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Fuzzy dark matter (FDM) is a proposed modification for the standard cold dark matter (CDM) model motivated by small-scale discrepancies in low-mass galaxies. Composed of ultralight (mass ∼ 10²²eV) axions with kiloparsec-scale de Broglie wavelengths, this is one of a class of candidates that predicts that the first collapsed objects form in relatively massive dark matter halos. This implies that the formation history of the first stars and galaxies would be very different, potentially placing strong constraints on such models. Here we numerically simulate the formation of the first stars in an FDM cosmology, following the collapse in a representative volume all the way down to primordial protostar formation including a primordial nonequilibrium chemical network and cooling for the first time. We find two novel results: first, the large-scale collapse results in a very thin and flat gas “pancake”; second, despite the very different cosmology, this pancake fragments until it forms protostellar objects indistinguishable from those in CDM. Combined, these results indicate that the first generation of stars in this model are also likely to be massive and, because of the sheet morphology, do not self-regulate, resulting in a massive Population III starburst. We estimate the total number of first stars forming in this extended structure to be 10⁴over 20 Myr using a simple model to account for the ionizing feedback from the stars, and should be observable with the James Webb Space Telescope. These predictions provide a potential smoking gun signature of FDM and similar dark matter candidates.

 

Abstract Instabilities in a neutron star can generate Alfvén waves in its magnetosphere. Propagation along the curved magnetic field lines strongly shears the wave, boosting its electric current j A . We derive an analytic expression for the evolution of the wavevector k and the growth of j A . In the strongly sheared regime, j A may exceed the maximum current j 0 that can be supported by the background e ± plasma. We investigate these charge-starved waves, first using a simplified two-fluid analytic model, then with first-principles kinetic simulations. We find that the Alfvén wave is able to propagate successfully even when κ ≡ j A / j 0 ≫ 1. It sustains j A by compressing and advecting the plasma along the magnetic field lines with an increasing Lorentz factor, γ ≳ κ 1/2 . The simulations show how plasma instabilities lead to gradual dissipation of the wave energy. Our results suggest that an extremely high charge-starvation parameter κ ≳ 10 4 may be required in order for this mechanism to power the observed fast radio bursts (FRBs) from SGR 1935+2154. However, cosmological FRBs with much higher luminosities are unlikely to be a result of charge-starvation. 

We propose TubeR: a simple solution for spatio-temporal video action detection. Different from existing methods that depend on either an off-line actor detector or hand-designed actor-positional hypotheses like proposals or anchors, we propose to directly detect an action tubelet in a video by simultaneously performing action localization and recognition from a single representation. TubeR learns a set of tubelet queries and utilizes a tubelet-attention module to model the dynamic spatio-temporal nature of a video clip, which effectively reinforces the model capacity compared to using actor-positional hypotheses in the spatio-temporal space. For videos containing transitional states or scene changes, we propose a context aware classification head to utilize short-term and long-term context to strengthen action classification, and an action switch regression head for detecting the precise temporal action extent. TubeR directly produces action tubelets with variable lengths and even maintains good results for long video clips. TubeR outperforms the previous state-of-the-art on commonly used action detection datasets AVA, UCF101-24 and JHMDB51-21. Code will be available on GluonCV(https://cv.gluon.ai/). 

The ocean carbonate system is critical to monitor because it plays a major role in regulating Earth's climate and marine ecosystems. It is monitored using a variety of measurements, and it is commonly understood that all components of seawater carbonate chemistry can be calculated when at least two carbonate system variables are measured. However, several recent studies have highlighted systematic discrepancies between calculated and directly measured carbonate chemistry variables and these discrepancies have large implications for efforts to measure and quantify the changing ocean carbon cycle. Given this, the Ocean Carbonate System Intercomparison Forum (OCSIF) was formed as a working group through the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry program to coordinate and recommend research to quantify and/or reduce uncertainties and disagreements in measurable seawater carbonate system measurements and calculations, identify unknown or overlooked sources of these uncertainties, and provide recommendations for making progress on community efforts despite these uncertainties. With this paper we aim to (1) summarize recent progress toward quantifying and reducing carbonate system uncertainties; (2) advocate for research to further reduce and better quantify carbonate system measurement uncertainties; (3) present a small amount of new data, metadata, and analysis related to uncertainties in carbonate system measurements; and (4) restate and explain the rationales behind several OCSIF recommendations. We focus on open ocean carbonate chemistry, and caution that the considerations we discuss become further complicated in coastal, estuarine, and sedimentary environments.