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This letter presents a spatial filter based on saturated absorption in gas as a replacement for the solid pinhole in a lens-pinhole-lens filtering system. We show that an ultraviolet laser pulse focused through ozone will have its spatial profile cleaned if its peak fluence rises above the ozone saturation fluence. Specifically, we demonstrate that a 5 ns 266 nm beam with 4.2 mJ of initial energy can be effectively cleaned by focusing through a 1.4% ozone-oxygen mixture, with about 76% of the main beam energy transmitted and 89% of the side lobe energy absorbed. This process can be adapted to other gases and laser wavelengths, providing alignment-insensitive and damage-resistant pinholes for high-repetition-rate high-energy lasers.

The Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) is the first in-ice radio array in the northern hemisphere for the detection of ultra-high energy neutrinos via the coherent radio emission from neutrino-induced particle cascades within the ice. The array is currently in phased construction near Summit Station on the Greenland ice sheet, with 7~stations deployed during the first two boreal summer field seasons of 2021 and 2022. In this paper, we describe the installation and system design of these initial RNO-G stations, and discuss the performance of the array as of summer 2024.

The Radio Neutrino Observatory - Greenland (RNO-G) seeks discovery of ultra-high energy neutrinos from the cosmos through their interactions in ice. The science program extends beyond particle astrophysics to include radioglaciology and, as we show herein, solar observations, as well. Currently seven of 35 planned radio-receiver stations (24 antennas/station) are operational. These stations are sensitive to impulsive radio signals with frequencies between 80 and 700 MHz and feature a neutrino trigger threshold for recording data close to the thermal floor. RNO-G can also trigger on elevated signals from the Sun, resulting in nanosecond resolution time-domain flare data; such temporal resolution is significantly shorter than from most dedicated solar observatories. In addition to possible RNO-G solar flare polarization measurements, the Sun also represents an extremely useful above-surface calibration source. Using RNO-G data recorded during the summers of 2022 and 2023, we find signal excesses during solar flares reported by the solar-observing Callisto network and also in coincidence with $\sim$2/3 of the brightest excesses recorded by the SWAVES satellite. These observed flares are characterized by significant time-domain impulsivity. Using the known position of the Sun, the flare sample is used to calibrate the RNO-G absolute pointing on the radio signal arrival direction to sub-degree resolution. We thus establish the Sun as a regularly observed astronomical calibration source to provide the accurate absolute pointing required for neutrino astronomy.

Here we demonstrate nanometer thick iron garnet films suitable for the magneto-optical applica-tions. Bismuth-substituted iron garnet films of compositions Bi{_1}Y{_2}Fe{_5}O{_{12}} and Bi{_1}Tm{_2}Fe{_5}O{_{12}} deposited on gadolinium gallium garnet substrate are fabricated and characterized. Their thicknesses range from 2 to 10 nm, which corresponds to just a few crystal lattice constants. Faraday rotation of the nanofilms reaches 29.7 deg/{\mu}m at 420 nm which is comparable and even a bit better than single crystal micrometer thick films of similar composition. The film surface morphology by atomic force microscopy gives root mean square (RMS) roughness of the nanofilms as small as 0.13 nm that is also similar to the RMS of single crystal micrometer thick films. The Bi{_1}Tm{_2}Fe{_5}O{_{12}} films demonstrate effective uniaxial anisotropy. These all make the fabricated nanofilms very promising for their po-tential applications in magneto-optical devices and quantum technologies.

Raman spectroscopy together with density functional calculations were used to study lattice dynamics in a layered honeycomb cobaltite Na$_3$Co$_2$SbO$_6$, which can host a field-induced phase related with the Kitaev physics. We show that there develops an additional mode well above Neel temperature (at $\approx 200$K) at 525 cm$^{-1}$, which origin can be related to an electronic excitation to one of $j_{3/2}$ doublets. Moreover, our theoretical calculations demonstrate that the highest frequency intensive mode related to the oxygen vibrations is very sensitive to type of the magnetic order. Thus, we propose to use the softening of this mode as a hallmark of the transition to a fully polarized regime, which is stabilized in Kitaev materials in strong magnetic fields., Comment: To be published in JETP Letters

High-intensity lasers require suppression of prepulses and other non-ideal temporal structure to avoid target disruption before the arrival of the main pulse. To address this, we demonstrate that ionization gratings act as a controllable optical switch for high-power light with a temporal contrast improvement of at least $3\times10^5$ and a switching time less than 500 fs. We also show that a grating system can run for hours at 10 Hz without degradation. The contrast improvement from an ionization grating compares favorably to that achievable with plasma mirrors., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Over the past few years, one of the most notable advancements in AI research has been in foundation models (FMs), headlined by the rise of language models (LMs). As the models' size increases, LMs demonstrate enhancements in measurable aspects and the development of new qualitative features. However, despite researchers' attention and the rapid growth in LM application, the capabilities, limitations, and associated risks still need to be better understood. To address these issues, we introduce an open Multimodal Evaluation of Russian-language Architectures (MERA), a new instruction benchmark for evaluating foundation models oriented towards the Russian language. The benchmark encompasses 21 evaluation tasks for generative models in 11 skill domains and is designed as a black-box test to ensure the exclusion of data leakage. The paper introduces a methodology to evaluate FMs and LMs in zero- and few-shot fixed instruction settings that can be extended to other modalities. We propose an evaluation methodology, an open-source code base for the MERA assessment, and a leaderboard with a submission system. We evaluate open LMs as baselines and find that they are still far behind the human level. We publicly release MERA to guide forthcoming research, anticipate groundbreaking model features, standardize the evaluation procedure, and address potential societal drawbacks., Comment: The paper version comparable with the release code v.1.1.0 of the benchmark MERA. ACL-2024 main track camera ready version

We demonstrate optical nonthermal excitation of exchange dominated spin waves of different orders in a magnetophotonic crystal. The magnetophotonic structure consists of a thin magnetic film and a Bragg stack of nonmagnetic layers to provide a proper nonuniform interference pattern of the inverse Faraday effect induced by light in the magnetic layer. We found a phenomenon of the pronounced phase slippage of the inverse Faraday effect distribution when the pump wavelength is within the photonic band gap of the structure. It allows to tune the interference pattern by a slight variation of light wavelength which results in the modification of excitation efficiency of the different order spin waves. The approach can be applied for different magnetic dielectrics expanding their application horizons for spin-wave based devices.

The constantly increasing dimensionality of artificial quantum systems demands for highly efficient methods for their characterization and benchmarking. Conventional quantum tomography fails for larger systems due to the exponential growth of the required number of measurements. The conceptual solution for this dimensionality curse relies on a simple idea - a complete description of a quantum state is excessive and can be discarded in favor of experimentally accessible information about the system. The probably approximately correct (PAC) learning theory has been recently successfully applied to a problem of building accurate predictors for the measurement outcomes using a dataset which scales only linearly with the number of qubits. Here we present a constructive and numerically efficient protocol which learns a tensor network model of an unknown quantum system. We discuss the limitations and the scalability of the proposed method., Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures

IceCube-Gen2 is a planned next-generation neutrino observatory at the South Pole that builds upon the successful design of IceCube. Integrating two complementary detection technologies for neutrinos, optical and radio Cherenkov emission, in combination with a surface array for cosmic ray air shower detection, IceCube-Gen2 will cover a broad neutrino energy range from MeV to EeV. This index of contributions to the 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference in Nagoya, Japan (July 26 - August 3, 2023) describes research and development efforts for IceCube-Gen2. Included are summaries of the design, status, and sensitivity of the IceCube-Gen2 optical, surface, and radio components; performance studies of next-generation optical sensors detecting optical Cherenkov radiation from cosmic ray and neutrino events; reconstruction techniques of radio and optical events in terms of energy, direction, and neutrino flavor; and sensitivity studies of astrophysical neutrino flavors, diffuse neutrino fluxes, and cosmic ray anisotropies. Contributions related to IceCube and the scheduled IceCube Upgrade are available in a separate collection., Comment: To access the list of contributions, please follow the "HTML" link. Links to individual contributions will fill in as authors upload their material

In column-oriented query processing, a materialization strategy determines when lightweight positions (row IDs) are translated into tuples. It is an important part of column-store architecture, since it defines the class of supported query plans, and, therefore, impacts the overall system performance. In this paper we continue investigating materialization strategies for a distributed disk-based column-store. We start with demonstrating cases when existing approaches impose fundamental limitations on the resulting system performance. Then, in order to address them, we propose a new hybrid materialization model. The main feature of hybrid materialization is the ability to manipulate both positions and values at the same time. This way, query engine can flexibly combine advantages of all the existing strategies and support a new class of query plans. Moreover, hybrid materialization allows the query engine to flexibly customize the materialization policy of individual attributes. We describe our vision of how hybrid materialization can be implemented in a columnar system. As an example, we use PosDB~ -- a distributed, disk-based column-store. We present necessary data structures, the internals of a hybrid operator, and describe the algebra of such operators. Based on this implementation, we evaluate performance of late, ultra-late, and hybrid materialization strategies in several scenarios based on TPC-H queries. Our experiments demonstrate that hybrid materialization is almost two times faster than its counterparts, while providing a more flexible query model.

The phenomena of magneto-optical polarization rotation and circular magnetic dichroism are well known in the Faraday configuration. We present another effect, an odd magneto-optical linear dichroism, arising in nanostructures with polarization-dependent mode Q-factors. It reveals itself as the magneto-optical modulation of light intensity for the two opposite magnetization directions in the Faraday configuration. The effect was demonstrated on a magnetophotonic crystal with a cavity mode, the polarization-dependent Q-factor of which is due to oblique incidence. For a polarization angle of 60{\deg} (or 120{\deg}) and an angle of incidence around 60{\deg}, the magneto-optical intensity modulation maximizes and reaches 6%.

Isotropic diffuse gamma-ray flux in the PeV energy band is an important tool for multimessenger tests of models of the origin of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos and for new-physics searches. So far, this flux has not yet been observed. Carpet-2 is an air-shower experiment capable of detecting astrophysical gamma rays with energies above 0.1 PeV. Here we report the upper limits on the isotropic gamma-ray flux from Carpet-2 data obtained in 1999-2011 and 2018-2022. These results, obtained with the new statistical method based on the shape of the muon-number distribution, summarize Carpet-2 observations as the upgraded installation, Carpet-3, starts its operation., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, JETPL.cls; V2: references added, version accepted by JETP Letters

It is widely known that the magneto-optical Faraday effect is linear in magnetization, and therefore the Faraday angles for the states with opposite magnetizations are of opposite sign but equal in modulus. Here we demonstrate that under certain spatial symmetry-breaking conditions, an asymmetric Faraday effect (AFE) arises, meaning that the Faraday angles for opposite magnetic states differ not only in sign but in absolute value as well. Experimental investigations of AFE are performed in a one-dimensional all-garnet magnetophotonic crystal, where AFE appears in the vicinity of the cavity resonance for an oblique incidence of light with an inclined light polarization plane. The magnitude of the observed asymmetry between Faraday rotations for the two opposite magnetizations is very large and reaches 30$\%$ of the absolute value of the Faraday effect. We confirm the generality of the suggested effect by the numerical analysis of several different configurations in which AFE arises. The discovered AFE is of prime importance for nanoscale magnonics and optomagnetism., Comment: Supplementary information provided after the main text

Recent theoretical studies have suggested that Kitaev physics and such effects as formation of a mysterious spin-liquid state can be expected not only in RuCl3 and iridates, but also in conventional $3d$ transition metal compounds. Using DC and AC magnetometry, thermodynamic and $^{23}$Na nuclear magnetic resonance measurements (NMR) we studied such a candidate material Na3Co2SbO6. A full phase diagram of Na3Co2SbO6 in a wide range of magnetic fields and temperatures is presented. The results demonstrate transformation of the antiferromagnetic structure under the external magnetic field, gradual development of the saturation phase, as well as evidence of gapped behavior in certain parts of the phase diagram

This work is dedicated to the review and perspective of the new direction that we call "Neuropunk revolution" resembling the cultural phenomenon of cyberpunk. This new phenomenon has its foundations in advances in neuromorphic technologies including memristive and bio-plausible simulations, BCI, and neurointerfaces as well as unconventional approaches to AI and computing in general. We present the review of the current state-of-the-art and our vision of near future development of scientific approaches and future technologies. We call the "Neuropunk revolution" the set of trends that in our view provide the necessary background for the new generation of approaches technologies to integrate the cybernetic objects with biological tissues in close loop system as well as robotic systems inspired by the biological processes again integrated with biological objects. We see bio-plausible simulations implemented by digital computers or spiking networks memristive hardware as promising bridge or middleware between digital and (neuro)biological domains.

The future space-based GAMMA-400 gamma-ray telescope will operate onboard the Russian astrophysical observatory in a highly elliptic orbit during 7 years to observe Galactic plane, Galactic Center, Fermi Bubbles, Crab, Vela, Cygnus X, Geminga, Sun, and other regions and measure gamma- and cosmic-ray fluxes. Observations will be performed in the point-source mode continuously for a long time (~100 days). GAMMA-400 will measure gamma rays in the energy range from ~20 MeV to several TeV and cosmic-ray electrons + positrons up to several tens TeV. GAMMA-400 instrument will have very good angle and energy resolutions, high separation efficiency of gamma rays from cosmic-ray background, as well as electrons + positrons from protons. The main feature of GAMMA-400 is the unprecedented angular resolution for energies >30 GeV better than the space-based and ground-based gamma-ray telescopes by a factor of 5-10. GAMMA-400 observations will permit to resolve gamma rays from annihilation or decay of dark matter particles, identify many discrete sources, clarify the structure of extended sources, specify the data on cosmic-ray electron + positron spectra., Comment: Submitted to Advances in Space Research, special issue "Astrophysics of CRs", 31 pages, 22 figures