cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Topology Optimization of Compliant Mechanisms With Strength Considerations

Multicriteria formulations that have been reported previously in topology design of compliant mechanisms address flexibility and stiffness issues simultaneously and aim to attain an optimal balance between these two conflicting attributes. Such techniques are successful in indirectly controlling the local stress levels by constraining the input displacement. Individual control on the conflicting objectives is often difficult to achieve with these flexibility-stiffness formulations. Resultant topologies may sometimes be overly stiff, and there is no guarantee against failure. Local stresses may exceed the permissible yield strength of the constituting material in such designs. In this article, local failure conditions relating to stress constraints are incorporated in topology optimization algorithms to obtain compliant and strong designs. Quality functions are employed to impose stress constraints on retained material, ignoring nonexisting regions in the design domain. Stress constraints are further relax...
The Outer Rim Simulation: A Path to Many-core Supercomputers

We describe the Outer Rim cosmological simulation, one of the largest high-resolution N-body simulations performed to date, aimed at promoting science to be carried out with large-scale structure surveys. The simulation covers a volume of (4.225Gpc)^3 and evolves more than one trillion particles. It was executed on Mira, a BlueGene/Q system at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. We discuss some of the computational challenges posed by a system like Mira, a many-core supercomputer, and how the simulation code, HACC, has been designed to overcome these challenges. We have carried out a large range of analyses on the simulation data and we report on the results as well as the data products that have been generated. The full data set generated by the simulation totals more than 5PB of data, making data curation and data handling a large challenge in of itself. The simulation results have been used to generate synthetic catalogs for large-scale structure surveys, including DESI and eBOSS, as well as CMB experiments. A detailed catalog for the LSST DESC data challenges has been created as well. We publicly release some of the Outer Rim halo catalogs, downsampled particle information, and lightcone data.
New physics in inclusive semileptonic $B$ decays including nonperturbative corrections

In this work we study the effects of New Physics (NP) operators on the inclusive $\bar{B} \to X_c \tau^- \bar{\nu}_\tau$ decay including power $(\mathcal{O}(1/m_b^2))$ corrections in the NP operators. In analogy with $R(D^{(*)})$ observables, we study the observable $R(X_c)=\frac{\mathcal{B}(\bar{B} \to X_c \tau^- \bar{\nu}_\tau)}{\mathcal{B}(\bar{B} \to X_c \ell^- \bar{\nu}_\ell)}$. We present some numerical results for $R(X_c)$ and compare the results for this observable with and without power corrections in the NP contributions.
50 Years of the Golomb–Welch Conjecture

Since 1968, when the Golomb–Welch conjecture was raised, it has become the main motive power behind the progress in the area of the perfect Lee codes. Although, there is a vast literature on the topic and it is widely believed to be true, this conjecture is far from being solved. In this paper, we provide a survey of papers on the Golomb–Welch conjecture. Furthermore, new results on Golomb–Welch conjecture dealing with perfect Lee codes of large radii are presented. Algebraic ways of tackling the conjecture in the future are discussed as well. Finally, a brief survey of research inspired by the conjecture is given.
GALAXY CLUSTER ENVIRONMENTS OF RADIO SOURCES

Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters (FIRST) catalogs, we examined the optical environments around double-lobed radio sources. Previous studies have shown that multi-component radio sources exhibiting some degree of bending between components are likely to be found in galaxy clusters. Often this radio emission is associated with a cD-type galaxy at the center of a cluster. We cross-correlated the SDSS and FIRST catalogs and measured the richness of the cluster environments surrounding both bent and straight multi-component radio sources. This led to the discovery and classification of a large number of galaxy clusters out to a redshift of z ~ 0.5. We divided our sample into smaller subgroups based on their optical and radio properties. We find that FR I radio sources are more likely to be found in galaxy clusters than FR II sources. Further, we find that bent radio sources are more often found in galaxy clusters than non-bent radio sources. We also examined the environments around single-component radio sources and find that single-component radio sources are less likely to be associated with galaxy clusters than extended, multi-component radio sources. Bent, visually selected sources are found in clusters or rich groups ~78% of the time. Those without optical hosts in SDSS are likely associated with clusters at even higher redshifts, most with redshifts of z>0.7.
The integration of high-k dielectric on two-dimensional crystals by atomic layer deposition

We investigate the integration of Al2O3 high-k dielectric on two-dimensional (2D) crystals of boron nitride (BN) and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) by atomic layer deposition (ALD). We demonstrate the feasibility of direct ALD growth with trimethylaluminum and water as precursors on both 2D crystals. Through theoretical and experimental studies, we found that the initial ALD cycles play the critical role, during which physical adsorption dominates precursor adsorption at the crystal surface. We model the initial ALD growth stages at the 2D surface by analyzing Lennard-Jones potentials, which could guide future optimization of the ALD process on 2D crystals.
Phase coherence and Andreev reflection in topological insulator devices

Topological insulators (TIs) have attracted immense interest because they host helical surface states. Protected by time-reversal symmetry, they are robust to nonmagnetic disorder. When superconductivity is induced in these helical states, they are predicted to emulate p-wave pairing symmetry, with Majorana states bound to vortices. Majorana bound states possess non-Abelian exchange statistics that can be probed through interferometry. Here, we take a significant step towards Majorana interferometry by observing pronounced Fabry-Perot oscillations in a TI sandwiched between a superconducting and a normal lead. For energies below the superconducting gap, we observe a doubling in the frequency of the oscillations, arising from an additional phase from Andreev reflection. When a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the TI surface, a number of very sharp and gate-tunable conductance peaks appear at or near zero energy, which has consequences for interpreting spectroscopic probes of Majorana fermions. Our results show that TIs are a promising platform for exploring phase-coherent transport in a solid-state system.
Optical manifestations of domains with constant topological charge density

This paper studies the influence of temporal variations of the topological charge density. The authors focus on how this chiral anomaly manifest itself more dominantly through the boundary conditions and show this in two optics examples.
Intermediate Disorder Regime for Half-Space Directed Polymers

We consider the convergence of point-to-point partition functions for the half-space directed polymer model in dimension 1+1 in the intermediate disorder regime as introduced for the full space model by Alberts, Khanin and Quastel in [1]. By scaling the inverse temperature as $$\beta n^{-1/4}$$ , the point-to-point partition function converges to the chaos series for the solution to stochastic heat equation with Robin boundary condition and delta initial data. Furthermore, the convergence result is then applied to the exact-solvable log-gamma directed polymer model in a half-space.
Requirements for contractility in disordered cytoskeletal bundles

Actomyosin contractility is essential for biological force generation, and is well understood in highly organized structures such as striated muscle. Additionally, actomyosin bundles devoid of this organization are known to contract both in vivo and in vitro, which cannot be described by standard muscle models. To narrow down the search for possible contraction mechanisms in these systems, we investigate their microscopic symmetries. We show that contractile behavior requires non-identical motors that generate large-enough forces to probe the nonlinear elastic behavior of F-actin. This suggests a role for filament buckling in the contraction of these bundles, consistent with recent experimental results on reconstituted actomyosin bundles.
Yarrp'ing the Internet: Randomized High-Speed Active Topology Discovery

Obtaining a "snapshot" of the Internet topology remains an elusive task. Existing active topology discovery techniques and systems require significant probing time -- time during which the underlying network may experience transient dynamics. This work considers how active probing can gather the Internet topology in minutes rather than days. Conventional approaches to active topology mapping face two primary speed and scale impediments: i) per-trace state maintenance; and ii) a low-degree of parallelism. Based on this observation, we develop Yarrp (Yelling at Random Routers Progressively), a new traceroute technique designed for high-rate, Internet-scale probing. Yarrp is stateless, reconstituting all necessary information from ICMP replies as they arrive asynchronously. To avoid overloading routers or links with probe traffic, Yarrp randomly permutes an input IP X TTL space. We run Yarrp at 100Kpps, a rate at which the paths to all IPv4 /24's can be mapped in approximately one hour from a single vantage point. We compare Yarrp against existing systems, and present examples of topological dynamics exposed via the high sampling rates Yarrp enables.
Passive-Aggressive Learning and Control

In this work, we investigate the problem of simultaneously learning and controlling a system subject to adversarial choices of disturbances and system parameters. We study the problem for a scalar system with $l_{\infty}$ -norm bounded disturbances and system parameters constrained to lie in a known bounded convex polytope. We present a controller that is globally stabilizing and gives continuously improving bounds on the worst case state deviation. The proposed controller simultaneously learns the system parameters and controls the system. The controller emerges naturally from an optimization problem, and balances exploration and exploitation in such a way that it is able to efficiently stabilize unstable and adversarial system dynamics. Specifically if the controller is faced with large uncertainty, the initial focus is on exploration, retrieving information about the system by applying state-feedback controllers with varying gains and signs. In a prespecified bounded region around the origin, our control strategy can be seen as passive in the sense that it learns very little information. Only once the noise and/or system parameters act in an adversarial way, leading to the the state exiting the aforementioned region for more than one time-step, our proposed controller behaves aggressively in that it is guaranteed to learn enough about the system to subsequently robustly stabilize it. We end by demonstrating the efficiency of our methods via numerical simulations.
Holographic RG flows with nematic IR phases

We construct zero-temperature geometries that interpolate between a Lifshitz fixed point in the UV and an IR phase that breaks spatial rotations but preserves translations. We work with a simple holographic model describing two massive gauge fields coupled to gravity and a neutral scalar. Our construction can be used to describe RG flows in non-relativistic, strongly coupled quantum systems with nematic order in the IR. In particular, when the dynamical critical exponent of the UV fixed point is z = 2 and the IR scaling exponents are chosen appropriately, our model realizes holographically the scaling properties of the bosonic modes of the quadratic band crossing model.
Lensing of stars by spherical gas clouds

Cold gas clouds of ~Jovian mass and ~AU size will act as lenses for optical light. If the Galaxy contains ~1011 M☉ in such clouds, background stars will be magnified at a detectable rate. The resulting light curves can resemble those due to gravitational lensing by a point mass, raising the possibility that some events attributed to gravitational lensing might instead be due to "gaseous lensing." During a lensing event, the lens would impose narrow infrared and far-red H2 absorption lines on the stellar spectrum. Existing programs to observe gravitational microlensing, supplemented by spectroscopy, can therefore be used to either detect such events or place limits on the number of such gas clouds present in the Galaxy.
Exact solution of corner-modified banded block-Toeplitz eigensystems

Motivated by the challenge of seeking a rigorous foundation for the bulk-boundary correspondence for free fermions, we introduce an algorithm for determining exactly the spectrum and a generalized-eigenvector basis of a class of banded block quasi-Toeplitz matrices that we call corner-modified. Corner modifications of otherwise arbitrary banded block-Toeplitz matrices capture the effect of boundary conditions and the associated breakdown of translational invariance. Our algorithm leverages the interplay between a non-standard, projector-based method of kernel determination (physically, a bulk-boundary separation) and families of linear representations of the algebra of matrix Laurent polynomials. Thanks to the fact that these representations act on infinite-dimensional carrier spaces in which translation symmetry is restored, it becomes possible to determine the eigensystem of an auxiliary projected block-Laurent matrix. This results in an analytic eigenvector Ansatz, independent of the system size, which we prove is guaranteed to contain the full solution of the original finite-dimensional problem. The actual solution is then obtained by imposing compatibility with a boundary matrix, also independent of system size. As an application, we show analytically that zero-energy topological boundary modes of short-ranged fermionic tight-binding models may display power-law corrections to exponential decay, and demonstrate the phenomenon for the paradigmatic Majorana chain of Kitaev.
Mass-radius Relations and Core-envelope Decompositions of Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes

Many exoplanets have been discovered with radii of 1-4 R ?, between that of Earth and Neptune. A number of these are known to have densities consistent with solid compositions, while others are sub-Neptunes likely to have significant H2-He envelopes. Future surveys will no doubt significantly expand these populations. In order to understand how the measured masses and radii of such planets can inform their structures and compositions, we construct models both for solid layered planets and for planets with solid cores and gaseous envelopes, exploring a range of core masses, H2-He envelope masses, and associated envelope entropies. For planets in the super-Earth/sub-Neptune regime for which both radius and mass are measured, we estimate how each is partitioned into a solid core and gaseous envelope, associating a specific core mass and envelope mass with a given exoplanet. We perform this decomposition for both Earth-like rock-iron cores and pure ice cores, and find that the necessary gaseous envelope masses for this important sub-class of exoplanets must range very widely from zero to many Earth masses, even for a given core mass. This result bears importantly on exoplanet formation and envelope evaporation processes.
Walking stabilization using step timing and location adjustment on the humanoid robot, Atlas

While humans are highly capable of recovering from external disturbances and uncertainties that result in large tracking errors, humanoid robots have yet to reliably mimic this level of robustness. Essential to this is the ability to combine traditional “ankle strategy” balancing with step timing and location adjustment techniques. In doing so, the robot is able to step quickly to the necessary location to continue walking. In this work, we present both a new swing speed up algorithm to adjust the step timing, allowing the robot to set the foot down more quickly to recover from errors in the direction of the current capture point dynamics, and a new algorithm to adjust the desired footstep, expanding the base of support to utilize the center of pressure (CoP)-based ankle strategy for balance. We then utilize the desired centroidal moment pivot (CMP) to calculate the momentum rate of change for our inverse-dynamics based whole-body controller. We present simulation and experimental results using this work, and discuss performance limitations and potential improvements.
Bounds on the Number of Non-Simple Closed Geodesics on a Surface

We give bounds on the number of non-simple closed curves on a negatively curved surface, given upper bounds on both length and self-intersection number. In particular, it was previously known that the number of all closed curves of length at most $L$ grows exponentially in $L$. We get exponentially tighter bounds given weak conditions on self-intersection number.
MEASURING CONSISTENT MASSES FOR 25 MILKY WAY GLOBULAR CLUSTERS

We present central velocity dispersions, masses, mass-to-light ratios (M/Ls ), and rotation strengths for 25 Galactic globular clusters (GCs). We derive radial velocities of 1951 stars in 12 GCs from single order spectra taken with Hectochelle on the MMT telescope. To this sample we add an analysis of available archival data of individual stars. For the full set of data we fit King models to derive consistent dynamical parameters for the clusters. We find good agreement between single-mass King models and the observed radial dispersion profiles. The large, uniform sample of dynamical masses we derive enables us to examine trends of M/L with cluster mass and metallicity. The overall values of M/L and the trends with mass and metallicity are consistent with existing measurements from a large sample of M31 clusters. This includes a clear trend of increasing M/L with cluster mass and lower than expected M/Ls for the metal-rich clusters. We find no clear trend of increasing rotation with increasing cluster metallicity suggested in previous work.
Software-Defined Radio GNSS Instrumentation for Spoofing Mitigation: A Review and a Case Study

Recently, several global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) emerged following the transformative technology impact of the first GNSS—U.S. global positioning system (GPS). The power level of GNSS signals as measured at earth’s surface is below the noise floor and is consequently vulnerable against interference. Spoofers are smart GNSS-like interferers, which mislead the receivers into generating false position and time information. While many spoofing mitigation techniques exist, spoofers are continually evolving, producing a cycle of new spoofing attacks and counter-measures against them. Thus, upgradability of receivers becomes an important advantage for maintaining their immunity against spoofing. Software-defined radio implementations of a GPS receiver address such flexibility but are challenged by demanding computational requirements of both GNSS signal processing and spoofing mitigation. Therefore, this paper reviews reported SDRs in the context of instrumentation capabilities for both conventional and spoofing mitigation modes. This separation is necessitated by significantly increased computational loads when in spoofing domain. This is demonstrated by a case study budget analysis.
$G$-symmetric monoidal categories of modules over equivariant commutative ring spectra

We describe the multiplicative structures that arise on categories of equivariant modules over certain equivariant commutative ring spectra. Building on our previous work on N∞ ring spectra, we construct categories of equivariant operadic modules over N∞ rings that are structured by equivariant linear isometries operads. These categories of modules are endowed with equivariant symmetric monoidal structures, which amounts to the structure of an “incomplete Mackey functor in homotopical categories”. In particular, we construct internal norms which satisfy the double coset formula. One application of the work of this paper is to provide a context in which to describe the behavior of Bousfield localization of equivariant commutative rings. We regard the work of this paper as a first step towards equivariant derived algebraic geometry.
Using a Power Law distribution to describe big data

The gap between data production and user ability to access, compute and produce meaningful results calls for tools that address the challenges associated with big data volume, velocity and variety. One of the key hurdles is the inability to methodically remove expected or uninteresting elements from large data sets. This difficulty often wastes valuable researcher and computational time by expending resources on uninteresting parts of data. Social sensors, or sensors which produce data based on human activity, such as Wikipedia, Twitter, and Facebook have an underlying structure which can be thought of as having a Power Law distribution. Such a distribution implies that few nodes generate large amounts of data. In this article, we propose a technique to take an arbitrary dataset and compute a power law distributed background model that bases its parameters on observed statistics. This model can be used to determine the suitability of using a power law or automatically identify high degree nodes for filtering and can be scaled to work with big data.
On multiple zeta values of even arguments

For k ≤ n, let E(2n,k) be the sum of all multiple zeta values with even arguments whose weight is 2n and whose depth is k. Of course E(2n, 1) is the value ζ(2n) of the Riemann zeta function at 2n, and it is well known that E(2n, 2) = 3 4ζ(2n). Recently Shen and Cai gave formulas for E(2n, 3) and E(2n, 4) in terms of ζ(2n) and ζ(2)ζ(2n − 2). We give two formulas for E(2n,k), both valid for arbitrary k ≤ n, one of which generalizes the Shen–Cai results; by comparing the two we obtain a Bernoulli-number identity. We also give explicit generating functions for the numbers E(2n,k) and for the analogous numbers E⋆(2n,k) defined using multiple zeta-star values of even arguments.
PRESTELLAR CORE FORMATION, EVOLUTION, AND ACCRETION FROM GRAVITATIONAL FRAGMENTATION IN TURBULENT CONVERGING FLOWS

We investigate prestellar core formation and accretion based on three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. Our simulations represent local ∼1 pc regions within giant molecular clouds where a supersonic turbulent flow converges, triggering star formation in the post-shock layer. We include turbulence and self-gravity, applying sink particle techniques, and explore a range of inflow Mach numbers . Two sets of cores are identified and compared: t1 cores are identified from a time snapshot in each simulation and represent dense structures in a single cloud map; tcoll cores are identified at their individual time of collapse and represent the initial mass reservoir for accretion. We find that cores and filaments form and evolve at the same time. At the stage of core collapse, there is a well-defined, converged characteristic mass for isothermal fragmentation that is comparable to the critical Bonnor–Ebert mass at the post-shock pressure. The core mass functions (CMFs) of tcoll cores show a deficit of high-mass cores () compared to the observed stellar initial mass function (IMF). However, the CMFs of t1 cores are similar to the observed CMFs and include many low-mass cores that are gravitationally stable. The difference between t1 cores and tcoll cores suggests that the full sample from observed CMFs may not evolve into protostars. Individual sink particles accrete at a roughly constant rate throughout the simulations, gaining one core mass per freefall time even after the initial mass reservoir is accreted. High-mass sinks gain proportionally more mass at later times than low-mass sinks. There are outbursts in accretion rates, resulting from clumpy density structures falling into the sinks.
Optical Devices Based on Limit Cycles and Amplification in Semiconductor Optical Cavities

At strong pump powers, a semiconductor optical cavity passes through a Hopf bifurcation and undergoes self-oscillation. We simulate this device using semiclassical Langevin equations and assess the effect of quantum fluctuations on the dynamics. Below threshold, the cavity acts as a phase-insensitive linear amplifier, with noise $\sim 5\times$ larger than the Caves bound. Above threshold, the limit cycle acts as an analog memory, and the phase diffusion is $\sim 10\times$ larger than the bound set by the standard quantum limit. We also simulate entrainment of this oscillator and propose an optical Ising machine and classical CNOT gate based on the effect.
Full-state quantum circuit simulation by using data compression

Quantum circuit simulations are critical for evaluating quantum algorithms and machines. However, the number of state amplitudes required for full simulation increases exponentially with the number of qubits. In this study, we leverage data compression to reduce memory requirements, trading computation time and fidelity for memory space. Specifically, we develop a hybrid solution by combining the lossless compression and our tailored lossy compression method with adaptive error bounds at each timestep of the simulation. Our approach optimizes for compression speed and makes sure that errors due to lossy compression are uncorrelated, an important property for comparing simulation output with physical machines. Experiments show that our approach reduces the memory requirement of simulating the 61-qubit Grover's search algorithm from 32 exabytes to 768 terabytes of memory on Argonne's Theta supercomputer using 4,096 nodes. The results suggest that our techniques can increase the simulation size by 2~16 qubits for general quantum circuits.
A SIMPLE METHOD FOR COMPUTING SOLITON STATISTICS

I propose a simple method for identifying the statistics of kink-type solitons in a large class of theories. The method is based on the Witten index, but can in fact be used to determine soliton statistics in non-supersymmetric theories as well.
The Atmospheric Circulation and Observable Properties of Non-synchronously Rotating Hot Jupiters

We study the feasibility of observationally constraining the rotation rate of hot Jupiters, planets that are typically assumed to have been tidally locked into synchronous rotation. We use a three-dimensional General Circulation Model to solve for the atmospheric structure of two hot Jupiters (HD 189733b and HD 209458b), assuming rotation periods that are 0.5, 1, or 2 times their orbital periods (2.2 and 3.3 days, respectively), including the effect of variable stellar heating. We compare two observable properties: (1) the spatial variation of flux emitted by the planet, measurable in orbital phase curves, and (2) the net Doppler shift in transmission spectra of the atmosphere, which is tantalizingly close to being measurable in high-resolution transit spectra. Although we find little difference between the observable properties of the synchronous and non-synchronous models of HD 189733b, we see significant differences when we compare the models of HD 209458b. In particular, the slowly rotating model of HD 209458b has an atmospheric circulation pattern characterized by westward flow and an orbital phase curve that peaks after secondary eclipse (in contrast to all of our other models), while the quickly rotating model has a net Doppler shift that is more strongly blueshifted than the othermore » models. Our results demonstrate that the combined use of these two techniques may be a fruitful way to constrain the rotation rate of some planets and motivate future work on this topic.« less
Convex Union Representability and Convex Codes

Abstract We introduce and investigate $d$-convex union representable complexes: the simplicial complexes that arise as the nerve of a finite collection of convex open sets in ${\mathbb{R}}^d$ whose union is also convex. Chen, Frick, and Shiu recently proved that such complexes are collapsible and asked if all collapsible complexes are convex union representable. We disprove this by showing that there exist shellable and collapsible complexes that are not convex union representable; there also exist non-evasive complexes that are not convex union representable. In the process we establish several necessary conditions for a complex to be convex union representable such as that such a complex $\Delta $ collapses onto the star of any face of $\Delta $, that the Alexander dual of $\Delta $ must also be collapsible, and that if $k$ facets of $\Delta $ contain all free faces of $\Delta $, then $\Delta $ is $(k-1)$-representable. We also discuss some sufficient conditions for a complex to be convex union representable. The notion of convex union representability is intimately related to the study of convex neural codes. In particular, our results provide new families of examples of non-convex neural codes.
Free martingale polynomials

Abstract In this paper we investigate the properties of free Sheffer systems, which are certain families of martingale polynomials with respect to the free Levy processes. First, we classify such families that consist of orthogonal polynomials; these are the free analogs of the Meixner systems. Next, we show that the fluctuations around free convolution semigroups have as principal directions the polynomials whose derivatives are martingale polynomials. Finally, we indicate how Rota's finite operator calculus can be modified for the free context.
Asymptotic laws for random knot diagrams

We study random knotting by considering knot and link diagrams as decorated, (rooted) topological maps on spheres and pulling them uniformly from among sets of a given number of vertices $n$, as first established in recent work with Cantarella and Mastin. The knot diagram model is an exciting new model which captures both the random geometry of space curve models of knotting as well as the ease of computing invariants from diagrams. We prove that unknot diagrams are asymptotically exponentially rare, an analogue of Sumners and Whittington's landmark result for self-avoiding walks. Our proof uses the same key idea: We first show that knot diagrams obey a pattern theorem, which describes their fractal structure. We examine how quickly this behavior occurs in practice. As a consequence, almost all diagrams are asymmetric, simplifying sampling from this model. We conclude with experimental data on knotting in this model. This model of random knotting is similar to those studied by Diao et al., and Dunfield et al.
Unraveling the Beautiful Complexity of Simple Lattice Model Polymers and Proteins Using Wang-Landau Sampling

We describe a class of “bare bones” models of homopolymers which undergo coil-globule collapse and proteins which fold into their native states in free space or into denatured states when captured by an attractive substrate as the temperature is lowered. We then show how, with the use of a properly chosen trial move set, Wang-Landau Monte Carlo sampling can be used to study the rough free energy landscape and ground (native) states of these intriguingly simple systems and thus elucidate their thermodynamic complexity.
Reconstruction of a function from its spherical (circular) means with the centers lying on the surface of certain polygons and polyhedra

We present explicit filtration/backprojection-type formulae for the inversion of the spherical (circular) mean transform with the centers lying on the boundary of some polyhedra (or polygons, in 2D). The formulae are derived using the double-layer potentials for the wave equation, for domains with certain symmetries. The formulae are valid for a rectangle and certain triangles in 2D, and for a cuboid, certain right prisms and a certain pyramid in 3D. All the present inversion formulae yield exact reconstruction within the domain surrounded by the acquisition surface even in the presence of exterior sources.
BCS as Foundation and Inspiration: The Transmutation of Symmetry

The BCS theory injected two powerful ideas into the collective consciousness of theoretical physics: pairing and spontaneous symmetry breaking. In the 50 years since the seminal work of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer, those ideas have found important use in areas quite remote from the stem application to metallic superconductivity. This is a brief and eclectic sketch of some highlights, emphasizing relatively recent developments in QCD and in the theory of quantum statistics, and including a few thoughts about future directions. A common theme is the importance of symmetry transmutation, as opposed to the simple breaking of electromagnetic U(1) symmetry in classic metallic superconductors.
Deep Multi-attributed Graph Translation with Node-Edge Co-Evolution

Generalized from image and language translation, graph translation aims to generate a graph in the target domain by conditioning an input graph in the source domain. This promising topic has attracted fast-increasing attention recently. Existing works are limited to either merely predicting the node attributes of graphs with fixed topology or predicting only the graph topology without considering node attributes, but cannot simultaneously predict both of them, due to substantial challenges: 1) difficulty in characterizing the interactive, iterative, and asynchronous translation process of both nodes and edges and 2) difficulty in discovering and maintaining the inherent consistency between the node and edge in predicted graphs. These challenges prevent a generic, end-to-end framework for joint node and edge attributes prediction, which is a need for real-world applications such as malware confinement in IoT networks and structural-to-functional network translation. These real-world applications highly depend on hand-crafting and ad-hoc heuristic models, but cannot sufficiently utilize massive historical data. In this paper, we termed this generic problem "multi-attributed graph translation" and developed a novel framework integrating both node and edge translations seamlessly. The novel edge translation path is generic which is proven to be a generalization of the existing topology translation models. Then, a spectral graph regularization based on our non-parametric graph Laplacian is proposed to learn and maintain the consistency of the predicted nodes and edges. Finally, extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world application data demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Leptin suppresses development of GLP-1 inputs to the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus

The nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) is critical for the central integration of signals from visceral organs and contains preproglucagon (PPG) neurons, which express leptin receptors in the mouse and send direct projections to the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH). Here, we visualized projections of PPG neurons in leptin-deficient Lepob/ob mice and found that projections from PPG neurons are elevated compared with controls, and PPG projections were normalized by targeted rescue of leptin receptors in LepRbTB/TB mice, which lack functional neuronal leptin receptors. Moreover, Lepob/ob and LepRbTB/TB mice displayed increased levels of neuronal activation in the PVH following vagal stimulation, and whole-cell patch recordings of GLP-1 receptor-expressing PVH neurons revealed enhanced excitatory neurotransmission, suggesting that leptin acts cell autonomously to suppress representation of excitatory afferents from PPG neurons, thereby diminishing the impact of visceral sensory information on GLP-1 receptor-expressing neurons in the PVH.
The Structure of Galaxies: II. Fitting Functions and Scaling Relations for Ellipticals

Surface photometry of 311 ellipticals from the 2MASS imaging database is analyzed with respect to the two most common fitting functions; the r^1/4 law and the Sersic r^1/n model. The advantages and disadvantages of each fitting function are examined. In particular, the r^1/4 law performs well in the middle regions, but is inadequate for the core (inner 5 kpcs) and the outer regions (beyond the half-light radius) which do not have r^1/4 shapes. It is found that the Sersic r^1/n model produce good fits to the core regions of ellipticals (r < r_half), but is an inadequate function for the entire profile of an elliptical from core to halo due to competing effects on the Sersic n index and the fact that the interior shape of an elliptical is only weakly correlated with its halo shape. In addition, there are a wide range of Sersic parameters that will equally describe the shape of the outer profile, degrading the Sersic models usefulness as a describer of the entire profile. Empirically determined parameters, such as half-light radius and total luminosity, have less scatter than fitting function variables. The scaling relations for ellipticals are often non-linear, but for ellipticals brighter than M_J < -23 the following structural relations are found: L propto r^0.8 \pm 0.1, L propto Sigma^-0.5 \pm 0.1 and Sigma propto r^-1.5 \pm 0.1.
Weighing the black hole via quasi-local energy

We set to weigh the black holes at their event horizons in various spacetimes and obtain masses which are substantially higher than their asymptotic values. In each case, the horizon mass of a Schw...
Radio properties of NLS1s

Abstract While NLS1s have been studied intensively at X-ray and optical wavelengths, comparatively little is known about their characteristics in the radio band. Therefore, we have carried out an investigation of the radio luminosities, source sizes, spectral index distribution, and variability of a large, uniformly selected sample of NLS1s. Our results indicate that, in some respects, the radio properties of NLS1s differ from those of classical Seyfert galaxies. Radio observations of NLS1s may thus provide important clues regarding the nature of their nuclear activity.
The Statistical Properties of Solar Wind Temperature Parameters Near 1 au

We present a long-duration (approx. 10 yr) statistical analysis of the temperatures, plasma betas, and temperature ratios for the electron, proton, and alpha-particle populations observed by the Wind spacecraft near 1 au. The mean(median) scalar temperatures are T(sub e)(sub tot) = 12.2(11.9) eV, T(sub p)(sub tot) = 12.7(8.6) eV, and T(sub a)(sub tot) = 23.9(10.8) eV. The mean(median) total plasma betas are Beta(sub e)(sub tot) = 2.31(1.09), Beta(sub p)(sub tot) = 1.79(1.05), and Beta(sub a)(sub tot) = 0.17(0.05). The mean(median) temperature ratios are (T(sub e)/T(sub p))(sub tot) = 1.64(1.27), (T(sub e)/T(sub a))(sub tot) = 1.24(0.82), and (T(sub a)/T(sub p))(sub tot) = 2.50(1.94). We also examined these parameters during time intervals that exclude interplanetary (IP) shocks, times within the magnetic obstacles (MOs) of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), and times that exclude MOs. The only times that show significant alterations to any of the parameters examined are those during MOs. In fact, the only parameter that does not show a significant change during MOs is the electron temperature. Although each parameter shows a broad range of values, the vast majority are near the median. We also compute particle–particle collision rates and compare to effective wave–particle collision rates. We find that, for reasonable assumptions of wave amplitude and occurrence rates, the effect of wave–particle interactions on the plasma is equal to or greater than the effect of Coulomb collisions. Thus, wave–particle interactions should not be neglected when modeling the solar wind.
Topological insulators and C∗-algebras: Theory and numerical practice

Abstract We apply ideas from C∗-algebra to the study of disordered topological insulators. We extract certain almost commuting matrices from the free Fermi Hamiltonian, describing band projected coordinate matrices. By considering topological obstructions to approximating these matrices by exactly commuting matrices, we are able to compute invariants quantifying different topological phases. We generalize previous two dimensional results to higher dimensions; we give a general expression for the topological invariants for arbitrary dimension and several symmetry classes, including chiral symmetry classes, and we present a detailed K-theory treatment of this expression for time reversal invariant three dimensional systems. We can use these results to show non-existence of localized Wannier functions for these systems. We use this approach to calculate the index for time-reversal invariant systems with spin–orbit scattering in three dimensions, on sizes up to 123, averaging over a large number of samples. The results show an interesting separation between the localization transition and the point at which the average index (which can be viewed as an “order parameter” for the topological insulator) begins to fluctuate from sample to sample, implying the existence of an unsuspected quantum phase transition separating two different delocalized phases in this system. One of the particular advantages of the C∗-algebraic technique that we present is that it is significantly faster in practice than other methods of computing the index, allowing the study of larger systems. In this paper, we present a detailed discussion of numerical implementation of our method.
Fitting formula for flux scintillation of compact radio sources

We present a fitting function to describe the statistics of flux modulations caused by interstellar scintillation. The function models a very general quantity: the cross-correlation of the flux observed from a compact radio source of finite angular size observed at two frequencies and at two positions or times. The formula will be useful for fitting data from sources such as intraday variables and gamma-ray burst afterglows. These sources are often observed at relatively high frequencies (several gigahertz), where interstellar scattering is neither very strong nor very weak, so that asymptotic formulae are inapplicable.
Exploring fine subpixel spatial resolution of hybrid CMOS detectors

When an X-ray is incident onto the silicon absorber array of a detector, it liberates a large number of electrons, which tend to diffuse outward into what is referred to as the charge cloud. This number can vary from tens to thousands across the soft X-ray bandpass (0.1 - 10 keV). The charge cloud can then be picked up by several pixels, and forms a specific pattern based on the exact incident location of the X-ray. We present experimental results on subpixel resolution for a custom H2RG with 36μm pixels, presented in Bray 2018,1 and compare the data to simulated images . We then apply the model simulation to a prototype small pixel hybrid CMOS detector (HCD) that would be suitable for the Lynx X-ray surveyor. We also discuss the ability of a small pixel detector to obtain subpixel resolution.
Detection of Photospheric Features in the Near-infrared Spectrum of a Class 0 Protostar

We present a near-infrared $K$-band $R \simeq 1500$ Keck spectrum of S68N, a Class 0 protostar in the Serpens molecular cloud. The spectrum shows a very red continuum, CO absorption bands, weak or non-existent atomic metal absorptions, and H$_2$ emission lines. The near-IR H$_2$ emission is consistent with excitation in shocks or by X-rays but not by UV radiation. We model the absorption component as a stellar photosphere plus circumstellar continuum emission with wavelength-dependent extinction. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis shows that the most likely model parameters are consistent with a low-temperature, low-gravity photosphere with significant extinction and no more than modest continuum veiling. Its $T_{\mathrm{eff}} \simeq 3260$ K effective temperature is similar to that of older, more evolved pre-main-sequence stars, but its surface gravity log $g \simeq 2.4$ cm s$^{-2}$ is approximately 1 dex lower. This implies that the radius of this protostar is a factor of $\sim 3$ larger than that of $10^6$ yr old T Tauri stars. Its low veiling is consistent with a circumstellar disk having intrinsic near-IR emission that is less than or equal to that of more evolved Class I protostars. Along with the high extinction, this suggests that most of the circumstellar material is in a cold envelope, as expected for a Class 0 protostar. This is the first known detection and analysis of a Class 0 protostar absorption spectrum.
Deep reactive ion etched anti-reflection coatings for sub-millimeter silicon optics

Refractive optical elements are widely used in millimeter and sub-millimeter (sub-mm) astronomical telescopes. High-resistivity silicon is an excellent material for dielectric lenses given its low loss tangent, high thermal conductivity, and high index of refraction. The high index of refraction of silicon causes a large Fresnel reflectance at the vacuum–silicon interface (up to 30%), which can be reduced with an anti-reflection (AR) coating. In this work, we report techniques for efficiently AR coating silicon at sub-mm wavelengths using deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and bonding the coated silicon to another silicon optic. Silicon wafers of 100 mm diameter (1 mm thick) were coated and bonded using the silicon direct bonding technique at high temperature (1100°C). No glue is used in this process. Optical tests using a Fourier transform spectrometer show sub-percent reflections for a single-layer DRIE AR coating designed for use at 320 μm on a single wafer. Cryogenic (10 K) measurements of a bonded pair of AR-coated wafers also reached sub-percent reflections. A prototype two-layer DRIE AR coating to reduce reflections and increase bandwidth is presented, and plans for extending this approach are discussed.
The “unfriending” problem: The consequences of homophily in friendship retention for causal estimates of social influence

Abstract An increasing number of scholars are using longitudinal social network data to try to obtain estimates of peer or social influence effects. These data may provide additional statistical leverage, but they can introduce new inferential problems. In particular, while the confounding effects of homophily in friendship formation are widely appreciated, homophily in friendship retention may also confound causal estimates of social influence in longitudinal network data. We provide evidence for this claim in a Monte Carlo analysis of the statistical model used by Christakis, Fowler, and their colleagues in numerous articles estimating “contagion” effects in social networks. Our results indicate that homophily in friendship retention induces significant upward bias and decreased coverage levels in the Christakis and Fowler model if there is non-negligible friendship attrition over time.
The Future of Dwarf Galaxy Research: What Telescopes Will Discover

Dwarf galaxies make ideal laboratories to test galaxy evolution paradigms and cosmological models. Detailed studies of dwarfs across the spectrum allow us to gauge the efficacy of astrophysical processes at play in the lowest mass halos such as gas accretion, feedback, turbulence and chemical enrichment. Future observational studies will deliver unprecedented insights on the orbits of dwarf companions around the Milky Way, on their star formation histories and on the 3-D internal motions of their stars. Over large volumes, we will assess the impact of local environment on baryon cycling and star formation laws, leading to a full picture of the evolution of dwarfs across cosmic time. In combination, future discoveries promise to trace the history of assembly within the Local Group and beyond, probe how stars form under pristine conditions, and test models of structure formation on small scales.