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301 records · Page 17

Reflection and transmission of electromagnetic pulses at a planar dielectric interface -- theory and quantum lattice simulations

There is considerable interest in the application of quantum information science to advance computations in plasma physics. A particular point of curiosity is whether it is possible to take advantage of quantum computers to speed up numerical simulations relative to conventional computers. Many of the topics in fusion plasma physics are classical in nature. In order to implement them on quantum computers it will require couching a classical problem in the language of quantum mechanics. Electromagnetic waves are routinely used in fusion experiments to heat a plasma or to generate currents in the plasma. The propagation of electromagnetic waves is described by Maxwell equations with an appropriate description of the plasma as a dielectric medium. Before advancing to the tensor dielectric of a magnetized plasma, this paper considers electromagnetic wave propagation in a one-dimensional inhomogeneous scalar dielectric. The classic theory of scattering of plane electromagnetic waves at a planar interface, separating two different dielectric media, leads to Fresnel equations for reflection and transmission coefficients. In contrast to plane waves, this paper is on the reflection and transmission of a spatially confined electromagnetic pulse. Following an analytical formulation for the scattering of a Gaussian pulse, it is deduced that the maximum transmission coefficient for a pulse is $\sqrt{n_2/n_1}$ times that for a plane wave; the incident and transmitted pulses propagating in dielectric media with refractive indices $n_1$ and $n_2$, respectively. The analytical theory is complemented by numerical simulations using a quantum lattice algorithm for Maxwell equations. The algorithm, based on the Riemann-Silberstein-Weber representation of the electromagnetic fields and expressed in term of qubits, is an interleaved sequence of entangling operators at each lattice site and unitary streaming operators which transmit information from one site to an adjacent lattice site. Besides substantiating results from the theory for Gaussian pulses, numerical simulations show their validity for non-Gaussian pulses. Apart from their time-asymptotic forms, the simulations display an interplay between the incident, reflected, and transmitted pulses in the vicinity of the transition region between two dielectric media.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Discriminative Dimensionality Reduction using Deep Neural Networks for Clustering of LIGO Data

In this paper, leveraging the capabilities of neural networks for modeling the non-linearities that exist in the data, we propose several models that can project data into a low dimensional, discriminative, and smooth manifold. The proposed models can transfer knowledge from the domain of known classes to a new domain where the classes are unknown. A clustering algorithm is further applied in the new domain to find potentially new classes from the pool of unlabeled data. The research problem and data for this paper originated from the Gravity Spy project which is a side project of Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The LIGO project aims at detecting cosmic gravitational waves using huge detectors. However non-cosmic, non-Gaussian disturbances known as "glitches", show up in gravitational-wave data of LIGO. This is undesirable as it creates problems for the gravitational wave detection process. Gravity Spy aids in glitch identification with the purpose of understanding their origin. Since new types of glitches appear over time, one of the objective of Gravity Spy is to create new glitch classes. Towards this task, we offer a methodology in this paper to accomplish this.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Λ Baryon Production in ν¯µ Interactions in the MicroBooNE Detector

The Cabibbo suppressed production of $\Lambda$ baryons in anti-neutrino interactions with nuclei is a rare process that is yet to be measured with a modern neutrino detector with automated reconstruction. The cross section for this process is sensitive to a number of unique nuclear effects, most notably the secondary interactions of the produced hyperon while attempting to escape from the nucleus. Other interactions within the nuclear remnant can impact the estimation of neutrino energy in oscillation measurements, and thus an accurate description of the nuclear environment is required. The strangeness violating hyperon production process is only available to anti-neutrinos. The model of this interaction is implemented into the NuWro neutrino interaction Monte Carlo simulation, and some predictions are presented, focusing on the role of nuclear effects. This model introduces a hyperon-nucleus potential, which calculations from hypernuclear theory permit to be strongly repulsive in th e case of $\Sigma$ baryons. The presence of this potential is found to sculpt the shape of the differential cross section in some variables. The MicroBooNE detector will be described, followed by a description of a measurement of the flux averaged, restricted phase space cross section of Cabibbo suppressed $\Lambda$ baryon production. A sophisticated event selection is employed, as a very large quantity of background neutrino interactions must be removed to perform the measurement with any sensitivity. This selection introduces some novel techniques such as the island finding method, and achieves a background reduction of $\sim 10^6$, with an efficiency of around 7\%. The calculation of the systematic uncertainties will be explained, including two procedures explored to handle sources of background with extremely poor simulation statistics: an in-situ constraint using data from sidebands, and a visual inspection of the data and simulation to remove the troublesome background events. The sensitivity to the $\Lambda$ baryon production cross section is calculated in the form of Bayesian posterior probability distributions, combining the systematic uncertainties with data and simulation statistical uncertainties. As a rare process, the statistical uncertainties are highly non-Gaussian, and the Bayesian approach is applied to include the full shapes of these uncertainties. Data corresponding to $2.2 \times 10^{20}$ protons on target of neutrino mode running and $4.9 \times 10^{20}$ protons on target of anti-neutrino running is analysed. When the data was unblinded, five $\Lambda$ production candidates were selected from the data, consistent with the MC simulation prediction of $5.3 \pm 1.1$ events. The final estimated cross section is $1.8^{+2.0}_{-1.6} \times 10^{-40}$cm$^2/$Ar when employing the sideband constraint procedure. A similar result of $2.0^{+2.2}_{-1.8} \times 10^{-40}$cm$^2/$Ar is obtained when performing the visual scan instead. The methods used in t his analysis are intended to be easily exported to other LArTPC detectors such as the Short Baseline Near Detector.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: High-resolution component-separated maps across one-third of the sky

Observations of the millimeter sky contain valuable information on a number of signals, including the blackbody cosmic microwave background (CMB), Galactic emissions, and the Compton-$y$ distortion due to the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect. Extracting new insight into cosmological and astrophysical questions often requires combining multi-wavelength observations to spectrally isolate one component. In this work, we present a new arcminute-resolution Compton-$y$ map, which traces out the line-of-sight-integrated electron pressure, as well as maps of the CMB in intensity and E-mode polarization, across a third of the sky (around 13,000 sq.~deg.). We produce these through a joint analysis of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 4 and 6 at frequencies of roughly 93, 148, and 225 GHz, together with data from the \textit{Planck} satellite at frequencies between 30 GHz and 545 GHz. We present detailed verification of an internal linear combination pipeline implemented in a needlet frame that allows us to efficiently suppress Galactic contamination and account for spatial variations in the ACT instrument noise. These maps provide a significant advance, in noise levels and resolution, over the existing \textit{Planck} component-separated maps and will enable a host of science goals including studies of cluster and galaxy astrophysics, inferences of the cosmic velocity field, primordial non-Gaussianity searches, and gravitational lensing reconstruction of the CMB.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Microcanonical Hamiltonian Monte Carlo

We develop Microcanonical Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (MCHMC), a class of models that follow fixed energy Hamiltonian dynamics, in contrast to Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC), which follows canonical distribution with different energy levels. MCHMC tunes the Hamiltonian function such that the marginal of the uniform distribution on the constant-energy-surface over the momentum variables gives the desired target distribution. We show that MCHMC requires occasional energy-conserving billiard-like momentum bounces for ergodicity, analogous to momentum resampling in HMC. We generalize the concept of bounces to a continuous version with partial direction preserving bounces at every step, which gives energy-conserving underdamped Langevin-like dynamics with non-Gaussian noise (MCLMC). MCHMC and MCLMC exhibit favorable scalings with condition number and dimensionality. We develop an efficient hyperparameter tuning scheme that achieves high performance and consistently outperforms NUTS HMC on several standard benchmark problems, in some cases by orders of magnitude.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Measurement of the galaxy-velocity power spectrum of DESI tracers with the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect using DESI DR2 and ACT DR6

Joint analyses of high-resolution CMB temperature maps with galaxy surveys provide a unique way to reconstruct the radial velocity field of the underlying matter distribution via the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) effect. Using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR6 and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) DR2, we present radial velocity reconstructions for luminous red galaxies (LRGs), emission-line galaxies (ELGs), and quasars (QSOs). Leveraging the spectroscopic data, we are able to reliably model the foreground contamination and report a negligible impact on our main observables. We detect the velocity-galaxy cross-correlation at $17.0σ$ for LRGs, and for the first time, at $8.3σ$ for ELGs and $6.8σ$ for QSOs. We further report the first detection of the velocity-velocity correlation using LRGs at $3.1σ$, as well as the highest cumulative detection of the kSZ effect to date at $20.8 σ$. Similarly to previous results, we find a lower amplitude of the kSZ signal compared to our fiducial halo model prediction and electron profile assuming a Battaglia profile. Combining these new observables, we obtain constraints on local-type primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG): $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc} = 15.9_{-34.4}^{+34.6}$ at 68% confidence, which represents the tightest constraint to date derived from the velocity field. The measurements presented here already exhibit lower noise on a per-mode basis than the galaxy auto-correlation on the largest scales, $k<0.004~\rm{Mpc^{-1}}$, highlighting the key role these observables will play in the context of future CMB experiments such as the Simons Observatory.

Chaussidon, Edmond [LBL, Berkeley] (ORCID:00000001↗

Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: optimized $w$CDM simulation-based inference with weak lensing map-level hybrid statistics

We present cosmological constraints from the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 (DES Y3) weak lensing data using hierarchical hybrid statistics within a Bayesian simulation-based inference framework that is based on the Gower Street simulations. To maximize the precision of the inference, we have developed a new, information-theory based, data compression of the weak lensing maps to just seven highly informative summary statistics. The hybrid scheme exploits the high information content of the power spectrum, compressing both the power spectrum and neural-based summaries that are designed to extract further information. Our simulation-based approach enables principled forward modelling of all major sources of systematic uncertainty and survey properties into realistic mock observations, including the survey mask, photometric redshift uncertainties, intrinsic galaxy alignments, multiplicative shear calibration bias, source galaxy clustering, non-Gaussian shape noise, and non-linear structure formation. The summary statistics are then used in a Bayesian simulation-based inference pipeline. The inference is validated through coverage tests and checks for robustness against baryonic feedback. Assuming a $w$CDM cosmology, our analysis yields $S_8 = 0.808 \pm 0.017$, $Ω_{\rm m} = 0.325 \pm 0.024$, and $w < -0.766$ (marginalized posterior 68 per cent credible intervals). This rigorous combination of information theory, physics- and neural network-based extreme data compression, and principled Bayesian analysis improves the figure of merit for $(Ω_{\rm m}, S_8, w)$ by 60 per cent over the previous state-of-the-art, and by almost a factor of 3 over two-point analyses of the same data. They are the most precise joint constraints on $(Ω_{\rm m}, S_8, w)$ from weak gravitational lensing data alone of any survey to date. We intend to apply this analysis to the more recent DES Y6 data.

Williamson, J. [University Coll. London]↗

SPT-3G D1: Foreground-Robust Lensing Templates for Primordial Gravitational Wave Searches

Gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) generates B-mode polarization that acts as a source of contamination to searches for B modes generated by primordial gravitational waves (PGWs). The strongest constraint on PGW B modes is already significantly limited by lensing B modes, as shown in the most recent BICEP result. In this work, we present CMB lensing B-mode templates constructed using SPT-3G and Planck data, which characterize the lensing B modes and can be used to improve PGW B-mode searches. We use SPT-3G data from the 2019 and 2020 observing seasons for the E modes and the CMB-reconstructed lensing potential, and a cosmic infrared background (CIB) map from Planck as an external lensing tracer. To test for extragalactic foreground biases in the lensing template, we consider CMB lensing reconstruction variants with different levels of foreground immunity: the standard and profile-hardened global minimum variance (GMV) quadratic estimators, and a polarization-only quadratic estimator. We validate the template construction using Gaussian simulations and Agora simulations with realistic non-Gaussian foregrounds. From simulations, we find that foreground-induced biases are strongly suppressed for the template constructed with the profile-hardened GMV + CIB tracer, with residual bias below 10% of the statistical uncertainty on the template power spectrum. Data difference tests on this template similarly show no evidence for significant foreground contamination. This foreground-immune lensing template achieves delensed residual BB power of $A_{\rm lens}^{\rm res} \simeq 0.48$ averaged over $20 \leq \ell \leq 200$, the highest delensing efficiency lensing template to date. These results demonstrate and validate a method to construct foreground-robust lensing templates which will be used in upcoming delensed PGW B-mode analyses of BICEP data.

Nakato, Y. [Stanford U.]↗

A Computational Information Criterion for Particle-Tracking with Sparse or Noisy Data

Traditional probabilistic methods for the simulation of advection-diffusion equations (ADEs) often overlook the entropic contribution of the discretization, e.g., the number of particles, within associated numerical methods. Many times, the gain in accuracy of a highly discretized numerical model is outweighed by its associated computational costs or the noise within the data. Herein, we address the question of how many particles are needed in a simulation to best approximate and estimate parameters in one-dimensional advective-diffusive transport. To do so, we use the well-known Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and a recently-developed correction called the Computational Information Criterion (COMIC) to guide the model selection process. Random-walk and mass-transfer particle tracking methods are employed to solve the model equations at various levels of discretization. Numerical results demonstrate that the COMIC provides an optimal number of particles that can describe a more efficient model in terms of parameter estimation and model prediction compared to the model selected by the AIC even when the data is sparse or noisy, the sampling volume is not uniform throughout the physical domain, or the error distribution of the data is non-IID Gaussian.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Synchronizing the consistency relation

We study the N-point function of the density contrast to quadratic order in the squeezed limit during the matter-dominated (MD) and radiation-dominated (RD) eras in synchronous gauge. Since synchronous gauge follows the free-fall frame of observers, the equivalence principle dictates that in the gradient approximation for the long-wavelength mode there is only a single, manifestly time-independent consistency relation for the N-point function. This simple form is dictated by the initial mapping between synchronous and local coordinates, unlike Newtonian gauge and its correspondingly separate dilation and Newtonian consistency relations. Dynamical effects only appear at quadratic order in the squeezed limit and are again characterized by a change in the local background, also known as the separate universe approach. We show that for the 3-point function the compatibility between these squeezed-limit relations and second-order perturbation theory requires both the initial and dynamical contributions to match, as they do in single-field inflation. This clarifies the role of evolution or late-time projection effects in establishing the consistency relation for observable bispectra, which is especially important for radiation acoustic oscillations and for establishing consistency below the matter-radiation equality scale in the MD era. Defining an appropriate angle and time average of these oscillations is also important for making separate universe predictions of spatially varying local observables during the RD era, which can be useful for a wider range of cosmological predictions beyond N-point functions.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dissipative Phase Transition in the Two-Photon Dicke Model

We explore the dissipative phase transition of the two-photon Dicke model, a topic that has garnered significant attention recently. Our analysis reveals that while single-photon loss does not stabilize the intrinsic instability in the model, the inclusion of two-photon loss restores stability, leading to the emergence of superradiant states, which coexist with the normal vacuum states. Using a second-order cumulant expansion for the photons, we derive an analytical description of the system in the thermodynamic limit, which agrees well with the exact calculation results. Additionally, we present the Wigner function for the system, shedding light on the breaking of the 𝑍4 symmetry inherent in the model. These findings offer valuable insights into stabilization mechanisms in open quantum systems and pave the way for exploring complex nonlinear dynamics in two-photon Dicke models.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Globally optimal interferometry with lossy twin Fock probes

Parity or quadratic spin (e.g., J z 2 ) readouts of a Mach–Zehnder (MZ) interferometer probed with a twin Fock (TF) input state allow saturating the optimal sensitivity attainable among all mode-separable states with a fixed total number of particles but only when the interferometer phase θ is near zero. When more general Dicke state probes are used, the parity readout saturates the quantum Fisher information (QFI) at θ = 0, whereas better-than-standard quantum limit performance of the J z 2 readout is restricted to an o ( N ) occupation imbalance. We show that a method of moments readout of two quadratic spin observables J z 2 and J + 2 + J − 2 is globally optimal for Dicke state probes; i.e., the error saturates the QFI for all θ . In the lossy setting, we derive the time-inhomogeneous Markov process describing the effect of particle loss on TF states, showing that the method of moments readout of four at-most-quadratic spin observables is sufficient for globally optimal estimation of θ when two or more particles are lost. The analysis culminates in a numerical calculation of the QFI matrix for distributed MZ interferometry on the four-mode state | N 4 , N 4 , N 4 , N 4 〉 and its lossy counterparts, showing that an advantage for the estimation of any linear function of the local MZ phases θ 1 and θ 2 (compared to independent probing of the MZ phases by two copies of | N 4 , N 4 〉 ) appears when more than one particle is lost.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗