Heterotic Flux Vacua with a Small Superpotential

(2026)

Authors:

Evgeny I Buchbinder, Andrei Constantin, Lucas TY Leung, Andre Lukas, Burt Ovrut

GollumFit: An IceCube Open-Source Framework for Binned-Likelihood Neutrino Telescope Analyses

Computer Physics Communications Elsevier (2026) 110195

Authors:

R Abbasi, M Ackermann, J Adams, SK Agarwalla, JA Aguilar, M Ahlers, JM Alameddine, NM Amin, K Andeen, C Argüelles, Y Ashida, S Athanasiadou, SN Axani, R Babu, X Bai, AV Balagopal, M Baricevic, SW Barwick, S Bash, V Basu, R Bay, JJ Beatty, J Becker Tjus, P Behrens, J Beise, C Bellenghi, B Benkel, S BenZvi, D Berley, E Bernardini, DZ Besson, E Blaufuss, L Bloom, S Blot, F Bontempo, JY Book Motzkin, C Boscolo Meneguolo, S Böser, O Botner, J Böttcher, J Braun, B Brinson, Z Brisson-Tsavoussis, RT Burley, D Butterfield, MA Campana, K Carloni, J Carpio, S Chattopadhyay, N Chau, Z Chen, D Chirkin, BA Clark, A Coleman, P Coleman, GH Collin, A Connolly, JM Conrad, R Corley, DF Cowen, C De Clercq, JJ DeLaunay, D Delgado, T Delmeulle, S Deng, A Desai, P Desiati, KD de Vries, G de Wasseige, T DeYoung, JC Díaz-Vélez, A Diaz, S DiKerby, M Dittmer, A Domi, L Draper, L Dueser, H Dujmovic, D Durnford, K Dutta, MA DuVernois, T Ehrhardt, L Eidenschink, A Eimer, P Eller, E Ellinger, D Elsässer, R Engel, H Erpenbeck, W Esmail, J Evans, PA Evenson, KL Fan, K Fang, K Farrag, AR Fazely, A Fedynitch, N Feigl, C Finley, L Fischer, D Fox, A Franckowiak, S Fukami, P Fürst, J Gallagher, E Ganster, A Garcia, M Garcia, G Garg, E Genton, L Gerhardt, A Ghadimi, C Glaser, T Glüsenkamp, JG Gonzalez, S Goswami, A Granados, D Grant, SJ Gray, S Griffin, S Griswold, KM Groth, D Guevel, C Günther, P Gutjahr, C Ha, C Haack, A Hallgren, L Halve, F Halzen, L Hamacher, M Ha Minh, M Handt, K Hanson, J Hardin, AA Harnisch, P Hatch, A Haungs, J Häußler, K Helbing, J Hellrung, L Hennig, L Heuermann, R Hewett, N Heyer, S Hickford, A Hidvegi, C Hill, GC Hill, R Hmaid, KD Hoffman, S Hori, K Hoshina, M Hostert, W Hou, T Huber, K Hultqvist, R Hussain, K Hymon, A Ishihara, W Iwakiri, M Jacquart, S Jain, O Janik, M Jeong, M Jin, BJP Jones, N Kamp, D Kang, X Kang, A Kappes, L Kardum, T Karg, M Karl, A Karle, A Katil, M Kauer, JL Kelley, M Khanal, A Khatee Zathul, A Kheirandish, H Kimku, J Kiryluk, C Klein, SR Klein, Y Kobayashi, A Kochocki, R Koirala, H Kolanoski, T Kontrimas, L Köpke, C Kopper, DJ Koskinen, P Koundal, M Kowalski, T Kozynets, N Krieger, J Krishnamoorthi, T Krishnan, K Kruiswijk, E Krupczak, A Kumar, E Kun, N Kurahashi, N Lad, C Lagunas Gualda, L Lallement Arnaud, M Lamoureux, MJ Larson, F Lauber, JP Lazar, K Leonard Deholtona, A Leszczyńska, J Liao, YT Liu, M Liubarska, C Love, L Lu, F Lucarelli, W Luszczak, Y Lyu, J Madsen, E Magnus, KBM Mahn, Y Makino, E Manao, S Mancina, A Mand, W Marie Sainte, IC Mariş, S Marka, Z Marka, L Marten, I Martinez-Soler, R Maruyama, F Mayhew, F McNally, JV Mead, K Meagher, S Mechbal, A Medina, M Meier, Y Merckx, L Merten, J Mitchell, L Molchany, T Montaruli, RW Moore, Y Morii, R Morse, A Mosbrugger, M Moulai, D Mousadi, T Mukherjee, R Naab, M Nakos, U Naumann, J Necker, L Neste, M Neumann, H Niederhausen, MU Nisa, K Noda, A Noell, A Novikov, A Obertacke Pollmann, V O’Dell, A Olivas, R Orsoe, J Osborn, E O’Sullivan, V Palusova, H Pandya, A Parenti, N Park, V Parrish, EN Paudel, L Paul, C Pérez de los Heros, T Pernice, J Peterson, A Pizzuto, M Plum, A Pontén, V Poojyam, Y Popovych, M Prado Rodriguez, B Pries, R Procter-Murphy, GT Przybylski, L Pyras, C Raab, J Rack-Helleis, N Rad, M Ravn, K Rawlins, Z Rechav, A Rehman, I Reistroffer, E Resconi, S Reusch, CD Rho, W Rhode, B Riedel, A Rifaie, EJ Roberts, S Robertson, M Rongen, A Rosted, C Rott, T Ruhe, L Ruohan, I Safa, J Saffer, D Salazar-Gallegos, P Sampathkumar, A Sandrock, G Sanger-Johnson, M Santander, S Sarkar, J Savelberg, P Savina, P Schaile, M Schaufel, H Schieler, S Schindler, L Schlickmann, A Schneider, B Schlüter, F Schlüter, N Schmeisser, T Schmidt, FG Schröder, L Schumacher, S Schwirn, S Sclafani, D Seckel, L Seen, M Seikh, S Seunarine, PA Sevle Myhr, R Shah, S Shefali, N Shimizu, M Silva, B Skrzypek, R Snihur, J Soedingrekso, A Søgaard, D Soldin, P Soldin, G Sommani, C Spannfellner, GM Spiczak, C Spiering, J Stachurska, M Stamatikos, T Stanev, T Stezelberger, T Stürwald, T Stuttard, GW Sullivan, I Taboada, S Ter-Antonyan, A Terliuk, A Thakuri, M Thiesmeyer, WG Thompson, J Thwaites, S Tilav, K Tollefson, S Toscano, D Tosi, A Trettin, MA Unland Elorrieta, AK Upadhyay, K Upshaw, A Vaidyanathan, N Valtonen-Mattila, J Vandenbroucke, T Van Eeden, N van Eijndhoven, J van Santen, J Vara, F Varsi, J Veitch-Michaelis, M Venugopal, M Vereecken, S Vergara Carrasco, S Verpoest, D Veske, A Vijai, J Villarreal, C Walck, N Wandkowsky, A Wang, E Warrick, C Weaver, P Weigel, A Weindl, AY Wen, C Wendt, J Werthebach, M Weyrauch, N Whitehorn, CH Wiebusch, DR Williams, L Witthaus, M Wolf, G Wrede, XW Xu, JP Yanez, E Yildizci, S Yoshida, R Young, F Yu, S Yu, T Yuan, A Zegarelli, S Zhang, Z Zhang, P Zhelnin, P Zilberman, M Zimmerman

Abstract:

We present GollumFit, a framework designed for performing binned-likelihood analyses on neutrino telescope data. GollumFit incorporates model parameters common to any neutrino telescope and also model parameters specific to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. We provide a high-level overview of its key features and how the code is organized. We then discuss the performance of the fitting in a typical analysis scenario, highlighting the ability to fit over tens of nuisance parameters. We present some examples showing how to use the package for likelihood minimization tasks. This framework uniquely incorporates the particular model parameters necessary for neutrino telescopes, and solves an associated likelihood problem in a time-efficient manner. PROGRAM Program title: GollumFit Documentation website: https://docs.icecube.aq/gollumfit/main/index.html Developer's repository link: https://github.com/icecube/GollumFit Licensing provisions: GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1 (LGPL) Programming language: C++, Python Nature of problem: Statistical analysis of data from neutrino telescope experiments is often complex and computationally demanding, owing to the need to optimize a likelihood function over many parameters that describe sources of systematic uncertainties and quantities of interest. Solution method: We introduce a framework that performs binned-likelihood optimization, whose performance can handle the number of parameters typical for a neutrino telescope analysis. We highlight a method to perform event-by-event reweighting to incorporate the experimental parameters. In particular, for neutrino telescopes the parameters that incorporate the uncertainties in the atmospheric neutrino flux are common across all experiments and analyses, and are implemented in our framework. The framework has been designed to be easily extendable in the number of observable dimensions and fit parameters. Finally, we use an automatic differentiation package to achieve computational speed in the likelihood optimization.

Pre-inflationary QCD axion stars after moduli domination

Phys.Rev.D 113 (2026) 11, 115052

Authors:

Edward Hardy (Oxford U., Theor. Phys.), Noelia Sánchez González (Oxford U., Theor. Phys.), Henry Stubbs (Oxford U., Theor. Phys.), Lorenzo Tranchedone (Oxford U., Theor. Phys.)

Abstract:

The growth of adiabatic density perturbations during an era of early matter domination induces O(1) fluctuations in pre-inflationary QCD axion dark matter across a broad, string-theory-motivated parameter space. Remarkably, at ΛCDM matter-radiation equality the scale of these perturbations coincides with the quantum Jeans scale, so they collapse to solitonic ''axion stars''. These axion stars have densities up to 10^4 eV^4, and, including their surrounding halos, they contain as much as 50% of dark matter. Direct searches for a smooth axion background can be suppressed, but transient enhancements or indirect astrophysical signals at axion masses m_a ≲ 10^(−5) eV would point to a non-standard cosmological history.

Pre-inflationary QCD axion stars after moduli domination

(2026)

Authors:

Edward Hardy, Noelia Sánchez González, Henry Stubbs, Lorenzo Tranchedone

Statistical patterns in the equations of physics and the emergence of a meta-law of nature

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences The Royal Society 384:2317 (2026) 20250091

Authors:

Andrei Constantin, Pedro Ferreira, Harry Desmond, Deaglan Bartlett

Abstract:

Physics seeks to uncover the laws of Nature and express them through mathematical equations . Despite the vast diversity of natural phenomena, physical equations exhibit structural regularities that set them apart from arbitrary mathematical expressions. While principles such as dimensional analysis have long guided the formulation of physical models, the exploration of more subtle statistical patterns within the equations of physics remains an open question. Here, by analysing four corpora of physics equations and applying advanced implicit-likelihood techniques, we find that the frequency of mathematical operators follows an exponential decay law, in contrast to Zipf's power law for word frequencies in natural languages. This reveals a statistical meta-law of physics, possibly reflecting a combination of communication efficiency and constraints imposed by Nature itself. The meta-law offers practical benefits for symbolic regression by drastically narrowing down the space of physically plausible expressions. More broadly, it may inform the development of language models that can generate coherent mathematical representations, advancing the automation of physical law discovery. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Symbolic regression in the physical sciences'.