Quantum coherence is a key resource underpinning quantum technologies, yet it is highly susceptible to environmental decoherence, especially in thermal settings. While frequency modulation (FM) has shown promise in preserving coherence at zero temperature, its effectiveness in realistic, noisy thermal environments remains unclear. In this work, we investigate a single frequency-modulated qubit interacting with a thermal phase-covariant reservoir composed of dissipative and dephasing channels. We demonstrate that FM significantly preserves coherence in the presence of thermal dissipation while being ineffective under thermal pure-dephasing noise due to commutation between system and interaction Hamiltonians. When both noise channels are present, FM offers protection only for weak dephasing coupling. Our findings clarify the limitations and potential of FM-based coherence protection under thermal noise, supplying practical insights into designing robust quantum systems for quantum applications.

Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) is the next-generation ground-based gamma-ray observatory operating in the energy range from 20 GeV up to 300 TeV, with two sites in La Palma (Spain) and Paranal (Chile). It will consist of telescopes of three sizes, covering different parts of the large energy range. We report on the performance of Large-Sized Telescope prototype (LST-1) in the detection and characterization of extragalactic gamma-ray sources, with a focus on the reconstructed gamma-ray spectra and variability of classical bright BL Lacertae objects, which were observed during the early commissioning phase of the instrument. LST-1 data from known bright gamma-ray blazars - Markarian 421, Markarian 501, 1ES 1959+650, 1ES 0647+250, and PG 1553+113 - were collected between July 10, 2020, and May 23, 2022, covering a zenith angle range of 4 deg to 57 deg. The reconstructed light curves were analyzed using a Bayesian block algorithm to distinguish the different activity phases of each blazar. Simultaneous Fermi-LAT data were utilized to reconstruct the broadband $\gamma$-ray spectra for the sources during each activity phase. High-level reconstructed data in a format compatible with gammapy are provided together with measured light curves and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for several bright blazars and an interpretation of the observed variability in long and short timescales. Simulations of historical flares are generated to evaluate the sensitivity of LST-1. This work represents the first milestone in monitoring bright BL Lacertae objects with a CTAO telescope.

Two coupled two-level systems placed under external time-dependent magnetic fields are modeled by a general Hamiltonian endowed with a symmetry that enables us to reduce the total dynamics into two independent two-dimensional sub-dynamics. Each of the sub-dynamics is shown to be brought into an exactly solvable form by appropriately engineering the magnetic fields and thus we obtain an exact time evolution of the compound system. Several physically relevant and interesting quantities are evaluated exactly to disclose intriguing phenomena in such a system.

Non-Hermitian systems with parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry and anti-$\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry give rise to exceptional points (EPs) with intriguing properties related to, e.g., chiral transport and enhanced sensitivity, due to the coalescence of eigenvectors. In this paper, we propose a powerful and easily computable tool, based on the Hilbert-Schmidt speed (HSS), which does not require the diagonalization of the evolved density matrix, to detect exactly the EPs and hence the critical behavior of the (anti-)$\mathcal{PT}\!-$symmetric systems, especially high-dimensional ones. Our theoretical predictions, made without the need for modification of the Hilbert space, which is performed by diagonalizing one of the observables, are completely consistent with results extracted from recent experiments studying the criticality in (anti-)$\mathcal{PT}\!-$symmetric systems. Nevertheless, not modifying the Hilbert space of the non-Hermitian system, we find that the trace distance, a measure of distinguishability of two arbitrary quantum states, whose dynamics is known as a faithful witness of non-Markovianity in Hermitian systems, may be non-contractive under the non-Hermitian evolution of the system. Therefore, it lacks one of the most important characteristics which must be met by any standard witness of non-Markovianity.

We provide a general framework which allows one to obtain the dynamics of $N$ noninteracting spatially indistinguishable particles locally coupled to separated environments. The approach is universal, being valid for both bosons and fermions and for any type of system-environment interaction. It is then applied to study the dynamics of two identical qubits under paradigmatic Markovian noises, such as phase damping, depolarizing and amplitude damping. We find that spatial indistinguishability of identical qubits is a controllable intrinsic property of the system which protects quantum entanglement against detrimental noise.

We consider state of the art applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in modelling human financial expectations and explore the potential of quantum logic to drive future advancements in this field. This analysis highlights the application of machine learning techniques, including reinforcement learning and deep neural networks, in financial statement analysis, algorithmic trading, portfolio management, and robo-advisory services. We further discuss the emergence and progress of quantum machine learning (QML) and advocate for broader exploration of the advantages provided by quantum-inspired neural networks.

We describe a search for gravitational waves from compact binaries with at least one component with mass 0.2 $M_\odot$ -- $1.0 M_\odot$ and mass ratio $q \geq 0.1$ in Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo data collected between 1 November 2019, 15:00 UTC and 27 March 2020, 17:00 UTC. No signals were detected. The most significant candidate has a false alarm rate of 0.2 $\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. We estimate the sensitivity of our search over the entirety of Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run, and present the most stringent limits to date on the merger rate of binary black holes with at least one subsolar-mass component. We use the upper limits to constrain two fiducial scenarios that could produce subsolar-mass black holes: primordial black holes (PBH) and a model of dissipative dark matter. The PBH model uses recent prescriptions for the merger rate of PBH binaries that include a rate suppression factor to effectively account for PBH early binary disruptions. If the PBHs are monochromatically distributed, we can exclude a dark matter fraction in PBHs $f_\mathrm{PBH} \gtrsim 0.6$ (at 90% confidence) in the probed subsolar-mass range. However, if we allow for broad PBH mass distributions we are unable to rule out $f_\mathrm{PBH} = 1$. For the dissipative model, where the dark matter has chemistry that allows a small fraction to cool and collapse into black holes, we find an upper bound f_{\mathrm{DBH}} < 10^{-5} on the fraction of atomic dark matter collapsed into black holes.

In the last years many studies examined the consistency of students' answers in a variety of contexts. Some of these papers tried to develop more detailed models of the consistency of students' reasoning, or to subdivide a sample of students into intellectually similar subgroups. The problem of taking a set of data and separating it into subgroups where the elements of each subgroup are more similar to each other than they are to elements not in the subgroup has been extensively studied through the methods of Cluster Analysis. This method can separate students into groups that can be recognized and characterized by common traits in their answers, without any prior knowledge of what form those groups would take (unbiased classification). In this paper we start from a detailed analysis of the data coding needed in Cluster Analysis, in order to discuss the meaning and the limits of the interpretation of quantitative results. Then two methods commonly used in Cluster Analysis are described and the variables and parameters involved are outlined and criticized. Section III deals with the application of these methods to the analysis of data from an open-ended questionnaire administered to a sample of university students, and the quantitative results are discussed. Finally, the quantitative results are related to student answers and compared with previous results reported in the literature, by pointing out the new insights resulting from the application of such new methods.

We introduce and study some special classes of ladder operators in finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In particular we consider a truncated version of quons, their {\em psudo-}version, and a third family of operators acting on a closed chain. In this latter situation, we discuss the existence of what could be considered {\em discrete coherent states}, as suitable eigenvectors of the annihilation operator of the chain. We see that, under reasonable assumptions, a resolution of the identity can be recovered, involving these states, together with a biorthogonal family of vectors, which turn out to be eigenstates of the raising operator of the chain.

Initialization of composite quantum systems into highly entangled states is usually a must to allow their use for quantum technologies. However, the presence of unavoidable noise in the preparation stage makes the system state mixed, thus limiting the possibility of achieving this goal. Here we address this problem in the context of identical particle systems. We define the entanglement of formation for an arbitrary state of two identical qubits within the operational framework of spatially localized operations and classical communication (sLOCC). We then introduce an entropic measure of spatial indistinguishability under sLOCC as an information resource. We show that spatial indistinguishability, even partial, may shield entanglement from noise, guaranteeing Bell inequality violations. These results prove the fundamental role of particle identity as a control for efficient noise-protected entanglement generation.

We aim to investigate the presence of signatures of magnetic cycles and rotation on a sample of 71 early M-dwarfs from the HADES RV programme using high-resolution time-series spectroscopy of the Ca II H & K and Halpha chromospheric activity indicators, the radial velocity series, the parameters of the cross correlation function and the V-band photometry. We used mainly HARPS-N spectra, acquired over four years, and add HARPS spectra from the public ESO database and ASAS photometry light-curves as support data, extending the baseline of the observations of some stars up to 12 years. We provide log(R'hk) measurements for all the stars in the sample, cycle length measurements for 13 stars, rotation periods for 33 stars and we are able to measure the semi-amplitude of the radial velocity signal induced by rotation in 16 stars. We complement our work with previous results and confirm and refine the previously reported relationships between the mean level of chromospheric emission, measured by the log(R'hk), with the rotation period, and with the measured semi-amplitude of the activity induced radial velocity signal for early M-dwarfs. We searched for a possible relation between the measured rotation periods and the lengths of the magnetic cycle, finding a weak correlation between both quantities. Using previous v sin i measurements we estimated the inclinations of the star's poles to the line of sight for all the stars in the sample, and estimate the range of masses of the planets GJ 3998 b and c (2.5 - 4.9 Mearth and 6.3 - 12.5 Mearth), GJ 625 b (2.82 Mearth), GJ 3942 b (7.1 - 10.0 Mearth) and GJ 15A b (3.1 - 3.3 Mearth), assuming their orbits are coplanar with the stellar rotation.

We present a weighted estimator of the covariance and correlation in bipartite complex systems with a double layer of heterogeneity. The advantage provided by the weighted estimators lies in the fact that the unweighted sample covariance and correlation can be shown to possess a bias. Indeed, such a bias affects real bipartite systems, and, for example, we report its effects on two empirical systems, one social and the other biological. On the contrary, our newly proposed weighted estimators remove the bias and are better suited to describe such systems.

Here we discuss a particle-based approach to deal with systems of many identical quantum objects (particles) which never employs labels to mark them. We show that it avoids both methodological problems and drawbacks in the study of quantum correlations associated to the standard quantum mechanical treatment of identical particles. The core of this approach is represented by the multiparticle probability amplitude whose structure in terms of single-particle amplitudes we here derive by first principles. To characterise entanglement among the identical particles, this new method utilises the same notions, such as partial trace, adopted for nonidentical ones. We highlight the connection between our approach and second quantization. We also define spin-exchanged multipartite states (SPES) which contain a generalisation of W states to identical particles. We prove that their spatial overlap plays a role on the distributed entanglement within multipartite systems and is responsible for the appearance of nonlocal quantum correlations.

Network motifs are recurrent, small-scale patterns of interactions observed frequently in a system. They shed light on the interplay between the topology and the dynamics of complex networks across various domains. In this work, we focus on the problem of counting occurrences of small sub-hypergraph patterns in very large hypergraphs, where higher-order interactions connect arbitrary numbers of system units. We show how directly exploiting higher-order structures speeds up the counting process compared to traditional data mining techniques for exact motif discovery. Moreover, with hyperedge sampling, performance is further improved at the cost of small errors in the estimation of motif frequency. We evaluate our method on several real-world datasets describing face-to-face interactions, co-authorship and human communication. We show that our approximated algorithm allows us to extract higher-order motifs faster and on a larger scale, beyond the computational limits of an exact approach.

We derive the master equation of a system of two coupled qubits by taking into account their interaction with two independent bosonic baths. Important features of the dynamics are brought to light, such as the structure of the stationary state at general temperatures and the behaviour of the entanglement at zero temperature, showing the phenomena of sudden death and sudden birth as well as the presence of stationary entanglement for long times. The model here presented is quite versatile and can be of interest in the study of both Josephson junction architectures and cavity-QED.

M dwarfs are prime targets for planet search programs, particularly of those focused on the detection and characterization of rocky planets in the habitable zone. Understanding their magnetic activity is important because it affects our ability to detect small planets, and it plays a key role in the characterization of the stellar environment. We analyze observations of the Ca II H&K and H{\alpha} lines as diagnostics of chromospheric activity for low-activity early-type M dwarfs. We analyze the time series of spectra of 71 early-type M dwarfs collected for the HADES project for planet search purposes. The HARPS-N spectra provide simultaneously the H&K doublet and the H{\alpha} line. We develop a reduction scheme able to correct the HARPS-N spectra for instrumental and atmospheric effects, and to provide flux-calibrated spectra in units of flux at the stellar surface. The H&K and H{\alpha} fluxes are compared with each other, and their variability is analyzed. We find that the H and K flux excesses are strongly correlated with each other, while the H{\alpha} flux excess is generally less correlated with the H&K doublet. We also find that H{\alpha} emission does not increase monotonically with the H&K line flux, showing some absorption before being filled in by chromospheric emission when H&K activity increases. Analyzing the time variability of the emission fluxes, we derive a tentative estimate of the rotation period (of the order of a few tens of days) for some of the program stars, and the typical lifetime of chromospheric active regions (a few stellar rotations). Our results are in good agreement with previous studies. In particular, we find evidence that the chromospheres of early-type M dwarfs could be characterized by different filaments coverage, affecting the formation mechanism of the H{\alpha} line. We also show that chromospheric structure is likely related to spectral type.

The interbank market has a natural multiplex network representation. We employ a unique database of supervisory reports of Italian banks to the Banca d'Italia that includes all bilateral exposures broken down by maturity and by the secured and unsecured nature of the contract. We find that layers have different topological properties and persistence over time. The presence of a link in a layer is not a good predictor of the presence of the same link in other layers. Maximum entropy models reveal different unexpected substructures, such as network motifs, in different layers. Using the total interbank network or focusing on a specific layer as representative of the other layers provides a poor representation of interlinkages in the interbank market and could lead to biased estimation of systemic risk.

We present the results of a 73 ks long Chandra observation of the dipping source X 1624-490. During the observation a complex dip lasting 4 hours is observed. We analyse the persistent emission detecting, for the first time in the 1st-order spectra of X 1624-490, an absorption line associated to \ion{Ca}{xx}. We confirm the presence of the \ion{Fe}{xxv} K$_\alpha$ and \ion{Fe}{xxvi} K$_\alpha$ absorption lines with a larger accuracy with respect to a previous XMM observation. Assuming that the line widths are due to a bulk motion or a turbulence associated to the coronal activity, we estimate that the lines have been produced in a photoionized absorber between the coronal radius and the outer edge of the accretion disk.

We study the squeezing of output quadratures of an electro-magnetic field escaping from a resonator coupled to a general quantum system with arbitrary interaction strengths. The generalized theoretical analysis of output squeezing proposed here is valid for all the interaction regimes of cavity-quantum electrodynamics: from the weak to the strong, ultrastrong, and deep coupling regimes. For coupling rates comparable or larger then the cavity resonance frequency, the standard input-output theory for optical cavities fails to calculate the correct output field-quadratures and predicts a non-negligible amount of output squeezing, even if the system is in its ground state. Here we show that, for arbitrary interactions and cavity-embedded quantum systems, no squeezing can be found in the output-field quadratures if the system is in its ground state. We also apply the proposed theoretical approach to study the output squeezing produced by: (i) an artificial two-level atom embedded in a coherently-excited cavity; and (ii) a cascade-type three-level system interacting with a cavity field mode. In the latter case the output squeezing arises from the virtual photons of the atom-cavity dressed states. This work extends the possibility of predicting and analyzing continuous-variable optical quantum-state tomography when optical resonators interact very strongly with other quantum systems.