Fast radio bursts (FRBs) emit broadband radio emission that may, in rare cases, encode atomic hydrogen (HI) absorption signals as they traverse the interstellar medium of their host galaxies. Though considered in the early FRB literature, the demanding observational prerequisites and the rarity of suitable events have meant that no thorough search for HI absorption in FRB spectra has yet been undertaken. Here, we present an updated systematic analysis assessing the likelihood of modern facilities to detect such absorption features. As a proof of concept, we search for absorption in the spectrum of the bright ASKAP-localised FRB 20211127I, finding a $3σ$ opacity upper limit of 0.51. While this test case offers little constraining power, we find that narrow FRBs with fluences exceeding 20/70/150 Jy ms observed with MeerKAT/ASKAP/DSA can probe opacities below 0.1 - a regime in which absorption detections become physically meaningful. We further highlight that stacking thousands of bursts from hyperactive repeaters with FAST offers a very powerful avenue toward detection. Finally, we discuss the broad scientific potential of such detections, including constraints on extragalactic HI spin temperatures, a means to physically probe the environment surrounding the progenitor, and a path towards disentangling host galaxy contributions to dispersion and scattering.

We present efficient and practical protocols to measure the second Rényi entropy, whose exponential is known as the purity. Our approach is based on expressing the purity in terms of transition probabilities generated by an echo-type forward-backward evolution sequence, making it applicable to quantum many-body systems. Notably, our approach does not rely on random-noise averaging, a feature that can be extended to protocols to measure out-of-time-order correlation functions, as we demonstrate. By way of example, we show that our protocols can be practically implemented in superconducting qubit-based platforms, as well as in cavity-QED trapped ultra-cold gases.

We report the observation of charge-exchange collisions between trapped calcium monohydride molecular ions ($^{40}$CaH$^+$) and ultracold potassium atoms ($^{39}$K) in a hybrid ion-atom trap. The measured charge-exchange rate coefficient is significantly suppressed relative to the Langevin rate constant for the system. We use $\mathit{ab\ initio}$ quantum-chemical calculations to model the (CaH-K)$^+$ complex in the ground and excited electronic states and to identify possible charge-exchange mechanisms. Our calculations rule out a direct non-radiative charge-exchange reaction and instead point to a radiative mechanism, but do not quantitatively reproduce the measured rate, highlighting the need for a full-dimensional quantum dynamics treatment that includes vibrational motion and intermediate complex formation. Our work demonstrates that cold hybrid ion-atom platforms with molecular ions enable access to richer chemical complexity and collisional dynamics inaccessible in purely atomic systems.

Brittle materials subjected to thermal shocks experience strong temperature gradients that in turn give rise to mechanical stresses that can be large enough to induce fracture. This work presents a complete model for phase-field fracture for coupled thermo-mechanical problems, wherein the bulk material properties, the material strength, and the fracture toughness are specified independently. The capabilities of the model are assessed across a wide span of scenarios in thermo-mechanical fracture, from the propagation of large pre-existing cracks to crack nucleation under spatially uniform states of stress. In particular, we revisit the controlled quenching of glass plates, and demonstrate how the model captures experimentally observed crack patterns across a range of thermal loads. Ceramic disks subjected to infrared radiation are also examined, with the model reproducing both straight cracks in notched specimens and branching in intact specimens. Finally, ceramic pellets subjected to rapid power pulses are examined, with the model explaining experimental transitions from intact to fractured pellets and the important role of material strength. The results demonstrate that the complete phase-field model unifies the treatment of distinct fracture scenarios under thermal shock, surpassing classical approaches and enabling more reliable prediction of brittle fracture in extreme environments.

By modelling the upper layers of the Sun in terms of a two-layer setup where a free-surface exists within the computational domain, we numerically study the interaction between the surface gravity, or the fundamental ($f$) mode, and the magnetic fields. Earlier such works were idealized in the sense that the static magnetic fields were imposed below the photosphere, i.e., the free-surface, to detect signatures of sub-surface magnetic fields and flows on the $f$-mode. In this work, we perform three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulations where the interior fluid below the photosphere is stirred helically at small scales, thus facilitating an $α^2$-dynamo. This allows us to investigate how these self-consistently generated large-scale magnetic fields influence the properties of the $f$-mode. We find that when the magnetic fields saturate near the equipartition values with the turbulent kinetic energy of the flow, the $f$-mode is significantly perturbed. Compared to the non-magnetic case, or the kinematic phase of the dynamo when fields are too weak, we note that the frequencies and the strengths of the $f$-mode are enhanced in presence of saturated magnetic fields, with these effects being larger at larger wavenumbers. This qualitatively confirms the earlier findings from observational and numerical works which reported the $f$-mode strengthening due to strong sub-surface magnetic fields.

Lax-Wendroff methods combined with discontinuous Galerkin/flux reconstruction spatial discretization provide a high-order, single-stage, quadrature-free method for solving hyperbolic conservation laws. In this work, we introduce automatic differentiation (AD) for performing the Cauchy-Kowalewski procedure used in the element-local time average flux computation step (the predictor step) of Lax-Wendroff methods. The application of AD is similar for methods of any order and does not need positivity corrections during the predictor step. This contrasts with the approximate Lax-Wendroff procedure, which requires different finite difference formulas for different orders of the method and positivity corrections in the predictor step for fluxes that can only be computed on admissible states. The method is Jacobian-free and problem-independent, allowing direct application to any physical flux function. Numerical experiments demonstrate the order and positivity preservation of the method. Additionally, performance comparisons indicate that the wall-clock time of automatic differentiation is always on par with the approximate Lax-Wendroff method.

We present a data-driven inverse construction of the dilaton field in a bottom-up AdS/QCD description of heavy vector quarkonia. Instead of adopting an \emph{ad hoc} analytic ansatz, we use a multilayer perceptron to learn \(Φ'(z)\) as a smooth function of the holographic coordinate, with \(Φ(0)=0\) imposed to ensure ultraviolet consistency. The dilaton and its derivatives obtained by automatic differentiation generate the holographic potential \(U(z)\), and the associated Schrödinger-like equation is discretized and diagonalized to extract the low-lying eigenmodes. Masses and decay constants are then evaluated from the eigenvalues and the near-boundary behavior of the bulk-to-boundary modes. Training on PDG data for charmonium and bottomonium yields a non-quadratic dilaton profile that resolves the longstanding difficulty of simultaneously reproducing both the heavy-quarkonium spectrum and the monotonic suppression of leptonic decay constants with radial excitation. The combined fit achieves RMS deviations of \(1.26\%\) (charmonium) and \(3.32\%\) (bottomonium). This work establishes neural-network reconstruction as a flexible tool for holographic modeling and provides a basis for future extensions incorporating additional channels, lattice constraints, or finite-temperature backgrounds.

Tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) is a polymorphic wide-bandgap semiconductor with outstanding dielectric properties and widespread use in optical and electronic technologies. Its rich structural diversity, arising from multiple polymorphs accessible under different synthesis conditions, has made Ta2O5 a long-standing subject of interest. However, a unified understanding of the thermodynamic stability and phase transitions of its polymorphs across pressure-temperature (P-T) space has remained elusive. Here, using first-principles calculations, we map the thermodynamic landscape of Ta2O5 and establish a comprehensive P-T phase diagram together with a phase-stability hierarchy. We find that Gamma-Ta2O5 and B-Ta2O5 dominate the phase diagram over a broad range of P-T conditions: Gamma-Ta2O5 is stabilized at low pressures, while B-Ta2O5 becomes thermodynamically favored at higher pressures up to ~ 60 GPa, beyond which Y-Ta2O5 emerges as the most stable phase. Crucially, the zero-point energy (ZPE), one aspect of nuclear quantum effects (NQEs), plays a significant role in determining relative phase stability, contributing substantially to the Gibbs free energy and altering phase boundaries. A re-entrant phase transition between Gamma and B-Ta2O5 is predicted near ~ 2 GPa, revealing unexpected complexity in the phase behavior of this oxide. More generally, we identify a characteristic temperature (T_0), at which zero-point and thermal phonon contributions to the free energy become comparable, and show that T_0 is approximately one-third of the Debye temperature. This relationship provides a simple, physically transparent criterion for assessing the importance of NQEs in phase stability, with implications extending beyond Ta2O5 to a broad class of complex oxides.

This paper elaborates on the implications of the relationship between the Second and Third Laws and provides a comprehensive formal and historical justification for the logical redundancy of the Nernst heat theorem. By revisiting the Nernst-Einstein debate, the underlying hypotheses that lead to the traditional view of the Third Law as an independent postulate are examined. It is argued that the historical rejection of Nernst's proof -- motivated by Einstein's insistence on the practical non-performability of cycles at absolute zero -- overlooks the fact that a universal Second Law already precludes such cycles, rendering an independent Third Law an unnecessary complexity. Ultimately, the Nernst theorem is shown to be an essential consistency regulator rather than an independent physical discovery.

The paper solves the problem of continuum limit in bosonic thermal coherent-state path integrals. For this purpose, exact discrete versions of the path integral are constructed for three different orderings of the Hamiltonian: normal, anti-normal and symmetric (Weyl order). Subsequently, their different continuum versions are checked on the harmonic oscillator, to choose the symmetric ordering as a possibly correct choice for all polynomial Hamiltonians. Spotted mathematical subtleties in the simple case serve as a clue to the general solution. Finally, a general justification for the symmetric order is provided by deriving the continuum path integral starting from the exact discrete case using a renormalization procedure in the imaginary time frequency domain. While the role of Weyl order has already been found, the paper provides the missing proof of its suitability for every polynomial Hamiltonian and simplifies the previously established construction by referring only to creation and annihilation operators (without position and momentum operators).

We consider spherically symmetric Yang-Mills equations with gauge group $SO(d)$ in $d+1$ dimensional Minkowski spacetime. For any given odd $d\geq 11$, we establish existence and uniqueness (modulo reflection symmetry) of exactly $N$ smooth self-similar solutions, where $N$ is the number of zeros of an explicit polynomial $P_m(z)$ of degree $m=(d-5)/2$ in the interval $0<z<1$. The number $N$ can be determined algorithmically by an explicit computation. Our extensive computations for large odd dimensions suggest that $N=3$ for all odd $d\geq 11$. Two of these self-similar solutions admit closed-form expressions: one has been known previously, while the other appears to be new. Our result points toward a relatively simple landscape of possible blowup scenarios for high-dimensional Yang-Mills equations. Beyond its purely mathematical interest, this rigidity of self-similar blowup may also be relevant from a physical perspective, as it constrains the possible ultraviolet dynamics of non-abelian gauge fields in higher-dimensional Yang-Mills theories arising in string-inspired extra-dimensional setups and in holographic models.

We study the phase structure of the (3+1)-dimensional cold and dense QCD with the Kogut--Susskind quark in the strong coupling limit using the tensor renormalization group method. The chiral and nuclear transitions are investigated by calculating the chiral condensate and the quark number density as a function of the chemical potential. For a fixed temporal extent $N_τ=8$, we determine the critical quark masses $m_c^χ$ and $m_c^{n}$ for the chiral condensate and the quark number density, respectively, at which the first-order phase transition terminates with the vanishing discontinuity in thermodynamic quantities. We find that both quantities at the same quark mass exhibit a discontinuity at the same chemical potential, and the resulting critical quark masses are consistent with each other. We also compare our results for the critical quark masses with those obtained from the Monte Carlo simulation in the dual formulation and from the mean-field analysis. We further confirm the first-order phase transition at finite quark mass on a $1024^4$ lattice, which is essentially in the thermodynamic limit at zero temperature, as expected from the mean-field analysis.

Semi-Inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering (SIDIS) is a key tool for exploring the three-dimensional structure of the nucleon through Transverse Momentum Dependent parton distributions and fragmentation functions. While leading-power contributions to the SIDIS cross-section are well established, next-to-leading (NLP) of order $1/Q$ and next-to-next-to-leading power (NNLP) corrections of order $1/Q^2$ to the hadronic tensor have only recently begun to be systematically investigated. These corrections are essential for the reliable phenomenology and interpretation of modern high-precision data. In recent papers by one of the authors, NNLP corrections to Drell-Yan process were derived using rapidity factorization formalism. In the present work we extend this approach to SIDIS and obtain analytic expressions for the unpolarized structure functions. We derive NNLP corrections that include convolutions of unpolarized distributions, $f_1$, with unpolarized fragmentation functions, $D_1$, and Boer-Mulders functions, $h_1^\perp$, with Collins fragmentation functions, $H_1^\perp$. We compare our results with previous formulations, provide numerical studies, confront our predictions with HERMES and COMPASS measurements, and present predictions for future experiments at Jefferson Lab and the Electron-Ion Collider.

Aliphatic hydrocarbons, such as normal alkanes, constitute a naturally abundant source of carbon atoms. Of special interest is the formation of cyclic and aromatic products from aliphatic reactants. Combining scanning tunneling microscopy and ab initio calculations, we investigate the thermal induced aromatization of linear n octane molecules on the catalytic Pt(111) surface and the reactions of intermolecular homocoupling between them at temperatures above 600 K. The cycloaromatization of individual n octane molecules requires bending the linear adsorbates prior to their dehydrogenation and the formation of an intramolecular C-C bond, yielding adsorbed benzene rings. In addition, the Pt(111) surface catalyzes a homocoupling reaction by initiating the formation of a C-C bond between the dehydrogenated methyl ends of the chemisorbed n octane molecules and then propagating along the carbon backbone in a zipper like fashion. Our findings provide molecular level insight into the heterogeneous catalytic processes underlying the generation of aromatic products and stable on surface polycyclic species.

The recent Belle II evidence for $B^+ \to K^+ ν\barν$, combined with a suppressed branching fraction ratio $R \equiv \mathcal{B}(B^0 \to K^{*0} ν\barν) / \mathcal{B}(B^+ \to K^+ ν\barν)$, necessitates new physics contributing to both left- and right-handed vector operators. We perform a systematic topological classification of one-loop completions that radiatively generate both operators without tree-level mediation, and construct two minimal benchmark scenarios: a scalar-rich model and a fermion-rich model. Evaluating these frameworks under specific benchmark mass schemes and four distinct flavor structures, we find a generic anti-correlation where enhancing one decay channel typically suppresses the other. A notable exception is a decoupled flavor configuration within the scalar-rich model, which yields simultaneous constructive interference, reducing $R$ by $4.22\%$ while satisfying all complementary flavor bounds. Under a universal coupling assumption, the scalar-rich model yields exact cancellation in the charged mode, highlighting the non-trivial interplay between flavor structure and loop-generated Wilson coefficients.

Predicting polymer glass transition temperatures (Tg) with first-principles fidelity has long remained out of reach, as cooling multi-thousand-atom systems over a broad temperature range at acceptable rates exceeds the computational limits of ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD). Here we employ a hybrid scheme that merges AIMD with accelerated on-the-fly (OTF) machine-learned force-field (MLFF) construction, enabling Tg prediction at quantum-mechanical accuracy with near-classical computational cost. The OTF protocol to construct MLFFs adaptively triggers first-principles calculations only when newly encountered configurations lie outside the current model's domain of confidence, allowing robust, parameter-free MLFFs to be built from merely 1000 AIMD-sampled configurations per polymer. These MLFFs are then utilized to perform long-time cooling simulations on amorphous supercells containing several thousand atoms. Applied across twelve polymers spanning aromatic, aliphatic, heteroatomic, and branched chemistries, the method yields predictions in excellent accord with experiment while reducing computational cost by approximately six orders of magnitude relative to AIMD. This work establishes a new paradigm for predictive polymer modeling, demonstrating that OTF-MLFFs provide a generalizable, accurate, and scalable route to simulating the thermophysical behavior of complex disordered materials at near quantum-mechanical fidelity.

We investigate the holographic mixed-state entanglement measures in the Einstein-Maxwell-Scalar (EMS) theory. Several quantities are computed, including the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE), mutual information (MI), entanglement wedge cross-section (EWCS), and butterfly velocity ($v_B$). Our findings demonstrate that these measures can effectively diagnose phase transitions. Notably, EWCS and MI, as mixed-state entanglement measures, exhibit behavior opposite to that of the HEE. Additionally, we study the butterfly velocity, a dynamic quantum information measure, and observe that it behaves differently from the static quantum information measures. We analyze the butterfly velocity and find that its non-monotonic behavior arises from the competition between two contributions in its expression, which the analytic structure suggests may be correlated with distinct physical interpretations. Moreover, we examine the scaling behavior of the holographic entanglement measures and find that all the critical exponents are equal to $1$, which is twice that of the scalar field. We also explore the inequality between EWCS and MI, noting that the growth rate of MI consistently exceeds that of EWCS during phase transitions. These features are expected to be universal across thermodynamic phase transitions, with the inequalities becoming more significant as one moves away from the critical point.

We consider higher-point generalizations of the "octagon" large-charge four-point function in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. These n-point polygon correlators are defined as ten-dimensional null limits of generating functions of n-point correlators of protected scalar operators with arbitrary R-charge, and are conjecturally dual to massive scattering amplitudes of W-bosons on the Coulomb branch of the theory. We present a twistor-based direct computation of the polygon loop integrands, and determine the two-loop integrands for any number of external operators. The result is expressed as a linear combination of conformal integrals, with coefficients that are rational functions of the spacetime distances and operator polarizations. We obtain an exact match with a one-loop integrability computation, and study the near-massless limit of the pentagon function.

Single-photon polymerization ensures rapid photopolymerization of centimeter-scale structures with features on the order of tens of micrometers, whereas 2PP provides sub-micrometer features at sub-millimeter scales. Existing hybrid approaches combining these techniques typically rely on stitched or layer-by-layer fabrication and often require separate printing platforms, making mesoscale manufacturing time-consuming. Here, we introduce a hybrid unified 3D printer that leverages the complementary strengths of both printing mechanisms to bridge this scale resolution-fabrication time gap. We propose integrating 2PP for high-resolution, localized spatial control with single-photon TVAM for enabling rapid, high-throughput 3D fabrication. In this approach, TVAM first forms millimeter-scale volumetric structures attached on a glass rod, via overprinting, which is then accessible, on the same platform, for subsequent high-resolution 2PP. Without needing to change the photoresin or introducing intermediate post-processing steps, we proceed to demonstrate finely printed structures via 2PP, fabricated both inside (embedded within) and on the surface of the millimeter-scale 3D objects printed with TVAM. Here, TVAM contributes in two distinct ways: by generating a pre-polymerized volume that facilitates subsequent 2PP, and by directly driving layer-less volumetric polymerization in designated regions within seconds. We experimentally demonstrate that this dual-mode strategy provides a mesoscale approach spanning four orders of magnitude in scale for rapid fabrication of millimeter-scale structures featuring 830 nm details. For applications such as micro-optics, biomedical scaffolds and tissue engineering, tens-of-micrometer features are sufficient across the majority of the volume, with higher resolution confined to localized functional regions.

It has recently been theoretically predicted and experimentally observed that a soliton resulting from nonlinearity can be pumped across an integer or fractional number of unit cells as a system parameter is slowly varied over a pump period. Nonlinear soliton pumping is now understood as the flow of instantaneous Wannier functions, ruling out the possibility of pumping a soliton across a nonzero number of unit cells over one cycle when a corresponding Wannier function does not exhibit any flow, i.e., when the corresponding Bloch band that the soliton bifurcates from is topologically trivial. Here we surprisingly find an anomalous nonlinear soliton pump where the displacement of a soliton over one cycle differs from the Chern number of the Bloch band from which the soliton comes. We show that this anomalous behavior arises from a transition of a soliton between different Wannier functions by passing through an intersite-soliton (or dipole-soliton) state. Furthermore, we find a nonlinearity-induced integer quantized pump of a soliton, allowing a soliton to travel across one unit cell during a pump period, even when the corresponding band is topologically trivial. Our results open the door to studying nonlinearity-induced pumping of solitons.

Pulsar glitches are generally viewed as stochastic events driven by sudden angular momentum transfer from the neutron star's superfluid interior to its crust. Except two peculiar pulsars with quasi-periodic glitches, this stochastic view has prevailed. Here, by clustering temporally proximate small glitches of the Crab pulsar, we uncover clear evidence of an underlying quasi-periodic modulation, challenging the paradigm of purely random behavior. Furthermore, our correlation analyses reveal a strong positive relationship between glitch cluster size and waiting time since the preceding clusters. These findings demonstrate the effect of angular momentum reservoir operating over long-term scales and enable the predictions of next glitching window. Remarkably, two minor glitches detected in July and August 2025, which align with our initial prediction made in June, should be confirmed as the onset of this predicted activity. Inspired by the initial success, we forecast the occurrence of a major glitch from now until August 2026, with possible glitch size up to a relative change in rotational frequency of $697.2 \times 10^{-9}$. Physically, the observed long-term quasi-periodicity and cluster size-waiting time correlations imply that each glitch event releases only a fraction of the stored superfluid angular momentum. This partial-release mechanism provides a unified framework for both stochastic and quasi-periodic glitch behaviors across different pulsars, underscoring the universality of the superfluid angular momentum reservoir effect. As the most intensively monitored object, the Crab pulsar serves as a natural laboratory for studying angular momentum inside neutron stars.

Phase transitions are omnipresent in modern condensed matter physics and its applications. In solids, first-order phase transformations typically occur by nucleation and growth under non-equilibrium conditions. Under constant external conditions, $\textit{e.g.}$, constant annealing temperature and pressure, the nucleation and growth dynamics are often thought of as spatially and temporally independent. Here, $\textit{in-situ}$ Bragg X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) reveals nanoscale spatial and dynamical heterogeneity in the perovskite-to-brownmillerite topotactic phase transformation in La$_{0.7}$Sr$_{0.3}$CoO$_3$ thin films annealed under constant reducing conditions over a time span of multiple hours. Specifically, a timescale associated with domain growth remains stable, with a corresponding domain wall speed of $v_d = 6 \pm 0.5 \times10^{-4}$~nm/s ($2 \pm 0.2$~nm/h), while a slower timescale, associated with temperature-driven de-pinning of domains, leads to accelerating dynamics with timescales following an aging power law with exponent -2.2$\pm$0.5. This experiment demonstrates that Bragg XPCS is a powerful tool to study nanoscale dynamics in structural phase transformations, with the ability to extract quantitative average values related to nano-domain motion $\textit{in-situ}$. The results are relevant for phase engineering of phase-change devices, as they show that nanoscale dynamics, linked to domain and domain-wall motion, can continuously evolve and speed up with time, even hours after the initiation of the phase transformation, with potential repercussions on electrical performance.

Boson stars have been extensively studied in classical gravity, but their quantum properties remain comparatively unexplored. In this paper, we compute the quantum scalar fields and stress tensor in boson star spacetimes within the framework of semiclassical gravity. Divergences are regularized using Pauli-Villars fields, and accurate numerical results are obtained through spectral methods. Employing coherent states enables a direct comparison between the classical part of the stress tensor and the quantum fluctuation. Our results indicate that strong spacetime curvature is the primary source of large quantum effects. The renormalized quantum energy density is mostly positive but the radial pressure is negative, suggesting that classical boson star solutions require modification once quantum effects are included. Moreover, in regimes of large curvature, the quantum fluctuations can constitute a significant fraction of the total stress tensor. The methods developed here can be generalized to other compact objects and used to study their response to quantum corrections.

The 1.3 mm ground-based very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), is limited by Earth's diameter, restricting its black hole shadow imaging to only M87* and Sgr A*. Extending baselines to the Moon would achieve ~0.7 uas angular resolution at 230 GHz, enabling shadow detection for a much larger sample of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). The concept is motivated by space VLBI missions and lunar exploration, including the ongoing Lunar Orbit VLBI EXperiment (LOVEX) aboard QueQiao-2 (Chang'E-7) and the planned International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). We assess shadow detectability for 31 SMBHs with predicted large angular sizes, exploring different telescope location and antenna size. Assuming a telescope at the lunar antipode, we simulate the Moon-Earth (u,v) coverage and show that sources with direction near the Moon's orbital plane yield projected baselines spanning from short to long, enabling sampling of the first visibility null - a key shadow signature. Using a geometric ring model, we identify six shadow-detectable candidates for Moon-Earth VLBI. Among these, M104, NGC 5077, and NGC 1052 are detectable with a 5 m lunar-based telescope; PGC 049940 requires 10 m; NGC 524 requires 20 m; and NGC 5252 requires 40 m. Furthermore, if space telescopes fill the baseline coverage gaps between Moon and Earth, the n=2 photon ring region is detectable for Sgr A*, M87* with a 10 m lunar-based telescope, and 12 candidates are detectable for the n=1 photon ring region using a lunar-based telescope of up to 40 m. These results provide a clear scientific and technical motivation for lunar-based telescopes in future black hole shadow studies.

The rapid scaling of deep neural networks comes at the cost of unsustainable power consumption. While optical neural networks offer an alternative, their capabilities remain constrained by the lack of efficient optical nonlinearities. To address this, we propose an optical neural computing architecture by embedding quantum emitters in inverse-designed nanophotonic structures. Due to their saturability, quantum emitters exhibit exceptionally strong nonlinearity compared with conventional materials. Using physics-aware training, we numerically demonstrate that the proposed architecture can solve complex tasks, including nonlinear classification and reinforcement learning, within all-optical neural networks. To enable fair comparison across different platforms, we introduce a framework that quantitatively links nonlinearity to a network's expressive power. Analysis shows that our quantum activation operates at $\text{nW}/μ\text{m}^2$ intensity, which is seven orders of magnitude below the nonlinearity threshold of conventional optical materials. Looking ahead to large language models, we estimate the nonlinearity-limited optical power, which scales sublinearly with model size. Our results indicate that quantum nanophotonics may provide a route toward sustainable AI inference.

We investigate dynamical dark energy models that admit non-phantom behaviour at early times, including thawing, scaling--thawing, and effective fluid extensions. Using current cosmological observations, we find that late-time background parameters remain stable across all models. Time-dependent parametrizations such as CPL show a $\sim2σ$ preference for phantom evolution at low redshift. Imposing non-phantom scaling dynamics at early times leads to strong lower bounds on the potential steepness, $λ\gtrsim 20$--$30$, constraining the early dark energy density to below the percent level at matter--radiation equality. Consequently, early scaling behaviour does not alleviate the Hubble tension and is penalised by Bayesian model selection. Our results indicate that while late-time dynamics can mildly improve the fit, early non-phantom scaling is strongly disfavoured by current data.

Fractional Chern insulators (FCI) are exotic phases of matter realized at partial filling of a Chern band that host fractionally charged anyon excitations. Recent numerical studies in several microscopic models reveal that increasing the bandwidth in an FCI can drive a direct transition into a charge-2e superconductor rather than a conventional Fermi liquid. Motivated by this surprising observation, we propose a theoretical framework that captures the intertwinement between superconductivity and fractionalization in a lattice setting. Leveraging the duality between three field-theoretic descriptions of the Jain topological order, we find that bandwidth tuning can drive a single parent FCI at $ν= 2/3$ into five different superconductors, some of which are intrinsically non-Abelian and support Majorana zero modes. Our results reveal a rich landscape of exotic superconductors with no normal state Fermi surface and predict novel higher-charge superconductors coexisting with neutral non-Abelian topological order at more general filling fractions $ν= p/(2p+1)$.

Scaling superconducting quantum processors is fundamentally limited by the escalating complexity of cryogenic wiring and the detrimental effects of microwave crosstalk and Purcell decay. This paper proposes a novel architecture based on frequency-multiplexed millimeter-wave superconducting qubits, integrating an on-chip cryogenic nonreciprocal space-time-periodic Josephson frequency multiplier as a universal control bus. The bus replaces multiple high-frequency XY drive lines with a single low-frequency input tone, which is parametrically converted into a comb of high-order harmonics, each resonantly addressing a distinct qubit. The nonreciprocal nature of the bus provides intrinsic isolation that suppresses Purcell decay and reduces coherent crosstalk by more than $98\%$ compared to a conventional reciprocal shared drive line. Full error-budget analysis demonstrates that the architecture can maintain gate errors below the fault-tolerance threshold for arrays exceeding 25 qubits, converting a crosstalk-dominated error budget into one primarily limited by intrinsic material coherence. Theoretical modeling based on a non-Markovian master equation further indicates that the engineered environment enables information backflow, offering a pathway to enhanced coherence. This integrated, frequency-multiplexed, and nonreciprocal control bus offers a compelling route toward dramatic I/O simplification, improved noise resilience, and scalable high-coherence superconducting quantum processors.

We use the Caley-Hamilton theorem to derive analytical solutions for the three-flavor neutrino propagation amplitude in a constant-density medium and their derivatives with respect to the mixing parameters. This approach avoids the diagonalization of the Hamiltonian and exploits precomputed matrix invariants to separate the dependence of oscillation probabilities on neutrino energy and propagation baseline. The results are implemented in the CHIC software, which provides simple, fast and efficient computation of oscillation probabilities and their derivatives. Finally, we demonstrate the value of probability gradients for neutrino data analyses and introduce a complementary visualization, the oscillograds, to probe underlying features of neutrino mixing.

We describe a pilot study to explore a new generation of fast and low noise CMOS image sensors for time domain astronomy, using two remote telescopes with a baseline of 1635 km. The experiment involves direct imaging with novel qCMOS image sensor technology that combines fast readout with sub-electron readout noise. Moreover, synchronized observations from two remote telescope sites will be used to explore new approaches for measuring Solar System bodies, precision stellar photometry, and speckle imaging. A fast-track installation of an ORCA-Quest2 camera at the Calar Alto Observatory 1.23m telescope has demonstrated the potential of the qCMOS technology for time domain astronomy. Numerical simulations suggest that owing to sub-electron readout noise, qCMOS sensors outperform classical CCDs for high-cadence imaging on 1m-class telescopes. The small penalty for post-readout binning, that is almost insignificant in comparison to higher readout noise detectors, opens interesting applications for scene-dependent data processing in direct imaging, and potentially even for spectroscopy.