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The control of wave scattering in complex non-Hermitian settings is an exciting subject -- often challenging the creativity of researchers and stimulating the imagination of the public. Successful outcomes include invisibility cloaks, wavefront shaping protocols, active metasurface development, and more. At their core, these achievements rely on our ability to engineer the resonant spectrum of the underlying physical structures which is conventionally accomplished by carefully imposing geometrical and/or dynamical symmetries. In contrast, by taking active control over the boundary conditions in complex scattering environments which lack artificially-imposed geometric symmetries, we demonstrate via microwave experiments the ability to manipulate the spectrum of the scattering operator. This active control empowers the creation, destruction and repositioning of exceptional point degeneracies (EPD's) in a two-dimensional (2D) parameter space. The presence of EPD's signifies a coalescence of the scattering eigenmodes, which dramatically affects transport. The scattering EPD's are partitioned in domains characterized by a binary charge, as well as an integer winding number, are topologically stable in the two-dimensional parameter space, and obey winding number-conservation laws upon interactions with each other, even in cases where Lorentz reciprocity is violated; in this case the topological domains are destroyed. Ramifications of this understanding is the proposition for a unique input-magnitude/phase-insensitive 50:50 in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) power splitter. Our study establishes an important step towards complete control of scattering processes.

Rest-frame far-ultraviolet (FUV) observations from JWST are revolutionizing our understanding of the high-z galaxies that drove reionization and the mechanisms by which they accomplished it. To fully interpret these observations, we must be able to diagnose how properties of the interstellar medium (ISM; e.g., column density, covering fraction, outflow velocity) directly relate to the absorption features produced. Using the high-S/N and high-resolution FUV spectra of 45 nearby star-forming galaxies from CLASSY, we present the largest uniform, simultaneous characterization of neutral and low-ionization state (LIS) interstellar UV absorption lines (OI, SiII, SII, CII, AlII) across a wide range of galaxy properties. We also present 21-cm HI observations for 35 galaxies, multiple of which are gas-poor or non-detected, possibly indicating the onset of a post-starburst phase. We find that our simultaneous 1-component Voigt profile fits are capable of accurately modeling the LIS absorption for ~75% of galaxies, mitigating challenges associated with saturation, infilling, and degeneracies. While the most massive galaxies require additional components, our 1-component fits return average properties of the absorbing gas and follow the scaling relations described by a single gas cloud. We explore connections between LIS absorption and direct tracers of the neutral ISM (OI, Ly-alpha, HI 21-cm), finding that CII most closely traces the neutral gas trends while other ions exhibit weaker correlations. Given the challenges with directly observing HI at higher-z, we demonstrate that LIS absorption can be a powerful means to study the neutral ISM and present empirical relationships for predicting neutral gas properties., Comment: 25 pages with 16 figures and 2 tables. Long appendix with figure sets and tables. Accepted to ApJ

Galactic outflows provide important feedback effects to regulate the evolution of the host galaxies. Two primary diagnostics of galactic outflows are broad and/or blueshifted emission and absorption lines. Even though well-established methods exist to analyze these outflow signatures, connections between them are rarely studied and largely unknown. In this paper, we present the first detailed comparisons of the outflow properties measured independently from the two outflow diagnostics for a sample of 33 low-redshift star-forming galaxies. Their UV absorption lines are detected by the Hubble Space Telescope/Cosmic Origin Spectrograph, and optical emission lines are observed by the Keck/Echellette Spectrograph and Imager. We find that several outflow properties derived from emission and absorption lines are tightly correlated. These include outflow maximum velocity, line width, and sizes. Specifically, in a given galaxy, outflows seen in emission lines have smaller maximum velocities, narrower line widths, and smaller sizes than those measured from the absorption lines. These findings can be interpreted by the fact that emission line luminosity is weighted by density squared, while absorption line depth is weighted by density. We then test both spherical and bi-conical outflow models, and find the same outflow velocity and density distributions can explain the observed outflow features in emission and absorption lines for individual galaxies. These results provide novel calibration between galactic outflow properties measured from the two diagnostics and provide valuable insights for future models of galactic outflows by potentially doubling the number of observational constraints., Comment: 3 tables, 17 figures, 30 pages, submitted to ApJ

Taking part in surveys, experiments, and studies is often compensated by rewards to increase the number of participants and encourage attendance. While privacy requirements are usually considered for participation, privacy aspects of the reward procedure are mostly ignored. To this end, we introduce PrePaMS, an efficient participation management system that supports prerequisite checks and participation rewards in a privacy-preserving way. Our system organizes participations with potential (dis-)qualifying dependencies and enables secure reward payoffs. By leveraging a set of proven cryptographic primitives and mechanisms such as anonymous credentials and zero-knowledge proofs, participations are protected so that service providers and organizers cannot derive the identity of participants even within the reward process. In this paper, we have designed and implemented a prototype of PrePaMS to show its effectiveness and evaluated its performance under realistic workloads. PrePaMS covers the information whether subjects have participated in surveys, experiments, or studies. When combined with other secure solutions for the actual data collection within these events, PrePaMS can represent a cornerstone for more privacy-preserving empirical research., Comment: Prototype source code: https://github.com/vs-uulm/prepams/ Public test deployment: https://vs-uulm.github.io/prepams/

We present the design and first results of the Inner Circumgalactic Medium (CGM) of QSO Line of Sight Emitting galaxies at $z\sim 2-3$, KBSS-InCLOSE. The survey will connect galaxy properties (e.g., stellar mass $M_*$, interstellar medium ISM metallicity) with the physical conditions of the inner CGM (e.g., kinematics, metallicity) to directly observe the galaxy-scale baryon cycle. We obtain deep Keck/KCWI optical IFU pointings of Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS) QSOs to discover new star-forming galaxies at small projected distances $b\lesssim12"$ (98 kpc, $\overline{z}=2.3$), then obtain follow-up Keck/MOSFIRE NIR spectra to confirm their redshifts. We leverage KBSS images and Keck/HIRES QSO spectra to model stellar populations and inner CGM absorption. In this paper, we analyze two QSO fields and discover more than 15 new galaxies with KCWI, then use MOSFIRE for two galaxies Q2343-G1 ($z=2.43$; G1) and Q2233-N1 ($z=3.15$; N1), which are both associated with Damped Lyman Alpha absorbers. We find that G1 has typical $M_*$,UV/optical emission properties. N1 has lower $M_*$ with very strong nebular emission. We jointly analyze neutral phase CGM and ionized ISM in N/O (for the first time at this $z$), dust extinction, and high-ionization CGM finding that: G1's CGM is metal poor and less evolved than its ISM, while N1's CGM and ISM abundances are comparable; their CGM shows $\sim1$ dex less dust extinction than the ISM; and G1's CGM has direct evidence of hot, metal-rich galactic outflow ejecta. These findings support that metals and dust are driven into the CGM from outflows, but may also be e.g., stripped ISM gas or satellite enrichment. The full KBSS-InCLOSE sample will explore these scenarios., Comment: 37 pages (48 total), 14 figures (20 total), Accepted to ApJ

Ly{\alpha} emission with a dominant blueshifted peak can probe gas flowing through the circumgalactic medium as it accretes onto galaxies and fuels new star formation, although it has seldom actually been observed. Here we present new Keck Cosmic Web Imager observations of the extended Ly{\alpha} halos surrounding Q1700-BX710 and Q1700-BX711, a pair of UV continuum-selected Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS) galaxies at z = 2.3 in the HS1700+643 protocluster. We find that BX710 and BX711's Ly{\alpha} halos are aligned with a large-scale galaxy filament consisting of thirteen spectroscopically identified protocluster galaxies. By measuring the peak separation and blue-to-red peak flux ratio of the Ly{\alpha} emission profiles throughout these galaxies' Ly{\alpha} halos, we have obtained measurements of their spatially varying velocity structure. The prevalence of blue-dominated Ly{\alpha} emission profiles throughout BX711's Ly{\alpha} halo suggests actively accreting gas. We fit a clumpy, multiphase Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer model which assumes a radially varying clump velocity to the spatially resolved Ly{\alpha} emission throughout BX710 and BX711's Ly{\alpha} halos and simultaneously fit these galaxies' average down-the-barrel UV absorption profile with a radially varying velocity model. The results of these models are consistent with a combination of HI and higher-metallicity gas accretion for both galaxies, especially BX711, which exhibits inflow-driven kinematics throughout most of its Ly{\alpha} halo. We consider various accretion scenarios to explain these findings, including accretion of metal-enriched gas from the cosmic web, galaxy interactions, and recycled gas from the circumgalactic medium, all of which are compatible with our current observations.

The Wigner-Smith time-delay of flux conserving systems is a real quantity that measures how long an excitation resides in an interaction region. The complex generalization of time-delay to non-Hermitian systems is still under development, in particular, its statistical properties in the short-wavelength limit of complex chaotic scattering systems has not been investigated. From the experimentally measured multi-port scattering ($S$)-matrices of one-dimensional graphs, a two-dimensional billiard, and a three-dimensional cavity, we calculate the complex Wigner-Smith ($\tau_{WS}$), as well as each individual reflection ($\tau_{xx}$) and transmission ($\tau_{xy}$) time-delays. The complex reflection time-delay differences ($\tau_{\delta R}$) between each port are calculated, and the transmission time-delay differences ($\tau_{\delta T}$) are introduced for systems exhibiting non-reciprocal scattering. Large time-delays are associated with coherent perfect absorption, reflectionless scattering, slow light, and uni-directional invisibility. We demonstrate that the large-delay tails of the distributions of the real and imaginary parts of each of these time-delay quantities are superuniversal, independent of experimental parameters: uniform attenuation $\eta$, number of scattering channels $M$, wave propagation dimension $\mathcal{D}$, and Dyson symmetry class $\beta$. This superuniversality is in direct contrast with the well-established time-delay statistics of unitary scattering systems, where the tail of the $\tau_{WS}$ distribution depends explicitly on the values of $M$ and $\beta$. Due to the direct analogy of the wave equations, the time-delay statistics described in this paper are applicable to any non-Hermitian wave-chaotic scattering system in the short-wavelength limit, such as quantum graphs, electromagnetic, optical and acoustic resonators, etc., Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letters

In computational practice, we often encounter situations where only measurements at equally spaced points are available. Using standard polynomial interpolation in such cases can lead to highly inaccurate results due to numerical ill-conditioning of the problem. Several techniques have been developed to mitigate this issue, such as the mock-Chebyshev subset interpolation and the constrained mock-Chebyshev least-squares approximation. The high accuracy and the numerical stability achieved by these techniques motivate us to extend these methods to histopolation, a polynomial interpolation method based on segmental function averages. While classical polynomial interpolation relies on function evaluations at specific nodes, histopolation leverages averages of the function over subintervals. In this work, we introduce three types of mock-Chebyshev approaches for segmental interpolation and theoretically analyse the stability of their Lebesgue constants, which measure the numerical conditioning of the histopolation problem under small perturbations of the segments. We demonstrate that these segmental mock-Chebyshev approaches yield a quasi-optimal logarithmic growth of the Lebesgue constant in relevant scenarios. Additionally, we compare the performance of these new approximation techniques through various numerical experiments., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure, 1 table

Real-time bioaerosol monitoring is improving the quality of life for people affected by allergies, but it often relies on deep-learning models which pose challenges for widespread adoption. These models are typically trained in a supervised fashion and require considerable effort to produce large amounts of annotated data, an effort that must be repeated for new particles, geographical regions, or measurement systems. In this work, we show that self-supervised learning and few-shot learning can be combined to classify holographic images of bioaerosol particles using a large collection of unlabelled data and only a few examples for each particle type. We first demonstrate that self-supervision on pictures of unidentified particles from ambient air measurements enhances identification even when labelled data is abundant. Most importantly, it greatly improves few-shot classification when only a handful of labelled images are available. Our findings suggest that real-time bioaerosol monitoring workflows can be substantially optimized, and the effort required to adapt models for different situations considerably reduced., Comment: Short communication, 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

The UltraCortex repository (https://www.ultracortex.org) houses magnetic resonance imaging data of the human brain obtained at an ultra-high field strength of 9.4 T. It contains 86 structural MR images with spatial resolutions ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 mm. Additionally, the repository includes segmentations of 12 brains into gray and white matter compartments. These segmentations have been independently validated by two expert neuroradiologists, thus establishing them as a reliable gold standard. This resource provides researchers with access to high-quality brain imaging data and validated segmentations, facilitating neuroimaging studies and advancing our understanding of brain structure and function. Existing repositories do not accommodate field strengths beyond 7 T, nor do they offer validated segmentations, underscoring the significance of this new resource.

We investigate the stellar and nebular properties of 9 H II regions in the spiral galaxy M101 with far-ultraviolet (FUV; ~900-2000 \r{A}) and optical (~3200-10000 \r{A}) spectra. We detect significant C III] 1907,1909 nebular emission in 7 regions, but O III] 1666 only in the lowest-metallicity region. We produce new analytic functions of the carbon ICF as a function of metallicity in order to perform a preliminary C/O abundance analysis. The FUV spectra also contain numerous stellar emission and P-Cygni features that we fit with luminosity-weighted combinations of single-burst Starburst99 and BPASS models. We find that the best-fit Starburst99 models closely match the observed very-high-ionization P-Cygni features, requiring very-hot, young (~< 3 Myr), metal-enriched massive stars. The youngest stellar populations are strongly correlated with broad He II emission, nitrogen Wolf-Rayet (WR) FUV and optical spectral features, and enhanced N/O gas abundances. Thus, the short-lived WR phase may be driving excess emission in several N P-Cygni wind features (955 \r{A}, 991 \r{A}, 1720 \r{A}) that bias the stellar continuum fits to higher metallicities relative to the gas-phase metallicities. Accurate characterization of these H II regions requires additional inclusion of WR stars in the stellar population synthesis models. Our FUV spectra demonstrate that the ~900-1200 \r{A} FUV can provide a strong test-bed for future WR atmosphere and evolution models., Comment: 24 ages, 12 figures, accepted to ApJ

The main goal of the CRESST-III experiment is the direct detection of dark matter particles via their scattering off target nuclei in cryogenic detectors. In this work we present the results of a Silicon-On-Sapphire (SOS) detector with a mass of 0.6$\,$g and an energy threshold of (6.7$\, \pm \,$0.2)$\,$eV with a baseline energy resolution of (1.0$\, \pm \,$0.2)$\,$eV. This allowed for a calibration via the detection of single luminescence photons in the eV-range, which could be observed in CRESST for the first time. We present new exclusion limits on the spin-independent and spin-dependent dark matter-nucleon cross section that extend to dark matter particle masses of less than 100$\,$MeV/c$^{2}$., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures

In this work, we study the Kantorovich variant of max-min neural network operators, in which the operator kernel is defined in terms of sigmoidal functions. Our main aim is to demonstrate the $L^{p}$-convergence of these nonlinear operators for $1\leq p<\infty$, which makes it possible to obtain approximation results for functions that are not necessarily continuous. In addition, we will derive quantitative estimates for the rate of approximation in the $L^{p}$-norm. We will provide some explicit examples, studying the approximation of discontinuous functions with the max-min operator, and varying additionally the underlying sigmoidal function of the kernel. Further, we numerically compare the $L^{p}$-approximation error with the respective error of the Kantorovich variants of other popular neural network operators. As a final application, we show that the Kantorovich variant has advantages compared to the sampling variant of the max-min operator and Kantorovich variant of the max-product operator when it comes to approximate noisy functions as for instance biomedical ECG signals., Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures

In recent times, the sensitivity of low-mass direct dark matter searches has been limited by unknown low energy backgrounds close to the energy threshold of the experiments known as the low energy excess (LEE). The CRESST experiment utilises advanced cryogenic detectors constructed with different types of crystals equipped with Transition Edge Sensors (TESs) to measure signals of nuclear recoils induced by the scattering of dark matter particles in the detector. In CRESST, this low energy background manifests itself as a steeply rising population of events below 200 eV. A novel detector design named doubleTES using two identical TESs on the target crystal was studied to investigate the hypothesis that the events are sensor-related. We present the first results from two such modules, demonstrating their ability to differentiate between events originating from the crystal's bulk and those occurring in the sensor or in its close proximity., Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures

In this article, we study the Fekete problem in segmental and combined nodal-segmental univariate polynomial interpolation by investigating sets of segments, or segments combined with nodes, such that the Vandermonde determinant for the respective polynomial interpolation problem is maximized. For particular families of segments, we will be able to find explicit solutions of the corresponding maximization problem. The quality of the Fekete segments depends hereby strongly on the utilized normalization of the segmental information in the Vandermonde matrix. To measure the quality of the Fekete segments in interpolation, we analyse the asymptotic behaviour of the generalized Lebesgue constant linked to the interpolation problem. For particular sets of Fekete segments we will get, similar to the nodal case, a favourable logarithmic growth of this constant., Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures

Cryogenic scintillating calorimeters are ultrasensitive particle detectors for rare event searches, particularly for the search for dark matter and the measurement of neutrino properties. These detectors are made from scintillating target crystals generating two signals for each particle interaction. The phonon (heat) signal precisely measures the deposited energy independent of the type of interacting particle. The scintillation light signal yields particle discrimination on an event-by-event basis. This paper presents a likelihood framework modeling backgrounds and a potential dark matter signal in the two-dimensional plane spanned by phonon and scintillation light energies. We apply the framework to data from CaWO$_4$-based detectors operated in the CRESST dark matter search. For the first time, a single likelihood framework is used in CRESST to model the data and extract results on dark matter in one step by using a profile likelihood ratio test. Our framework simultaneously fits (neutron) calibration data and physics (background) data and allows combining data from multiple detectors. Although tailored to CaWO$_4$-targets and the CRESST experiment, the framework can easily be expanded to other materials and experiments using scintillating cryogenic calorimeters for dark matter search and neutrino physics., Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, additional figures and data in ancillary files (on arXiv or at journal reference)

Recently low-mass dark matter direct searches have been hindered by a low energy background, drastically reducing the physics reach of the experiments. In the CRESST-III experiment, this signal is characterised by a significant increase of events below 200 eV. As the origin of this background is still unknown, it became necessary to develop new detector designs to reach a better understanding of the observations. Within the CRESST collaboration, three new different detector layouts have been developed and they are presented in this contribution., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

For many years, various experiments have attempted to shed light on the nature of dark matter (DM). This work investigates the possibility of using CaWO4 crystals for the direct search of spin-dependent DM interactions using the isotope 17O with a nuclear spin of 5/2. Due to the low natural abundance of 0.038%, an enrichment of the CaWO4 crystals with 17O is developed during the crystal production process at the Technical University of Munich. Three CaWO4 crystals were enriched, and their 17O content was measured by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy at the University of Leipzig. This paper presents the concept and first results of the 17O enrichment and discusses the possibility of using enriched crystals to increase the sensitivity for the spin-dependent DM search with CRESST., Comment: XVIII International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics, TAUP2023, submitted to Proceedings of Science

There is an urgent need to increase the global data storage capacity, as current approaches lag behind the exponential growth of data generation driven by the Internet, social media and cloud technologies. In addition to increasing storage density, new solutions should provide long-term data archiving that goes far beyond traditional magnetic memory, optical disks and solid-state drives. Here, we propose a concept of energy-efficient, ultralong, high-density data archiving based on optically active atomic-size defects in a radiation resistance material, silicon carbide (SiC). The information is written in these defects by focused ion beams and read using photoluminescence or cathodoluminescence. The temperature-dependent deactivation of these defects suggests a retention time minimum over a few generations under ambient conditions. With near-infrared laser excitation, grayscale encoding and multi-layer data storage, the areal density corresponds to that of Blu-ray discs. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the areal density limitation of conventional optical data storage media due to the light diffraction can be overcome by focused electron-beam excitation., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

Diamond operated as a cryogenic calorimeter is an excellent target for direct detection of low-mass dark matter candidates. Following the realization of the first low-threshold cryogenic detector that uses diamond as absorber for astroparticle physics applications, we now present the resulting exclusion limits on the elastic spin-independent interaction cross-section of dark matter with diamond. We measured two 0.175 g CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) diamond samples, each instrumented with a W-TES. Thanks to the energy threshold of just 16.8 eV of one of the two detectors, we set exclusion limits on the elastic spin-independent interaction of dark matter particles with carbon nuclei down to dark matter masses as low as 0.122 GeV/c2. This work shows the scientific potential of cryogenic detectors made from diamond and lays the foundation for the use of this material as target for direct detection dark matter experiments., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

Mixing of finite time-homogeneous Markov chains is well understood nowadays, with a rich set of techniques to estimate their mixing time. In this paper, we study the mixing time of random walks in dynamic random environments. To that end, we propose a concept of mixing time for time-inhomogeneous Markov chains. We then develop techniques to estimate this mixing time by extending the evolving set method of Morris and Peres (2003). We apply these techniques to study a random walk on a dynamic Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi graph, proving that the mixing time is $O(\log(n))$ when the graph is well above the connectivity threshold. We also give an almost matching lower bound.

We study Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) flakes that we produce via mechanical cleaving and exfoliation of YIG single crystals. By characterizing their structural and magnetic properties, we find that these YIG nanoflakes have surfaces oriented along unusual crystallographic axes and uniaxial in-plane magnetic anisotropy due to their shape, both of which are not commonly available in YIG thin films. These physical properties, combined with the possibility of picking up the YIG flakes and stacking them onto flakes of other van der Waals materials or pre-patterned electrodes or waveguides, open unexplored possibilities for magnonics and for the realization of novel YIG-based heterostructures and devices., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures

Motivated by polynomial approximations of differential forms, we study analytical and numerical properties of a polynomial interpolation problem that relies on function averages over interval segments. The usage of segment data gives rise to new theoretical and practical aspects that distinguish this problem considerably from classical nodal interpolation. We will analyse fundamental mathematical properties of this problem as existence, uniqueness and numerical conditioning of its solution. We will provide concrete conditions for unisolvence, explicit Lagrange-type basis systems for its representation, and a numerical method for its solution. To study the numerical conditioning, we will provide concrete bounds of the Lebesgue constant in a few distinguished cases., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures

We demonstrate the ability to control the scattering properties of a two-dimensional wave-chaotic microwave billiard through the use of tunable metasurfaces located on the interior walls of the billiard. The complex reflection coefficient of the metasurfaces can be varied by applying a DC voltage bias to varactor diodes on mushroom-shaped resonant patches, and this proves to be very effective at perturbing the eigenmodes of the cavity. Placing multiple metasurfaces inside the cavity allows us to engineer desired scattering conditions, such as coherent perfect absorption (CPA), by actively manipulating the poles and zeros of the scattering matrix through the application of multiple voltage biases. We demonstrate the ability to create on-demand CPA conditions at a specific frequency, and document the near-null of output power as a function of four independent parameters tuned through the CPA point. A remarkably low output-to-input power ratio of $\frac{P_{out}}{P_{in}} = 3.71 \times 10^{-8}$ is achieved near the CPA point at 8.54 GHz.

Using CaWO$_4$ crystals as cryogenic calorimeters, the CRESST experiment searches for nuclear recoils caused by the scattering of potential Dark Matter particles. A reliable identification of a potential signal crucially depends on an accurate background model. In this work we introduce an improved normalisation method for CRESST's model of the electromagnetic backgrounds. Spectral templates, based on Geant4 simulations, are normalised via a Bayesian likelihood fit to experimental background data. Contrary to our previous work, no assumption of partial secular equilibrium is required, which results in a more robust and versatile applicability. Furthermore, considering the correlation between all background components allows us to explain 82.7% of the experimental background within [1 keV, 40 keV], an improvement of 18.6% compared to our previous method., Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, submitted to EPJC

The relative abundances and chemical compositions of the macroscopic components or "inclusions" (chondrules and refractory inclusions) and fine-grained mineral matrix in chondritic meteorites provide constraints on astrophysical theories of inclusion formation and chondrite accretion. We present new techniques for analysis of low count per pixel Si, Mg, Ca, Al, Ti and Fe x-ray intensity maps of rock sections, and apply them to large areas of CO and CV chondrites, and the ungrouped Acfer 094 chondrite. For many thousands of manually segmented and type-identified inclusions, we are able to assess, pixel-by-pixel, the major element content of each inclusion. We quantify the total fraction of those elements accounted for by various types of inclusion and matrix. Among CO chondrites, both matrix and inclusion Mg to Si ratios approach the solar (and bulk CO) ratio with increasing petrologic grade, but Si remains enriched in inclusions relative to matrix. The oxidized CV chondrites with higher matrix-inclusion ratios exhibit more severe aqueous alteration (oxidation), and their excess matrix accounts for their higher porosity relative to reduced CV chondrites. Porosity could accommodate an original ice component of matrix as the direct cause of local alteration of oxidized CV chondrites. We confirm that major element abundances among inclusions differ greatly, across a wide range of CO and CV chondrites. These abundances in all cases add up to near-chondritic (solar) bulk abundance ratios in these chondrites, despite wide variations in matrix-inclusion ratios and inclusion sizes: chondrite components are complementary. This "complementarity" provides a robust meteoritic constraint for astrophysical disk models., Comment: 72 pages, 18 figures, 8 tables, with supplementary tables (2) and figues (12). Extended digital supplement available

Observations of low-ionization state (LIS) metal lines provide crucial insights into the interstellar medium of galaxies, yet, disentangling the physical processes responsible for the emerging line profiles is difficult. This work investigates how mock spectra generated using a single galaxy in a radiation-hydrodynamical simulation can help us interpret observations of a real galaxy. We create 22,500 C II and Si II spectra from the virtual galaxy at different times and through multiple lines of sight and compare them with the 45 observations of low-redshift star-forming galaxies from the COS Legacy Spectroscopic SurveY (CLASSY). We find that the mock profiles provide accurate replicates to the observations of 38 galaxies with a broad range of stellar masses ($10^6$ to $10^9$ $M_\odot$) and metallicities (0.02 to 0.55 $Z_\odot$). Additionally, we highlight that aperture losses explain the weakness of the fluorescent emission in several CLASSY spectra and must be accounted for when comparing simulations to observations. Overall, we show that the evolution of a single simulated galaxy can produce a large diversity of spectra whose properties are representative of galaxies of comparable or smaller masses. Building upon these results, we explore the origin of the continuum, residual flux, and fluorescent emission in the simulation. We find that these different spectral features all emerge from distinct regions in the galaxy's ISM, and their characteristics can vary as a function of the viewing angle. While these outcomes challenge simplified interpretations of down-the-barrel spectra, our results indicate that high-resolution simulations provide an optimal framework to interpret these observations., Comment: Accepted for publication in Apj

We provide one of the most comprehensive metallicity studies at z $\sim$ 4 by analyzing the UV/optical HST photometry, and rest-frame VLT-FORS2 ultraviolet and VLT-XSHOOTER optical spectra of J0332-3557, a gravitationally lensed galaxy magnified by a factor of 20. With a 5$\sigma$ detection of the auroral O III]1666 line, we are able to derive a direct gas metallicity estimate for our target. We find Z_gas = 12 + log(O/H) = 8.26 $\pm$ 0.06, which is compatible with an increasing of both the gas fraction and the outflow metal loading factor from z $\sim$ 0 to z $\sim$ 4. J0332-3557 is the most metal-rich individual galaxy at z $\sim$ 4 for which the C/O ratio has been measured. We derive a low log(C/O) = - 1.02 $\pm$ 0.2, which suggests that J0332-3557 is in the early stages of ISM carbon enrichment driven mostly by massive stars. The low C/O abundance also indicates that J0332-3557 is characterized by a low star formation efficiency, higher yields of oxygen, and longer burst duration. We find that EW(C III])1906,9 is as low as $\sim$ 3 \AA. The main drivers of the low EW(C III])1906,9 are the higher gas metallicity and the low C/O abundance. J0332-3557 is characterized by one diffuse and two more compact regions $\sim$ 1 kpc in size. We find that the carbon emission mostly originates in the compact knots. Our study on J0332-3557 serves as an anchor for studies investigating the evolution of metallicity and C/O abundance across different redshifts., Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

We investigate the morphologies of the Ge(001) surface that are produced by bombardment with a normally incident, broad argon ion beam at sample temperatures above the recrystallization temperature. Two previously-observed kinds of topographies are seen, i.e., patterns consisting of upright and inverted rectangular pyramids, as well as patterns composed of shallow, isotropic basins. In addition, we observe the formation of an unexpected third type of pattern for intermediate values of the temperature, ion energy and ion flux. In this type of intermediate morphology, isolated peaks with rectangular cross sections stand above a landscape of shallow, rounded basins. We also extend past theoretical work to include a second order correction term that comes from the curvature dependence of the sputter yield. For a range of parameter values, the resulting continuum model of the surface dynamics produces patterns that are remarkably similar to the intermediate morphologies we observe in our experiments. The formation of the isolated peaks is the result of a term that is not ordinarily included in the equation of motion, a second order correction to the curvature dependence of the sputter yield.

New-generation direct searches for low mass dark matter feature detection thresholds at energies well below 100 eV, much lower than the energies of commonly used X-ray calibration sources. This requires new calibration sources with sub-keV energies. When searching for nuclear recoil signals, the calibration source should ideally cause mono-energetic nuclear recoils in the relevant energy range. Recently, a new calibration method based on the radiative neutron capture on $^{182}$W with subsequent de-excitation via single $\gamma$-emission leading to a nuclear recoil peak at 112 eV was proposed. The CRESST-III dark matter search operated several CaWO$_{4}$-based detector modules with detection thresholds below 100 eV in the past years. We report the observation of a peak around the expected energy of 112 eV in the data of three different detector modules recorded while irradiated with neutrons from different AmBe calibration sources. We compare the properties of the observed peaks with Geant-4 simulations and assess the prospects of using this for the energy calibration of CRESST-III detectors., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. D

Before the start of the pandemic, Michigan's public schools identified 4,763 homeless youth living independent of parental support. These youth are homeless--living outside, in shelters, or bouncing from couch to couch. They are estranged from their parents, usually due to abuse, neglect, or parents' struggles with addiction, mental health problems, or extreme poverty. Homeless youth experience multiple negative physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. Early intervention is imperative since the length of homelessness compounds and increases the risks of poor health outcomes, such as suicide attempts, sexual assault, exposure to violence, and human trafficking. One critical intervention that enables unaccompanied minors to connect to services and caring adults is safe and accessible shelter. Unfortunately, only a small proportion of unaccompanied minors in Michigan are accessing emergency shelter. This brief estimates the total number and ages of high school youth who face homelessness in the state, their health risks, and use of support services in the last 12 months using data from the Michigan Department of Education, Michigan's 2018 Annual Report on Ending Homelessness, and the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Based on this analysis it was found that the likely number of homeless unaccompanied minors in Michigan is much higher than shelter or school data suggest. Data also show that homeless youth in Michigan face much higher risks to their health and well-being and are accessing primary health care at much lower rates than their housed peers.

The aim of this paper is to show how rapidly decaying RBF Lagrange functions on the spheres can be used to create effective, stable finite difference methods based on radial basis functions (RBF-FD). For certain classes of PDEs this approach leads to precise convergence estimates for stencils which grow moderately with increasing discretization fineness.

In classical frameworks as the Euclidean space, positive definite kernels as well as their analytic properties are explicitly available and can be incorporated directly in kernel-based learning algorithms. This is different if the underlying domain is a discrete irregular graph. In this case, respective kernels have to be computed in a preliminary step in order to apply them inside a kernel machine. Typically, such a kernel is given as a matrix function of the graph Laplacian. Its direct calculation leads to a high computational burden if the size of the graph is very large. In this work, we investigate five different block Krylov subspace methods to obtain cheaper iterative approximations of these kernels. We will investigate convergence properties of these Krylov subspace methods and study to what extent these methods are able to preserve the symmetry and positive definiteness of the original kernels they are approximating. We will further discuss the computational complexity and the memory requirements of these methods, as well as possible implications for the kernel predictors in machine learning., Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables

We present limits on the spin-independent interaction cross section of dark matter particles with silicon nuclei, derived from data taken with a cryogenic calorimeter with 0.35 g target mass operated in the CRESST-III experiment. A baseline nuclear recoil energy resolution of $(1.36\pm 0.05)$ eV$_{\text{nr}}$, currently the lowest reported for macroscopic particle detectors, and a corresponding energy threshold of $(10.0\pm 0.2)$ eV$_{\text{nr}}$ have been achieved, improving the sensitivity to light dark matter particles with masses below 160 MeV/c$^2$ by a factor of up to 20 compared to previous results. We characterize the observed low energy excess, and we exclude noise triggers and radioactive contaminations on the crystal surfaces as dominant contributions., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; precised the position of the calibration source in Fig. 1; extended the discussion about the observed energy spectrum; added the DM limit curve to ancillary files. Published in Phys. Rev. D

The polynomial kernels are widely used in machine learning and they are one of the default choices to develop kernel-based classification and regression models. However, they are rarely used and considered in numerical analysis due to their lack of strict positive definiteness. In particular they do not enjoy the usual property of unisolvency for arbitrary point sets, which is one of the key properties used to build kernel-based interpolation methods. This paper is devoted to establish some initial results for the study of these kernels, and their related interpolation algorithms, in the context of approximation theory. We will first prove necessary and sufficient conditions on point sets which guarantee the existence and uniqueness of an interpolant. We will then study the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces (or native spaces) of these kernels and their norms, and provide inclusion relations between spaces corresponding to different kernel parameters. With these spaces at hand, it will be further possible to derive generic error estimates which apply to sufficiently smooth functions, thus escaping the native space. Finally, we will show how to employ an efficient stable algorithm to these kernels to obtain accurate interpolants, and we will test them in some numerical experiment. After this analysis several computational and theoretical aspects remain open, and we will outline possible further research directions in a concluding section. This work builds some bridges between kernel and polynomial interpolation, two topics to which the authors, to different extents, have been introduced under the supervision or through the work of Stefano De Marchi. For this reason, they wish to dedicate this work to him in the occasion of his 60th birthday.

We propose an estimation procedure for covariation in wide compositional data sets. For compositions, widely-used logratio variables are interdependent due to a common reference. Logratio uncorrelated compositions are linearly independent before the unit-sum constraint is imposed. We show how they are used to construct bespoke shrinkage targets for logratio covariance matrices and test a simple procedure for partial correlation estimates on both a simulated and a single-cell gene expression data set. For the underlying counts, different zero imputations are evaluated. The partial correlation induced by the closure is derived analytically. Data and code are available from GitHub., Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures