We present a comprehensive investigation of the magnetic cycle of the young, active solar analogue $\iota$ Horologii ($\iota$ Hor) based on intensive spectropolarimetric monitoring using HARPSpol. Over a nearly three-year campaign, the technique of Zeeman-Doppler Imaging (ZDI) was used to reconstruct 18 maps of the large-scale surface magnetic field of the star. These maps trace the evolution of the magnetic field morphology over approximately 139 stellar rotations. Our analysis uncovers pronounced temporal evolution, including multiple polarity reversals and changes in field strength and geometry. We examine the evolution of the poloidal and toroidal field components, with the toroidal component showing strong modulation in concert with the chromospheric activity. Furthermore, for the first time, we reconstruct stellar magnetic butterfly diagrams which are used to trace the migration of large-scale magnetic features across the stellar surface, determining a magnetic polarity reversal timescale of roughly 100 rotations ($\sim773$ d). In addition, by tracking the field-weighted latitudinal positions, we obtain the first estimates of the large-scale flow properties on a star other than the Sun, identifying possible pole-ward and equator-ward drift speeds for different field polarities. These results provide critical insights into the dynamo processes operating in young solar-type stars and offer a direct comparison with the solar magnetic cycle.

Accreting black holes are thought to swallow matter in the form of a disk and a hot cloud of plasma that glows brightly in X-rays, known as the corona. The X-ray emitting region is far too small to be directly imaged, but rapid variability of the X-ray signal can be used to infer the geometry by measuring time lags caused by material propagating towards the black hole and by coronal X-rays reflecting off the disk to imprint a reverberation lag. Reverberation lags can be recognized by characteristic spectral features, including an iron emission line at $\sim 6.4$ keV and a broad Compton hump peaking at $\sim 30$ keV. These reverberation features have both previously been detected for a few supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, it is much more challenging to detect reverberation lags from stellar-mass black holes because they are more than a million times smaller. Previous reverberation lag measurements for stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binary systems have thus been limited to energies below 10 keV. Here we report on the first detection of the Compton hump reverberation feature from an X-ray binary, achieved by measuring lags in the broad energy range of $\sim 1-150$ keV. The accompanying detection of an iron line feature confirms the scenario of X-ray reverberation and provides strong evidence that the accretion flows in AGNs and X-ray binaries are governed by an ubiquitous process. Reverberation lags are prominent only in the most rapid variability, whereas lags in the slower variability are commonly attributed to propagating mass accretion rate perturbations. Our lag measurements up to the highest energy to date reveal that this lag in the slower variability evolves dramatically on timescales of days.

The Helix is a visually striking and the nearest planetary nebula, yet any companions responsible for its asymmetric morphology have yet to be identified. In 2020, low-amplitude photometric variations with a periodicity of 2.8 d were reported based on Cycle 1 TESS observations. In this work, with the inclusion of two additional sectors, these periodic light curves are compared with lcurve simulations of irradiated companions in such an orbit. Based on the light curve modelling, there are two representative solutions: i) a Jupiter-sized body with 0.102 Rsol and an arbitrarily small orbital inclination i=1 deg, and ii) a 0.021 Rsol exoplanet with i approx. 25 deg, essentially aligned with the Helix Nebular inclination. Irradiated substellar companion models with equilibrium temperature 4970 K are constructed and compared with existing optical spectra and infrared photometry, where Jupiter-sized bodies can be ruled out, but companions modestly larger than Neptune are still allowed. Additionally, any spatially-unresolved companions are constrained based on the multi-wavelength, photometric spectral energy distribution of the central star. No ultracool dwarf companion earlier than around L5 is permitted within roughly 1200 au, leaving only faint white dwarfs and cold brown dwarfs as possible surviving architects of the nebular asymmetries. While a planetary survivor is a tantalizing possibility, it cannot be ruled out that the light curve modulation is stellar in nature, where any substellar companion requires confirmation and may be possible with JWST observations.

We report the detection of mHz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in four NuSTAR observations of 4U 1626-67 during its recent spin-down episode. By using a novel method based on the Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT), we present the first QPO-phase-resolved timing and spectral analysis of accreting X-ray pulsars in low mass X-ray binaries. Broadband QPO waveforms have been reconstructed and exhibit approximately sinusoidal shapes, with fractional amplitudes that vary with energy. In addition, we find that spin pulse profiles exhibit stable shapes between different QPO phases with different instantaneous fluxes, while the fractional root-mean-square (rms) is distinct for different observations. In this source, both QPO-phase-resolved and averaged spectra can be modeled with a negative and positive powerlaws exponential (NPEX) model, and their spectral evolutions show a similar trend, suggesting that the QPO modulation is caused by accretion rate variability instead of a geometric obscuration. These results provide new constraints on accretion physics in strongly magnetized neutron stars and the underlying mechanisms of QPOs.

We aim to explore the properties of the Be/X-ray binary system MXB 0656-072 from a timing analysis perspective through an investigation of the RXTE/PCA and Fermi/GBM data during its 2007-2008 type I outbursts. We applied two new techniques, for the first time, along with the conventional Deeter method to produce higher-resolution power density spectra (PDS) of the torque fluctuations. We also investigated the spin frequency evolution of the source by utilising a pulse timing technique. The PDSs show a red noise pattern, with a steepness of $\Gamma \sim -2$ and a saturation timescale of $\sim$150 d, indicating that MXB 0656-072 is a disc-fed source. With the obtained long term spin frequency evolution, we reveal the torque-luminosity correlation of MXB 0656-072 for the first time. We also demonstrate that the frequency evolution is largely consistent with the Ghosh-Lamb model. In the RXTE/PCA observations, the pulsed emission disappears below $\sim$5$\times 10^{35}$ erg s$^{-1}$, while the profiles remain stable above this value in our analysis time frame. We show that the magnetic field strength deduced from the torque model is compatible with the field strength of the pulsar derived from the cyclotron resonance scattering feature. Utilising the new distance of MXB 0656-072 measured by Gaia, we show that the spectral transition of MXB 0656-072 occurs at a luminosity that matches the expected theoretical transition from the subcritical to supercritical accretion regime.

Let $\mathscr{H}$ be a finite-dimensional complex Hilbert space and $\mathscr{D}$ the set of density matrices on $\mathscr{H}$, i.e., the positive operators with trace 1. Our goal in this note is to identify a probability measure $u$ on $\mathscr{D}$ that can be regarded as the uniform distribution over $\mathscr{D}$. We propose a measure on $\mathscr{D}$, argue that it can be so regarded, discuss its properties, and compute the joint distribution of the eigenvalues of a random density matrix distributed according to this measure.

Significant advances have been achieved through the latest improvements in the photometric observations accomplished by the recent space missions, substantially boosting the study of pulsating stars via asteroseismology. The TESS mission has already proven to be of relevance for pulsating white dwarf and pre-white dwarf stars. We report a detailed asteroseismic analysis of the pulsating PG 1159 star NGC 246 (TIC3905338), the central star of the planetary nebula NGC 246, based on high-precision photometric data gathered by the TESS space mission. We reduced TESS observations of NGC 246 and performed a detailed asteroseismic analysis using fully evolutionary PG 1159 models computed accounting for the complete prior evolution of their progenitors. We constrained the mass of this star by comparing the measured mean period spacing with the average of the computed period spacings of the models and also employed the observed individual periods to search for a seismic stellar model. We extracted 17 periodicities from the TESS light curves from the two sectors where NGC246 was observed. All the oscillation frequencies are associated with g-mode pulsations, with periods spanning from ~1460 to ~1823s. We found a constant period spacing of $\Delta\Pi= 12.9$s, allowing us to deduce that the stellar mass is larger than ~0.87 Mo if the period spacing is assumed to be associated with l= 1 modes, and ~ 0.568 Mo if it is associated with l= 2 modes. The less massive models are more consistent with the distance constraint from Gaia parallax. Although we were not able to find a unique asteroseismic model for this star, the period-to-period fit analyses suggest a high-stellar mass ($\gtrsim$0.74 Mo) when the observed periods are associated with modes with l= 1 only, and both a high ($\gtrsim$ 0.74 Mo) and intermediate (~0.57 Mo) stellar mass when the observed periods are associated with modes with l= 1 and 2.

Multi-time wave functions are wave functions for multi-particle quantum systems that involve several time variables (one per particle). In this paper we contrast them with solutions of wave equations on a space-time with multiple timelike dimensions, i.e., on a pseudo-Riemannian manifold whose metric has signature such as ${+}{+}{-}{-}$ or ${+}{+}{-}{-}{-}{-}{-}{-}$, instead of ${+}{-}{-}{-}$. Despite the superficial similarity, the two behave very differently: Whereas wave equations in multiple timelike dimensions are typically mathematically ill-posed and presumably unphysical, relevant Schr\"odinger equations for multi-time wave functions possess for every initial datum a unique solution on the spacelike configurations and form a natural covariant representation of quantum states.

We give an overview of the science objectives and mission design of the Spectroscopic Time-Resolving Observatory for Broadband Energy X-rays (STROBE-X) observatory, which has been proposed as a NASA probe-class (~$1.5B) mission in response to the Astro2020 recommendation for an X-ray probe.

Studies of the formation and evolution of young stars and their disks rely on the knowledge of the stellar parameters of the young stars. The derivation of these parameters is commonly based on comparison with photospheric template spectra. Furthermore, chromospheric emission in young active stars impacts the measurement of mass accretion rates, a key quantity to study disk evolution. Here we derive stellar properties of low-mass pre-main sequence stars without disks, which represent ideal photospheric templates for studies of young stars. We also use these spectra to constrain the impact of chromospheric emission on the measurements of mass accretion rates. The spectra in reduced, flux-calibrated, and corrected for telluric absorption form are made available to the community. We derive the spectral type for our targets by analyzing the photospheric molecular features present in their VLT/X-Shooter spectra by means of spectral indices and comparison of the relative strength of photospheric absorption features. We also measure effective temperature, gravity, projected rotational velocity, and radial velocity from our spectra by fitting them with synthetic spectra with the ROTFIT tool. The targets have negligible extinction and spectral type from G5 to M8. We perform synthetic photometry on the spectra to derive the typical colors of young stars in different filters. We measure the luminosity of the emission lines present in the spectra and estimate the noise due to chromospheric emission in the measurements of accretion luminosity in accreting stars. We provide a calibration of the photospheric colors of young PMS stars as a function of their spectral type in a set of standard broad-band optical and near-infrared filters. For stars with masses of ~ 1.5Msun and ages of ~1-5 Myr, the chromospheric noise converts to a limit of measurable mass accretion rates of ~ 3x10^-10 Msun/yr.

Since their first discovery in the late 1960s, Gamma-ray bursts have attracted an exponentially growing interest from the international community due to their central role in the most highly debated open questions of the modern research of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. These range from the intimate nuclear composition of high density material within the core of ultra-dense neuron stars, to stellar evolution via the collapse of massive stars, the production and propagation of gravitational waves, as well as the exploration of the early Universe by unveiling first stars and galaxies (assessing also their evolution and cosmic re-ionization). GRBs have stimulated in the past $\sim$50 years the development of cutting-edge technological instruments for observations of high energy celestial sources from space, leading to the launch and successful operations of many different scientific missions (several of them still in data taking mode nowadays). In this review, we provide a brief description of the GRB-dedicated missions from space being designed and developed for the future. The list of these projects, not meant to be exhaustive, shall serve as a reference to interested readers to understand what is likely to come next to lead the further development of GRB research and associated phenomenology.

The duty cycle (DC) of astrophysical sources is generally defined as the fraction of time during which the sources are active. However, DCs are generally not provided with statistical uncertainties, since the standard approach is to perform Monte Carlo bootstrap simulations to evaluate them, which can be quite time consuming for a large sample of sources. As an alternative, considerably less time-consuming approach, we derived the theoretical expectation value for the DC and its error for sources whose state is one of two possible, mutually exclusive states, inactive (off) or flaring (on), as based on a finite set of independent observational data points. Following a Bayesian approach, we derived the analytical expression for the posterior, the conjugated distribution adopted as prior, and the expectation value and variance. We applied our method to the specific case of the inactivity duty cycle (IDC) for supergiant fast X-ray transients. We also studied IDC as a function of the number of observations in the sample. Finally, we compare the results with the theoretical expectations. We found excellent agreement with our findings based on the standard bootstrap method. Our Bayesian treatment can be applied to all sets of independent observations of two-state sources, such as active galactic nuclei, X-ray binaries, etc. In addition to being far less time consuming than bootstrap methods, the additional strength of this approach becomes obvious when considering a well-populated class of sources ($N_{\rm src} \geq 50$) for which the prior can be fully characterized by fitting the distribution of the observed DCs for all sources in the class, so that, through the prior, one can further constrain the DC of a new source by exploiting the information acquired on the DC distribution derived from the other sources. [Abridged]

Most versions of classical physics imply that if the 4-volume of the entire space-time is infinite or at least extremely large, then random fluctuations in the matter will by coincidence create copies of us in remote places, so called "Boltzmann brains." That is a problem because it leads to the wrong prediction that _we_ should be Boltzmann brains. The question arises, how can any theory avoid making this wrong prediction? In quantum physics, it turns out that the discussion requires a formulation of quantum theory that is more precise than the orthodox interpretation. Using Bohmian mechanics for this purpose, we point out a possible solution to the problem based on the phenomenon of "freezing" of configurations.

MAXI J1816-195 is a newly discovered accreting millisecond pulsar with prolific thermonuclear bursts, detected during its outburst in 2022 June by Insight-HXMT and NICER. During the outburst, Insight-HXMT detected 73 bursts in its peak and decay phase, serving as a prolific burst system found in the accreting millisecond pulsars. By analyzing one burst which was simultaneously detected by Insight-HXMT and NICER, we find a mild deviation from the conventional blackbody model. By stacking the Insight-HXMT lightcurves of 66 bursts which have similar profiles and intensities, a hard X-ray shortage is detected with a significance of 15.7 sigma in 30-100 keV. The shortage is about 30% of the persistent flux, which is low compared with other bursters. The shortage fraction is energy-dependent: larger in a higher energy band. These findings make the newly discovered millisecond MAXI J1816-195 a rather peculiar system compared with other millisecond pulsars and atoll bursters. In addition, based on the brightest burst, we derive an upper limit of the distance as 6.3 kpc, and therefore estimate the upper limit of the inner disc radius of the accretion disc to be~ 40 km. Assuming the radius as the magnetospheric radius, the derived magnetic field strength is about 7.1*10^8 G.

LS 5039 is a well-known $\gamma$-ray binary system which consists of an unknown compact object and a massive companion O star. It shows rather stable emissions at high energies over years and hence serves as an ideal laboratory to investigate the emission mechanism for such peculiar systems which emit prominent $\gamma$-rays. To this end, we take the orbital phase resolved energy spectrum as observed by \fermi over 10 years. We divide the orbit into four orbital phases, each with an orbital phase range of 0.25, centered at 0.00, 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 respectively, where the phase 0.0 is the periastron and phase 0.5 is the apastron. The phases around 0.25 and 0.75 are symmetric and hence are supposed to have identical local acceleration environment. The spectral analysis shows that, the \fermi spectra are largely different from these two symmetric orbital phases: the emission from orbital phase 0.25 turns out to be significantly stronger than that from 0.75. This result does not fit a scenario that $\gamma$-rays are Doppler boosted emission from bow shock tails if LS 5039 has a shock configuration similar to PSR B1259-63, and indicates that the inverse Compton scatterings between the shock accelerated plasma and the stellar particle environment is the underline procedure. We also find that the previous report for a disappearance of the orbital modulation at 3--20 GeV is due to the similar spectral turn-over energies of the different orbital phases. The spectral properties of periastron and apastron regions are addressed in the context of the measurements in phase regions around 0.25 and 0.75.

The Plug-and-Charge (PnC) process defined by ISO 15118 standardizes automated Electric Vehicle (EV) charging by enabling automatic installation of credentials and use for authentication between EV and Charge Point (CP). However, the current credential installation process is non-uniform, relies on a complex Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), lacks support for fine-grained authorization parameters, and is not very user-friendly. In this paper, we propose a streamlined approach to the initial charging authorization process by leveraging the OAuth Device Authorization Grant and Rich Authorization Requests. The proposed solution reduces technical complexity, simplifies credential installation, introduces flexible authorization constraints (e.g., time- and cost-based), and facilitates payment through OpenID Connect (OIDC). We present a proof-of-concept implementation along with performance evaluations and conduct a symbolic protocol verification using the Tamarin prover. Furthermore, our approach solves the issue of OAuth's cross-device authorization, making it suitable as a formally proven blueprint in contexts beyond EV charging.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next generation Cherenkov telescope facility. It will consist of a large number of segmented-mirror telescopes of three different diameters, placed in two locations, one in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere, thus covering the whole sky. The total number of mirror tiles will be on the order of 10,000, corresponding to a reflective area of ~10^4 m^2. The Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in T\"ubingen (IAAT) is currently developing mirror control alignment mechanics, electronics, and software optimized for the medium sized telescopes. In addition, IAAT is participating in the CTA mirror prototype testing. In this paper we present the status of the current developments, the main results of recent tests, and plans for the production phase of the mirror control system. We also briefly present the T\"ubingen facility for mirror testing.

The Gibbs entropy of a macroscopic classical system is a function of a probability distribution over phase space, i.e., of an ensemble. In contrast, the Boltzmann entropy is a function on phase space, and is thus defined for an individual system. Our aim is to discuss and compare these two notions of entropy, along with the associated ensemblist and individualist views of thermal equilibrium. Using the Gibbsian ensembles for the computation of the Gibbs entropy, the two notions yield the same (leading order) values for the entropy of a macroscopic system in thermal equilibrium. The two approaches do not, however, necessarily agree for non-equilibrium systems. For those, we argue that the Boltzmann entropy is the one that corresponds to thermodynamic entropy, in particular in connection with the second law of thermodynamics. Moreover, we describe the quantum analog of the Boltzmann entropy, and we argue that the individualist (Boltzmannian) concept of equilibrium is supported by the recent works on thermalization of closed quantum systems.

The Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE) is a 26-ton water Cherenkov neutrino detector installed on the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB) at Fermilab. Its main physics goals are to perform a measurement of the neutron yield from neutrino-nucleus interactions, as well as a measurement of the charged-current cross section of muon neutrinos. An equally important focus is placed on the research and development of new detector technologies and target media. Specifically water-based liquid scintillator (WbLS) is of interest as a novel detector medium, as it allows for the simultaneous detection of scintillation and Cherenkov light. This paper presents the deployment of a 366L WbLS vessel in ANNIE in March 2023 and the subsequent detection of both Cherenkov light and scintillation from the WbLS. This proof-of-concept allows for the future development of reconstruction and particle identification algorithms in ANNIE, as well as dedicated analyses, such as the search for neutral current events and the hadronic scintillation component within the WbLS volume.

We studied the transient Galactic black hole candidate MAXI J0637-430 with data from Insight-HXMT, Swift and XMM-Newton. The broad-band X-ray observations from Insight-HXMT help us constrain the power-law component. MAXI J0637-430 is located at unusually high Galactic latitude; if it belongs to the Galactic thick disk, we suggest a most likely distance <7 kpc. Compared with other black hole transients, MAXI J0637-430 is also unusual for other reasons: a fast transition to the thermal dominant state at the start of the outburst; a low peak temperature and luminosity (we estimate them at ~ 0.7 keV and <0.1 times Eddington, respectively); a short decline timescale; a low soft-to-hard transition luminosity (<0.01 times Eddington). We argue that such properties are consistent with a small binary separation, short binary period (P ~ 2 hr), and low-mass donor star (M2 ~ 0.2 M_sun). Moreover, spectral modelling shows that a single disk-blackbody component is not a good fit to the thermal emission. Soft spectral residuals, and deviations from the standard L_disk ~ T^4 in relation, suggest the need for a second thermal component. We propose and discuss various scenarios for such component, in addition to those presented in previous studies of this source. For example, a gap in the accretion disk between a hotter inner ring near the innermost stable orbit, and a cooler outer disk. Another possibility is that the second thermal component is the thermal plasma emission from an ionized outflow.