@misc{21145, abstract = {Protein conformational energy landscapes are shaped not only by intramolecular interactions but also by their environment. In protein crystals and protein-protein complexes, intermolecular contacts alter this energy landscape, but the exact nature of this alteration is difficult to decipher. Understanding how the crystal lattice affects protein dynamics is crucial for crystallography-based studies of motion, yet its influence on collective motions remains unclear. Aromatic ring flips in the hydrophobic core represent sensitive probes of such dynamics. Here, we compare the kinetics of aromatic ring flips in the protein GB1 in crystals, in complex with its binding partner IgG, and in solution, combining advanced isotope labeling with quantitative NMR methods. We show that rings in the core flip nearly a thousand times less frequently in crystals than in solution. Enhanced-sampling molecular dynamics simulations, based on a new crystal structure, reproduce these elevated barriers and reveal how the crystal restrains motions. }, author = {Becker, Lea Marie and Schanda, Paul and Chipot, Christophe}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Additional Data for "Aromatic Ring Flips Reveal Reshaping of Protein Dynamics in Crystals and Complexes"}}, doi = {10.15479/AT-ISTA-21145}, year = {2026}, } @article{22663, abstract = {The detection of strong, large-scale magnetic fields at the surfaces of the oldest white dwarfs might point toward a hidden internal magnetic field slowly rising to the surface. In addition, strong magnetic fields have recently been measured through asteroseismology in the radiative interiors of red giant stars, the progenitors of white dwarfs. To investigate the potential connection between these observations, we revisited the fossil field framework using asteroseismic detections to constrain the strength of such magnetic fields as red giants evolve into the white dwarf stage. We assumed that the magnetic field was either created during the core convection on the main sequence or that it fills the radiative interior as the star evolves on the red giant branch. From these initial conditions, we evolved the magnetic flux, allowing for magnetic diffusion along the evolution of a modeled 1.5 M⊙ star. We find that measured field strengths in red giants attributed to the hydrogen-burning shell are compatible with the field amplitudes and emergence timescales of magnetized white dwarfs. On the contrary, magnetic fields generated solely from a convective-core dynamo on the main sequence and detectable on the red giant branch would be buried too deep in the star and would not match the breakout timescales or the field strengths of magnetic white dwarfs. Therefore, for us to connect magnetic fields observed along the late evolution of stars via a fossil field we would need to find a broadly magnetized internal radiative zone on the red giant branch.}, author = {Einramhof, Lukas and Bugnet, Lisa Annabelle and Calcaferro, L. M. and Barrault, Lucas and Das, S. B.}, issn = {1432-0746}, journal = {Astronomy & Astrophysics}, publisher = {EDP Sciences}, title = {{Magneto-archeology of white dwarfs}}, doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202659069}, volume = {708}, year = {2026}, } @inproceedings{22299, abstract = {The depth poset of a filtered Lefschetz complex reflects the dependencies between the cancellations of different shallow birth-death pairs. Using the fast algorithms for computing the depth poset in [Edelsbrunner et al., 2026] and for updating the persistence diagram under transpositions in [Cohen-Steiner et al., 2006], we give a complete case analysis of how transpositions of cells in the filter affect the depth poset. In addition, we present statistics on the depth poset for random point data and its sensitivity to the transpositions that occur in random straight-line homotopies.}, author = {Edelsbrunner, Herbert and Lipiński, Michał and Mrozek, Marian and Soriano Trigueros, Manuel and Zimin, Fedor}, booktitle = {42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry}, isbn = {9783959774185}, issn = {1868-8969}, keywords = {Algebraic topology, Lefschetz complexes, persistent homology, vines and vineyards, birth-death pairs, shallow pairs, relations, partial orders, transpositions, Theory of computation → Computational geometry}, location = {New Brunswick, NJ, United States}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik}, title = {{The depth poset under transpositions in the filter}}, doi = {10.4230/LIPICS.SOCG.2026.41}, volume = {367}, year = {2026}, } @inproceedings{22717, abstract = {We study concurrent graph games where n players cooperate against an opponent to reach a set of target states. Unlike traditional settings, we study distributed randomisation: team players do not share a source of randomness, and their private random sources are hidden from the opponent and from each other. We show that memoryless strategies are sufficient for the threshold problem (deciding whether there is a strategy for the team that ensures winning with probability that exceeds a threshold), a result that not only places the problem in the Existential Theory of the Reals (ER) but also enables the construction of value iteration algorithms. We additionally show that the threshold problem is NP-hard. For the almost-sure reachability problem, we prove NP-completeness. We introduce Individually Randomised Alternating-time Temporal Logic (IRATL). This logic extends the standard ATL framework to reason about probability thresholds, with semantics explicitly designed for coalitions that lack a shared source of randomness. On the practical side, we implement and evaluate a solver for the threshold and almost-sure problem based on the algorithms that we develop.}, author = {Brice, Leonard J and Henzinger, Thomas A and Montaseri, Alipasha and Shafiee, Ali and Thejaswini, K. S.}, booktitle = {38th International Conference on Computer Aided Verification}, isbn = {9783032325181}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Lisbon, Portugal}, pages = {215--236}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Randomise alone, reach as a team}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-032-32519-8_12}, volume = {16682}, year = {2026}, } @inproceedings{22722, abstract = {The local structure of a protein strongly impacts its function and interactions with other molecules. Representing local biomolecular environments remains a key challenge while applying machine learning approaches over protein structures. The structural and chemical variability of these environments makes them challenging to model, and performing representation learning on these objects remains largely under-explored. In this work, we propose representations for local protein environments that leverage intermediate features from machine learning force fields (MLFFs). We extensively benchmark state-of-the-art MLFFs, comparing their performance across latent spaces and downstream tasks, and show that their embeddings capture local structural (e.g., secondary motifs) and chemical features (e.g., amino acid identity and protonation state), organizing protein environments into a structured manifold. We show that these representations enable zero-shot generalization and transfer across diverse downstream tasks. As a case study, we build a physics-informed, uncertainty-aware chemical shift predictor that achieves state-of-the-art accuracy in biomolecular NMR spectroscopy. Our results establish MLFFs as general-purpose, reusable representation learners for protein modeling, opening new directions in representation learning for structured physical systems. Code and data are available at https://github.com/mb012/MLFF_representation. }, author = {Bojan, Meital I and Vedula, Sanketh and Maddipatla, Sai A and Sellam, Nadav E and Rzayev, Anar and Napoli, Federico and Schanda, Paul and Bronstein, Alexander}, booktitle = {14th International Conference on Learning Representations}, location = {Rio de Janeiro, Brazil}, pages = {100760--100799}, title = {{Representing local protein environments with machine learning force fields}}, volume = {2026}, year = {2026}, } @article{22720, abstract = {Circadian clocks underlie daily rhythms in physiology by coordinating temporal patterns of gene expression and protein function throughout the body. At the core of this system in mammals is CLOCK/BMAL1, a ubiquitously expressed heterodimeric transcription factor complex that orchestrates tissue-specific circadian gene expression. The basis for this specificity remains unclear, but tissue-specific interactions at chromatin could provide one. Here we used chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled to mass spectrometry to map CLOCK/BMAL1-associated protein complexes on chromatin in mouse liver, kidney and lung. We detected 1,510 associated proteins, most of which were tissue-specific and not explained by protein abundance. Among these, we identified the homeodomain transcription factors PROX1, HNF1B and HOXA5 as tissue-enriched interactors that bind BMAL1, co-occupy most BMAL1 genomic sites and establish organ-restricted circadian transcription. Our findings demonstrate that tissue-specific transcription factors confer cellular identity on the core clock, thereby contributing to organ-specific patterns of rhythmic gene expression.}, author = {Aygenli, Fatih and Huschet, Lukas A. and Popp, Tanja and Ribeiro, Andrea and Barkhatova, Darina and Jouffe, Céline and Trozzo, Ricardo and Menet, Jerome S. and Rad, Roland and Dyar, Kenneth A. and Lech, Maciej and Straub, Tobias and Michael, Alicia and Robles, Maria S.}, issn = {1476-4679}, journal = {Nature Cell Biology}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{CLOCK/BMAL1 interactome uncovers homeodomain factors as tissue regulators}}, doi = {10.1038/s41556-026-02041-4}, year = {2026}, } @article{22734, abstract = {Silver selenide (Ag2Se) is a promising near-room-temperature thermoelectric material, but its narrow stoichiometric window and β–α phase transition complicate reproducible microstructure control. Here, we present a mismatch-assisted microstructure engineering strategy in which Ag2Se particles are treated with polyanionic ZnSe complexes and consolidated through the β–α transition to introduce ZnSe nanoprecipitates, Ag2Se/ZnSe interfaces, and local strain fields. The crystallographic mismatch between ZnSe and Ag2Se, together with the Zn2+/Ag+ size difference, amplifies phase-transition-induced deformation and promotes high-density dislocations with periodic strain modulations. This defect architecture suppresses grain coarsening, removes excess Ag, limits Ag-interstitial formation, and reduces lattice thermal conductivity through lattice softening and multiscale phonon scattering. Ag2Se–4%ZnSe nanocomposites achieve a peak zTmax of 1.13 at 369 K and a zTavg of 1.08 from 300 to 380 K, demonstrating mismatch-driven defect engineering through the β–α phase transition as a route for optimizing Ag2Se-based thermoelectrics.}, author = {Liu, Yu and Kleinhanns, Tobias and Spadaro, Maria Chiara and Genç, Aziz and Horta, Sharona and Navita, Navita and Costanzo, Tommaso and Dutkiewicz, Ewelina and Arbiol, Jordi and Hong, Min and Ibáñez, Maria}, issn = {2380-8195}, journal = {ACS Energy Letters}, number = {8}, pages = {5752--5762}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{Exploiting mismatch strain and the β–α phase transition for microstructural engineering in thermoelectric Ag2Se}}, doi = {10.1021/acsenergylett.6c01499}, volume = {11}, year = {2026}, } @phdthesis{22694, abstract = {We develop and employ techniques from equivariant algebraic K-theory and related invariants in the context of geometric representation theory, in both arithmetic and topological situations. We showcase the use of such techniques on the affine Grassmannian Gr, a space of fundamental interest in the geometric Langlands program. It is a deep development of mathematics of the last century that many concrete, yet combina- torially complex algebraic problems may be effectively studied through the lens of algebraic geometry. The objects of interest can be often realized as cohomological invariants of algebraic varieties, and good understanding of their geometry sheds light into the original questions. Such techniques have seen immense applications in the Langlands program, where they go under the label of geometric representation theory. One source of powerful invariants in algebraic geometry comes from algebraic K-theory, Hochschild homology, and their relatives. These localizing invariants contain large amount of information, but are quite hard to compute. For this reason, their usage in geometric representation theory has been limited. The aim of this thesis is to showcase how to control such invariants in the situations of interest and use them to obtain new insights. We start by reinterpreting equivariant Hochschild homology in terms of functions on certain fixed-point schemes, which are of independent interest. We compare it to equivariant K-theory via the trace map. We give new computations and comparisons of such invariants of affine Schubert varieties in Gr, including arithmetic situations. We show that they behave much better than expected. We finally utilize this circle of ideas in a purely topological setting. We describe the varying fixed points of the extended torus action on the affine Grassmannian, and use it to compute its equivariant topological K-theory ring. The answer is nontrivial and verifies an outstanding conjecture in the subject. We compare, partly conjecturally, the resulting K-theory ring to the completed center of an integral even hybrid quantum group and its deformed quantum category O. This gives a genuine application of our computations in pure representation theory.}, author = {Löwit, Jakub}, issn = {2663-337X}, pages = {185}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Equivariant K-theory of affine Grassmannians in representation theory and arithmetic}}, doi = {10.15479/AT-ISTA-22694}, year = {2026}, } @article{22693, abstract = {We study torus-equivariant algebraic K-theory of affine Schubert varieties in the perfect affine Grassmannians over Fp. We further compare it to the torus-equivariant Hochschild homology of perfect complexes, which has a geometric description in terms of global functions on certain fixed-point schemes. We prove that Fp-linearly, this comparison is an isomorphism. Our approach is quite constructive, resulting in new computations of these K-theory rings. We establish various structural results for equivariant perfect algebraic K-theory on the way; we believe these are of independent interest.}, author = {Löwit, Jakub}, issn = {1431-0643}, journal = {Documenta Mathematica}, keywords = {equivariant algebraic K-theory, perfection in positive characteristic, affine Grassmannian, affine Schubert varieties, Dennis trace map, equivariant Hochschild homology, fixed-point schemes, toric varieties}, publisher = {EMS Press}, title = {{Equivariant K-theory, affine Grassmannian and perfection}}, doi = {10.4171/dm/1064}, year = {2026}, } @article{21762, abstract = {Bacteria, like eukaryotes, use conserved cytoskeletal systems for intracellular organization. The plasmid-encoded ParMRC system forms actin-like filaments that segregate low–copy number plasmids. In multicellular cyanobacteria such as Anabaena sp., we found that a chromosomally encoded ParMR system has evolved into a cytoskeletal system named CorMR with a function in cell shape control rather than DNA segregation. Live-cell imaging, in vitro reconstitution, and cryo–electron microscopy revealed that CorM formed dynamically unstable, antiparallel double-stranded filaments that were recruited to the membrane by CorR through an amphipathic helix conserved in multicellular cyanobacteria. CorMR filaments were regulated by MinC, which excluded them from the poles and division plane. Comparative genomics indicated that the repurposing of ParMR and Min systems coevolved with cyanobacterial multicellularity, highlighting the evolutionary plasticity of cytoskeletal systems in bacteria.}, author = {Springstein, Benjamin L and Javoor, Manjunath and Megrian, Daniela and Hajdu, Roman and Hanke, Dustin M. and Zens, Bettina and Weiss, Gregor L. and Schur, Florian Km and Loose, Martin}, issn = {1095-9203}, journal = {Science}, number = {6795}, publisher = {AAAS}, title = {{Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape}}, doi = {10.1126/science.aea6343}, volume = {392}, year = {2026}, } @article{22771, abstract = {Elucidating reaction mechanisms requires efficient generation of transition states (TSs) and products. Existing diffusion and sequence-based models accelerate parts of this process over traditional string-based methods, but typically still require manual enumeration of either TSs or products, and stochastic diffusion dynamics can be inefficient and hard to control. We introduce MolGEN, a conditional flow-matching framework that uses deterministic optimal transport to map Gaussian priors to chemical distributions. For TS generation, MolGEN improves TS geometry and barrier-height prediction over diffusion models while enabling sub-second sampling. For reaction product generation, it achieves competitive top-k accuracy while preserving mass and electron balance. Using the same backbone for TS and product sampling, MolGEN enables template-free generative exploration of reaction networks without the repeated quantum-chemistry searches required by prior methods. For the γ-ketohydroperoxide decomposition network, it produces more valid TSs than string-based methods using only 12 quantum-chemistry evaluations instead of 1156, and identifies a lower-barrier pathway.}, author = {Tuo, Ping and Chen, Jiale and Li, Ju}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Flow matching for reaction pathway generation}}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-75654-w}, volume = {17}, year = {2026}, } @misc{22852, abstract = {This Research Data contains supplemental videos for Chapter 4 "Designing bistable nanostructures for target behavior" of my PhD Thesis "Biological functionality without biochemistry: designing nanomachines for target behavior". Supplemental video 1: Video showing the transition pathway of a bistable nanostructure with sphere-based arms, corresponding to the Machine in Scenario 4. Supplemental video 2: Video showing the transition pathway of the Source in Scenario 1. The arm tips change sides during the transition, demonstrating that the arms pass through each other. Supplemental video 3: Video showing the transition pathway of a fully polyhedral hinge structure with unconstrained arms. Note that we only show the ends of the arms. Supplemental video 4: Video showing the transition pathway of the coupled energy-delivery reaction of a Machine (gray) and a Source (blue) nanostructure for the optimized parameters in Scenario 3. Note that we only show the ends of the arms.}, author = {Ehrmann, Andreas}, keywords = {functional nanostructures, bistability, target behavior, transition pathway}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Supplemental videos for Designing bistable nanostructures for target behavior}}, doi = {10.15479/AT-ISTA-22852}, year = {2026}, } @article{22772, abstract = {The cytoplasmic antiviral sensor MDA5 is activated by double-stranded RNAs. Endogenous double-stranded RNAs are modified by the A-to-I RNA-editing ADAR family to prevent activation of MDA5. In vivo, cytoplasmic ADAR1p150 is critically required to suppress MDA5 activation, yet the editing signature of all ADAR isoforms is strongly overlapping in mice. Further, it is not clear how A-to-I modifications in dsRNA prevent MDA5 activation. Here we show that 3′ UTRs harboring inverted repeats activate MDA5 in vitro and in cells. In vitro editing by either ADAR isoform leads to editing at overlapping hotspot regions and prevents MDA5 activation in vitro and in cells. Remarkably, only inosines introduced by RNA editing are capable of suppressing MDA5 activation, while replacing guanosines with inosines during in vitro transcription has no impact on MDA5 activation. A comparison of inosines introduced by ADAR1p150 in vitro, in cells, and in vivo suggests that a small number of A-to-I conversions may be critically required to suppress MDA5 activation. As those critical editing events are predominantly altering A:U basepairs into I:U wobble basepairs, we suggest that the helical distortion introduced by those wobble pairs may prevent MDA5 polymerization and thus downstream activation of the type I interferon response.}, author = {Varada, Rajagopal and Leuchtenberger, Alina F. and Vesely, Cornelia and Kaczmarek, Beata M and Mansouri Khosravi, Hamid and Mandl, Therese C. and Milanovic, Katarina and Honarmand Tamizkar, Kasra and Rajendra, Vinod and Senoner, Hannes and Steinbichl, Linda and Borojevic, Marija and Sombke, Andy and Schmidt, Katy and Eckhard, Margret and Hofacker, Ivo L. and Walkley, Carl and Heraud-Farlow, Jacki E. and Picardi, Ernesto and Bernecky, Carrie A and Jantsch, Michael F.}, issn = {1362-4962}, journal = {Nucleic Acids Research}, number = {16}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Distinguishing self from non-self RNA by editing-specific inosine patterns}}, doi = {10.1093/nar/gkag845}, volume = {54}, year = {2026}, } @article{22818, abstract = {Physical processes at play in the genesis and evolution of tropical cyclones are conducive to the formation of warm cores at their centres. When the warm anomaly is particularly large in the upper troposphere, it is referred to as a high-level warm core. Previous works documented the generation of high-level warm cores as a consequence of stratospheric air intrusion into the troposphere induced by the upper-level dynamics of a tropical cyclone. However, little attention has been given to their effects on the storm's subsequent evolution. It has been suggested that the presence of a high-level warm core can have opposite effects on tropical cyclone intensity: both strengthening and weakening have been described as possible consequences of its formation. In this study, we examine the role of high-level warm cores in the intensification and dissipation processes of tropical cyclones, as reproduced in numerical models of different complexities, namely the model “System for Atmospheric Modeling” (SAM) run under idealized conditions and the model Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model run under realistic conditions following the DYnamics of the Atmospheric general circulation Modeled On Non-hydrostatic Domains summer protocol. Our results confirm the hypothesis of a stratospheric origin behind the formation of high-level warm cores. Their initial role is shown to be an enhancement of storm intensity, by a lowering of the hydrostatic sea-level pressure (HSLP) associated with the presence of warm air aloft. However, as the warm anomaly intensifies and extends to lower levels, it also increases static stability in the air column, with the consequence of inhibiting convection and ultimately contributing to cyclone dissipation. These findings suggest that high-level warm cores play a dual role in the tropical cyclone life cycle, providing a stabilizing mechanism that can limit cyclone strength and longevity.}, author = {Davin, Andrea and Charinti, Giousef Alexandros and Muller, Caroline J and Polesello, Andrea and Pasquero, Claudia}, issn = {1477-870X}, journal = {Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Stratospheric influence on tropical cyclone evolution}}, doi = {10.1002/qj.70280}, year = {2026}, } @phdthesis{21863, abstract = {Atoms and photons, two things so different but yet so alike. The former, the building block of matter, something we learn about in school and imagine it as some tiny marbles encircled by other tinier marbles. The latter, an electromagnetic wave, a light particle or an excitation of the electromagnetic field. Quantum mechanics tells us about the properties of these two entities. And even if it sounds, looks and writes counter-intuitive, it has proven right for over a century now. In this work, I elaborate on how we tested the laws of quantum mechanics and how we used them learn more about the tiny building blocks of nature and the fields they use to talk to each other. The atoms we use, are artificial. Superconducting qubits, small electrical circuits with quantized energy levels behave like electrons that transition between different orbitals in an atom. One of the qubits' advantages, is also a big disadvantage. We design the circuits' energy levels and fabricate them in a cleanroom. This allows for arbitrary spaced energy levels but in contrast to real atoms, prevents two superconducting qubits from being alike. Still, this qubit platform is one of the frontrunners for future quantum computing technology and testing fundamental physics due to their scalability. We interface superconducting qubits, which operate in the GHz regime, with microwave photons. We use 3D aluminum cavities as mediators between qubits and photons. The cavities allow for non-destructive readout of the qubit state, they shield the qubits from noise at the qubit frequency and they give us an easy way to frequency-tune these joint systems. We need to operate superconducting qubits and their cavities at millikelvin temperatures in dilution refrigerators. At higher temperatures, superconductivity suffers and even worse, the environment is filled with thermal noise photons. This poses a fundamental limitation on the scalability of superconducting qubit devices. Also connecting multiple devices in different fridges does not work over room temperature links because the microwave photons used for this purpose will be covered in noise and the quantum information they carry, will be unusable. Infrared photons do not suffer from this noise problem since there are close to zero thermal noise photons at their frequencies at room temperature. We cannot simply interface superconducting devices with optical photons due their frequency mismatch and the destructive effect of optical photons on superconductors. Therefore, we use microwave-to-optics transducers that allow to convert microwave photons into optical ones and vice-versa. The transducers that we use are macroscopic electro-optic transducers using the Pockels effect in a disk-shaped Lithium Niobate whispering gallery mode resonator. By using a strong optical pump, photons from the two frequency domains experience a beam-splitter interaction and get converted from one to the other. We measure the generated optical photons using elaborate optical setups, optical heterodyning and single photon detectors to gain knowledge about the qubit state or the converted microwave photons. Bridging the microwave and the optical world allows us to take advantage of both of their strengths but it also requires deep knowledge about both of their working principles. In this work, we describe two experiments that our group conducted to showcase the opportunities that arise from interfacing superconducting qubits with optical photons but also the pitfalls, one may encounter on the way. In the first experiment, we managed to all-optically read out a superconducting qubit. We show that the assignment fidelity, the probability that a measurement of the qubit state matches the prepared state, is close to equal for all-optical, microwave-to-optics and conventional microwave readout. We show T1 and T2 measurements for all three readout types and give an analysis of the noise caused by the optics. Finally, we show that the infrared light does not affect the qubit performance in a negative way but that the heating it causes does. This is an important insight that we used in the next experiment. The second experiment is the upconversion of itinerant single microwave photons to the optical domain. We show that we can generate single microwave photons from a qubit-cavity system. We upconvert these single photons, measure them with a single photon detector and reconstruct their shape. By conducting a single photon Rabi measurement, we show correlations between the microwave and the optical domain. And by thorough signal-to-noise measurements and noise analysis, we find that we can generate single infrared photons with high signal-to-noise ratio 5.1 and low transducer added noise (<0.012 quanta). We show that this measurement creates a path towards entanglement of a superconducting qubit and an optical photon and what parameters need to be improved to achieve it. Additionally, this experiment is a proof of principle for an on-demand infrared single photon source. More generally, it allows to link microwave quantum technology in general to the optical domain.}, author = {Werner, Thomas}, issn = {2663-337X}, keywords = {Superconducting qubits, Quantum optics, Single photons and quantum effects, Nonlinear optics}, pages = {97}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Interfacing superconducting qubits with optical photons}}, doi = {10.15479/AT-ISTA-21863}, year = {2026}, } @unpublished{21870, abstract = {Superconducting qubits are a leading candidate for utility-scale quantum computing due to their fast gate speeds and steadily decreasing error rates. The requirement for millikelvin operating temperatures, however, creates a significant scaling bottleneck. Modular architectures using optical fiber links could bridge separate cryogenic nodes, but superconducting circuits do not have coherent optical transitions and microwave-to-optical conversion has not been shown for any non-classical photon state. In this work, we demonstrate the on-demand generation and tomographic reconstruction of itinerant single microwave photons at 8.9 GHz from a superconducting qubit. We upconvert this non-Gaussian state with a transducer added noise below 0.012 quanta and count the converted telecom photons at 193.4 THz with a signal-to-noise ratio of up to 5.1$\pm$1.1. We characterize the trade-offs between throughput and noise, and establish a viable path toward heralded entanglement distribution and gate teleportation. Looking ahead, these results empower existing superconducting devices to take a key role in distributed quantum technologies and heterogeneous quantum systems.}, author = {Werner, Thomas and Riyazi, Erfan and Hawaldar, Samarth and Sahu, Rishabh and Arnold, Georg M and Paul Falthansl-Scheinecker, Paul Falthansl-Scheinecker and Naranjo, Jennifer A. Sánchez and Loi, Dante and Kapoor, Lucky N. and Zemlicka, Martin and Qiu, Liu and Militaru, Andrei and Fink, Johannes M}, booktitle = {arXiv}, title = {{Electro-optic conversion of itinerant Fock states}}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2602.00928}, year = {2026}, } @phdthesis{22745, author = {Michalik, David}, issn = {2663-337X}, pages = {182}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Mechanistic insights into MDA5 selectivity and regulation}}, doi = {10.15479/AT-ISTA-22745}, year = {2026}, } @article{22912, abstract = {Deep convection from tropical cyclones (TCs) can reach the height of the tropopause and as such an interaction between the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is likely to occur. Such interactions have been reported in both numerical and observational studies, mainly showing that subsidence from the stratosphere into the eye of an intensifying storm leads to a high-level warm core. However, the effect of this upper-level warming on the intensity of the TCs is not yet well understood. In this study, we show that subsiding air from the stratosphere beyond subsidence in the eye is the reason for the upper-level warming in idealized simulations. We further show that it is possible to quantify the effects of the upper-level warming on the potential intensity of the TC. Finally, we conclude that overshooting convection into the stratosphere causes the observed subsidence, as both become more pronounced with increasing sea-surface temperatures (SST).}, author = {Charinti, Giousef Alexandros and Davin, Andrea and Polesello, Andrea and Muller, Caroline J and Pasquero, Claudia}, issn = {1944-8007}, journal = {Geophysical Research Letters}, number = {17}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Impact of upper-level warming on tropical cyclone intensity}}, doi = {10.1029/2025GL121307}, volume = {53}, year = {2026}, } @inproceedings{21717, abstract = {Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) generalize classical MDPs that consider uncertainties in transition probabilities by defining a set of possible transition functions. An objective is a set of runs (or infinite trajectories) of the RMDP, and the value for an objective is the maximal probability that the agent can guarantee against the adversarial environment. We consider (a) reachability objectives, where given a target set of states, the goal is to eventually arrive at one of them; and (b) parity objectives, which are a canonical representation for ω-regular objectives. The qualitative analysis problem asks whether the objective can be ensured with probability 1. In this work, we study the qualitative problem for reachability and parity objectives on RMDPs without making any assumption over the structures of the RMDPs, e.g., unichain or aperiodic. Our contributions are twofold. We first present efficient algorithms with oracle access to uncertainty sets that solve qualitative problems of reachability and parity objectives. We then report experimental results demonstrating the effectiveness of our oracle-based approach on classical RMDP examples from the literature scaling up to thousands of states.}, author = {Asadi, Ali and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Kafshdar Goharshadi, Ehsan and Karrabi, Mehrdad and Shafiee, Ali}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 40th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence}, issn = {2374-3468}, location = {Singapore, Singapore}, number = {43}, pages = {36137--36145}, publisher = {Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence}, title = {{Qualitative analysis of ω-regular objectives on robust MDPs}}, doi = {10.1609/aaai.v40i43.40931}, volume = {40}, year = {2026}, } @inproceedings{22146, abstract = {We study differentially private model training with stochastic gradient descent under learning rate scheduling and correlated noise. Although correlated noise, in particular via matrix factorizations, has been shown to improve accuracy, prior theoretical work focused primarily on the prefix-sum workload. That workload assumes a constant learning rate, whereas in practice learning rate schedules are widely used to accelerate training and improve convergence. We close this gap by deriving general upper and lower bounds for a broad class of learning rate schedules in both single- and multi-epoch settings. Building on these results, we propose a learning-rate-aware factorization that achieves improvements over prefix-sum factorizations under both MaxSE and MeanSE error metrics. Our theoretical analysis yields memory-efficient constructions suitable for practical deployment, and experiments on CIFAR-10 and IMDB datasets confirm that schedule-aware factorizations improve accuracy in private training.}, author = {Kalinin, Nikita and Andersson, Joel D}, booktitle = {7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing}, isbn = {9783959774192}, issn = {1868-8969}, keywords = {differential privacy, machine learning, matrix factorization}, location = {Cambridge, MA; United States}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik}, title = {{Learning rate scheduling with matrix factorization for private training}}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.2}, volume = {368}, year = {2026}, }