We examine the origin of the cosmological collider signal using the framework of open effective field theories. Focusing on the single exchange of a massive scalar field, we demonstrate that the trispectrum splits cleanly into its local and non-local components once the heavy-field propagators are decomposed in the Keldysh basis. Integrating out the massive degree of freedom yields a single-field effective field theory for the light scalar that necessarily contains both unitary operators and non-unitary contributions associated with dissipation and stochastic noise. We show that the leading local signal in parity-preserving theories arises from the unitary part of this effective field theory, whereas the non-local signal is intrinsically associated with its stochastic sector. The effective field theory coefficients themselves are a priori non-analytic in the external kinematics; however, this non-analyticity can be softened when a scale hierarchy - such as the heavy-mass expansion - is imposed, up to spurious contributions that ultimately cancel in observables. Finally, we establish a connection between the cosmological collider signal and entropy production, linking the observable non-local signal to intrinsic properties of the quantum state, including its degree of mixedness.

Following the recent Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) results, we consider hilltop inflation where the inflaton is coupled to a curvaton, simultaneously addressing two main challenges faced by conventional hilltop inflation models: the initial-value problem; and their viability for sub-Planckian field values. In standard single-field hilltop inflation, the inflaton must start extremely close to the maximum of the potential, raising concerns about the naturalness of the initial conditions. We demonstrate that the curvaton field not only solves the initial-value problem, but also opens up parameter space through modifying the curvature perturbation power spectrum, reviving the cubic and quartic hilltop inflation models in the sub-Planckian regime. We find viable parameter space consistent with the recent cosmological observations, and predict a sizable tensor-to-scalar ratio that can be tested in the next-generation Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments.

Stellar and AGN-driven feedback processes affect the distribution of gas on a wide range of scales, from within galaxies well into the intergalactic medium. Yet, it remains unclear how feedback, through its connection to key galaxy properties, shapes the radial gas density profile in the host halo. We tackle this question using suites of the EAGLE, IllustrisTNG, and Simba cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, which span a variety of feedback models. We develop a random forest algorithm that predicts the radial gas density profile within haloes from the total halo mass and five global properties of the central galaxy: gas and stellar mass; star formation rate; mass and accretion rate of the central black hole (BH). The algorithm reproduces the simulated gas density profiles with an average accuracy of $\sim$80-90% over the halo mass range 10^{9.5} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot} < M_{\rm 200c} < 10^{15} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot} and redshift interval $0

We present a comprehensive analysis of the nitrogen-to-oxygen (N/O) abundance ratio in star-forming galaxies at redshift z~1-6, with a median redshift of z=2.7, using deep JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy. Leveraging detections of faint auroral emission lines in 76 galaxies at z>1 from both the MARTA survey and a large compilation of high-redshift literature objects, we derive direct electron temperature-based abundances for nitrogen and oxygen using rest-frame optical lines. We establish the first high-redshift calibrations of strong-line N/O diagnostics based on direct abundance measurements, finding no significant evolution for either N2O2 = [NII]6585/[OII]3727,3729 and N2S2 = [NII]6585/[SII]6717,6731 diagnostics compared to local realisations. We then investigate the N/O-O/H relation across cosmic time using both direct abundances and strong-line based measurements (additional 430 galaxies). We find evidence for mild but systematic nitrogen enhancement at high redshift: galaxies at z>1 exhibit N/O ratios elevated by ~0.18 dex (median offset) at fixed O/H compared to the local relation, with a more pronounced enhancement at low metallicity (12+log(O/H) < 8.1) where the offset reaches up to ~0.3-0.4 dex. Our results provide the most extensive confirmation of elevated N/O ratios at high-redshift to date based on rest-optical diagnostics. The chemical signatures of N/O-enhanced galaxies in our sample resembles that of first-generation globular cluster stars, suggesting that the moderate nitrogen enhancement may reflect the late stages of a cluster-driven enrichment mode that dominated at earlier cosmic epochs. However, the relevance and relative contribution of different mechanisms (e.g. burstiness of the star-formation history, contribution from older stellar populations, differential metal-loaded outflows, inflows of pristine gas) remains to be fully disentangled.

We investigate the impact of particle production during inflation in scenarios where an infinite tower of states features a mass scale that decreases exponentially along the inflationary trajectory. Such couplings naturally arise in string effective field theories and are in fact motivated by the Swampland Distance Conjecture (SDC). We show that the corrections to inflationary observables sourced by the tower scale as $(H/\Lambda_{\text{sp}})^{2+p}$, with $H$ being the Hubble scale, $\Lambda_{\text{sp}}$ being the species scale, that is the quantum gravity cut-off, and $p\geq 1$ characterizes the density of states in the tower. As a result, in gravitationally weakly coupled cosmological effective theories, the tower-induced contributions are suppressed relative to the standard single-field predictions, leaving the inflationary phenomenology essentially unchanged. We demonstrate this explicitly across a set of well-motivated inflationary potentials, and we compare the resulting predictions with the most recent observational constraints, including those from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope.

Extracting parameters from the global 21cm signal is crucial for understanding the early Universe. However, detecting the 21cm signal is challenging due to the brighter foreground and associated observational difficulties. In this study, we evaluate the performance of various machine-learning regression models to improve parameter extraction and foreground removal. This evaluation is essential for selecting the most suitable machine learning regression model based on computational efficiency and predictive accuracy. We compare four models: Random Forest Regressor (RFR), Gaussian Process Regressor (GPR), Support Vector Regressor (SVR), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The comparison is based on metrics such as the root mean square error (RMSE) and $R^2$ scores. We examine their effectiveness across different dataset sizes and conditions, including scenarios with foreground contamination. Our results indicate that ANN consistently outperforms the other models, achieving the lowest RMSE and the highest $R^2$ scores across multiple cases. While GPR also performs well, it is computationally intensive, requiring significant RAM and longer execution times. SVR struggles with large datasets due to its high computational costs, and RFR demonstrates the weakest accuracy among the models tested. We also found that employing Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as a preprocessing step significantly enhances model performance, especially in the presence of foregrounds.

We present PolySwyft, a novel, non-amortised simulation-based inference framework that unites the strengths of nested sampling (NS) and neural ratio estimation (NRE) to tackle challenging posterior distributions when the likelihood is intractable but a forward simulator is available. By nesting rounds of NRE within the exploration of NS, and employing a principled KL-divergence criterion to adaptively terminate sampling, PolySwyft achieves faster convergence on complex, multimodal targets while rigorously preserving Bayesian validity. On a suite of toy problems with analytically known posteriors of a dim(theta,D)=(5,100) multivariate Gaussian and multivariate correlated Gaussian mixture model, we demonstrate that PolySwyft recovers all modes and credible regions with fewer simulator calls than swyft's TNRE. As a real-world application, we infer cosmological parameters dim(theta,D)=(6,111) from CMB power spectra using CosmoPower. PolySwyft is released as open-source software, offering a flexible toolkit for efficient, accurate inference across the astrophysical sciences and beyond.

We show that an axionlike particle (ALP) can simultaneously generate the baryon asymmetry and constitute dark matter through dynamics triggered by a first-order electroweak phase transition (EWPT). In our proposal, the transition briefly reshapes the ALP potential via a temperature-dependent vacuum expectation value of a scalar field $S$, responsible for making the EWPT of first order, inducing a transient mass enhancement of ALP via higher-dimensional $U(1)$-breaking operator(s). This sudden kick generates a large ALP velocity near the onset of EWPT enabling the broadening of relic satisfied parameter space and predict a complementary stochastic gravitational-wave signal from the underlying first-order transition. We further show that the same ALP dynamics can naturally fuel electroweak baryogenesis through its coupling to electroweak anomaly.

We investigate the microlensing detectability of extraterrestrial technosignatures originating from Dyson sphere \textendash like structures, such as Dyson Swarms surrounding primordial black holes (PBHs). These hypothetical swarms consist of stochastically varying, partially opaque structures that could modulate standard microlensing light curves through time-dependent transmission effects. We introduce a probabilistic framework that includes a stochastic transmission model governed by variable optical depth and random gap distributions. We perform a parameter scan and generate heatmaps of the optical transit duration. We study the infrared excess radiation and peak emission wavelength as complementary observational signatures. Additionally, we define and analyze the effective optical depth and the anomalous microlensing event rate for these stochastic structures. Our findings provide a new avenue for searching for extraterrestrial advanced civilizations by extending microlensing studies to include artificial, dynamic modulation signatures.

The observational link between long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and broad-lined stripped-envelope core-collapse supernovae (SNe Ic-BL) is well established. Significant progress has been made in constraining what fraction of SNe Ic-BL may power high- or low-luminosity GRBs when viewed at small off-axis angles. However, the GRB-SN connection still lacks a complete understanding in the broader context of massive-star evolution and explosion physics. Models predict a continuum of outcomes for the fastest ejecta, from choked to ultra-relativistic jets, and observations from radio to X-rays are key to probing these scenarios across a range of viewing angles and velocities. Here, we present results from a coordinated radio-to-X-ray campaign targeting nearby (z<=0.1) SNe Ic-BL designed to explore this diversity. With eight new radio-monitored events and updated data for one previously observed SN, we further tighten constraints on the fraction of SNe Ic-BL as relativistic as SN 1998bw/GRB 980425. We identify SN 2024rjw as a new radio-loud event likely powered by strong interaction with circumstellar material (CSM), and add evidence supporting a similar interpretation for SN 2020jqm. We also establish new limits on the properties of radio-emitting ejecta with velocities consistent with cocoons from choked jets, highlighting SN 2022xxf as a promising cocoon-dominated candidate. These results refine our understanding of the continuum linking ordinary SNe Ic-BL, engine-driven explosions, and GRBs, and contribute to building a sample that will inform future multi-messenger searches for electromagnetic counterparts to high-energy neutrinos.

Context. The internal structure of the intracluster medium (ICM) is tightly linked to the assembly history and physical processes in groups and clusters, but the role of recent accretion in shaping these profiles has not been fully explored. Aims. We investigate to what extent mass accretion accounts for the variability in ICM density and thermodynamic profiles, and what can present-day structures reveal about their formation histories. Methods. We analyze a hydrodynamical cosmological simulation including gas cooling but no feedback, to isolate the effects of heating from structure formation. Median profiles of ICM quantities are introduced as a robust description of the bulk ICM. We then examine correlations between mass accretion rates or assembly indicators with the profiles of temperature, entropy, pressure, gas and dark-matter density, as well as their scatter. Results. Accretion in the last dynamical time strongly lowers central gas densities, while leaving dark matter largely unaffected, producing a distinct signature in the baryon depletion function. Pressure and entropy show the clearest dependence on accretion, whereas temperature is less sensitive. The radii of steepest entropy, temperature, and pressure shift inward by $\sim (10-20)\%$ between high- and low-accretion subsamples. Assembly-state indicators are also related to the location of these features, and accretion correlates with the parameters of common fitting functions for density, pressure, and entropy. Conclusions. Recent accretion leaves measurable imprints on the ICM structure, highlighting the potential of thermodynamic profiles as diagnostics of cluster growth history.

We propose a novel mechanism for the cosmological production of keV - GeV mass dark matter that interacts with the Standard Model through a small effective magnetic dipole moment. Such an interaction can be radiatively generated if dark matter couples to heavier charged particles. Previous studies have focused on the case where these charged states are much heavier than the reheat temperature, such that freeze-in production of dark matter is sensitive to the ultraviolet details of reheating. Here, we instead consider the possibility that these heavy states have masses comparable to the dark matter mass and are charged under a new kinetically-mixed $U(1)'$. As a result, dark matter production is dominated by the infrared freeze-in of the heavy charged states that subsequently thermalize the rest of the dark sector to a temperature much below that of the visible bath. We delineate regions of parameter space consistent with cosmological and astrophysical constraints and identify benchmark scenarios that can guide the next generation of direct detection experiments searching for spin-dependent scattering of sub-GeV dark matter.

The cosmic Distance Duality Relation (DDR) is a fundamental prediction of metric gravity under photon number conservation. In this work, we perform a model-independent test of the DDR using Pantheon+ type Ia supernovae (SN Ia), \emph{Fermi} gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with the FULL and GOLD samples, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Data Release 2 (DR2) baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements, and the galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing (SGL) system samples at high redshift 0.01 &lt; z \lesssim 8 using an artificial neural network (ANN) approach. Our results show that the standard DDR is consistent with cosmological observations at high redshift within the $\sim 2 \sigma$ confidence level.