Daily Papers

Machine unlearning in large language models (LLMs) aims to remove specific learned knowledge, capabilities, or behaviors while preserving model utility. Existing methods have mostly focused on the design of unlearning objectives, while largely overlooking the intrinsic matrix structure of transformer weights. In particular, standard optimizers operate on independent scalar coordinates, thereby ignoring this matrix structure. We propose spectral unlearning, an update framework that combines standard unlearning objectives with matrix-structured optimization. We show that the spectral update corresponds to the steepest-descent direction for transformers composed of linear layers with normalized inputs and outputs. Our approach is applied on top of existing unlearning methods and evaluated across complementary axes of memorization, privacy, and utility, summarized via their harmonic mean. Spectral unlearning consistently outperforms a broad range of baselines and closes most of the gap to a retain-trained reference. Code is available at https://github.com/unlearn-ml/spectral-unlearning/.

We construct the quantized electromagnetic field and the corresponding photon propagators in a rigidly rotating cylindrical reference frame. Starting from covariant Maxwell theory, we formulate the gauge-fixed field equations and solve them in cylindrical coordinates. The vector nature of the electromagnetic field requires distinguishing orbital and intrinsic angular momentum, with the total angular momentum as the natural quantum number. We construct the two independent physical photon modes in terms of Bessel functions by solving the coupled differential equations, and provide an alternative construction based on a covariant basis of vector eigenfunctions generated by a covariantly constant tetrad. After normalizing the modes with the Maxwell inner product, we quantize the electromagnetic field and define the corresponding photon states and greater and lesser two-point functions. The physical time-ordered propagator is obtained directly from the quantized modes, with its transverse dependence encoded in polarization kernels that retain the cylindrical spatial structure and its spectral poles exhibiting the rotational energy shift. The full gauge-fixed photon propagator is constructed in two complementary ways: from the scalar Green function combined with the tensor transformation of the inertial Feynman-gauge propagator, and from the covariant vector eigensystem through its spectral decomposition and the Fock--Schwinger proper-time representation. We verify that both constructions satisfy the Green-function equation for the complete gauge-fixed Maxwell operator, providing the propagator required for covariant perturbative calculations with internal photon lines.

Linear RNNs offer linear-time sequence processing and constant-memory decoding, but their fixed-size recurrent states must accommodate all past key--value associations. Existing forgetting mechanisms and Delta Rule updates reduce interference by selectively clearing or correcting the state, yet earlier associations can still become difficult to retrieve. We introduce CyFA (Cyclic Flow Attention), a Linear RNN with relative-time-partitioned memory. At each step, a learned clock controls the cyclic transport applied jointly to the key and value states before the current key--value pair enters the age-zero slot, thereby organizing stored associations across relative-time slots. We further derive an exact change to absolute-clock coordinates that expresses CyFA as two scalar-decay linear attention recurrences and enables efficient chunk-wise training. Across 400M--1.4B pretraining experiments with matched recurrent-state sizes, CyFA improves recall-intensive performance while maintaining competitive language modeling and high computational efficiency. At 400M, CyFA outperforms KDA on FDA (42.60 vs. 26.07) while requiring only 46.7% and 48.3% of KDA's forward and backward core-operator execution times, respectively. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/Chyxx/CyclicFlowAttention{this https URL}.

Innovations like protein diffusion have enabled significant progress in de novo protein design, which is a vital topic in life science. These methods typically depend on protein structure encoders to model residue backbone frames, where atoms do not exist. Most prior encoders rely on atom-wise features, such as angles and distances between atoms, which are not available in this context. Thus far, only several simple encoders, such as IPA, have been proposed for this scenario, exposing the frame modeling as a bottleneck. In this work, we proffer the Vector Field Network (VFN), which enables network layers to perform learnable vector computations between coordinates of frame-anchored virtual atoms, thus achieving a higher capability for modeling frames. The vector computation operates in a manner similar to a linear layer, with each input channel receiving 3D virtual atom coordinates instead of scalar values. The multiple feature vectors output by the vector computation are then used to update the residue representations and virtual atom coordinates via attention aggregation. Remarkably, VFN also excels in modeling both frames and atoms, as the real atoms can be treated as the virtual atoms for modeling, positioning VFN as a potential universal encoder. In protein diffusion (frame modeling), VFN exhibits an impressive performance advantage over IPA, excelling in terms of both designability (67.04% vs. 53.58%) and diversity (66.54% vs. 51.98%). In inverse folding (frame and atom modeling), VFN outperforms the previous SoTA model, PiFold (54.7% vs. 51.66%), on sequence recovery rate. We also propose a method of equipping VFN with the ESM model, which significantly surpasses the previous ESM-based SoTA (62.67% vs. 55.65%), LM-Design, by a substantial margin.

Vector quantization, a problem rooted in Shannon's source coding theory, aims to quantize high-dimensional Euclidean vectors while minimizing distortion in their geometric structure. We propose TurboQuant to address both mean-squared error (MSE) and inner product distortion, overcoming limitations of existing methods that fail to achieve optimal distortion rates. Our data-oblivious algorithms, suitable for online applications, achieve near-optimal distortion rates (within a small constant factor) across all bit-widths and dimensions. TurboQuant achieves this by randomly rotating input vectors, inducing a concentrated Beta distribution on coordinates, and leveraging the near-independence property of distinct coordinates in high dimensions to simply apply optimal scalar quantizers per each coordinate. Recognizing that MSE-optimal quantizers introduce bias in inner product estimation, we propose a two-stage approach: applying an MSE quantizer followed by a 1-bit Quantized JL (QJL) transform on the residual, resulting in an unbiased inner product quantizer. We also provide a formal proof of the information-theoretic lower bounds on best achievable distortion rate by any vector quantizer, demonstrating that TurboQuant closely matches these bounds, differing only by a small constant (approx 2.7) factor. Experimental results validate our theoretical findings, showing that for KV cache quantization, we achieve absolute quality neutrality with 3.5 bits per channel and marginal quality degradation with 2.5 bits per channel. Furthermore, in nearest neighbor search tasks, our method outperforms existing product quantization techniques in recall while reducing indexing time to virtually zero.

Continuous physical fields represent a large fraction of data under scientific investigation. Their multiscale structures are central to discovery, yet useful coordinates are not known in advance. Standard self-supervised methods define context and targets in fixed image coordinates, posing a predictive task misaligned with fields organized across a continuous scale hierarchy. We introduce ScaleAware-JEPA, a framework that constructs dense, label-free latent coordinates for continuous scalar fields. Constrained Diffusion Decomposition (CDD) separates each field into pixel-registered scale components and provides the scale coordinates that define the masking geometry. The resulting JEPA objective predicts hidden structure with a context footprint tied to the diffusion scale of each component rather than to an arbitrary patch size. Across MHD turbulence, interstellar molecular gas and urban nighttime-light structure, the learned geometry maps back to coherent morphology, forming dense structural atlases without labels or predefined segmentation rules. By tying latent prediction to the scale hierarchy of a field, ScaleAware-JEPA constructs latent coordinates through which complex physical patterns can be inspected before their relevant structures have been prescribed. Code is available at https://github.com/gxli/SA-JEPA.

According to a scalar theory of gravity with a preferred frame, electromagnetism in the presence of a gravitational field implies that there is an additional energy tensor, which might contribute to dark matter. The expression of this tensor is determined by a mere scalar p, that depends on the EM field and (for a weak field) on the Newtonian gravitational field. We briefly recall why this tensor arises and how the EM field in a galaxy can be calculated. The data fields that enter the PDE for the scalar field p oscillate very quickly in space and time, as does the EM field. This prevents integration of that PDE at the relevant galactic scale. Therefore, a homogenization of that PDE has to be operated. We discuss in some detail three possible ways of applying the homogenization theory to that PDE: time, space, or spacetime homogenization. The second and third ways may lead to feasible, albeit heavy calculations.

Asymptotic Safety provides a promising framework for the quantization of Scalar-Tensor theories as non-perturbatively renormalizable quantum field theories. Over the past years, growing evidence has accumulated for the existence of non-trivial renormalization group fixed points in a variety of Scalar-Tensor models. In this work, we investigate the robustness of these fixed points under significant modifications of the computational setup. In particular, we employ a gauge condition that explicitly depends on the dynamical scalar field, going beyond a mere gauge-parameter deformation of the standard linear covariant gauges commonly used in the literature. Exploring different field parameterizations, we identify fixed points belonging to the Gaussian Matter class in four spacetime dimensions that are consistent with previous studies. The real part of the critical exponents associated with the scalar-field mass and the non-minimal scalar-curvature coupling turn out to have very small absolute value. We provide a comprehensive exploration of how the anomalous dimension of the scalar field and field parameterization impact those critical exponents showing that fixed-point candidates with two or four relevant directions emerge.

Complete orthogonal predictive coordinates do not by themselves bind a latent direction to a named intervention. We present a mathematical and synthetic audit motivated by vascular device-vessel suitcordance. Capacity-matched least-squares predictors were exactly equivalent under complete fixed output transforms, whereas an anchor-only observer recovered interpretations only within the span of known perturbation signatures. Six three-dimensional configurations across 64 seeds gave a maximum paired prediction discrepancy of 6.7e-15 but a median untransported edit error of 1.513. Coordinate transport removed that error. Noisy and weak anchors constrained calibration stability, and changing the representation basis required recalibration or verified transport. Across 256 additional fits in dimensions 3-24, prediction equivalence persisted within 4.0e-15. We then evaluated nine deliberate runnable fault classes across 64 seeds. All 576 faulty executions completed, but each violated at least one reconstruction, prediction, delivered-edit or scope contract; all 320 valid control records passed. Repeating a faulty implementation gave exact self-agreement despite error against the separately computed simulator expectation. For one omitted-direction defect, probe coverage followed its analytic law, and rank-aware abstention protected unsupported interpretations. Scalar-noise experiments exposed both missed weak faults and excessive rejection under narrow relative tolerances. These controls provide an executable separation of prediction, semantic support and scientific acceptance. They are synthetic numerical audits, not clinical validation, neural JEPA-Anything replication, agent learning or patient treatment-effect estimation.

The key-value (KV) cache dominates memory bandwidth and footprint in long-context autoregressive inference. Recent rotation-preconditioned codecs (TurboQuant, PolarQuant) show that a structured random rotation followed by a per-coordinate scalar quantizer matched to an analytically tractable marginal is a near-optimal recipe for KV compression. OCTOPUS advances this paradigm through joint quantization of rotated coordinate triplets. Each triplet's direction is mapped to a square via an octahedral parameterization, and the two resulting coordinates and the triplet norm are Lloyd-Max quantized against implementation-matched marginals. Optimizing the per-triplet squared error gives a strictly non-uniform bit allocation depending only on the total dimensionality of the keys. We find the finite-dimensional quality optimum with sweeps to be constant on every real decoder we test. The codec is data-oblivious, online, and deterministic given a seed. Across text, video, and audio, OCTOPUS matches or beats every prior rotation codec at every reported bit width and metric, with a lead that grows as bits drop for extreme compression. Furthermore, a fused Triton implementation reconstructs keys on the fly without materializing the uncompressed key, so the codec adds no decode-time bandwidth or latency over the existing dequantization. Project Page: https://octopus-quant.github.io/

We study spontaneous scalarization of static, spherically symmetric black holes in scalar--Gauss--Bonnet gravity with a Ricci coupling F=1 βϕ^{2}/4+γβ^{2}ϕ^{4}+O(ϕ^{6}) that nonlinearly completes the quadratic one. For arbitrary couplings and potential, we derive the near-horizon regularity condition and horizon curvature invariants in closed form; scalarized branches terminate where this condition degenerates, at finite horizon curvature. A weakly nonlinear expansion fixes the bifurcation direction exactly: for a massless scalar, its governing coefficient is quadratic in β, changes sign at β=1.1156, and depends linearly on a quartic self-interaction. At equal horizon values of the scalar, completions differ in mass, to leading order, in proportion to γ. A radial-perturbation master equation for arbitrary couplings confirms the exchange of stability at the bifurcation and turning points. Consequently, the domain of radially stable black holes shrinks as γ increases over the range studied; it is smaller for the exponential completion than for the quadratic truncation.

We reassess the realistic discovery reach of Solar-System experiments for dark energy (DE) and dark matter (DM), making explicit the bridge from cosmology-level linear responses to local, screened residuals. In scalar-tensor frameworks with a universal conformal coupling A(phi) and chameleon/Vainshtein screening, we map cosmological responses {mu(z,k),Sigma(z,k)} inferred by DESI and Euclid to thin-shell or Vainshtein residuals in deep Solar potentials Phi_N. We emphasize a two-branch strategy. In a detection-first branch, a verified local anomaly -- an Einstein equivalence principle (EEP) violation, a Shapiro-delay signal with |gamma-1|simfewtimes 10^{-6}, an AU-scale Yukawa tail, or a ultralight DM (ULDM) line in clocks/atom interferometers in space (AIS) -- triggers a joint refit of cosmology and Solar-System data under a common microphysical parameterization {V(phi),A(phi)}. In a guardrail branch, Solar-System tests enforce constraints (EEP; PPN parameters gamma,beta; and dot G/G) and close unscreened or weakly screened corners indicated by cosmology. We forecast, per conjunction, |gamma-1|lesssim (2-5)times 10^{-6} (Ka-/X-band or optical Shapiro), eta_{EEP}sim (1--10)times 10^{-17} (drag-free AIS), |dot G/G|sim(3-5)times10^{-15},yr^{-1} (sub-mm-class LLR), a uniform ~2x tightening of AU-scale Yukawa/DM-density bounds, and (3-10)times improved ULDM-coupling reach from clocks. For a conformal benchmark, mu_{ lin,0}=0.10 implies chisimeq mu_{lin,0/2} and a Sun thin shell Delta R/Rlesssim (1/3chi)|gamma-1|/2=2.4times 10^{-3} at |gamma-1|=5times 10^{-6}; Vainshtein screening at 1 AU yields |gamma-1|lesssim 10^{-11}, naturally below near-term reach. We recommend a cost-effective guardrail+discovery portfolio with explicit triggers for escalation to dedicated missions.

We study scalaron quasinormal modes and quasi-bound states of Schwarzschild black holes directly within the Bondi-Sachs formulation of metric f(R) gravity, combining frequency-domain analyses with characteristic time evolution. Starting from the linearised characteristic equations, we obtain the massive scalar master equation and show that the tensor master equation takes the same form as in general relativity. For the analytic models considered here, the linear scalar spectra depend on the f(R) theory only through the dimensionless combination μM. We compute both quasinormal and quasi-bound spectral branches using Leaver's continued-fraction method and compare them with independent literature benchmarks. To complement the frequency domain analysis, we evolve the scalaron perturbation equations using a fourth order convergent characteristic scheme. Applying matrix-pencil stability scans to the resulting waveforms, we independently recover fundamental quasinormal frequencies consistent with the continued-fraction results within the measured extraction-stability scales. Finally, for a selected finite-mass case, we demonstrate the extraction of both oscillation frequencies and damping rates of the fundamental quasinormal mode and quasi-bound state from separate time windows of the same waveform at one extraction radius, without imposing either spectral branch at the finite outer boundary.

Low-precision number formats are widely used in modern machine learning systems due to their efficiency. Accurate direction representation is key to the accuracy of vector operations. This work precisely explores the extent to which the direction of a vector can be represented by selecting its scalar elements from a common finite alphabet of a given size. This is standard practice in machine learning, where low-precision significands may be narrow-width floating-point or integer values. A geometric framework is introduced for analyzing the directional coverage of such product-structured codes. This work analytically quantifies the suboptimality gap between such product-structured codes and spherical codes for the vector as a whole, in both low and asymptotically high dimensions. Furthermore, within the product code class, it is proven that the standard formats of two's complement, fixed-point, and floating-point are suboptimal, again with quantified gap, pointing to the potential to develop new scalar number formats. Such scalar alphabets are numerically optimized across multiple block dimensions for directional coverage, including the dimension used in NVIDIA's NVFP4 format. Experimental results are presented comparing the performance of standard formats and the optimized alphabet. We find that for four bits, NVIDIA's choice of E2M1 closely approximates the optimized alphabet, providing a geometric explanation for its strong performance in low-precision machine learning workloads and an analytical understanding of the link between that superiority and block size. We provide open-source formal proofs in Lean for the theorems in this work, along with the experimental code and the optimized alphabets obtained.

We consider Proca field perturbations in a five-dimensional Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter (Schwarzschild-AdS_{5}) black hole geometry. Using the vector spherical harmonic (VSH) method, we show that the Proca field decomposes into scalar-type and vector-type components according to their tensorial behavior on the three-sphere. Two degrees of freedom of the field are described by scalar-type components, which are coupled due to the mass term, while the remaining two degrees of freedom are described by a vector-type component, which decouples completely. Motivated by the Frolov-Krtouš-Kubizňák-Santos (FKKS) ansatz in the limit of zero spin, we use a field transformation to decouple the scalar-type components at the expense of introducing a complex separation parameter β. This parameter can be determined analytically, and its values correspond to two distinct polarizations of the scalar-type sector: "electromagnetic" and "non-electromagnetic", denoted by β_{+} and β_{-}, respectively. In the scalar-type sector, the radial differential equation for each polarization is a Fuchsian differential equation with five singularities, whereas in the vector-type sector, the radial equation has four singularities. By means of the isomonodromy method, we reformulate the boundary value problem in terms of the initial conditions of the Painlevé VI τ function and, using a series expansion of the τ function, we compute the scalar-type and vector-type quasinormal modes (QNMs) in the small horizon limit. Our results are in overall very good agreement with those obtained via the numerical integration method. This shows that the isomonodromy method is a reliable method to compute quasinormal modes in the small horizon limit with high accuracy.

Molecular docking is critical to structure-based virtual screening, yet the throughput of such workflows is limited by the expensive optimization of scoring functions involved in most docking algorithms. We explore how machine learning can accelerate this process by learning a scoring function with a functional form that allows for more rapid optimization. Specifically, we define the scoring function to be the cross-correlation of multi-channel ligand and protein scalar fields parameterized by equivariant graph neural networks, enabling rapid optimization over rigid-body degrees of freedom with fast Fourier transforms. The runtime of our approach can be amortized at several levels of abstraction, and is particularly favorable for virtual screening settings with a common binding pocket. We benchmark our scoring functions on two simplified docking-related tasks: decoy pose scoring and rigid conformer docking. Our method attains similar but faster performance on crystal structures compared to the widely-used Vina and Gnina scoring functions, and is more robust on computationally predicted structures. Code is available at https://github.com/bjing2016/scalar-fields.

Recent measurements from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the South Pole Telescope (SPT) have placed the strictest constraints on the primordial scalar perturbation spectrum, reporting a spectral index of n_ssim0.967-0.98 at 95% confidence level. This result indicates a stronger scale invariance of the scalar perturbation than earlier estimates, posing challenges for numerous inflation models. In this work, we propose a novel inflationary scenario based on Weyl scale-invariant gravity, where the quadratic curvature establishes the scale invariance of the scalar spectrum, while the higher-order extensions imprint the observed slight deviation. Specifically, the exponential curvature extensions are introduced to suppress the mass divergence of the inflaton. We find such scenario naturally yields leading-order predictions of n_ssimeq1-3/(2N)sim0.97-0.975 or n_ssimeq1-5/(3N)sim0.967-0.972 for various models, in excellent agreement with the ACT/SPT constraints. This result builds a concrete bridge between theoretical and observational scale invariance, implying an enduring cosmic echo of the primordial symmetry.

We study the pseudospectrum of the Kerr black hole for gravitational perturbations with spin weight s=2, the case of greatest interest in gravitational-wave astronomy. In the hyperboloidal framework with two-dimensional Chebyshev collocation, we formulate the quasinormal mode problem as a non-self-adjoint eigenvalue problem. For sneq0 the fields Ψ^{(s)} and Ψ^{(-s)} are independent, so the conserved current method yields no single-field energy norm. We overcome this with the Teukolsky--Starobinsky identities, which relate Ψ^{(-2)} to a fourth-order operator on Ψ^{(2)} and yield an H^2 energy norm after symmetrization. With the H^1 norm known for s=0, this suggests the pattern H^{|s|}, verified for s=0 and s=2. All results use an ω-independent two-field hierarchy. We find that the pseudospectrum tightens by 1.1 to 3.5 decades at each step of L^2to H^1to H^2, yet stays large in every norm. The s=+2 and s=-2 operators are isospectral but not isopseudospectral: at twelve of fourteen probes the ψ_0 resolvent exceeds the ψ_4 one by 0.19 to 0.82 decades in the H^2 norm, while at the two probes furthest along the QNM line the ordering reverses by 0.18 to 0.19 decades. The gravitational pseudospectrum exceeds the scalar one by 0.5 to 5.2 decades in the window minimum and by 5.9 decades in L^2 at ωM=0.47-0.17,i, while along the damping direction the s=2 resolvent is non-monotonic and the s=0 resolvent smooth. QNM spectral instability is therefore a universal feature of Kerr, and is stronger for gravitational perturbations.

Cosmological first-order phase transitions can generate curvature perturbations through inhomogeneous quantum tunneling, as studied previously on superhorizon scales. In this work, we for the first time conduct three-dimensional lattice simulations that incorporate scalar metric perturbations and radiation perturbations, covering a range from bubble wall scales to super-horizon scales. We obtain the precise scalar perturbation power spectrum and the probability density function of energy density perturbations. Furthermore, we simulate the gravitational-wave energy spectra generated by each source during the first-order phase transition, including the scalar field itself, scalar metric perturbations, and the energy density and velocity perturbations of radiation. For gravitational waves, the contribution from other sources can exceed 1/3 of that from the scalar field at superhorizon scales. Additionally, we compare the effects of different values of the transition strength and rate on the results. This paper provides more accurate numerical results for research aimed at detecting or constraining first-order phase transitions via gravitational waves and curvature perturbations.

This paper presents a novel end-to-end framework for closed-form computation and visualization of critical point uncertainty in 2D uncertain scalar fields. Critical points are fundamental topological descriptors used in the visualization and analysis of scalar fields. The uncertainty inherent in data (e.g., observational and experimental data, approximations in simulations, and compression), however, creates uncertainty regarding critical point positions. Uncertainty in critical point positions, therefore, cannot be ignored, given their impact on downstream data analysis tasks. In this work, we study uncertainty in critical points as a function of uncertainty in data modeled with probability distributions. Although Monte Carlo (MC) sampling techniques have been used in prior studies to quantify critical point uncertainty, they are often expensive and are infrequently used in production-quality visualization software. We, therefore, propose a new end-to-end framework to address these challenges that comprises a threefold contribution. First, we derive the critical point uncertainty in closed form, which is more accurate and efficient than the conventional MC sampling methods. Specifically, we provide the closed-form and semianalytical (a mix of closed-form and MC methods) solutions for parametric (e.g., uniform, Epanechnikov) and nonparametric models (e.g., histograms) with finite support. Second, we accelerate critical point probability computations using a parallel implementation with the VTK-m library, which is platform portable. Finally, we demonstrate the integration of our implementation with the ParaView software system to demonstrate near-real-time results for real datasets.

GUI grounding, the task of mapping natural-language instructions to pixel coordinates, is crucial for autonomous agents, yet remains difficult for current VLMs. The core bottleneck is reliable patch-to-pixel mapping, which breaks when extrapolating to high-resolution displays unseen during training. Current approaches generate coordinates as text tokens directly from visual features, forcing the model to infer complex position-to-pixel mappings implicitly; as a result, accuracy degrades and failures proliferate on new resolutions. We address this with two complementary innovations. First, RULER tokens serve as explicit coordinate markers, letting the model reference positions similar to gridlines on a map and adjust rather than generate coordinates from scratch. Second, Interleaved MRoPE (I-MRoPE) improves spatial encoding by ensuring that width and height dimensions are represented equally, addressing the asymmetry of standard positional schemes. Experiments on ScreenSpot, ScreenSpot-V2, and ScreenSpot-Pro show consistent gains in grounding accuracy, with the largest improvements on high-resolution interfaces. By providing explicit spatial guidance rather than relying on implicit learning, our approach enables more reliable GUI automation across diverse resolutions and platforms.

We discuss relevant scalar deformations of a holographic theory with a compact boundary. An example of such a theory would be the global AdS_4 with its spatially compact boundary S^2. To introduce a relevant deformation, we choose to turn on a time-independent and spatially homogeneous non-normalizable scalar operator with m^2 = -2. The finite size of a compact boundary cuts down the RG flow at a finite length scale leading to an incomplete RG flow to IR. We discuss a version of {\it incomplete} C-theorem and an {\it incomplete} attractor like mechanism. We discuss the implication of our results for entanglement entropy and geometric quantities like scalar curvature, volume and mass scale of fundamental excitation of the how these quantities increase or decrease (often monotonically) with the strength of the deformation. Thermal physics of a holographic theory defined on a compact boundary is more interesting than its non-compact counterpart. It is well known that with a compact boundary, there is a possibility of a first order Hawking-Page transition dual to a de-confinement phase transition. From a gravity perspective, a relevant deformation dumps negative energy inside the bulk, increasing the effective cosmological constant (Lambda) of the AdS. Dumping more negative energy in the bulk would make the HP transition harder and the corresponding HP transition temperature would increase. However, we have found the size of the BH at the transition temperature decreases.

In the 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos, three triplets of scalars engender the correct sequence of symmetry breaking, SU(3)_C times SU(3)_L times U(1)_X rightarrow SU(3)_C times SU(2)_L times U(1)_Y rightarrow SU(3)_C times U(1)_{EM}, generating mass for all fermions, except neutrinos. Tiny neutrino masses may be achieved by adding one sextet of scalars to the original scalar content. As consequence, it emerges a very complex scalar sector, involving terms that violate lepton number explicitly, too. The main obstacle to the development of the phenomenology of such scenario is the knowledge of its spectrum of scalars since, now, there are 15 massive scalar particles on it. The proposal of this work is to do an exhaustive analysis of such scalar sector with lepton number being explicitly violated at low, electroweak and high energy scales by means of trilinear terms in the potential. The first case can be addressed analytically and, as a nice result, we have observed that the scalar content of such case is split into two categories: One belonging to the 331 energy scale and the other belonging to the EWSB energy scale, with the last recovering the well known THDM+triplet. For the other cases, the scalar sector can be addressed only numerically. Hence, we proposed a very general approach for the numerical study of the potential, avoiding simplifications that can make us reach conclusions without foundation. We show that, in the case of lepton number being explicitly violated at electroweak scale, it is possible to recover the same physics of the THDM+triplet, as the previous case. Among all the possibilities, we call the attention to one special case which generates the 3HDM+triplet scenario. For the last case, when lepton number is violated at high energy scale, the sextet become very massive and decouples from the original scalar content of the 3-3-1 model.

Let λ_{mathbb K}(m) denote the maximal absolute projection constant among m-dimensional Banach spaces over mathbb K=mathbb R or mathbb C. Its exact value is known only in a few cases, and determining it remains a challenging problem. In this note, we investigate several structured vector configurations that naturally arise in this context. We first recall the connection between maximal projection constants and tight frames, then consider biangular tight frames, and show that their relative and quasimaximal projection constants coincide. A particularly interesting example is provided by the midpoints of the edges of a regular simplex, which yield natural lower bounds for λ_{mathbb R}(m). Numerical evidence suggests that these bounds may be sharp in dimensions 6 and 8. We also discuss weighted spherical (2,2)-designs with a small number of vectors and their connection with maximal projection constants. Examples in dimensions 4 and 5 indicate that the sign patterns of their Gram matrices may play an important role. These observations lead us to formulate several conjectures concerning maximal absolute projection constants and the vector configurations associated with them.

The construction of a theory of quantum gravity is an outstanding problem that can benefit from better understanding the laws of nature that are expected to hold in regimes currently inaccessible to experiment. Such fundamental laws can be found by considering the classical counterparts of a quantum theory. For example, conservation laws in a quantum theory often stem from conservation laws of the corresponding classical theory. In order to construct such laws, this thesis is concerned with the interplay between symmetries and conservation laws of classical field theories and their application to asymptotically flat spacetimes. This work begins with an explanation of symmetries in field theories with a focus on variational symmetries and their associated conservation laws. Boundary conditions for general relativity are then formulated on three-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes at null infinity using the method of conformal completion. Conserved quantities related to asymptotic symmetry transformations are derived and their properties are studied. This is done in a manifestly coordinate independent manner. In a separate step a coordinate system is introduced, such that the results can be compared to existing literature. Next, asymptotically flat spacetimes which contain both future as well as past null infinity are considered. Asymptotic symmetries occurring at these disjoint regions of three-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes are linked and the corresponding conserved quantities are matched. Finally, it is shown how asymptotic symmetries lead to the notion of distinct Minkowski spaces that can be differentiated by conserved quantities.

We study the phases of gravity coupled to a charged scalar and gauge field in an asymptotically Anti-de Sitter spacetime (AdS_4) in the grand canonical ensemble. For the conformally coupled scalar, an intricate phase diagram is charted out between the four relevant solutions: global AdS, boson star, Reissner-Nordstrom black hole and the hairy black hole. The nature of the phase diagram undergoes qualitative changes as the charge of the scalar is changed, which we discuss. We also discuss the new features that arise in the extremal limit.

Learning reliable surrogates for geodynamic models requires benchmarks that resolve coupled fields and temporal stability. We present GeoSim, a benchmark of high-resolution two-dimensional mantle-plume simulations generated with I2VIS, comprising 237 trajectories across two parameter regimes, with six coupled fields, physical timestamps, and trajectory-level splits. GeoSim defines short-window prediction and autonomous rollout, and evaluates representative neural operators field by field. Across models, we observe a pronounced scalar--velocity gap: scalar fields are reconstructed accurately while velocity errors remain large, and short-window accuracy does not imply stable rollout. We also evaluate MFGNO (Multi-Field Graph Neural Operator), a joint multi-field graph baseline designed for this benchmark; on GeoSim-Plume1, under a fixed per-field objective, it reduces horizontal and vertical velocity errors by 58.4% and 38.5% relative to an independent-field graph baseline, while an explicit field-difference input shows no measurable benefit at this scale. GeoSim provides a reproducible benchmark for field-wise diagnosis and long-horizon evaluation of geodynamic surrogates.

A finite difference scheme is used to develop a numerical method to solve the flow of an unbounded viscoelastic fluid with zero to moderate inertia around a prolate spheroidal particle. The equations are written in prolate spheroidal coordinates, and the shape of the particle is exactly resolved as one of the coordinate surfaces representing the inner boundary of the computational domain. As the prolate spheroidal grid is naturally clustered near the particle surface, good resolution is obtained in the regions where the gradients of relevant flow variables are most significant. This coordinate system also allows large domain sizes with a reasonable number of mesh points to simulate unbounded fluid around a particle. Changing the aspect ratio of the inner computational boundary enables simulations of different particle shapes ranging from a sphere to a slender fiber. Numerical studies of the latter particle shape allow testing of slender body theories. The mass and momentum equations are solved with a Schur complement approach allowing us to solve the zero inertia case necessary to isolate the viscoelastic effects. The singularities associated with the coordinate system are overcome using L'Hopital's rule. A straightforward imposition of conditions representing a time-varying combination of linear flows on the outer boundary allows us to study various flows with the same computational domain geometry. {For the special but important case of zero fluid and particle inertia we obtain a novel formulation that satisfies the force- and torque-free constraint in an iteration-free manner.} The numerical method is demonstrated for various flows of Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids around spheres and spheroids (including those with large aspect ratio). Good agreement is demonstrated with existing theoretical and numerical results.

Tucker decomposition is a powerful tensor model to handle multi-aspect data. It demonstrates the low-rank property by decomposing the grid-structured data as interactions between a core tensor and a set of object representations (factors). A fundamental assumption of such decomposition is that there are finite objects in each aspect or mode, corresponding to discrete indexes of data entries. However, real-world data is often not naturally posed in this setting. For example, geographic data is represented as continuous indexes of latitude and longitude coordinates, and cannot fit tensor models directly. To generalize Tucker decomposition to such scenarios, we propose Functional Bayesian Tucker Decomposition (FunBaT). We treat the continuous-indexed data as the interaction between the Tucker core and a group of latent functions. We use Gaussian processes (GP) as functional priors to model the latent functions. Then, we convert each GP into a state-space prior by constructing an equivalent stochastic differential equation (SDE) to reduce computational cost. An efficient inference algorithm is developed for scalable posterior approximation based on advanced message-passing techniques. The advantage of our method is shown in both synthetic data and several real-world applications. We release the code of FunBaT at https://github.com/xuangu-fang/Functional-Bayesian-Tucker-Decomposition.

Identifying heterogeneous treatment effects under unobserved confounding is central in observational causal inference. In proxy models with a discrete latent confounder, prior Synthetic Potential Outcomes (SPO) [Mazaheri-Squires-Uhler '25] recover the mixture of treatment effects through recursively constructed scalar moments. We show that this sequence is one projection of a more fundamental object. Under the same population factorization assumptions, there is an exact compressed observable operator: after projecting onto the shared proxy signal subspace, the difference of two treatment-arm quotient operators is similar to the diagonal matrix of latent treatment effects. Its eigenvalues are the latent effects; its lifted left eigenvectors, after anchor normalization, recover the target-proxy feature matrix and then the latent mixture proportions. Every scalar SPO moment is a bilinear functional of a power of this operator. The resulting estimator handles overcomplete proxy systems, replaces high-order scalar inversion with finite-dimensional spectral analysis, and admits high-probability first-order perturbation bounds for treatment effects, feature rows, and simplex-projected mixture weights.

Standard sequence models encode position by token rank rather than physical coordinate, typically forcing practitioners to destructively resample continuous physical signals such as spectra observed across heterogeneous instruments. We identify this coordinate mismatch as a structural limitation in cross-instrument representation learning, and propose OmniSpectra, a wavelength-native foundation model for spectral representation learning: a continuous-coordinate masked autoencoder that discards the integer pixel indexing of sequence modeling. Mapping physical coordinates to a logarithmic basis turns the multiplicative scaling induced by cosmological redshift into a uniform additive shift. In continuous rotary position embeddings, this shared shift cancels from relative token distances rather than producing grid-dependent positional distortion. We further counter the spectral bias inherent to implicit neural decoders with a physics-grounded, resolution-gated Fourier decoder that provides anti-aliasing. Pretrained on eight surveys and benchmarked against seven baselines, our model reaches state-of-the-art performance with only 12.2M parameters while outperforming substantially larger models, indicating that encoding physical structure can substitute for parameter scale.

Reduction in effective spacetime dimensionality can occur in field-theory models more general than the widely studied dimensional reductions based on technically consistent truncations. Situations where wavefunction factors depend nontrivially on coordinates transverse to the effective lower dimension can give rise to unusual patterns of gauge symmetry breaking. Leading-order gauge modes can be left massless, but naturally occurring Stueckelberg modes can couple importantly at quartic order and higher, thus generating a "covert" pattern of gauge symmetry breaking. Such a situation is illustrated in a five-dimensional model of scalar electrodynamics in which one spatial dimension is taken to be an interval with Dirichlet/Robin boundary conditions on opposing ends. This simple model illuminates a mechanism which also has been found in gravitational braneworld scenarios.

We generalize quasi-arithmetic means beyond scalars by considering the gradient map of a Legendre type real-valued function. The gradient map of a Legendre type function is proven strictly comonotone with a global inverse. It thus yields a generalization of strictly mononotone and differentiable functions generating scalar quasi-arithmetic means. Furthermore, the Legendre transformation gives rise to pairs of dual quasi-arithmetic averages via the convex duality. We study the invariance and equivariance properties under affine transformations of quasi-arithmetic averages via the lens of dually flat spaces of information geometry. We show how these quasi-arithmetic averages are used to express points on dual geodesics and sided barycenters in the dual affine coordinate systems. We then consider quasi-arithmetic mixtures and describe several parametric and non-parametric statistical models which are closed under the quasi-arithmetic mixture operation.

Cosmology where the effective dark energy crosses w=-1 can be realized in Horndeski gravity with shift symmetric terms plus a linear potential. We highlight the special role of the nearly conserved scalar charge. The theory is highly predictive for the early phantom behavior and we identify three ways to cross w=-1. None of them recreate conditions indicated by current data very well. The major lesson is that such modified gravity with a potential lacking a cosmological constant and only crossing w=-1 once (hence the less elaborate models) has difficulty fitting current data. We provide an online interactive application solving the system of evolution equations, for the reader to explore various scenarios at will.

Scientific observations are frequently distributed across locations, time periods, and institutions. Combining such observations into a continuous, differentiable field enables recovering governing physical parameters from its derivatives. This paper makes two contributions in this setting. First, the established additive structure of fixed-basis ridge-regression statistics is applied to tensor-product spline fields: each data holder computes a local Gram matrix and moment vector, and the merged solution is mathematically identical to centralized fitting, with no raw data shared and no iterative synchronization. This property is specific to the fixed-feature squared-error setting; the present derivation does not establish an analogous guarantee for general jointly trained multilayer networks. Second, a complete pipeline connects distributed observations to physical parameter inference through field reconstruction, derivative extraction, and linear regression. The pipeline is validated on four PDEs: diffusion, wave, heat-with-source, and the nonlinear viscous Burgers equation, recovering governing parameters to sub-percent accuracy in the linear cases and 5\% for Burgers. In all cases, distributed merging introduces zero degradation relative to centralized fitting. Synthetic experiments validate parameter recovery; application to 41 years of NOAA sea-surface temperature data validates field reconstruction and aggregation equivalence on real spatiotemporal observations. Source code to reproduce all experiments is available at https://github.com/NAVEENMN/splinemerge.

We construct nets of curves in a rectangle R with special properties. The net is formed by two families of curves, "horizontal" and "vertical", each family foliates R, and every horizontal curve meets every vertical curve orthogonally. Moreover, every horizontal curve started at the left edge of R arrives to the right edge of R at the same height, and every vertical curve started at the bottom edge of R arrives to the top edge of R at a prescribed in advance longitude. The latter longitude function as a map from bottom to top can be chosen in advance as any small perturbation of the identity. Our motivation for this was to design some elliptic divergence form operators, for instance on one of the domains bounded by a Reifenberg flat curve in the plane, with the scalar coefficient and the corresponding elliptic measure being absolutely continuous with respect to the natural measure on the boundary (an object of a separate paper). The construction of our net of curves in a rectangle can also be interpreted as control problem, has an interest on its own, and, likely, has other applications.

We derive the consistency conditions governing the propagating content of linear shear-free perturbations of Friedmann-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker cosmologies in metric f(R) gravity. The divergence of the shear-free constraint is shown to be the total momentum-conservation equation and therefore does not imply geodesic flow. Its projected time derivative instead supplies a nontrivial integrability condition. Scalar, vector, and tensor sectors must then be tested separately. Shear-freeness removes the independent transverse-traceless electric-magnetic Weyl pair, so no ordinary + or times tensor gravitational wave survives. The scalaron is not removed algebraically, but its four-variable harmonic system must remain in the time-dependent consistent subspace generated by the shear-free constraint and all of its time derivatives. For a geodesic shear-free congruence in the spatially flat expanding de Sitter patch, this excludes every nonzero fixed comoving scalar harmonic, including the healthy R+αR^2-2Λ model with α,Λ>0. Vector modes obey a curvature-dependent global eigenvalue condition whose right-hand side is negative for positive-density matter with f'>0 and 1+w>0; hence no nonzero vector harmonic survives on that branch. The familiar coasting R^3 example evades this sign obstruction only because it lies on an f'<0 branch. Thus tensor radiation is absent in the imposed shear-free sector, whereas scalar radiation is not excluded kinematically but remains a model- and background-dependent constraint-closure question.

Many dynamical processes unfold on the sphere but the default scientific machine learning architectures are Euclidean. Applying these architectures on a regular lat-lon grid causes problems: Cartesian convolutions become distorted at high latitude; 2D FFTs in Fourier neural operators incorrectly assume double periodicity; Cartesian positional encodings in ViTs distort spherical geodesic distances. Recent work moves towards natively spherical primitives, including spherical convolutions (e.g., DeepSphere or DISCO), Spherical Fourier Neural Operators (SFNOs), and geodesic attention. Here we propose Dandelion, a spherical version of Flower, a warp-based neural PDE solver. Layers of Dandelion predict a tangent-plane displacement and transport features along great circles. We obtain a U-Net-like structure by implementing hierarchical pooling entirely in the spherical-harmonic domain. There are thus no convolutions: spatial mixing is achieved only through spherical coordinate changes, or warps. To compare Dandelion with existing spherical architectures, we release an evolving benchmark suite of challenging, natively-spherical PDE datasets including a modified Galewsky jet, anomalous chained turbulence, Cahn-Hilliard decomposition, spherical Riemann shocks, Held-Suarez dry atmospheric transport and global ocean dynamics. This new benchmark fills the gap in existing spherical datasets which are either too small and stylized, or much too large (ERA5) for model iteration. Dandelion is best or second-best on every dataset, and the gap to non-warp baselines widens with resolution: at 256times 512, Dandelion and Flower2D occupy the top two slots in both single-step prediction and rollout.

Residual connections are the de facto mechanism for training deep neural networks stably. Geodesic Normalization (GeoNorm) recasts them on a Riemannian manifold, orthogonalizing each layer output against the current hidden state and applying the resulting update through the Riemannian exponential map. Every hidden state thus keeps a constant ell_{2}-norm, confining the residual stream to a hypersphere. The exponential map, however, is only one member of a broad family of retraction maps. We show that on the hypersphere this entire family collapses to a single scalar design choice. What distinguishes one retraction from another is only how the magnitude of an update is converted into a rotation angle within the plane spanned by the hidden state and the update. This view places Euclidean residual connections and GeoNorm in one framework. Instantiating it with the metric projection retraction and the Cayley retraction yields Proj-SpheretNorm and Cay-SpheretNorm, which are exactly norm-preserving yet require only algebraic operations. Both prove to be members of a one-parameter family of angular retractions, p-SpheretNorm, whose rotation angle saturates rather than growing without bound. The two methods above are recovered exactly at p = 1 and p = 2, while the identity map and GeoNorm arise only as limits at either end. On nanoGPT, all three methods outperform existing lightweight deep connection schemes, and the best validation loss is attained at finite p, indicating that the exponential map is not the preferred retraction for spherical residual streams but merely one end of a spectrum.

Geographic coordinates are common inputs in applied machine learning, but latitude and longitude describe position rather than the surrounding environment. Image-grounded location encoders learn this context from satellite or ground-level imagery; structured open map data offers another source of supervision whose utility for continuous coordinate encoders remains less explored. We introduce CartoVec, a coordinate encoder trained to predict Overture-derived land cover, land use, transportation, place and connectivity targets at multiple spatial scales, without image inputs or downstream-task labels. We evaluate frozen embeddings on Census outcomes, Airbnb prices and Philadelphia crime in the US Northeast using spatial block cross-validation. CartoVec has the highest mean performance on most Census outcomes and the highest average across the full suite, with several comparisons close across folds. The findings support open map data as a practical source of reusable location representations with a coordinate-to-vector interface that requires no map lookup at inference. The open-weight model is available at https://huggingface.co/gursoyfurkan/CartoVec.

In recent years, huge progress has been made on learning neural implicit representations from multi-view images for 3D reconstruction. As an additional input complementing coordinates, using sinusoidal functions as positional encodings plays a key role in revealing high frequency details with coordinate-based neural networks. However, high frequency positional encodings make the optimization unstable, which results in noisy reconstructions and artifacts in empty space. To resolve this issue in a general sense, we introduce to learn neural implicit representations with quantized coordinates, which reduces the uncertainty and ambiguity in the field during optimization. Instead of continuous coordinates, we discretize continuous coordinates into discrete coordinates using nearest interpolation among quantized coordinates which are obtained by discretizing the field in an extremely high resolution. We use discrete coordinates and their positional encodings to learn implicit functions through volume rendering. This significantly reduces the variations in the sample space, and triggers more multi-view consistency constraints on intersections of rays from different views, which enables to infer implicit function in a more effective way. Our quantized coordinates do not bring any computational burden, and can seamlessly work upon the latest methods. Our evaluations under the widely used benchmarks show our superiority over the state-of-the-art. Our code is available at https://github.com/MachinePerceptionLab/CQ-NIR.

In this work, we embark on the thermodynamic investigation concerning a family of primary charged black holes within the context of shift and parity symmetric Beyond Horndeski gravity. Employing the Euclidean approach, we derive the functional expression for the free energy and derive the first thermodynamic law, offering a methodology to address the challenge of extracting the thermal quantities in shift-symmetric scalar tensor theories characterized by linear time dependence in the scalar field. Following the formal analysis, we provide some illustrative examples focusing on the thermal evaporation of these fascinating objects.

Learning feature representations of geographical space is vital for any machine learning model that integrates geolocated data, spanning application domains such as remote sensing, ecology, or epidemiology. Recent work mostly embeds coordinates using sine and cosine projections based on Double Fourier Sphere (DFS) features -- these embeddings assume a rectangular data domain even on global data, which can lead to artifacts, especially at the poles. At the same time, relatively little attention has been paid to the exact design of the neural network architectures these functional embeddings are combined with. This work proposes a novel location encoder for globally distributed geographic data that combines spherical harmonic basis functions, natively defined on spherical surfaces, with sinusoidal representation networks (SirenNets) that can be interpreted as learned Double Fourier Sphere embedding. We systematically evaluate the cross-product of positional embeddings and neural network architectures across various classification and regression benchmarks and synthetic evaluation datasets. In contrast to previous approaches that require the combination of both positional encoding and neural networks to learn meaningful representations, we show that both spherical harmonics and sinusoidal representation networks are competitive on their own but set state-of-the-art performances across tasks when combined. We provide source code at www.github.com/marccoru/locationencoder

Feed-forward 3D foundation models reconstruct perspective scenes in one pass. Satellite photogrammetry needs a different product, one that domain adaptation alone does not deliver: dense surface height in an absolute geodetic frame under non-central rational polynomial cameras (RPCs). Perspective-pretrained features are not reliably observable along RPC height rays, absolute elevation carries a low-order height--datum gauge exchangeable with sensor bias to first order, and monocular and multi-view cues fail in different regions. treats all three. Lightweight ray-consistent adapters make a frozen backbone matchable along native RPC rays. An explicit datum mechanism separates relief from absolute level and is equivariant to the vertical origin by construction, so one trained model serves zero-, one-, and sparse-control inference. Calibrated inverse-variance fusion combines the two relief streams. , our absolute-frame benchmark of eighteen systems across in-domain, cross-dataset, and cross-city tiers, scores absolute placement without registration or test-reference leakage. On 26 held-out US3D tiles, attains 2.99\,m absolute MAE at 91.9% coverage, improves completeness-aware accuracy by 46.4 points over the strongest compliant feed-forward baseline, remains the most accurate such system under both transfer shifts, and runs in 24\,s model-forward time per tile. Code and models will be released at https://github.com/HIT-SIRS/GeoRay

This work considers gradient-based mesh optimization, where we iteratively optimize for a 3D surface mesh by representing it as the isosurface of a scalar field, an increasingly common paradigm in applications including photogrammetry, generative modeling, and inverse physics. Existing implementations adapt classic isosurface extraction algorithms like Marching Cubes or Dual Contouring; these techniques were designed to extract meshes from fixed, known fields, and in the optimization setting they lack the degrees of freedom to represent high-quality feature-preserving meshes, or suffer from numerical instabilities. We introduce FlexiCubes, an isosurface representation specifically designed for optimizing an unknown mesh with respect to geometric, visual, or even physical objectives. Our main insight is to introduce additional carefully-chosen parameters into the representation, which allow local flexible adjustments to the extracted mesh geometry and connectivity. These parameters are updated along with the underlying scalar field via automatic differentiation when optimizing for a downstream task. We base our extraction scheme on Dual Marching Cubes for improved topological properties, and present extensions to optionally generate tetrahedral and hierarchically-adaptive meshes. Extensive experiments validate FlexiCubes on both synthetic benchmarks and real-world applications, showing that it offers significant improvements in mesh quality and geometric fidelity.

Recent results from Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), in combination with cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements, have focused renewed attention on dark energy models with a time-varying equation-of-state parameter, w(z). In this paper, we describe the simplest, physically motivated models of evolving dark energy that are consistent with the recent data, a broad subclass of the so-called thawing scalar field models that we dub w_ϕCDM. We provide a quasi-universal, quasi-one-parameter functional fit to the scalar-field w_ϕ(z) that captures the behavior of these models more informatively than the standard w_0w_a phenomenological parametrization; their behavior is completely described by the current value of the equation-of-state parameter, w_0=w(z=0). Combining current data from BAO (DESI Data Release 2), the CMB (Planck and ACT), large-scale structure (DES Year-3 3times2pt), SNe Ia (DES-SN5YR), and strong lensing (TDCOSMO + SLACS), for w_ϕCDM we obtain w_0=-0.904_{-0.033}^{+0.034}, 2.9σ discrepant from the Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model. The Bayesian evidence ratio substantially favors this w_ϕCDM model over ΛCDM. The data combination that yields the strongest discrepancy with ΛCDM is BAO+SNe Ia, for which w_0=-0.837^{+0.044}_{-0.045}, 3.6σ discrepant from ΛCDM and with a Bayesian evidence ratio strongly in favor. We find that the so-called S_8 tension between the CMB and large-scale structure is slightly reduced in these models, while the Hubble tension is slightly increased. We forecast constraints on these models from near-future surveys (DESI-extension and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory LSST), showing that the current best-fit w_ϕCDM model will be distinguishable from ΛCDM at over 9σ.

We present a spacetime that serves as a horizonless mimicker of extremal black holes. Unlike previously studied mimickers of black holes with non-degenerate horizons, whose geometries are of the wormhole type and consist of two asymptotically flat regions connected by a very long throat, the mimicker of an extremal black hole possesses a single asymptotically flat region at one end and an infinitely long throat at the other. In the throat region, the spacetime approaches the direct-product geometry M_{1,1} times S^2, where M_{1,1} is two-dimensional Minkowski spacetime and S^2 is the two-sphere. We investigate scalar-field dynamics and the fate of the Aretakis instability. Although Aretakis-like modes arise in a local analysis of the throat, they do not lead to a physical instability of the mimicker. A scalar perturbation initially localized in the throat gives rise, at late times, to a sequence of signals with a characteristic separation t_{rm delay}sim 1/λ, where λll 1 is a deformation parameter. This timescale is parametrically larger than the echo time t_{rm echo}sim ln(1/λ) characteristic of non-extremal black-hole mimickers. We refer to this sequence as a {\it long-delay signal train}. Geometrically, the periodicity of the long-delay signals is associated with periodic geodesics on S^2. We then extend the construction to extremal Kerr. In this case, the throat region approaches a generalized product geometry involving M_{1,1} and a two-dimensional surface Σ_2. The corresponding signals are expected to form a quasi-periodic signal train, reflecting the quasi-periodic geodesic motion on Σ_2. We also comment on the generalization to wormhole mimickers of non-extremal black holes and on the implications of these results for unitarity in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence.

We calculate the motion of binary mass systems in gravity up to the sixth post--Newtonian order to the G_N^3 terms ab initio using momentum expansions within an effective field theory approach based on Feynman amplitudes in harmonic coordinates. For these contributions we construct a canonical transformation to isotropic and to EOB coordinates at 5PN and agree with the results in the literature Bern:2019nnu,Damour:2019lcq. At 6PN we compare to the Hamiltonians in isotropic coordinates either given in Bern:2019nnu or resulting from the scattering angle. We find a canonical transformation from our Hamiltonian in harmonic coordinates to Bern:2019nnu, but not to Damour:2019lcq. This implies that we also agree on all observables with Bern:2019nnu to the sixth post--Newtonian order to G_N^3.

In this paper we study quasinormal modes and absorption cross sections for the (1+3)-dimensional Bardeen black hole surrounded by perfect fluid dark matter. Studies of the massless scalar field is already done in Sun:2023slzl. Hence, in this paper we will focus on the massive scalar field perturbations and massless Dirac field perturbations. To compute the quasinormal modes we use the semi-analytical 3rd-order WKB method, which has been shown to be one of the best approaches when the effective potential is adequate and when n < ell and n < lambda. We have also utilized the P\"oschl-Teller method to compare the valus obtained using the WKB approach. We have computed quasinormal frequencies by varying various parameters of the theory such as the mass of the scalar field mu, dark matter parameter alpha and the magnetic charge g. We have summarized our solutions in tables and figures for clarity. As for the absorption cross section, we used third order WKB approach to compute reflection, transmission coefficients and partial absorption cross sections. Graphs are presented to demonstrate the behavior of the above quantities when the dark matter parameter and mass of the massive scalar field are varied.

We develop a novel systematic method for constructing exact, static, and asymptotically flat black-hole solutions in shift-symmetric and Z_2-symmetric beyond Horndeski theories. In contrast to previous studies, our approach does not rely on the restrictive reciprocal condition g_{tt}g_{rr}=-1, allowing for more general geometries characterized by two independent metric functions. The resulting solution space contains two qualitatively distinct types of hair originating from different branches of the theory. One branch is characterized by khronometric hair, while the other by genuine scalar hair. In both, the scalar profile defines a nontrivial preferred foliation, but the shift-symmetry Noether current and the associated propagating degree of freedom are trivial for the former and nonvanishing for the latter. Focusing mainly on the second branch, we derive several distinct families of exact black-hole solutions. In general, these solutions are singular and exhibit primary scalar hair associated with an independent scalar charge. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that they can be regularized to yield regular black-hole or solitonic configurations, for which the scalar hair becomes secondary. We further investigate the stability properties of these solutions under linear perturbations by analyzing the axial sector and the monopole (ell=0) mode of the even-parity sector. For representative solutions with scalar hair, the perturbative analysis provides evidence for linear stability under the modes considered.

We study a kinematical consequence of the Hopf-algebraic momentum composition law in κ-Minkowski spacetime. The same curved momentum space can be described in different coordinates. In the bicrossproduct basis the ordered-plane-wave labels are the translation-generator eigenvalues, so the relevant map is one-to-one. In the classical basis, instead, the translation eigenvalues P_μ are nonlinearly related to the ordered-plane-wave labels p_μ. This relation can fail to be globally one-to-one in a high-momentum region. When a given classical-basis four-momentum admits more than one real auxiliary preimage, the branch-sensitive quantity P_+equiv P_0+P_4=κe^{p_0/κ} enters the coproduct and resolves the branches in two-particle states. Imposing the vanishing total-momentum constraint therefore gives branch-dependent κ-deformed back-to-back momentum correlations. In a single-branch regime this is just a deformed correlated product, while in a multibranch regime a state specified only by P_μ can be expanded into distinct auxiliary branches. If P_μ are taken as the directly meaningful momenta, the physical content is the resulting deformed correlation pattern. If the auxiliary variables p_μ are assigned operational meaning, the same constrained state can be interpreted as a superposition over different auxiliary branches. We also compare this structure with standard regular self-adjoint nonrelativistic minimal-length models and find no analogous smooth local two-real-branch inversion on their physical domains.

Riemannian submanifold optimization with momentum is computationally challenging because, to ensure that the iterates remain on the submanifold, we often need to solve difficult differential equations. Here, we simplify such difficulties for a class of structured symmetric positive-definite matrices with the affine-invariant metric. We do so by proposing a generalized version of the Riemannian normal coordinates that dynamically orthonormalizes the metric and locally converts the problem into an unconstrained problem in the Euclidean space. We use our approach to simplify existing approaches for structured covariances and develop matrix-inverse-free 2^nd-order optimizers for deep learning in low precision settings. Code: https://github.com/yorkerlin/StructuredNGD-DL

This paper investigates the generalization of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to Riemannian manifolds. We first propose a new and general type of family of subspaces in manifolds that we call barycentric subspaces. They are implicitly defined as the locus of points which are weighted means of k+1 reference points. As this definition relies on points and not on tangent vectors, it can also be extended to geodesic spaces which are not Riemannian. For instance, in stratified spaces, it naturally allows principal subspaces that span several strata, which is impossible in previous generalizations of PCA. We show that barycentric subspaces locally define a submanifold of dimension k which generalizes geodesic subspaces.Second, we rephrase PCA in Euclidean spaces as an optimization on flags of linear subspaces (a hierarchy of properly embedded linear subspaces of increasing dimension). We show that the Euclidean PCA minimizes the Accumulated Unexplained Variances by all the subspaces of the flag (AUV). Barycentric subspaces are naturally nested, allowing the construction of hierarchically nested subspaces. Optimizing the AUV criterion to optimally approximate data points with flags of affine spans in Riemannian manifolds lead to a particularly appealing generalization of PCA on manifolds called Barycentric Subspaces Analysis (BSA).

To study the onset of scalarization, we investigate linear scalar perturbations around Kerr--Newman black holes in the Einstein-Chern-Simons-Maxwell-scalar theory with quadratic Chern--Simons (CS) coupling γ (hatγ=γ/M^2) and Maxwell coupling η. For this purpose, we employ hyperboloidal Rácz--Tóth evolution and a stationary axisymmetric zero-mode computation. The resulting thresholds are compared with the time-domain response at representative points. For hatγ=0, we find two asymmetric threshold branches in η, while for hatγ=η, the two branches have opposite signs and unequal magnitudes. For unequal CS and Maxwell couplings, the two real threshold branches merge as the spin or CS coupling increases.

Conformal symmetries, i.e.\ coordinate transformations that preserve angles, play a key role in many fields, including physics, mathematics, computer vision and (geometric) machine learning. Here we build a neural network that is equivariant under general conformal transformations. To achieve this, we lift data from flat Euclidean space to Anti de Sitter (AdS) space. This allows us to exploit a known correspondence between conformal transformations of flat space and isometric transformations on the AdS space. We then build upon the fact that such isometric transformations have been extensively studied on general geometries in the geometric deep learning literature. We employ message-passing layers conditioned on the proper distance, yielding a computationally efficient framework. We validate our model on tasks from computer vision and statistical physics, demonstrating strong performance, improved generalization capacities, and the ability to extract conformal data such as scaling dimensions from the trained network.

For every integer Nge4, we construct a fixed smooth, non-locally-conformally-flat metric on the n-dimensional unit sphere S^n for which the constant Q_{2N}-curvature equation admits an L^infty-unbounded sequence of positive solutions. The construction applies for nge2N+20 when N=4,5, nge2N+19 when 6le Nle8, nge2N+18 when 9le Nle17, and nge2N+17 when Nge18. For each L in N cup {0}, the metric can be chosen arbitrarily close to the round metric in the C^L norm. Together with the known cases N=1,2,3, this establishes noncompactness at every order, with dimension bounds that we expect to be optimal. We derive an explicit formula for the fixed-volume Hessian of total Q_{2N}-curvature in transverse-traceless (TT) directions at closed Einstein metrics satisfying Ric=(n-1)g. Building on Juhl's formulas, we identify this Hessian, for every NinN and n>2N, as a degree-N polynomial in the Lichnerowicz Laplacian. For the metric perturbations generated by algebraic Weyl tensors in the construction, the quadratic reduced energy with fixed bubble center is a positive multiple of this Hessian restricted to a four-dimensional TT space. Differentiation with respect to the bubble scale then yields a finite matrix whose exact sign analysis establishes the required indefiniteness in the stated dimension ranges. After continuation to real n, this matrix changes from negative definite to indefinite at n_N=2N+a_*+c_*N^{-1}+O(N^{-2}) as Ntoinfty, with a_*approx16.201871 and c_*approx13.512880, explaining the eventual bound nge2N+17.

Topical observations of the thermosphere at altitudes below 200 , km are of great benefit in advancing the understanding of the global distribution of mass, composition, and dynamical responses to geomagnetic forcing, and momentum transfer via waves. The perceived risks associated with such low altitude and short duration orbits has prohibited the launch of Discovery-class missions. Miniaturization of instruments such as mass spectrometers and advances in the nano-satellite technology, associated with relatively low cost of nano-satellite manufacturing and operation, open an avenue for performing low altitude missions. The time dependent coefficients of a second order non-homogeneous ODE which describes the motion have a double periodic shape. Hence, they will be approximated using Jacobi elliptic functions. Through a change of variables the original ODE will be converted into Hill's ODE for stability analysis using Floquet theory. We are interested in how changes in the coefficients of the ODE affect the stability of the solution. The expected result will be an allowable range of parameters for which the motion is dynamically stable. A possible extension of the application is a computational tool for the rapid evaluation of the stability of entry or re-entry vehicles in rarefied flow regimes and of satellites flying in relatively low orbits.

Static spherically symmetric asymptotically flat configurations in General Relativity with a minimally coupled scalar field typically possess naked singularities. We study a linear stability of these configurations against radial (monopole) perturbations in case of power-law scalar field potentials. We employ a new shooting method that extracts the eigenvalues corresponding to the exponentially growing modes of the perturbation. The problem is reduced to one second order ``master'' equation in a divergent form with a regularized effective potential. We confirm our previous results showing that instability modes exist for sufficiently small scalar charges of the initial static configurations.

Neural representations of 3D data have been widely adopted across various applications, particularly in recent work leveraging coordinate-based networks to model scalar or vector fields. However, these approaches face inherent challenges, such as handling thin structures and non-watertight geometries, which limit their flexibility and accuracy. In contrast, we propose a novel geometric data representation that models geometry as distributions-a powerful representation that makes no assumptions about surface genus, connectivity, or boundary conditions. Our approach uses diffusion models with a novel network architecture to learn surface point distributions, capturing fine-grained geometric details. We evaluate our representation qualitatively and quantitatively across various object types, demonstrating its effectiveness in achieving high geometric fidelity. Additionally, we explore applications using our representation, such as textured mesh representation, neural surface compression, dynamic object modeling, and rendering, highlighting its potential to advance 3D geometric learning.

In a low-energy effective field theory (EFT), scaling logarithmic terms arise from the renormalization of higher-dimensional couplings that absorb divergences generated by loop integrals with lower-order vertices. Consequently, leading logarithms (LLs) are generated entirely by the leading-order Lagrangian, rendering them universal low-energy predictions. Adapting techniques developed for chiral perturbation theory, we analyze the series of LLs in the EFT of general relativity. As a concrete application, we compute LL corrections to the scalar pole mass up to three-loop order and demonstrate that they can be determined recursively to arbitrary loop order. To confirm the physical validity of our results, we carry out the calculation using a general gauge-fixing parameter and explicitly verify its complete cancellation in the physical observable.

Generative Vision-Language Models (VLMs) commonly treat bounding-box coordinates as independent output symbols, leaving numerical order and axis semantics implicit. We identify this representation as an important source of error in visual grounding. Hi-Token encodes each coordinate with axis-specific tokens for the hundreds, tens, and ones digits, which adds coarse-to-fine structure and increases token reuse while retaining the existing VLM architecture. Hi-GAR complements this representation with a geometry-based reward for Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), using box overlap and coordinate accuracy at multiple scales. Controlled comparisons under matched training conditions show that Hi-Token improves localization throughout the evaluated IoU range. Hi-GAR further reduces low-overlap predictions and is used only during training. Experiments on three VLM backbones and the RefCOCO family show consistent gains across models and benchmarks. Hi-R1 achieves higher values than strong specialist baselines on most reported metrics. Analyses of token frequency, digit boundaries, object scale, and IoU distributions explain the effects of coordinate representation and reward training. The results show that structured coordinate generation provides an effective approach to generative visual grounding. Project page: https://xyzzzh.github.io/Hi-Token/

We derive the gravitational radiation generated by a localised matter source in de Sitter spacetime at octupolar order in the multipolar expansion, working in generalised harmonic gauge in the future Poincaré patch. The scalar, vector, and tensor perturbation equations are solved explicitly, taking into account the cosmological tail. This constitutes the first extension of the de Sitter multipolar expansion beyond quadrupolar order. A key technical ingredient is a universal multipole moment differentiation identity, which unifies the relations between multipole moments into a single recursive formula and enables a controlled extension to higher multipoles. Using the symmetric trace-free tensor formalism of Blanchet, Damour, and Iyer, we further develop a systematic translation of the radiative solution into a spherical harmonic basis, and apply it to both the quadrupolar and octupolar metric perturbations. This representation renders the angular structure of the radiation manifest, simplifies the verification of the linearised field equations, and facilitates direct comparison with Bondi-gauge and other perturbative treatments of de Sitter spacetime.

We provide a mapping between past null and future null infinity in three-dimensional flat space, using symmetry considerations. From this we derive a mapping between the corresponding asymptotic symmetry groups. By studying the metric at asymptotic regions, we find that the mapping is energy preserving and yields an infinite number of conservation laws.

Trajectories in complex systems often contain structure that is not captured by the population-averaged, scalar statistics traditionally used to describe them. Here we reconstruct, through independent numerical re-simulation rather than literature review, a systematic search across representational forms - from single scalar statistics, through two independent discrete multi-feature classification attempts, to a trajectory-level structural representation and a diagnostic surrogate test, to a continuous low-dimensional compression - applied to the same underlying trajectory ensemble in a critical complex system. Predictive failure is not explained by insufficient correlation: one discrete representation's own strongest individual feature correlates with the target more strongly (r=0.588) than the eventual successful representation's own headline statistic (r=0.540), yet fails to separate the ensemble's two most consequential cases - while the continuous representation succeeds, robustly, across eight independent scale-removal folds (r=0.677-0.717, all p<0.001). The determining factor was not correlation strength but whether the representation preserved the structure relevant to prediction. These results indicate that the choice of representation determines whether predictive structure in complex systems becomes accessible - a scientific variable in its own right, not a downstream analysis choice.

We allow the Higgs field Phi to interact with a dilaton field chi of the background spacetime via the coupling chi^2,Phi^daggerPhi. Upon spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking, the Higgs VEV becomes proportional to chi. While traditionally this linkage is employed to make the Planck mass and particle masses dependent on chi, we present an textit alternative mechanism: the Higgs VEV will be used to construct Planck's constant hbar and speed of light c. Specifically, each open set vicinity of a given point x^* on the spacetime manifold is equipped with a replica of the Glashow-Weinberg-Salam action operating with its own effective values of hbar_* and c_* per hbar_*proptochi^{-1/2}(x^*) and c_*proptochi^{1/2}(x^*), causing these ``fundamental constants'' to vary alongside the dynamical field chi. Moreover, in each open set around x^*, the prevailing value chi(x^*) determines the length and time scales for physical processes occurring in this region as lproptochi^{-1}(x^*) and tauproptochi^{-3/2}(x^*). This leads to an textit anisotropic relation tau^{-1}propto l^{-3/2} between the rate of clocks and the length of rods, resulting in a distinct set of novel physical phenomena. For late-time cosmology, the variation of c along the trajectory of light waves from distant supernovae towards the Earth-based observer necessitates modifications to the Lema\^itre redshift relation and the Hubble law. These modifications are capable of: (1) Accounting for the Pantheon Catalog of SNeIa through a declining speed of light in an expanding Einstein--de Sitter universe, thus avoiding the need for dark energy; (2) Revitalizing Blanchard-Douspis-Rowan-Robinson-Sarkar's CMB power spectrum analysis that bypassed dark energy [A&A 412, 35 (2003)]; and (3) Resolving the H_0 tension without requiring a dynamical dark energy component.

Magnitude of a finite metric space and the related notion of magnitude functions on metric spaces is an active area of research in algebraic topology. Magnitude originally arose in the context of biology, where it represents the number of effective species in an environment; when applied to a one-parameter family of metric spaces tX with scale parameter t, the magnitude captures much of the underlying geometry of the space. Prior work has mostly focussed on properties of magnitude in a global sense; in this paper we restrict the sets to finite subsets of Euclidean space and investigate its individual components. We give an explicit formula for the corrected inclusion-exclusion principle, and define a quantity associated with each point, called the moment which gives an intrinsic ordering to the points. We exploit this in order to form an algorithm which approximates the convex hull.

We study the scalar curvature of the Fisher information metric on the microscopic coupling-parameter manifold of lattice spin models at criticality. For a d-dimensional lattice with periodic boundary conditions and n = L^d sites, the Fisher manifold has m = d cdot n dimensions (one per bond), and we find |R(J_c)| sim n^{d_R} with d_R = (dν+ 2η)/(dν+ η), where ν and η are the correlation-length and anomalous-dimension critical exponents. For 2D Ising (ν= 1, η= 1/4), this predicts d_R = 10/9, confirmed by exact transfer-matrix computations (L = 6--9: d_R = 1.1115 pm 0.0002) and multi-seed MCMC through L = 24. For 3D Ising (ν= 0.630, η= 0.0363), the prediction d_R = 1.019 is consistent with MCMC on L^3 tori up to L = 10 (power-law fit: d_R = 1.040). For 2D Potts q = 3 (predicted 33/29 approx 1.138), FFT-MCMC through L = 40 shows d_eff oscillating non-monotonically around sim 1.20, consistent with O(1/(ln L)^2) logarithmic corrections. For q = 4 (predicted 22/19), effective exponents oscillate with strong logarithmic corrections. The Ricci decomposition identity R_3 = -R_1/2, R_4 = -R_2/2 holds to 5--6 digits for all models. This exponent is distinct from Ruppeiner thermodynamic curvature and reflects the collective geometry of the growing Fisher manifold. We provide falsification criteria and predictions for additional universality classes.

We revisit the geometric theory of defects. In the differential-geometric models of defects that have been adopted since the 1950s, dislocations have been associated with torsion, disclinations with the full curvature, and point defects with the first kind trace of non-metricity. The mainstream formulation exhibits several conceptual and technical shortcomings, most notably a hierarchy inconsistency, the non-exictence of a genuine metric formulation, and the potential emergence of Ostrogradsky-type instabilities. These issues have motivated us to develop a new framework, namely a generalized teleparallel geometric theory of defects. In our model, dislocations are identified with the trace of torsion, disclinations with the second kind trace of the non-metricity, and point defects with the first kind trace of the non-metricity. In addition, we retain the scalar part torsion as a free parameter for describing some possible unknown degrees of freedom in the theory of defects. The proposed geometric theory of defects is free from all of the aforementioned drawbacks and is therefore worthy of further investigation. To ensure the coherence and completeness of the discussion, we begin our analysis with elastic deformations, then summarize the existing metric-affine geometric theory of defects, and finally proceed to our original contribution, namely the new theory introduced here. We formulate the entire theory in Eulerian coordinates. Naturally, all results can be reformulated in Lagrangian coordinates as well. All analyses and formulae are expressed in the language of exterior algebra and are carried out in coordinate-independent orthonormal frames.

We introduce Einstein Fields, a neural representation that is designed to compress computationally intensive four-dimensional numerical relativity simulations into compact implicit neural network weights. By modeling the metric, which is the core tensor field of general relativity, Einstein Fields enable the derivation of physical quantities via automatic differentiation. However, unlike conventional neural fields (e.g., signed distance, occupancy, or radiance fields), Einstein Fields are Neural Tensor Fields with the key difference that when encoding the spacetime geometry of general relativity into neural field representations, dynamics emerge naturally as a byproduct. Einstein Fields show remarkable potential, including continuum modeling of 4D spacetime, mesh-agnosticity, storage efficiency, derivative accuracy, and ease of use. We address these challenges across several canonical test beds of general relativity and release an open source JAX-based library, paving the way for more scalable and expressive approaches to numerical relativity. Code is made available at https://github.com/AndreiB137/EinFields

As part of a PhD thesis entitled `Scalar perturbations in warm inflation and during reheating' we present a software for computing warm inflation observables. In particular, our Mathematica implementation computes the power spectrum, spectral tilt, and tensor-to-scalar ratio for a given momentum scale. Compared with other implementations, we start in a Bunch-Davies state deep inside the horizon, ideally at a time when thermal noise is exponentially suppressed. We integrate gauge-invariant equations for three curvature perturbations across horizon exit. We continue deep enough outside of horizon so that all curvature perturbations agree. Results are illustrated for Standard Model embedded warm inflation, and we also provide notebooks for several other popular potentials and friction coefficients. The theoretical foundations for the code can be found in the main part of the thesis or in earlier papers [1,2]. Specifically, part II derives gauge-invariant, model-agnostic evolution equations, as well as the noise autocorrelator interpolating between quantum and classical domains. Part III presents the general ideas behind the numerical implementation, while part IV presents selected results. The code is described, line-by-line, in Appendix A. The published PhD thesis is available at https://doi.org/10.48620/101166 while the notebooks can be downloaded from https://github.com/alicarogeljblackhole/Warm-Inflation.

We propose a simple interpretation of the gammagamma excesses reported by both CMS and ATLAS groups at 95 GeV together with the LEP excess in the Zbb channel around the same mass in terms of a neutral scalar field in the minimal left-right symmetric model (LRSM). We point out that the scalar field which implements the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses has all the right properties to explain these observations, without introducing any extra scalar fields. The key point is that this scalar particle is hardly constrained because it couples only to heavy right-handed particles. As a result, the diphoton decay mode receives contributions from both mixing with the Standard Model (SM) Higgs and the heavy charged bosons in the LRSM, depending on the SU(2)_Rtimes U(1)_{B-L} symmetry breaking scale v_R. The complete allowed parameter space for explaining the 95 GeV excesses in this model can be probed with the high-precision measurements of the SM Higgs mixing with other scalars at the high-luminosity LHC and future Higgs factories.

We present a novel geometric perspective on the latent space of diffusion models. We first show that the standard pullback approach, utilizing the deterministic probability flow ODE decoder, is fundamentally flawed. It provably forces geodesics to decode as straight segments in data space, effectively ignoring any intrinsic data geometry beyond the ambient Euclidean space. Complementing this view, diffusion also admits a stochastic decoder via the reverse SDE, which enables an information geometric treatment with the Fisher-Rao metric. However, a choice of x_T as the latent representation collapses this metric due to memorylessness. We address this by introducing a latent spacetime z=(x_t,t) that indexes the family of denoising distributions p(x_0 | x_t) across all noise scales, yielding a nontrivial geometric structure. We prove these distributions form an exponential family and derive simulation-free estimators for curve lengths, enabling efficient geodesic computation. The resulting structure induces a principled Diffusion Edit Distance, where geodesics trace minimal sequences of noise and denoise edits between data. We also demonstrate benefits for transition path sampling in molecular systems, including constrained variants such as low-variance transitions and region avoidance. Code is available at: https://github.com/rafalkarczewski/spacetime-geometry.

We introduce Equivariant Neural Eikonal Solvers, a novel framework that integrates Equivariant Neural Fields (ENFs) with Neural Eikonal Solvers. Our approach employs a single neural field where a unified shared backbone is conditioned on signal-specific latent variables - represented as point clouds in a Lie group - to model diverse Eikonal solutions. The ENF integration ensures equivariant mapping from these latent representations to the solution field, delivering three key benefits: enhanced representation efficiency through weight-sharing, robust geometric grounding, and solution steerability. This steerability allows transformations applied to the latent point cloud to induce predictable, geometrically meaningful modifications in the resulting Eikonal solution. By coupling these steerable representations with Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs), our framework accurately models Eikonal travel-time solutions while generalizing to arbitrary Riemannian manifolds with regular group actions. This includes homogeneous spaces such as Euclidean, position-orientation, spherical, and hyperbolic manifolds. We validate our approach through applications in seismic travel-time modeling of 2D, 3D, and spherical benchmark datasets. Experimental results demonstrate superior performance, scalability, adaptability, and user controllability compared to existing Neural Operator-based Eikonal solver methods.

Signal Processing (SP) and Machine Learning (ML) rely on good math and coding knowledge, in particular, linear algebra, probability, trigonometry, and complex numbers. A good grasp of these relies on scalar algebra learned in middle school. The ability to understand and use scalar algebra well, in turn, relies on a good foundation in basic arithmetic. Because of various systemic barriers, many students are not able to build a strong foundation in arithmetic in elementary school. This leads them to struggle with algebra and everything after that. Since math learning is cumulative, the gap between those without a strong early foundation and everyone else keeps increasing over the school years and becomes difficult to fill in college. In this article we discuss how SP faculty, students, and professionals can play an important role in starting, and participating in, university-run, or other, out-of-school math support programs to supplement students' learning. Two example programs run by the authors, CyMath at Iowa State and Algebra by 7th Grade (Ab7G) at Purdue, and one run by the Actuarial Foundation, are described. We conclude with providing some simple zero-cost suggestions for public schools that, if adopted, could benefit a much larger number of students than what out-of-school programs can reach.

Non-linear interactions during inflation generate non-Gaussianities in the distribution of primordial curvature. In many theories, the physics is scale-invariant, such that the induced three-point function depends solely on a dimensionless shape function S(x,y)sim k^6B_ζ(kx,ky,k). To confront such models with observations, one typically builds specialized estimators for each shape, then applies them to cosmic microwave background datasets at significant computational expense. In this Letter, we take a different approach, directly reconstructing S(x,y) from observations using an efficient logarithmically-binned estimator in primordial-space (motivated by the modal program). Applying this to temperature and polarization maps from Planck, we obtain high-resolution shape measurements across the full (x,y)-plane, including squeezed limits. Our approach is close-to-optimal, highly interpretable, and preserves the information content on (optimally-analyzed) standard templates within approx 10%; moreover, we can use it to assess the scale-dependence of our constraints, finding that Planck is sensitive to approx 6 e-folds of non-Gaussian evolution with a peak sensitivity around 0.1h,Mpc^{-1}. Since we work directly in shape-space, data and theory can be compared in milliseconds. As an example, we perform a search for massive particle exchange using a suite of over 20,000 theoretical templates computed with exact bootstrap methods (for the first time) across a wide range of masses, spins, and sound-speeds; the spin-two analysis yields a maximum significance of 2.6σ. Our approach can be used to probe a wide range of scale-invariant models in orders-of-magnitude less time than with direct estimators, allowing the inflationary paradigm to be explored in new ways.

A sample of 60,410 bona fide optical quasars with astrometric proper motions in Gaia EDR3 and spectroscopic redshifts above 0.5 in an oval 8400 square degree area of the sky is constructed. Using orthogonal Zernike functions of polar coordinates, the proper motion fields are fitted in a weighted least-squares adjustment of the entire sample and of six equal bins of sorted redshifts. The overall fit with 37 Zernike functions reveals a statistically significant pattern, which is likely to be of instrumental origin. The main feature of this pattern is a chain of peaks and dips mostly in the R.A. component with an amplitude of 25~muas yr^{-1}. This field is subtracted from each of the six analogous fits for quasars grouped by redshifts covering the range 0.5 through 7.03, with median values 0.72, 1.00, 1.25, 1.52, 1.83, 2.34. The resulting residual patterns are noisier, with formal uncertainties up to 8~muas yr^{-1} in the central part of the area. We detect a single high-confidence Zernike term for R.A. proper motion components of quasars with redshifts around 1.52 representing a general gradient of 30 muas yr^{-1} over 150degr on the sky. We do not find any small- or medium-scale systemic variations of the residual proper motion field as functions of redshift above the 2.5,sigma significance level.

We study the problem of learning generative models for discrete sequences in a continuous embedding space. Whereas prior approaches typically operate in Euclidean space or on the probability simplex, we instead work on the sphere mathbb S^{d-1}. There the von Mises-Fisher (vMF) distribution induces a natural noise process and admits a closed-form conditional score. The conditional velocity is in general intractable. Exploiting the radial symmetry of the vMF density we reduce the continuity equation on mathbb S^{d-1} to a scalar ODE in the cosine similarity, whose unique bounded solution determines the velocity. The marginal velocity and marginal score on (mathbb S^{d-1})^L both decompose into posterior-weighted tangent sums that differ only by per-token scalar weights. This gives access to both ODE and predictor-corrector (PC) sampling. The posterior is the only learned object, trained by a cross-entropy loss. Experiments compare the vMF path against geodesic and Euclidean alternatives. The combination of vMF and PC sampling significantly improves results on Sudoku and language modeling.

In this article, we consider a newly proposed parameterization of the viscosity coefficient zeta, specifically zeta=zeta_0 {Omega^s_m} H , where zeta_0 = zeta_0{{Omega^s_{m_0}}} within the coincident f(Q) gravity formalism. We consider a non-linear function f(Q)= -Q +alpha Q^n, where alpha and n are arbitrary model parameters, which is a power-law correction to the STEGR scenario. We find an autonomous system by invoking the dimensionless density parameters as the governing phase-space variables. We discuss the physical significance of the model corresponding to the parameter choices n=-1 and n=2 along with the exponent choices s=0, 0.5, and 1.05. We find that model I shows the stable de-Sitter type or stable phantom type (depending on the choice of exponent s) behavior with no transition epoch, whereas model II shows the evolutionary phase from the radiation epoch to the accelerated de-Sitter epoch via passing through the matter-dominated epoch. Hence, we conclude that model I provides a good description of the late-time cosmology but fails to describe the transition epoch, whereas model II modifies the description in the context of the early universe and provides a good description of the matter and radiation era along with the transition phase.

We update predictions for observables in the "delicate" D3/anti-D3 inflationary model on the conifold. We use a full CMB likelihood calculation to assess goodness-of-fit, which is necessary because in this model the zeta power spectrum often cannot be modelled as a power-law over observable scales. For the first time we are able to provide accurate forecasts for the amplitude of three-point correlations. In a significant portion of its parameter space the model follows Maldacena's single-field prediction fNL ~ -(5/12)(ns-1) if nt << 1. Therefore |fNL| is usually small when the power spectrum satisfies observational constraints. In a small number of cases the bispectrum is instead dominated by effects from rapid switching between angular minima. The resulting amplitudes are larger, but mostly with unacceptable spectral behaviour. In the most extreme case we obtain |fNLeq| ~ 75 at kt/3 = 0.002/Mpc. It has been suggested that the quasi-single field inflation ("QSFI") mechanism could produce significant 3-point correlations in this model. We do observe rare shifts in amplitude between equilateral and squeezed configurations that could possibly be associated with QSFI effects, but more investigation is needed to establish the full bispectrum shape. There is evidence of "shape" running between equilateral and squeezed configurations that may be inherited from the scale dependence of the spectrum. We explore the dependence of observables on discrete choices such as the truncation point of the potential. Our analysis illustrates the advantages of a standard format for information exchange within the inflationary model-building and testing community.

Within the context of a Chern-Simons running-vacuum-model (RVM) cosmology, one expects an early-matter dominated (eMD) reheating period after RVM inflation driven by the axion field. Treating thus in this work Chern-Simons RVM cosmology as an effective f(R) gravity theory characterized by logarithmic corrections of the spacetime curvature, we study the gravitational-wave (GW) signal induced by the nearly-scale invariant inflationary adiabatic curvature perturbations during the transition from the eMD era driven by the axion to the late radiation-dominated era. Remarkably, by accounting for the extra GW scalaron polarization present within f(R) gravity theories, we find regions in the parameter space of the theory where one is met with a distinctive induced GW signal with a universal f^6 high-frequency scaling compared to the f^7 scaling present in general relativity (GR). Interestingly enough, for axion masses m_a higher than 1 GeV and axion gauge couplings f_a above 10^{-3} Planck mass, one can produce induced GW spectra within the sensitivity bands of future GW observatories such as the Einstein Telescope (ET), the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), the Big Bang Observer (BBO) and the Square Kilometer Arrays (SKA).

We present anyakrakusuma, an open-source Python library that solves the discrete static Schrödinger bridge problem, the entropically regularized counterpart of optimal transport, through a log-domain Sinkhorn--Knopp iteration and reconstructs the entropic interpolation between two empirical point clouds. The solver is paired with a diagnostic pipeline that characterizes the optimal coupling and the intermediate distributions through information-theoretic and geometric measures. We exercise the library on four idealized planar cases spanning a circle-to-circle dilation, a spiral-to-mixture fragmentation, a rigid reorientation of two moons, and a Lissajous-to-trefoil deformation. The log-domain formulation is necessary rather than merely convenient at the parameters studied, where the cost-to-regularization ratio reaches four hundred and the Gibbs kernel underflows double precision across most of its range; the iteration nonetheless attains a marginal residual of 10^{-9} and unit marginal fidelity in every case. Residual histories decay geometrically over approximately eight decades at per-iteration contraction factors between 0.966 and 0.976, which are local rates near the fixed point that lie many orders of magnitude below the worst-case Hilbert-metric bound. The covariance analysis recovers an imposed ninety-degree reorientation to within 0.07^circ, roughly forty times smaller than its uncertainty, across a masked interval of near-isotropy on which the principal axis is unobservable. The diagnostics are reported with explicit attention to the regimes in which each is well defined, including the differential entropy, which is meaningful only on the open interpolation interval. The presented cases are constructed rather than measured; quantitative application to empirical point clouds requires further study.

Coordinate networks are widely used in computer vision due to their ability to represent signals as compressed, continuous entities. However, training these networks with first-order optimizers can be slow, hindering their use in real-time applications. Recent works have opted for shallow voxel-based representations to achieve faster training, but this sacrifices memory efficiency. This work proposes a solution that leverages second-order optimization methods to significantly reduce training times for coordinate networks while maintaining their compressibility. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach on various signal modalities, such as audio, images, videos, shape reconstruction, and neural radiance fields.

Given the exponential growth of the volume of the ball w.r.t. its radius, the hyperbolic space is capable of embedding trees with arbitrarily small distortion and hence has received wide attention for representing hierarchical datasets. However, this exponential growth property comes at a price of numerical instability such that training hyperbolic learning models will sometimes lead to catastrophic NaN problems, encountering unrepresentable values in floating point arithmetic. In this work, we carefully analyze the limitation of two popular models for the hyperbolic space, namely, the Poincar\'e ball and the Lorentz model. We first show that, under the 64 bit arithmetic system, the Poincar\'e ball has a relatively larger capacity than the Lorentz model for correctly representing points. Then, we theoretically validate the superiority of the Lorentz model over the Poincar\'e ball from the perspective of optimization. Given the numerical limitations of both models, we identify one Euclidean parametrization of the hyperbolic space which can alleviate these limitations. We further extend this Euclidean parametrization to hyperbolic hyperplanes and exhibits its ability in improving the performance of hyperbolic SVM.

Modelling interactions is critical in learning complex dynamical systems, namely systems of interacting objects with highly non-linear and time-dependent behaviour. A large class of such systems can be formalized as geometric graphs, i.e., graphs with nodes positioned in the Euclidean space given an arbitrarily chosen global coordinate system, for instance vehicles in a traffic scene. Notwithstanding the arbitrary global coordinate system, the governing dynamics of the respective dynamical systems are invariant to rotations and translations, also known as Galilean invariance. As ignoring these invariances leads to worse generalization, in this work we propose local coordinate frames per node-object to induce roto-translation invariance to the geometric graph of the interacting dynamical system. Further, the local coordinate frames allow for a natural definition of anisotropic filtering in graph neural networks. Experiments in traffic scenes, 3D motion capture, and colliding particles demonstrate that the proposed approach comfortably outperforms the recent state-of-the-art.

Modern feed-forward 3D reconstruction methods like VGGT predict pixel-aligned pointmaps in camera-centric coordinate frames. However, this choice of coordinate frame is not always optimal. We propose instead to predict pointmaps in upright, gravity-aligned frames that exploit strong structural cues present in many real-world scenes. Unlike camera-centric frames, gravity-aligned frames share a common vertical axis across viewpoints, reducing the rotational degrees of freedom needed to relate pointmaps to one another. To this end, we introduce the Gravity Grounded Geometry Transformer (G3T), fine-tuned from existing models on gravity-aligned 3D data. G3T produces highly accurate gravity-aware predictions, including upright pointmaps and camera-to-gravity poses. We further introduce G3T-Long, a submap-based incremental 3D reconstruction pipeline that leverages the reduced rotational degrees of freedom afforded by upright frames to achieve significantly improved reconstruction accuracy.

The increasing availability of large-scale global datasets has generated a demand for scalable spatial prediction methods defined on spherical domains. Classical spatial models that rely on Euclidean distance representations are inappropriate for spherical data because planar projections distort geodesic distances and spatial neighborhood structures, while traditional kriging-based prediction methods are often computationally prohibitive for massive datasets. To address these challenges, we propose a Spherical DeepKriging framework for spatial prediction on S^2. The proposed approach constructs a flexible prediction model by integrating thin-plate spline (TPS) basis functions defined intrinsically on the sphere. Simulation studies and real data analyses are presented to demonstrate the superior predictive performance of the proposed method.

We extend the recently proposed sparse voxel rasterization paradigm to the task of high-fidelity surface reconstruction by integrating Signed Distance Function (SDF), named SVRecon. Unlike 3D Gaussians, sparse voxels are spatially disentangled from their neighbors and have sharp boundaries, which makes them prone to local minima during optimization. Although SDF values provide a naturally smooth and continuous geometric field, preserving this smoothness across independently parameterized sparse voxels is nontrivial. To address this challenge, we promote coherent and smooth voxel-wise structure through (1) robust geometric initialization using a visual geometry model and (2) a spatial smoothness loss that enforces coherent relationships across parent-child and sibling voxel groups. Extensive experiments across various benchmarks show that our method achieves strong reconstruction accuracy while having consistently speedy convergence. The code will be made public.

Lasso and Ridge are important minimization problems in machine learning and statistics. They are versions of linear regression with squared loss where the vector θinR^d of coefficients is constrained in either ell_1-norm (for Lasso) or in ell_2-norm (for Ridge). We study the complexity of quantum algorithms for finding varepsilon-minimizers for these minimization problems. We show that for Lasso we can get a quadratic quantum speedup in terms of d by speeding up the cost-per-iteration of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm, while for Ridge the best quantum algorithms are linear in d, as are the best classical algorithms. As a byproduct of our quantum lower bound for Lasso, we also prove the first classical lower bound for Lasso that is tight up to polylog-factors.

It has been shown that a gravitational dual to a superconductor can be obtained by coupling anti-de Sitter gravity to a Maxwell field and charged scalar. We review our earlier analysis of this theory and extend it in two directions. First, we consider all values for the charge of the scalar field. Away from the large charge limit, backreaction on the spacetime metric is important. While the qualitative behaviour of the dual superconductor is found to be similar for all charges, in the limit of arbitrarily small charge a new type of black hole instability is found. We go on to add a perpendicular magnetic field B and obtain the London equation and magnetic penetration depth. We show that these holographic superconductors are Type II, i.e., starting in a normal phase at large B and low temperatures, they develop superconducting droplets as B is reduced.