We focus on online second price auctions, where bids are made sequentially, and the winning bidder pays the maximum of the second-highest bid and a seller specified starting price. For many such auctions, the seller does not see all the bids or the total number of bidders accessing the auction, and only observes the current selling prices throughout the course of the auction. We develop a novel semi-parametric approach to estimate the underlying consumer valuation distribution based on this data. Previous semi-parametric or non-parametric approaches in the literature only use the final selling price and assume knowledge of the total number of bidders. The resulting estimate, in particular, can be used by the seller to compute the optimal profit-maximizing price for the product. Our approach is free of tuning parameters, and we demonstrate its computational and statistical efficiency in a variety of simulation settings, and also on an Xbox 7-day auction dataset on eBay.

We present a novel approach to generate Bessel-Gauss modes of arbitrary integer order and well-defined optical angular momentum in a gradient index medium of transverse parabolic profile. The propagation and coherence properties, as well as the quality factor, are studied using algebraic techniques that are widely used in quantum mechanics. It is found that imposing the well-defined optical angular momentum condition, the Lie group $SU(1,1)$ comes to light as a characteristic symmetry of the Bessel-Gauss beams.

A signed graph $(G,σ)$ on $n$ vertices is called a \textit{parity signed graph} if there is a bijective mapping $f \colon V(G) \rightarrow \{1,\ldots,n\}$ such that $f(u)$ and $f(v)$ have same parity if $σ(uv)=1$, and opposite parities if $σ(uv)=-1$ for each edge $uv$ in $G$. The \emph{rna} number $σ^{-}(G)$ of $G$ is the least number of negative edges among all possible parity signed graphs over $G$. In other words, $σ^{-}(G)$ is the smallest size of an edge-cut of $G$ such that the sizes of two sides differ at most one. Let $C_n^{d}$ be the $d\text{th}$ power of a cycle of order $n$. Recently, Acharya, Kureethara and Zaslavsky proved that the \emph{rna} number of a cycle $C_n$ on $n$ vertices is $2$. In this paper, we show for $2 \leq d < \lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor$ that $2d \leq σ^{-}(C_n^{d}) \leq d(d+1)$. Moreover, we prove that the graphs $C_n^{2}$ and $C_n^{3}$ achieve the upper bound of $d(d+1)$.

$\newcommand{\eps}{\varepsilon}$ We observe that a $(1-\eps)$-approximation algorithm to Independent Set, that works for any induced subgraph of the input graph, can be used, via a polynomial time reduction, to provide a $(1+\eps)$-approximation to Vertex Cover. This basic observation was made before, see [BHR11]. As a consequence, we get a PTAS for VC for unweighted pseudo-disks, QQPTAS for VC for unweighted axis-aligned rectangles in the plane, and QPTAS for MWVC for weighted polygons in the plane. To the best of our knowledge all these results are new.

Newton's identities provide a way to express elementary symmetric polynomials in terms of power polynomials over fields of characteristic zero. In this article, we study the failure of this relation in positive characteristic and what can be recovered. In particular, we show how one can write the elementary symmetric polynomials as rational functions in the power polynomials over any commutative unital ring.

It is shown that for a given log-concave function, its symmetric decreasing rearrangement is always harder to approximate in the symmetric difference metric by inner log-linearizations with a fixed number of break points. This extends a classical result of Macbeath (1951) from convex bodies to a functional setting.

In this paper we study the classification of del Pezzo surfaces $X$ of degree $5$ over any perfect field $\mathbf{k}$ in explicit geometric terms. More precisely, in each case we use the Petersen graph to illustrate the $\operatorname{Gal}(\overline{\mathbf{k}}/\mathbf{k})$-action on the $(-1)$-curves of $X$ and we describe explicitly its group of automorphisms, $\operatorname{Aut}_{\mathbf{k}}(X)$. For the cases when $X$ is not minimal, we describe how to realize it as the blow-up of $\mathbb{P}^{2}$, or of a (minimal) quadric in $\mathbb{P}^{3}$, and classify them up to $\mathbf{k}$-isomorphism. In all cases, the elements of the group $\operatorname{Aut}_{\mathbf{k}}(X)$ are described geometrically.

In this work we give a sufficient condition under which the global Poincaré inequality on Carnot groups holds true for a large family of probability measures absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure. The density of such probability measure is given in terms of homogeneous quasi-norm on the group. We provide examples to which our condition applies including the most known families of Carnot groups. This, in particular, allows to extend the results in the previous work [CFZ21]. A consequence of our result is that the associated Schrödinger operators have a spectral gap.

In this paper, we determine the almost sure values of the $Φ$-dimensions of random measures $μ$ supported on random Moran sets in $\R^d$ that satisfy a uniform separation condition. This paper generalizes earlier work done on random measures on homogeneous Moran sets \cite{HM} to the case of unequal scaling factors. The $Φ$-dimensions are intermediate Assouad-like dimensions with the (quasi-)Assouad dimensions and the $θ$-Assouad spectrum being special cases. The almost sure value of $\dim_Φμ$ exhibits a threshold phenomena, with one value for ``large'' $Φ$ (with the quasi-Assouad dimension as an example of a ``large'' dimension) and another for ``small'' $Φ$ (with the Assouad dimension as an example of a ``small'' dimension). We give many applications, including where the scaling factors are fixed and the probabilities are uniformly distributed. The almost sure $Φ$ dimension of the underlying random set is also a consequence of our results.

We study the problem of allocating a set of indivisible goods among a set of agents with \emph{2-value additive valuations}. In this setting, each good is valued either $1$ or $p/q$, for some fixed co-prime numbers $p,q\in \mathbb{N}$ such that $1\leq q < p$. Our goal is to find an allocation maximizing the \emph{Nash social welfare} (\NSW), i.e., the geometric mean of the valuations of the agents. In this work, we give a complete characterization of polynomial-time tractability of \NSW\ maximization that solely depends on the values of $q$. We start by providing a rather simple polynomial-time algorithm to find a maximum \NSW\ allocation when the valuation functions are \emph{integral}, that is, $q=1$. We then exploit more involved techniques to get an algorithm producing a maximum \NSW\ allocation for the \emph{half-integral} case, that is, $q=2$. Finally, we show it is \classNP-hard to compute an allocation with maximum \NSW\ whenever $q\geq3$.

We consider the inverse problem for the polynomial map which sends an $m$-tuple of quadratic forms in $n$ variables to the sum of their $d$-th powers. This map captures the moment problem for mixtures of $m$ centered $n$-variate Gaussians. In the first non-trivial case $d = 3$, we show that for any $ n\in \mathbb N $, this map is generically one-to-one (up to permutations of $ q_1,\ldots, q_m $ and third roots of unity) in two ranges: $m\le {n\choose 2} + 1 $ for $n \leq 16$ and $ m\le {n+5 \choose 6}/{n+1 \choose 2}-{n+1 \choose 2}-1$ for $n > 16$, thus proving generic identifiability for mixtures of centered Gaussians from their (exact) moments of degree at most $ 6 $. The first result is obtained by studying the explicit geometry of the tangential contact locus of the variety of sums of cubes of quadratic forms at concrete points, while the second result is accomplished using a link between secant non-defectivity with identifiability. The latter approach generalizes also to sums of $ d $-th powers of $k$-forms for $d \geq 3$ and $k \geq 2$.

The variety $ \mathrm{Sing}_{n, m} $ consists of all tuples $ X = (X_1,\ldots, X_m) $ of $ n\times n $ matrices such that every linear combination of $ X_1,\ldots, X_m $ is singular. Equivalently, $X\in\mathrm{Sing}_{n,m}$ if and only if $\det(λ_1 X_1 + \ldots + λ_m X_m) = 0$ for all $ λ_1,\ldots, λ_m\in \mathbb Q $. Makam and Wigderson asked whether the ideal generated by these equations is always radical, that is, if any polynomial identity that is valid on $ \mathrm{Sing}_{n, m} $ lies in the ideal generated by the polynomials $\det(λ_1 X_1 + \ldots + λ_m X_m)$. We answer this question in the negative by determining the vanishing ideal of $ \mathrm{Sing}_{2, m} $ for all $ m\in \mathbb N $. Our results exhibit that there are additional equations arising from the tensor structure of $ X $. More generally, for any $ n $ and $ m\ge n^2 - n + 1 $, we prove there are equations vanishing on $ \mathrm{Sing}_{n, m} $ that are not in the ideal generated by polynomials of type $\det(λ_1 X_1 + \ldots + λ_m X_m)$. Our methods are based on classical results about Fano schemes, representation theory and Gröbner bases.

The current canonical approach to publishing cross-section data is to unfold the reconstructed distributions. Detector effects like efficiency and smearing are undone mathematically, yielding distributions in true event properties. This is an ill-posed problem, as even small statistical variations in the reconstructed data can lead to large changes in the unfolded spectra. This work presents an alternative or complementary approach: the response-matrix-centred forward-folding approach. It offers a convenient way to forward-fold model expectations in truth space to reconstructed quantities. These can then be compared to the data directly, similar to what is usually done with full detector simulations within the experimental collaborations. For this, the detector response (efficiency and smearing) is parametrised as a matrix. The effects of the detector on the measurement of a given model is simulated by simply multiplying the binned truth expectation values by this response matrix. Systematic uncertainties in the detector response are handled by providing a set of matrices according to the prior distribution of the detector properties and marginalising over them. Background events can be included in the likelihood calculation by giving background events their own bins in truth space. To facilitate a straight-forward use of response matrices, a new software framework has been developed: the Response Matrix Utilities (ReMU). ReMU is a Python package distributed via the Python Package Index. It only uses widely available, standard scientific Python libraries and does not depend on any custom experiment-specific software. It offers all methods needed to build response matrices from Monte Carlo data sets, use the response matrix to forward-fold truth-level model predictions, and compare the predictions to real data using Bayesian or frequentist statistical inference.

We prove that the second Hochschild cohomology group of the moduli stack of stable $n$-pointed genus $g$ curves vanishes for all but finitely many $(g,n)$.

We analytically discuss the resonance conditions among several neutrinos in matter. The discriminant for the characteristic equation of the Hamiltonian is expressed by the coefficients of the equation. The result of the computation for the discriminants tells us that the neutrino energy and the matter density are in inverse proportion to each other at the resonance states in not only 2- but also 3- and 4-neutrino models.

Locally checkable labeling problems (LCLs) form the foundation of the modern theory of distributed graph algorithms. First introduced in the seminal paper by Naor and Stockmeyer [STOC 1993], these are graph problems that can be described by listing a finite set of valid local neighborhoods. This seemingly simple definition strikes a careful balance between two objectives: they are a family of problems that is broad enough so that it captures numerous problems that are of interest to researchers working in this field, yet restrictive enough so that it is possible to prove strong theorems that hold for all LCL problems. In particular, the distributed complexity landscape of LCL problems is now very well understood. In this work we show that the family of LCL problems is extremely robust to variations. We present a very restricted family of locally checkable problems (essentially, the "node-edge checkable" formalism familiar from round elimination, restricted to regular unlabeled graphs); most importantly, such problems cannot directly refer to e.g. the existence of short cycles. We show that one can translate between the two formalisms (there are local reductions in both directions that only need access to a symmetry-breaking oracle, and hence the overhead is at most an additive $O(\log^* n)$ rounds in the LOCAL model).

Visible Light Communication (VLC) using Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) has gained attention due to its low power consumption, long lifetime, and fast response. However, VLC suffers from optical noise generated by ambient light sources such as fluorescent lamps, which leads to waveform distortion and increased bit error rates (BER). In this paper, we propose two noise reduction methods for Digital Visible Light Communication (DVLC) systems. The first method exploits the periodic nature of interference caused by AC-powered-line illumination and reduces interference by subtracting sampled noise waveforms from the received signal. Second, inspired by Active Noise Control (ANC) techniques, an additional photodiode is introduced for noise reception, and subtraction circuits are employed to attenuate noise in real time. Experimental results show that both methods improve BER performance compared with conventional receivers, with the ANC-inspired approach achieving superior performance under all tested conditions.

We compute for the first time the production rate for four jets in electron-positron annihilation at next-to-next-to-leading order. Our calculation exhibits the highest final-state jet multiplicity considered at this perturbative accuracy to date. The cancellation of infrared singularities is achieved in the antenna subtraction scheme, relying particularly on generalized antenna functions. The evaluation of the two-loop virtual corrections is enabled by the construction of a new basis of transcendental special functions tailored to four-particle decay kinematics. Our results are compared with LEP data, finding improved agreement with respect to the next-to-leading order calculation. In the region where perturbative predictions are most reliable, we observe a significant reduction of theory uncertainties, which now fall below the experimental ones.

We study nonlocal convolution-type operators with singular, possibly anisotropic kernels. Our main objective is to establish and quantify their nonlocal-to-local convergence to a local differential operator with natural boundary conditions, as the kernels concentrate at the origin in a suitable way. Such convergence results provide a useful tool for the physical justification of mathematical models, particularly in situations where the desired local differential operator cannot be directly derived from microscopic laws. The present work substantially extends previous results by allowing kernels with stronger singularities (comparable to those of fractional Laplacians), anisotropic and non-localized kernels, and by proving strong convergence in general $L^p$ spaces together with explicit convergence rates.

Achieving near-unity fidelity in conventional continuous-variable quantum teleportation schemes based on two-mode squeezed vacuum states is fundamentally unattainable. To overcome this limitation, alternative approaches utilizing ensembles of two-dimensional entangled qubits have been proposed. In this work, we investigate continuous-variable quantum teleportation employing entangled qutrit resources under realistic noise effects. The results demonstrate that the proposed scheme performs well in both ideal and noisy conditions, enabling high-fidelity teleportation with a reasonable success probability.

We compare singular homology and homology via integral currents in metric spaces that are homeomorphic to smooth manifolds. For such spaces, we provide sufficient conditions that guarantee the existence of a surjective homomorphism from the codimension one homology group via integral currents to the codimension one singular homology group. Moreover, we show that a one-dimensional isoperimetric inequality for integral currents implies that the one-dimensional homology groups coincide.

Quantum metrology seeks to push the boundaries of measurement precision by harnessing quantum phenomena. Conventional methods often rely on maximally entangled resources, with states that are usually challenging to produce and sustain in practical setups. Here, we show that the maximally entangled constraint can be lifted by experimentally realizing a photonic two-qubit weighted graph state with an arbitrarily tunable graph weight. We use the generated state as a resource for quantum-enhanced phase sensing. We experimentally characterize the state and study its minimum estimator variance for two distinct local measurement bases as the graph weight varies from the maximally entangled to weakly entangled limit. We find excellent quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions, and observe a gain in precision beyond the classically attainable precision limit for graph weights substantially below the maximally entangled limit. This confirms that considerably less entanglement is required to achieve a quantum advantage. Albeit non-scalable in our test setup, this work represents the first experimental realization of weighted graph states with a tunable graph weight using linear optics. We expect more scalable versions of the model to be possible in an on-chip photonic platform.

We introduce the notions of sub Gaussian random variables in sub-linear expectation spaces. To avoid the problem caused by the existence of two different expectations, i.e., the upper expectation and the lower expectation, we divide the definition of the sub-Gaussian property into an upper part and a lower part. It turns out that this approach fits well to the sub-linear setting; it provides a proper framework for extending Zajkowski's general result to sublinear expectation spaces. Within our framework, we establish a strong law of large numbers for sub-Gaussian sequences. We present an example showing the usefulness of our results.

The Vera C. Rubin observatory is expected to produce 10 million transient alerts per night in ugrizy filters, whilst Euclid is a visible to near-infrared space telescope engaged in a wide field survey. We present a prototype system to automatically match the transient alerts from Rubin to Euclid observations. The system produces joint light-curves containing both visible and near-infrared photometry, and joint image cutouts. Using Zwicky Transient Facility alerts as a proxy for Rubin, we demonstrate the system in use in cases where Euclid did and did not detect the transient and highlight the value that can be added in each case. For transients detected by Euclid these benefits include identifying the supernovae (SNe) in observations taken prior to ground-based detection, thereby better constraining the explosion time, such as SN 2024pvw detected ~3 d prior to ground based detections. In cases where Euclid did not detect the transient, we demonstrate the benefit of adding Euclid observations to improve host morphology measurements and associations.

This paper introduces two new robust methods for estimation of parameters in a given parametric family. The first method is that of `minimum weighted L2', effectively minimising an estimate of the integrated (and possibly weighted) squared error. The second is `robust Kullback-Leibler', consisting of minimising a robust version of the empirical Kullback-Leibler distance, and can be viewed as a general robust modification of the maximum likelihood procedure. This second method is also related to recent local likelihood ideas for semiparametric density estimation. The methods are described, influence functions are found, as are formulae for asymptotic variances. In particular large-sample efficiencies are computed under the home turf conditions of the underlying parametric model. The methods and formulae are illustrated for the normal model.

We develop a self-consistent approach that provides an explicit potential for a Rydberg electron whose ionic core consists of a polarizable medium, typically realized with superfluid droplets. The electron's motion remains separable in spherical coordinates, but the radial force exerted by the droplet breaks degeneracy of the angular momentum states non-perturbatively. The ensuing electron spectrum reveals intriguing properties dependent on droplet size and electron excitation. Deviations of the polarizable medium from the continuous spherical distribution can be taken into account as a perturbation of this redefined Rydberg dynamics. We discuss specific but paradigmatic examples for superfluid helium and also propose a way to probe droplet properties including its possible crystallized fraction through stimulated transitions of the Rydberg electron.

Despite the exceptionally high relative sensitivities achieved by luminescent thermometers based on first-order structural phase transitions, their principal limitation lies in the inherently narrow thermal operating range associated with the transition temperature. In this work, we demonstrate that partial substitution of Li+ by Na+ ions in the second coordination sphere of Eu3+ ions in LiYO2 enables a substantial shift of the phase transition temperature, thereby allowing controlled optimization of the thermometric performance. This approach represents a significantly more cost-effective and efficient strategy for tuning the phase transition temperature compared with the previously proposed substitution of Y3+ by other lanthanide ions. Importantly, we show that lowering the transition temperature through Na+ incorporation simultaneously introduces static compositional disorder and local lattice strain. As a consequence, the enthalpy difference between the competing structural phases decreases, and the cooperativity of the lattice distortion is reduced, indicating a gradual weakening of the first-order character of the phase transition. Our results demonstrate that such structural modifications, while effective in shifting the transition temperature, inevitably lead to a reduction in the relative sensitivity of phase-transition-based luminescent thermometers.

Context-free grammars (CFGs) are the de-facto formalism for declaratively describing concrete syntax for programming languages and generating parsers. One of the major challenges in defining a desired syntax is ruling out all possible ambiguities in the CFG productions that determine scoping rules as well as operator precedence and associativity. Practical tools for parser generation typically apply ad-hoc approaches for resolving such ambiguities, which might result in a parser's behavior that contradicts the intents of the language designer. In this work, we present a user-friendly approach to soundly repair grammars with ambiguities, which is inspired by the programming by example line of research in automated program synthesis. At the heart of our approach is the interpretation of both the initial CFG and additional examples that define the desired restrictions in precedence and associativity, as tree automata (TAs). The technical novelties of our approach are (1) a new TA learning algorithm that constructs an automaton based on the original grammar and examples that encode the user's preferred ways of resolving ambiguities all in a single TA, and (2) an efficient algorithm for TA intersection that utilises reachability analysis and optimizations that significantly reduce the size of the resulting automaton, which results in idiomatic CFGs amenable to parser generators. We have proven the soundness of the algorithms, and implemented our approach in a tool called Greta, demonstrating its effectiveness on a series of case studies.

Malicious jamming presents a pervasive threat to the secure communications, where the challenge becomes increasingly severe due to the growing capability of the jammer allowing the adaptation to legitimate transmissions. This paper investigates the jamming mitigation by leveraging an active reconfigurable intelligent surface (ARIS), where the channel uncertainties are particularly addressed for robust anti-jamming design. Towards this issue, we adopt the Stackelberg game formulation to model the strategic interaction between the legitimate side and the adversary, acting as the leader and follower, respectively. We prove the existence of the game equilibrium and adopt the backward induction method for equilibrium analysis. We first derive the optimal jamming policy as the follower's best response, which is then incorporated into the legitimate-side optimization for robust anti-jamming design. We address the uncertainty issue and reformulate the legitimate-side problem by exploiting the error bounds to combat the worst-case jamming attacks. The problem is decomposed within a block successive upper bound minimization (BSUM) framework to tackle the power allocation, transceiving beamforming, and active reflection, respectively, which are iterated towards the robust jamming mitigation scheme. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in protecting the legitimate transmissions under uncertainties, and the superior performance in terms of jamming mitigation as compared with the baselines.

The availability of low-energy antiproton beams at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator has renewed interest in using antimatter as a probe of nuclear structure and in forming exotic antiprotonic few-body systems. In this work, we extend the ab initio No-Core Shell Model combined with the Resonating Group Method (NCSM/RGM), which was successfully applied to light-nucleus structure and reactions, to antiproton-nucleus dynamics at low energies. The NCSM/RGM formalism is adapted to antiproton projectiles by removing the requirement of antisymmetrization under exchange of target and projectile constituents, while retaining a fully microscopic description of the nuclear target and the relative motion. We focus on the lightest systems, ${\bar p}+d$, ${\bar p}+{}^3 \mathrm{H}$, and ${\bar p}+{}^3\mathrm{He}$, for which benchmarking against exact solutions of the Schrödinger equation enables stringent validation and helps disentangle methodological uncertainties -- e.g., those associated with the choice of configurations included in the NCSM/RGM expansion -- so that the dominant residual uncertainty can be attributed to the $N\bar{N}$ interaction. We compute phase shifts, scattering lengths, cross sections, antiprotonic-atom level shifts and widths, nuclear quasi-bound energies, and annihilation densities. We find that the hard short-range components of the meson-exchange-based $N\bar{N}$ interaction lead to slow convergence of the NCSM/RGM kernels expanded in a harmonic-oscillator basis, requiring exceptionally large model spaces and posing significant numerical challenges. We discuss practical strategies to mitigate these limitations and assess the impact of missing closed-channel configurations, which is a significant source of uncertainties in very light systems.