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We present an efficient implementation for running three-dimensional numerical simulations of fluid-structure interaction problems on single GPUs, based on Nvidia CUDA through Numba and Python. The incompressible flow around moving bodies is solved in this framework through an implementation of the Immersed Boundary Method tailored for the GPU, where different GPU grid architectures are exploited to optimize the overall performance. By targeting a single-GPU, we avoid GPU-CPU and GPU-GPU communication bottlenecks, since all the simulation data is always in the global memory of the GPU. We provide details about the numerical methodology, the implementation of the algorithm in the GPU and the memory management, critical in single-GPU implementations. Additionally, we verify the results comparing with our analogous CPU-based parallel solver and assess satisfactorily the efficiency of the code in terms of the relative computing time of the different operations and the scaling of the CPU code compared to a single GPU case. Overall, our tests show that the single-GPU code is between 34 to 54 times faster than the CPU solver in peak performance (96-128 CPU cores). This speedup mainly comes from the change in the method of solution of the linear systems of equations, while the speedup in sections of the algorithm that are equivalent in the CPU and GPU implementations is more modest (i.e., $\times 1.6-3$ speedup in the computation of the non-linear terms). Finally, we showcase the performance of this new GPU implementation in two applications of interest, one for external flows (i.e., bioinspired aerodynamics) and one for internal flows (i.e., cardiovascular flows), demonstrating the strong scaling of the code in two different GPU cards (hardware).%\red{for both single and double precision.}, Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures

Whereas ferroelectricity may vanish in ultra-thin ferroelectric films, it is expected to emerge in ultra-thin anti-ferroelectric films, sparking people's interest in using antiferroelectric materials as an alternative to ferroelectric ones for high-density data storage applications. Lead Zirconate (PbZrO3) is considered the prototype material for antiferroelectricity, and indeed previous studies indicated that nanoscale PbZrO3 films exhibit ferroelectricity. The understanding of such phenomena from the microstructure aspect is crucial but still lacking. In this study, we fabricated a PbZrO3 film with thicknesses varying from 5 nm to 80 nm. Using Piezoresponse Force Microscopy, we discovered the film displayed a transition from antiferroelectric behaviour in the thicker areas to ferroelectric behaviour in the thinner ones, with a critical thickness between 10 and 15 nm. In this critical thickness range, a 12 nm PZO thin film was chosen for further study using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy. The investigation showed that the film comprises both ferroelectric and ferrielectric phases. The ferroelectric phase is characterized by polarisation along the pseudocubic [011] projection direction. The positions of Pb, Zr, and O were determined using the integrated differential phase contrast method. This allowed us to ascertain that the ferroelectric PbZrO3 unit cell is half the size of that in the antiferroelectric phase on the ab plane. The observed unit cell is different from the electric field-induced ferroelectric rhombohedral phases. Additionally, we identified a ferrielectric phase with a unique up-up-zero-zero dipole configuration. The finding is crucial for understanding the performance of ultrathin antiferroelectric thin films and the subsequent design and development of antiferroelectric devices.

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA's M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars. PLATO will detect small planets (down to <2 R_(Earth)) around bright stars (<11 mag), including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. With the complement of radial velocity observations from the ground, planets will be characterised for their radius, mass, and age with high accuracy (5 %, 10 %, 10 % for an Earth-Sun combination respectively). PLATO will provide us with a large-scale catalogue of well-characterised small planets up to intermediate orbital periods, relevant for a meaningful comparison to planet formation theories and to better understand planet evolution. It will make possible comparative exoplanetology to place our Solar System planets in a broader context. In parallel, PLATO will study (host) stars using asteroseismology, allowing us to determine the stellar properties with high accuracy, substantially enhancing our knowledge of stellar structure and evolution. The payload instrument consists of 26 cameras with 12cm aperture each. For at least four years, the mission will perform high-precision photometric measurements. Here we review the science objectives, present PLATO's target samples and fields, provide an overview of expected core science performance as well as a description of the instrument and the mission profile at the beginning of the serial production of the flight cameras. PLATO is scheduled for a launch date end 2026. This overview therefore provides a summary of the mission to the community in preparation of the upcoming operational phases.

We review the construction and evolution of mathematical models of the Arabidopsis circadian clock, structuring the discussion into two distinct historical phases of modeling strategies: extension and reduction. The extension phase explores the bottom-up assembly of regulatory networks introducing as many components and interactions as possible in order to capture the oscillatory nature of the clock. The reduction phase deals with functional decomposition, distilling complex models to their essential dynamical repertoire. Current challenges in this field, including the integration of spatial considerations and environmental influences like light and temperature, are also discussed. The review emphasizes the ongoing need for models that balance molecular detail with practical simplicity.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is fundamental for the assessment of many diseases, due to its excellent tissue contrast characterization. This is based on quantitative techniques, such as T1 , T2 , and T2* mapping. Quantitative MRI requires the acquisition of several contrast-weighed images followed by a fitting to an exponential model or dictionary matching, which results in undesirably long acquisition times. Undersampling reconstruction techniques are commonly employed to speed up the scan, with the drawback of introducing aliasing artifacts. However, most undersampling reconstruction techniques require long computational times or do not exploit redundancies across the different contrast-weighted images. This study introduces a new regularization technique to overcome aliasing artifacts, namely CConnect, which uses an innovative regularization term that leverages several trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to connect and exploit information across image contrasts in a latent space. We validate our method using in-vivo T2* mapping of the brain, with retrospective undersampling factors of 4, 5 and 6, demonstrating its effectiveness in improving reconstruction in comparison to state-of-the-art techniques. Comparisons against joint total variation, nuclear low rank and a deep learning (DL) de-aliasing post-processing method, with respect to structural similarity index measure (SSIM) and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) metrics are presented., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures

We report the switching dynamics of antiferroelectric Lead Zirconate (PbZrO3) free standing capacitors compared to their epitaxial counterparts. Frequency dependence of hysteresis indicates that freestanding capacitors exhibit a lower dispersion of switching fields, lower residual polarization, and faster switching response as compared to epitaxially-clamped capacitors. As a consequence, freestanding capacitor membranes exhibit better energy storage density and efficiency., Comment: 27 pages, 7 Figures, Supplementary material

Extraordinary physical properties arise at polar interfaces in oxide materials, including the emergence of two-dimensional electron gases, sheet-superconductivity, and multiferroicity. A special type of polar interface are ferroelectric domain walls, where electronic reconstruction phenomena can be driven by bound charges. Great progress has been achieved in the characterization of such domain walls and, over the last decade, their potential for next-generation nanotechnology has become clear. Established tomography techniques, however, are either destructive or offer insufficient spatial resolution, creating a pressing demand for 3D imaging compatible with future fabrication processes. Here, we demonstrate non-destructive tomographic imaging of ferroelectric domain walls using secondary electrons. Utilizing conventional scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we reconstruct the position, orientation, and charge state of hidden domain walls at distances up to several hundreds of nanometers away from the surface. A mathematical model is derived that links the SEM intensity variations at the surface to the local domain wall properties, enabling non-destructive tomography with good noise tolerance on the timescale of seconds. Our SEM-based approach facilitates high-throughput screening of materials with functional domain walls and domain-wall-based devices, which is essential for monitoring during the production of device architectures and quality control in real-time.

Understanding the mechanisms underlying a stable polarization at the surface of ferroelectric thin films is of particular importance both from a fundamental point of view and to achieve control of the surface polarization itself. In this study, it is demonstrated that the X-ray standing wave technique allows the polarization near the surface of a ferroelectric thin film to be probed directly. The X-ray standing wave technique is employed to determine, with picometer accuracy, Ti and Ba atomic positions near the surface of three differently strained $\mathrm{BaTiO_3}$ thin films grown on scandate substrates, with a $\mathrm{SrRuO_3}$ film as bottom electrode. This technique gives direct access to atomic positions, and thus to the local ferroelectric polarization, within the first 3 unit cells below the surface. By employing X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, a detailed overview of the oxygen-containing species adsorbed on the surface, upon exposure to ambient conditions, is obtained. The combination of structural and spectroscopic information allows us to conclude on the most plausible mechanisms that stabilize the surface polarization in the three samples under study. The different amplitude and orientation of the local ferroelectric polarizations are associated with surface charges attributed to the type, amount and spatial distribution of the oxygen-containing adsorbates.

Cardiac cine MRI is the gold standard for cardiac functional assessment, but the inherently slow acquisition process creates the necessity of reconstruction approaches for accelerated undersampled acquisitions. Several regularization approaches that exploit spatial-temporal redundancy have been proposed to reconstruct undersampled cardiac cine MRI. More recently, methods based on supervised deep learning have been also proposed to further accelerate acquisition and reconstruction. However, these techniques rely on usually large dataset for training, which are not always available. In this work, we propose an unsupervised approach based on implicit neural field representations for cardiac cine MRI (so called NF-cMRI). The proposed method was evaluated in in-vivo undersampled golden-angle radial multi-coil acquisitions for undersampling factors of 26x and 52x, achieving good image quality, and comparable spatial and improved temporal depiction than a state-of-the-art reconstruction technique.

The Wake Field Monitor (WFM) system installed on the CLIC prototype accelerating structure in CERN Linear Accelerator for Research (CLEAR) has two channels for each horizontal/vertical plane, operating at different frequencies. When moving the beam relative to the aperture of the structure, a disagreement is observed between the center position of the structure as measured with the two channels in each plane. This is a challenge for the planned use of WFMs in the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), where they will be used to measure the center offset between the accelerating structures and the beam. Through a mixture of simulations and measurements, we have discovered a potential mechanism for this, which is discussed along with implications for improving position resolution near the structure center, and the possibility determination of the sign of the beam offset., Comment: 16 pages, 20 figures

Complex oxides offer a wide range of functional properties, and recent advances in fabrication of freestanding membranes of these oxides are adding new mechanical degrees of freedom to this already rich functional ecosystem. Here, we demonstrate photoactuation in freestanding thin film resonators of ferroelectric Barium Titanate (BaTiO3) and paraelectric Strontium Titanate (SrTiO3). The free-standing films, transferred onto perforated supports, act as nano-drums, oscillating at their natural resonance frequency when illuminated by a frequency-modulated laser. The light-induced deflections in the ferroelectric BaTiO3 membranes are two orders of magnitude larger than in the paraelectric SrTiO3 ones. Time-resolved X-ray micro-diffraction under illumination and temperature-dependent and holographic interferometry provide combined evidence for the photostrictive strain in BaTiO3 originating from partial screening of ferroelectric polarization by photo-excited carriers, which decreases the tetragonality of the unit cell. These findings showcase the potential of photostrictive freestanding ferroelectric films as wireless actuators operated by light.

This paper advocates for an intertwined design of the dense linear algebra software stack that breaks down the strict barriers between the high-level, blocked algorithms in LAPACK (Linear Algebra PACKage) and the low-level, architecture-dependent kernels in BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms). Specifically, we propose customizing the GEMM (general matrix multiplication) kernel, which is invoked from the blocked algorithms for relevant matrix factorizations in LAPACK, to improve performance on modern multicore processors with hierarchical cache memories. To achieve this, we leverage an analytical model to dynamically adapt the cache configuration parameters of the GEMM to the shape of the matrix operands. Additionally, we accommodate a flexible development of architecture-specific micro-kernels that allow us to further improve the utilization of the cache hierarchy. Our experiments on two platforms, equipped with ARM (NVIDIA Carmel, Neon) and x86 (AMD EPYC, AVX2) multi-core processors, demonstrate the benefits of this approach in terms of better cache utilization and, in general, higher performance. However, they also reveal the delicate balance between optimizing for multi-threaded parallelism versus cache usage.

All possible phenotypes are not equally accessible to evolving populations. In fact, only phenotypes of large size, i.e. those resulting from many different genotypes, are found in populations of sequences, presumably because they are easier to discover and maintain. Genotypes that map to these phenotypes usually form mostly connected genotype networks that percolate the space of sequences, thus guaranteeing access to a large set of alternative phenotypes. Within a given environment, where specific phenotypic traits become relevant for adaptation, the replicative ability of a phenotype and its overall fitness (in competition experiments with alternative phenotypes) can be estimated. Two primary questions arise: how do phenotype size, reproductive capability and topology of the genotype network affect the fitness of a phenotype? And, assuming that evolution is only able to access large phenotypes, what is the range of unattainable fitness values? In order to address these questions, we quantify the adaptive advantage of phenotypes of varying size and spectral radius in a two-peak landscape. We derive analytical relationships between the three variables (size, topology, and replicative ability) which are then tested through analysis of genotype-phenotype maps and simulations of population dynamics on such maps. Finally, we analytically show that the fraction of attainable phenotypes decreases with the length of the genotype, though its absolute number increases. The fact that most phenotypes are not visible to evolution very likely forbids the attainment of the highest peak in the landscape. Nevertheless, our results indicate that the relative fitness loss due to this limited accessibility is largely inconsequential for adaptation., Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, uses iopart.cls, iopart10.clo, iopart12.clo, iopams.sty, setstack.sty

We report the results from a photometric reverberation mapping campaign carried out with the C18 telescope at the Wise Observatory from 2019 to 2020, targeting the active galactic nucleus (AGN) MCG 08-11-011. The monitoring was conducted on a daily basis with specially designed narrow-band filters, spanning from optical to near-infrared wavelengths ($\sim4000$ to $8000${\AA}) and avoiding prominent broad emission lines. We aim to measure inter-band continuum time lags, determine the size-wavelength relation, and estimate the host-subtracted AGN luminosity for this system. We used the point-spread function photometry to extract the continuum light curves and measure the inter-band time lags using several methods, including the interpolated cross-correlation function, the z-transformed discrete correlation function, a von Neumann estimator, JAVELIN (in spectroscopic and photometric mode), MICA, and a multivariate correlation function. We find wavelength-dependent lags, $\tau(\lambda)$, up to $\sim$7 days between the multiband light curves of MCG 08-11-011. The observed lags are larger than predictions based on standard thin-disk theory by a factor of $\sim3-7$. We discern a significantly steeper ($\tau \propto \lambda^{4.74}$) size-wavelength relation than the $\tau \propto \lambda^{4/3}$ expected for a geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disk, which may result from the contribution of diffuse continuum emission to the flux. These results are similar to those found by previous continuum reverberation mapping campaigns., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2111.07385

Certain spatial distributions of water inside partially filled containers can significantly reduce the bounce of the container. In experiments with containers filled to a volume fraction $\phi$, we show that rotation offers control and high efficiency in setting such distributions and, consequently, in altering bounce markedly. High-speed imaging evidences the physics of the phenomenon and reveals a rich sequence of fluid-dynamics processes, which we translate into a model that captures our overall experimental findings., Comment: Submitted to Physical Review Letters

The phase diagram of ice is complex and contains many phases, but the most common (frozen water at ambient pressure, also known as Ih ice) is a non-polar material despite individual water molecules being polar 1,2. Consequently, ice is not piezoelectric and cannot generate electricity under pressure3. On the other hand, the coupling between polarization and strain gradient (flexoelectricity) is universal4,5, so ice may in theory generate electricity under bending. Here we report the experimental demonstration that ice is flexoelectric, finding a coefficient comparable to that of ceramics such as SrTiO3 or TiO2. Additionally, the sensitivity of flexoelectric measurements to surface boundary conditions reveals a ferroelectric phase transition around 163K at the electrode interface of the ice slabs. The electromechanical properties of ice may find applications for low-cost transducers made in-situ in cold and remote locations, but perhaps more important are the consequences for natural phenomena involving ice electrification. Here, we have calculated the flexoelectric polarization generated in collisions among ice and graupel particles. The calculations reproduce, qualitatively and quantitatively, the experimentally reported results for contact electrification in such events, thought to be at the genesis of lightning in storm clouds.

In the archetypal antiferroelectric PbZrO3, antiparallel electric dipoles cancel each other, resulting in zero spontaneous polarisation at the macroscopic level. Yet in actual hysteresis loops, the cancellation is rarely perfect and some remnant polarization is often observed, suggesting the metastability of polar phases in this material. In this work, using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy methods on a PbZrO3 single crystal, we uncover the coexistence of the common antiferroelectric phase and a ferrielectric phase featuring an electric dipole pattern of "up down up". This dipole arrangement, predicted by Aramberri et al. (2021) to be the ground state of PbZrO3 at 0K, appears at room temperature in the form of translational boundaries that aggregate to form wider stripe domains of the polar phase embedded within the antiferroelectric matrix.

The main interest of the Science Team for the exploitation of the MEGARA instrument at the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC hereafter) is devoted to the study of nearby galaxies, with focus on the research of the history of star formation, and chemical and kinematical properties of disc systems. We refer to this project as MEGADES: MEGARA Galaxy Discs Evolution Survey. The initial goal of MEGADES is to provide a detailed study of the inner regions of nearby disc galaxies, both in terms of their spectrophotometric and chemical evolution, and their dynamical characterisation, by disentangling the contribution of in-situ and ex-situ processes to the history of star formation and effective chemical enrichment of these regions. In addition, the dynamical analysis of these inner regions naturally includes the identification and characterization of galactic winds potentially present in these regions. At a later stage, we will extend this study further out in galactocentric distance. The first stage of this project encompasses the analysis of the central regions of a total of 43 nearby galaxies observed with the MEGARA Integral Field Unit for 114 hours, including both Guaranteed Time and Open Time observations. In this paper we provide a set of all the processed data products available to the community and early results from the analysis of these data regarding stellar continuum, ionized and neutral gas features., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

Halide perovskites have outstanding photovoltaic properties which have been optimized through interfacial engineering. However, as these materials approach the limits imposed by the physics of semiconductor junctions, it is urgent to explore alternatives, such as the bulk photovoltaic effect, whose physical origin is different and not bound by the same limits. In this context, we focus on the flexo-photovoltaic effect, a type of bulk photovoltaic effect that was recently observed in oxides under strain gradients. We have measured the flexo-photovoltaic effect of MAPbBr3 and MAPbI3 crystals under bending and found it to be orders of magnitude larger than for SrTiO3, the benchmark flexo-photovoltaic oxide. For sufficiently large strain gradients, photovoltages bigger than the bandgap can be produced. Bulk photovoltaic effects are additive and, for MAPbI3, the flexo-photovoltage exists on top of a native bulk photovoltage that is hysteretic, consistent with the electrically switchable macroscopic polarization of this material. The results suggest that harnessing the flexo-photovoltaic effect through strain gradient engineering can provide a functional leap forward for halide perovskites., Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures

Artificially induced asymmetric tribological properties of ferroelectrics offer an alternative route to visualize and control ferroelectric domains. Here, we observe the switchable friction and wear behavior of ferroelectrics using a nanoscale scanning probe where down domains having lower friction coefficient than up domains can be used as smart masks as they show slower wear rate than up domains. This asymmetry is enabled by flexoelectrically coupled polarization in the up and down domains under a sufficiently high contact force. Moreover, we determine that this polarization-sensitive tribological asymmetry is universal across ferroelectrics with different chemical composition and crystalline symmetry. Finally, using this switchable tribology and multi-pass patterning with a domain-based dynamic smart mask, we demonstrate three-dimensional nanostructuring exploiting the asymmetric wear rates of up and down domains, which can, furthermore, be scaled up to technologically relevant (mm-cm) size. These findings establish that ferroelectrics are electrically tunable tribological materials at the nanoscale for versatile applications., Comment: 72 pages, 33 figures

Microbial colonization of surfaces represents the first step towards biofilm formation, which is a recurring phenomenon in nature with beneficial and detrimental implications in technological and medical settings. Consequently, there is a current interest in elucidating the fundamental aspects of the initial stages of biofilm formation of microorganisms on solid surfaces. While most of the research is oriented to understand bacterial surface colonization, such observations at a fundamental level using photosynthetic microalgae are thus far elusive. Recent single-cell studies showed that the flagellar adhesion of Chlamydomonas is switched on in blue light and switched off under red light [Kreis et al., Nature Physics, 2018, 14, 45-49]. Here, we study this light-switchable surface association of C. reinhardtii on the population level and measure the kinetics of adsorption and desorption of suspensions of motile cells on glass surfaces using bright field optical microscopy. We observe that both processes exhibit a response lag relative to the time at which the blue- and red-light conditions are set and model this feature using time-delayed Langmuir-type kinetics. We find that cell adsorption occurs significantly faster than desorption, which we attribute to the protein-mediated molecular adhesion mechanism of the cells. Adsorption experiments using phototactically blind Chlamydomonas mutants demonstrate that phototaxis does not affect the cell adsorption kinetics. Hence, this method can be used as an assay for characterizing the dynamics of the surface colonization of microbial species exhibiting light-regulated surface adhesion., Comment: 10, pages, 6 figures