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We evaluate all nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) up to next-to-next-to leading order (N$^2$LO) in chiral effective field theory ($\chi$EFT) for the neutrinoless double-beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay of the nuclei most relevant for experiments, including $^{76}$Ge, $^{100}$Mo, and $^{136}$Xe. We use the proton-neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation (pnQRPA) and the nuclear shell model to calculate the N$^2$LO NMEs from very low-momentum (ultrasoft) neutrinos and from loop diagrams usually neglected in $0\nu\beta\beta$ studies. Our results indicate that, separately, the new N$^2$LO NMEs can have up to a $15\%$ impact on the total NME, but cancellations lead to an overall N$^2$LO contribution centered around $-5\%$ for the shell model and $+10\%$ for the pnQRPA, with sizable uncertainties due to the short-range nature of the loop NMEs. The sign discrepancy between many-body methods is common to all studied nuclei and points to the different behaviour of the intermediate states of the $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay. In addition, our results support the $\chi$EFT prediction that the ultrasoft NME is closely related to contributions usually referred to as ``beyond the closure approximation''., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, and 2 tables

With the booming popularity of smartphones, threats related to these devices are increasingly on the rise. Smishing, a combination of SMS (Short Message Service) and phishing has emerged as a treacherous cyber threat used by malicious actors to deceive users, aiming to steal sensitive information, money or install malware on their mobile devices. Despite the increase in smishing attacks in recent years, there are very few studies aimed at understanding the factors that contribute to a user's ability to differentiate real from fake messages. To address this gap in knowledge, we have conducted an online survey on smishing detection with 187 participants. In this study, we presented them with 16 SMS screenshots and evaluated how different factors affect their decision making process in smishing detection. Next, we conducted a post-survey to garner information on the participants' security attitudes, behavior and knowledge. Our results highlighted that attention and security behavioral scores had a significant impact on participants' accuracy in identifying smishing messages. We found that participants had more difficulty identifying real messages from fake ones, with an accuracy of 67.1% with fake messages and 43.6% with real messages. Our study is crucial in developing proactive strategies to encounter and mitigate smishing attacks. By understanding what factors influence smishing detection, we aim to bolster users' resilience against such threats and create a safer digital environment for all.

The theory of Weil-Stark elements is used to develop an axiomatic approach to the formulation of refined versions of Stark's Conjecture. This gives concrete new results concerning leading terms of Artin $L$-series and arithmetic properties of Stark elements., Comment: This is part II of a split article; 37 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2111.11109

We derive new cases of conjectures of Rubin and of Burns--Kurihara--Sano concerning derivatives of Dirichlet $L$-series at $s = 0$ in $p$-elementary extensions of number fields for arbitrary prime numbers $p$. In naturally arising examples of such extensions one therefore obtains annihilators of class groups from $S$-truncated Dirichlet $L$-series for `large-enough' sets of places $S$.

Let $K/k$ be a finite Galois extension of global function fields. Let $E$ be a Drinfeld module over $k$. We state and prove an equivariant refinement of Taelman's analogue of the analytic class number formula for $(E,K/k)$, and derive explicit consequences for the Galois structure of the Taelman class group of $E$ over $K$., Comment: 41 pages

Let $A/\mathbb{Q}$ be a Jacobian variety and let $F$ be a totally real, tamely ramified, abelian number field. Given a character $\psi$ of $F/\mathbb{Q}$, Deligne's Period Conjecture asserts the algebraicity of the suitably normalised value $\mathcal{L}(A,\psi,1)$ at $z=1$ of the Hasse-Weil-Artin $L$-function of the $\psi$-twist of $A$. We formulate a conjecture regarding the integrality properties of the family of normalised $L$-values $(\mathcal{L}(A,\psi,1))_{\psi}$, and its relation to the Tate-Shafarevich group of $A$ over $F$. We numerically investigate our conjecture through $p$-adic congruence relations between these values., Comment: 24 pages

We held the first-ever MineRL Benchmark for Agents that Solve Almost-Lifelike Tasks (MineRL BASALT) Competition at the Thirty-fifth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2021). The goal of the competition was to promote research towards agents that use learning from human feedback (LfHF) techniques to solve open-world tasks. Rather than mandating the use of LfHF techniques, we described four tasks in natural language to be accomplished in the video game Minecraft, and allowed participants to use any approach they wanted to build agents that could accomplish the tasks. Teams developed a diverse range of LfHF algorithms across a variety of possible human feedback types. The three winning teams implemented significantly different approaches while achieving similar performance. Interestingly, their approaches performed well on different tasks, validating our choice of tasks to include in the competition. While the outcomes validated the design of our competition, we did not get as many participants and submissions as our sister competition, MineRL Diamond. We speculate about the causes of this problem and suggest improvements for future iterations of the competition., Comment: Accepted to the PMLR NeurIPS 2021 Demo & Competition Track volume

We construct a canonical family of elements in the reduced exterior power lattices of the unit groups of global fields. We prove that this family recovers the theory of cyclotomic elements in real abelian fields and also establish detailed arithmetic properties of its elements in the general case., Comment: This is part I of a split article; 25 pages

Cellular populations such as avascular tumors and microbial biofilms may "invade" or grow into surrounding populations. The invading population is often comprised of a heterogeneous mixture of cells with varying growth rates. The population may also exhibit mutational instabilities, such as a heavy deleterious mutation load in a cancerous growth. We study the dynamics of a heterogeneous, mutating population competing with a surrounding homogeneous population, as one might find in a cancerous invasion of healthy tissue. We find that the shape of the population interface serves as an indicator for the evolutionary dynamics within the heterogeneous population. In particular, invasion front undulations become enhanced when the invading population is near a mutational meltdown transition or when the surrounding "bystander" population is barely able to reinvade the mutating population. We characterize these interface undulations and the effective fitness of the heterogeneous population in one- and two-dimensional systems.

Let $A$ be an abelian variety defined over a number field $k$, let $p$ be an odd prime number and let $F/k$ be a cyclic extension of $p$-power degree. Under not-too-stringent hypotheses we give an interpretation of the $p$-component of the relevant case of the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture in terms of integral congruence relations involving the evaluation on appropriate points of $A$ of the ${\rm Gal}(F/k)$-valued height pairing of Mazur and Tate. We then discuss the numerical computation of this pairing, and in particular obtain the first numerical verifications of this conjecture in situations in which the $p$-completion of the Mordell-Weil group of $A$ over $F$ is not a projective Galois module., Comment: Final version, 26 pages. To appear in Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc

We study the zero location and the asymptotic behavior of iterated integrals of polynomials. Borwein-Chen-Dilcher's polynomials play an important role in this issue. For these polynomials we find their strong asymptotics and give the limit measure of their zero distribution. We apply these results to describe the zero asymptotic distribution of iterated integrals of ultraspherical polynomials with parameters $(2\alpha+1)/2$, $\alpha\in \mathbb{Z}_+$., Comment: 6 figures

We develop a theory of `non-abelian higher special elements' in the non-commutative exterior powers of the Galois cohomology of $p$-adic representations. We explore their relation to the theory of organising matrices and thus to the Galois module structure of Selmer modules. In concrete applications, we relate our general theory to the formulation of refined conjectures of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer type and to the Galois structure of Tate-Shafarevich and Selmer groups of abelian varieties., Comment: Updated References

We consider refined conjectures of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer type for the Hasse-Weil-Artin L-series of abelian varieties over general number fields. We shall, in particular, formulate several new such conjectures and establish their precise relation to previous conjectures, including to the relevant special case of the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture. We also derive a wide range of concrete interpretations and explicit consequences of these conjectures that, in general, involve a thoroughgoing mixture of difficult archimedean considerations related to refinements of the conjecture of Deligne and Gross and delicate p-adic congruence relations that involve the bi-extension height pairing of Mazur and Tate and are related to key aspects of non-commutative Iwasawa theory. In important special cases we provide strong evidence, both theoretical and numerical, in support of the conjectures. We also point out an inconsistency in a conjecture of Bradshaw and Stein regarding Zhang's Theorem on Heegner points and suggest a possible correction., Comment: Revised in accordance to referees' suggestions, 142 pages

We discuss an efficient physical realization of topological quantum walks on a finite lattice. The $N$-point lattice is realized with $\log_2 N$ qubits, and the quantum circuit utilizes a number of quantum gates which is polynomial in the number of qubits. In a certain scaling limit, we show that a large number of steps is implemented with a number of quantum gates which is independent of the number of steps. We ran the quantum algorithm on the IBM-Q five-qubit quantum computer, thus experimentally demonstrating topological features, such as boundary bound states, on a lattice with $N=4$ points., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures