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Nonlinear interactions between single quantum particles are at the heart of any quantum information system, including analog quantum simulation and fault-tolerant quantum computing. This remains a particularly difficult problem for photonic qubits, as photons do not interact with each other. While engineering light-matter interaction can effectively create photon-photon interaction, the required photon number to observe any nonlinearity is very high, where any quantum mechanical signature disappears. However, with emerging low-dimensional materials, and engineered photonic resonators, the photon number can be potentially reduced to reach the quantum nonlinear optical regime. In this review paper, we discuss different mechanisms exploited in solid-state platforms to attain quantum nonlinear optics. We review emerging materials and optical resonator architecture with different dimensionalities. We also present new research directions and open problems in this field.

The study of complex organic molecules containing thiol ($-$SH) groups is essential in interstellar media because $-$SH plays an important role in the polymerization of amino acids (R-CH(NH$_{2}$)-COOH). Some quantum chemical studies have shown that there is a high chance of detecting the emission lines of dithioformic acid (HC(S)SH) in the highly dense and warm-inner regions of hot molecular cores and hot corinos. Therefore, we attempted to search for the emission lines of HC(S)SH toward the highly dense hot corino object NGC 1333 IRAS 4A using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) band 7. We present the first detection of the rotational emission lines of the trans-conformer of dithioformic acid (t-HC(S)SH) toward the NGC 1333 IRAS 4A2. The column density and excitation temperature of the t-HC(S)SH toward NGC 1333 IRAS 4A2 are (2.63$\pm$0.32)$\times$10$^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$ and 255$\pm$32 K, respectively. The fractional abundance of t-HC(S)SH with respect to H$_{2}$ is (2.53$\pm$0.68)$\times$10$^{-9}$. The column density ratio of t-HC(S)SH and t-HCOOH toward NGC 1333 IRAS 4A2 is 0.36$\pm$0.02. To understand the possible formation pathways of HC(S)SH, we computed a two-phase warm-up chemical model abundance of HC(S)SH using the gas-grain chemical code UCLCHEM. After chemical modeling, we claim that HC(S)SH is formed in NGC 1333 IRAS 4A2 via barrierless radical--radical reactions between CSSH and H on the grain surfaces., Comment: Published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry

The atomic and molecular compounds of cometary ices serve as valuable knowledge into the chemical and physical properties of the outer solar nebula, where comets are formed. From the cometary atmospheres, the atoms and gas-phase molecules arise mainly in three ways: (i) the outgassing from the nucleus, (ii) the photochemical process, and (iii) the sublimation of icy grains from the nucleus. In this paper, we present the radio and millimeter wavelength observation results of Oort cloud non-periodic comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) band L and the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) band 6. We do not detect continuum emissions and an emission line of atomic hydrogen (HI) at rest frequency 1420 MHz from this comet using the GMRT. Based on ALMA observations, we detect the dust continuum emission and rotational emission lines of methanol (CH$_{3}$OH) from comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). From the dust continuum emission, the activity of dust production (Af$\rho$) of comet ZTF is 2280$\pm$50 cm. Based on LTE spectral modelling, the column density and excitation temperature of CH$_{3}$OH towards C/2022 E3 (ZTF) are (4.50$\pm$0.25)$\times$10$^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$ and 70$\pm$3 K. The integrated emission maps show that CH$_{3}$OH was emitted from the coma region of the comet. The production rate of CH$_{3}$OH towards C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is (7.32$\pm$0.64)$\times$10$^{26}$ molecules s$^{-1}$. The fractional abundance of CH$_{3}$OH with respect to H$_{2}$O in the coma of the comet is 1.52%. We also compare our derived abundance of CH$_{3}$OH with the existence modelled value, and we see the observed and modelled values are nearly similar. We claim that CH$_{3}$OH is formed via the subsequential hydrogenation of formaldehyde (H$_{2}$CO) on the grain surface of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)., Comment: Accepted for publication in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (RAA)

We present the results of deep radio observations of 7 nearby large galaxies observed using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) 0.3-0.5 GHz receivers with an angular resolution of $\sim$10 arcsec. The achieved sensitivities of these observations range from $\approx$15 to 50 $\mu$Jy/beam which is $\approx$3-4 factor lower than the previous observations at these frequencies. For 2 galaxies (NGC3344 and NGC3627) with moderate inclination angles, significant diffuse emissions are seen for the first time. Detected radio halos in the vertical direction are significantly larger in our 0.4 GHz maps than compared to the observations at $\sim$1.5 GHz for 4 nearly edge-on galaxies - NGC3623, NGC4096, NGC4594, and NGC4631. For these 4 galaxies, significantly larger halos are also detected along the galaxy disk. For NGC3623 and NGC4594, we could detect elongated radio disks which was not seen before. We also present new uGMRT images of NGC3344 and NGC3623 at 1.3 GHz and a new VLA image of NGC3627 at 1.5 GHz. We fitted an exponential function to the flux densities along different cross-cuts and found a significantly wider distribution at 0.4 GHz uGMRT images than compared to the high-frequency images at $\sim$1.5 GHz. Using maps at 0.144, 0.4, and $\sim$1.5 GHz, we made spectral index maps of the 7 sample galaxies and found steepening of the spectrum up to a value of $\sim$ -1.5 in the halo regions of the galaxies., Comment: 17 pages, Accepted for publication in ApJ

The upcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), with its high luminosity, will offer an unprecedented opportunity to explore the internal structure of atomic nucleus over an extended energy range from $\sqrt{s_{ep}} =$ 45 GeV to $\sqrt{s_{ep}} =$ 140 GeV. A particularly promising aspect of this collider is the study of the partonic structure with quasi-real photons which can also be studied in inclusive ultra-peripheral collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In this work, we present our validation of resolved photoproduction at fixed order for (next-to-)leading order using \texttt{MadGraph5\_aMC@NLO}, a widely adopted framework at the LHC., Comment: 6 pages. 4 figures, proceedings for the "31st International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS2024)", 8-12 April 2024, Grenoble, France

In this work, we investigate the particle creation rate in a dynamical (Vaidya) spacetime using Feynman's path integral formalism within the framework of the effective action approach. We analyze particle production rates in the region of dynamical horizons, revealing an initial high rate followed by a rapid decline in all cases. Additionally, we explore the thermodynamic properties by calculating the surface gravity and corresponding Hayward-Kodama temperatures for each scenario. Graphical representations show the variation of surface gravity over time for the three cases, offering insights into the system's thermodynamic evolution. Our research investigates the connection between background geometry and the particle creation process, placing it within the broader context of quantum field theory in curved spacetime. The non-stationary nature of Vaidya geometry is highlighted as a valuable framework for examining the dynamic aspects of particle creation. This in-depth analysis enhances our understanding of quantum processes in curved spacetime and may offer insights relevant to thermodynamics and studies of gravitational collapse., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

Among the surprising features of quantum measurements, the problem of distinguishing and anti-distinguishing general quantum measurements is fundamentally appealing. Quantum theory offers four distinct scenarios for distinguishing (and anti-distinguishing) quantum measurements - (i) probing single systems and without access to the post-measurement states, (ii) probing entangled systems and without access to the post-measurement states, (iii) probing single systems with access to the post-measurement states, and (iv) probing entangled systems with access to the post-measurement states. In these scenarios, we consider the probability of distinguishing (and anti-distinguishing) quantum measurements sampled from a given set in the single-shot regime. For some scenarios, we derive analytical expressions for the distinguishability (and anti-distinguishability) of qubit projective measurements. Notably, we demonstrate that in scenario (iii), the distinguishability of any pair of qubit projective measurements is always higher than in scenario (ii). Interestingly, for some qubit non-projective measurements, the highest distinguishability in scenario (ii) is achieved using a non-maximally entangled state. It turns out that, for any set of measurements, the distinguishability (and anti-distinguishability) in scenario (i) is always less than or equal to that in any other scenario, while it reaches its highest possible value in scenario (iv). We establish that these relations form a strict hierarchy, and there is no hierarchical relation between scenarios (ii) and (iii). Specifically, we construct pairs (and triples) of qubit measurements that are perfectly distinguishable (and anti-distinguishable) in scenario (ii) but not in scenario (iii), and vice versa. Furthermore, we identify qubit measurements that achieve perfect distinguishability (and anti-distinguishability) only in scenario (iv)., Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures. Comments are welcome

Human movement analysis is crucial in health and sports biomechanics for understanding physical performance, guiding rehabilitation, and preventing injuries. However, existing tools are often proprietary, expensive, and function as "black boxes", limiting user control and customization. This paper introduces vail\'a-Versatile Anarcho Integrated Liberation \'Analysis in Multimodal Toolbox-an open-source, Python-based platform designed to enhance human movement analysis by integrating data from multiple biomechanical systems. vail\'a supports data from diverse sources, including retroreflective motion capture systems, inertial measurement units (IMUs), markerless video capture technology, electromyography (EMG), force plates, and GPS or GNSS systems, enabling comprehensive analysis of movement patterns. Developed entirely in Python 3.11.9, which offers improved efficiency and long-term support, and featuring a straightforward installation process, vail\'a is accessible to users without extensive programming experience. In this paper, we also present several workflow examples that demonstrate how vail\'a allows the rapid processing of large batches of data, independent of the type of collection method. This flexibility is especially valuable in research scenarios where unexpected data collection challenges arise, ensuring no valuable data point is lost. We demonstrate the application of vail\'a in analyzing sit-to-stand movements in pediatric disability, showcasing its capability to provide deeper insights even with unexpected movement patterns. By fostering a collaborative and open environment, vail\'a encourages users to innovate, customize, and freely explore their analysis needs, potentially contributing to the advancement of rehabilitation strategies and performance optimization., Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, submitted to arXiv under cs.SE (Software Engineering)

Since the ground-breaking discovery of the quantum Hall effect, half-quantized quantum Hall plateaus have been some of the most studied and sought-after states. Their importance stems not only from the fact that they transcend the composite fermion framework used to explain fractional quantum Hall states (such as Laughlin states). Crucially, they hold promise for hosting non-Abelian excitations, which are essential for developing topological qubits - key components for fault-tolerant quantum computing. In this work, we show that these coveted half-quantized plateaus can appear in more than one unexpected way. We report the observation of fractional states with conductance quantization at $\nu_H = 5/2$ arising due to charge equilibration in the confined region of a quantum point contact in monolayer graphene., Comment: 30 pages, 18 figures, and 2 tables

This research explores refined boundary conditions for a traction-free surface in a non-local micropolar half-space, combining non-local and micropolar elasticity effects to study Rayleigh wave propagation in an isotropic, homogeneous medium. This study revisits the solution for Rayleigh waves obtained within the framework of Eringen's non-local differential model. It highlights that the equivalence between the non-local differential and integral formulations breaks down for a micropolar half-space and can only be restored under specific additional boundary conditions. For mathematical tractability, equivalence is assumed for a defined subset of stresses. Asymptotic analysis is further employed to capture the effects of the boundary layer within the non-local micropolar half-space. This technique finally derives the refined boundary conditions for micropolar media.

Self-supervised learning has developed rapidly over the last decade and has been applied in many areas of computer vision. Decorrelation-based self-supervised pretraining has shown great promise among non-contrastive algorithms, yielding performance at par with supervised and contrastive self-supervised baselines. In this work, we explore the decorrelation-based paradigm of self-supervised learning and apply the same to learning disentangled stroke features for writer identification. Here we propose a modified formulation of the decorrelation-based framework named SWIS which was proposed for signature verification by standardizing the features along each dimension on top of the existing framework. We show that the proposed framework outperforms the contemporary self-supervised learning framework on the writer identification benchmark and also outperforms several supervised methods as well. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first of its kind to apply self-supervised learning for learning representations for writer verification tasks.

The Tweedie exponential dispersion family is a popular choice among many to model insurance losses that consist of zero-inflated semicontinuous data. In such data, it is often important to obtain credibility (inference) of the most important features that describe the endogenous variables. Post-selection inference is the standard procedure in statistics to obtain confidence intervals of model parameters after performing a feature extraction procedure. For a linear model, the lasso estimate often has non-negligible estimation bias for large coefficients corresponding to exogenous variables. To have valid inference on those coefficients, it is necessary to correct the bias of the lasso estimate. Traditional statistical methods, such as hypothesis testing or standard confidence interval construction might lead to incorrect conclusions during post-selection, as they are generally too optimistic. Here we discuss a few methodologies for constructing confidence intervals of the coefficients after feature selection in the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) family with application to insurance data.

Accurately predicting water table dynamics is vital for sustaining groundwater resources that support ecological functions and anthropogenic activities. This study evaluates a statistical model (BigVAR) that handles three major flexibilities: (a) prediction under a sparsity assumption in coefficients, (b) consideration of a time series autoregression framework, and (c) allowance for lags in both dependent and independent variables for estimating water table depth using daily hydroclimatic data from the USDA Forest Service Santee Experimental Forest (SC) and a site in NC. Data from 2006--2019 (SC) and 1988--2008 (NC) were used, with key predictors including soil and air temperature, precipitation, wind, and radiation. For WS80, RMSE during the dormant season was 10.09 cm, with a daily testing phase RMSE of 14.94 cm. The model achieved an R^2 of 0.93 for 2019 (a dry year) and 0.96 for 2016 (a wet year). Solar radiation, rainfall, and wind direction were among the most influential variables. This predictive model aids in managing wetland hydrology and supports decision-making for forest managers and hydrologists., Comment: Autoregressive, Hydrology, time series modeling, variable selection, water table depth, hydrology

Phonons in solid-state quantum emitters play a crucial role in their performance as photon sources in quantum technology. For resonant driving, phonons dampen the Rabi oscillations resulting in reduced preparation fidelities. The phonon spectral density, which quantifies the strength of the carrier-phonon interaction, is non-monotonous as a function of energy. As one of the most prominent consequences, this leads to the reappearance of Rabi rotations for increasing pulse power, which was theoretically predicted in Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 227403 (2007). In this paper we present the experimental demonstration of the reappearance of Rabi rotations.

Faithfulness is arguably the most critical metric to assess the reliability of explainable AI. In NLP, current methods for faithfulness evaluation are fraught with discrepancies and biases, often failing to capture the true reasoning of models. We introduce Adversarial Sensitivity as a novel approach to faithfulness evaluation, focusing on the explainer's response when the model is under adversarial attack. Our method accounts for the faithfulness of explainers by capturing sensitivity to adversarial input changes. This work addresses significant limitations in existing evaluation techniques, and furthermore, quantifies faithfulness from a crucial yet underexplored paradigm., Comment: Accepted as a Full Paper at EMNLP 2024 Workshop BlackBoxNLP

The recent emergence of quantum confined nanomaterials in the field of radiation detection, in particular lead halide perovskite nanocrystals, offers potentially revolutionary scalability and performance advantages over conventional materials. This development raises fundamental questions about the mechanism of scintillation itself at the nanoscale and the role of particle size, arguably the most defining parameter of quantum dots. Understanding this is crucial for the design and optimisation of future nanotechnology scintillators. In this work, we address these open questions by theoretically and experimentally studying the size-dependent scintillation of CsPbBr3 nanocrystals using a combination of Monte Carlo simulations, spectroscopic, and radiometric techniques. The results reveal and unravel a complex parametric space where the fine balance between the simultaneous effects of size-dependent energy deposition, (multi-)exciton population, and light emission under ionizing excitation, typical of confined particles, combine to maximize the scintillation efficiency and time performance of larger nanocrystals due to greater stopping power and reduced Auger decay. The remarkable agreement between theory and experiment produces a fully validated descriptive model that unprecedentedly predicts the scintillation yield and kinetics of nanocrystals without free parameters, providing the first fundamental guide for the rational design of nanoscale scintillators.

Signatures of chaos can be understood by studying quantum systems whose classical counterpart is chaotic. However, the concepts of integrability, non-integrability and chaos extend to systems without a classical analogue. Here, we first review the classical route from order into chaos. Since nature is fundamentally quantum, we discuss how chaos manifests in the quantum domain. We briefly describe semi-classical methods, and discuss the consequences of chaos in quantum information processing. We review the quantum version of Lyapunov exponents, as quantified by the out-of-time ordered correlators (OTOC), Kolmogorov-Sinai (KS) entropy and sensitivity to errors. We then review the study of signatures of quantum chaos using quantum tomography. Classically, if we know the dynamics exactly, as we maintain a constant coarse-grained tracking of the trajectory, we gain exponentially fine-grained information about the initial condition. In the quantum setting,as we track the measurement record with fixed signal-to-noise, we gain increasing information about the initial condition. In the process, we have given a new quantification of operator spreading in Krylov subspaces with quantum state reconstruction. The study of these signatures is not only of theoretical interest but also of practical importance., Comment: 22 pages. This is a review article. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2409.10182

Present works discusses the efficient structural analysis and weight optimization of the cable-stiffened deployable structures. The stiffening effect of cables is incorporated through a matrix analysis based iterative strategy to identify the active and passive cables. The structural form can be easily deployed to cartesian as well as polar coordinates through the arrangement of duplet members. The large span utility of cable stiffened bar members can pose challenges to the deployability due to increased weight. A novel teaching-learning based optimization (TLBO) algorithm is utilized to optimize the overall weight of the structure through efficient section designs with proper constraint on the yield criteria. The penalty function approach is adopted to identify the unfeasible designs. A number of example cases are analysed and comparison is presented with the existing literature to show the suitability of the proposed approach. Finally, a new form of three-dimensional deployable structure is proposed. It is seen that such deployable structure can be accurately analysed using the iterative matrix analysis approach and efficiently optimized using the present algorithm., Comment: 33 pages, 21 figures

Phosphorus (P) is an important element for the chemical evolution of galaxies and many kinds of biochemical reactions. Phosphorus is one of the crucial chemical compounds in the formation of life on our planet. In an interstellar medium, phosphine (PH$_{3}$) is a crucial biomolecule that plays a major role in understanding the chemistry of phosphorus-bearing molecules, particularly phosphorus nitride (PN) and phosphorus monoxide (PO), in the gas phase or interstellar grains. We present the first confirmed detection of phosphine (PH$_{3}$) in the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) carbon-rich star IRC+10216 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) band 6. We detect the $J$ = 1$_{0}$$-$0$_{0}$ rotational transition line of PH$_{3}$ with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of $\geq$3.5$\sigma$. This is the first confirmed detection of phosphine (PH$_{3}$) in the ISM. Based on LTE spectral modelling, the column density of PH$_{3}$ is (3.15$\pm$0.20)$\times$10$^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$ at an excitation temperature of 52$\pm$5 K. The fractional abundance of PH$_{3}$ with respect to H$_{2}$ is (8.29$\pm$1.37)$\times$10$^{-8}$. We also discuss the possible formation pathways of PH$_{3}$ and we claim that PH$_{3}$ may be created via the hydrogenation of PH$_{2}$ on the grain surface of IRC+10216., Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy

Gravitational waveforms capturing binary's evolution through the early-inspiral phase play a critical role in extracting orbital features that nearly disappear during the late-inspiral and subsequent merger phase due to radiation reaction forces; for instance, the effect of orbital eccentricity. Phenomenological approaches that model compact binary mergers rely heavily on combining inputs from both analytical and numerical approaches to reduce the computational cost of generating templates for data analysis purposes. In a recent work, Chattaraj et al., Phys. Rev. D 106, 124008 (2022) arXiv:2204.02377(gr-qc), we demonstrated construction of a dominant (quadrupole) mode inspiral-merger-ringdown (IMR) model for binary black holes (BBHs) on elliptical orbits. The model was constructed in time-domain and is fully analytical. The current work is an attempt to improve this model by making a few important changes in our approach. The most significant of those involves identifying initial values of orbital parameters with which the inspiral part of the model is evolved. While the ingredients remain the same as in arXiv:2204.02377(gr-qc), resulting waveforms at each stage seem to have improved as a consequence of new considerations proposed here. The updated model is validated also against an independent waveform family resulting overlaps better than $\sim 96.5\%$ within the calibrated range of binary parameters. Further, we use the prescription of the dominant mode model presented here to provide an alternate (but equivalent) model for the (dominant) quadrupole mode and extend the same to a model including the effect of selected non-quadrupole modes. Finally, while this model assumes non-spinning components, we show that this could also be used for mildly spinning systems with component spins (anti-) aligned w.r.t the orbital angular momentum., Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2204.02377

Current carrying steady states of interacting spins chains exhibit rich structures generated through an interplay of current induced correlations and energetic constraints from the Hamiltonian. The XXZ spin chain when coupled to maximally polarizing Lindblad terms admits an exact solution in a matrix product state (MPS) form. We use this exact solution to study the correlations and distributions of simple local spin observables in the non equilibrium steady state (NESS). We present exact expressions for spin correlators, entropy per site, cumulant generating functions for distributions of local observables in the XX limit (Ising anisotropy $\Delta=0$). Further, we use the exact MPS solution in systems with $\Delta>0$, to numerically exactly calculate the entropy, correlations, as well as distributions of spin observables in blocks as large as $n\sim 200$ sites allowing an estimation of the rate functions. The $z$ magnetization distribution is consistant with short range spin correlations in the $z$ direction while the $x$-magnetization shows a double peak structure at larger $\Delta$ suggesting short range ferromagnetic ordering. We find that the distribution of $z$-magnetization sharpens for parameters where the current is maximized.

Transition-metal-based carbides (TMCs), renowned for their exceptional hardness, mechanical strength, and thermal properties, have recently emerged as promising candidates for topological superconductivity. In this study, we synthesized ReC in the NaCl structure at ambient pressure by substituting Mo or W at the Re-site. We investigated the superconducting properties of Re$_{1-x}$T$_{x}$C (where T = Mo, W) for $x = 0.5$ using magnetization, resistivity and specific heat measurements. These compounds display type-II, fully gapped, weakly coupled superconductivity with high critical fields, establishing them as new members of superconducting ultra-hard materials at ambient pressure and paving the way for superconducting device applications under extreme conditions., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

High-quality (Q)-factor optical resonators with extreme temporal coherence are of both technological and fundamental importance in optical metrology, continuous-wave lasing, and semiconductor quantum optics. Despite extensive efforts in designing high-Q resonators across different spectral regimes, the experimental realization of very large Q-factors at visible wavelengths remains challenging due to the small feature size that is sensitive to fabrication imperfections, and thus is typically implemented in integrated photonics. In the pursuit of free-space optics with the benefits of large space-bandwidth product and massive parallel operations, here we design and fabricate a visible-wavelength etch-free metasurface with minimized fabrication defects and experimentally demonstrate a million-scale ultrahigh-Q resonance. A new laser-scanning momentum-space-resolved spectroscopy technique with extremely high spectral and angular resolution is developed to characterize the record-high Q-factor as well as the dispersion of the million-Q resonance in free space. By integrating monolayer WSe2 into our ultrahigh-Q meta-resonator, we further demonstrate laser-like highly unidirectional and narrow-linewidth exciton emission, albeit without any operating power density threshold. Under continuous-wave laser pumping, we observe pump-power-dependent linewidth narrowing at room temperature, indicating the potential of our meta-optics platform in controlling coherent quantum light-sources. Our result also holds great promise for applications like optical sensing, spectral filtering, and few-photon nonlinear optics.

In this paper we turn the spotlight on a class of lexicographic ranking functions introduced by Bradley, Manna and Sipma in a seminal CAV 2005 paper, and establish for the first time the complexity of some problems involving the inference of such functions for linear-constraint loops (without precondition). We show that finding such a function, if one exists, can be done in polynomial time in a way which is sound and complete when the variables range over the rationals (or reals). We show that when variables range over the integers, the problem is harder -- deciding the existence of a ranking function is coNP-complete. Next, we study the problem of minimizing the number of components in the ranking function (a.k.a. the dimension). This number is interesting in contexts like computing iteration bounds and loop parallelization. Surprisingly, and unlike the situation for some other classes of lexicographic ranking functions, we find that even deciding whether a two-component ranking function exists is harder than the unrestricted problem: NP-complete over the rationals and $\Sigma^P_2$-complete over the integers., Comment: Technical report for a corresponding CAV'15 paper

We show that the stochastic field theory for directed percolation in presence of an additional conservation law (the C-DP class) can be mapped exactly to the continuum theory for the depinning of an elastic interface in short-range correlated quenched disorder. On one line of parameters commonly studied, this mapping leads to the simplest overdamped dynamics. Away from this line, an additional memory term arises in the interface dynamics; we argue that it does not change the universality class. Since C-DP is believed to describe the Manna class of self-organized criticality, this shows that Manna stochastic sandpiles and disordered elastic interfaces (i.e. the quenched Edwards-Wilkinson model) share the same universal large-scale behavior., Comment: 5 pages

We search for gamma-ray emission from the galaxy cluster SPT-CL J2012-5649 in the energy range from 3 GeV to 1 TeV using the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) telescope. For our analysis, we use three different templates: point source, radial disk, and radial Gaussian. We do not detect a signal with significance $>3\sigma$ for any of these templates at any location within $R_{200}$ of the cluster center. We obtain 95\% C.L. upper limit on the energy flux ranging between $\sim 10^{-6}$ and $10^{-4} \rm{MeV~cm^{-2}~s^{-1}}$ depending on the energy range. These upper limits are consistent with a previously reported non-zero flux detected by Fermi-LAT at $6\sigma$ significance. This work represents the first proof of principle search for gamma-ray emission from a single galaxy cluster using DAMPE data., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in JHEAP

Optical trapping is having ever-increasing impact in science $-$ particularly biophysics, photonics and most recently in quantum optomechanics $-$ owing to its superior capability for manipulating nanoscale structures and materials. However, essentially all experimental optical trapping studies in the optical dipole regime have, to date, been dominated by the interaction between a material's electric polarizability, $\alpha_{e}$, and the electric part of the incident electromagnetic field, and therefore described by electric field intensity gradient forces. Optical trapping based on optical magnetic light-matter interactions has not been experimentally addressed despite it's immediate extension of the boundaries of optical trapping research and applications. This paper addresses this long-standing deficiency through the realization of optical magnetic trapping of large index of refraction (i.e., Si) nanoparticles and also presents a formalism for quantitative understanding of the experimental findings. Our experimental optical trapping results require including optical magnetic polarizability, $\alpha_{m}$, and electric-magnetic scattering forces associated with the Photonic Hall effect that are qualitatively and quantitatively validated by Maxwell stress tensor calculations. Our findings bring new opportunities for nanoparticle manipulation, potentially relax the limitations Ashkin claimed based on the optical Earnshaw's theorem, motivate optical matter formation by optical magnetic interactions, and suggest new N-body effects and symmetry breaking to drive dynamics of optical matter systems.

Medical image segmentation is one of the domains where sufficient annotated data is not available. This necessitates the application of low-data frameworks like few-shot learning. Contemporary prototype-based frameworks often do not account for the variation in features within the support and query images, giving rise to a large variance in prototype alignment. In this work, we adopt a prototype-based self-supervised one-way one-shot learning framework using pseudo-labels generated from superpixels to learn the semantic segmentation task itself. We use a correlation-based probability score to generate a dynamic prototype for each query pixel from the bag of prototypes obtained from the support feature map. This weighting scheme helps to give a higher weightage to contextually related prototypes. We also propose a quadrant masking strategy in the downstream segmentation task by utilizing prior domain information to discard unwanted false positives. We present extensive experimentations and evaluations on abdominal CT and MR datasets to show that the proposed simple but potent framework performs at par with the state-of-the-art methods., Comment: Accepted to ICPR 2024

We consider the free boundary problem for a 3-dimensional, incompressible, irrotational liquid drop of nearly spherical shape with capillarity. We study the problem from scratch, extending some classical results from the flat case (capillary water waves) to the spherical geometry: the reduction to a problem on the boundary, its Hamiltonian structure, the analyticity and tame estimates for the Dirichlet-Neumann operator in Sobolev class, and a linearization formula for it, both with the method of the good unknown of Alinhac and by a differential geometry approach. Then we prove the bifurcation of traveling waves, which are nontrivial (i.e., nonspherical) fixed profiles rotating with constant angular velocity.

Modern Education is not \textit{Modern} without AI. However, AI's complex nature makes understanding and fixing problems challenging. Research worldwide shows that a parent's income greatly influences a child's education. This led us to explore how AI, especially complex models, makes important decisions using Explainable AI tools. Our research uncovered many complexities linked to parental income and offered reasonable explanations for these decisions. However, we also found biases in AI that go against what we want from AI in education: clear transparency and equal access for everyone. These biases can impact families and children's schooling, highlighting the need for better AI solutions that offer fair opportunities to all. This chapter tries to shed light on the complex ways AI operates, especially concerning biases. These are the foundational steps towards better educational policies, which include using AI in ways that are more reliable, accountable, and beneficial for everyone involved., Comment: Technical Report, UROP-2023

The identification of complex prebiotic molecules using millimeter and submillimeter telescopes allows us to understand how the basic building blocks of life are formed in the universe. In the interstellar medium (ISM), ethylene glycol ((CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$) is the simplest sugar alcohol molecule, and it is the reduced alcohol of the simplest sugar-like molecule, glycolaldehyde (CH$_{2}$OHCHO). We present the first detection of the rotational emission lines of $aGg^{\prime}$ conformer of ethylene glycol ((CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$) towards the hot molecular core G358.93$-$0.03 MM1 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). The estimated column density of $aGg^{\prime}$-(CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$ towards the G358.93$-$0.03 MM1 is (4.5$\pm$0.1)$\times$10$^{16}$ cm$^{-2}$ with an excitation temperature of 155$\pm$35 K. The abundance of $aGg^{\prime}$-(CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$ with respect to H$_{2}$ is (1.4$\pm$0.5)$\times$10$^{-8}$. Similarly, the abundances of $aGg^{\prime}$-(CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$ with respect to CH$_{2}$OHCHO and CH$_{3}$OH are 3.1$\pm$0.5 and (6.1$\pm$0.3)$\times$10$^{-3}$. We compare the estimated abundance of $aGg^{\prime}$-(CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$ with the existing three-phase warm-up chemical model abundance of (CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$, and we notice the observed abundance and modelled abundance are nearly similar. We discuss the possible formation pathways of $aGg^{\prime}$-(CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$ towards the hot molecular cores, and we find that $aGg^{\prime}$-(CH$_{2}$OH)$_{2}$ is probably created via the recombination of two CH$_{2}$OH radicals on the grain surface of G358.93$-$0.03 MM1., Comment: Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS)

A graph is called claw-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to the complete bipartite graph $K_{1, 3}$. The undirected power graph of a group $G$ has vertices the elements of $G$, with an edge between $g_1$ and $g_2$ if one of the two cyclic subgroups $\langle g_1\rangle, \langle g_2\rangle$ is contained in the other. It is denoted by $P(G)$. The reduced power graph, denoted by $P^*(G),$ is the subgraph of $P(G)$ induced by the non-identity elements. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the finite groups whose reduced power graph is claw-free. In particular we prove that if $P^*(G)$ is claw-free, then either $G$ is solvable or $G$ is an almost simple group. In the second case the socle of $G$ is isomorphic to $PSL(2,q)$ for suitable choices of $q$. Finally we prove that if $P^*(G)$ is claw-free, then the order of $G$ is divisible by at most 5 different primes.