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In this work we systematically study both the mass spectra and strong decays of the nucleon and $\Delta$ resonances up to the $N=2$ shell within a unified quark model framework with chiral dynamics. In this framework we achieve a good description of the strong decay properties of the well-established nucleon and $\Delta$ resonances. Meanwhile, the mass reversal between $N(1440)1/2^{+}$ as the first radial excitation state and the $1P$-wave nucleon resonances can be explained. We show that the three-body spin-orbit potential arising from the one-gluon exchange can cause a large configuration mixing between $N(1520)3/2^-$ and $N(1700)3/2^-$, and is also responsible for the large splitting between $\Delta(1600)1/2^-$ and $\Delta(1700)3/2^-$. Some of these baryon resonances turn to weakly couple to the $N\pi$, $N\eta$, $K\Lambda$, and $K\Sigma$ channels, which may answer the question why they have not been established in these channels via the $\pi N$ and $\gamma N$ scatterings. It shows that these ``missing resonances" may have large potentials to be established in the $N\pi\pi$ final state due to their large decay rates into either the $\Delta(1232)$ or $1P$-wave nucleon resonances via the pionic decays. Further experimental search for their signals in charmonium decays at BESIII is thus strongly recommended., Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, 12 tables

Discrete flavor symmetries have been an appealing approach for explaining the observed flavor structure, which is not justified in the Standard Model (SM). Typically, these models require a so-called flavon field in order to give rise to the flavor structure upon the breaking of the flavor symmetry by the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the flavon. Generally, in order to obtain the desired vacuum alignment, a flavon potential that includes additional so-called driving fields is required. On the other hand, allowing the flavor symmetry to be modular leads to a structure where the couplings are all holomorphic functions that depend only on a complex modulus, thus greatly reducing the number of parameters in the model. We show that these elements can be combined to simultaneously explain the flavor structure and dark matter (DM) relic abundance. We present a modular model with flavon vacuum alignment that allows for realistic flavor predictions while providing a successful fermionic DM candidate., Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures

This paper focuses on Human-Object Interaction (HOI) detection, addressing the challenge of identifying and understanding the interactions between humans and objects within a given image or video frame. Spearheaded by Detection Transformer (DETR), recent developments lead to significant improvements by replacing traditional region proposals by a set of learnable queries. However, despite the powerful representation capabilities provided by Transformers, existing Human-Object Interaction (HOI) detection methods still yield low confidence levels when dealing with complex interactions and are prone to overlooking interactive actions. To address these issues, we propose a novel approach \textsc{UAHOI}, Uncertainty-aware Robust Human-Object Interaction Learning that explicitly estimates prediction uncertainty during the training process to refine both detection and interaction predictions. Our model not only predicts the HOI triplets but also quantifies the uncertainty of these predictions. Specifically, we model this uncertainty through the variance of predictions and incorporate it into the optimization objective, allowing the model to adaptively adjust its confidence threshold based on prediction variance. This integration helps in mitigating the adverse effects of incorrect or ambiguous predictions that are common in traditional methods without any hand-designed components, serving as an automatic confidence threshold. Our method is flexible to existing HOI detection methods and demonstrates improved accuracy. We evaluate \textsc{UAHOI} on two standard benchmarks in the field: V-COCO and HICO-DET, which represent challenging scenarios for HOI detection. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that \textsc{UAHOI} achieves significant improvements over existing state-of-the-art methods, enhancing both the accuracy and robustness of HOI detection., Comment: Accepted by CVIU

Unsupervised domain adaptive segmentation aims to improve the segmentation accuracy of models on target domains without relying on labeled data from those domains. This approach is crucial when labeled target domain data is scarce or unavailable. It seeks to align the feature representations of the source domain (where labeled data is available) and the target domain (where only unlabeled data is present), thus enabling the model to generalize well to the target domain. Current image- and video-level domain adaptation have been addressed using different and specialized frameworks, training strategies and optimizations despite their underlying connections. In this paper, we propose a unified framework PiPa++, which leverages the core idea of ``comparing'' to (1) explicitly encourage learning of discriminative pixel-wise features with intraclass compactness and inter-class separability, (2) promote the robust feature learning of the identical patch against different contexts or fluctuations, and (3) enable the learning of temporal continuity under dynamic environments. With the designed task-smart contrastive sampling strategy, PiPa++ enables the mining of more informative training samples according to the task demand. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on both image-level and video-level domain adaption benchmarks. Moreover, the proposed method is compatible with other UDA approaches to further improve the performance without introducing extra parameters., Comment: This study is under IEEE TMM review. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2211.07609

We present GvSeg, a general video segmentation framework for addressing four different video segmentation tasks (i.e., instance, semantic, panoptic, and exemplar-guided) while maintaining an identical architectural design. Currently, there is a trend towards developing general video segmentation solutions that can be applied across multiple tasks. This streamlines research endeavors and simplifies deployment. However, such a highly homogenized framework in current design, where each element maintains uniformity, could overlook the inherent diversity among different tasks and lead to suboptimal performance. To tackle this, GvSeg: i) provides a holistic disentanglement and modeling for segment targets, thoroughly examining them from the perspective of appearance, position, and shape, and on this basis, ii) reformulates the query initialization, matching and sampling strategies in alignment with the task-specific requirement. These architecture-agnostic innovations empower GvSeg to effectively address each unique task by accommodating the specific properties that characterize them. Extensive experiments on seven gold-standard benchmark datasets demonstrate that GvSeg surpasses all existing specialized/general solutions by a significant margin on four different video segmentation tasks., Comment: ECCV 2024; Project page: https://github.com/kagawa588/GvSeg

We investigate the prospect of probing massive fields and testing gravitational theories with multiband observations of gravitational waves emitted from coalescing compact binaries. Focusing on the dipole radiation induced by a massive field, we show that multiband observations can probe the field with mass ranging from $10^{-16} $ to $10^{-15} {\rm eV}$, a parameter space that cannot be probed by the millihertz band observations alone. Multiband observations can also improve the constraints obtained with the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA binaries by at most 3 orders of magnitude in the mass range. Moreover, we show that multiband observations can discriminate the spin of the field, which cannot be identified with single-band observations., Comment: 9 pages,3 figures. Some comparative notes about $\Delta q$ are added

In the ultra-thin regime, Bi2Te3 films feature two surfaces (with each surface being a two-dimensional Dirac-fermion system) with complicated spin textures and a tunneling term between them. We find in this regime that the quasiparticle scattering is completely different compared with the thick-film case and even behaves differently at each thickness. The thickness-dependent warping effect and tunneling term are found to be the two main factors that govern the scattering behaviors. The inter-band back-scattering that signals the existence of a tunneling term is found to disappear at 4 quintuple layers by the step-edge reflection approach. A four-band model is presented that captures the main features of the thickness-dependent scattering behaviors. Our work clarifies that the prohibition of back-scattering guaranteed by symmetry in topological insulators breaks down in the ultra-thin regime., Comment: 31 pages, 13 figures including the supplementary materials

Optical metasurfaces have been widely used for manipulating electromagnetic waves due to their low intrinsic loss and easy fabrication. The metasurfaces employing the Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) geometric phase, called PB metasurfaces, have been extensively applied to realize spin-dependent functionalities, such as beam steering, focusing, holography, etc. The demand for PB metasurfaces in complex environments has brought about one challenging problem, i.e., the interference of multiple wave channels that limits the performance of PB metasurfaces. A promising solution is developing nonreciprocal PB metasurfaces that can isolate undesired wave channels and exhibit unidirectional functionalities. Here, we propose a mechanism to realize nonreciprocal PB metasurfaces of subwavelength thickness by using the magneto-optical effect of YIG material in synergy with the PB geometric phase of spatially rotating meta-atoms. Using full-wave numerical simulations, we show that the metasurface composed of dielectric cylinders and a thin YIG layer can achieve nearly 92% and 81% isolation of circularly polarized lights at 5.5 GHz and 6.5 GHz, respectively, attributed to the enhancement of the magneto-optical effect by the resonant Mie modes and Fabry-P\'erot cavity mode. In addition, the metasurface can enable efficient unidirectional wavefront manipulations of circularly polarized lights, including nonreciprocal beam steering and nonreciprocal beam focusing. The proposed metasurface can find highly useful applications in optical communications, optical sensing, and quantum information processing., Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures

In modular invariant models of flavor, observables must be modular invariant. The observables discussed so far in the literature are functions of the modulus $\tau$ and its conjugate, $\bar\tau$. We point out that certain combinations of observables depend only on $\tau$, i.e. are meromorphic, and in some cases even holomorphic functions of $\tau$. These functions, which we dub ``invariants'' in this Letter, are highly constrained, renormalization group invariant, and allow us to derive many of the models' features without the need for extensive parameter scans. We illustrate the robustness of these invariants in two existing models in the literature based on modular symmetries, $\Gamma_{3}$ and $\Gamma_{5}$. We find that, in some cases, the invariants give rise to robust relations among physical observables that are independent of $\tau$. Furthermore, there are instances where additional symmetries exist among the invariants. These symmetries are relevant phenomenologically and may provide a dynamical way to realize symmetries of mass matrices., Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure

The so-called Golden Mass Relation provides a testable correlation between charged-lepton and down-type quark masses, that arises in certain flavor models that do not rely on Grand Unification. Such models typically involve broken family symmetries. In this work, we demonstrate that realistic fermion mass relations can emerge naturally in modular invariant models, without relying on ad hoc flavon alignments. We provide a model-independent derivation of a class of mass relations that are experimentally testable. These relations are determined by both the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients of the specific finite modular group and the expansion coefficients of its modular forms, thus offering potential probes of modular invariant models. As a detailed example, we present a set of viable mass relations based on the $\Gamma_4\cong S_4$ symmetry, which have calculable deviations from the usual Golden Mass Relation., Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures. Comments welcome! v2: Minor comments added, references added, matches published version. v3: Plots updated and improved, Acknowledgments expanded

Scene segmentation via unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) enables the transfer of knowledge acquired from source synthetic data to real-world target data, which largely reduces the need for manual pixel-level annotations in the target domain. To facilitate domain-invariant feature learning, existing methods typically mix data from both the source domain and target domain by simply copying and pasting the pixels. Such vanilla methods are usually sub-optimal since they do not take into account how well the mixed layouts correspond to real-world scenarios. Real-world scenarios are with an inherent layout. We observe that semantic categories, such as sidewalks, buildings, and sky, display relatively consistent depth distributions, and could be clearly distinguished in a depth map. Based on such observation, we propose a depth-aware framework to explicitly leverage depth estimation to mix the categories and facilitate the two complementary tasks, i.e., segmentation and depth learning in an end-to-end manner. In particular, the framework contains a Depth-guided Contextual Filter (DCF) forndata augmentation and a cross-task encoder for contextual learning. DCF simulates the real-world layouts, while the cross-task encoder further adaptively fuses the complementing features between two tasks. Besides, it is worth noting that several public datasets do not provide depth annotation. Therefore, we leverage the off-the-shelf depth estimation network to generate the pseudo depth. Extensive experiments show that our proposed methods, even with pseudo depth, achieve competitive performance on two widely-used bench-marks, i.e. 77.7 mIoU on GTA to Cityscapes and 69.3 mIoU on Synthia to Cityscapes., Comment: ACM MM 2024 (Oral)

This paper introduces a learned hierarchical B-frame coding scheme in response to the Grand Challenge on Neural Network-based Video Coding at ISCAS 2023. We address specifically three issues, including (1) B-frame coding, (2) YUV 4:2:0 coding, and (3) content-adaptive variable-rate coding with only one single model. Most learned video codecs operate internally in the RGB domain for P-frame coding. B-frame coding for YUV 4:2:0 content is largely under-explored. In addition, while there have been prior works on variable-rate coding with conditional convolution, most of them fail to consider the content information. We build our scheme on conditional augmented normalized flows (CANF). It features conditional motion and inter-frame codecs for efficient B-frame coding. To cope with YUV 4:2:0 content, two conditional inter-frame codecs are used to process the Y and UV components separately, with the coding of the UV components conditioned additionally on the Y component. Moreover, we introduce adaptive feature modulation in every convolutional layer, taking into account both the content information and the coding levels of B-frames to achieve content-adaptive variable-rate coding. Experimental results show that our model outperforms x265 and the winner of last year's challenge on commonly used datasets in terms of PSNR-YUV.

This is the summary report of the Community Engagement Frontier for the Snowmass 2021 study of the future of particle physics. The report discusses a number of general issues of importance to the particle physics community, including (1) the relation of universities, national laboratories, and industry, (2) career paths for scientists engaged in particle physics, (3) diversity, equity, and inclusion, (4) physics education, (5) public education and outreach, (6) engagement with the government and public policy, and (7) the environmental and social impacts of particle physics., Comment: 51 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the 2021 Community Study on the Future of U.S. Particle Physics (Snowmass 2021)

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) aims to enhance the generalization of the learned model to other domains. The domain-invariant knowledge is transferred from the model trained on labeled source domain, e.g., video game, to unlabeled target domains, e.g., real-world scenarios, saving annotation expenses. Existing UDA methods for semantic segmentation usually focus on minimizing the inter-domain discrepancy of various levels, e.g., pixels, features, and predictions, for extracting domain-invariant knowledge. However, the primary intra-domain knowledge, such as context correlation inside an image, remains underexplored. In an attempt to fill this gap, we propose a unified pixel- and patch-wise self-supervised learning framework, called PiPa, for domain adaptive semantic segmentation that facilitates intra-image pixel-wise correlations and patch-wise semantic consistency against different contexts. The proposed framework exploits the inherent structures of intra-domain images, which: (1) explicitly encourages learning the discriminative pixel-wise features with intra-class compactness and inter-class separability, and (2) motivates the robust feature learning of the identical patch against different contexts or fluctuations. Extensive experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, which obtains competitive accuracy on the two widely-used UDA benchmarks, i.e., 75.6 mIoU on GTA to Cityscapes and 68.2 mIoU on Synthia to Cityscapes. Moreover, our method is compatible with other UDA approaches to further improve the performance without introducing extra parameters.

This paper proposes a learning-based video compression framework for variable-rate coding on YUV 4:2:0 content. Most existing learning-based video compression models adopt the traditional hybrid-based coding architecture, which involves temporal prediction followed by residual coding. However, recent studies have shown that residual coding is sub-optimal from the information-theoretic perspective. In addition, most existing models are optimized with respect to RGB content. Furthermore, they require separate models for variable-rate coding. To address these issues, this work presents an attempt to incorporate the conditional inter-frame coding for YUV 4:2:0 content. We introduce a conditional flow-based inter-frame coder to improve the inter-frame coding efficiency. To adapt our codec to YUV 4:2:0 content, we adopt a simple strategy of using space-to-depth and depth-to-space conversions. Lastly, we employ a rate-adaption net to achieve variable-rate coding without training multiple models. Experimental results show that our model performs better than x265 on UVG and MCL-JCV datasets in terms of PSNR-YUV. However, on the more challenging datasets from ISCAS'22 GC, there is still ample room for improvement. This insufficient performance is due to the lack of inter-frame coding capability at a large GOP size and can be mitigated by increasing the model capacity and applying an error propagation-aware training strategy., Comment: Accepted by ISCAS 2022

In our previous works, we have analyzed the two-body strong decays of the low-lying $\Omega$ baryon states within a chiral quark model. The results show that the $\Omega(2012)$ resonance favors the three-quark state with $J^P=3/2^-$ classified in the quark model. With this assignment, in the present work we further study the three-body strong decay $\Omega(2012)\to \Xi^*(1530)\bar{K} \to \Xi\pi\bar{K}$ and coupled-channel effects on $\Omega(2012)$ from nearby channels $\Xi \bar{K}$, $\Omega\eta$ and $\Xi^*(1530)\bar{K}$ within the chiral quark model as well. It is found that the $\Omega(2012)$ resonance has a sizeable decay rate into the three-body final state $\Xi\pi\bar{K}$. The predicted ratio $R_{\Xi\bar{K}}^{\Xi\pi\bar{K}}=\mathcal{B}[\Omega(2012)\to \Xi^*(1530)\bar{K}\to \Xi\pi\bar{K}]/\mathcal{B}[\Omega(2012)\to \Xi\bar{K}]\simeq 12\%$ is close to the up limit $11\%$ measured by the Belle Collaboration in 2019, however, our predicted ratio is too small to be comparable with the recent data $0.97\pm 0.31$. Furthermore, our results show that the coupled-channel effects on the $\Omega(2012)$ is not large, its components should be dominated by the bare three-quark state, while the proportion of the molecular components is only $\sim 16\%$. To clarify the nature of $\Omega(2012)$, the ratio $R_{\Xi\bar{K}}^{\Xi\pi\bar{K}}$ is expected to be tested by other experiments., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

Over the past few years, learning-based video compression has become an active research area. However, most works focus on P-frame coding. Learned B-frame coding is under-explored and more challenging. This work introduces a novel B-frame coding framework, termed B-CANF, that exploits conditional augmented normalizing flows for B-frame coding. B-CANF additionally features two novel elements: frame-type adaptive coding and B*-frames. Our frame-type adaptive coding learns better bit allocation for hierarchical B-frame coding by dynamically adapting the feature distributions according to the B-frame type. Our B*-frames allow greater flexibility in specifying the group-of-pictures (GOP) structure by reusing the B-frame codec to mimic P-frame coding, without the need for an additional, separate P-frame codec. On commonly used datasets, B-CANF achieves the state-of-the-art compression performance as compared to the other learned B-frame codecs and shows comparable BD-rate results to HM-16.23 under the random access configuration in terms of PSNR. When evaluated on different GOP structures, our B*-frames achieve similar performance to the additional use of a separate P-frame codec., Comment: Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT)

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) are not only called for to ensure morality and justice in our society, they also support ongoing and future excellence in particle physics. Over the past decade, the particle physics community has devised programs to support DEIA along multiple axes, and the way we think about measuring and implementing these initiatives has evolved. DEIA in physics is a broad topic, so in this paper we focus on the experiences of marginalized communities and outline ways different stakeholders can build a culture of equitable access for the success of marginalized individuals. Specifically, we identify urgent needs in the following areas: (1) We need to acquire a better understanding of the status quo, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to assess the effectiveness of existing programs and to develop best practices; (2) we need to develop effective and inclusive ways to engage marginalized communities; (3) we need to create infrastructure to better support members of marginalized communities, on an academic, financial and personal level; (4) we need to create an environment conducive to equitable access and success by establishing community expectations, fostering inclusion in social interactions, and holding individuals and institutions accountable; and (5) we need to establish a mechanism to monitor progress in the area of DEIA, including the implementation of the recommendations enumerated in this paper and others during the Snowmass 2021 process., Comment: Contribution to Snowmass 2021

The neutrino sector offers one of the most sensitive probes of new physics beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The mechanism of neutrino mass generation is still unknown. The observed suppression of neutrino masses hints at a large scale, conceivably of the order of the scale of a Grand Unified Theory (GUT), a unique feature of neutrinos that is not shared by the charged fermions. The origin of neutrino masses and mixing is part of the outstanding puzzle of fermion masses and mixings, which is not explained in the SM. Flavor model building for both quark and lepton sectors is important in order to gain a better understanding of the origin of the structure of mass hierarchy and flavor mixing, which constitute the dominant fraction of the SM parameters. Recent activities in neutrino flavor model building based on non-Abelian discrete flavor symmetries and modular flavor symmetries have been shown to be a promising direction to explore. The emerging models provide a framework that has a significantly reduced number of undetermined parameters in the flavor sector. Model building based on non-Abelian discrete flavor symmetries and their modular variants enables the particle physics community to interpret the current and anticipated upcoming data from neutrino experiments. Pursuit of flavor model building based on such frameworks can also provide connections to possible UV completions, in particular to string theory. We emphasize the importance of constructing models in which the uncertainties of theoretical predictions are smaller than, or at most compatible with, the error bars of measurements in neutrino experiments., Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, Contribution to Snowmass 2021

The intersection of the cosmic and neutrino frontiers is a rich field where much discovery space still remains. Neutrinos play a pivotal role in the hot big bang cosmology, influencing the dynamics of the universe over numerous decades in cosmological history. Recent studies have made tremendous progress in understanding some properties of cosmological neutrinos, primarily their energy density. Upcoming cosmological probes will measure the energy density of relativistic particles with higher precision, but could also start probing other properties of the neutrino spectra. When convolved with results from terrestrial experiments, cosmology can become even more acute at probing new physics related to neutrinos or even Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Any discordance between laboratory and cosmological data sets may reveal new BSM physics and/or suggest alternative models of cosmology. We give examples of the intersection between terrestrial and cosmological probes in the neutrino sector, and briefly discuss the possibilities of what different laboratory experiments may see in conjunction with cosmological observatories., Comment: Originally prepared for submission to the Snowmass Community Planning Exercise, 2021; Current version accepted by Physics of the Dark Universe; 136 pages; 9 Figures

The surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator (TI) hosts two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions (DFs), the gapless and spin-helical nature of which yields many exotic phenomena, such as the immunity of topological surface states (TSS) to back-scattering. This leads to their high transmission through surface defects or potential barriers. Quantum corrals, previously elaborated on metal surfaces, can act as nanometer-sized electronic resonators to trap Schr\"odinger electrons by quantum confinement. It is thus intriguing, concerning their peculiar nature, to put the Dirac electrons of TSS to the test in similar circumstances. Here, we report the behaviors of TSS in a triangular quantum corral (TQC) fabricated by epitaxially growing Bi bilayer nanostructures on the surfaces of Bi2Te3 films. Unlike a circular corral, the TQC is supposed to be totally transparent for DFs. By mapping the electronic structure of TSS inside TQCs through a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope in the real space, both the trapping and de-trapping behaviors of the TSS electrons are observed. The selection rules are found to be governed by the geometry and spin texture of the constant energy contour of TSS upon the strong hexagonal warping in Bi2Te3. Careful analysis of the quantum interference patterns of quasi-bound states yields the corresponding wave vectors of trapped TSS, through which two trapping mechanisms favoring momenta in different directions are uncovered. Our work indicates the extended nature of TSS and elucidates the selection rules of the trapping of TSS in the presence of a complicated surface state structure, giving insights into the effective engineering of DFs in TIs., Comment: 31pages, 12figures(including supplementary materials)

Modular flavor symmetries provide us with a new, promising approach to the flavor problem. However, in their original formulation the kinetic terms of the standard model fields do not have a preferred form, thus introducing additional parameters, which limit the predictive power of this scheme. In this work, we introduce the scheme of quasi-eclectic flavor symmetries as a simple fix. These symmetries are the direct product of a modular and a traditional flavor symmetry, which are spontaneously broken to a diagonal modular flavor subgroup. This allows us to construct a version of Feruglio's model with the Kaehler terms under control. At the same time, the starting point is reminiscent of what one obtains from explicit string models., Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure

We revisit the flavor symmetries arising from compactifications on tori with magnetic background fluxes. Using Euler's Theorem, we derive closed form analytic expressions for the Yukawa couplings that are valid for arbitrary flux parameters. We discuss the modular transformations for even and odd units of magnetic flux, M, and show that they give rise to finite metaplectic groups the order of which is determined by the least common multiple of the number of zero-mode flavors involved. Unlike in models in which modular flavor symmetries are postulated, in this approach they derive from an underlying torus. This allows us to retain control over parameters, such as those governing the kinetic terms, that are free in the bottom-up approach, thus leading to an increased predictivity. In addition, the geometric picture allows us to understand the relative suppression of Yukawa couplings from their localization properties in the compact space. We also comment on the role supersymmetry plays in these constructions, and outline a path towards non-supersymmetric models with modular flavor symmetries., Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables

Models with modular flavor symmetries have been thought to be highly predictive. We point out that these predictions are subject to corrections from non-holomorphic terms in the Lagrangean. Specifically, in the models discussed in the literature, the K\"ahler potential is not fixed by the symmetries, for instance. The most general K\"ahler potential consistent with the symmetries of the model contains additional terms with additional parameters, which reduce the predictive power of these constructions. We also comment on how one may conceivably retain the predictivity., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure

This report summarizes the present status of neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI). After a brief overview, several aspects of NSIs are discussed, including connection to neutrino mass models, model-building and phenomenology of large NSI with both light and heavy mediators, NSI phenomenology in both short- and long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, neutrino cross-sections, complementarity of NSI with other low- and high-energy experiments, fits with neutrino oscillation and scattering data, DUNE sensitivity to NSI, effective field theory of NSI, as well as the relevance of NSI to dark matter and cosmology. We also discuss the open questions and interesting future directions that can be pursued by the community at large. This report is based on talks and discussions during the Neutrino Theory Network NSI workshop held at Washington University in St. Louis from May 29-31, 2019 (https://indico.cern.ch/event/812851/), Comment: 104 pages; minor revision

Many popular attempts to explain the observed patterns of fermion masses involve a flavon field. Such weakly coupled scalar fields tend to dominate the energy density of the universe before they decay. If the flavon decay happens close to the electroweak transition, the right-handed electrons stay out of equilibrium until the sphalerons shut off. We show that an asymmetry in the right-handed charged leptons produced in the decay of a flavon can explain the baryon asymmetry of the universe.

This is a short review of the proposal that CP violation may be due to the fact that certain finite groups do not admit a physical CP transformation. This origin of CP violation is realized in explicit string compactifications exhibiting the Standard Model spectrum., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The appearance of scalar/moduli fields in the early universe, as motivated by string theory, naturally leads to non-thermal "moduli cosmology". Such cosmology provides a consistent framework where the generation of radiation, baryons, and dark matter can occur while maintaining successful Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and avoiding the cosmological moduli problem. We present a relatively economical construction with moduli cosmology, building on a variety of string-inspired components (e.g. supersymmetry, discrete symmetries, Green-Schwarz anomaly cancellation). We address a range of outstanding problems of particle physics and cosmology simultaneously, including the fermion mass hierarchy and flavor puzzle, the smallness of neutrino masses, baryogenesis and dark matter. Our setup, based on discrete $\mathrm{Z}_{12}^{R}$ symmetry and anomalous $\mathrm{U}(1)_A$, is void of the usual issues plaguing the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, i.e. the $\mu$-problem and the overly-rapid proton decay due to dimension-4,-5 operators. The model is compatible with $\mathrm{SU}(5)$ Grand Unification. The smallness of Dirac neutrino masses is automatically established by requiring the cancellation of mixed gravitational-gauge anomalies. The decay of the moduli field provides a common origin for the baryon number and dark matter abundance, explaining the observed cosmic coincidences, $\Omega_{B} \sim \Omega_{DM}$., Comment: 26 pages; v2: published version

We revisited the scenario of electroweak baryogenesis in the presence of large Yukawa couplings, in which it was found previously that a strongly first order electroweak phase transition can occur with the Higgs mass at its observed value of 125 GeV. Given the sensitivity of the running of the Higgs quartic coupling on the Yukawa coupling constants, we find that the addition of order one Yukawa couplings beyond the top quark drastically lowers the scale at which the Higgs potential becomes unstable. Specifically, even with only one additional order one Yukawa coupling, the scalar potential becomes unstable already at the TeV scale, assuming the Standard Model values for the Higgs sector parameters at the electroweak scale. Furthermore, by assuming the Standard Model values for the Higgs sector parameters at the TeV scale, the quartic coupling constant is driven to be larger than its Standard Model value at the electroweak scale. This in turn predicts a much lighter Higgs mass than the measured value of 125 GeV. In this scenario, the strength of the electroweak phase transition is also significantly weakened., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

This study explores the responses to ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) using a wearable forehead electroencephalography (EEG) device. We recruited fifty-five outpatients with TRD who were randomised into three approximately equal-sized groups (A: 0.5 mg/kg ketamine; B: 0.2 mg/kg ketamine; and C: normal saline) under double-blind conditions. The ketamine responses were measured by EEG signals and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) scores. At baseline, responders showed a significantly weaker EEG theta power than did non- responders (p < 0.05). Responders exhibited a higher EEG alpha power but lower EEG alpha asymmetry and theta cordance at post-treatment than at baseline (p < 0.05). Furthermore, our baseline EEG predictor classified responders and non-responders with 81.3 +- 9.5% accuracy, 82.1 +- 8.6% sensitivity and 91.9 +- 7.4% specificity. In conclusion, the rapid antidepressant effects of mixed doses of ketamine are associated with prefrontal EEG power, asymmetry and cordance at baseline and early post-treatment changes. The prefrontal EEG patterns at baseline may account for recognising ketamine effects in advance. Our randomised, double- blind, placebo-controlled study provides information regarding clinical impacts on the potential targets underlying baseline identification and early changes from the effects of ketamine in patients with TRD., Comment: This revised article is submitting to IEEE TBME

The eigenpair here means the twins consist of eigenvalue and its eigenvector. This paper introduces the three steps of our study on computing the maximal eigenpair. In the first two steps, we construct efficient initials for a known but dangerous algorithm, first for tridiagonal matrices and then for irreducible matrices, having nonnegative off-diagonal elements. In the third step, we present two global algorithms which are still efficient and work well for a quite large class of matrices, even complex for instance., Comment: Updated version

This paper is a continuation of \ct{cmf16} where an efficient algorithm for computing the maximal eigenpair was introduced first for tridiagonal matrices and then extended to the irreducible matrices with nonnegative off-diagonal elements. This paper introduces two global algorithms for computing the maximal eigenpair in a rather general setup, including even a class of real (with some negative off-diagonal elements) or complex matrices., Comment: 20 pages

The leading eigenpair (the couple of eigenvalue and its eigenvector) or the first nontrivial one has different names in different contexts. It is the maximal one in the matrix theory. The talk starts from our new results on computing the maximal eigenpair of matrices. For the unexpected results, our contribution is the efficient initial value for a known algorithm. The initial value comes from our recent theoretic study on the estimation of the leading eigenvalues. To which we have luckily obtained unified estimates which consist of the second part of the talk. In the third part of the talk, the original motivation of the study along this direction is explained in terms of a specific model. The paper is concluded by a brief overview of our study on the leading eigenvalue, or more generally on the speed of various stabilities., Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, to appear

This paper introduces some efficient initials for a well-known algorithm (an inverse iteration) for computing the maximal eigenpair of a class of real matrices. The initials not only avoid the collapse of the algorithm but are also unexpectedly efficient. The initials presented here are based on our analytic estimates of the maximal eigenvalue and a mimic of its eigenvector for many years of accumulation in the study of stochastic stability speed. In parallel, the same problem for computing the next to the maximal eigenpair is also studied., Comment: 41 pages, 1 figure

We consider a class of flavored dark matter (DM) theories where dark matter interacts with the Standard Model lepton fields at the renormalizable level. We allow for a general coupling matrix between the dark matter and leptons whose structure is beyond the one permitted by the minimal flavor violation (MFV) assumption. It is assumed that this is the only new source of flavor violation in addition to the Standard Model (SM) Yukawa interactions. The setup can be described by augmenting the SM flavor symmetry by an additional $\mathrm{SU}(3)_{\chi}$, under which the dark matter $\chi$ transforms. This framework is especially phenomenologically rich, due to possible novel flavor-changing interactions which are not present within the more restrictive MFV framework. As a representative case study of this setting, which we call "beyond MFV" (BMFV), we consider Dirac fermion dark matter which transforms as a singlet under the SM gauge group and a triplet under $\mathrm{SU}(3)_{\chi}$. The DM fermion couples to the SM lepton sector through a scalar mediator $\phi$. Unlike the case of quark-flavored DM, we show that there is no $\mathbb{Z}_3$ symmetry within either the MFV or BMFV settings which automatically stabilizes the lepton-flavored DM. We discuss constraints on this setup from flavor-changing processes, DM relic abundance as well as direct and indirect detections. We find that relatively large flavor-changing couplings are possible, while the dark matter mass is still within the phenomenologically interesting region below the TeV scale. Collider signatures which can be potentially searched for at the lepton and hadron colliders are discussed. Finally, we discuss the implications for decaying dark matter, which can appear if an additional stabilizing symmetry is not imposed., Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures; minor corrections, added references and discussion on decaying dark matter, matches published version

We point out that, for Dirac neutrinos, in addition to the standard thermal cosmic neutrino background (C$\nu$B) there could also exist a non-thermal neutrino background with comparable number density. As the right-handed components are essentially decoupled from the thermal bath of standard model particles, relic neutrinos with a non-thermal distribution may exist until today. The relic density of the non-thermal (nt) background can be constrained by the usual observational bounds on the effective number of massless degrees of freedom $N_\mathrm{eff}$, and can be as large as $n_{\nu_{\mathrm{nt}}}\lesssim 0.5\,n_\gamma$. In particular, $N_\mathrm{eff}$ can be larger than 3.046 in the absence of any exotic states. Non-thermal relic neutrinos constitute an irreducible contribution to the detection of the C$\nu$B, and, hence, may be discovered by future experiments such as PTOLEMY. We also present a scenario of chaotic inflation in which a non-thermal background can naturally be generated by inflationary preheating. The non-thermal relic neutrinos, thus, may constitute a novel window into the very early universe., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

We show that there is a class of finite groups, the so-called perfect groups, which cannot exhibit anomalies. This implies that all non-Abelian finite simple groups are anomaly-free. On the other hand, non-perfect groups generically suffer from anomalies. We present two different ways that allow one to understand these statements., Comment: 11 pages

The note begins with a short story on seeking for a practical sufficiency theorem for the uniqueness of time-continuous Markov jump processes, starting around 1977. The general result was obtained in 1985 for the processes with general state spaces. To see the sufficient conditions are sharp, a dual criterion for non-uniqueness was obtained in 1991. This note is restricted however to the discrete state space (then the processes are called $Q$-processes or Markov chains), for which the sufficient conditions just mentioned are showing at the end of the note to be necessary. Some examples are included to illustrate that the sufficient conditions either for uniqueness or for non-uniqueness are not only powerful but also sharp., Comment: 11 pages

For discrete spectrum of 1D second-order differential/difference operators (with or without potential (killing), with the maximal/minimal domain), a pair of unified dual criteria are presented in terms of two explicit measures and the harmonic function of the operators. Interes\-tingly, these criteria can be read out from the ones for the exponential convergence of four types of stability studied earlier, simply replacing the `finite supremum' by `vanishing at infinity'. Except a dual technique, the main tool used here is a transform in terms of the harmonic function, to which two new practical algorithms are introduced in the discrete context and two successive approximation schemes are reviewed in the continuous context. All of them are illustrated by examples. The main body of the paper is devoted to the hard part of the story, the easier part but powerful one is delayed to the end of the paper., Comment: 31 pages, 1 figure in Commun. Math. Stat. (2015)

To estimate the optimal constant in Hardy-type inequalities, some variational formulas and approximating procedures are introduced. The known basic estimates are improved considerably. The results are illustrated by typical examples. It is shown that the sharp factor is meaningful for each finite interval and a classical sharp model is re-examined., Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures in Acta Mathematica Sinica, English Series 2015

The mixed principal eigenvalue of $p\,$-Laplacian (equivalently, the optimal constant of weighted Hardy inequality in $L^p$ space) is studied in this paper. Several variational formulas for the eigenvalue are presented. As applications of the formulas, a criterion for the positivity of the eigenvalue is obtained. Furthermore, an approximating procedure and some explicit estimates are presented case by case. An example is included to illustrate the power of the results of the paper., Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures in Front. Math. China 2015

The book "Continuous-Time Markov Chains" by W. J. Anderson collects a large part of the development in the past thirty years. It is now a popular reference for the researchers on this subject or related fields. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding of the approximating methods, several results in the book are incorrectly stated or proved. Since the results are related to the present author's work, to whom it may be a duty to correct the mistakes in order to avoid further confusion. We emphasize the approximating methods because they are useful in many situations., Comment: In the past twenty years or more, we have seen several times that some results from the book under review are either incorrectly used or cited. The uploaded older paper may be helpful to classify some confusions. Two footnotes are newly added

This paper surveys some of our recent progress on Hardy-type inequa\-lities which consist of a well-known topic in Harmonic Analysis. In the first section, we recall the original probabilistic motivation dealing with the stability speed in terms of the $L^2$-theory. A crucial application of a result by Fukushima and Uemura (2003) is included. In the second section, the non-linear case (a general Hardy-type inequality) is handled with a direct and analytic proof. In the last section, it is illustrated that the basic estimates presented in the first two sections can still be improved considerably., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, Festschrift Masatoshi Fukushima: In Honor of Masatoshi Fukushima's Sanju. World Scientific, 2015

Based on a new explicit representation of the solution to the Poisson equation with respect to single birth processes, the unified treatment for various criteria on classical problems (including uniqueness, recurrence, ergodicity, exponential ergodicity, strong ergodicity, as well as extinction probability etc.) for the processes are presented., Comment: Some modifications are made in this version

This paper deals with the principal eigenvalue of discrete $p$-Laplacian on the set of nonnegative integers. Alternatively, it is studying the optimal constant of a class of weighted Hardy inequalities. The main goal is the quantitative estimates of the eigenvalue. The paper begins with the case having reflecting boundary at origin and absorbing boundary at infinity. Several variational formulas are presented in different formulation: the difference form, the single summation form and the double summation form. As their applications, some explicit lower and upper estimates, a criterion for positivity (which was known years ago), as well as an approximating procedure for the eigenvalue are obtained. Similarly, the dual case having absorbing boundary at origin and reflecting boundary at infinity is also studied. Two examples are presented at the end of Section 2 to illustrate the value of the investigation., Comment: Typos are corrected

For a large class of integral operators or second order differential operators, their isospectral (or cospectral) operators are constructed explicitly in terms of $h$-transform (duality). This provides us a simple way to extend the known knowledge on the spectrum (or the estimation of the principal eigenvalue) from a smaller class of operators to a much larger one. In particular, an open problem about the positivity of the principal eigenvalue for birth--death processes is solved in the paper., Comment: Corrections are made in this version

In his classical article[3](1953), J.Kiefer introduced the Fibonacci search as a direct optimal method. The optimality was proved under the restriction: the total number of tests is given in advance and fixed. To avoid this restriction, some different concepts of optimality were proposed and some corresponding optimal me\-thods were obtained in [1], [2], [5] and [6]. In particular, the even-block search was treated in [1]. This paper deals with the odd-block search. The main result is Theorem (1.15)., Comment: Typos are corrected in this version

We consider supersymmetric extensions of the standard model in which the usual $R$ or matter parity gets replaced by another $R$ or non-$R$ discrete symmetry that explains the observed longevity of the nucleon and solves the $\mu$ problem of MSSM. In order to identify suitable symmetries, we develop a novel method of deriving the maximal $\mathbb{Z}_{N}^{(R)}$ symmetry that satisfies a given set of constraints. We identify $R$ parity violating (RPV) and conserving models that are consistent with precision gauge unification and also comment on their compatibility with a unified gauge symmetry such as the Pati-Salam group. Finally, we provide a counter-example to the statement found in the recent literature that the lepton number violating RPV scenarios must have $\mu$ term and the bilinear $\kappa \, L \, H_u$ operator of comparable magnitude., Comment: v2: references added, minor corrections; matches published version in Nucl. Phys. B

The peculiar nature of topological surface states, such as absence of backscattering, weak anti-localization, and quantum anomalous Hall effect, has been demonstrated mainly in bulk and film of topological insulator (TI), using surface sensitive probes and bulk transport probes. However, it is equally important and experimentally challenging to confine massless Dirac fermions with nano-steps on TI surfaces. This potential structure has similar ground with linearly-dispersed photons in Fabry-P\'{e}rot resonators, while reserving fundamental differences from well-studied Fabry-P\'{e}rot resonators and quantum corrals on noble metal surfaces. In this paper, we study the massless Dirac fermions confined within steps along the $x$ ($\Gamma\mathtt{-}$K) or $y$ ($\Gamma\mathtt{-}$M) direction on the TI surface, and the Fabry-P\'{e}rot-like resonances in the electronic local density of states (LDOS) between the steps are found. Due to the remarkable warping effect in the topological surface states, the LDOS confined in the step-well running along $\Gamma$-M direction exhibit anisotropic resonance patterns as compared to those in the step-well along $\Gamma$-K direction, which can be detected by scanning tunneling microscopy. The transmittance properties and spin orientation of Dirac fermion in both cases are also anisotropic in the presence of warping effect., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures

Only phase space is typically used to obtain final state particle spectra in rare decay searches, which is a crude approximation in the case of three body processes. We will demonstrate how both dynamics and phase space can be approximately accounted for, in processes such as nucleon decays $p \rightarrow e^+ \bar{\nu} \nu$ or $p \rightarrow \mu^+ \bar{\nu} \nu$ originating from Grand Unification models, using general effective Fermi theory formalism of electroweak muon decay $\mu \rightarrow e^+ \bar{\nu} \nu$. This approach allows for a more precise and only weakly model dependent approximation of final particle spectra for these and similar decays, which may improve rare process searches in current and near-future experiments., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures