Daily Papers

Accurate motion estimation for tracking deformable tissues in echocardiography is essential for precise cardiac function measurements. While traditional methods like block matching or optical flow struggle with intricate cardiac motion, modern point tracking approaches remain largely underexplored in this domain. This work investigates the potential of state-of-the-art (SOTA) point tracking methods for ultrasound, with a focus on echocardiography. Although these novel approaches demonstrate strong performance in general videos, their effectiveness and generalizability in echocardiography remain limited. By analyzing cardiac motion throughout the heart cycle in real B-mode ultrasound videos, we identify that a directional motion bias across different views is affecting the existing training strategies. To mitigate this, we refine the training procedure and incorporate a set of tailored augmentations to reduce the bias and enhance tracking robustness and generalization through impartial cardiac motion. We also propose a lightweight network leveraging multi-scale cost volumes from spatial context alone to challenge the advanced spatiotemporal point tracking models. Experiments demonstrate that fine-tuning with our strategies significantly improves models' performances over their baselines, even for out-of-distribution (OOD) cases. For instance, EchoTracker boosts overall position accuracy by 60.7% and reduces median trajectory error by 61.5% across heart cycle phases. Interestingly, several point tracking models fail to outperform our proposed simple model in terms of tracking accuracy and generalization, reflecting their limitations when applied to echocardiography. Nevertheless, clinical evaluation reveals that these methods improve GLS measurements, aligning more closely with expert-validated, semi-automated tools and thus demonstrating better reproducibility in real-world applications.

Forthcoming space-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors will employ second-generation time-delay interferometry (TDI) to suppress laser frequency noise and achieve the sensitivity required for GW detection. We introduce an inverse light-path operator P_{i_{1}i_{2}i_{3}ldots i_{n-1}i_{n}}, which enables simple representation of second-generation TDI combinations and a concise description of light propagation. Analytical expressions and high-accuracy approximate formulas are derived for the sky- and polarization-averaged response functions, noise power spectral densities (PSDs), and sensitivity curves of TDI Michelson, (alpha,beta,gamma), Monitor, Beacon, Relay, and Sagnac combinations, as well as their orthogonal A, E, T channels. Our results show that: (i) second-generation TDIs have the same sensitivities as their first-generation counterparts; (ii) the A, E, T sensitivities and the optimal sensitivity are independent of the TDI generation and specific combination; (iii) the A and E channels have equal averaged responses, noise PSDs, and sensitivities, while the T channel has much weaker response and sensitivity at low frequencies (2pi fL/clesssim3); (iv) except for the (alpha,beta,gamma) and zeta combinations and the T channel, all sensitivity curves exhibit a flat section in the range f_{n}<flesssim 1.5/(2pi L/c), where the noise-balance frequency f_{n} separates the proof-mass- and optical-path-dominated regimes, while the response-transition frequency sim 1.5/(2pi L/c) separates the response function's low- and high-frequency behaviors; (v) the averaged response, noise PSD, and sensitivity of zeta scales with those of the T channel. These analytical and approximate formulations provide useful benchmarks for instrument optimization and data-analysis studies for future space-based GW detectors.

In this paper, we present GALEX-SDSS-WISE Legacy Catalog (GSWLC), a catalog of physical properties (stellar masses, dust attenuations and star formation rates (SFRs)) of ~700,000 galaxies with SDSS redshifts below 0.3. GSWLC contains galaxies within the GALEX footprint, regardless of a UV detection, covering 90% of SDSS. The physical properties were obtained from UV/optical SED fitting following Bayesian methodology of Salim et al. (2007), with improvements such as blending corrections for low-resolution UV photometry, flexible dust attenuation laws, and emission line corrections. GSWLC includes mid-IR SFRs derived from IR templates based upon 22 micron WISE observations. These estimates are independent of UV/optical SED fitting, in order to separate possible systematics. The paper argues that the comparison of specific SFRs (SSFRs) is more informative and physically motivated than the comparison of SFRs. SSFRs resulting from the UV/optical SED fitting are compared to the mid-IR SSFRs, and to SSFRs from three published catalogs. For "main sequence" galaxies with no AGN contribution all SSFRs are in very good agreement (within 0.1 dex on average). In particular, the widely-used aperture-corrected SFRs from MPA/JHU catalog show no systematic offsets, in contrast to some integral-field spectroscopy results. For galaxies below the main sequence (log SSFR<-11), mid-IR (S)SFRs based on fixed luminosity-SFR conversion are severely biased (up to 2 dex) because the dust is primarily heated by old stars. Furthermore, mid-IR (S)SFRs are overestimated by up to 0.6 dex for galaxies with AGN, presumably due to non-stellar dust heating. UV/optical (S)SFRs are thus preferred to IR-based (S)SFRs for quenched galaxies and those which host AGN.

We present the third data release of the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, GDR3. The GDR3 catalogue is the outcome of the processing of raw data collected with the Gaia instruments during the first 34 months of the mission by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. The GDR3 catalogue contains the same source list, celestial positions, proper motions, parallaxes, and broad band photometry in the G, G_{BP}, and G_{RP} pass-bands already present in the Early Third Data Release. GDR3 introduces an impressive wealth of new data products. More than 33 million objects in the ranges G_{rvs} < 14 and 3100 <T_{eff} <14500 , have new determinations of their mean radial velocities based on data collected by Gaia. We provide G_{rvs} magnitudes for most sources with radial velocities, and a line broadening parameter is listed for a subset of these. Mean Gaia spectra are made available to the community. The GDR3 catalogue includes about 1 million mean spectra from the radial velocity spectrometer, and about 220 million low-resolution blue and red prism photometer BPRP mean spectra. The results of the analysis of epoch photometry are provided for some 10 million sources across 24 variability types. GDR3 includes astrophysical parameters and source class probabilities for about 470 million and 1500 million sources, respectively, including stars, galaxies, and quasars. Orbital elements and trend parameters are provided for some 800,000 astrometric, spectroscopic and eclipsing binaries. More than 150,000 Solar System objects, including new discoveries, with preliminary orbital solutions and individual epoch observations are part of this release. Reflectance spectra derived from the epoch BPRP spectral data are published for about 60\,000 asteroids. Finally, an additional data set is provided, namely the Gaia Andromeda Photometric Survey (abridged)

3D Gaussian Splatting (3D GS) has gained popularity due to its faster rendering speed and high-quality novel view synthesis. Some researchers have explored using 3D GS for reconstructing driving scenes. However, these methods often rely on various data types, such as depth maps, 3D boxes, and trajectories of moving objects. Additionally, the lack of annotations for synthesized images limits their direct application in downstream tasks. To address these issues, we propose EGSRAL, a 3D GS-based method that relies solely on training images without extra annotations. EGSRAL enhances 3D GS's capability to model both dynamic objects and static backgrounds and introduces a novel adaptor for auto labeling, generating corresponding annotations based on existing annotations. We also propose a grouping strategy for vanilla 3D GS to address perspective issues in rendering large-scale, complex scenes. Our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on multiple datasets without any extra annotation. For example, the PSNR metric reaches 29.04 on the nuScenes dataset. Moreover, our automated labeling can significantly improve the performance of 2D/3D detection tasks. Code is available at https://github.com/jiangxb98/EGSRAL.

We present a low-cost ultraviolet to infrared absolute quantum efficiency detector characterization system developed using commercial off-the-shelf components. The key components of the experiment include a light source,a regulated power supply, a monochromator, an integrating sphere, and a calibrated photodiode. We provide a step-by-step procedure to construct the photon and quantum efficiency transfer curves of imaging sensors. We present results for the GSENSE 2020 BSI CMOS sensor and the Sony IMX 455 BSI CMOS sensor. As a reference for similar characterizations, we provide a list of parts and associated costs along with images of our setup.

In recent years, graph neural networks (GNNs) have shown tremendous promise in solving problems in high energy physics, materials science, and fluid dynamics. In this work, we introduce a new application for GNNs in the physical sciences: instrumentation design. As a case study, we apply GNNs to simulate models of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and show that they are capable of accurately capturing the complex optical physics at play, while achieving runtimes 815 times faster than state of the art simulation packages. We discuss the unique challenges this problem provides for machine learning models. In addition, we provide a dataset of high-fidelity optical physics simulations for three interferometer topologies, which can be used as a benchmarking suite for future work in this direction.

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will be the first space-based gravitational wave (GW) observatory. It will measure gravitational wave signals in the frequency regime from 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz. The success of these measurements will depend on the suppression of the various instrument noises. One important noise source in LISA will be tilt-to-length (TTL) coupling. Here, it is understood as the coupling of angular jitter, predominantly from the spacecraft, into the interferometric length readout. The current plan is to subtract this noise in-flight in post-processing as part of a noise minimization strategy. It is crucial to distinguish TTL coupling well from the GW signals in the same readout to ensure that the noise will be properly modeled. Furthermore, it is important that the subtraction of TTL noise will not degrade the GW signals. In the present manuscript, we show on simulated LISA data and for four different GW signal types that the GW responses have little effect on the quality of the TTL coupling fit and subtraction. Also, the GW signal characteristics were not altered by the TTL coupling subtraction.

This study introduces a line list for the abundance analysis of F and G type stars across the 4080-9675 A wavelength range. A systematic search employing lower excitation potentials, accurate log gf values, and an updated multiplet table led to the identification of 592 lines across 33 species (25 elements), including C, O, Mg (ionized), Al, P, S, Cu, Zr (neutral), and La. To determine the uncertainties in log gf values, we assessed solar abundance using a very high-resolution (R=1000000) disk-integrated solar spectrum. These lines were confirmed to be blend-free in the solar spectrum. The line list was further validated by analyzing the metal-poor star HD 218209 (G6V), which is notable for its well-documented and reliable abundance in literature. The abundances were obtained using the equivalent width (EW) method and further refined by applying the spectrum synthesis method. A comparative analysis with the Gaia ESO line list v.6, provided by the Gaia ESO collaboration, revealed additional neutral and ionized Fe lines. This extensively refined line list will facilitate precise stellar parameter determinations and accurate abundance analyses of spectra within the PolarBASE spectral library.

We show that pairs of widely separated interferometers are advantageous for measuring the Stokes parameter V of a stochastic background of gravitational waves. This parameter characterizes asymmetry of amplitudes of right- and left-handed waves and generation of the asymmetry is closely related to parity violation in the early universe. The advantageous pairs include LIGO(Livingston)-LCGT and AIGO-Virgo that are relatively insensitive to Omega_GW (the simple intensity of the background). Using at least three detectors, information of the intensity Omega_GW and the degree of asymmetry V can be separately measured.

We introduce GlobalBuildingAtlas, a publicly available dataset providing global and complete coverage of building polygons, heights and Level of Detail 1 (LoD1) 3D building models. This is the first open dataset to offer high quality, consistent, and complete building data in 2D and 3D form at the individual building level on a global scale. Towards this dataset, we developed machine learning-based pipelines to derive building polygons and heights (called GBA.Height) from global PlanetScope satellite data, respectively. Also a quality-based fusion strategy was employed to generate higher-quality polygons (called GBA.Polygon) based on existing open building polygons, including our own derived one. With more than 2.75 billion buildings worldwide, GBA.Polygon surpasses the most comprehensive database to date by more than 1 billion buildings. GBA.Height offers the most detailed and accurate global 3D building height maps to date, achieving a spatial resolution of 3x3 meters-30 times finer than previous global products (90 m), enabling a high-resolution and reliable analysis of building volumes at both local and global scales. Finally, we generated a global LoD1 building model (called GBA.LoD1) from the resulting GBA.Polygon and GBA.Height. GBA.LoD1 represents the first complete global LoD1 building models, including 2.68 billion building instances with predicted heights, i.e., with a height completeness of more than 97%, achieving RMSEs ranging from 1.5 m to 8.9 m across different continents. With its height accuracy, comprehensive global coverage and rich spatial details, GlobalBuildingAltas offers novel insights on the status quo of global buildings, which unlocks unprecedented geospatial analysis possibilities, as showcased by a better illustration of where people live and a more comprehensive monitoring of the progress on the 11th Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations.

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are hypothetical pseudoscalar bosons, natural in extensions of the Standard Model. Their interactions with ordinary matter and radiation are suppressed, making it challenging to detect them in laboratory experiments. However, these particles, produced within stellar interiors, can provide an additional mechanism for energy loss, potentially influencing stellar evolution. Prominent methods for searching for such effects involve measuring the properties of red giants and helium-burning stars in globular clusters (GCs). Here we use published catalogs of stars selected as members of seven GCs on the basis of parallaxes and proper motions measured by Gaia (Data Realease 3). Making use of previously derived theoretical relations and the new data, we find the upper limit on the ALP-electron coupling, g_{ae}<5.2*10^{-14} (95% CL), and an indication (3.3 sigma) to nonzero ALP-photon coupling, g_{a\gamma}=(6.5+1.1-1.3)*10^{-11} GeV^{-1}. Given the precision of contemporary observational data, it is imperative to refine ALP constraints through more sophisticated analyses, which will be explored in detail elsewhere.

Most Galactic Globular Clusters (GCs) harbour multiple populations of stars (MPs), composed of at least two generations: the first characterized by a "standard" α-enhanced metal mixture, as observed in field halo stars of the Milky Way, and the second displaying anti-correlated CN--ONa chemical abundance pattern in combination with an enhanced helium fraction. Adequate collections of stellar spectra are needed to characterize the effect of such stellar abundance changes on the integrated light of GCs. We present a grid of synthetic stellar spectra covering the atmospheric parameters relevant to old stellar populations at four subsolar metallicities and two abundance patterns, representative of first- and second-generations of stars in GCs. Integrated spectra of populations were computed using our stellar grid and empirical stellar populations, namely, colour-magnitude diagrams from literature for Galactic GCs. The spectra range from 290 to 1000nm, where we measured the effect on several spectrophotometric indices due to the surface abundance variations attributed to MPs. We find non-negligible effects of the MPs on spectroscopic indices sensitive to C, N, Ca, or Na, and on Balmer indices; we also describe how MPs modify specific regions in the near-UV and near-IR that can be measured with narrow or medium photometric passbands. The effects vary with metallicity. A number of these changes remain detectable even when accounting for the stochastic fluctuations due to the finite nature of the stellar population cluster.

Time series data and their time-frequency representation from gravitational-wave interferometers present multiple opportunities for the use of artificial intelligence methods associated with signal and image processing. Closely connected with this is the real-time aspect associated with gravitational-wave interferometers and the astrophysical observations they perform; the discovery potential of these instruments can be significantly enhanced when data processing can be achieved in O(1s) timescales. In this work, we introduce a novel signal and noise identification tool based on the YOLO (You Only Look Once) object detection framework. For its application into gravitational waves, we will refer to it as GW-YOLO. This tool can provide scene identification capabilities and essential information regarding whether an observed transient is any combination of noise and signal. Additionally, it supplies detailed time-frequency coordinates of the detected objects in the form of pixel masks, an essential property that can be used to understand and characterize astrophysical sources, as well as instrumental noise. The simultaneous identification of noise and signal, combined with precise pixel-level localization, represents a significant advancement in gravitational-wave data analysis. Our approach yields a 50\% detection efficiency for binary black hole signals at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 15 when such signals overlap with transient noise artifacts. When noise artifacts overlap with binary neutron star signals, our algorithm attains 50\% detection efficiency at an SNR of 30. This presents the first quantitative assessment of the ability to detect astrophysical events overlapping with realistic, instrument noise present in gravitational-wave interferometers.

We propose a simple modification of space-based gravitational wave (GW) detector optical benches which would enable the measurement of vacuum birefringence of light induced by axion dark matterthrough its coupling to electromagnetism. Specifically, we propose to change a half-wave plate by a circular polarizer. While marginally affecting the sensitivity to GW by a factor 2, we show that such an adjustment would make future detectors such as LISA, TianQin, Taiji and Big-Bang Observer the most sensitive experiments at low axion masses

The J-region Asymptotic Giant Branch (JAGB) is an overdensity of stars in the near-infrared, attributed to carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch stars, and recently used as a standard candle for measuring extragalactic distances and the Hubble constant. Using JWST in Cycle 2, we extend JAGB measurements to 6 hosts of 9 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) (NGC 2525, NGC 3147, NGC 3370, NGC 3447, NGC 5468, and NGC 5861), with two at D sim 40 Mpc, all calibrated by the maser host NGC 4258. We investigate the effects of incompleteness and find that we are unable to recover a robust JAGB measurement in one of the two most distant hosts at R sim 40 Mpc, NGC 3147. We compile all JWST JAGB observations in SNe Ia hosts, 15 galaxies hosting 18 SNe Ia, from the SH0ES and CCHP programs and employ all literature measures (mode, mean, median, model). We find no significant mean difference between these distances and those from HST Cepheids, -0.03pm0.02 (stat) pm 0.05 (sys) mag. We find a difference of 0.11 pm 0.02 mag between JAGB mode measurements in the CCHP analyses of two fields in NGC 4258, a feature also seen in two SH0ES fields (see field-to-field variations in Li et al. 2024a), indicating significant field-to-field variation of JAGB measurements in NGC 4258 which produce a large absolute calibration uncertainty. Variations are also seen in the shape of the JAGB LF across galaxies so that different measures produce different values of the Hubble constant. We look for but do not (yet) find a standardizing relation between JAGB LF skew or color dependence and the apparent variation. Using the middle result of all JAGB measures to calibrate SNe Ia yields a Hubble constant of H_0 = 73.3 pm 1.4 (stat) pm 2.0 (sys) km/s/Mpc with the systematic dominated by apparent differences across NGC 4258 calibrating fields or their measures.

We present detailed morphology measurements for 8.67 million galaxies in the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (DECaLS, MzLS, and BASS, plus DES). These are automated measurements made by deep learning models trained on Galaxy Zoo volunteer votes. Our models typically predict the fraction of volunteers selecting each answer to within 5-10\% for every answer to every GZ question. The models are trained on newly-collected votes for DESI-LS DR8 images as well as historical votes from GZ DECaLS. We also release the newly-collected votes. Extending our morphology measurements outside of the previously-released DECaLS/SDSS intersection increases our sky coverage by a factor of 4 (5,000 to 19,000 deg^2) and allows for full overlap with complementary surveys including ALFALFA and MaNGA.

Recent space-borne and ground-based observations provide photometric measurements as time series. The effect of interstellar dust extinction in the near-infrared range is only 10% of that measured in the V band. However, the sensitivity of the light curve shape to the physical parameters in the near-infrared is much lower. So, interpreting these types of data sets requires new approaches like the different large-scale surveys, which create similar problems with big data. Using a selected data set, we provide a method for applying routines implemented in R to extract most information of measurements to determine physical parameters, which can also be used in automatic classification schemes and pipeline processing. We made a multivariate classification of 131 Cepheid light curves (LC) in J, H, and K colors, where all the LCs were represented in 20D parameter space in these colors separately. Performing a Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we got an orthogonal coordinate system and squared Euclidean distances between LCs, with 6 significant eigenvalues, reducing the 20-dimension to 6. We also estimated the optimal number of partitions of similar objects and found it to be equal to 7 in each color; their dependence on the period, absolute magnitude, amplitude, and metallicity are also discussed. We computed the Spearman rank correlations, showing that periods and absolute magnitudes correlate with the first three PCs significantly. The first two PC are also found to have a relationship with the amplitude, but the metallicity effects are only marginal. The method shown can be generalized and implemented in unsupervised classification schemes and analysis of mixed and biased samples. The analysis of our Classical Cepheid near-infrared LC sample showed that the J, H, K curves are insufficient for determination of stellar metallicity, with mass being the key factor shaping them.

We present observations and timing analyses of 68 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) comprising the 15-year data set of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). NANOGrav is a pulsar timing array (PTA) experiment that is sensitive to low-frequency gravitational waves. This is NANOGrav's fifth public data release, including both "narrowband" and "wideband" time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements and corresponding pulsar timing models. We have added 21 MSPs and extended our timing baselines by three years, now spanning nearly 16 years for some of our sources. The data were collected using the Arecibo Observatory, the Green Bank Telescope, and the Very Large Array between frequencies of 327 MHz and 3 GHz, with most sources observed approximately monthly. A number of notable methodological and procedural changes were made compared to our previous data sets. These improve the overall quality of the TOA data set and are part of the transition to new pulsar timing and PTA analysis software packages. For the first time, our data products are accompanied by a full suite of software to reproduce data reduction, analysis, and results. Our timing models include a variety of newly detected astrometric and binary pulsar parameters, including several significant improvements to pulsar mass constraints. We find that the time series of 23 pulsars contain detectable levels of red noise, 10 of which are new measurements. In this data set, we find evidence for a stochastic gravitational-wave background.

While the temporal variations of the spectro-polarimetric nature of pulsars remains unexplored, this investigation offers significant potential for uncovering key insights into pulsar emission mechanisms, magnetic field geometry, and propagation effects within the magnetosphere. We developed a package for investigating time-varying spectral behavior for full Stokes parameters and demonstrate it on a millisecond pulsar (MSP) J2144-5237 in a binary system (orbital period ~10 days) using the Parkes UWL receiver. In this study we report rotation measure (RM) variation with orbital phase. We find that the temporal variations in the spectra of Stokes I, Q, and V are generally correlated throughout the orbit, while Stokes U exhibits intervals of both correlation and anticorrelation with Stokes I, depending on the orbital phase. We also provide a Poincare sphere representation of the polarization properties of J2144-5237, demonstrating a systematic temporal change of Poincare sphere location for the main component with orbital phase. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation of time-varying properties of the spectro-polarimetric nature of any pulsars or MSPs. Extending this study to probe the spectro-temporal nature of full Stokes data on a larger sample of MSPs or pulsars has the potential to provide vital information on emission mechanisms inside the magnetosphere, interstellar propagation effects, and binary interactions.

The Advanced LIGO gravitational wave detectors are second generation instruments designed and built for the two LIGO observatories in Hanford, WA and Livingston, LA. The two instruments are identical in design, and are specialized versions of a Michelson interferometer with 4 km long arms. As in initial LIGO, Fabry-Perot cavities are used in the arms to increase the interaction time with a gravitational wave, and power recycling is used to increase the effective laser power. Signal recycling has been added in Advanced LIGO to improve the frequency response. In the most sensitive frequency region around 100 Hz, the design strain sensitivity is a factor of 10 better than initial LIGO. In addition, the low frequency end of the sensitivity band is moved from 40 Hz down to 10 Hz. All interferometer components have been replaced with improved technologies to achieve this sensitivity gain. Much better seismic isolation and test mass suspensions are responsible for the gains at lower frequencies. Higher laser power, larger test masses and improved mirror coatings lead to the improved sensitivity at mid- and high- frequencies. Data collecting runs with these new instruments are planned to begin in mid-2015.

This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during three commissioning flights in 2016, 2018, and 2019 at altitudes ranging from 28 km to 34 km above sea level. For a valid comparison of the brightness measurements from the stratosphere with measurements from mountain-top ground-based observatories (taken at zenith on the darkest moonless night at high Galactic and high ecliptic latitudes), the stratospheric brightness levels were zodiacal light and diffuse Galactic light subtracted, and the airglow brightness was projected to zenith. The stratospheric brightness was measured around 5.5 hours, 3 hours, and 2 hours before the local sunrise time in 2016, 2018, and 2019 respectively. The B, V, R, and I brightness levels in 2016 were 2.7, 1.0, 1.1, and 0.6 mag arcsec^{-2} darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The B, V, and R brightness levels in 2018 were 1.3, 1.0, and 1.3 mag arcsec^{-2} darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The U and I brightness levels in 2019 were 0.1 mag arcsec^{-2} brighter than the darkest ground-based measurements, whereas the B and V brightness levels were 0.8 and 0.6 mag arcsec^{-2} darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The lower sky brightness levels, stable photometry, and lower atmospheric absorption make stratospheric observations from a balloon-borne platform a unique tool for astronomy. We plan to continue this work in a future mid-latitude long duration balloon flight with SuperBIT.

Red supergiants (RSGs), as the descendants of OB-type stars and the progenitors of supernovae, provide crucial insights into the evolution of massive stars, particularly in binary systems. Previous studies show that the binary fraction of RSGs (approx 15% - 40%) is significantly lower than that of their predecessors (approx 50% - 70%). In this work, we investigate the binary fraction of RSGs with the recently selected largest samples of 4695 and 2097 RSGs in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), respectively. The binary system with a hot companion (O-, B- and A-type star) is identified by detecting the ultraviolet (UV) excess in the observed spectral energy distribution (SED) ranging from ultraviolet to mid-infrared after subtracting the model SED of RSG since RSGs are very weak in the UV band. It is found that the lower limit of binarity is 30.2% pm 0.7% and 32.2% pm 1% in the LMC and SMC, respectively. If the sample is limited to luminous RSGs with log L/L_{odot} > 4.0, the binary fraction becomes 26.6% pm 1.1% and 26.4% pm 1.7% in the LMC and SMC, respectively. The derived binary fraction is valid in the range of sim 2.3 < log P / [d] < sim 8. Our study suggests that roughly one-third of massive stars host a third companion within sim 30,000 AU. In addition, 15 RSGs are also identified as binary via HST/STIS spectra, and a handful of the binaries identified by the SED fitting are confirmed by their light curve and radial velocity dispersion. The stellar parameters of the companions, i.e. T_{eff}, R, L and log g, are calculated by model fitting.

Measurements of Higgs boson production cross-sections are carried out in the diphoton decay channel using 139 fb^{-1} of pp collision data at s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The analysis is based on the definition of 101 distinct signal regions using machine-learning techniques. The inclusive Higgs boson signal strength in the diphoton channel is measured to be 1.04^{+0.10}_{-0.09}. Cross-sections for gluon-gluon fusion, vector-boson fusion, associated production with a W or Z boson, and top associated production processes are reported. An upper limit of 10 times the Standard Model prediction is set for the associated production process of a Higgs boson with a single top quark, which has a unique sensitivity to the sign of the top quark Yukawa coupling. Higgs boson production is further characterized through measurements of Simplified Template Cross-Sections (STXS). In total, cross-sections of 28 STXS regions are measured. The measured STXS cross-sections are compatible with their Standard Model predictions, with a p-value of 93%. The measurements are also used to set constraints on Higgs boson coupling strengths, as well as on new interactions beyond the Standard Model in an effective field theory approach. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are observed in these measurements, which provide significant sensitivity improvements compared to the previous ATLAS results.

There is vast evidence from observations of multiple stellar populations (MPs) in globular clusters (GCs). To explore the issue theoretically, this work considers two subsolar metallicities, two ages, and two initial abundance patterns: a first population of standard alpha-enhanced metal mixture stars and a second stellar population displaying C-N and Na-O anticorrelations chemical abundance patterns, along with an enhanced helium fraction. Analysing the predictions for these extreme compositions, we provide insights into the observability of not-resolved MPs into individual stars of GCs. We use colours and spectrophotometric indices measurable with modern facilities (e.g. Euclid, LSST, DES, JWST).