arXiv preprints from January 1, 2026 through September 7, 2026 — 22:12:55 EST
Developing epithelial tissues coordinate cell proliferation and mechanical forces to achieve proper size and shape. As epithelial cells tightly adhere together to form the confluent tissue, the distribution of cell areas significantly influences possible patterns of cellular packing and thereby also the mechanics of the epithelium....
Dipole mixed modes observed in the oscillation pattern of red giant stars probe the radiative regions in the stellar core. Oscillation spectra of helium-core-burning stars sometimes show extra peaks that remain unexplained by the dipole mixed-mode pattern expected from the coupling of a radiative cavity in the stellar core and a...
A central unresolved question in the theory of superconductivity is why only a small subset of metallic elements exhibit a superconducting state, whereas many others remain strictly normal. Neither the conventional Bardeen Cooper Schrieffer (BCS) framework nor its extensions involving charge density wave (CDW) or pair density wave...
Theoretical models predict that the Galaxy hosts $10^8$-$10^9$ black holes formed from the complete gravitational collapse of heavy stars and that most of these black holes are isolated, without any companion. Within 15 pc of the Solar System ($\sim 50$ ly), there may be a few black holes. If located inside one of the Local...
I examine a recently proposed failed-supernova scenario for the fading of the yellow supergiant event M31-2014-DS1, and find that it requires unlikely fine-tuned parameters to work, if at all. In the failed-supernova scenario, most of the yellow supergiant collapsed to form a black hole. Due to the energy carried by neutrinos from the...
Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) host a variety of fractionalized particles. In Kitaev's paradigmatic honeycomb model a spin-$\tfrac{1}{2}$ fractionalizes into $Z_2$ flux due to emergent $Z_2$ gauge field and matter Majorana fermions. Although these excitations have well-defined dynamics in the integrable limit, their direct experimental...
Shear bands lie at the root of fracture initiation in bulk metallic glasses and amorphous polymers. For silicate glasses, in contrast, studies have largely emphasized permanent volumetric strain, commonly referred to as densification. Here we systematically investigate indentation-induced fracture in two distinct families of...
Galaxy clustering is a sensitive probe of the expansion history and growth of structure of the universe, and key degeneracies can be broken by combining these data with measurements of cosmic shear and galaxy-galaxy lensing (a so-called 3$\times$2pt analysis). The largest and least biased statistical samples of galaxies for use in...
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) represent a truly unique, and potentially very powerful, probe of the quiescent supermassive black hole (SMBH) population. Given current observational survey capabilities the vast majority of the TDEs discovered in the next decade will be observed only across optical-UV wavelengths. A set of questions of...
The dominant radiation mechanism that powers the prompt $γ$-ray emission in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) remains poorly understood. High quality, time- and energy-resolved linear polarization measurements of prompt $γ$-ray photons can distinguish between synchrotron and inverse-Compton processes and provide crucial constraints on the...
Atomically sharp 2D in-plane heterostructures with nanoscale interfaces provide a powerful platform for tailoring optical and electrical properties at the nanoscale, enabling novel device engineering and the exploration of new physical phenomena. However, direct experimental correlation between local dielectric response and excitonic...
The high-power helicon wave system in the DIII-D tokamak introduces new plasma--material interaction (PMI) challenges due to rectified RF sheath potentials forming near antenna structures and surrounding tiles. Using the STRIPE modeling framework-which integrates SOLPS-ITER, COMSOL, RustBCA, and GITR/GITRm-we simulate carbon erosion,...
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional elasticity theory is not applicable. Here, we study epithelia governed by quasi-static force...
We present a comprehensive analysis and experimental study of THz hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers made from 40-nm-thick sputtered magnesium diboride (MgB2) thin films on high-resistivity silicon substrates. Using a lumped-element bolometric model, we achieve strong quantitative agreement with measurements of conversion gain, noise...
Astrometry from the Gaia satellite and from the long-term combination of Hipparcos and Gaia are now sensitive to sky-plane accelerations as low as $\approx$1 m/s/yr. This paper quantifies and explores an important caveat: apparent nonlinear motion due to a star's nonzero radial velocity can be indistinguishable from real astrometric...
We study Gutzwiller-projected wavefunctions for triangular-lattice U(1) Dirac spin liquids in a Zeeman field, where we allow the U(1) gauge field to develop a gauge flux, resulting in (spin-split) spinon Landau levels. We find that at a given magnetization, the optimal candidate state has a finite flux chosen such that the spinon...
We prove that any quantum field theory, or more generally any probability distribution over tempered distributions in $\mathbb{R}^d$, admits a neural network description with a countable infinity of parameters. As an example, we realize the $2d$ Liouville theory as a neural network and numerically compute the three-point function of...
Active arterial mechanics, governed by vascular smooth muscle contraction, are critical to physiological regulation, cardiovascular disease progression, and clinical diagnosis. Although various in vivo methods have been developed to assess arterial stiffness, most cannot distinguish the contribution of smooth muscle tone; therefore,...
Accurate determination of transition states is central to an understanding of reaction kinetics. Double-endpoint methods where both initial and final states are specified, such as the climbing image nudged elastic band (CI-NEB), identify the minimum energy path between the two and thereby the saddle point on the energy surface that is...
Quasi-one-dimensional RbMn$_{6}$Bi$_{5}$, the first pressure-induced ternary Mn-based superconductor, exhibits a phase diagram analogous to those of cuprate and iron-based superconductors, with superconductivity neighboring antiferromagnetic order. Here, we use $^{55}$Mn and $^{87}$Rb nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to unravel its...
Porous nanocarbon materials are seen as potential excellent materials for hydrogen storage due to their high surface area, excellent cycling stability and favorable kinetics. This study employs Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulations to investigate key property of Li$^-$ and Na$^-$ modified PHE-graphene, including structural...
We study the thermal conductivity of amorphous solids by constructing a continuum model whose degrees of freedom are propagating vibrational modes (phonons) and extended Volterra dislocation line defects with their own vibrational degrees of freedom which do not propagate in space. Our working assumption is that these additional...
Solar white-light flares (WLFs) are solar flares exhibiting enhanced emission in the optical continuum. They are critical for understanding energy release and transport mechanisms in solar flares and for conducting comparative studies with stellar WLFs. However, the scarcity of accurately and reliably measured optical continuum light...
The contemporary scientific landscape is characterized by a "curse of dimensionality," where our capacity to collect high-dimensional network data frequently outstrips our ability to computationally simulate or intuitively comprehend the underlying dynamics. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of the methodologies developed...
The physical behavior of discharges in Z pinch devices can be completely deciphered in terms of only three dimensionless parameters. These parameters can be arranged in a way that draw a surface in 3D space. This surface compiles all the accessible information on the macroscopic physical behavior of each possible Z pinch discharge. We...