Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Testing the Cosmic Censorship Conjecture with point particles: the effect of radiation reaction and the self-force

A classical thought-experiment to destroy black holes was envisaged by Wald in 1974: it consists of throwing particles with large angular momentum into an extremal black hole, checking whether their capture can over-spin the black hole past the extremal limit and create a naked singularity. Wald showed that in the test-particle limit, particles that would be otherwise capable of producing naked singularities are simply scattered. Recently Jacobson and Sotiriou showed that if one considers instead a black hole that is almost, but not exactly extremal, then in the absence of backreaction effects particle capture could indeed over-spin the spacetime above the Kerr limit. Here we analyze back-reaction effects and show that for some of the trajectories giving rise to naked singularities, radiative effects can be neglected. However, for these orbits the conservative self-force is important, and seems to have the right sign to prevent the formation of naked singularities.
Monitoring induced distributed double-couple sources using Marchenko-based virtual receivers

Abstract. We aim to monitor and characterize signals in the subsurface by combining these passive signals with recorded reflection data at the surface of the Earth. To achieve this, we propose a method to create virtual receivers from reflection data using the Marchenko method. By applying homogeneous Green’s function retrieval, these virtual receivers are then used to monitor the responses from subsurface sources. We consider monopole point sources with a symmetric source signal, where the full wavefield without artefacts in the subsurface can be obtained. Responses from more complex source mechanisms, such as double-couple sources, can also be used and provide results with comparable quality as the monopole responses. If the source signal is not symmetric in time, our technique that is based on homogeneous Green’s function retrieval provides an incomplete signal, with additional artefacts. The duration of these artefacts is limited and they are only present when the source of the signal is located above the virtual receiver. For sources along a fault rupture, this limitation is also present and more severe due to the source activating over a longer period of time. Part of the correct signal is still retrieved, as well as the source location of the signal. These aretefacts do not occur in another method which creates virtual sources as well as receivers from reflection data at the surface. This second method can be used to forecast responses to possible future induced seismicity sources (monopoles, double-couple sources and fault ruptures). This method is applied to field data, where similar results to synthetic data are achieved, which shows the potential for the application on real data signals.
Kasner solutions, climbing scalars and big-bang singularity

We elaborate on a recently discovered phenomenon where a scalar field close to big-bang is forced to climb a steep potential by its dynamics. We analyze the phenomenon in more general terms by writing the leading order equations of motion near the singularity. We formulate the conditions for climbing to exist in the case of several scalars and after inclusion of higher-derivative corrections and we apply our results to some models of moduli stabilization. We analyze an example with steep stabilizing potential and notice again a related critical behavior: for a potential steepness above a critical value, going backwards towards big-bang, the scalar undergoes wilder oscillations, with the steep potential pushing it back at every passage and not allowing the scalar to escape to infinity. Whereas it was pointed out earlier that there are possible implications of the climbing phase to CMB, we point out here another potential application, to the issue of initial conditions in inflation.
Last-Mile Embodied Visual Navigation

Realistic long-horizon tasks like image-goal navigation involve exploratory and exploitative phases. Assigned with an image of the goal, an embodied agent must explore to discover the goal, i.e., search efficiently using learned priors. Once the goal is discovered, the agent must accurately calibrate the last-mile of navigation to the goal. As with any robust system, switches between exploratory goal discovery and exploitative last-mile navigation enable better recovery from errors. Following these intuitive guide rails, we propose SLING to improve the performance of existing image-goal navigation systems. Entirely complementing prior methods, we focus on last-mile navigation and leverage the underlying geometric structure of the problem with neural descriptors. With simple but effective switches, we can easily connect SLING with heuristic, reinforcement learning, and neural modular policies. On a standardized image-goal navigation benchmark (Hahn et al. 2021), we improve performance across policies, scenes, and episode complexity, raising the state-of-the-art from 45% to 55% success rate. Beyond photorealistic simulation, we conduct real-robot experiments in three physical scenes and find these improvements to transfer well to real environments.
Transitionless quantum drivings for the harmonic oscillator

Two methods to change a quantum harmonic oscillator frequency without transitions in a finite time are described and compared. The first method, a transitionless-tracking algorithm, makes use of a generalized harmonic oscillator and a non-local potential. The second method, based on engineering an invariant of motion, only modifies the harmonic frequency in time, keeping the potential local at all times.
Production of exotic charmonium in γ γ interactions at hadron colliders

In this paper we investigate the Exotic Charmonium (EC) production in $\gamma \gamma$ interactions present in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies as well as for the proposed energies of the Future Circular Collider (FCC). Our results demonstrate that the experimental study of these processes is feasible and can be used to constrain the theoretical decay widths and shed some light on the configuration of the considered multiquark states.
Flavor Physics Constraints for Physics Beyond the Standard Model

Over the past decade, much progress in experimentally measuring and theoretically understanding flavor physics has been achieved. Specifically, the accuracy of the determination of the CKM elements has been greatly improved, and a large number of (a) flavor-changing neutral-current processes involving b→d, b→s, and c→u transitions and (b) CP-violating asymmetries have been measured. No evidence for new physics has been established. Consequently, strong constraints on new physics at a high scale apply. In particular, the flavor structure of new physics at the teraelectronvolt scale is strongly constrained. We review these constraints and discuss future prospects to better understand the flavor structure of physics beyond the Standard Model.
Angular momentum of z ∼ 1.5 galaxies and their local analogues with adaptive optics

We present stellar specific angular momentum j* measurements of two z ∼ 1.5 galaxies in the KGES sample and 12 DYNAMO z ∼ 0.1 analogues of high-redshift galaxies. We combine natural seeing integral field spectroscopic data to trace line emission out to high multiples of effective radius re, with adaptive optics assisted Keck/OSIRIS observations to trace the rapid rise in rotation curve in the inner regions. Our spaxel-wise integration method gives results that are on average within measurement uncertainty of the traditional rotation curve model method. At z ∼ 0, combining GMOS and OSIRIS data sets improves the measurement uncertainty in j* from 13 per cent (GMOS only) or 16 per cent (OSIRIS only) to 10 per cent. At z ∼ 1.5, systematics allow for at best 20 per cent uncertainty on j*. DYNAMO analogues of high-z galaxies have low j* for their stellar mass M*, and low bulge-to-total light ratio β for their j*/M*. The high-z galaxy COSMOS 127977 has j*/M* consistent with normal local disc galaxies, while UDS 78317 is consistent with local analogues. However, our high-resolution OSIRIS data reveal that UDS 78317 may be a merging system. We report a relationship between distance to the β−j*/M* plane and the ratio of velocity dispersion to rotational velocity σ/vmax, where galaxies that deviate more from the plane are more dispersion-dominated due to turbulence. Much of the scatter in M*−j* that is not explained by variations in the bulge-to-total ratio or evolution with redshift may be driven by increased turbulence due to star formation, or by treating mergers as rotating discs.
Derivation of the Paraxial Ray Equations in Three Conformal Representations

Acoustic rays can be described by null geodesics of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. This allows for the immediate generalization of paraxial ray systems via geodesic deviation. The technique has appeared in the literature for the past decade and has been used by the author in the development of dynamic ray trace codes. The techniques involved are powerful but abstract and frequently unfamiliar in the field of acoustics. This brief paper derives the complete paraxial system for the case of acoustics in the presence of an inhomogeneous isotopic time independent media described by a sound speed profile c(x,y,z). The derivation is performed for three distinct conformal representations of the acoustic metric.
Interpreting the evolution of galaxy colours from z = 8 to 5

We attempt to interpret existing data on the evolution of the UV luminosity function and UV colours, β, of galaxies at 5 ≤ z ≤ 8, to improve our understanding of their dust content and interstellar medium properties. To this aim, we post-process the results of a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation with a chemical evolution model, which includes dust formation by supernovae and intermediate-mass stars, dust destruction in supernova shocks, and grain growth by accretion of gas-phase elements in dense gas. We find that observations require a steep, Small Magellanic Cloud-like extinction curve and a clumpy dust distribution, where stellar populations younger than 15 Myr are still embedded in their dusty natal clouds. Investigating the scatter in the colour distribution and stellar mass, we find that the observed trends can be explained by the presence of two populations: younger, less massive galaxies where dust enrichment is mainly due to stellar sources, and massive, more chemically evolved ones, where efficient grain growth provides the dominant contribution to the total dust mass. Computing the IR-excess-UV colour relation, we find that all but the dustiest model galaxies follow a relation shallower than the Meurer et al. one, usually adopted to correct the observed UV luminosities of high-z galaxies for the effects of dust extinction. As a result, their total star formation rates might have been overestimated. Our study illustrates the importance to incorporate a proper treatment of dust in simulations of high-z galaxies, and that massive, dusty, UV-faint galaxies might have already appeared at z ≲ 7.
Magnetogenesis from axion inflation

In this work we compute the production of magnetic fields in models of axion inflation coupled to the hypercharge sector of the Standard Model through a Chern-Simons interaction term. We make the simplest choice of a quadratic inflationary potential and use lattice simulations to calculate the magnetic field strength, helicity and correlation length at the end of inflation. For small values of the axion-gauge field coupling strength the results agree with no-backreaction calculations and estimates found in the literature. For larger couplings the helicity of the magnetic field differs from the no-backreaction estimate and depends strongly on the comoving wavenumber. We estimate the post-inflationary evolution of the magnetic field based on known results for the evolution of helical and non-helical magnetic fields. The magnetic fields produced by axion inflation with large couplings to U(1)Y can reach Beff ≳ 10−16 G, exhibiting a field strength Bphys ≈ 10−13 G and a correlation length λphys ≈10 pc. This result is insensitive to the exact value of the coupling, as long as the coupling is large enough to allow for instantaneous preheating. Depending on the assumptions for the physical processes that determine blazar properties, these fields can be found consistent with blazar observations based on the value of Beff. Finally, the intensity of the magnetic field for large coupling can be enough to satisfy the requirements for a recently proposed baryogenesis mechanism, which utilizes the chiral anomaly of the Standard Model.
Study of young stellar objects around SNR G18.8+0.3

In recent works, through observations of molecular lines, we found that the supernova remnant (SNR) G18.8+0.3 is interacting with a molecular cloud towards its southern edge. Also it has been proven the presence of several neighboring HII regions very likely located at the same distance as the remnant. The presence of dense molecular gas and the existence of shock fronts generated by the SNR and HII regions make this region an interesting scenario to study the population of young stellar objects. Thus, using the most modern colour criteria applied to the emission in the mid-infrared bands obtained from IRAC and MIPS on board Spitzer, we characterized all the point sources lying in this region. We analyzed the spectral energy distributions of sources that show signs of being young stellar objects in order to confirm their nature and derive stellar parameters. Additionally, we present a map of the $^{12}$CO J=3-2 emission obtained with the ASTE telescope towards one of the HII regions embedded in the molecular cloud. The molecular gas was studied with the aim to analyze whether the cloud is a potential site of star formation.
HST/ACS PHOTOMETRY OF OLD STARS IN NGC 1569: THE STAR FORMATION HISTORY OF A NEARBY STARBURST

We used Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys to obtain deep V- and I-band images of NGC 1569, one of the closest and strongest starburst galaxies in the universe. These data allowed us to study the underlying old stellar population, aimed at understanding NGC 1569's evolution over a full Hubble time. We focus on the less-crowded outer region of the galaxy, for which the color–magnitude diagram (CMD) shows predominantly a red giant branch (RGB) that reaches down to the red clump/horizontal branch feature (RC/HB). A simple stellar population analysis gives clear evidence for a more complicated star formation history (SFH) in the outer region. We derive the full SFH using a newly developed code, SFHMATRIX, which fits the CMD Hess diagram by solving a non-negative least-squares problem. Our analysis shows that the relative brightnesses of the RGB tip and RC/HB, along with the curvature and color of the RGB, provide enough information to ameliorate the age–metallicity-extinction degeneracy. The distance/reddening combination that best fits the data is E(B − V) = 0.58 ± 0.03 and D = 3.06 ± 0.18 Mpc. Star formation began ∼13 Gyr ago, and this accounts for the majority of the mass in the outer region. However, the initial burst was followed by a relatively low, but constant, rate of star formation until ∼0.5–0.7 Gyr ago when there may have been a short, low intensity burst of star formation. Stellar metallicity increases over time, consistent with chemical evolution expectations. The dominant old population shows a considerable spread in metallicity, similar to the Milky Way halo. However, the star formation in NGC 1569's outer region lasted much longer than in the Milky Way. The distance and line-of-sight velocity of NGC 1569 indicate that it has moved through the IC 342 group of galaxies, which may have caused this extended star formation. Comparison with other recent work provides no evidence for radial population gradients in the old population of NGC 1569, suggesting that our results are representative of the old stellar population throughout the galaxy.
Young Massive Star Clusters

Young massive clusters (YMCs) are dense aggregates of young stars that form the fundamental building blocks of galaxies. Several examples exist in the Milky Way Galaxy and the Local Group, but they are particularly abundant in starburst and interacting galaxies. The few YMCs that are close enough to resolve are of prime interest for studying the stellar mass function and the ecological interplay between stellar evolution and stellar dynamics. The distant unresolved clusters may be effectively used to study the star-cluster mass function, and they provide excellent constraints on the formation mechanisms of young cluster populations. YMCs are expected to be the nurseries for many unusual objects, including a wide range of exotic stars and binaries. So far only a few such objects have been found in YMCs, although their older cousins, the globular clusters, are unusually rich in stellar exotica. In this review, we focus on star clusters younger than ∼100 Myr, more than a few current crossing times old, and m.
Classification of Standard Model Particles in $E_6$ Orbifold Grand Unified Theories

We classify the standard model fermions, which originate from bulk fields of the 27 or representation after orbifold breaking, in E6 grand unified theories on five- or six-dimensional space–time, under the condition that q, ec and uc survive as zero modes for each 27 or . We study features of supersymmetric SU(5) ×U(1)1 ×U(1)2 model.
Optical Response of Monolayer CdTe/CdS Quantum Dots to X-rays and Gamma-rays

We investigate the influence of X-ray and gamma-ray irradiation on the photophysical properties of sub-monolayer CdTe/CdS quantum dots (QDs) immobilized in porous silica (PSiO2) scaffolds. The highly luminescent QD-PSiO2 thin films allow for straightforward monitoring of the optical properties of the QDs through continuous wave and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. The PSiO2 host matrix itself does not modify the QD properties. X-ray irradiation of the QD-PSiO2 films in air leads to an exponential decrease in QD emission intensity, an exponential blue-shift in peak emission energy, and substantially faster exciton decay rates with increasing exposure doses from 2.2 Mrad(SiO2) to 6.6 Mrad(SiO2). Gamma-ray irradiation of a QD-PSiO2 thin film at a total exposure dose of 700 krad(SiO2) in a nitrogen environment results in over 80% QD photodarkening but no concurrent blue-shift in peak emission energy due to a lack of photo-oxidative effects. Near-complete and partial reversal of irradiation-induced photodarkening was demonstrated on X-ray and gamma-ray irradiated samples, respectively, through the use of a surface re-passivating solution, suggesting that there are different contributing mechanisms responsible for photodarkening under different irradiation energies. This work contributes to improving the reliability and robustness of QD based heterogeneous devices that are exposed to high risk, high energy environments with the possibility of also developing QD-based large area, low-cost, re-useable, and flexible optical dosimeters.
Massive Higher Derivative Gravity in D-dimensional Anti-de Sitter Spacetimes

We find the propagator and calculate the tree level scattering amplitude between two covariantly conserved sources in an anti-de Sitter background for the most general D-dimensional quadratic, four-derivative, gravity with a Pauli-Fierz mass. We also calculate the Newtonian potential for various limits of the theory in flat space. We show how the recently introduced three-dimensional New Massive Gravity is uniquely singled out among higher derivative models as a (tree level) unitary model and that its Newtonian limit is equivalent to that of the usual massive gravity in flat space.
Ovarian cancer stem cells: Critical roles in anti-tumor immunity

Ovarian cancer is a significant cause of cancer-related mortality in women. Over the past 3 decades, there has been a high incidence of recurrent chemoresistant disease, despite the relative effectiveness of current treatment strategies. This is partly attributed to cancer stem cells (CSC), a subpopulation that has acquired stem cell properties that allow these cells to evade standard chemotherapy and cause disease recurrence. Therefore, there is an urgent need for basic knowledge about CSC to develop innovative therapeutic approaches for ovarian cancer. These CSC subpopulations have been identified in ovarian cancer cell lines, tumors or ascites, and findings suggest that ovarian CSCs may be as heterogeneous as the disease itself. CSCs regulate the phenotype and function of immune cells involved in antitumor immunity, so a better understanding of the signaling pathways that interact between CSCs, immune cells and tumor cells will pave the way for the clinical application of CS in cancer immunotherapy. This review will focus on the markers currently used to identify and isolate these cells summarize current knowledge on the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for CSC-dependent regulation of antitumor immune responses. We will discuss the signaling pathways involved in CSC survival, replication, and differentiation as well as potential therapeutic targeting strategies.
ARE QUANTUM STATES REAL

In this paper we consider theories in which reality is described by some underlying variables, λ. Each value these variables can take represents an ontic state (a particular state of reality). The preparation of a quantum state corresponds to a distribution over the ontic states, λ. If we make three basic assumptions, we can show that the distributions over ontic states corresponding to distinct pure states are nonoverlapping. This means that we can deduce the quantum state from a knowledge of the ontic state. Hence, if these assumptions are correct, we can claim that the quantum state is a real thing (it is written into the underlying variables that describe reality). The key assumption we use in this proof is ontic indifference — that quantum transformations that do not affect a given pure quantum state can be implemented in such a way that they do not affect the ontic states in the support of that state. In fact this assumption is violated in the Spekkens toy model (which captures many aspects of quantum theory and in which different pure states of the model have overlapping distributions over ontic states). This paper proves that ontic indifference must be violated in any model reproducing quantum theory in which the quantum state is not a real thing. The argument presented in this paper is different from that given in a recent paper by Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph. It uses a different key assumption and it pertains to a single copy of the system in question.
Thought Experiments on Gravitational Forces

Large contributions to the near closure of the Universe and to the acceleration of its expansion are due to the gravitation of components of the stress-energy tensor other than its mass density. To familiarise astronomers with the gravitation of these components we conduct thought experiments on gravity, analogous to the real experiments that our forebears conducted on electricity. By analogy to the forces due to electric currents we investigate the gravitational forces due to the ows of momentum, angular momentum, and energy along a cylinder. Under tension the gravity of the cylinder decreases but the ’closure’ of the 3-space around it increases. When the cylinder carries a torque the ow of angular momentum along it leads to a novel helical interpretation of Levi-Civita’s external metric and a novel relativistic eect. Energy