The background light produced by emission from all sources over cosmic history is a powerful diagnostic of structure formation and evolution. At near-infrared wavelengths, this extragalactic background light (EBL) is comprised of emission from galaxies stretching all the way back to the first-light objects present during the Epoch of Reionization. The Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment 2 (CIBER-2) is a sounding-rocket experiment designed to measure both the absolute photometric brightness of the EBL over 0.5 - 2.0 microns and perform an intensity mapping measurement of EBL spatial fluctuations in six broad bands over the same wavelength range. CIBER-2 comprises a 28.5 cm, 80K telescope that images several square degrees to three separate cameras. Each camera is equipped with an HAWAII-2RG detector covered by an assembly that combines two broadband filters and a linear-variable filter, which perform the intensity mapping and absolute photometric measurements, respectively. CIBER-2 has flown three times: an engineering flight in 2021; a terminated launch in 2023; and a successful science flight in 2024. In this paper, we review the science case for the experiment; describe the factors motivating the instrument design; review the optical, mechanical, and electronic implementation of the instrument; present preflight laboratory characterization measurements; and finally assess the instrument's performance in flight.

The holographic superconductor is the holographic dual of superconductivity, but there is no Meissner effect in the standard holographic superconductor. This is because the boundary Maxwell field is added as an external source and is not dynamical. We show the Meissner effect analytically by imposing the semiclassical Maxwell equation on the AdS boundary. Unlike in the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) theory, the extreme Type I limit cannot be reached even in the $e\to\infty$ limit where $e$ is the $U(1)$ coupling of the boundary Maxwell field. This is due to the bound current which is present even in the pure bulk Maxwell theory. In the bulk 5-dimensional case, the GL parameter and the dual GL theory are obtained analytically for the order parameter of scaling dimension 2.

Translating human intent into robot commands is crucial for the future of service robots in an aging society. Existing Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) systems relying on gestures or verbal commands are impractical for the elderly due to difficulties with complex syntax or sign language. To address the challenge, this paper introduces a multi-modal interaction framework that combines voice and deictic posture information to create a more natural HRI system. The visual cues are first processed by the object detection model to gain a global understanding of the environment, and then bounding boxes are estimated based on depth information. By using a large language model (LLM) with voice-to-text commands and temporally aligned selected bounding boxes, robot action sequences can be generated, while key control syntax constraints are applied to avoid potential LLM hallucination issues. The system is evaluated on real-world tasks with varying levels of complexity using a Universal Robots UR3e manipulator. Our method demonstrates significantly better performance in HRI in terms of accuracy and robustness. To benefit the research community and the general public, we will make our code and design open-source.

We study the essential renormalization group equation, in which inessential couplings are removed via field redefinitions, for Einstein gravity coupled to a massive scalar field in the presence of a cosmological constant. Our results indicate that perturbatively nonrenormalizable terms can be eliminated due to the cosmological term, in contrast to the case of perturbation around flat spacetime. We find a nontrivial fixed point for the Newton coupling and the cosmological term.

GREX-PLUS (Galaxy Reionization EXplorer and PLanetary Universe Spectrometer) is a mission candidate for a JAXA's strategic L-class mission to be launched in the 2030s. Its primary sciences are two-fold: galaxy formation and evolution and planetary system formation and evolution. The GREX-PLUS spacecraft will carry a 1.2 m primary mirror aperture telescope cooled down to 50 K. The two science instruments will be onboard: a wide-field camera in the 2-8 $\mu$m wavelength band and a high resolution spectrometer with a wavelength resolution of 30,000 in the 10-18 $\mu$m band. The GREX-PLUS wide-field camera aims to detect the first generation of galaxies at redshift $z>15$. The GREX-PLUS high resolution spectrometer aims to identify the location of the water ``snow line'' in proto-planetary disks. Both instruments will provide unique data sets for a broad range of scientific topics including galaxy mass assembly, origin of supermassive blackholes, infrared background radiation, molecular spectroscopy in the interstellar medium, transit spectroscopy for exoplanet atmosphere, planetary atmosphere in the Solar system, and so on.

Graphs are useful for representing various realworld objects. However, graph neural networks (GNNs) tend to suffer from over-smoothing, where the representations of nodes of different classes become similar as the number of layers increases, leading to performance degradation. A method that does not require protracted tuning of the number of layers is needed to effectively construct a graph attention network (GAT), a type of GNN. Therefore, we introduce a method called "DeepGAT" for predicting the class to which nodes belong in a deep GAT. It avoids over-smoothing in a GAT by ensuring that nodes in different classes are not similar at each layer. Using DeepGAT to predict class labels, a 15-layer network is constructed without the need to tune the number of layers. DeepGAT prevented over-smoothing and achieved a 15-layer GAT with similar performance to a 2-layer GAT, as indicated by the similar attention coefficients. DeepGAT enables the training of a large network to acquire similar attention coefficients to a network with few layers. It avoids the over-smoothing problem and obviates the need to tune the number of layers, thus saving time and enhancing GNN performance.

We investigate galaxy populations in the HS1700+64 protocluster at $z=2.30$, characterized by two prominent linear filaments traced by spatially extended Ly$\alpha$ blobs. We conducted a wide area mapping of emission line galaxies across the protocluster using the unique combination of three matched narrow-band filters, corresponding to Ly$\alpha$, H$\alpha$, and [OIII] emission lines at $z=2.30$. We find that H$\alpha$ emitters are strongly clustered at the intersection of the filaments, suggesting a protocluster core. In contrast, Ly$\alpha$ emitters tend to avoid the dense region and the filaments, likely due to the resonant scattering of Ly$\alpha$ photons by HII gas and/or enhanced dust attenuation in galaxies associated with these structures. These findings support a scenario in which cold gas flows via filaments and to the core, fed by the cold-stream mode accretion in the early phase of protocluster assembly, and promoting active star formation there. Further evidence of the scenario comes from the alignment of massive, evolved galaxies in those filaments traced by distant red galaxies, suggesting accelerated galaxy growth in the filaments in the early Universe. This study clearly shows observationally that accelerated galaxy formation takes place not only in the protocluster core but also in the associated surrounding filamentary structure. This underscores the critical role of large-scale filaments in efficiently accumulating the cold gas and channeling it to galaxies therein and to the protocluster core. Such vigorous gas assembly facilitates star formation activity and drives galaxy growth in the early stage of cluster formation.

The pole-skipping has been discussed in black hole backgrounds, but we point out that the pole-skipping exists even in a non-black-hole background, the AdS soliton. For black holes, the pole-skipping points are typically located at imaginary Matsubara frequencies $\omega=-(2\pi T)ni$ with an integer $n$. The AdS soliton is obtained by the double Wick rotation from a black hole. As a result, the pole-skipping points are located at $q_z=-(2\pi n)/l$, where $l$ is the $S^1$ periodicity and $q_z$ is the $S^1$ momentum. The ``chaotic" and the ``hydrodynamic" pole-skipping points lie in the physical region. We also propose a method to identify all pole-skipping points instead of the conventional method.

We investigate a new property of retarded Green's functions using AdS/CFT. The Green's functions are not unique at special points in complex momentum space. This arises because there is no unique incoming mode at the horizon and is similar to the "pole-skipping" phenomenon in holographic chaos. Our examples include the bulk scalar field, the bulk Maxwell vector and scalar modes, and the shear mode of gravitational perturbations. In these examples, the special points are always located at $\omega_\star = -i(2\pi T)$ with appropriate values of complex wave number.

Quantum escape of a particle via a time-dependent confining potential in a semi-infinite one-dimensional space is discussed. We describe the time-evolution of escape states in terms of scattering states of the quantum open system, and calculate the probability $P(t)$ for a particle to remain in the confined region at time $t$ in the case of a delta-function potential with a time-oscillating magnitude. The probability $P(t)$ decays exponentially in time at early times, then decays as a power later, along with a time-oscillation in itself. We show that a larger time-oscillation amplitude of the confining potential leads to a faster exponential decay of the probability $P(t)$, while it can rather enhance the probability $P(t)$ decaying as a power. These contrastive behaviors of the probability $P(t)$ in different types of decay are discussed quantitatively by using the decay time and the power decay magnitude of the probability $P(t)$.

We theoretically study the strain effects on the electronic properties of cobalt-based benzenehexathiol (CoBHT) coordination nanosheets using first-principles calculations. Two distinct crystal structures, high-density structure (HDS) and low-density structure (LDS), are explored. Our results reveal that HDS behaves as a metal, while LDS exhibits semiconducting. Spin-polarized electronic band structures highlight the presence of energy band structures of Kagome lattice, and the inclusion of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) results in band gap openings at high-symmetric K points. Furthermore, we construct the tight-binding model to investigate the topological properties of CoBHT, demonstrating anomalous Hall conductivity driven by the intrinsic Berry curvature. The impact of uniaxial strain on the electronic and magnetic properties of CoBHT is also studied. Strain induces significant modifications in magnetic moments and density of states, particularly in the HDS. Anomalous Hall conductivity is enhanced under hole-doping conditions, suggesting that strain can be used to tailor the electronic properties of CoBHT for specific applications. Our findings underscore the potential of CoBHT nanosheets for use in next-generation electronic, optoelectronic, and catalytic devices with tunable properties through strain engineering.

The outer solar system provides a unique, quiet vantage point from which to observe the universe around us, where measurements could enable several niche astrophysical science cases that are too difficult to perform near Earth. NASA's New Horizons mission comprises an instrument package that provides imaging capability from ultraviolet (UV) to near-infrared (near-IR) wavelengths with moderate spectral resolution located beyond the orbit of Pluto. A carefully designed survey with New Horizons can optimize the use of expendable propellant and the limited data telemetry bandwidth to allow several measurements, including a detailed understanding of the cosmic extragalactic background light; studies of the local and extragalactic UV background; measurements of the properties of dust and ice in the outer solar system; confirmation and characterization of transiting exoplanets; determinations of the mass of dark objects using gravitational microlensing; and rapid follow-up of transient events. New Horizons is currently in an extended mission designed to focus on Kuiper Belt science that will conclude in 2021. The astrophysics community has a unique, generational opportunity to use this mission for astronomical observation at heliocentric distances beyond 50 au in the next decade. In this paper, we discuss the potential science cases for such an extended mission, and provide an initial assessment of the most important operational requirements and observation strategies it would require. We conclude that New Horizons is capable of transformative science, and that it would make a valuable and unique asset for astrophysical science that is unlikely to be replicated in the near future.

We theoretically study the strain effects on the electronic properties of cobalt-based benzenehexathiol (CoBHT) coordination nanosheets using first-principles calculations. Two distinct crystal structures, high-density structure (HDS) and low-density structure (LDS), are explored. Our results reveal that HDS behaves as a metal, while LDS exhibits semiconducting. Spin-polarized electronic band structures highlight the presence of energy band structures of Kagome lattice, and the inclusion of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) results in band gap openings at high-symmetric K points. Furthermore, we construct the tight-binding model to investigate the topological properties of CoBHT, demonstrating anomalous Hall conductivity driven by the intrinsic Berry curvature. The impact of uniaxial strain on the electronic and magnetic properties of CoBHT is also studied. Strain induces significant modifications in magnetic moments and density of states, particularly in the HDS. Anomalous Hall conductivity is enhanced under hole-doping conditions, suggesting that strain can be used to tailor the electronic properties of CoBHT for specific applications. Our findings underscore the potential of CoBHT nanosheets for use in next-generation electronic, optoelectronic, and catalytic devices with tunable properties through strain engineering.

This paper considers the solution structure of non-trivial, non-constant stationary states of 1D spatial parabolic equations with nonlinear self-diffusion and logistic growth terms. A two-dimensional ordinary differential equation satisfying the stationary problem is derived and all its dynamics, including to infinity, is revealed by the Poincaré-Lyapunov compactification, one of the compactifications of phase space. The advantage of this method is that it can be used to classify all dynamical systems (especially connecting orbits) of a two-dimensional system including infinity. Therefore, the classification results for the dynamical system including to infinity give the classification results for the non-constant stationary states obtained only from the structure of the original equations. This argument allows us to observe a change in the classification of the non-constant stationary states by an explicit relation between the linear diffusion coefficient and the self-diffusion coefficient, combined with arguments about the symmetries and conserved quantities of the ODEs. This means that changing the self-diffusion coefficient as a bifurcation parameter not only qualitatively changes the dynamical system from a big saddle homoclinic orbit of the ODEs to a heteroclinic orbit that connects the saddle equilibria, but also significantly changes the shape and the properties of the stationary states. It explicitly shows the relationship between linear and self-diffusion, gives a characterization of non-trivial stationary states in terms of dynamical systems, and gives a deep insight into the influence of self-diffusion, one of the nonlinear diffusions.

This paper demonstrates a cryogenic deformable mirror (DM) with 1,020 actuators based on micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Cryogenic space-borne infrared telescopes can experience a wavefront error due to a figure error of their mirror surface, which makes the imaging performance worse. For on-orbit wavefront correction as one solution, we developed a MEMS-processed electro-static DM with a special surrounding structure for use under the cryogenic temperature. We conducted a laboratory demonstration of its operation in three cooling cycles between 5 K and 295 K. Using a laser interferometer, we detected the deformation corresponding to the applied voltages under the cryogenic temperature for the first time. The relationship between voltages and displacements was qualitatively expressed by the quadratic function, which is assumed based on the principle of electro-static DMs. We also found that it had a high operating repeatability of a few nm RMS and no significant hysteresis. Using the measured values of repeatability, we simulated the improvement of PSF by wavefront correction with our DM. These results show that our developed DM is effective in improving imaging performance and PSF contrast of space-borne infrared telescopes.

Astrophysical measurements away from the 1 AU orbit of Earth can enable several astrophysical science cases that are challenging or impossible to perform from Earthbound platforms, including: building a detailed understanding of the extragalactic background light throughout the electromagnetic spectrum; measurements of the properties of dust and ice in the inner and outer solar system; determinations of the mass of planets and stellar remnants far from luminous stars using gravitational microlensing; and stable time-domain astronomy. Though potentially transformative for astrophysics, opportunities to fly instrumentation capable of these measurements are rare, and a mission to the distant solar system that includes instrumentation expressly designed to perform astrophysical science, or even one primarily for a different purpose but capable of precise astronomical investigation, has not yet been flown. In this White Paper, we describe the science motivations for this kind of measurement, and advocate for future flight opportunities that permit intersectional collaboration and cooperation to make these science investigations a reality.

We report the radiation hardness of a p-channel CCD developed for the X-ray CCD camera onboard the XRISM satellite. This CCD has basically the same characteristics as the one used in the previous Hitomi satellite, but newly employs a notch structure of potential for signal charges by increasing the implant concentration in the channel. The new device was exposed up to approximately $7.9 \times 10^{10} \mathrm{~protons~cm^{-2}}$ at 100 MeV. The charge transfer inefficiency was estimated as a function of proton fluence with an ${}^{55} \mathrm{Fe}$ source. A device without the notch structure was also examined for comparison. The result shows that the notch device has a significantly higher radiation hardness than those without the notch structure including the device adopted for Hitomi. This proves that the new CCD is radiation tolerant for space applications with a sufficient margin.

In this paper, we address the challenge of discovering hidden nodes in unknown social networks, formulating three types of hidden-node discovery problems, namely, Sybil-node discovery, peripheral-node discovery, and influencer discovery. We tackle these problems by employing a graph exploration framework grounded in machine learning. Leveraging the structure of the subgraph gradually obtained from graph exploration, we construct prediction models to identify target hidden nodes in unknown social graphs. Through empirical investigations of real social graphs, we investigate the efficiency of graph exploration strategies in uncovering hidden nodes. Our results show that our graph exploration strategies discover hidden nodes with an efficiency comparable to that when the graph structure is known. Specifically, the query cost of discovering 10% of the hidden nodes is at most only 1.2 times that when the topology is known, and the query-cost multiplier for discovering 90% of the hidden nodes is at most only 1.4. Furthermore, our results suggest that using node embeddings, which are low-dimensional vector representations of nodes, for hidden-node discovery is a double-edged sword: it is effective in certain scenarios but sometimes degrades the efficiency of node discovery. Guided by this observation, we examine the effectiveness of using a bandit algorithm to combine the prediction models that use node embeddings with those that do not, and our analysis shows that the bandit-based graph exploration strategy achieves efficient node discovery across a wide array of settings.