• #### A Farewell to the Bias-Variance Tradeoff? An Overview of the Theory of Overparameterized Machine Learning

The rapid recent progress in machine learning (ML) has raised a number of scientific questions that challenge the longstanding dogma of the field. One of the most important riddles is the good empirical generalization of overparameterized models. Overparameterized models are excessively complex with respect to the size of the training dataset, which results in them perfectly fitting (i.e., interpolating) the training data, which is usually noisy. Such interpolation of noisy data is traditionally associated with detrimental overfitting, and yet a wide range of interpolating models -- from simple linear models to deep neural networks -- have recently been observed to generalize extremely well on fresh test data. Indeed, the recently discovered double descent phenomenon has revealed that highly overparameterized models often improve over the best underparameterized model in test performance. Understanding learning in this overparameterized regime requires new theory and foundational empirical studies, even for the simplest case of the linear model. The underpinnings of this understanding have been laid in very recent analyses of overparameterized linear regression and related statistical learning tasks, which resulted in precise analytic characterizations of double descent. This paper provides a succinct overview of this emerging theory of overparameterized ML (henceforth abbreviated as TOPML) that explains these recent findings through a statistical signal processing perspective. We emphasize the unique aspects that define the TOPML research area as a subfield of modern ML theory and outline interesting open questions that remain.
Training setMachine learningRegressionDeep Neural NetworksLinear regressionRegularizationCovariance matrixSparsityOptimizationGenerative Adversarial Net...
• #### Analytical warm dark matter power spectrum on small scales

Using the Reduced Relativistic Gas (RRG) model, we analytically determine the matter power spectrum for Warm Dark Matter (WDM) on small scales, $k>1\ h\text{/Mpc}$. The RRG is a simplified model for the ideal relativistic gas, but very accurate in the cosmological context. In another work, we have shown that, for typical allowed masses for dark matter particles, $m>5\ \text{keV}$, the higher order multipoles, $\ell>2$, in the Einstein-Boltzmann system of equations are negligible on scales $k<10\ h\text{/Mpc}$. Hence, we can follow the perturbations of WDM using the ideal fluid framework, with equation of state and sound speed of perturbations given by the RRG model. We derive a M\'esz\'aros like equation for WDM and solve it analytically in radiation, matter and dark energy dominated eras. Joining these solutions, we get an expression that determines the value of WDM perturbations as a function of redshift and wavenumber. Then we construct the matter power spectrum and transfer function of WDM on small scales and compare it to some results coming from Lyman-$\alpha$ forest observations. Besides being a clear and pedagogical analytical development to understand the evolution of WDM perturbations, our power spectrum results are consistent with the observations considered and the other determinations of the degree of warmness of dark matter particles.
Warm dark matterMatter power spectrumCold dark matterHorizonDark matterTransfer functionDark matter particleDark energyRadiation-dominated epochSpeed of sound...
• #### An analytic model for the sub-galactic matter power spectrum in fuzzy dark matter halos

Fuzzy dark matter (FDM), a scalar particle coupled to the gravitational field without self-interaction whose mass range is $m \sim 10^{-24} - 10^{-20}\ \rm{eV}$, is one of the promising alternative dark matter candidates to cold dark matter. The quantum interference pattern, which is a unique structure of FDM, can be seen in halos in cosmological FDM simulations. In this paper, we first provide an analytic model of the sub-galactic matter power spectrum originating from quantum clumps in FDM halos, in which the density distribution of the FDM is expressed by a superposition of quantum clumps whose size corresponds to the de Broglie wavelength of the FDM. These clumps are assumed to be distributed randomly such that the ensemble averaged density follows the halo profile such as the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We then compare the sub-galactic matter power spectrum projected along the line of sight around the Einstein radius to that measured in the strong lens system SDSS J0252+0039. While we find that the current observation provides no useful constraint on the FDM mass, we show that future deep, high spatial resolution observations of strong lens systems can tightly constrain FDM with the mass around $10^{-22}\ \rm{eV}$.
Fuzzy dark matterMatter power spectrumLine of sightStrong lens systemsDe Broglie wavelengthNavarro-Frenk-White profileVirial massSloan Digital Sky SurveyCold dark matterStellar mass...
• #### The Milky Way, Coming into Focus: Precision Astrometry Probes its Evolution, and its Dark Matterver. 2

The growing trove of precision astrometric observations from the Gaia space telescope and other surveys is revealing the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way in ever more exquisite detail. We summarize the current status of our understanding of the structure and the characteristics of the Milky Way, and we review the emerging picture: the Milky Way is evolving through interactions with the massive satellite galaxies that stud its volume, with evidence pointing to a cataclysmic past. It is also woven with stellar streams, and observations of streams, satellites, and field stars offer new constraints on its dark matter, both on its spatial distribution and its fundamental nature. The recent years have brought much focus to the study of dwarf galaxies found within our Galaxy's halo and their internal matter distributions. In this review, we focus on the predictions of the cold dark matter paradigm at small mass scales through precision astrometric measurements, and we summarize the modern consensus on the extent to which small-scale probes are consistent with this paradigm. We note the discovery prospects of these studies, and also how they intertwine with probes of the dynamics and evolution of the Milky Way in various and distinct ways.
Dark matterMilky WayStarDark matter haloCold dark matterDark matter subhaloOf starsSteady stateLarge Magellanic CloudGalaxy...
• #### XNOR-Net: ImageNet Classification Using Binary Convolutional Neural Networksver. 4

We propose two efficient approximations to standard convolutional neural networks: Binary-Weight-Networks and XNOR-Networks. In Binary-Weight-Networks, the filters are approximated with binary values resulting in 32x memory saving. In XNOR-Networks, both the filters and the input to convolutional layers are binary. XNOR-Networks approximate convolutions using primarily binary operations. This results in 58x faster convolutional operations and 32x memory savings. XNOR-Nets offer the possibility of running state-of-the-art networks on CPUs (rather than GPUs) in real-time. Our binary networks are simple, accurate, efficient, and work on challenging visual tasks. We evaluate our approach on the ImageNet classification task. The classification accuracy with a Binary-Weight-Network version of AlexNet is only 2.9% less than the full-precision AlexNet (in top-1 measure). We compare our method with recent network binarization methods, BinaryConnect and BinaryNets, and outperform these methods by large margins on ImageNet, more than 16% in top-1 accuracy.
Binary numberConvolution Neural NetworkClassificationScale factorInferenceArchitectureNeural networkWeighted networkDeep Neural NetworksQuantization...
• #### An introduction to axions and their detection

In these notes I try to introduce the reader to the topic of axions: their theoretical motivation and expected phenomenology, their role in astrophysics and as dark matter candidate, and the experimental techniques to detect them. Special emphasis is made in this last point, for which a relatively updated review of worldwide efforts and future prospects is made. The material is intended as an introduction to the topic, and it was prepared as lecture notes for Les Houches summer school 2021. Abundant references are included to direct the reader to deeper insight on the different aspects of axion physics.
AxionAxion-like particleDark matterAxion massInflationSolar axionAxion modelStarInternational Axion ObservatoryPeccei-Quinn symmetry...
• #### Scale Invariant FIMP Miraclever. 2

We study the freeze-in production of vector dark matter (DM) in a classically scale invariant theory, where the Standard Model (SM) is augmented with an abelian $U(1)_X$ gauge symmetry that is spontaneously broken due to the non-zero vacuum expectation value (VEV) of a scalar charged under the $U(1)_X$. Generating the SM Higgs mass at 1-loop level, it leaves only two parameters in the dark sector, namely, the DM mass $m_X$ and the gauge coupling $g_X$ as independent, and supplement with a naturally light dark scalar particle. We show, for $g_X\sim\mathcal{O}\left(10^{-5}\right)$, it is possible to produce the DM X out-of-equilibrium in the early Universe, satisfying the observed relic abundance for $m_X\sim\mathcal{O}\left(\text{TeV}\right)$, which in turn also determines the scalar mixing angle $\sin \theta\sim\mathcal{O}\left(10^{-5}\right)$. The presence of such naturally light scalar mediator with tiny mixing with the SM, opens up the possibility for the model to be explored in direct search experiment, which otherwise is insensitive to standard freeze-in scenarios. Moreover we show that even with such feeble couplings, necessary for the DM freeze-in, the scenario is testable in several light dark sector searches (e.g., in DUNE and in FASER-II), satisfying constraints from the observed relic abundance as well as big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Particularly, we find, regions of the parameter space with $m_X$ $\gtrsim 1.8$ TeV are insensitive to direct detection probes but still can become accessible in lifetime frontier searches, courtesy to the underlying scale invariance of the theory.
Dark matterStandard ModelFreeze-inScale invarianceDark matter particle massLight scalarRelic abundanceHiggs bosonBig bang nucleosynthesisGauge coupling constant...
• #### Evaluating Haskell expressions in a tutoring environment

A number of introductory textbooks for Haskell use calculations right from the start to give the reader insight into the evaluation of expressions and the behavior of functional programs. Many programming concepts that are important in the functional programming paradigm, such as recursion, higher-order functions, pattern-matching, and lazy evaluation, can be partially explained by showing a stepwise computation. A student gets a better understanding of these concepts if she performs these evaluation steps herself. Tool support for experimenting with the evaluation of Haskell expressions is currently lacking. In this paper we present a prototype implementation of a stepwise evaluator for Haskell expressions that supports multiple evaluation strategies, specifically targeted at education. Besides performing evaluation steps the tool also diagnoses steps that are submitted by a student, and provides feedback. Instructors can add or change function definitions without knowledge of the tool's internal implementation. We discuss some preliminary results of a small survey about the tool.
Programming LanguageData structuresRecursive definitionCompilersLanguageRight Hand Side of the expressionTransformationsSurveysAlgorithmsCommunication...
• #### Total Haskell is Reasonable Coq

We would like to use the Coq proof assistant to mechanically verify properties of Haskell programs. To that end, we present a tool, named hs-to-coq, that translates total Haskell programs into Coq programs via a shallow embedding. We apply our tool in three case studies -- a lawful Monad instance, "Hutton's razor", and an existing data structure library -- and prove their correctness. These examples show that this approach is viable: both that hs-to-coq applies to existing Haskell code, and that the output it produces is amenable to verification.
Data structuresInteractive theorem proverFunctional programmingSoftwareRecursive definitionEmbeddingSilicon microstrip trackerMultidimensional ArrayEcosystemsProgramming Language...
• #### VIBE: Video Inference for Human Body Pose and Shape Estimationver. 3

Human motion is fundamental to understanding behavior. Despite progress on single-image 3D pose and shape estimation, existing video-based state-of-the-art methods fail to produce accurate and natural motion sequences due to a lack of ground-truth 3D motion data for training. To address this problem, we propose Video Inference for Body Pose and Shape Estimation (VIBE), which makes use of an existing large-scale motion capture dataset (AMASS) together with unpaired, in-the-wild, 2D keypoint annotations. Our key novelty is an adversarial learning framework that leverages AMASS to discriminate between real human motions and those produced by our temporal pose and shape regression networks. We define a temporal network architecture and show that adversarial training, at the sequence level, produces kinematically plausible motion sequences without in-the-wild ground-truth 3D labels. We perform extensive experimentation to analyze the importance of motion and demonstrate the effectiveness of VIBE on challenging 3D pose estimation datasets, achieving state-of-the-art performance. Code and pretrained models are available at https://github.com/mkocabas/VIBE.
Ground truthAttentionArchitectureTraining setHidden stateInferenceGenerative Adversarial NetRegressionConvolution Neural NetworkAblation...
• #### Multipoint ICME events during the first year of combined Solar Orbiter, BepiColombo, Parker Solar Probe, Wind and STEREO-A observations

We report the result of the first search for multipoint in situ and imaging observations of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) starting with the first Solar Orbiter data in April 2020 to April 2021. A data exploration analysis is performed including visualizations of the magnetic field and plasma observations made by the five spacecraft Solar Orbiter, BepiColombo, Parker Solar Probe, Wind and STEREO-A, in connection with coronagraph and heliospheric imaging observations from STEREO-Ahead/SECCHI and SOHO/LASCO. We identify ICME events that could be unambiguously followed with the STEREO-A heliospheric imagers during their interplanetary propagation to their impact at the aforementioned spacecraft, and look for events where the same ICME is seen in situ by widely separated spacecraft. We highlight two events: (1) a small streamer blowout CME on 2020 June 23 observed with a triple lineup by Parker Solar Probe, BepiColombo and Wind, guided by imaging with STEREO-A, and (2) the first fast CME of solar cycle 25 ($\approx 1600$ km s$^{-1}$) on 2020 Nov 29 observed in situ by Parker Solar Probe and STEREO-A. These results are useful for modeling the magnetic structure of ICMEs, the interplanetary evolution and global shape of their flux ropes and shocks, and for studying the propagation of solar energetic particles. The combined data from these missions is already turning out to be a treasure trove for space weather research and is expected to become even more valuable with an increasing number of ICME events expected during the rise and maximum of solar cycle 25.
STEREO-ASolar OrbiterSolar Terrestrial Relations ObservatoryEarthSolar cycleGraduated Cylindrical ShellSunSolar and Heliospheric ObservatorySolar windSolar energetic particles...
• #### Effects of dust particles charged by inelastic collisions and by photoionization on Alfv\'en waves in a stellar wind

Using a kinetic description of a homogeneous magnetized dusty plasma with Maxwellian distribution of electrons and protons and dust particles charged by inelastic collisions and by photoionization, we analyse the dispersion relation considering the case where waves and radiation propagate exactly parallel to the ambient magnetic field. The investigation emphasizes the changes that the photoionization process brings to the propagation and damping of the waves in a stellar wind environment, since Alfv\'en waves are believed to play a significant role in the heating and acceleration processes that take place in the wind. The results show that, in the presence of dust with negative equilibrium electrical charge, the Alfv\'en mode decouples into the whistler and ion cyclotron modes for all values of wavenumber, but when dust particles acquire neutral or positive values of electrical charge, these modes may couple for certain values of wavenumber. It is also seen that the whistler and ion cyclotron modes present null group velocity in a interval of small wavenumber, and that the maximum value of wavenumber for which the waves are non-propagating is reduced in the presence of the photoionization process. For very small values of wavenumber, the damping rates of the modes could change significantly from very small to very high values if the sign of the dust electrical charge is changed.
PhotoionizationCyclotronDamping rateInelastic collisionDust grainStellar windStarDusty plasmaLarmor radiusSolar wind...
• #### Velocity structure functions in multiphase turbulence: interpreting kinematics of H$\alpha$ filaments in cool core clusters

The central regions of cool-core galaxy clusters harbour multiphase gas with temperatures ranging from $10\ \mathrm{K}$--$10^7\ \mathrm{K}$. Feedback from AGN jets prevents the gas from undergoing a catastrophic cooling flow. However, the exact mechanism of this feedback energy input is unknown, mainly due to the lack of velocity measurements of the hot phase gas, which has large thermal velocities. However, recent observations have measured the velocity structure functions ($\mathrm{VSF}$s) of the cooler phases (at $10\ \mathrm{K}$ and $10^4\ \mathrm{K}$) and used them to indirectly estimate the motions of the hot phase. In the first part of this study, we conduct high-resolution ($384^3$--$1536^3$ resolution elements) simulations of homogeneous isotropic subsonic turbulence, without radiative cooling. We analyse the second-order velocity structure functions ($\mathrm{VSF}_2$) in these simulations and study the effects of varying spatial resolution, the introduction of magnetic fields and the effect of line of sight (LOS) projection on the $\mathrm{VSF}_2$. In the second part of the study, we analyse high-resolution ($768^3$ resolution elements) idealised simulations of multiphase turbulence in the intracluster medium (ICM) from Mohapatra et al 2021. We compare $\mathrm{VSF}_2$ for both the hot ($T\sim10^7\ \mathrm{K}$) and cold ($T\sim10^4\ \mathrm{K}$) phases. We also look for the effect of LOS projection. For turbulence without radiative cooling, we observe a steepening in the slopes of the $\mathrm{VSF}_2$ upon projection. In our runs with radiative cooling and multiphase gas, we find that the $\mathrm{VSF}_2$ of the hot and cold phases have similar scaling, but introducing magnetic fields steepens the $\mathrm{VSF}_2$ of the cold phase only. We also find that projection along the LOS steepens the $\mathrm{VSF}_2$ for the hot phase and mostly flattens it for the cold phase.
TurbulenceIntra-cluster mediumStructure functionLine of sightCoolingRadiative coolingCool core galaxy clusterKinematicsMach numberCooling flow...
• #### The helicity barrier: how low-frequency turbulence triggers high-frequency heating of the solar wind

The fast solar wind's high speeds and nonthermal features require that significant heating occurs well above the Sun's surface. Two leading theories have seemed incompatible: low-frequency Alfv\'enic turbulence, which transports energy outwards but struggles to explain the observed dominance of ion over electron heating; and high-frequency ion-cyclotron waves (ICWs), which explain the heating but lack an obvious source. We unify these paradigms via the novel "helicity barrier" mechanism. Using six-dimensional plasma simulations, we show that in imbalanced turbulence (as relevant to the solar wind) the helicity barrier limits electron heating by inhibiting the turbulent cascade of energy to the smallest scales. The large-scale energy grows in time to eventually generate high-frequency fluctuations from low-frequency turbulence, driving ion heating by ICWs. The resulting turbulence and ion distribution function provide a compelling match to in-situ observations from Parker Solar Probe and other spacecraft, explaining, among other features, the steep "transition range" in the magnetic spectrum.
TurbulenceHelicitySolar windEllipticitySunCyclotronStructure functionAlfvén waveCoolingDiffusion coefficient...
• #### Asymmetric HI 21 cm lines of fast radio burst hosts: connection with galaxy interaction

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are enigmatic transients with very short-duration radio emission. Their nature is still unknown and is widely debated. I provide the first analysis of atomic gas properties of FRB hosts to provide constraints on their nature. HI observations exist for NGC3252, the host of FRB 181030A, M81, the host of FRB 200120E, and the Milky Way, the host of FRB 200428. I report three observables: i) all three FRB hosts are interacting galaxies; ii) the HI spectra of both FRB hosts with such data available are highly asymmetric, several standard deviations above the general population of galaxies; iii) two FRB hosts have normal atomic gas properties and one is strongly deficient in atomic gas. This indicates that FRBs are connected with a recent enhancement of star formation due to interaction. This supports fast FRB channels, for example a massive star with a short delay time so that interaction signatures giving rise to the birth of the progenitor are still visible. Long gamma-ray burst (GRB) and broad-lined type Ic supernova (SN) hosts exhibit much more symmetric spectra, even though they were claimed to experience gas inflow from the intergalactic medium. The difference can be explained by the interactions experienced by FRB hosts being more disruptive than these gas inflow, or by the mass effect, with GRB/SN host at lower masses having less organized gas motions, so with HI lines closer to a symmetrical Gaussian. This also suggests that the emission mechanisms of FRBs and GRBs are likely different.
Fast Radio BurstsGamma ray burstGalaxySupernovaMilky WayStellar massMessier 81Health informaticsGalaxy interactionsStar formation rate...
• #### 3DCrowdNet: 2D Human Pose-Guided3D Crowd Human Pose and Shape Estimation in the Wild

Recovering accurate 3D human pose and shape from in-the-wild crowd scenes is highly challenging and barely studied, despite their common presence. In this regard, we present 3DCrowdNet, a 2D human pose-guided 3D crowd pose and shape estimation system for in-the-wild scenes. 2D human pose estimation methods provide relatively robust outputs on crowd scenes than 3D human pose estimation methods, as they can exploit in-the-wild multi-person 2D datasets that include crowd scenes. On the other hand, the 3D methods leverage 3D datasets, of which images mostly contain a single actor without a crowd. The train data difference impedes the 3D methods' ability to focus on a target person in in-the-wild crowd scenes. Thus, we design our system to leverage the robust 2D pose outputs from off-the-shelf 2D pose estimators, which guide a network to focus on a target person and provide essential human articulation information. We show that our 3DCrowdNet outperforms previous methods on in-the-wild crowd scenes. We will release the codes.
Statistical estimatorTraining setGraph ConvolutionGraphAblationFully connected layerStarGround truthRegressionArchitecture...
• #### Lightweight Multi-person Total Motion Capture Using Sparse Multi-view Cameras

Multi-person total motion capture is extremely challenging when it comes to handle severe occlusions, different reconstruction granularities from body to face and hands, drastically changing observation scales and fast body movements. To overcome these challenges above, we contribute a lightweight total motion capture system for multi-person interactive scenarios using only sparse multi-view cameras. By contributing a novel hand and face bootstrapping algorithm, our method is capable of efficient localization and accurate association of the hands and faces even on severe occluded occasions. We leverage both pose regression and keypoints detection methods and further propose a unified two-stage parametric fitting method for achieving pixel-aligned accuracy. Moreover, for extremely self-occluded poses and close interactions, a novel feedback mechanism is proposed to propagate the pixel-aligned reconstructions into the next frame for more accurate association. Overall, we propose the first light-weight total capture system and achieves fast, robust and accurate multi-person total motion capture performance. The results and experiments show that our method achieves more accurate results than existing methods under sparse-view setups.
SparsityPose regressionRegion of interestOptimizationObject detectionRegressionStatistical estimatorGraphFirst lightImage Processing...
• #### New Insight into the Formation Mechanism of the Energetic Particle Reservoirs in the Heliosphere

The concept of energetic particle reservoirs, essentially based on the assumption of the presence of outer reflecting boundaries/magnetic mirrors or diffusion barriers (deterministic) rather than on the effect of particle diffusive propagation (stochastic) in magnetic turbulence, has been used for decades to describe the space-extended decay phases of energetic particle events within the fields of space physics, solar physics, and plasma physics. Using five-dimensional time-dependent Fokker-Planck transport equation simulations, in this work we demonstrate that the so-called particle reservoirs are naturally explained and quantitatively reproduced by diffusion processes in turbulent magnetic fields, without invoking the hypothesis of reflecting boundaries. Our results strongly suggest that the so-called "reservoir" (based on deterministic structure) should be renamed "flood" (based on stochastic diffusion), which symbolizes an authentic shift in thinking and in pragmatic rationale for the studies of energetic particles and relevant plasma phenomena in heliophysics and in astrophysics.
Solar energetic particlesHeliospherePlanck missionIntensityNumerical simulationDiffusion processTransport equationInterplanetary magnetic fieldMagnetic mirrorAstrophysical plasma...
• #### Heavy neutral leptons below the kaon mass at hodoscopic detectors

We revisit constraints posed by hodoscopic neutrino detectors on heavy neutral leptons (HNL) mixed with the muon flavor. Below the kaon mass, this model is excluded by a combination of cosmological constraints and laboratory searches for decay-in-flight signatures from $N\to\nu e^+e^-$. If HNLs interact through an additional force, however, cosmological limits are avoided and new opportunities for $e^+e^-$ signals at neutrino experiments appear. The T2K and MicroBooNE experiments provide the leading constraints, outperforming searches from the 80s, previously thought to dominate. The former are the best limits on long-lived HNLs that decay electromagnetically, such as through a transition magnetic moment invoked to explain the MiniBooNE excess.
Heavy sterile neutrinoT2K experimentKaonNeutrinoMuonStandard ModelFinal stateDecay rateWeak neutral current interactionMinimal models...
• #### Publishing statistical models: Getting the most out of particle physics experiments

The statistical models used to derive the results of experimental analyses are of incredible scientific value and are essential information for analysis preservation and reuse. In this paper, we make the scientific case for systematically publishing the full statistical models and discuss the technical developments that make this practical. By means of a variety of physics cases -- including parton distribution functions, Higgs boson measurements, effective field theory interpretations, direct searches for new physics, heavy flavor physics, direct dark matter detection, world averages, and beyond the Standard Model global fits -- we illustrate how detailed information on the statistical modelling can enhance the short- and long-term impact of experimental results.
Parton distribution functionNuisance parameterLarge Hadron ColliderLikelihood functionHiggs bosonEffective field theoryProfile likelihoodInferenceSystematic errorSoftware...
• #### Unveiling Hidden Physics at the LHC

The field of particle physics is at the crossroads. The discovery of a Higgs-like boson completed the Standard Model (SM), but the lacking observation of convincing resonances Beyond the SM (BSM) offers no guidance for the future of particle physics. On the other hand, the motivation for New Physics has not diminished and is, in fact, reinforced by several striking anomalous results in many experiments. Here we summarise the status of the most significant anomalies, including the most recent results for the flavour anomalies, the multi-lepton anomalies at the LHC, the Higgs-like excess at around 96 GeV, and anomalies in neutrino physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and cosmic rays. While the LHC promises up to 4/ab of integrated luminosity and far-reaching physics programmes to unveil BSM physics, we consider the possibility that the latter could be tested with present data, but that systemic shortcomings of the experiments and their search strategies may preclude their discovery for several reasons, including: final states consisting in soft particles only, associated production processes, QCD-like final states, close-by SM resonances, and SUSY scenarios where no missing energy is produced. New search strategies could help to unveil the hidden BSM signatures, devised by making use of the CERN open data as a new testing ground. We discuss the CERN open data with its policies, challenges, and potential usefulness for the community. We showcase the example of the CMS collaboration, which is the only collaboration regularly releasing some of its data. We find it important to stress that individuals using public data for their own research does not imply competition with experimental efforts, but rather provides unique opportunities to give guidance for further BSM searches by the collaborations. Wide access to open data is paramount to fully exploit the LHCs potential.
CMS experimentOpen dataStandard ModelExperimental anomalyLarge Hadron ColliderHiggs bosonMuonFinal stateLong Lived ParticleDark matter...
• #### The effect of inhomogeneous reionisation on the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest power spectrum at redshift $z>4$: implications for thermal parameter recovery

We use the Sherwood-Relics suite of hybrid hydrodynamical and radiative transfer simulations to model the effect of inhomogeneous reionisation on the 1D power spectrum of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest transmitted flux at redshifts $4.2\leq z \leq 5$. Relative to models that assume a homogeneous UV background, reionisation suppresses the power spectrum at small scales, $k \sim 0.1\rm\,km^{-1}\,s$, by $\sim 10$ per cent because of spatial variations in the thermal broadening kernel and the divergent peculiar velocity field associated with over-pressurised intergalactic gas. On larger scales, $k<0.03\rm\,km^{-1}\,s$, the power spectrum is instead enhanced by $10$-$50$ per cent by large scale spatial variations in the neutral hydrogen fraction. The effect of inhomogeneous reionisation must therefore be accounted for in analyses of forthcoming high precision measurements. We provide a correction for the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest power spectrum at $4.1\leq z \leq 5.4$ in a form that can be easily applied within other parameter inference frameworks. We perform a Bayesian analysis of mock data to assess the extent of systematic biases that may arise in measurements of the intergalactic medium if ignoring this correction. At the scales probed by current high resolution Lyman-$\alpha$ forest data at $z>4$, $0.006 \rm \,km^{-1}\,s\leq k \leq 0.2 \rm\, km^{-1}\,s$, we find inhomogeneous reionisation does not introduce any significant bias in thermal parameter recovery for the current measurement uncertainties of $\sim 10$ per cent. However, for $5$ per cent uncertainties, $\sim 1\sigma$ shifts between the estimated and true parameters occur.
• #### Fundamental properties of the dark and the luminous matter from Low Surface Brightness discsver. 2

Dark matter (DM) is one of the biggest mystery in the Universe. In this review, after a brief discussion of the DM evidences and the main proposed candidates and scenarios for the DM phenomenon, we focus on recent results on rotating disc galaxies giving a special attention to the Low Surface Brightness (LSB) galaxies. The main observational properties related to the baryonic matter in LSBs, investigated over the last decades, are briefly recalled. Next, the LSBs are analysed by means of the mass modelling of their rotation curves both individually and stacked. The latter analysis, via the Universal Rotation Curve (URC) method, results really powerful in giving a global/universal description of the disc galaxies properties. We show the presence in LSBs of scaling relations between the galactic structural properties and we compare them with those of galaxies of different morphologies. The findings confirm, for all disc systems, a strong entanglement between the luminous matter (LM) and the DM. Moreover, we report how in LSBs the tight relationship between their radial gravitational acceleration $g$ and their baryonic component $g_b$ results to also depend on the galactic radius at which the former have been measured. Finally, LSB galaxies strongly challenge the $\Lambda$CDM scenario with the relative collisionless dark particle and, alongside with the non-detection of the latter, contribute to guide us towards a new scenario for the DM phenomenon.
Low surface brightnessDark matterGalaxyRotation CurveDark matter haloUniversal Rotation CurveDark matter particleCircular velocityLow surface brightness galaxyHigh Surface Brightness galaxy...
• #### Track to Detect and Segment: An Online Multi-Object Tracker

Most online multi-object trackers perform object detection stand-alone in a neural net without any input from tracking. In this paper, we present a new online joint detection and tracking model, TraDeS (TRAck to DEtect and Segment), exploiting tracking clues to assist detection end-to-end. TraDeS infers object tracking offset by a cost volume, which is used to propagate previous object features for improving current object detection and segmentation. Effectiveness and superiority of TraDeS are shown on 4 datasets, including MOT (2D tracking), nuScenes (3D tracking), MOTS and Youtube-VIS (instance segmentation tracking). Project page: https://jialianwu.com/projects/TraDeS.html.
EmbeddingYouTubeObject detectionAblationConvolution Neural NetworkBackbone networkAverage precisionFlux power spectrumRoboticsInference...
• #### Theory Closing Talk

In this talk I make some remarks about the search for the origin of the electroweak scale.
NaturalnessLarge Hadron ColliderMultiverseHiggs boson massQuantum gravityColliderGauge symmetryElectroweak scaleHiggs bosonAxion...
• #### Cosmology of an Axion-Like Majoron

We propose a singlet majoron model that defines an inverse seesaw mechanism in the $\nu$ sector. The majoron $\phi$ has a mass $m_\phi\approx 0.5$ eV and a coupling to the $\tau$ lepton similar to the one to neutrinos. In the early universe it is initially in thermal equilibrium, then it decouples at $T\approx 500$ GeV and contributes with just $\Delta N_{\rm eff}=0.026$ during BBN. At $T=26$ keV (final stages of BBN) a primordial magnetic field induces resonant $\gamma \leftrightarrow \phi$ oscillations that transfer $6\%$ of the photon energy into majorons, implying $\Delta N_{\rm eff}=0.55$ and a $4\%$ increase in the baryon to photon ratio. At $T\approx m_\phi$ the majoron enters in thermal contact with the heaviest neutrino and it finally decays into $\nu \bar \nu$ pairs near recombination, setting $\Delta N_{\rm eff}=0.85$. This boost in the expansion rate at later times solves the Hubble tension, while the neutrino--majoron interactions suppress the $\nu$ free streaming and make the model consistent with large scale structure observations. Its lifetime and the fact that it decays into neutrinos instead of photons lets this axion-like majoron avoid the strong bounds that affect other axion-like particles of similar mass and coupling to photons.
MajoronNeutrinoBig bang nucleosynthesisAxionCharged leptonCosmologyLarge scale structureInverse seesaw modelGlobal symmetryCosmic microwave background...
• #### Solving the paradox of the solar sodium D1 line polarizationver. 2

Twenty-five years ago, enigmatic linear polarization signals were discovered in the core of the sodium D1 line. The only explanation that could be found implied that the solar chromosphere is practically unmagnetized, in contradiction with other evidences. This opened a paradox that has challenged physicists for many years. Here we present its solution, demonstrating that these polarization signals can be properly explained in the presence of magnetic fields in the gauss range. This result opens a novel diagnostic window for exploring the elusive magnetism of the solar chromosphere.
• #### How to represent part-whole hierarchies in a neural network

This paper does not describe a working system. Instead, it presents a single idea about representation which allows advances made by several different groups to be combined into an imaginary system called GLOM. The advances include transformers, neural fields, contrastive representation learning, distillation and capsules. GLOM answers the question: How can a neural network with a fixed architecture parse an image into a part-whole hierarchy which has a different structure for each image? The idea is simply to use islands of identical vectors to represent the nodes in the parse tree. If GLOM can be made to work, it should significantly improve the interpretability of the representations produced by transformer-like systems when applied to vision or language
EmbeddingNeural networkAttentionArchitectureIntensityConvolution Neural NetworkContrastive learningBumpingDistillationAutoencoder...
• #### MLP-Mixer: An all-MLP Architecture for Visionver. 4

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are the go-to model for computer vision. Recently, attention-based networks, such as the Vision Transformer, have also become popular. In this paper we show that while convolutions and attention are both sufficient for good performance, neither of them are necessary. We present MLP-Mixer, an architecture based exclusively on multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs). MLP-Mixer contains two types of layers: one with MLPs applied independently to image patches (i.e. "mixing" the per-location features), and one with MLPs applied across patches (i.e. "mixing" spatial information). When trained on large datasets, or with modern regularization schemes, MLP-Mixer attains competitive scores on image classification benchmarks, with pre-training and inference cost comparable to state-of-the-art models. We hope that these results spark further research beyond the realms of well established CNNs and Transformers.
ArchitectureConvolution Neural NetworkAttentionRegularizationImage ProcessingOverfittingMulti-layer PerceptronInferenceOptimizationRegularization scheme...
• #### RepMLP: Re-parameterizing Convolutions into Fully-connected Layers for Image Recognitionver. 2

We propose RepMLP, a multi-layer-perceptron-style neural network building block for image recognition, which is composed of a series of fully-connected (FC) layers. Compared to convolutional layers, FC layers are more efficient, better at modeling the long-range dependencies and positional patterns, but worse at capturing the local structures, hence usually less favored for image recognition. We propose a structural re-parameterization technique that adds local prior into an FC to make it powerful for image recognition. Specifically, we construct convolutional layers inside a RepMLP during training and merge them into the FC for inference. On CIFAR, a simple pure-MLP model shows performance very close to CNN. By inserting RepMLP in traditional CNN, we improve ResNets by 1.8% accuracy on ImageNet, 2.9% for face recognition, and 2.3% mIoU on Cityscapes with lower FLOPs. Our intriguing findings highlight that combining the global representational capacity and positional perception of FC with the local prior of convolution can improve the performance of neural network with faster speed on both the tasks with translation invariance (e.g., semantic segmentation) and those with aligned images and positional patterns (e.g., face recognition). The code and models are available at https://github.com/DingXiaoH/RepMLP.
PerceptronConvolution Neural NetworkImage recognitionInferenceAttentionSemantic segmentationNeural networkFully connected layerMulti-layer PerceptronArchitecture...
• #### Pay Attention to MLPsver. 2

Transformers have become one of the most important architectural innovations in deep learning and have enabled many breakthroughs over the past few years. Here we propose a simple network architecture, gMLP, based on MLPs with gating, and show that it can perform as well as Transformers in key language and vision applications. Our comparisons show that self-attention is not critical for Vision Transformers, as gMLP can achieve the same accuracy. For BERT, our model achieves parity with Transformers on pretraining perplexity and is better on some downstream NLP tasks. On finetuning tasks where gMLP performs worse, making the gMLP model substantially larger can close the gap with Transformers. In general, our experiments show that gMLP can scale as well as Transformers over increased data and compute.
AttentionArchitectureComputational linguisticsDeep learningLanguageP-symmetryNetworks...
• #### ResMLP: Feedforward networks for image classification with data-efficient trainingver. 2

We present ResMLP, an architecture built entirely upon multi-layer perceptrons for image classification. It is a simple residual network that alternates (i) a linear layer in which image patches interact, independently and identically across channels, and (ii) a two-layer feed-forward network in which channels interact independently per patch. When trained with a modern training strategy using heavy data-augmentation and optionally distillation, it attains surprisingly good accuracy/complexity trade-offs on ImageNet. We also train ResMLP models in a self-supervised setup, to further remove priors from employing a labelled dataset. Finally, by adapting our model to machine translation we achieve surprisingly good results. We share pre-trained models and our code based on the Timm library.
ArchitectureAttentionDistillationSparsityMulti-layer PerceptronMachine translationOverfittingAblationClassifierStatistics...
• #### Finding and Combining Indicable Subgroups of Big Mapping Class Groups

In this paper, we prove a combination theorem for indicable subgroups of infinite-type (or big) mapping class groups. Importantly, all subgroups from the combination theorem, as well as those from the other results of the paper, can be constructed so that they do not lie in the closure of the compactly supported mapping class group and do not lie in the isometry group for any hyperbolic metric on the relevant infinite-type surface. Along the way, we prove an embedding theorem for indicable subgroups of mapping class groups, a corollary of which gives embeddings of pure big mapping class groups into other big mapping class groups that are not induced by embeddings of the underlying surfaces. We also give new constructions of free groups, wreath products with $\mathbb Z$, and Baumslag-Solitar groups in big mapping class groups that can be used as an input for the combination theorem. One application of our combination theorem is a new construction of right-angled Artin groups in big mapping class groups.
SubgroupIsometry groupGraphEmbeddingHomomorphismFree groupDilute magnetic semiconductorsArtin groupIsometryFree product...
• #### Uniform simplicity for subgroups of piecewise continuous bijections of the unit intervalver. 2

Let $I=[0,1)$ and $\mathcal{PC}(I)$ [resp. $\mathcal{PC}^+(I)$] be the quotient group of the group of all piecewise continuous [resp. piecewise continuous and orientation preserving] bijections of $I$ by its normal subgroup consisting in elements with finite support (i.e. that are trivial except at possibly finitely many points). Unpublished Theorems of Arnoux ([Arn81b]) state that $\mathcal{PC}^+(I)$ and certain groups of interval exchanges are simple, their proofs are the purpose of the Appendix. Dealing with piecewise direct affine maps, we prove the simplicity of the group $\mathcal A^+(I)$ (see Definition 1.6). These results can be improved. Indeed, a group $G$ is uniformly simple if there exists a positive integer $N$ such that for any $f,\phi \in G\setminus\{Id\}$, the element $\phi$ can be written as a product of at most $N$ conjugates of $f$ or $f^{-1}$. We provide conditions which guarantee that a subgroup $G$ of $\mathcal{PC}(I)$ is uniformly simple. As Corollaries, we obtain that $\mathcal{PC}(I)$, $\mathcal{PC}^+(I)$, $PL^+ (\mathbb S^1)$, $\mathcal A(I)$, $\mathcal A^+(I)$ and some Thompson like groups included the Thompson group $T$ are uniformly simple.
SubgroupNormal subgroupOrientationCommutator subgroupMorphismQuotient groupCompletenessIdentity componentPermutationManifold...
• #### The normal growth exponent of a codimension-1 hypersurface of a negatively curved manifold

Let $X$ be a Hadamard manifold with pinched negative curvature $-b^2\leq\kappa\leq -1$. Suppose $\Sigma\subseteq X$ is a totally geodesic, codimension-1 submanifold and consider the geodesic flow $\Phi^\nu_t$ on $X$ generated by a unit normal vector field $\nu$ on $\Sigma$. We say the normal growth exponent of $\Sigma$ in $X$ is at most $\beta$ if $\lim_{t \rightarrow \pm \infty} \frac{ \Vert d \Phi_t^\nu \Vert_{\infty} }{ e^{\beta \vert t \vert}} < \infty,$ where $\Vert d \Phi_t^\nu \Vert_{\infty}$ is the supremum of the operator norm of $d \Phi_t^\nu$ over all points of $\Sigma$. We show that if $\Sigma$ is bi-Lipschitz to hyperbolic $n$-space $\mathbb{H}^n$ and the normal growth exponent is at most 1, then $X$ is bi-Lipschitz to $\mathbb{H}^{n+1}$. As an application, we prove that if $M$ is a closed, negatively curved $(n+1)$-manifold, and $N\subset M$ is a totally geodesic, codimension-1 submanifold that is bi-Lipschitz to a hyperbolic manifold and whose normal growth exponent is at most 1, then $\pi_1(M)$ is isomorphic to a lattice in $\text{Isom}(\mathbb{H}^{n+1})$. Finally, we show that the assumption on the normal growth exponent is necessary in dimensions at least 4.
GeodesicManifoldCodimensionCurvatureLattice (order)SubgroupHadamard manifoldTorsion tensorOperator normConstant curvature...
• #### Real-Time High-Resolution Background Matting

We introduce a real-time, high-resolution background replacement technique which operates at 30fps in 4K resolution, and 60fps for HD on a modern GPU. Our technique is based on background matting, where an additional frame of the background is captured and used in recovering the alpha matte and the foreground layer. The main challenge is to compute a high-quality alpha matte, preserving strand-level hair details, while processing high-resolution images in real-time. To achieve this goal, we employ two neural networks; a base network computes a low-resolution result which is refined by a second network operating at high-resolution on selective patches. We introduce two largescale video and image matting datasets: VideoMatte240K and PhotoMatte13K/85. Our approach yields higher quality results compared to the previous state-of-the-art in background matting, while simultaneously yielding a dramatic boost in both speed and resolution.
Foreground residualsArchitectureGround truthMean squared errorSemantic segmentationDilationNeural networkPrivacySpatial pyramid poolingSoftware...
• #### Quantum Entanglement and Axion Physics

The axion particle is the outcome of the proposed Peccei-Quinn mechanism for solving the strong CP problem. Axion is also a popular dark matter candidate. Thus there is an increased interest in establishing its existence. Axions couple to two photons and most experiments search for the transition of an axion into a photon, in the presence of a magnetic field. In our study we examine the coupling of the axion into a pair of entangled photons. The presence of a magnetic field changes the polarization correlations of the entagled photons, thus offering an unambiguous signature for axion existence
AxionQuantum entanglementStrong CP-problemDark matter candidatePeccei-Quinn symmetryCoupling constantQuantum mechanicsSpontaneous symmetry breakingQuantum informationAxion-photon coupling...
• #### Evolution of neutron star magnetic fields

Neutron stars are natural physical laboratories allowing us to study a plethora of phenomena in extreme conditions. In particular, these compact objects can have very strong magnetic fields with non-trivial origin and evolution. In many respects its magnetic field determines the appearance of a neutron star. Thus, understanding the field properties is important for interpretation of observational data. Complementing this, observations of diverse kinds of neutron stars enable us to probe parameters of electro-dynamical processes at scales unavailable in terrestrial laboratories. In this review we first briefly describe theoretical models of formation and evolution of magnetic field of neutron stars, paying special attention to field decay processes. Then we present important observational results related to field properties of different types of compact objects: magnetars, cooling neutron stars, radio pulsars, sources in binary systems. After that, we discuss which observations can shed light on obscure characteristics of neutron star magnetic fields and their behaviour. We end the review with a subjective list of open problems.
Neutron starMagnetarRadio pulsarPulsarAccretionAttractorMagnetic field decayMessier 7Magnetosphere of a starCooling...
• #### Mass classification of dark matter perturbers of stellar tidal streamsver. 2

Stellar streams formed by tidal stripping of progenitors orbiting around the Milky Way are expected to be perturbed by encounters with dark matter subhalos. Recent studies have shown that they are an excellent proxy to infer properties of the perturbers, such as their mass. Here we present two different methodologies that make use of the fully non-Gaussian density distribution of stellar streams: a Bayesian model selection based on the probability density function (PDF) of stellar density, and a likelihood-free gradient boosting classifier. While the schemes do not assume a specific dark matter model, we are mainly interested in discerning the primordial black holes cold dark matter (PBH CDM) hypothesis form the standard particle dark matter one. Therefore, as an application we forecast model selection strength of evidence for cold dark matter clusters of masses $10^3$ - $10^5 M_{\odot}$ and $10^5$ - $10^9 M_{\odot}$, based on a GD-1-like stellar stream and including realistic observational errors. Evidence for the smaller mass range, so far under-explored, is particularly interesting for PBH CDM. We expect weak to strong evidence for model selection based on the PDF analysis, depending on the fiducial model. Instead, the gradient boosting model is a highly efficient classifier (99\% accuracy) for all mass ranges here considered. As a further test of the robustness of the method, we reach similar conclusions when performing forecasts further dividing the largest mass range into $10^5$ - $10^7 M_{\odot}$ and $10^7$ - $10^9 M_{\odot}$ ranges.
Cold dark matterPrimordial black holeDark matterGradient boostingStellar streamModel selectionGD-1 stellar streamDark matter subhaloClassifierTidal stream...
• #### Asymptotic Dimension of Minor-Closed Families and Assouad-Nagata Dimension of Surfacesver. 3

The asymptotic dimension is an invariant of metric spaces introduced by Gromov in the context of geometric group theory. In this paper, we study the asymptotic dimension of metric spaces generated by graphs and their shortest path metric and show their applications to some continuous spaces. The asymptotic dimension of such graph metrics can be seen as a large scale generalisation of weak diameter network decomposition which has been extensively studied in computer science. We prove that every proper minor-closed family of graphs has asymptotic dimension at most 2, which gives optimal answers to a question of Fujiwara and Papasoglu and (in a strong form) to a problem raised by Ostrovskii and Rosenthal on minor excluded groups. For some special minor-closed families, such as the class of graphs embeddable in a surface of bounded Euler genus, we prove a stronger result and apply this to show that complete Riemannian surfaces have Assouad-Nagata dimension at most 2. Furthermore, our techniques allow us to prove optimal results for the asymptotic dimension of graphs of bounded layered treewidth and graphs of polynomial growth, which are graph classes that are defined by purely combinatorial notions and properly contain graph classes with some natural topological and geometric flavours.
GraphMetric spaceTree decompositionPlanar graphAdhesionSparsityPseudometric spaceDilationNonnegativeBounded set...
• #### Pitch Angle Anisotropy Controls Particle Acceleration and Cooling in Radiative Relativistic Plasma Turbulence

Nature's most powerful high-energy sources are capable of accelerating particles to high energy and radiate it away on extremely short timescales, even shorter than the light crossing time of the system. It is yet unclear what physical processes can produce such an efficient acceleration, despite the copious radiative losses. By means of radiative particle-in-cell simulations, we show that magnetically dominated turbulence in pair plasmas subject to strong synchrotron cooling generates a nonthermal particle spectrum with a hard power-law range (slope $p \sim 1$) within a few eddy turnover times. Low pitch-angle particles can significantly exceed the nominal radiation-reaction limit, before abruptly cooling down. The particle spectrum becomes even harder ($p < 1$) over time owing to particle cooling with an energy-dependent pitch-angle anisotropy. The resulting synchrotron spectrum is hard ($\nu F_\nu \propto \nu^s$ with $s \sim 1$). Our findings have important implications for understanding the nonthermal emission from high-energy astrophysical sources, most notably the prompt phase of gamma-ray bursts and gamma-ray flares from the Crab nebula.
CoolingPitch angleTurbulenceSynchrotronAnisotropyLorentz factorRelativistic plasmaParticle-in-cellGamma ray burstMagnetic energy...
• #### Specific Heat of the Kagome Antiferromagnet Herbertsmithite in High Magnetic Fields

Measuring the specific heat of herbertsmithite single crystals in high magnetic fields (up to $34$ T) allows us to isolate the low-temperature kagome contribution while shifting away extrinsic Schottky-like contributions. The kagome contribution follows an original power law $C_{p}(T\rightarrow0)\propto T^{\alpha}$ with $\alpha\sim1.5$ and is found field-independent between $28$ and $34$ T for temperatures $1\leq T\leq4$ K. These are serious constrains when it comes to replication using low-temperature extrapolations of high-temperature series expansions. We manage to reproduce the experimental observations if about $10$ % of the kagome sites do not contribute. Between $0$ and $34$ T, the computed specific heat has a minute field dependence then supporting an algebraic temperature dependence in zero field, typical of a critical spin liquid ground state. The need for an effective dilution of the kagome planes is discussed and is likely linked to the presence of copper ions on the interplane zinc sites. At very low temperatures and moderate fields, we also report some small field-induced anomalies in the total specific heat and start to elaborate a phase diagram.
CopperSpin liquidNuclear magnetic resonanceSpinonSingle crystalKagome AntiferromagnetAnisotropyLattice (order)Phase diagramFermi surface...
• #### Velocity dispersion and dynamical mass for 270 galaxy clusters in the Planck PSZ1 catalogue

We present the velocity dispersion and dynamical mass estimates for 270 galaxy clusters included in the first Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) source catalogue, the PSZ1. Part of the results presented here were achieved during a two-year observational program, the ITP, developed at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Spain). In the ITP we carried out a systematic optical follow-up campaign of all the 212 unidentified PSZ1 sources in the northern sky that have a declination above $-15^\circ$ and are without known counterparts at the time of the publication of the catalogue. We present for the first time the velocity dispersion and dynamical mass of 58 of these ITP PSZ1 clusters, plus 35 newly discovered clusters that are not associated with the PSZ1 catalogue. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archival data, we extend this sample, including 212 already confirmed PSZ1 clusters in the northern sky. Using a subset of 207 of these galaxy clusters, we constrained the $M_{\rm SZ}$--$M_{\rm dyn}$ scaling relation, finding a mass bias of $(1-B) = 0.83\pm0.07$(stat)$\pm0.02$(sys). We show that this value is consistent with other results in the literature that were obtained with different methods (X-ray, dynamical masses, or weak-lensing mass proxies). This result cannot dissolve the tension between primordial cosmic microwave background anisotropies and cluster number counts in the $\Omega_{\rm M}$--$\sigma_8$ plane.
Cluster of galaxiesSloan Digital Sky SurveyVelocity dispersionProgrammingScaling lawWeak lensing mass estimatePlanck missionAtacama Cosmology TelescopeSignal to noise ratioGalaxy...
• #### Compositional Cyber-Physical Systems Theory

This dissertation builds a compositional cyber-physical systems theory to develop concrete semantics relating the above diverse views necessary for safety and security assurance. In this sense, composition can take two forms. The first is composing larger models from smaller ones within each individual formalism of requirements, behaviors, and architectures which can be thought of as horizontal composition -- a problem which is largely solved. The second and main contribution of this theory is vertical composition, meaning relating or otherwise providing verified composition across requirement, behavioral, and architecture models and their associated algebras. In this dissertation, we show that one possible solution to vertical composition is to use tools from category theory. Category theory is a natural candidate for making both horizontal and vertical composition formally explicit because it can relate, compare, and/or unify different algebras.
Cyber-physical systemArchitectureCategory theorySecurityTwo-formTheoryAlgebra...
• #### Bursty star formation during the Cosmic Dawn driven by delayed stellar feedback

In recent years, several analytic models have demonstrated that simple assumptions about halo growth and feedback-regulated star formation can match the (limited) existing observational data on galaxies at z>6. By extending such models, we demonstrate that imposing a time delay on stellar feedback (as inevitably occurs in the case of supernova explosions) induces burstiness in small galaxies. Although supernova progenitors have short lifetimes (~5-30 Myr), the delay exceeds the dynamical time of galaxies at such high redshifts. As a result, star formation proceeds unimpeded by feedback for several cycles and "overshoots" the expectations of feedback-regulated star formation models. We show that such overshoot is expected even in atomic cooling halos, with masses up to ~10^10.5 Msun at z>6. However, these burst cycles damp out quickly in massive galaxies, because large haloes are more resistant to feedback so retain a continuous gas supply. Bursts in small galaxies - largely beyond the reach of existing observations - induce a scatter in the luminosity of these haloes (of ~1 mag) and increase the time-averaged star formation efficiency by up to an order of magnitude. This kind of burstiness can have substantial effects on the earliest phases of star formation and reionization.
Star formationGalaxyStar formation efficiencyStar formation rateStarOf starsLuminosityMilky WayStellar feedbackLuminosity function...
• #### Surface groups are flexibly stablever. 2

We show that surface groups are flexibly stable in permutations. Our method is purely geometric and relies on an analysis of branched covers of hyperbolic surfaces. Along the way we establish a quantitative variant of the LERF property for surface groups which may be of independent interest.
GeodesicGraphOrientationPermutationManifoldBranched coveringIsometryEmbeddingFundamental domainClosed manifold...
• #### Classicality of Consciousness

A simple toy model is proposed that would allow conscious perceptions to be either classical (perceptions of objects without large quantum uncertainties or variances) or highly quantum (e.g., having large variances in the perceived position within a single perception), and yet for which plausible quantum states exhibiting Quantum Darwinism would lead to much higher measures for the classical perceptions.
Expectation ValueQubitProjection operatorQuantum DarwinismTensor productMixed statesQuantum decoherenceDensity matrixNonnegativeEngineering...
• #### CTAL: Pre-training Cross-modal Transformer for Audio-and-Language Representations

Existing audio-language task-specific predictive approaches focus on building complicated late-fusion mechanisms. However, these models are facing challenges of overfitting with limited labels and low model generalization abilities. In this paper, we present a Cross-modal Transformer for Audio-and-Language, i.e., CTAL, which aims to learn the intra-modality and inter-modality connections between audio and language through two proxy tasks on a large amount of audio-and-language pairs: masked language modeling and masked cross-modal acoustic modeling. After fine-tuning our pre-trained model on multiple downstream audio-and-language tasks, we observe significant improvements across various tasks, such as, emotion classification, sentiment analysis, and speaker verification. On this basis, we further propose a specially-designed fusion mechanism that can be used in fine-tuning phase, which allows our pre-trained model to achieve better performance. Lastly, we demonstrate detailed ablation studies to prove that both our novel cross-modality fusion component and audio-language pre-training methods significantly contribute to the promising results.
AttentionSentiment analysisAblationTraining setComputational linguisticsEmbeddingOverfittingClassifierHidden stateArchitecture...
• #### Potential PeVatron supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 seen in the highest-energy gamma rays

Cosmic rays (protons and other atomic nuclei) are believed to gain energies of petaelectronvolts (PeV) and beyond at astrophysical particle accelerators called 'PeVatrons' inside our Galaxy. Although a characteristic feature of a PeVatron is expected to be a hard gamma-ray energy spectrum that extends beyond 100 teraelectronvolts (TeV) without a cutoff, none of the currently known sources exhibits such a spectrum due to the low maximum energy of accelerated cosmic rays or insufficient detector sensitivity around 100 TeV. Here we report the observation of gamma-ray emission from the supernova remnant G106.3+2.7 above 10 TeV. This work provides flux data points up to and above 100 TeV and indicates that the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission above 10 TeV is well correlated with a molecular cloud rather than the pulsar PSR J2229+6114. Regarding the gamma-ray emission mechanism of G106.3+2.7, this morphological feature appears to favor a hadronic origin via the {\pi}0 decay caused by accelerated relativistic protons over a leptonic one via the inverse-Compton scattering by relativistic electrons. Furthermore, we point out that an X-ray flux upper limit on the synchrotron spectrum would provide important information to firmly establish the hadronic scenario as the mechanism of particle acceleration at the source.
Supernova remnantCosmic ray showerMultidimensional ArrayPulsarVERITASCosmic rayMolecular cloudPulsar wind nebulaHigh Altitude Water CherenkovInverse Compton...
• #### The Fourier formalism for relativistic axion-photon conversion, with astrophysical applicationsver. 2

We study the weak mixing of photons and relativistic axion-like particles (axions) in plasmas with background magnetic fields, ${\bf B}$. We show that, to leading order in the axion-photon coupling, the conversion probability, $P_{\gamma \to a}$, is given by the one-dimensional power spectrum of the magnetic field components perpendicular to the particle trajectory. Equivalently, we express $P_{\gamma \to a}$ as the Fourier transform of the magnetic field autocorrelation function, and establish a dictionary between properties of the real-space magnetic field and the energy-dependent conversion probability. For axions more massive than the plasma frequency, ($m_a>\omega_{\rm pl}$), we use this formalism to analytically solve the problem of perturbative axion-photon mixing in a general magnetic field. In the general case where $m_a/\omega_{\rm pl}$ varies arbitrarily along the trajectory, we show that a naive application of the standard formalism for resonant conversion can give highly inaccurate results, and that a careful calculation generically gives non-resonant contributions at least as large as the resonant contribution. Furthermore, we demonstrate how techniques based on the Fast Fourier Transform provide a new, highly efficient numerical method for calculating axion-photon mixing. We briefly discuss magnetic field modelling in galaxy clusters in the light of our results and argue, in particular, that a recently proposed regular model used for studying axion-photon mixing (specifically applied to the Perseus cluster) is inconsistent with observations. Our formalism suggest new methods to search for imprints of axions, and will be important for spectrographs with percent level sensitivity, which includes existing X-ray observations by Chandra as well as the upcoming Athena mission.
AxionTwo-point correlation functionIntra-cluster mediumRelativistic axionsCluster of galaxiesPerseus galaxy clusterPlasma frequencyFast Fourier transformInterferenceReal space...