Papers for Friday, Mar 06 2026

Future space-based gravitational wave (GW) observatories such as LISA will detect massive black hole binaries (MBHBs), which are expected to be accompanied by electromagnetic counterparts, thereby providing bright standard sirens for cosmology. The orbital eccentricity of MBHBs can significantly improve the parameter estimation of GWs because the multiple harmonics induced by eccentricity provide additional information and help break down the degeneracies among waveform parameters. In this paper, we use the EccentricFD waveform and construct 5-year GW event catalogs for LISA under three population models (popIII, Q3d and Q3nod). For the three models, we find that an initial eccentricity of $e_0=0.4$ at $10^{-4}$ Hz yields improvements in sky localization and distance inference by a factor of $\mathcal{O}(10)$ in the best cases. As a consequence, the average number of bright sirens increases substantially: from 8 to 11 (PopIII), 6 to 12 (Q3d) and 13 to 24 (Q3nod). This increase in event number, together with enhanced localization and distance inference, leads to tighter cosmological constraints. In the $\Lambda$CDM model, for instance, the relative uncertainty on $H_0$ is reduced from $8.17\%$ to $4.35\%$ for the Q3d model, corresponding to an improvement of approximately $47\%$. We also investigate the improvement in constraints on the dark energy equation of state and modified GW propagation when combining bright sirens with the latest cosmic microwave background data. These results demonstrate that eccentricity is a remarkably significant feature in GW detection and parameter estimation, enabling more accurate measurements of the Universe with future space-based observatories.

This is a document discussing the creation and usage of a server system dedicated to retrieving, processing, and storing data generated from the Solar Neutrino and Astro-Particle PhYsics (SNAPPY) CubeSat by the nuSOL (Neutrino Solar Orbiting Laboratory) Project. On a traditional desktop computer with CERN's ROOT and PostgreSQL software installed, and with a file system on two mirrored drives, it is possible to automatically process and organize incoming data, along with keeping a database to record each incoming file along with a command record. In addition to this, an application was created to provide a Graphical User Interface to assist with creating commands to communicate with the CubeSat. With that said, there are still plenty of plans to improve the software, mainly providing an automatic emailing system to notify team members when they are not around the server.

Pandora is a SmallSat mission dedicated to understanding exoplanets and their host stars by disentangling the impact of stellar heterogeneity on exoplanet transmission spectra. Selected as a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers mission in 2021, Pandora will provide simultaneous long-term visible photometric monitoring (0.4--0.7 $\mu$m) and low-resolution near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy (0.9--1.6 $\mu$m) of transiting systems for the purposes of monitoring host star variability and characterizing exoplanetary atmospheres. Pandora's year-long prime mission from 2026 to 2027 coincides with the middle of a decade defined by targeted efforts for atmospheric characterization of exoplanets, offering a key opportunity to leverage this new resource to maximize science with JWST and other observatories. Here we investigate Pandora's anticipated performance for the general exoplanet population accessible to transit spectroscopy, from hot Jupiters to temperate sub-Neptunes. By modeling the atmospheres of five test cases broadly consistent with the bulk properties of HD~209458~b, HD~189733~b, WASP-80~b, HAT-P-18~b, and K2-18~b, we find that Pandora may provide abundance constraints as precise as $\sim$1.0\,dex for main atmospheric absorbers such as H$_2$O and CH$_4$. Then, we explore the synergies between Pandora and JWST. Our results suggest that targets with JWST data in the near-infrared can benefit from the addition of Pandora observations and result in more reliable abundance estimates than with JWST data alone. Moreover, Pandora can serve the community by providing precursory observations of targets of interest for JWST atmospheric characterization. We conclude by outlining strategies for the use of Pandora as a standalone observatory and in synergy with JWST.

In the context of increasing appreciation for the coupling between the Galactic bar and the halo, we introduce a new framework using stars trapped in resonance with the bar to probe the Galactic dark matter subhalo population. Since resonant stars occupy a finite width in action space, perturbations from subhaloes can shift a star's actions beyond this width, causing them to circulate out of resonance. Physically, the dark substructure in the Milky Way may dissolve, puff-up, or re-order the resonance features in the stellar halo. To explore the utility of this framework, we treat individual encounters in the impulse approximation and model their cumulative effect as diffusion in the relevant action. The resulting diffusion coefficient allows us to link the survival of resonant populations to the subhalo mass function, whose properties depend on the particle nature of dark matter. Test particle integration validates the impulse treatment for low-mass subhaloes and quantifies its regime of applicability. For a Milky Way-like bar, we find individual subhaloes with $M<10^7$ M$_{\odot}$ have negligible impact on stars in co-rotation resonance, where as the full cold dark matter (CDM) population could erase the resonance over the bar's lifetime. The persistence of resonances therefore implies a suppression of the local subhalo density to less than 1/3 of CDM expectations, consistent with tidal disruptions and previous literature. The narrow widths of higher-order resonances will increase the constraining power of this framework, and therefore motivates searches for bar-resonant halo features in observational data.

Self-similar evolution is widely used in the theory of collisional stellar dynamics, but its applicability to systems with multiple stellar masses is not well established. We investigate the structural stability of self-similar evolution in multi-mass star clusters and assess the roles of mass segregation and velocity anisotropy. Using a gaseous-model approximation, we develop a theoretical framework to describe the response of a self-similar background to mass-dependent perturbations with isotropic and anisotropic velocity distributions. We show analytically that mass-dependent relaxation leads to a separation of characteristic similarity scales and renders the single-scale solution structurally unstable. In the presence of velocity anisotropy, this similarity-breaking instability splits into distinct radial and tangential modes whose growth rates are modified in a direction-dependent manner. Radial anisotropy reduces the instability through enhanced radial kinetic support, whereas tangential anisotropy increases the effective growth rates and enables faster central evolution. In systems with a mass spectrum, this instability drives mass segregation and the emergence of a multi-scale, near-homologous evolution. Together, these results place self-similar evolution in a consistent theoretical context for collisional star clusters with multiple stellar masses and anisotropic velocity distributions.

Observations of the rest-frame far-infrared (far-IR) emission of galaxies suggest a mild increase of dust temperature $T_{\rm dust}$ with redshift, although constraining $T_{\rm dust}$ in high-redshift systems remains challenging due to limited sampling of the far-IR spectral energy distribution (SED). We present and discuss the redshift evolution of $T_{\rm dust}$ predicted by a cosmological galaxy evolution simulation with dust treatment, and interpret its dependence on other galaxy physical properties. We use a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation that includes an explicit treatment of dust, post-processed with radiative transfer. Dust temperatures are derived by applying modified blackbody SED fitting to the simulated galaxies, mirroring the methodology adopted in most observational studies. The dust temperature of simulated galaxies increases with redshift, in broad agreement with observational results. A feature-importance analysis reveals that the star formation rate surface density $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$ and the dust-to-gas ratio (DTG) are the main drivers of dust temperature, tracing the intensity of the interstellar radiation field and the optical depth of warm molecular clouds, respectively. Galaxies with higher star formation rate surface density and lower DTGs $-$ common conditions at high$-z$ $-$ are associated with warmer dust. We provide a simple relation to estimate DTG from $\Sigma_{\rm SFR}$, $T_{\rm dust}$, and redshift. Variations in dust grain size and chemical composition have a negligible impact on $T_{\rm dust}$. Our results are particularly relevant to the study of dust properties with observations of high-z galaxies, where far-IR dust emission is not fully sampled.

Stellar clusters preserve crucial information on the formation and evolutionary processes that shaped the Milky Way (MW) as we see it today. Yet, several MW clusters still lack sufficient data to constrain their metallicity, ages, and, in some cases, even their basic kinematic properties. We present low-resolution MODS@LBT spectroscopy for five such systems (i.e. Koposov 1, Koposov 2, Muñoz 1, Pfleiderer 2, and RLGC2) from which we derive systemic line-of-sight velocities ($V_{\rm sys}$) with typical uncertainties of $10-20$ km/s per star, and metallicities based on the equivalent widths of the infrared Ca II triplet measured in red giant branch members. For Pfleiderer 2 and RLGC2, we provide the first spectroscopic determinations of their systemic velocities and metallicities, finding $V_{\rm sys}= 3 \pm 3$ km/s and $-316 \pm 4$ km/s, and $\mathrm{[Fe/H]}= -0.76 \pm 0.09$ dex and $-2.33 \pm 0.04$ dex, respectively. For the other three clusters we find results consistent with the existing literature. Thanks to our new spectroscopic measurements, we perform an orbital analysis to investigate their origin. We find that Pfleiderer 2 likely formed within the MW, RLGC2 is dynamically associated to the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus accretion event, Koposov 1 was likely stripped from the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal, while Muñoz 1 is only tentatively associated with the latter system. In the end, Koposov 2 at high orbital energy does not show a clear association with any known progenitor system.

Ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies are a promising probe for dark matter (DM) physics as they are the most DM-dominated systems known. The Milky Way (MW) hosts many UFDs for which the properties of their DM distribution have been inferred from measurements of their stellar kinematics. If DM has self-interactions beyond gravity, the UFD halos may undergo a gravothermal evolution, giving rise to a population of galaxies with more diverse DM density profiles. We investigate DM densities of MW UFDs in self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) models, with an aim of determining the stage of gravothermal evolution for their halos. Therefore, we employ idealised high-resolution SIDM N-body simulations targeted to a MW-like system and compare the properties of simulated satellites to those of the observed UFDs. We find that the gravothermal evolution of SIDM halos produces diverse DM distributions, aligning with observations of the MW UFDs. Most of the UFDs have high DM densities, indicating that their halos have passed the period of maximum core expansion and entered the collapse phase, i.e., their central density may increase with time. The depth to which they have evolved into the gravothermal collapse may vary strongly across the satellites. This allows SIDM to account for the diversity in their DM densities. Moreover, the acceleration of the gravothermal evolution by tidal stripping goes hand-in-hand with explaining the diversity of the UFDs, as the ones with smaller pericentre distances require having evolved further into the gravothermal catastrophe. Large SIDM cross-sections of $\sigma / m_\chi \approx$ 80 cm$^2$ g$^{-1}$ at a velocity of $v \approx$ 20 km s$^{-1}$ are plausible, as the halo densities of MW UFDs are consistent with the gravothermal evolution predicted in SIDM, with most of them being in the collapse phase.

We present far-ultraviolet (FUV) images and catalogs from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys/Solar Blind Channel (ACS/SBC) F150LP (about 1600 Angstrom) of three extragalactic fields: GOODS-S, GOODS-N, and COSMOS. The data comprise 365 orbits of high-resolution imaging of 151 pointings covering an area of 44.7 square arcmin to typical depths of FUV about 28.7 AB (3-sigma, 0.5 arcsec diameter aperture). We provide a new model of the spatially varying dark "glow" created from all 365 orbits of data, and scale and subtract it from all pointings. We provide drizzled image mosaics, weight maps, and exposure time maps matched in coordinates and pixel scale to the Hubble Legacy Fields (HLF) frame, and the original COSMOS tiles. Galaxy photometry is measured within isophotes defined with existing deep Hubble F606W or F814W optical filters. We detect 1068 galaxies and provide catalogs of all optical detections, including matched IDs to existing 3D-HST and CANDELS catalogs. The redshift distribution of FUV-detected galaxies peaks at z about 0.6 and declines to z = 1.2, where the Lyman limit shifts redward of any filter transmission. These data fill the redshift gap of high-resolution far-UV imaging between z about 0 and z > 1, enabling studies of star-forming regions, dust properties, the FUV extragalactic background, and Lyman continuum emission from galaxies at z > 1.2.

Assessing the contribution of ionizing sources to cosmic reionization is a central goal of extragalactic astrophysics. Understanding and quantifying ionizing escape remains challenging near the epoch of reionization. We present the highest-redshift Lyman continuum (LyC) emitter detected to date, MXDFz4.4 at z=4.442 in the MUSE eXtremely Deep Field, observed only ~0.25Gyr after the end of reionization. A high confidence Ly-alpha line confirms the redshift. LyC flux is detected at 10.3sigma in the F435W filter with a flux of 4.2+/-0.5nJy, corresponding to a flux measurement at 8.0sigma. After correcting for the intrinsic production of LyC photons and the IGM opacity at z=4.44, we derive high escape fractions, ranging from 50 - 100%. We apply established low-redshift tracers of LyC escape and, for the first time at high redshift, promising Ly-alpha morphological tracers such as the halo fraction. SED fitting indicates the presence of a recent burst of star formation; we explore its impact on the production and escape of ionizing photons. Ly-alpha-based tracers of LyC escape reveal a complex scenario in which the recent burst strong influences LyC production and escape, combined with a more evolved stellar population. This interpretation is supported by UV diagnostics, including the star formation rate surface density and sSFR. Our results provide cautious support for the Ly-alpha halo fraction as a LyC escape tracer at high redshift. Considering the burst-driven enhancement in LyC production and escape, we conclude that stochastic star formation in the early Universe likely plays a significant role in the contribution of galaxies to cosmic reionization.

Stellar photospheric heterogeneity is a dominant astrophysical systematic impacting exoplanet transmission spectroscopy. NASA's Pandora SmallSat Mission is designed to address this challenge through contemporaneous visible photometry and NIR spectroscopy of exoplanet host stars. Here we present an end-to-end simulation study quantifying Pandora's ability to infer stellar photospheric properties and correct stellar contamination using out-of-transit observations. We construct eight representative stellar activity scenarios and generate 160 simulated Pandora datasets, incorporating time-dependent stellar spectra, instrument response, and noise. Bayesian retrievals of joint visible photometry and NIR spectroscopy recover photospheric temperatures with typical uncertainties of ${\approx}30$ K, with no significant bias. Models with two spectral components (i.e., quiescent photosphere and spots) are strongly favored in 95% of cases; one-component models are preferred when true spot filling factors fall below a detection threshold of ${\approx}0.3$%. We propagate the true and inferred stellar parameters to compute true, inferred, and residual contamination signals under physically motivated spot geometries. For simple spot distributions, contamination signals of $10^2{-}10^3$ ppm are reduced to ${\lesssim}10$ ppm, well below Pandora's expected transmission spectroscopy precision (30$-$100 ppm). For more complex spot distributions, geometric degeneracies limit deterministic corrections, leaving residual contamination at the $10^3$ ppm level that must be mitigated using additional constraints, such as spot-crossing events and joint stellar-planetary retrievals of transmission spectra. These results define regimes in which stellar contamination can be corrected from stellar observations alone and show how Pandora stellar observations can identify cases where additional information is required.

The Orion Nebula is the closest high-mass star-forming region, making it an ideal laboratory to investigate physical processes in complex star-forming environments. At radio frequencies, the dominant emission mechanisms are thermal bremsstrahlung and non-thermal synchrotron. HII regions typically emit thermal radiation tracing the ionised gas; however, detecting and characterising non-thermal emission can provide insights into magnetic fields and the energy distribution of relativistic particles in star-forming regions. We have utilised the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) to study radio emission in the Extended Orion Nebula (EON) region. We present results from wide-band interferometric observations using uGMRT bands 3 and 4, probing a frequency range not covered by other sensitive radio interferometers. We produced deep continuum images with RMS noise levels of $\sim400\,\mu$Jy~beam$^{-1}$ in band 3 and $\sim200\,\mu$Jy~beam$^{-1}$ in band 4. We further generated in-band and broad-band spectral index maps using these images. To establish the robustness of the spectral index measurements, we conducted a detailed analysis using simulated uGMRT data. From the continuum spectral index analysis, we report the unambiguous presence of non-thermal radio emission in the EON region. To investigate its plausible origin, we correlated our results with multiwavelength observations, identifying a strong association between non-thermal emission and outflows from young stellar objects, while also exploring alternative explanations. In future, reliable broad-band radio spectral index measurements, together with dedicated multiwavelength observations, will be invaluable for resolving the origin of non-thermal emission in the Orion Nebula and other star-forming regions.

The physical origin of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in blazars remains debated, with geometric and plasma-driven scenarios as the main competing interpretations. Discriminating between them requires probing variability beyond flux periodicity. We study the spectral evolution of the BL Lac object PG 1553+113 over its 2.2-year gamma-ray QPO cycle to constrain the mechanism driving the oscillation. In particular, we test whether the variability is chromatic (coupled to spectral changes) or achromatic (independent of spectral shape), allowing us to distinguish between plasma-driven and geometric scenarios. We analyze 17 years of Fermi-LAT data (2008-2025) with 30-day binning. To mitigate red-noise effects, we apply Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) to remove slow baseline trends and use a Block Bootstrap approach to quantify correlations between photon flux and photon index while preserving temporal dependence. We find a robust softer-when-brighter chromatic trend, atypical for high-synchrotron-peaked blazars such as PG 1553+113 and which, based on our analysis, physically corresponds to softer-when-flaring episodes, that persists after detrending and accounting for temporal autocorrelation. In contrast, no significant correlation is detected between the photon index and the QPO phase, indicating that the periodic modulation is effectively achromatic. The coexistence of plasma-driven chromatic flares and an achromatic QPO disfavors scenarios in which the periodicity arises from intrinsic jet processes. Instead, the results support a geometric origin for the QPO modulation, such as jet precession, where Doppler-factor variations modulate the flux without altering the intrinsic particle energy distribution.

Blazar gamma-ray variability is predominantly stochastic and well described by red-noise processes. However, a subset of sources exhibits quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) on year-long timescales, whose physical origin remains debated. In high-synchrotron-peaked (HSP) blazars, departures from a single power-law gamma-ray spectrum, manifested as high-energy upturns in the GeV band, may probe emission mechanisms and the intrinsic duty cycle. We investigate the link between the 1.7 yr gamma-ray QPO in PKS 2155-304 and an exceptional spectral hardening event identified in the Fermi-LAT HSP blazar population. We analyze 18 years of Fermi-LAT data using 30-day binning, applying Singular Spectrum Analysis to mitigate red-noise effects and a Moving Block Bootstrap approach to quantify the correlation between photon flux and photon index. We find a statistically significant softer-when-brighter chromatic trend, supporting a geometric origin of the flux modulation. The spectral hardening event is phase-locked to the QPO trough, implying that the hardening signature is detectable only when geometrically boosted soft emission is suppressed at the flux minimum. We propose a Geometric Masking scenario in which jet geometry regulates the visibility of acceleration processes. These results favor a two-component jet structure and suggest that spectral hardening during low-flux states, even in non-periodic sources, may reveal jet physics otherwise obscured by relativistic amplification.

We explore the implications of the recently proposed Geometric Masking scenario for the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) Unification Scheme, the blazar sequence, and broader blazar phenomenology, and assess its consistency with recent observations. Phase-resolved analysis of PKS 2155$-$304 shows that extreme GeV spectral hardening events are locked to the trough of its $\sim 1.7$ yr quasi-periodic oscillation, indicating that high-flux states are dominated by a soft, geometrically amplified envelope that outshines an underlying hard core. Independent support comes from the detection of TeV emission in the FSRQs S5 1027+74 and 3C 273 when integrating over low-flux states, revealing hard spectra inconsistent with a purely cooling-dominated interpretation. We argue that Doppler boosting preferentially enhances the soft component when the jet is closely aligned, creating a visibility bias that extends the AGN Unification Scheme and introduces a geometric modulation layer within the blazar sequence. In this framework, low-flux states correspond to windows of geometric transparency rather than intrinsic quiescence, and misaligned systems act as permanently unmasked laboratories of particle acceleration. The scenario implies that the duty cycle of extreme acceleration in AGN jets is substantially higher than inferred from flux-selected observations.

We introduce a deep generative framework for high-dimensional Bayesian inference that enables efficient posterior sampling. As telescopes and simulations rapidly expand the volume and resolution of astrophysical data, fast simulation-based inference methods are increasingly needed to extract scientific insights. While diffusion-based approaches offer high-quality generative capabilities, they are hindered by slow sampling speeds. Our method performs posterior sampling an order of magnitude faster than a diffusion baseline. Applied to the problem of CMB delensing, it successfully recovers the unlensed CMB power spectrum from simulated observations. The model also remains robust to shifts in cosmological parameters, demonstrating its potential for out-of-distribution generalization and application to observational cosmological data.

Interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) are an important component of the interstellar medium of galaxies, containing some 10 percent of the elemental carbon. Their vibrational emission dominates the mid-infrared spectra of galactic and extragalactic objects. PAHs control the heating of interstellar neutral gas and the charge balance of molecular clouds. PAHs are formed in the outflows from late type stars through chemical processes akin to those in sooting flames and then further processed in the interstellar medium by UV photolysis and strong shock waves. PAHs are also formed through ion molecule reactions and neutral radical reactions in dense cloud cores. The James Webb Space Telescope has provided a wealth of high-quality spectra that have provided new insights in the characteristics of the interstellar PAH family. Their analysis is supported by dedicated laboratory and quantum chemistry studies, feeding into detailed molecular physics models relevant to astronomical environments. Laboratory studies have also provided deeper insight in the chemical evolution of PAHs in the interstellar medium. This paper will review progress in the field and chart its future.

Observations of the Cosmic Dawn (CD) and Epoch of Reionization (EoR) are steadily improving, opening new opportunities to study early galaxies through complementary probes. To enable consistent interpretation of these observations, we present Beyond21, a fully open-source Python package that implements flexible prescriptions for Pop II and Pop III star formation and computes the resulting radiation backgrounds and their impact on the intergalactic medium. From this coupled evolution, Beyond21 predicts the global 21-cm signal, UV luminosity functions (UVLFs), the ionization history, and the contribution to the observed cosmic X-ray background (CXB) within a single, self-consistent pipeline. A full global evolution run executes in $\sim0.1 \ {\rm s}$ on a single CPU core, enabling broad, high-resolution parameter exploration. The modular architecture facilitates straightforward modification of astrophysical prescriptions and the incorporation of new physics. As an illustrative example, we implement a scenario in which a small fraction of dark matter is millicharged, leading to baryon cooling through elastic interactions.

Tidal interactions in close stellar binaries are central to their orbital and rotational evolution, making observational tests of theoretical predictions essential for our understanding of the evolution of these, as well as close exoplanetary systems. Such tests require precise measurements of the orbital eccentricity and stellar rotation. The EBLM (Eclipsing Binary Low Mass) survey delivers a homogeneous sample of eclipsing binaries, composed of F/G/K primaries and M-dwarf (or low-mass K-dwarf) secondaries. We analyze 68 unequal mass binaries ($0.1 \leq q \leq 0.6$, where $q$ is the mass ratio), with measurable primary star rotation rates from TESS, and over a decade of radial velocity observations. This sample probes the critical regime where tidal effects are expected to transition between being efficient and inefficient. We find that ~75% of our sample has circularized, with eccentric systems confined to $P_{\rm orb} \gtrsim 3$ days, with modest eccentricities (e < 0.25). Roughly ~78% of our sample is synchronized, with nearly all binaries within a 3-day orbital period residing in a well-defined "synchronization zone". Beyond this, a minority of asynchronous systems persist, which cannot be easily explained by our application of current tidal mechanisms or by differential rotation.

Solar flare simulations are commonly initialised using non-linear force free field (NLFF) extrapolations derived from photospheric vector magnetograms. However, the force free assumption neglects plasma forces and may limit the available free magnetic energy. In this work, we perform a controlled comparison of two three-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the X2.1-class flare that occurred on 2011 September 06 in NOAA Active Region 11283. The simulations differ only in their initial magnetic configuration: one is based on a conventional NLFF extrapolation, while the other employs a non-force free extrapolation that self-consistently incorporates plasma pressure and gravity. Both models are evolved in an identical stratified atmosphere using the same numerical framework, enabling direct assessment of how the initial magnetic assumptions influence flare dynamics and energetics. We find that the non-force free model undergoes more extensive magnetic restructuring and releases approximately twice as much magnetic energy ($\approx4.4 \times 10^{31}$ erg) as the NLFF case ($\approx2.3 \times 10^{31}$ erg), bringing the energy budget into closer agreement with expectations for X-class flares. Synthetic extreme ultraviolet emission in the 94A channel is computed for both simulations and compared with observations from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The non-force free model produces a brighter and more spatially extended emission structure that more closely resembles the observed flare morphology and light curve. These results demonstrate that assumptions made in constructing the pre-flare coronal magnetic field can significantly affect flare energetics and observable signatures, and suggest that non-force free extrapolations provide a promising pathway toward more realistic data-constrained flare modelling.

The streaming instability is a leading mechanism for concentrating solids and initiating planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks. Although numerous studies have explored its linear growth, nonlinear evolution, and implications for planet formation, the diversity of numerical methods and dust treatments used across the literature has made it difficult to assess which features of the instability are physically robust and which arise from code-dependent choices. We present the first systematic comparison of seven hydrodynamic codes--spanning finite-volume and finite-difference schemes and modeling dust either as Lagrangian particles or as a pressureless fluid--applied to the unstratified streaming instability with a dimensionless stopping time of unity. All codes reproduce the characteristic sequence of exponential growth, filament formation, and turbulent saturation, demonstrating broad agreement in the qualitative behavior of the instability. Quantitatively, however, the dust model remains the dominant source of variation at moderate resolution: particle-based simulations reach higher peak densities and exhibit broader high-density tails than fluid-based models at $512^2$ resolution, although increasing the number of particles brings their initial maximum density evolution into close agreement with that of dust-fluid models. At $1024^2$, these differences diminish substantially, indicating better agreement of the saturated-state statistics across dust treatments. In terms of computational performance, most particle implementations suffer from imbalanced parallelized loads, while execution on a GPU is at least two to three times more energy efficient and scales better at higher resolutions than on CPUs. Given the intrinsic stochasticity of this nonlinear system, only statistical diagnostics remain meaningful across codes.

Extragalactic nuclear transients that exhibit repeating outbursts can be modeled as the repeated dynamical interaction between bound stars and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). A subset of these transients, with recurrence timescales of months-to-years, have been explained as accretion flares from the repeated tidal stripping of a star by an SMBH, in a repeating partial tidal disruption event (rpTDE). We outline the scope of the rpTDE model and discuss hydrodynamical simulations and analytical predictions for the stability of stars undergoing repeated mass loss, and the long-term evolution of these flares as a function of stellar type and orbital parameters. Our findings demonstrate that high-mass and centrally concentrated stars undergo negligible changes in structure in response to small amounts ($\sim 1-10\% M_\star$) of mass loss, and can survive many mass-stripping encounters with an SMBH. Contrarily, low-mass and less evolved stars are unstable to mass loss, and would be destroyed within a few orbits. We discuss the implications of these results for constraining the stellar type and orbital parameters of observed sources, such as ASASSN-14ko, for which $\gtrsim 20$ flares have been observed, and AT2020vdq, which exhibits a second flare that is brighter than its primary outburst.

We infer the age of the R127 and R128 clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using Strömgren photometry from the literature and the age-dating algorithm, \textit{Stellar Ages}. Analysis using single-star evolutionary models shows a substantial discrepancy between the relative numbers of bright blue stars and lower-mass stars as compared to expectations from a Salpeter mass function, and yields a younger age for the brightest blue stars than for the rest of the cluster. This inconsistency reflects an emerging trend among young clusters in the Local Group. In general, the resolution may be binary evolution or very rapid rotation, although in the specific case of R127 and R128 clusters, unknown incompleteness in the data may also affect the relative numbers of low- and high-mass stars. The discrepancy grows toward fainter magnitudes, suggesting that the dataset is likely incomplete. However, when the five brightest stars are excluded, the observed and expected counts become consistent, demonstrating that the brightest stars are peculiar. These findings have direct implications for the luminous blue variable (LBV) R127, which is the only confirmed LBV in the LMC located within a young stellar cluster. LBVs have traditionally been considered products of single-star evolution, although there is growing recognition that binary interactions may play a critical role in their evolution. A more complete dataset, particularly deeper imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope, is needed to confirm whether the apparent absence of coeval stars arises solely from observational incompleteness or the broader trend of inconsistency in young cluster modeling.

Double-peaked (DP) broad emission line profiles in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are often interpreted as signatures of rotating disk-like structures in the broad-line region (BLR) and are commonly observed in low-luminosity AGNs using recombination lines. We use optical spectroscopy to investigate the origin of double-peaked broad emission line profiles observed not only in hydrogen recombination lines but also in forbidden transitions in the LINER galaxy IC 1459. We detected DP emission in all strong optical lines except for the [S II] doublet, which has the lowest critical density among all the lines. We successfully fitted the DP broad profiles using a disk-like BLR model, assuming a circular accretion disk with an inclination of approximately 35 degrees and internal turbulence of about 500 km/s, confined within a maximum radius of 9.6 (+4.8, -1.1) light-years. We estimate a full width at half maximum of the DP profiles of about 3300 km/s. Our results provide new insights into the structure of the BLR, indicating that forbidden emission lines can be produced in lower-density regions near the outskirts of the BLR.

Accurate simulation of pulsar flux variability is critical for testing Square Kilometre Array (SKA) interferometric pipelines. However, most existing simulators neglect the effects of integration time and related observational parameters, limiting their realism and utility for interferometric end-to-end testing. To address these shortcomings, we develop a Pulsar Simulator for SKA-scale interferometric observations (PulSKASim), which models pulsar flux evolution across pulsar period, maximum flux, duty cycle, and noise, accounting for integration time, sampling, and observation duration, and naturally models flux smoothing that arises from finite integration within each dump time. PulSKASim generates synthetic measurement sets using functions in simulators for radio interferometers, such as OSKAR and Pyuvsim, where each snapshot contains pulsars with controlled flux levels, enabling realistic per-time-slot experiments. This simulator allows for detailed assessment of calibration, imaging, and detection pipelines under realistic SKA-like conditions, bridging pulsar variability modelling with interferometric simulation in a way not achievable by existing tools.

We present the X-ray Doppler tomography of the Fe K$\alpha$ (6.4 keV) fluorescence line of the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1822-371 obtained with XRISM. Eleven orbits of this short period (5.57 hr) binary were covered. The Doppler shift of the line shows clear modulation with the orbital period, motivating us to apply the Doppler tomography in the X-ray band for the first time. The resulting velocity map reveals a compact feature at ($v_{\mathrm{x}}$, $v_{\mathrm{y}}$) $\sim$ ($-$550, $+$125) km s$^{-1}$. This is inconsistent with the emission originating from a symmetric accretion disk, an extended corona around the neutron star, or the surface of the neutron or companion star. Instead, it suggests that the emission originates from the accretion stream-disk overflow. Remarkably, the Fe K$\alpha$ velocity map closely resembles that of the O VI 3811 Å, indicating that both X-ray and optical lines arise from the same site irradiated by the central X-ray source. These results provide the first velocity-resolved X-ray map of the fluorescent line, directly localizing the major reflector in an X-ray binary and establishing X-ray Doppler tomography as a new probe of the structures of accreting systems.

We have combined Gaia astrometry with Gaia-ESO Survey radial velocities to measure the 3D rotation of the open cluster NGC 2516. We compiled a sample of 430 members with astrometry and spectroscopy and use these to determine a distance to the cluster of 406.3 +/- 0.8 pc, which we then use to infer the 3D positions and velocities of all stars in the cluster using a Bayesian model. We identify the axis of maximum cluster rotation and measure a median rotational velocity of 0.12 +/- 0.02 km/s. We find the axis of maximum cluster rotation to be 74 +/- 17 degrees to the plane of our galaxy. We compare this rotation rate to measurements of cluster rotation in other open clusters and find that it is inconsistent with the expected dependences on cluster age and mass.

The rapid growth of imaging and spectroscopic surveys has intensified the need for efficient tools that support visual inspection, a practice that remains essential for tasks such as classification, catalog refinement, and validation of automated methods. Existing solutions, however, often require the use of multiple platforms and complex workflows to integrate heterogeneous data. To address this challenge, we present the first release of the AstroInspect (this https URL), a web-based system which ensures seamless access to several astronomical resources. The system provides an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) through which users can upload catalogs of objects defined by celestial coordinates. AstroInspect automatically enriches these catalogs with complementary information, including imaging, spectroscopic, and photometric data retrieved in real time from surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Legacy Surveys (LS), and the Southern Photometric Local Universe Survey (S-PLUS). As an example of its scientific utility, we used AstroInspect to identify H$\alpha$ emission-line galaxies within a 7 deg radius in the direction of the Hydra I cluster (also known as Abell 1060) by visual inspection. Using a candidate set of 981 galaxies selected from S-PLUS photometric data, we produced a catalog of 80 galaxies with confirmed H$\alpha$ emission. These results highlight the potential of AstroInspect to support efficient visual inspection workflows.

We performed numerical simulations along with radiative transfer calculations to reproduce an intriguing asymmetric shoulder feature in the dust-continuum emission of the protostellar disk around one of the eDisk targets, the Class 0 protostar IRAS 16544-1604 in CB 68. This is our first attempt to bridge the theoretical works of protostellar disk evolution and the eDisk observations. We found that while our hydrodynamic simulations form spiral structures caused by gravitational instability, they become less discernible after the disk is inclined and convolved with the telescope beam. The widths of the spiral structure as obtained by our numerical simulations are ~0.1-0.8 times the eDisk beam size of 4.5 au. Our modeling effor implies that the apparent absence of spiral features in the eDisk observations does not necessarily indicate the real absence of internal substructures and gravitational instability. We also found that the asymmetric shoulder structure of the continuum profile along the major axis appears when the disk is massive enough with a Toomre parameter Q~1. This mechanism offers a potential explanation for the observed, asymmetric shoulder features in the disks surrounding IRAS 16544-1604 and the other eDisk sources.

We investigate the interaction between relativistic jets and supernova (SN) ejecta as a potential origin of X-ray knots in radio galaxies, employing knot A in M 87 as a test case. By modeling the dynamical evolution of the interaction, we evaluate this scenario based on particle acceleration efficiency and spatial morphology. Our modeling indicates that the ejecta shock expands to only ~ 30 pc, which is inconsistent with the observed spatial scale of knot A (~ 60 pc). In contrast, the jet shock can successfully reproduce the observed scale after approximately 3000 yr, with the ejecta being accelerated to a bulk velocity of \beta~ 0.43. We fit the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) using a one-zone leptonic framework, attributing the X-rays to synchrotron radiation from electrons accelerated up to~1 PeV at the jet shock. The derived magnetic field is approximately 70 uG in the SN ejecta rest frame, which is significantly below the equipartition value. Protons may be accelerated up to ~ EeV, supporting the hypothesis that the jets of radio galaxies (RGs) may be the potential site for ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray (UHECR) acceleration within the framework of the jet-ejecta interaction.

If massive primordial black holes (PBHs) exist and constitute a fraction of the dark matter, they can dramatically catalyze galaxy formation. By acting as pre-existing, high-density seeds, they can shorten the galaxy assembly time to as little as 100 Myr for up to 10^8 solar mass PBH seeds, allowing for the rapid formation of host halos. Furthermore, low surface brightness or diffuse galaxies may represent a natural outcome of this process, perhaps as the residue of halos seeded by smaller PBHs that failed to accrete a major baryonic component.

Pulsar halos provide a unique probe of cosmic-ray propagation in the vicinity of pulsars and have important implications for our understanding of particle diffusion in the interstellar medium. However, the number of firmly identified pulsar halos remains limited. One of the main challenges is the difficulty in unambiguously confirming halo candidates through precise morphological measurements with current $\gamma$-ray observations. In this work, we investigate the prospects for identifying pulsar halo candidates through morphological discrimination using simulations of two advanced $\gamma$-ray experiments: LHAASO-KM2A and the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Using mock observations with realistic instrumental responses, we assess the ability of each experiment to distinguish diffusion-based halo morphologies from alternative simplified spatial models. Our results show that both increased photon statistics and improved angular resolution significantly enhance the power of morphological discrimination. In particular, CTA benefits from its superior angular resolution, while LHAASO-KM2A gains sensitivity from its large effective area at the highest energies. These results indicate that future $\gamma$-ray observations have the potential to expand the sample of pulsar halos and provide further insights into cosmic-ray transport around pulsars.

The Pathfinder of the Type-A satellites in the Chasing All Transients Constellation Hunters (CATCH) space mission is equipped with Micro-Pore Optics (MPOs) and four single-pixel Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs). Due to the lack of position resolution in an individual SDD, we propose a new method based on the cross-arms in the point spread function (PSF) of MPOs to enhance the satellite's capability in identifying contaminating sources and locating target sources. By placing one detector on each of the horizontal and vertical cross-arms on the focal plane, we can use the changes in the relative counts on the cross-arms detectors to deduce the location of the source. Simulated observations demonstrate that, for a target source with a flux of 1 Crab and an exposure time of 200 s, the cross-arms detectors can identify contaminating source with the same flux level at an off-axis angle larger than 8', and improve positioning accuracy to 6'. Furthermore, we extend the simulation study to CATCH Type-A, which plans to use an SDD array. In situations where sources exhibit the same flux of 1 Crab and the exposure time is merely 1 s, a 16x16 SDD array is capable of identifying contaminating source with an off-axis angle greater than 2.4' and can achieve a positioning precision of 1.8'.

The effective field theory (EFT) of cosmic acceleration provides a model-independent framework for describing dark energy and modified gravity, yet many of its defining operators remain weakly constrained by existing observations. We show that measurements of horizon-scale metric fluctuations with a lunar laser interferometer can directly probe the kinetic sector of the EFT of dark energy, enabling constraints on operators governing scalar perturbation dynamics rather than only the background expansion history. In particular, we demonstrate sensitivity to the EFT kinetic coefficient $M_2^4$ and the associated sound speed of dark energy, $c_s^2$. This establishes a qualitatively new observational handle on the microphysical consistency conditions of late-time acceleration models, allowing broad regions of EFT parameter space to be probed, constrained, or potentially discovered.

We investigate the spatial profile of the curvature perturbation generated in multi-waterfall hybrid inflation models, which are known to produce various topological defects. Using the lattice simulation code \acl{STOLAS}, based on the stochastic formalism of inflation, we analyse six cases by varying the number of waterfall fields $n$ and the functional form of the inflaton potential (``Quadratic'' and ``Cubic'' cases). Our statistical analysis shows that the \acp{PDF} and power spectra are broadly consistent with the so-called stochastic-$\delta N$ algorithm. The ``Cubic'' case also exhibits a characteristic upper bound in the \ac{PDF}, as discovered in our previous work, that suppresses \acl{PBH} formation while potentially affecting halo formation. Furthermore, we employ the Euler characteristic as a topological diagnostic tool to identify the structures of the waterfall fields as well as the curvature perturbation. We find that the topological defects, such as domain walls ($n=1$), cosmic strings ($n=2$), and monopoles ($n=3$), are reconnected during inflation into finer structures by the stochastic noise, making their correlation lengths much smaller than the Hubble scale at the critical point of the waterfall phase transition counterintuitively. The Euler characteristic also implies global structures of the curvature perturbation for $n=1$, though we do not conclude if they are due to the domain wall, because neither the strings ($n=2$) nor monopoles ($n=3$) leave such structures. The global structures of the curvature perturbation will provide a novel probe for the physics of the early universe.

We revisit the determination of the age of the Universe from galactic globular clusters, extending previous analyses by explicitly accounting for the presence of multiple stellar populations within each cluster. Using high--quality \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} color--magnitude diagrams for 69 globular clusters, we relax the standard single--population assumption, and model two stellar populations with independent ages, metallicities, helium abundances, and population fractions. The inference is performed using the full color--magnitude diagram morphology, an explicit treatment of field contamination, and a hierarchical framework that propagates non--Gaussian age posteriors. Allowing for multiple stellar populations has a negligible impact on globular cluster age estimates. The ages of the oldest populations remain fully consistent with those obtained under the single--population assumption, with differences at the $0.6\sigma$ level. Restricting to the metal--poor subsample ([Fe/H] $< -1.5$), we infer a dominant old component with mean age $t_{\rm GC}=13.61\pm0.25\,\mathrm{(stat)}\,\pm0.23 \mathrm{(sys)}\,\mathrm{Gyr}$. Adopting a conservative delay between the Big Bang and the formation of the first globular clusters, we obtain an age of the Universe of $t_{\rm U}=13.81\pm0.25\,\mathrm{(stat)}\,\pm0.23 \mathrm{(sys)}\,\mathrm{Gyr}$. In addition to age constraints, our analysis yields simultaneous measurements of metallicity and helium content for the different populations, including constraints on helium enrichment and population fractions which are consistent with independent determinations from the literature. These results demonstrate that globular--cluster--based cosmic chronometry is robust to stellar population complexity, reinforcing its role as a precise and largely cosmological model--independent probe of the age of the Universe.

Aims: We investigate long-term radial velocity (RV) variability in the K-dwarf star GJ 1137 (HD 93083, HIP52521), a known Saturn-mass exoplanet host, and assess the role of stellar activity in shaping the observed signals. Methods: We analyse 13 years of archival high-precision spectroscopic observations obtained with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher spectrograph (HARPS). We performed an extensive spectroscopic analysis of the stellar activity indicators and applied an RV modelling approach, incorporating Keplerian fits, Gaussian process regression as a proxy for stellar activity, and other stellar activity diagnostics. Furthermore, we refined the orbital parameters and the minimum mass of the known exoplanet GJ 1137 b and searched for additional planetary candidates in the system. Results: We detect a long-period RV signal that, if interpreted as planetary, would suggest the presence of a Jovian analogue companion. However, our spectroscopic activity analysis provides strong evidence that this variability is induced by the star's long-term magnetic cycle ( Pcyc = 5870+(480)-(350) days) rather than by an orbiting planet. The signal is detected in both full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the crosscorrelation function and the chromospheric activity index log R'Hk. We measure the stellar rotation period to Prot = 32.3+(1.2)-(1.3) d and identify a significant short-period RV signal, which we attribute to a Super Earth with a period of 9.6412+(12)-(11) d and a minimum mass of 5.12+(0.70)-(0.69) Earth masses, making GJ 1137 a multiple-planet system.

Understanding the propagation of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) through interplanetary space is essential for space weather forecasting. Due to observational limitations, measurements of the photospheric polar magnetic fields remain highly uncertain, and their influence on CME propagation in the heliosphere is still poorly quantified. In this study, we systematically investigate how variations in the photospheric polar magnetic fields affect the Sun-Mars propagation of the 4 December 2021 CME using numerical simulations. The results show that stronger polar fields modify the background solar wind, producing higher plasma density, enhanced magnetic field strength, a flattened heliospheric current sheet, and weakened high-speed streams in the ecliptic plane. These changes markedly slow the CME's radial propagation and inhibit its lateral and radial expansion, leading to notably delayed arrivals at BepiColombo and MAVEN/Tianwen-1. Quantitatively, an enhancement of the polar magnetic fields with a peak value of 6 G at the pole decreases the mean propagation and expansion speeds by roughly 200 km s$^{-1}$ and halves the CME volume. Force analysis reveals that strengthening the polar fields produces only minor changes in the internal force balance of the CME, where the thermal pressure gradient force dominates over the Lorentz force, while it strongly affects the forces acting on the CME surface. At large heliocentric distances, the magnetic pressure of the background solar wind becomes comparable to or even exceeds the aerodynamic drag force, producing a strong confining effect that hinders the CME's motion.

Interferometric localisation of transients and pulsars via tied-array beam processing is challenging and can be limited by the native spatial resolution achievable by the instrument, especially at low frequencies and for compact interferometers. Knowledge of the telescope primary and tied-array beam patterns allows the exploitation of the beam structures and the relationship to measured quantities, such as signal-to-noise ratio, through radio direction finding techniques. The additional information provides a "super-resolved" localisation (i.e., where the precision is much better than the native spatial resolution) of a source when there are multiple detections in adjacent tied-array beams. We demonstrate this approach using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and its voltage capture and tied-array processing capabilities, with a specific focus on how it benefits the on-going Southern-sky MWA Rapid Two-metre pulsar survey as it starts producing more candidates requiring follow-up. Examples of localisations with previously discovered MWA pulsars which were subsequently localised via imaging with higher spatial resolution interferometers are used to validate the process, along with localisations of a sample of known pulsars to demonstrate the robustness of the method and its uncertainty estimation.

We present a method to determine the sensitivity of a closed dielectric haloscope to axion dark matter. Dielectric haloscopes aim to probe the theoretically well-motivated axion mass range of ~26 $\mathrm{\mu}$eV to ~500 $\mathrm{\mu}$eV by utilizing a stack of dielectric disks and a mirror to enhance the axion-photon conversion within an external magnetic field. Their conversion volume is nearly axion-mass independent, thereby favoring large-scale designs to increase sensitivity. The large volume causes simulations to be computationally expensive and time-consuming. This paper presents a simple model that can be used to determine the sensitivity of the experiment with minimal computational resources. The model is able to describe the electromagnetic response of a closed dielectric haloscope, accounting for realistic geometric imperfections, as well as the noise introduced by the receiver system. It is applied to data taken with a MAgnetized Disk and Mirror Axion Experiment (MADMAX) prototype within the 1.6 T Morpurgo magnet at CERN. This work underpins the first axion dark matter search using a dielectric haloscope and provides the foundation for future dark matter searches with MADMAX.

Data fusion is a computational process widely used in Earth observation to generate high-resolution hyperspectral data cubes with two spatial and one spectral dimensions. It merges data from instruments with complementary characteristics: one with low spatial but high spectral resolutions, and another with high spatial but low spectral resolutions. In astronomy, the use of such instrumental combinations is becoming increasingly common, making data fusion a promising approach for enhancing observational data. Until now, however, its application to astronomical data has remained unsuccessful. We present the first successful astronomical data fusion using JWST integral field spectroscopy with NIRSpec and imaging across 29 filters with NIRCam. Applied to observations of the d203-506 protoplanetary disk in Orion and of Titan, our method produces fused hyperspectral cubes with NIRCam spatial and NIRSpec spectral resolutions. These results pave the way for extracting the physical properties from JWST data with unprecedented spatial resolution and showcase the transformative potential of data fusion in astronomy.

We investigate whether stochastic acceleration associated with pressure-anisotropy-driven magnetogenesis can generate a dynamically significant population of cosmic rays (CRs) prior to nonlinear structure formation. As magnetic fields amplify in the early Universe, the associated increase in gyrofrequency enhances pitch-angle scattering, potentially shortening the stochastic acceleration time. We derive an analytic criterion for efficient cosmological acceleration by comparing the acceleration timescale with the Hubble time, which defines a critical magnetic field and a corresponding CR turn-on redshift $z_{\rm on}$. For representative parameters, we find $z_{\rm on}\sim1.7$. To quantify the resulting particle population, we solve a Fokker-Planck equation for the isotropic proton distribution in the redshift interval $z=10\rightarrow z_{\rm on}$. Throughout most of this epoch, adiabatic expansion dominates over stochastic energization and the distribution remains close to a cooling Maxwellian. However, as the system approaches the turn-on epoch, the stochastic acceleration time decreases, allowing a mild suprathermal tail to develop. Even under optimistic assumptions corresponding to the strong-scattering limit, the maximum attainable proton energy reaches at most $\mathcal{O}(10^2)\,\mathrm{GeV}$. These results indicate that efficient CR production in the intergalactic medium is intrinsically tied to the onset of structure-formation shocks, while earlier microinstability-driven stochastic processes can provide at most a modest pre-acceleration.

Ground-based solar observations enable unprecedented spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution of the lower solar atmosphere, yet Earths turbulent atmosphere imposes significant limitations, requiring advanced post-facto image reconstruction. State-of-the-art reconstruction methods are based on restoring a burst of short exposure frames to a single observation. Limitations of these techniques arise due to the sparse information about the atmospheric point spread function (PSF) that degrade the observations and consequently the quality of reconstructions. We develop a novel image reconstruction method to achieve unprecedented spatial resolution from short exposure image bursts. This can provide high-quality reconstructions and therefore advance the study of the smallest spatial scales from the solar photosphere to the chromosphere. In this study, we present a novel approach for high-resolution solar image reconstruction based on physics-informed neural networks. In the training process, the neural network maps coordinate points directly to their corresponding intensity values while simultaneously updating the PSF parameters. The method convolves the true object from the neural network with the estimated PSFs and optimizes the network by minimizing the loss between the synthesized and real short-exposure image burst. This approach enables the simultaneous estimation of both the degrading PSF and the real high-resolution intensity distribution. We demonstrate the method on synthetic intensity data derived from a radiative MHD simulation and apply it to high-resolution observations from GREGOR and DKIST. Our results demonstrate the ability to reconstruct small-scale solar features that exceed the reconstruction performance of state-of-the-art reconstruction methods. With this approach we lay the foundation for future spatially varying PSFs.

Galaxies grow very rapidly during the first Gyr of the Universe, mostly driven by high galaxy efficiencies, particularly relevant at $z>5$. This efficiency is related to high gas densities and/or compact gas distributions within these early galaxies. We want to understand the evolution of the size of galaxies at cosmic dawn, from $z=14$ to $z=5$ and its main drivers. We use the FirstLight database of 430 zoom-in cosmological simulations and radiative transfer calculations to generate synthetic images in seven JWST bands. We add observational effects, inspired by recent JWST deep extragalactic surveys. The size-mass relation is already in place at $z\simeq14$ and it shows a large diversity of galaxy sizes at a fixed mass. Extended (compact) galaxies tend to have higher (lower) specific star-formation rate (sSFR). The mass-dependent slope does not evolve significantly. This is driven by a complex interaction between stellar light and dust. Differential dust attenuation dims galaxy centers and it makes larger sizes, modifying the mass-size slope even in the rest-frame optical. At a fixed mass, galaxy size evolves very fast, as the normalization of the size-mass relation increases by 0.5 dex between $z\simeq14$ and $z\simeq6$, in 600 Myr. The SFR surface density increases with redshift, driven by higher sSFRs and smaller sizes at higher redshifts. Size evolution at a fixed stellar mass accelerates at cosmic dawn, driven by an increasing galaxy efficiency at $z\geq5$.

We investigate the effects of dynamical dark energy (DDE) on the growth of cosmic structure using a two-fluid model. This framework allows the dark energy equation of state to smoothly cross the phantom divide, in agreement with recent DESI results. In this effective description, DDE supports propagating perturbations that behave like sound waves. These perturbations induce a scale dependence in the growth of matter fluctuations and in halo bias, which can be exploited to test the dynamical nature of dark energy at the level of its fluctuations. For cluster-sized halos, the amplitude of the scale-dependent halo bias is comparable to that produced by massless neutrinos in $\Lambda$CDM. Using a Fisher forecast for a multi-tracer analysis of the power spectrum (P) and bispectrum (B) of galaxy number counts, we find that bispectrum information is essential to detect the scale dependence induced by the DDE sound mode. For a survey of volume $V\sim 10\, h^{-3}{\rm Gpc}^3$ at redshift $z=0.5 - 1$, a two-tracer P+B analysis could detect this scale dependence if the sound speeds of the dark energy fluids are in the range $c_s^2\sim 10^{-2} - 10^{-4}$. Lower sound speeds cause halos to experience a gravitational drag force through the excitations of sound waves. This effect impacts measurements of the growth rate inferred from cluster-sized halos at the 10\% level if one of the fluids has a very low sound speed $c_s^2\sim 10^{-5}$. Larger sound speeds $c_s^2 > 10^{-2}$ could be probed with optimal weighting schemes that reduce shot noise and increase the effective bias.

Precise sensing and control of spatial mode content is essential for the performance of precision optical systems, particularly interferometric gravitational-wave detectors, where misalignment and mode mismatch can lead to significant optical losses and degraded quantum noise suppression. Conventional approaches, including heterodyne wavefront sensing and phase camera techniques, are effective but can be limited by hardware complexity and systematic uncertainties arising from restricted reference-beam overlap. This paper presents a novel two-step deep learning pipeline for robust beam diagnostics based solely on beam intensity images. In the first stage, a multi-intensity-image convolutional neural network (CNN) performs accurate mode decomposition, recovering the complex modal content of distorted beams. In the second stage, the predicted mode coefficients are fed into a downstream regression network that simultaneously estimates all eight degrees of freedom (DoFs) associated with misalignment and mode mismatch, including beam tilt, lateral offset, and waist size and position mismatches in both transverse directions. The proposed CNN-based framework achieves a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.0034 in the mode decomposition stage, which propagates to a total MAE of 0.0062 in the recovered beam imperfection parameters at the final stage. This corresponds to an average residual optical loss of 39 ppm per DoF (310 ppm total). This approach relies only on standard CCD imaging and is robust to random intensity noise, eliminating the need for complex interferometric hardware. The results demonstrate that the proposed deep learning pipeline enables real-time, high-accuracy wavefront sensing and mode-mismatch diagnostics, providing a scalable and hardware-efficient tool for improving the stability and sensitivity of precision optical systems.

We present preliminary results of an extensive research project aimed at describing the physical and chemical conditions of hot molecular cores (HMCs). Using millimeter continuum and spectroscopic data extracted from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) archive, we have estimated rotational temperatures ($\rm T_{rot}$) and column densities of $\rm{CH_{3}CN}$, $\rm{CH_{3}CCH}$, and A-- and E--$\rm CH_{3}OH$ for a sample of molecular cores. We present a thermal characterization of these cores, revealing the existence of temperature gradients within them. These cores are, in turn, embedded in large molecular clouds. Additionally, we estimated molecular abundances that were evaluated as tracers of the chemical evolution of these cores. Finally, in a pilot study aimed to link observations with simulations, some of the obtained molecular abundances are compared with predictions from the Nautilus code.

As a work in progress, results from a chemical and physical analysis of molecular cores in early evolutionary stages concerning star formation are presented. Using archival data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a sample of 37 sources was investigated, from which spectra in the frequency range 330--350 GHz were extracted towards the central positions of the molecular cores. Transitions of HC$_3$N, H$^{13}$CN, and HN$^{13}$C were analysed using Gaussian fits, obtaining peak intensities, fluxes, and line widths. The column densities of each molecule and their abundances were estimated. The behaviour of these abundances with the temperature of the region was studied, observing positive correlations for H$^{13}$CN and HN$^{13}$C, and none for HC$_3$N. This study contributes to the characterisation of the initial conditions of the interstellar medium in early phases of stellar evolution.

In light of recent interpretations attributing pulsar timing array (PTA) signal to second-order gravitational waves induced by linear cosmological curvature perturbations in the early universe, the overproduction of primordial black holes (PBHs) poses a theoretical tension. In this work, we address this issue through extending such a scalar-induced gravitational wave (SIGW) framework to include third-order gravitational waves, which allow for a substantial enhancement in the spectral amplitude of SIGWs. Analyzing a combined dataset from cosmic microwave background and baryon acoustic oscillations, we derive cosmological constraints on the physical energy-density fraction of cosmological gravitational waves. Further incorporating PTA data, we obtain constraints on the spectral amplitude and peak frequency of SIGWs. Our results indicate that the parameter region favored by the data combination can to some extent alleviate the PBH overproduction problem, thereby supporting the theoretical consistency of our model. Furthermore, we demonstrate the robustness of our SIGW interpretation for the PTA signal by extending the analysis to include a gravitational wave background from supermassive black hole binaries. These findings are poised for further scrutiny with future high-precision observations.

The composition of plasma in the solar corona is characterised by the First Ionisation Potential (FIP) bias, and is thought to be the result of a ponderomotive force acting in the chromosphere to separate ionised from neutral plasma. Identifying potential signatures of this process in the solar chromosphere is the subject of active research. Full disk spectroheliograms of the chromosphere and transition region from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS) spacecraft provide an opportunity to compare plasma signatures between active regions at different evolutionary stages and assess their relationship with the fractionation processes. Here we compare the C II, Si IV, and Mg II lines observed by IRIS, finding no clear variability between active regions at different evolutionary stages in the C II and Si IV lines. However, distinct differences can be identified between the active regions using the Mg II k/h ratio (which provides a proxy for plasma opacity). In particular, the regions with the highest median FIP bias exhibit double peaked distributions of plasma opacity, suggesting variable plasma density which could affect wave propagation in these locations. These results indicate that the relationship between the plasma properties and how the plasma is fractionated should be investigated in more detail by combining observations and modelling to better understand how it changes on both temporal and spatial scales

Plasma composition in the solar atmosphere differs between the photosphere and corona, producing an observable difference in elemental abundance known as the FIP effect. The FIP effect is characterised by the ratio of low to high FIP elements, giving a number known as the FIP bias. FIP bias values vary between different regions of the solar atmosphere, with typical observed values of $\sim$1 for coronal holes, $\sim$1.5-2 for the quiet Sun, and $\sim$3 for active regions. The Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) onboard the \emph{Hinode} spacecraft has enabled the widespread use of the Si X/S X line pair as a FIP bias diagnostic, but EIS observes other line pairs that can be used to estimate FIP bias. We consider three FIP bias diagnostics observed by \emph{Hinode}/EIS (Si X/S X, Ca XIV/Ar XIV, and Fe XVI/S XIII), comparing the FIP bias between Quiet Sun and an Active region. We also assume a range of signal-to-noise (SNR) cutoff values for each pixel, finding that while the SNR cutoff affects the number of useable pixels, higher (lower) SNR cutoffs remove (retain) a tail of high FIP bias values within the measured distribution. However, the median value of the FIP bias distribution remains largely unchanged. These results show the importance of a more nuanced view of FIP bias when using this vitally important diagnostic rather than a simplistic one-size-fits-all approach.

We use various analytical techniques to study Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) in an area of approximately $10' \times 10'$ in the IRAS 18456-0223 star-forming region. We use archival optical (Gaia DR3) and infrared (2MASS, UKIDSS, Spitzer, WISE, and Herschel) data, along with our optical spectroscopy of three bright stars for this purpose. We identify 89 YSOs (80 Class II and 9 Class I) based on their infrared properties. Our multiwavelength SED fits of selected YSOs show that they have masses $\sim 0.1$--$7.2$ $M_\odot$ and are up to $4$ Myr old. Our Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) analysis shows that these YSOs, situated at around 600 pc, form clusters with radial extents of order 0.5 pc and mean surface densities of $\sim 60$ pc$^{-2}$. We compare UKIDSS and 2MASS data of the YSOs and find that some of them show variability. We construct maps based on Herschel data which reveal multiple column density peaks ($N_{\rm H_2} \sim 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$) embedded in cold ($T_d \sim 10$--$13$ K) filaments. Our near-infrared extinction map exhibits several high-$A_V$ peaks, some of which coincide with the sub-mm column density maxima. Using our optical spectra of three bright sources, we show that they are of A--K spectral type. One star shows the Li I 6707 Å line, indicating its youth.

While it is well known that galaxies are composites of many emission processes, quantifying the various contributions remains challenging. In this work, we use unsupervised machine learning based clustering algorithms to evaluate the agreement between the clustering tools and astrophysical classifications, and hence quantify the fractional contributions of star formation processes and nuclear black hole activity to the total galaxy energy budget of radio sources. We perform clustering on the multiwavelength (optical, infrared (IR), and radio) active galactic nuclei (AGN) diagnostic spaces, using the data from the G09 and G23 fields from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) survey, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). We find that the statistical clustering recovers $\approx$ 90 % of the star forming galaxies (SFGs) and $\approx$ 80 % of the AGN. We define a new IR-radio AGN diagnostic scheme that identifies radio AGN from IR SFGs and AGN, corresponding to the KMeans cluster with approximately 90 % reliability. We demonstrate the superior power of radio AGN selection in higher dimensions using a three-dimensional space composed of directly observable parameters ($\rm W_1-W_2$ colour, $\rm W_2$ magnitude, and the 1.4 GHz radio flux density). This novel three dimensional diagnostic shows immense potential in radio AGN selection that is close to 90 % reliable and 90 % complete. We also publish a catalogue of radio sources in the EMU survey with associated probabilities for them to be active in the optical regime, through which we emphasise the philosophy of considering a galaxy to be composed of various fractions rather than a binary classification of SFGs and AGN.

The Tremaine-Weinberg (TW) method and its variations provide the most direct means to measure the pattern speeds of galactic bars. We establish a unifying framework by deriving an integral form of the continuity equation over an arbitrary closed loop. This naturally defines a local pattern speed for any chosen region in a galactic disk (including bars and spirals). We demonstrate that this intuitive formalism recovers all standard variants of the TW method as special cases corresponding to specific choices of the integration loop. In this paper, we validate this framework and demonstrate its diagnostic power. By applying it to a diverse set of test cases from the TNG50 simulation, including face-on prototype barred galaxies and highly constrained Mock Milky Way standard configurations, we show that this formalism accurately recovers both constant global pattern speeds and radially varying profiles. Rather than relying on rigid geometric approximations, our method naturally differentiates coherent solid-body rotators (bars) from spirals. Our results validate that this unified integral framework provides a robust, geometrically flexible, and practically extensible tool for decoding complex dynamics of galactic structures.

Based on spectroscopic and photometric observations, we have determined the fundamental parameters of the poorly studied star HD 188101 with a weak magnetic field. Its effective temperature $T_{\rm eff} = 14200 \pm 990$ K and surface gravity log g = 3.70 $\pm$ 0.16 are typical for main-sequence B9 stars. The He, C, O, Mg, Si, Ti, and Sr abundances have been determined by taking into account the departures from local thermodynamic equilibrium. Overabundances of Si, Ti, and Sr relative to their solar abundances have been revealed. The He abundance is lower than the solar one, but the difference is within the error limits. In addition to the photometric variability known from Kepler data, we have found changes in absorption for He I, Mg II, Si II, Si III, Ti II, and Fe II lines, with different He I and Mg II lines giving different abundances for the same phase of observations. The star HD 188101 is shown to belong to the group of chemically peculiar He-weak SiTiSr stars.

Volatile elements - those that vaporize at low temperatures - are depleted in lunar rocks relative to terrestrial rocks. This systematic chemical depletion is evidence for vaporization and preferential removal of vapor from proto-lunar materials during the high-temperature processes accompanying lunar origin. Despite the robustness of these observations, the physical processes by which proto-lunar vapors were removed after the giant impact are not yet well-understood. Here, we show that toward the end of post-giant impact cooling history, Earth's atmosphere was dominated by carbon species (e.g., CO) and was spatially compact, behaving as a closed system retaining Earth's volatile inventory, whereas the proto-lunar disk atmosphere was dominated by H and H2 and was spatially extended, developing into a hydrodynamic outflow analogous to the solar wind. We find that equilibrium H2 recombination (2H->H2) in a partially-dissociated disk atmosphere produces a nearly isothermal structure, a feature known to activate outflows. The expected outflow was strong enough to propel proto-lunar volatiles from a Roche-interior (r < 3RE) disk out of Earth's gravity field and to establish a cometary tail composed of volatile elements transporting proto-lunar disk volatiles into interplanetary space. The proposed model suggests that the dichotomy in volatile element abundances between the silicate Earth and Moon is a natural outcome of the hydrodynamical behavior of magma ocean atmospheres and that lunar chemical and isotopic volatile abundances are diagnostic of the radial structure of the proto-lunar disk towards the end of its condensation.

The Microchannel X-ray Telescope on board the Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) satellite detects and localizes the X-ray afterglow of gamma-ray bursts. One year after the launch, this paper presents the in-flight performance of the scientific analyses conducted by the on-board computer. After summarizing the analysis steps, the paper reviews the on-board results obtained with 15 gamma-ray burst afterglows detected by the telescope between October 2024 and August 2025. For all bursts, the localization uncertainty is estimated to be below 2 arcmin, as required by the mission design. On average, the measured position is found to be 40 arcsec away from the position measured by other experiments with a better sky resolution. Moreover, we show that the on-board analysis provides a precise sky location for the burst only a few seconds after the beginning of the observation. Taking advantage of an efficient very-high-frequency antenna network, this information is quickly collected on the ground and disseminated to other observation facilities. This low-latency strategy is critical for the multi-wavelength and multi-instrument follow-up program of SVOM.

The processes governing protostellar mass growth remain debated, although episodic accretion is now understood as a key feature of protostellar evolution across all masses. Luminosity bursts have been observed in both low- and high-mass protostars, but the overall statistics remain limited, especially for high-mass objects. Over the past decade, numerical simulations of high-mass core collapse have provided a theoretical framework for interpreting protostellar variability, yet additional observational constraints are required to determine the characteristics and importance of bursts. In this work, we analyse data from GASTON-GP programme, which mapped a 2.4 square degrees region of the Galactic plane (centred at l = 24 deg) at 1.15 and 2.00 mm using NIKA2 on the IRAM 30 m telescope. The survey obtained 11 epochs over four years, offering the first opportunity to study millimetre variability in a large sample of massive protostellar sources. From the combined dataset, we constructed catalogues of 2925 compact sources at 1.15 mm and 1713 at 2.00 mm. Using a dedicated relative calibration scheme, we generated millimetre light curves for around 200 high-signal-to-noise sources and identified one variable candidate. However, it is not protostellar. Consequently, we report no robust detections of variable protostellar sources in GASTON field. This is the direct consequence of observational limitations (i.e., sensitivity, resolution) combined with the lack of any 100-fold luminosity bursts during the observations, which is consistent with estimates inferred from isolated core collapse simulations. This study highlights the need for future high-resolution, high-cadence surveys to constrain the accretion histories of massive protostars.

Thermonuclear X-ray bursts from the surface of accreting neutron stars are the most common astrophysical explosions in our galaxy. They provide a unique window into the physics of neutron stars, the physics of matter under extreme conditions, and the physics of astrophysical thermonuclear explosions. X-ray bursts are powered by a broad range of nuclear reactions that need to be understood to interpret observations. The relevant nuclei are mostly neutron deficient and unstable, and thus experimental information and theoretical understanding is limited and an active area of research in nuclear science. We review the current status of the nuclear physics of X-ray bursts, with special emphasis on new experimental and theoretical information on a large number of reaction rates. As such we provide an overview of the broad experimental and theoretical methods currently used to advance the nuclear physics of X-ray bursts. The new information is used to update the public JINA REACLIB database with 32 new reaction rates based on experimental information, and a new dataset of theoretical statistical model reaction rates where no experimental information is available. Using several models for X-ray bursts that are powered by mixed hydrogen and helium burning, we take advantage of the updated nuclear data to review the current understanding of the nuclear reaction sequences in such X-ray bursts, the modeling of light curves, and predictions of the composition of nuclear ashes.

Titan is regarded as a natural laboratory in the Solar System for studying atmospheric photochemistry and the abiotic production of organic molecules on cold small exoplanets. Since the end of the Cassini-Huygens mission, telescope observations have enabled new detections of increasingly complex carbon-based molecules at infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths, while the optical regime has been largely overlooked. Following a recent tentative detection of the 405 nm absorption band of C3 in Titan in archived optical VLT UVES spectra at resolving power R = 60000, this work reports an eight sigma detection of the C3 405 nm absorption band in Titan using dedicated ultra high resolution VLT ESPRESSO observations at R = 190000, the highest spectral resolution optical observations of Titan to date. The VLT ESPRESSO spectrum is compared to model spectra of Titan with varying C3 abundances. A chi squared analysis is used to assess the agreement between non solar spectral features and C3 absorption as the C3 abundance is varied, and a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo fit between model and observed spectra is performed. The chi squared analysis yields an eight sigma detection of C3, consistent with a C3 column density of approximately 1.5E13 cm-2, while the MCMC fit retrieves a C3 column density of 1.47E13 cm-2 at five sigma. These values are consistent with the order of magnitude predicted by photochemical models, which reach parts per million levels in the Titan mesosphere. This work demonstrates the usefulness of instruments and techniques originally developed for exoplanet research when applied to Solar System targets.

Mutual events of trans-Neptunian binaries (TNBs) provide rare opportunities to measure the physical and orbital properties of small bodies in the outer solar system. However, successful observations of these events have been limited by uncertain predictions. Here, we present probabilistic predictions of TNB mutual events occurring through the 2030s, using high-precision non-Keplerian orbit solutions from the Beyond Point Masses project combined with a Bayesian framework that propagates orbital and size uncertainties. Our methods generate distributions of event timing, duration, depth, and probability of occurrence, enabling direct assessment of observability. We provide predictions for five systems with ongoing or imminent mutual event seasons, including (38628) Huya, (58534) Logos-Zoe, (148780) Altjira, (469705) Kágára and !Hãunu, and (524366) 2001 XR$_{254}$. Preparing for upcoming events with long-baseline light curve monitoring is vital, as events may be difficult to distinguish from a regular rotational light curve. Rapid dissemination of event detections will benefit the entire community, allowing predictions to be updated, ensuring that these rare mutual event opportunities can be fully exploited.

The sub-parsec circumnuclear density profiles of galaxies represent a key element in our understanding of the accretion history and fuel availability of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Observations that directly resolve sub-parsec scales in galaxies require extremely high resolution and generally hot (bright) environments, making this impossible in all but the nearest active galaxies. Transient accretion events onto previously quiescent SMBHs, such as a tidal disruption event (TDE), offer a new avenue to understand SMBHs and their environments. Radio-bright outflows from TDEs directly probe the ambient density at $10^{-3}-1$ pc scales, allowing direct constraints on the circumnuclear density of TDE host galaxies (i.e., quiescent galaxies). Here we present, using radio observations of a sample of 11 TDE hosts, a new methodology for fitting observed TDE radio emission to constrain their sub-parsec circumnuclear density profiles. Our findings reveal that TDE host galaxies exhibit circumnuclear density profiles remarkably consistent with the expectations of a simple Bondi accretion flow ($n_e\propto R^{-3/2}$). Under the assumption of a Bondi profile, we present a new method to jointly fit the outflow mass and ambient densities, in order to constrain the Bondi accretion rate and temperature. For the TDE host galaxies in our sample, we constrain a sample average Bondi accretion rate Eddington fraction of $\log_{10}f_{\rm{Edd}} = -3.96^{+0.30}_{-0.38}$ (as well as individual fits to each host). This work provides a methodology by which radio observations of TDEs can provide powerful constraints on the sub-parsec density distribution of quiescent SMBHs -- well inside the Bondi sphere. This opens up a new observational avenue to constrain sub-parsec gas distributions in a broad range of galaxies.

The electron temperature is a crucial parameter for the determination of the gas-phase metallicity of galaxies. Low electron temperature is expected for metal-rich galaxies, theoretically. We report the discovery that temperature, as measured through auroral-to-strong line ratios of O$^+$, trends in reverse directions at 12+log(O/H) $\geq$ 8.7. This trend remains consistent regardless of the emission line fitting method employed and is not attributable to contamination or dust attenuation correction. Notably, this phenomenon is not observed in other low-ionization ions, such as S$^+$ and N$^+$, which also probe electron temperature. The results are verified in two independent datasets. We analyze the potential cause for the high [OII] auroral-to-strong line ratios at high metallicities, finding that no specific reason could account for that. This finding challenges the fundamental principles of the direct $T_e$ method for metallicity measurement, warranting further investigation into its physical interpretation.

Precise radial velocities (RVs) are commonly derived through cross-correlation or template-matching methods, both of which rely on a reference spectrum that can introduce biases when the data are variable, contaminated, or sparsely sampled. Line-by-line methods offer an alternative way to compute RVs but generally still rely on template creation and therefore share its inherent limitations. We introduce TILARA, a template-independent, line-by-line RV extraction code designed to allow us to derive line-by-line RVs and to operate effectively even when spectral template construction is not recommended. While originally motivated by future PoET disk-resolved solar observations, TILARA has been built with the flexibility to work with different stellar spectral types and instruments. A curated list of individual absorption lines is used as a reference to automatically measure line centers with via Gaussian fitting with ARES. Then, using the reference lines list, and the lines measured with ARES on the spectra of the target star, TILARA computes the RVs and applies configurable outlier rejection through sigma-clipping or down-weighting methods. We tested different configurations of the code, RV uncertainty estimation methods, and line selection criteria. The code was applied to 520 ESPRESSO observations of the Sun-like star HD 102365 to evaluate its performance. TILARA was then tested against other RV extraction methods. Both in its sigma-clipping and its down-weighting mode, TILARA provided resulting RV time-series with similar standard deviation and error bars as the ones derived using existing methods that follow different approaches.

Indirect searches for dark matter using dwarf spheroidal galaxies are limited by systematic uncertainties in modeling diffuse gamma-ray backgrounds. We present a likelihood-based comparison of locally constructed empirical background models and theoretically-motivated models that incorporate the Fermi-LAT diffuse background. The empirical models we study include both an independent-binning approach and a covariance-based approach that captures cross-energy correlations. Using ensembles of blank-sky regions and information criteria which account for model complexity, we find that empirical background descriptions provide a statistically competitive fit to gamma-ray data on degree scales in high-latitude regions.

We apply the unimpeded framework to perform a fully Bayesian reanalysis of the DESI DR2 data, using nested sampling with PolyChord to compute evidences for $\Lambda$CDM and seven extensions across combinations of DESI DR1/DR2, Planck CMB, supernovae (Pantheon+, Union3, DES-SN5YR, DES-Dovekie), and DES-Y1 weak lensing. The Bayesian Ockham's razor penalises extended models, yielding weaker or opposite preferences compared to $\Delta\chi^2$-based analyses. For DESI DR2 BAO combined with Planck CMB alone, the DESI collaboration's $3.1\sigma$ frequentist preference for $w_0w_a$CDM is eliminated entirely: we obtain ${\ln B = -0.57{\scriptstyle\pm0.26}}$, modestly favouring $\Lambda$CDM. Adding the corrected DES-Dovekie supernova calibration maintains this concordance (${\ln B = -0.01{\scriptstyle\pm0.27}}$). However, when the original DES-SN5YR calibration is included instead, the DESI collaboration's $4.2\sigma$ result survives the Bayesian Ockham penalty as a $3.07{\scriptstyle\pm0.10}\,\sigma$ preference (${\ln B = +3.32{\scriptstyle\pm0.27}}$). That this signal persists despite the Ockham penalty makes the role of tension quantification essential: our analysis traced the preference to the DES-SN5YR calibration error, which introduced a $2.95{\scriptstyle\pm 0.04}\,\sigma$ conflict with DESI DR2 within $\Lambda$CDM -- a tension that stands out from the grid -- reduced to $1.96{\scriptstyle\pm 0.04}\,\sigma$ once the calibration was corrected. With the calibration corrected, the Bayesian evidence for dynamical dark energy vanishes.

We conducted a HI 21cm absorption study of a sample of 147 nearby (z < 0.1) low-power radio sources with $10\,\mathrm{mJy} < S_{1.4\,\mathrm{GHz}} < 30\,\mathrm{mJy}$ and $\log(P_{1.4\,\mathrm{GHz}}/\mathrm{W\,Hz^{-1}}) = 20.5-23.7$, using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope. By investigating the origin and kinematics of HI absorbing gas, we aim to study the interplay between the active galactic nucleus (AGN) and its surrounding interstellar medium. Our observations detect 12 new absorbers, combining results from the pilot survey (three absorbers out of 26 sources), yielding a detection rate of $\sim10.2^{+3.1}_{-2.0}\%$. The detection rate in our sample is lower than in higher-power samples, which is likely due to emission dilution and the dominance of extended sources, indicating a gas-rich and star-forming-dominated population in low-power sources. Among new detections, most line profiles are narrow and show velocities close to systemic ones, consistent with rotating disks, while four show disturbed kinematics indicative of inflows or outflows. The fraction of outflow candidates rises with radio power, while the fraction of inflow ones remains constant, suggesting the effect of radio emission on driving HI outflows. In our sample, compact sources show a higher HI detection rate than extended sources. Contrary to expectations from higher-power samples, MIR-bright sources at low-power radio do not exhibit a higher HI detection rate or more disturbed kinematics. In low-power radio sources, blueshifted absorption occurs only in Seyferts and low-ionization nuclear emitting regions, indicating the connection between atomic outflows and the ionization state of AGN.

Neutron-induced reactions play an important role in fundamental nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, and applications. In the case of reactions on rare isotopes, there are limited options for direct experimental measurements. The Neutron Target Demonstrator project at Los Alamos National Laboratory seeks to test the feasibility of moderating spallation neutrons within a 1~m$^3$ graphite cube to create a standing neutron target for neutron-induced reaction measurements in inverse kinematics. This paper presents the results of experimental neutron flux distribution tests using neutron sources (ranging from 1~keV to 50~MeV) created by accelerators at the University of Notre Dame and Texas A\&M University. Measurements were made with both the full graphite cube as well as a ''half cube'' setup in which half of the graphite cube was removed. The measured distributions agree with simulated distributions in the case of the full cube moderator, although there remain discrepancies in certain cases for the half cube moderator. The results shown here will provide useful information for an upcoming experimental campaign to test the neutron target proof-of-principle.

Astronomers have acquired vast repositories of multimodal data, including images, spectra, and time series, complemented by decades of literature that analyzes astrophysical sources. Still, these data sources are rarely systematically integrated. This work introduces a contrastive learning framework designed to align X-ray spectra with domain knowledge extracted from scientific literature, facilitating the development of shared multimodal representations. Establishing this connection is inherently complex, as scientific texts encompass a broader and more diverse physical context than spectra. We propose a contrastive pipeline that achieves a 20% Recall@1% when retrieving texts from spectra, proving that a meaningful alignment between these modalities is not only possible but capable of accelerating the interpretation of rare or poorly understood sources. Furthermore, the resulting shared latent space effectively encodes physically significant information. By fusing spectral and textual data, we improve the estimation of 20 physical variables by 16-18% over unimodal spectral baselines. Our results indicate that a Mixture of Experts (MoE) strategy, which leverages both unimodal and shared representations, yields superior performance. Finally, outlier analysis within the multimodal latent space identifies high-priority targets for follow-up investigation, including a candidate pulsating ULX (PULX) and a gravitational lens system. Importantly, this framework can be extended to other scientific domains where aligning observational data with existing literature is possible.

We present the results of directed searches for continuous gravitational waves from unknown neutron stars in five Milky Way globular clusters. We carry out the searches in the LIGO data from the first eight months of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run using the WEAVE semi-coherent program, which sums matched-filter detection-statistic values over many time segments spanning the observation period. No gravitational wave signal is detected in the search band of 20-475 Hz for assumed source ages greater than 300 years. Injections of simulated continuous wave signals in the data indicate that we achieve the most sensitive results to date across most of the explored parameter space volume, obtaining median 95% confidence level upper limits as low as $\sim 4.2 \times 10^{-26}$ near 282 Hz for NGC 6397.

We present a combined analytical and numerical study of the effective action of field theory cosmic strings in the Abelian-Higgs model in flat space. Starting directly from the underlying solitonic field theory description, we provide a systematic derivation of the low energy effective action and present evidence for the absence of nontrivial curvature correction terms when only the translational Goldstone modes are retained. Using this framework, we extend the effective theory to include higher energy fluctuations of the soliton profile, which map to massive degrees of freedom propagating on the worldsheet. We show that the leading curvature contribution enters only through the coupling between these massive modes and the worldsheet Ricci scalar. We validate the resulting effective theory via lattice simulations of the full field theory equations of motion in flat space, implemented with Adaptive Mesh Refinement to capture the string dynamics across different scales. The numerical simulations confirm the dynamics obtained using the effective action in its validity range. Furthermore, they also demonstrate the existence of the predicted parametric instability of excited strings that drives the transfer of energy from massive excitations to the Goldstone sector.