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1. How women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer physics doctoral students navigate graduate education: The roles of professional environments and social networks

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.020115  

   Gutzwa, Justin A; Barthelemy, Ramón S; Amaral, Camila; Swirtz, Madison; Traxler, Adrienne; Henderson, Charles (September 2024, Physical Review Physics Education Research)

   Despite knowing physics and astronomy doctoral programs are laden with identity-based inequities, they continue to push minoritized students to the margins. This qualitative social network analysis of 100 women and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and more ( $\mathrm{LGBT}+$) physics and astronomy Ph.D.’s explores how minoritized physics and astronomy students utilize social networks to navigate departmental exclusion. Our findings indicate that many of the participants’ identities were often unacknowledged or negatively addressed within their graduate education, with only four participants reporting a positive or favorable experience during this period of their career. Direct support from peers, faculty, and identity-based affinity groups was necessary for participants to navigate their educations. This study demonstrated that generic best practices often cannot fully support the diverse range of persons who come to physics and that identity-neutral values in physics further isolate students by insinuating that their own minoritized experiences are not valid. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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2. Partially celestial states and their scattering amplitudes

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.105020  

   Csáki, Csaba; Telem, Ofri; Terning, John (May 2024, Physical Review D)

   We study representations of the Poincaré group that have a privileged transformation law along a $p$-dimensional hyperplane, and uncover their associated spinor-helicity variables in $D$spacetime dimensions. Our novel representations generalize the recently introduced celestial states and transform as conformal primaries of $SO(p,1)$, the symmetry group of the $p$-hyperplane. We will refer to our generalized states as “partially celestial.” Following Wigner’s method, we find the induced representations, including spin degrees of freedom. Defining generalized spinor-helicity variables for every $D$and $p$, we are able to construct the little group covariant part of partially celestial amplitudes. Finally, we briefly examine the application of the pairwise little group to partially celestial states with mutually nonlocal charges. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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3. Student attitudes toward quantum information science and technology in a high school outreach program

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.020126  

   Darienzo, Michele; Kelly, Angela M; Schneble, Dominik; Wei, Tzu-Chieh (October 2024, Physical Review Physics Education Research)

   [This paper is part of the Focused Collection in Investigating and Improving Quantum Education through Research.] With the current growth in quantum information science and technology (QIST), there is an increasing need to prepare precollege students for postsecondary QIST study and careers. This mixed methods, explanatory sequential research focused on students’ affective outcomes from a one-week, 25-h summer program for U.S. high school students in grades 10–12. The workshop structure was based upon psychosocial theories of self-determination and planned behavior, where QIST aspirations may be facilitated and viewed as achievable choices if students acquire disciplinary knowledge, self-efficacy, normative expectancy of their capacity in the field, and awareness of vocational roles. The program featured lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on experiences in classical and quantum physics and quantum computing. Students’ attitudes toward QIST ( $N=77$)—including self-efficacy, self-concept, relevance, career aspirations, and perceptions of quantitative fluency—showed improvement with a medium effect size, even though treatment students entered the program with more positive QIST attitudes when compared with a control group of high school physics students ( $N=65$). Postprogram interviews with $n=12$participants identified several explanatory themes: (i) Students tended to comprehend classical and quantum topics taught through multiple representations, regardless of whether they had taken physics previously; (ii) students experienced some challenges with mathematics and science concepts that support quantum understanding, yet they revealed a willingness to learn new concepts outside of their comfort zone; (iii) students expressed motivation for pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and/or quantum-related careers in the future, as well as increased QIST self-concept, largely through understanding the relevance of QIST in solving technological problems; and (iv) students reported increased self-efficacy in understanding QIST topics and performing related tasks. This informal summer program showed promise in promoting positive student attitudes toward QIST, a critical emerging field in advancing technological solutions for global challenges. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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4. Instantons in ${\varphi }^4$ theories: Transseries, virial theorems, and numerical aspects

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.110.036003  

   Giorgini, Ludovico T; Jentschura, Ulrich D; Malatesta, Enrico M; Rizzo, Tommaso; Zinn-Justin, Jean (August 2024, Physical Review D)

   We discuss numerical aspects of instantons in two- and three-dimensional ${\varphi }^4$theories with an internal $O\left(N\right)$symmetry group, the so-called $N$-vector model. By combining asymptotic transseries expansions for large arguments with convergence acceleration techniques, we obtain high-precision values for certain integrals of the instanton that naturally occur in loop corrections around instanton configurations. Knowledge of these numerical properties is necessary in order to evaluate corrections to the large-order factorial growth of perturbation theory in ${\varphi }^4$theories. The results contribute to the understanding of the mathematical structures underlying the instanton configurations. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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5. Probing long-range forces between neutrinos with cosmic structures

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.055019  

   Kaplan, David E; Luo, Xuheng; Rajendran, Surjeet (March 2025, Physical Review D)

   We study the consequences of new long-range forces between neutrinos on cosmic scales. If these forces are a few orders of magnitude stronger than gravity, they can induce perturbation instability in the nonrelativistic cosmic neutrino background in the late time universe. As a result, the cosmic neutrino background may form nonlinear bound states instead of free-streaming. The implications of the formation of nonlinear neutrino bound states include enhancing matter perturbations and triggering star formation. Based on existing measurements of the matter power spectrum and reionization history, we place new constraints on long-range forces between neutrinos with ranges lying in $1\mathrm{kpc}\lesssim m_{\varphi }^{-1}\lesssim 10\mathrm{Mpc}$. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

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