This work explores the constriction and normal Josephson junctions of superconductors within Horndeski's gravitational theory framework. Through a single scalar field of this theory, we provide a dual holographic description via the AdS/BCFT correspondence. We identify a critical temperature below which a charged condensate forms through a second-order phase transition in constriction and normal junctions. Our findings reveal that the condensate comprises pairs of quasiparticles. The junctions between superconductors are characterized by weak links that lead to supercurrent flow, with their magnitude determined by the phase difference between the superconductors, which is modulated by the Horndeski parameters. This supercurrent is governed by the Josephson current-phase relation, highlighting the intricate interplay between gravitational theory and superconducting phenomena.

We derive and analyze a Schwarzschild-like Anti-de Sitter (AdS) black hole (BH) obtained as a static, spherically symmetric solution of Einstein's equations sourced by a cloud of strings (CoS) and a dark matter (DM) halo modeled by a Dehnen-type density profile. We first study the geodesic motion of massless and massive test particles, emphasizing how the CoS parameter $\alpha$ and the DM halo parameters $(\rho_s, r_s)$ influence photon spheres, circular orbits, the BH shadow, and the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO). We then examine scalar perturbations via the effective potential and the associated quasinormal-mode (QNM) spectra, showing how $\alpha$ and $(\rho_s, r_s)$ deform oscillation frequencies and damping rates, thereby affecting stability diagnostics. Furthermore, we investigate the thermodynamics in the extended phase space, deriving the Hawking temperature, equation of state, Gibbs free energy, and specific heat capacity, and establishing a consistent first law and Smarr relation with natural work terms for $\alpha$ and $(\rho_s, r_s)$. We find that the interplay between the CoS and the DM halo produces quantitative and sometimes qualitative changes in both dynamical and thermodynamical properties, including shifts of the Hawking--Page transition and heat-capacity divergences, thus reshaping the phase structure of Schwarzschild--AdS BHs.

We investigate entanglement islands and the Page curve in the framework of Horndeski gravity on a Karch-Randall braneworld background. In particular, treating the holographic boundary conformal field theory analytically we find that the Horndeski parameters significantly alter the behavior of the Page curve compared to standard general relativity, a feature caused by the nontrivial geometry induced by the Horndeski scalar field. Interestingly enough, the geometry far from the AdS limit plays a more significant role compared to previous studies. This suggests that Horndeski gravity introduces important modifications to the distribution of quantum information in the holographic model. Finally, we claim that holographic consistency can be used reversely to impose constraints on Horndeski gravity itself, providing a new tool for probing the validity of modified gravity theories.

This work explores the black hole information loss paradox, a fundamental challenge in theoretical physics. It proposes insights using Holographic Entanglement Entropy (HEE) and the AdS/BCFT correspondence within Horndeski gravity. The work revisits the time-dependent behavior of HEE to probe black hole interiors and examines its implications for the Page curve, which describes the entropy evolution of Hawking radiation. It also discusses the relationship between conformal field theory (CFT) microstates and black hole thermodynamics through the AdS/BCFT correspondence, suggesting that only a subset of microstates corresponds to black holes with smooth interiors, while others may involve firewalls. The study extends black hole thermal entropy to time-dependent entanglement entropy, offering a perspective on the interplay between quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and gravity.

This work investigates the connection between quantum complexity and gravitational dynamics within the framework of Horndeski gravity, extending the AdS/BCFT correspondence to include scalar-tensor interactions. By refining the ``$complexity = action$'' conjecture we investigate how Horndeski gravity modifies the Wheeler-DeWitt patch and the causal structure of the black hole. Our analysis reveals that the linear growth of complexity, proportional to the product of black hole entropy and temperature, remains valid across various black hole configurations, including those of rotating and charged black holes. Moreover we study the impact of shock waves on the growth of complexity, which shows the appearance of the ``switchback effect''. These results show the universality of the complexity = action conjecture and its validity in modified gravitational theories.

We develop a unified, single-scale description of thermodynamics and quantum oscillations in electronic systems with a uniform areal density of screw dislocations under a uniform magnetic field. A single tunable gap, $\hbar|\omega_{eff}|$ with $\omega_{eff}=\omega_{c}+\omega_{cl}$, organizes all equilibrium observables obtained from a compact harmonic-oscillator partition function: free energy, internal energy, entropy, heat capacity, magnetization, magnetic susceptibility, and magnetocaloric responses collapse onto universal hyperbolic kernels in $x=\hbar|\omega_{eff}|/(2k_{B}T)$. We identify a compensated-field regime where the transverse gap closes and the heat capacity reaches an equipartition plateau, providing a sharp signature of magnetoelastic interference. In transport and torque, the same scale rigidly shifts the Hall fan and compresses the $1/B$ period of de Haas-van Alphen and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations when expressed in $1/B_{eff}$, enabling a phase-unwarping protocol that metrologizes the dislocation density from a single field sweep. In mesoscopic samples, boundary corrections to the Landau degeneracy generate finite-size calorimetric oscillations that diagnose the effective magnetic length. Moderate disorder and weak interactions preserve the kernel structure while smoothing amplitudes. We outline an experimental roadmap combining on-chip calorimetry, torque magnetometry, and transport, and discuss device-level opportunities in caloritronics and strain engineering, magnetocaloric microcooling, magnetoelastic heat switching, and dilatometric transduction, where the single scale $\hbar|\omega_{eff}|$ enables rational design and optimization.

We have obtained an exact vacuum solution from a gravity sector contained in the minimal standard-model extension. The theoretical model assumes a Riemann spacetime coupled to the bumblebee field which is responsible for the spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking. The solution achieved in a static and spherically symmetric scenario establishes a Schwarzschild-like black hole. In order to study the effects of the spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking, we have investigated some classics tests including the advance of the perihelion, bending of light and Shapiro's time-delay. Furthermore, we have computed some upper-bounds from which the most stringent one attains a sensitivity at the $10^{-13}$ level.

We present a class of generalized entropic quantum speed limits based on $\alpha$-$z$-Rényi relative entropy, a real-valued, contractive, two-parameter family of distinguishability measures. The quantum speed limit (QSL) falls into the class of Mandelstam-Tamm bounds, and applies to finite-dimensional quantum systems that undergo a general physical process, i.e., their effective dynamics can be modeled by unitary or nonunitary evolutions. The results cover pure or mixed, separable, and entangled probe quantum states. The QSL time depends on the smallest and largest eigenvalues of the probe and instantaneous states of the system, and its evaluation requires low computational cost. In addition, it is inversely proportional to the time-average of the Schatten speed of the instantaneous state, which in turn is fully characterized by the considered dynamics. We specialize our results to the case of unitary and nonunitary evolutions. In the former case, the QSL scales with the inverse of the energy fluctuations, while the latter depends on the Schatten $1$-norm of the rate of change of the quantum channel Kraus operators. We illustrate our findings for single-qubit and two-qubit states, and unitary and nonunitary evolutions. Our results may find applications in the study of entropic uncertainty relations, quantum metrology, and also entanglement entropies signaled by generalized entropies.

It has been shown recently that quark-hadron conversions at the interface of a hybrid star may have a key role on the dynamic stability of the compact object. In this work we perform a systematic study of hybrid stars with reactive interfaces using a model-agnostic piecewise-polytropic hadronic equation of state and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model for three-flavor quark matter. For the hadronic phase we use a soft, an intermediate and a stiff parametrization that match at $1.1 n_0$ {with predictions} based on chiral effective field theory (cEFT) interactions. In the NJL Lagrangian we include scalar, vector and 't Hooft interactions. The vector coupling constant $g_{v}$ is treated as a free parameter. We also consider that there is a split between the deconfinement and the chiral phase transitions which is controlled by changing the conventional value of the vacuum pressure $-\Omega_{0}$ in the NJL thermodynamic potential by $-\left(\Omega_{0}+\delta \Omega_{0}\right)$, being $\delta \Omega_{0}$ a free parameter. We analyze the mass-radius ($M$-$R$) relation in the case of rapid ($\tau \ll 1 \, \mathrm{ms}$) and slow ($\tau \gg 1 \, \mathrm{ms}$) conversions, being $\tau$ the reaction timescale. In the case of slow interface reactions we find $M$-$R$ curves with a cusp at the maximum mass point where a pure hadronic branch and a slow-stable hybrid star (SSHS) branch coincide. We find that the length of the slow-stable branch grows with the increase of the transition density and the energy density jump at the hadron-quark interface. We calculate the tidal deformabilities of SSHSs and analyse them in the light of the GW170817 event.

We discuss quantum speed limits (QSLs) for finite-dimensional quantum systems undergoing a general physical process. These QSLs were obtained using two families of entropic measures, namely the square root of the Jensen-Shannon divergence, which in turn defines a faithful distance of quantum states, and the square root of the quantum Jeffreys divergence. The results apply to both closed and open quantum systems, and are evaluated in terms of the Schatten speed of the evolved state, as well as cost functions that depend on the smallest and largest eigenvalues of both initial and instantaneous states of the quantum system. To illustrate our findings, we focus on the unitary and nonunitary dynamics of mixed single-qubit states. In the first case, we obtain speed limits $\textit{à la}$ Mandelstam-Tamm that are inversely proportional to the variance of the Hamiltonian driving the evolution. In the second case, we set the nonunitary dynamics to be described by the noisy operations: depolarizing channel, phase damping channel, and generalized amplitude damping channel. We provide analytical results for the two entropic measures, present numerical simulations to support our results on the speed limits, comment on the tightness of the bounds, and provide a comparison with previous QSLs. Our results may find applications in the study of quantum thermodynamics, entropic uncertainty relations, and also complexity of many-body systems.

In this work, we use the thin-layer quantization procedure to study the physical implications due to curvature effects on a quantum dot in the presence of an external magnetic field. Among the various physical implications due to the curvature of the system, we can mention the absence of the $m=0$ state is the most relevant one. The absence of it affects the Fermi energy and consequently the thermodynamic properties of the system. In the absence of magnetic fields, we verify that the rotational symmetry in the lateral confinement is preserved in the electronic states of the system and its degeneracy with respect to the harmonicity of the confining potential is broken. In the presence of a magnetic field, however, the energies of the electronic states in a quantum dot with a curvature are greater than those obtained for a quantum dot in a flat space, and the profile of degeneracy changes when the field is varied. We show that the curvature of the surface modifies the number of subbands occupied in the Fermi energy. In the study of both magnetization and persistent currents, we observe that Aharonov-Bohm-type (AB-type) oscillations are present, whereas de Haas-van Alphen-type (dHvA) oscillations are not well defined.

The quasar sample of the fourteenth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV DR14) is used to determine the cosmic homogeneity scale in the redshift range $0.80

We study quasinormal modes and echoes of symmetric and asymmetric black bounce solutions generated by anisotropic fluids within the framework of general relativity. We derive the effective potential governing massless scalar fields and compute the corresponding quasinormal mode spectra using three independent methods: sixth-order WKB, Pöschl-Teller and time-domain evolution. Our results show that symmetric black bounce configurations with horizons yield a standard single-barrier potential, while horizonless solutions may exhibit multiple potential barriers that generate gravitational wave echoes. These echoes are sensitive to model parameters such as the fluid energy density and the regularizing parameter $a$ that defines the minimal $2$-sphere. The asymmetric models considered recover the Reissner-Nordström solution in their external region but can be bounded or unbounded in the inside, depending on the sign of a parameter. Both cases have similar qualitative properties as far as wave emission is concerned but show no echoes. This makes it very difficult to distinguish them from standard Reissner-Nordström configurations.

We have investigated the temperature-dependent Raman-active phonons and the magnetic properties of Gd(Co1/2Mn1/2)O3 perovskite ceramics in the temperature range from 40 K to 300 K. The samples crystallized in an orthorhombic distorted simple perovskite, whose symmetry belongs to the Pnma space group. The data reveals spin-phonon coupling near the ferromagnetic transition occurring at around 120 K. The correlation of the Raman and magnetization data suggests that the structural order influences the magnitude of the spin-phonon coupling.

In this paper, we derive the general leading-order classical Lagrangian covering all fermion operators of the nonminimal Standard-Model Extension (SME). Such a Lagrangian is considered to be the point-particle analog of the effective field theory description of Lorentz violation that is provided by the SME. First of all, a suitable Ansatz is made for the Lagrangian of the spin-degenerate operators $\hat{a}$, $\hat{c}$, $\hat{e}$, and $\hat{f}$ at leading order in Lorentz violation. The latter is shown to satisfy the set of five nonlinear equations that govern the map from the field theory to the classical description. After doing so, the second step is to propose results for the spin-nondegenerate operators $\hat{b}$, $\hat{d}$, $\hat{H}$, and $\hat{g}$. Although these are more involved than the Lagrangians for the spin-degenerate ones, an analytical proof of their validity is viable, nevertheless. The final step is to combine both findings to produce a generic Lagrangian for the complete set of Lorentz-violating operators that is consistent with the known minimal and nonminimal Lagrangians found in the literature so far. The outcome reveals the leading-order structure of the classical SME analog. It can be of use for both phenomenological studies of classical bodies in gravitational fields and conceptual work on explicit Lorentz violation in gravity. Furthermore, there may be a possible connection to Finsler geometry.

Self-consistent solutions in Lorentz-violating gravity theories require the simultaneous satisfaction of: (i) the corresponding Einstein field equations, (ii) the matter field equations, and (iii) the Lorentz-violating field equations. In vacuum states, the dynamics of Lorentz-violating tensor fields may reduce to geometric constraints, potentially precluding entire classes of compact objects. These constraints are crucial for ensuring physical consistency in Lorentz-violating frameworks, as they eliminate metric families incompatible with the anisotropies induced by spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking. We investigate the criteria governing the emergence of these geometric constraints and analyze their consequences. Our analysis establishes a consistency framework for evaluating compact objects in these theories, demonstrating that several previously reported solutions in Lorentz-violating gravity models are physically inadmissible.

In relativistic mechanics, the 4-velocity and the 4-momentum need not be parallel. This allows their norm to have a different sign. This possibility occurs in nonlinear electrodynamics (NED) models minimally coupled to Einstein's theory. Surprisingly, for a large class of NED models with a Maxwell limit, for weak fields, the causal (acausal) photons, as determined by their 4-velocity, have a spacelike (timelike) 4-momentum, leading to good tachyons and bad bradyons. Departing from weak fields, this possibility is determined solely by the concavity of the NED Lagrangian, which is consistent with the Dominant Energy Condition analysis. As a corollary, some popular regular black hole solutions sourced by NED, such as the Bardeen and Hayward solutions, are acausal.

We investigate the existence of compact self-dual solitons in the restricted gauged baby Skyrme model in the presence of a magnetic impurity. The consistent implementation of the Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) formalism depends on the relative size between the compacton and the impurity. To address this, we analyze the following scenarios: in the first, the impurity is entirely inside the compacton, and in the second, the impurity fully encircles the compacton. In both cases, the approach has enabled us to set the self-dual potential, achieve the Bogomol'ny bound for the energy, and establish the self-dual or BPS equations whose solutions saturate such a bound. We next focused on obtaining radially symmetric compactons, where for such an aim, we chose two types of functions to solve the BPS system: the first defining a step-type impurity and the second a Gaussian impurity. After solving the BPS system numerically, we depicted the resulting field profiles and highlighted the effects induced on the compacton's size, field profiles, magnetic field, and magnetic flux.

Magnetoelectric (ME) materials displaying strong magnetically induced polarization have attracted considerable interest due to their potential applications in spintronics and various fast electrically controlled magnetic devices. CaMn$_7$O$_{12}$ (CMO) stands out for its giant spin-induced ferroelectric polarization. However, the origin of the induced electric polarization in CMO remains highly controversial and continues to be a subject of ongoing debate. In this paper, through room temperature X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility, and thermally stimulated depolarizing current (TSDC) measurements, we provide experimental evidence for a route to tune the magnetically induced polarization by modifying the exchange-striction in CMO via Sr-doping. Our findings demonstrate that the large and broad current peaks observed near the first magnetic phase transition ($T_N1 \sim 90$ K) indicate contributions to the TSDC density from both extrinsic thermally stimulated depolarization processes and intrinsic pyroelectric current arising from magnetically induced polarization changes. We suggest that this reduction in induced electric polarization in CMO originates from the increase in the Mn$^{3+}$ -- O -- Mn$^{4+}$ bond angle due to Sr$^{2+}$ doping, weakening the exchange-striction interaction. Meanwhile, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) effect determines the direction of the induced electric polarization. Our result sheds light on understanding the intriguing giant-induced polarization in CMO and similar compounds with complex magnetic structures.