In this work, we investigate the relativistic structure of white dwarfs (WDs) within the framework of modified gravity theory <math altimg='si3.svg'><mrow><mi>f</mi><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>R</mi><mo>,</mo><mi>T</mi><mo>,</mo><msub><mi>L</mi><mi>m</mi></msub><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo linebreak='goodbreak'>=</mo><mi>R</mi><mo linebreak='goodbreak'>+</mo><mi>&#945;</mi><mi>T</mi><msub><mi>L</mi><mi>m</mi></msub></mrow></math>, which introduces a non-minimal coupling between matter and curvature. Using a realistic equation of state (EoS) that includes contributions from a relativistic degenerate electron gas and ionic lattice effects, we solve the modified Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equations for two standard choices of the matter Lagrangian density: <math altimg='si9.svg'><mrow><msub><mi>L</mi><mi>m</mi></msub><mo linebreak='goodbreak'>=</mo><mi>p</mi></mrow></math> and <math altimg='si6.svg'><mrow><msub><mi>L</mi><mi>m</mi></msub><mo linebreak='goodbreak'>=</mo><mo>&#8722;</mo><mi>&#961;</mi></mrow></math>. We show that the extra <italic>&#945;TL<inf>m</inf></italic> term significantly alters the mass-radius relation of WDs, especially at high central densities <math altimg='si11.svg'><mrow><mo>(</mo><msub><mi>&#961;</mi><mi>c</mi></msub><mo>&#8819;</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mn>8</mn></msup><mo linebreak='goodbreak'>&#8722;</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mn>9</mn></msup><mspace width='0.16em' /><mrow><mi mathvariant='normal'>g</mi></mrow><mo linebreak='goodbreak'>/</mo><mi>c</mi><msup><mi>m</mi><mn>3</mn></msup><mo>)</mo></mrow></math>, allowing for stable super-Chandrasekhar configurations. In particular, depending on the sign and magnitude of the parameter <italic>&#945;</italic>, the maximum mass can increase or decrease, and in some regimes, the usual critical point indicating the transition from stability to instability disappears. Our findings suggest that <italic>f</italic>( <italic>R, T, L<inf>m</inf></italic>) gravity provides a viable framework to explain the existence of massive WDs beyond the classical Chandrasekhar limit. Using Bayesian inference with WD observational data, we further constrain the coupling parameter <italic>&#945;</italic> for the two choices of the Lagrangian density <italic>L<inf>m</inf></italic>.

Brazil

Edson Otoniel

Juan M.Z. Pretel

Clésio E. Mota

César O.V. Flores

Victor B.T. Alves

Germany

Franciele M. da Silva

White dwarf structure in <italic>f</italic>( <italic>R, T, L<inf>m</inf></italic>) gravity: Beyond the Chandrasekhar mass limit

In this work, we present an exact solution describing a static, spherically symmetric black hole immersed in a cored Navarro–Frenk–White (NFW) dark matter halo. We examine the energy conditions and find that the null, weak, strong and dominant energy conditions are all satisfied, confirming the physical plausibility of our solution. Furthermore, we examine its optical and scalar perturbation properties, highlighting their connections to the Lyapunov exponent and black hole thermodynamics. By applying the principle of least action, we derive the null geodesics to study gravitational lensing and light ring phenomena in the presence of the dark matter halo. The stability of photon orbits is analyzed using the Lyapunov exponent, which we relate to the imaginary part of the massless quasinormal modes in the eikonal limit. We also investigate the thermodynamic behavior of the black hole–dark matter system by evaluating the mass function, entropy, temperature, heat capacity, Gibbs free energy and the entropy to assess both local and global stability. Overall, our results demonstrate that the surrounding dark matter halo significantly influences the black hole’s properties, enhancing its thermodynamic stability and allowing the possibility of phase transitions.

Thailand

David Senjaya

Cored Navarro-Frenk-White dark matter halo: novel black hole solution, energy condition, optical properties, quasinormal modes and thermodynamics

Upcoming space-based gravitational-wave detectors will be sensitive to millions and resolve tens of thousands of stellar-mass binary systems at mHz frequencies. The vast majority of these will be double white dwarfs in our Galaxy. The greatest part will remain unresolved, forming an incoherent stochastic foreground signal. Using state-of-the-art galactic models for the formation and evolution of binary white dwarfs and accurate LISA simulated signals, we introduce a test for foreground Gaussianity and stationarity, building on methods available for ground-based detectors. We explain the observed non-stationarity with a new analytical modulation induced by the LISA constellation motion and the intrinsic anisotropy of the source distribution. By demodulating the foreground signal, we reveal a deviation from Gaussianity in the 2–10 mHz frequency band. Our finding is crucial to design faithful data models: the proposed method serves as a diagnostic and estimation tool to flag and model deviations, respectively. Neglecting them would introduce systematic biases on individual sources and astrophysical foregrounds parameter estimation, ultimately leading to inaccurate interpretation of the LISA data.

Italy

United Kingdom

Riccardo Buscicchio

Antoine Klein

Valeriya Korol

France

Francesco Renzo

Christopher Moore

Davide Gerosa

Alessandro Carzaniga

Test for LISA foreground Gaussianity and stationarity: galactic white-dwarf binaries

Machine learning is becoming increasingly popular in the context of particle physics. Supervised learning, which uses labeled Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, remains one of the most widely used methods for discriminating signals beyond the Standard Model. However, this paper suggests that supervised models may depend excessively on artifacts and approximations from Monte Carlo simulations, potentially limiting their ability to generalize well to real data. This study aims to enhance the generalization properties of supervised models by reducing the sharpness of local minima. It reviews the application of four distinct white-box adversarial attacks in the context of classifying Higgs boson decay signals. The attacks are divided into weight-space attacks and feature-space attacks. To study and quantify the sharpness of different local minima, this paper presents two analysis methods: gradient ascent and reduced Hessian eigenvalue analysis. The results show that white-box adversarial attacks significantly improve generalization performance, albeit with increased computational complexity.

Switzerland

Franck Rothen

Samuel Klein

Matthew Leigh

Tobias Golling

Enhancing generalization in high-energy physics using white-box adversarial attacks

Axion-photon oscillation refers to the process of mutual conversion between photons and axions when they propagate in a magnetic field. This process depends on the strength of the background magnetic field, and magnetic white dwarfs provide a natural laboratory for testing this process. In this work, we study the behavior of axion-photon oscillation near magnetic white dwarfs: as the magnetic white dwarf rotates, its magnetic field structure rotates accordingly, causing a periodic change of the magnetic field along the path of photons. These variations affect the axion-photon oscillation process experienced by the photons emitted from the white dwarf, thereby inducing a periodic modulation in the intensity and polarization of the white dwarf’s thermal emission that we observe. Our study focuses on the impact of axion effects on the observed light curve variation and conducts a detailed investigation through numerical calculations. Using the light curve data of the white dwarf <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mi>PG</mi><mn>1015</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>014</mn></mrow></math> obtained from the observations by the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, which has a photometric precision of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mo>∼</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>%</mo></math>, we derive the constraints on axion parameters. In the axion mass range of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mo>≲</mo><msup><mn>10</mn><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>8</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mi>eV</mi></math>, the 95% credible interval upper limit of the axion-photon coupling <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><msub><mi>g</mi><mrow><mi>a</mi><mi>γ</mi><mi>γ</mi></mrow></msub></math> is constrained to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mo>&lt;</mo><mn>8.1</mn><mo>×</mo><msup><mrow><mn>10</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>12</mn></mrow></msup><mtext> </mtext><mtext> </mtext><mrow><msup><mrow><mi>GeV</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></mrow></math>.

China

Hao-Chen Tian

Zhao-Yang Wang

Yun-Feng Liang

Zhao-Wei Du

Investigating the light curve variation of magnetic white dwarfs induced by axion-photon conversion

White dwarfs offer a compelling avenue for probing interactions of dark matter particles, particularly in the challenging sub-GeV mass regime. The constraints derived from these celestial objects strongly depend on the existence of high dark matter densities in the corresponding regions of the Universe, where white dwarfs are observed. This implies that excluding the parameter space using local white dwarfs would present a significant challenge, primarily due to the low dark matter density in the solar neighbourhood. This limitation prompts the exploration of alternative scenarios involving dark matter particles with a diverse spectrum of kinetic energies. In this work, we investigate how these dark matter particles traverse the star, interact with stellar matter, and ultimately get captured. To accomplish this, we approximate the dark matter flux as a delta function and we assume that fermionic dark matter interacts with stellar matter either through a vector or a scalar interaction. In our computations, we consider how interactions might vary across different energy regimes, from high-energy deep inelastic scattering and inelastic scatterings via the production of $\textit{N}$− and ∆− resonances to lower-energy elastic interactions with nucleons and nuclei. Our study models these inelastic resonant interactions with dark matter and vector or scalar mediators for the very first time. We provide insights into the specific conditions required for successfully boosted dark matter capture in white dwarfs. We found that, in general, dark matter capture is most likely to occur at low energies, as expected. However, in the high-energy regime, there remains a small window for capture through resonant and deep inelastic scattering processes.

Poland

Jaime Hoefken Zink

Japan

Shihwen Hor

Mexico

Maura Ramirez-Quezada

Dark matter interactions in white dwarfs: A multi-energy approach to capture mechanisms

White dwarfs (WDs), as the remnants of low to intermediate-mass stars, provide a unique opportunity to explore the interplay between quantum mechanical degeneracy pressure and gravitational forces under extreme conditions. In this study, we examine the structure and macroscopic properties of WDs within the framework of 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (4DEGB) gravity, a modified theory that incorporates higher-order curvature corrections through the Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant <italic>&#945;</italic>. Using the modified Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equations tailored for 4DEGB gravity, we analyze the hydrostatic equilibrium of WDs modeled with a realistic equation of state (EoS). Our findings reveal that the inclusion of the Gauss-Bonnet (GB) term significantly influences the mass-radius ( <math altimg='si1.svg'><mi>M</mi><mo linebreak='goodbreak' linebreakstyle='after'>&#8722;</mo><mi>R</mi></math>) relation, allowing for deviations from the Chandrasekhar mass limit. In particular, we observe that such stars become more compact and slightly smaller with the increase of the parameter <italic>&#945;</italic>. For WDs with <math altimg='si2.svg'><mo stretchy='false'>|</mo><mi>&#945;</mi><mo stretchy='false'>|</mo><mo>&#8804;</mo><mn>500</mn><mspace width='0.2em' /><mrow><mi mathvariant='normal'>k</mi><msup><mrow><mi mathvariant='normal'>m</mi></mrow><mrow><mn mathvariant='normal'>2</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math>, the impact of 4DEGB gravity appears to be negligible. However, a larger range for <italic>&#945;</italic> allows for appreciable changes in the <math altimg='si1.svg'><mi>M</mi><mo linebreak='goodbreak' linebreakstyle='after'>&#8722;</mo><mi>R</mi></math> diagram, mainly in the high-central-density region. Furthermore, we explore the role of anisotropic pressures, quantified by the parameter <italic>&#946;</italic>, on such systems and demonstrate their impact on stability and compactness. For sufficiently large values of <math altimg='si3.svg'><mo stretchy='false'>|</mo><mi>&#946;</mi><mo stretchy='false'>|</mo></math> keeping negative <italic>&#946;</italic> with a large and positive <italic>&#945;</italic>, there exists a second stable branch according to the classical stability criterion <math altimg='si4.svg'><mi>d</mi><mi>M</mi><mo stretchy='false'>/</mo><mi>d</mi><msub><mrow><mi>&#961;</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>c</mi></mrow></msub><mo linebreak='goodbreak' linebreakstyle='after'>&gt;</mo><mn>0</mn></math>. These results suggest that anisotropic WDs in 4DEGB gravity exhibit unique characteristics that distinguish them from their general relativistic counterparts, offering a novel testing ground for modified gravity theories in astrophysical settings.

Takol Tangphati

Türkiye

İzzet Sakallı

South Africa

Ayan Banerjee

White dwarfs in regularized 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity

The neutron total cross section of iron ( natFe) plays an important role in the basic science of nuclear physics, nuclear technology and nuclear energy application. A new measurement of the total cross section of iron from 0.3 eV to 150 MeV was carried out in single and double bunch modes by transmission method and time of flight method with multi-cell fast fission ionization chamber (FIC) with 235U and 238U coating materials at the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). Normalized fission counts-neutron energy spectra for sample-in and sample-out states were obtained and superimposed. The Bayesian method was used to eliminate the influence of the double-bunch problem on neutron measurement in the energy region above 10 keV. The transmissions obtained in single bunch and unfolded in double bunch coincided well. From 0.3 eV to 150 MeV, the ratio of most energy points of cross section in single bunch and in double bunch fluctuates within 10 %. In the energy range of 0.3 eV to 10 keV, the experimental results using 20 mm and 40 mm thickness iron samples both agree very well with the evaluated data of JEFF-3.3 and ENDF/B-VIII.0 at most energy points, fluctuating within 3 %. In the energy range of 10 keV to 150 MeV, the results agree well with the evaluated data in terms of values and trends. The main resonance peaks of the total cross section of iron at the energies of 3.94 keV, 6.24 keV, 7.76 keV, 27.9 keV, 52.1 keV, 74.1 keV, 83.9 keV, 141 keV, 170 keV, 188 keV and 386 keV are well represented in our results. The relative uncertainties of the total cross sections using the 40 mm iron sample by FIC- 235U are within 2 % at most energy points. In 1.5 MeV-140 MeV region, the relative uncertainties of the total cross section using the 20 mm iron and 40 mm iron samples by FIC- 238U are around 2 % and 1 %, respectively. The total cross section results can be used as a reference for nuclear data evaluation.

Jiangbo Bai

Jingyu Tang

Liqun Shi

Yonghao Chen

Han Yi

Guohui Zhang

Haofan Bai

Jie Bao

Ping Cao

Zhen Chen

Zengqi Cui

Anchuan Fan

Ruirui Fan

Changqing Feng

Fanzhen Feng

Keqing Gao

MinHao Gu

Changcai Han

Guozhu He

Yongcheng He

Yang Hong

Yiwei Hu

Hanxiong Huang

Weihua Jia

Haoyu Jiang

Wei Jiang

Zhijie Jiang

Zhengyao Jin

Ling Kang

Bo Li

Chao Li

Gong Li

Jiawen Li

Qiang Li

Xiao Li

Yang Li

Jie Liu

Shubin Liu

Guangyuan Luan

Changjun Ning

Binbin Qi

Jie Ren

Xichao Ruan

Zhaohui Song

Kang Sun

Zhixin Tan

Shengda Tang

Lijiao Wang

Pengcheng Wang

Zhaohui Wang

Xiaoguang Wu

Xuan Wu

Likun Xie

Yongji Yu

Linhao Zhang

Mohan Zhang

Qiwei Zhang

Xianpeng Zhang

Yuliang Zhang

Yue Zhang

Zhiyong Zhang

Maoyuan Zhao

Luping Zhou

Zhihao Zhou

Kejun Zhu

Measurement of the neutron total cross section of Iron at the Back-n white neutron source of CSNS

Abstract We argue that the origin of unitarity violation and the information loss paradox in our understanding of black holes (BHs) lies in the standard way of doing quantum field theory in curved space-time (QFTCS), which is heavily biased on intuition borrowed from classical general relativity. In this paper, with the quantum-first approach, we formulate a so-called direct-sum QFT (DQFT) in BH space-time based on a novel formulation of discrete space-time transformations in gravity that potentially restores unitarity. By invoking the quantum effects associated with the gravitational backreaction, we show that the Hawking quanta emerging outside of the Schwarzschild radius () cannot be independent of the quanta that continue to be inside . This enables information to be carried by Hawking quanta, but in the BH DQFT formalism, we do not get any firewalls. Furthermore, DQFT leads to the BH evaporation involving only pure states. This means the quantum mechanical effects at the BH horizon produce two components of a maximally entangled pure state in geometric superselection sector Hilbert spaces. This construction enables pure states to evolve into pure states, restoring unitarity and observer complementarity. Finally, we discuss how our framework leaves important clues for formulating a scattering matrix and probing the nature of quantum gravity.

K Sravan Kumar

Portugal

João Marto

Towards a Unitary Formulation of Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space-Time: The Case of the Schwarzschild Black Hole The quantum mechanical arrows of time A course in functional analysis Hawking radiation with pure states Do Black Holes Exist? How studying black hole theory may help us to quantise gravity How an exact discrete symmetry can preserve black hole information or Turning a black hole inside out Snowmass White Paper: Gravitational waves and scattering amplitudes

The NEXT-White detector, a high-pressure gaseous xenon time projection chamber, demonstrated the excellence of this technology for future neutrinoless double beta decay searches using photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) to measure energy and silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to extract topology information. This analysis uses 83m Kr data from the NEXT-White detector to measure and understand the energy resolution that can be obtained with the SiPMs, rather than with PMTs. The energy resolution obtained of (10.9 ± 0.6)%, full-width half-maximum, is slightly larger than predicted based on the photon statistics resulting from very low light detection coverage of the SiPM plane in the NEXT-White detector. The difference in the predicted and measured resolution is attributed to poor corrections, which are expected to be improved with larger statistics. Furthermore, the noise of the SiPMs is shown to not be a dominant factor in the energy resolution and may be negligible when noise subtraction is applied appropriately, for high-energy events or larger SiPM coverage detectors. These results, which are extrapolated to estimate the response of large coverage SiPM planes, are promising for the development of future, SiPM-only, readout planes that can offer imaging and achieve similar energy resolution to that previously demonstrated with PMTs.