research.

The physics of strongly correlated systems offers some of the most intriguing physics challenges such as competing orders or the emergence of dynamical composite degrees of freedom. Often, the resolution of these physics challenges is computationally hard, but can be simplified enormously by a formulation in terms of the dynamical degrees of freedom and within an expansion about the physical ground state. Importantly, such a formulation does not only reduce or minimise the computational challenges, it also facilitates the access to the physics mechanisms at play. The tasks of finding the dynamical degrees of freedom and the physical ground state can be systematically addressed within the functional renormalisation group approach with flowing fields which accommodates both, emergent composites as well as the physical ground state. In the present work we use this approach to set up physics-informed renormalisation group flows (PIRG flows): Scale-dependent coordinate transformations in field space induce emergent composites, and the respective flows for the effective action generate a large set of target actions, formulated in these emergent composite fields. This novel perspective on RG flows bears a great potential both for conceptual as well as computational applications: to begin with, PIRG flows allow for a systematic search of the dynamical degrees of freedom and the respective ground state that leads to the most rapid convergence of expansion schemes, thus minimising the computational effort. Secondly, the resolution of the remaining computational tasks within a given expansion scheme can be further reduced by optimising the physics content within a given approximation. Thirdly, the maximal variability of PIRG flows can be used to reduce the analytic and numerical effort of solving the flows within a given approximation., Comment: 35 pages, 16 figures: Correctly compiled figure label

We measure the absolute proper motion of Andromeda III using ACS/WFC and WFPC2 exposures spanning an unprecedented 22-year time baseline. The WFPC2 exposures have been processed using a deep-learning centering procedure recently developed as well as an improved astrometric calibration of the camera. The absolute proper motion zero point is given by 98 galaxies and 16 Gaia EDR3 stars. The resulting proper motion is $(\mu_{\alpha} , \mu_{\delta}) = (-10.5\pm12.5, 47.5\pm12.5)~\mu$as yr$^{-1}$. We perform an orbit analysis of And III using two estimates of M31's mass and proper motion. We find that And III's orbit is consistent with dynamical membership to the Great Plane of Andromeda system of satellites although with some looser alignment compared to the previous two satellites NGC 147 and NGC 185. And III is bound to M31 if M31's mass is $M_{\mathrm{vir}}\geq 1.5\times10^{12}\,M_{\odot}$., Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

Functional approaches are the only first principle QCD setup that allow for direct computations at finite density. Predictive power and quantitative reliability of the respective results can only be obtained within a systematic expansion scheme with controlled systematic error estimates. Here we set up such a scheme within the functional renormalisation group (fRG) approach to QCD, aiming for full apparent convergence. In the current work we test this setup, using correlation functions and observables in 2+1 flavour vacuum QCD as a natural benchmark case. While the current work includes many evolutionary improvements collected over the past two decades, we also report on three novel important developments: (i) A comprehensive systematic error analysis based on the modular nature of the fRG approach. (ii) The introduction of a fully automated computational framework, allowing for unprecedented access and improvement of the fRG approach to QCD. (iii) The inclusion of the full effective potential of the chiral order parameter. This also gives access to all-order scattering events of pions and to the full momentum dependence of correlation functions, which is a first application of the automated computational framework (ii). The results compare very well to other state-of-the-art results both from functional approaches and lattice simulations, and provide data on general multi-scattering events of pions and the sigma mode for the first time.

Quantum vortices play an important role in the physics of two-dimensional quantum many-body systems, though they usually are understood in the single-particle framework like the mean-field approach. Inspired by the study on the relations between solitons and yrast states, we investigate here the emergence of vortices from the eigenstates of a N -body Hamiltonian of interacting particles trapped in a disk. We analyse states that appear by consecutively measuring the positions of particles. These states have densities, phases, and energies closely resembling mean-field vortices. We discuss similarities, but also point out purely many-body features, such as vortex smearing due to the quantum fluctuation of their center. The ab initio analysis of the many-body system, and mean-field approaches are supported by the analysis within the Bogoliubov approach.

We investigate the finite temperature magnetic order at the edges of hexagonal CrN nanoribbons by using the density-functional theory combined with the density-matrix renormalization group method. Moreover, the spin-dependent transport in nanoribbons is calculated within the semi-classical Boltzmann transport theory. We find out that the zigzag edges have lower energy with respect to armchair edges. The zigzag edge of CrN nanoribbon shows half metallic electronic character which is the same as for the 2D monolayer. The localized electronic states on the zigzag edges reduce the electronic band gap energy for spin down electrons. The ab-initio electronic results are mapped into an effective 1D Heisenberg spin model up to the next nearest neighbor exchange interaction term. For zigzag ribbons, the nearest neighbor and next nearest neighbor magnetic exchange are around $10$ to $12$, and $-2$ to $0$~meV/Cr atom, respectively. The finite spin correlation length in 1D nanoribbons drops sharply to zero with temperature. The absence of long range spin correlations at the edges is a practical drawback for future room temperature 2D spintronic devices. The maximally localized Wannier functions are used for band interpolation and spin-dependent transport calculations by using the semi-classical Boltzmann equation. We show that zigzag edges of CrN are perfect spin filter under both electron and hole doping., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

The online joint replenishment problem (JRP) is a fundamental problem in the area of online problems with delay. Over the last decade, several works have studied generalizations of JRP with different cost functions for servicing requests. Most prior works on JRP and its generalizations have focused on the clairvoyant setting. Recently, Touitou [Tou23a] developed a non-clairvoyant framework that provided an $O(\sqrt{n \log n})$ upper bound for a wide class of generalized JRP, where $n$ is the number of request types. We advance the study of non-clairvoyant algorithms by providing a simpler, modular framework that matches the competitive ratio established by Touitou for the same class of generalized JRP. Our key insight is to leverage universal algorithms for Set Cover to approximate arbitrary monotone subadditive functions using a simple class of functions termed \textit{disjoint}. This allows us to reduce the problem to several independent instances of the TCP Acknowledgement problem, for which a simple 2-competitive non-clairvoyant algorithm is known. The modularity of our framework is a major advantage as it allows us to tailor the reduction to specific problems and obtain better competitive ratios. In particular, we obtain tight $O(\sqrt{n})$-competitive algorithms for two significant problems: Multi-Level Aggregation and Weighted Symmetric Subadditive Joint Replenishment. We also show that, in contrast, Touitou's algorithm is $\Omega(\sqrt{n \log n})$-competitive for both of these problems.

We analyze four epochs of HST imaging over 18 years for the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy. We measure precise proper motions (PMs) for hundreds of stars and combine these with existing line-of-sight (LOS) velocities. This provides the first radially-resolved 3D velocity dispersion profiles for any dwarf galaxy. These constrain the intrinsic velocity anisotropy and resolve the mass-anisotropy degeneracy. We solve the Jeans equations in oblate axisymmetric geometry to infer the mass profile. We find the velocity dispersion to be radially anisotropic along the symmetry axis and tangentially anisotropic in the equatorial plane, with a globally-averaged value $\overline{\beta_{\mathrm B}}=-0.20^{+ 0.28}_{- 0.53}$, (where $1 - \beta_{\mathrm B} \equiv \langle v_{\mathrm{ tan}}^2 \rangle / \langle v_{\mathrm{ rad}}^2 \rangle$ in 3D). The logarithmic dark matter (DM) density slope over the observed radial range, $\Gamma_{\mathrm{ dark}}$, is $-0.83^{+ 0.32}_{- 0.37}$, consistent with the inner cusp predicted in $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. As expected given Draco's low mass and ancient star formation history, it does not appear to have been dissolved by baryonic processes. We rule out cores larger than 487, 717, 942 pc at respective 1-, 2-, 3-$\sigma$ confidence, thus imposing important constraints on the self-interacting DM cross-section. Spherical models yield biased estimates for both the velocity anisotropy and the inferred slope. The circular velocity at our outermost data point (900 pc) is $24.19^{+ 6.31}_{- 2.97} \ \mathrm{km~s^{-1}}s$. We infer a dynamical distance of $75.37^{+ 4.73}_{- 4.00}$ kpc, and show that Draco has a modest LOS rotation, with $\left = 0.22 \pm 0.09$. Our results provide a new stringent test of the so-called `cusp-core' problem that can be readily extended to other dwarfs., Comment: 35 pages, 18 figures, 3 Tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Journal version has better readability. Data is available at Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/11111113

One of the principal aspects through which the effects of quantum gravity are hoped to manifest is the possible modification of the dispersion relation for electromagnetic (e-m) waves. By combining (i) the symmetry reduced approaches to spacetime quantization, including loop quantum cosmology or geometrodynamics framework, and (ii) the (extension of the) Born-Oppenheimer approximation of interacting fields, one can build a reliable though still quasi-phenomenological model for a description of propagation of the e-m radiation over a cosmological spacetime. The past works employing such approach indicated a pathological behavior - superluminal propagation at low energies. We reexamine the approach via systematic studies (using indicated method) of e-m wave propagation over a flat quantum Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker Universe using a synthesis of analytical and numerical methods. It turns out, that (i) the e-m wave propagation agrees with the one predicted by general relativity in the low energy limit, and (ii) loop quantum effects actually suppress the modifications to the dispersion relation in comparison with those predicted, where the geometry is quantized via geometrodynamics., Comment: RevTex, 12 pages, 5 figures

Wave-particle duality is one of the most striking and counter-intuitive features of quantum mechanics, illustrating that two incompatible observables cannot be measured simultaneously with arbitrary precision. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the equivalence of wave-particle duality and entropic uncertainty relations using orbital angular momentum (OAM) states of light. Our experiment utilizes an innovative and reconfigurable platform composed of few-mode optical fibers and photonic lanterns, showcasing the versatility of this technology for quantum information processing. Our results provide fundamental insights into the complementarity principle from an informational perspective, with implications for the broader field of quantum technologies., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

Personalized medicine based on medical images, including predicting future individualized clinical disease progression and treatment response, would have an enormous impact on healthcare and drug development, particularly for diseases (e.g. multiple sclerosis (MS)) with long term, complex, heterogeneous evolutions and no cure. In this work, we present the first stochastic causal temporal framework to model the continuous temporal evolution of disease progression via Neural Stochastic Differential Equations (NSDE). The proposed causal inference model takes as input the patient's high dimensional images (MRI) and tabular data, and predicts both factual and counterfactual progression trajectories on different treatments in latent space. The NSDE permits the estimation of high-confidence personalized trajectories and treatment effects. Extensive experiments were performed on a large, multi-centre, proprietary dataset of patient 3D MRI and clinical data acquired during several randomized clinical trials for MS treatments. Our results present the first successful uncertainty-based causal Deep Learning (DL) model to: (a) accurately predict future patient MS disability evolution (e.g. EDSS) and treatment effects leveraging baseline MRI, and (b) permit the discovery of subgroups of patients for which the model has high confidence in their response to treatment even in clinical trials which did not reach their clinical endpoints.

The properties of satellite dwarf galaxies pose important empirical constraints to verify cosmological models on galaxy scales. Their phase-space correlations, in particular, offer interesting insights into various models. Next to the planes-of-satellites phenomenon, the lopsided distribution of satellites relative to their host galaxy has been studied observationally and in cosmological simulations. It is still unclear how observed lopsidedness aligns with expectations from simulations. We measure lopsidedness in observed isolated satellite systems using six different metrics. We study 47 systems from the MATLAS survey beyond the Local Volume (LV) as well as 21 LV satellite systems from the ELVES survey. We find that the so-called wedge metric, counting the number of dwarfs in wedges with varying opening angles, is best suited to capture a system's overall lopsidedness. Under this metric, our analysis reveals that ~16 percent of the tested satellite systems exhibit a statistically significant degree of lopsidedness when compared to systems with randomly generated satellite position angles. This presents a notable excess over the expected 5% (2 sigma level) of significantly lopsided systems in a sample with no overall inherent lopsidedness. However, using multiple metrics provides a more complete picture. Combining all tested metrics, the number of significantly lopsided systems increases to ~21 percent. Contrary to recent results from the literature, we find more lopsided systems among the red early-type galaxies in the MATLAS survey compared to the mostly blue late-type hosts in ELVES. We further find that satellite galaxies at larger distances from the host, potentially recently accreted, are likely the primary contributors to the reported excess of lopsidedness. Our results enable comparisons with similar systems in simulations to assess consistency with the standard model., Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. Abstract abridged

We present a theory of interacting valence holes in a gate-defined one-dimensional quantum channel in a single layer of a transition metal dichalcogenide material WSe$_2$. Based on a microscopic atomistic tight-binding model and Hartree-Fock and exact configuration-interaction tools we demonstrate the possibility of symmetry-broken valley polarized states for strongly interacting holes. The interplay between interactions, perpendicular magnetic field, and the lateral confinement asymmetry together with the strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling present in WSe$_2$ material is analyzed, and its impact on valley polarization is discussed. For weaker interactions, an investigation of the pair correlation function reveals a valley-antiferromagnetic phase. For low hole densities, a formation of a zigzag Wigner crystal phase is predicted. The impact of various hole liquid phases on transport in a high mobility quasi-one dimensional channel is discussed., Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, 1 table

The ``Swampland Program'' aims to discriminate consistent-looking effective field theories that do not admit a UV completion in quantum gravity from those that do. While most often developed under the umbrella of string theory, several swampland criteria have been explored also in other contexts, especially asymptotically safe gravity. A comparison between different approaches can help to clarify the dependence of low-energy constraints on UV physics and thereby shed light on the universality of quantum gravity itself. In this short review we summarise what is known about three important swampland conjectures in string theory and in asymptotic safety. We point out future lines of research that can help to understand to what extent swampland conjectures are absolute, i.e. hold in quantum gravity in general, or relative, i.e. belong only to a specific UV framework., Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, v2: references added

The monogamy of nonlocality is one the most intriguing and cryptographically significant predictions of quantum theory. The physical principle of information causality offers a promising means to understand and restrict the extent of nonlocality without invoking the abstract mathematical formalism of quantum theory. In this article, we demonstrate that the original bipartite formulation of information causality cannot imply non-trivial monogamy relations, thereby refuting the previous claims. Nevertheless, we show that the recently proposed multipartite formulation of information causality implies stronger-than-no-signaling monogamy relations. We use these monogamy relations to enhance the security of device-independent quantum key distribution against a no-signaling eavesdropper constrained by information causality., Comment: First draft, comments are welcome!

The galaxy system around NGC4490 was recently highlighted to display a flattened, kinematically correlated structure reminiscent of satellite galaxy planes around other hosts. Since known satellite planes are in tension with $\Lambda$CDM expectations from cosmological simulations, we quantitatively assess for the first time the tension posed by the NGC4490 system. We measure the on-sky flattening as the major-to-minor axis ratio b/a of the satellite distribution and their line-of-sight kinematic correlation. Analogs are selected in the IllustrisTNG-50 simulation and their flattening and correlation are similarly measured. We confirm the strong kinematic coherence of all 12 observed objects with available line-of-sight velocities (of 14 in total): the northern ones approach and the southern ones recede relative to the host. The spatial distribution of all 14 objects is substantially flattened with b/a=0.38 (0.26 considering only the 12 objects with velocities). Such extreme arrangements are rare in the simulation at 0.21-0.35%. This would drop further if at least one of the two satellite objects without velocities is confirmed to follow the kinematic trend, and would become zero if both are rejected as non-members. We also identify a likely galaxy pair in the observed system, and find a similar pair in the best-matching simulated analog. Our findings establish NGC4490 as another strong example of a satellite plane in the Local Volume. This emphasizes that planes of satellites are a more general issue faced by $\Lambda$CDM also beyond the Local Group. The tension with typical systems in simulations suggests that the observed one requires a specific formation scenario, potentially connected to the larger-scale galaxy alignment in its vicinity. The presence of galaxy pairs in the observed and a simulated system hints at the importance such groupings may have to understand satellite planes., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 1 satellite galaxy plane. Accepted for publication in A&A. Abstract slightly abridged

Dwarf galaxy abundances can serve as discernment tests for models of structure formation. Previous small-scale tensions between observations and dark matter-only cosmological simulations may have been resolved with the inclusion of baryonic processes; however, these successes have been largely concentrated on the Local Group dwarfs the feedback models were initially calibrated on. We investigate whether the $\Lambda$CDM model can reliably reproduce dwarf abundances in the MATLAS low-to-moderate density fields that are centred upon early-type host galaxies beyond the Local Volume. We carried out mock observations of MATLAS-like fields with the high-resolution hydrodynamic simulation IllustrisTNG-50. We used matching selection criteria and compared the properties of dwarfs contained within them with their MATLAS analogues. Although simulated MATLAS-like dwarfs demonstrate photometric properties that are consistent with the observed galaxy population and follow the same scaling relations, TNG50 underestimates the number of dwarf galaxies in isolated MATLAS fields at the 6 sigma level. This significance is maintained within crowded fields containing more than a single bright host. Our 55-62% estimate of the fraction of background galaxies is in agreement with estimates by MATLAS, but is wholly insufficient to alleviate this discrepancy in dwarf abundances. Any incompleteness in the observed fields further exacerbates this tension. We identified a "too-many-satellites" problem in $\Lambda$CDM, emphasising the need for the continued testing and refining of current models of galaxy formation in environments beyond the Local Group., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysics

The problem of missing satellites still remains one of the well-known problems of the Lambda-CDM cosmological theory. Despite significant progress in cosmological modeling achieved in recent years, the search for new dwarf galaxies-satellites of nearby giant galaxies remains extremely important. In this series of papers we report the first results of an on-going systematic survey of faint dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the vicinity of the bright late-type spiral NGC 253 galaxy, the brightest member of the Sculptor filament located at a distance of 3.7 Mpc. We performed a new NGC 253 satellite search by means of visual inspection using co-added image cutouts reprocessed in the DESI Legacy image surveys, reaching a very low surface brightness regime (28.0--29.0 mag arcsec-2). Five new dwarf galaxies have been discovered in the vicinity of NGC 253, that we named them Do V, Do VI, Do VII, Do VIII and Do IX. Assuming they are associated to NGC 253, their total absolute V-magnitudes fall in the -7 to -9 mag range, which is typical for dwarf satellites in the local Universe. The central surface brightness tend to be extremely low for all the discovered dwarfs and fall roughly in the range of 25--26 mag arcsec-2 in g-band. We present a new list of galaxies located around the giant spiral NGC 253. With the inclusion of these additional satellites, the overall spatial distribution of the system becomes less flattened and is now broadly consistent with analogs drawn from Lambda-CDM expectations. Interestingly, the distribution appears to be rather lopsided. Yet, firm conclusions on the presence of absence of a correlated satellite structure are hampered since distance information is lacking, the census of observed dwarfs in the system remains far from complete, and spectroscopic velocities are not even available for most known satellites., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 4 Tables, submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics

Context. Within $\Lambda$ Cold Dark Matter ($\Lambda$CDM) simulations, Milky Way-like galaxies accrete some of their satellite galaxies in groups of 3-5 members rather than individually. It was also suggested that this might be the reason behind the origin of satellite planes. Objects accreted in groups are expected to share similar specific total energy and angular momentum, and also identical orbital planes and directions. Aims. Looking at observations of Milky Way satellites, the dwarf galaxies Leo II, IV, V, Crater II, and the star cluster Crater 1 were proposed to be a vestige of group infall. The suggested "Crater-Leo group" shows a coherent distance gradient and all these objects align along a great circle on the sky. We use proper motion data to investigate whether the phase-space distribution of the members of the proposed group are indeed consistent with group infall. Methods. To further investigate this possibility, we use Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) and new Hubble Space Telescope (HST) proper motions, $(\mu_{\alpha*}, \mu_\delta) = (-0.1921 \pm 0.0514, -0.0686 \pm 0.0523)$ mas yr$^{-1}$ for Leo IV and $(\mu_{\alpha*}, \mu_\delta) = (0.1186 \pm 0.1943, -0.1183 \pm 0.1704)$ mas yr$^{-1}$ for Leo V, to derive accurate orbital properties for the proposed group objects. In addition, we explore other possible members of this putative association. Results. Leo II, Leo IV, and Crater 1 show orbital properties consistent with those we predict from assuming group infall. However, our results suggest that Crater II was not accreted with the rest of the objects. If confirmed with increasingly accurate proper motions in the future, the Crater-Leo objects appear to constitute the first identified case of a cosmologically expected, typical group infall event, as opposed to the highly hierarchical Magellanic Cloud system., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A on 23-04-2024. 20 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables

This paper presents a new research direction for online Multi-Level Aggregation (MLA) with delays. In this problem, we are given an edge-weighted rooted tree $T$, and we have to serve a sequence of requests arriving at its vertices in an online manner. Each request $r$ is characterized by two parameters: its arrival time $t(r)$ and location $l(r)$ (a vertex). Once a request $r$ arrives, we can either serve it immediately or postpone this action until any time $t > t(r)$. We can serve several pending requests at the same time, and the service cost of a service corresponds to the weight of the subtree that contains all the requests served and the root of $T$. Postponing the service of a request $r$ to time $t > t(r)$ generates an additional delay cost of $t - t(r)$. The goal is to serve all requests in an online manner such that the total cost (i.e., the total sum of service and delay costs) is minimized. The current best algorithm for this problem achieves a competitive ratio of $O(d^2)$ (Azar and Touitou, FOCS'19), where $d$ denotes the depth of the tree. Here, we consider a stochastic version of MLA where the requests follow a Poisson arrival process. We present a deterministic online algorithm which achieves a constant ratio of expectations, meaning that the ratio between the expected costs of the solution generated by our algorithm and the optimal offline solution is bounded by a constant. Our algorithm is obtained by carefully combining two strategies. In the first one, we plan periodic oblivious visits to the subset of frequent vertices, whereas in the second one, we greedily serve the pending requests in the remaining vertices. This problem is complex enough to demonstrate a very rare phenomenon that ``single-minded" or ``sample-average" strategies are not enough in stochastic optimization., Comment: 39 pages, 6 figures, accepted at ISAAC'24

Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) models are a core component of voice assistants (VA), such as Alexa, Bixby, and Google Assistant. In this paper, we introduce a pipeline designed to extend SLU systems to new languages, utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) that we fine-tune for machine translation of slot-annotated SLU training data. Our approach improved on the MultiATIS++ benchmark, a primary multi-language SLU dataset, in the cloud scenario using an mBERT model. Specifically, we saw an improvement in the Overall Accuracy metric: from 53% to 62.18%, compared to the existing state-of-the-art method, Fine and Coarse-grained Multi-Task Learning Framework (FC-MTLF). In the on-device scenario (tiny and not pretrained SLU), our method improved the Overall Accuracy from 5.31% to 22.06% over the baseline Global-Local Contrastive Learning Framework (GL-CLeF) method. Contrary to both FC-MTLF and GL-CLeF, our LLM-based machine translation does not require changes in the production architecture of SLU. Additionally, our pipeline is slot-type independent: it does not require any slot definitions or examples., Comment: Code and info on model checkpoint are available at https://github.com/Samsung/MT-LLM-NLU

Polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) foils have been demonstrated as a wavelength shifter suitable for operation in liquid argon. At the same time, wavelength shifting efficiency of technical grades of PEN, commercially available on the market, is lower than that of tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB). This paper reports on an R&D program focused on exploring the intrinsic limitations of PEN and optimizing it for the highest achievable wavelength shifting efficiency., Comment: Proceedings of LIght Detection In Noble Elements - LIDINE 2023