arXiv subjects

Hiroki Kawai

Publications and source records attributed to Hiroki Kawai.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Spin Chains from large-$N$ QCD at strong coupling

We study the strong coupling expansion of large $N$ QCD in various dimensions, reformulating the Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian on a square lattice in terms of (constrained) one dimensional spin chain models. We study the integrability properties of the spin chain obtained this way: there is large class of integrable subsectors, but we show that the full spin chain is not integrable, at least when viewed from a description based on Bethe ansatz. We demonstrate that the spin chains no longer possess integrability due to the constraints arising from the zigzag symmetry of the confining strings. The spin chain description properly estimates the roughening transition point by extrapolating the first-order analytical results based on integrability of some subsectors. The generalization to higher dimensions are also considered, where we also find the small subsectors without the zigzag constraints to be integrable.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Integrability and Conformal Blocks for Surface Defects in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM

We study various aspects of half-BPS surface defect operators in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM. For defects on generic points on the moduli space we use superconformal symmetry to fix the form of one-point and two-point functions of half-BPS operators and solve the superconformal Ward identities in terms of superconformal blocks, emphasizing the role of the broken rotational symmetry transverse to the defect in the superconformal block expansion. We verify this expansion by the leading-order perturbative calculation for the two-point functions. We also investigate the integrability of the defect CFT in the planar limit and argue that the integrability is broken at generic points of the defect moduli. The integrability is expected to be restored in the singular point of this moduli space where another "rigid" branch appears, and we provide evidence for this by showing that the defect one-point functions in this case can be mapped to a class of known integrable quenches.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Metaverse Support Groups for LGBTQ+ Youth: An Observational Study on Safety, Self-Expression, and Early Intervention

This study assessed metaverse-based support groups designed to reduce social isolation and suicide risk among LGBTQ+ youths. Using the Cluster platform, enhanced anonymity, avatar-based self-expression, and accessibility were provided. Key findings showed that 79.2% chose avatars matching their gender identity, reporting high satisfaction (mean: 4.10/5) and low discomfort (mean: 1.79/5). Social confidence significantly improved in virtual spaces compared to real-world interactions (p<0.001), particularly among participants with initially low confidence, averaging an increase of 2.08 points. About half of the first-time participants were 16 or younger, highlighting potential for early intervention. The metaverse scored higher than real-world environments for safety/privacy (3.94/5), self-expression (4.02/5), and accessibility (4.21/5). Additionally, 73.6% reported feeling more accepted virtually. However, some highly confident individuals offline experienced mild adaptation challenges, averaging a confidence decrease of 0.58 points, indicating virtual support complements rather than replaces in-person services. These findings suggest metaverse-based support effectively lowers psychological barriers and provides affirming spaces, potentially reducing severe outcomes such as suicidal ideation. Future studies should focus on integrating virtual support with existing community and clinical frameworks to enhance long-term impacts.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Identification of $>$40 gravitationally magnified stars in a galaxy at redshift of 0.725

Strong gravitational magnifications enable to detect faint background sources, resolve their internal structures, and even identify individual stars in distant galaxies. Highly magnified individual stars allow various applications, including studies of stellar populations in distant galaxies and constraining dark matter structures in the lensing plane. However, these applications have been hampered by the small number of individual stars observed, as typically one or a few stars are identified from each distant galaxy. Here, we report the discovery of more than 40 microlensed stars in a single galaxy behind Abell 370 at redshift of 0.725 when the Universe was half of its current age (dubbed ``the Dragon arc''), using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations with the time-domain technique. These events are found near the expected lensing critical curves, suggesting that these are magnified stars that appear as transients from intracluster stellar microlenses. Through multi-wavelength photometry, we constrain stellar types and find that many of them are consistent with red giants/supergiants magnified by factors of hundreds. This finding reveals an unprecedented high occurrence of microlensing events in the Dragon arc, and proves that {\it JWST}'s time-domain observations open up the possibility of conducting statistical studies of high-redshift stars.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Constraints on primordial black holes from the observed number of Icarus-like ultrahigh magnification events

Icarus is an individual star observed near the macro-critical curve of the MACS J1149 cluster, with the magnification factor estimated to be an order of thousands. Since microlenses near the macro-critical curve influence the number of such high-magnification events, the observed occurrence of Icarus-like events is expected to provide a useful constraint on the properties of microlenses. We first study the mass and mass fraction of microlenses consistent with the observed number of events assuming a single microlens component with a monochromatic mass function, finding that stars that contribute to the intracluster light (ICL) are consistent at the 95% confidence level. We then consider the contribution of primordial black holes (PBHs), which are one of the alternatives to the standard cold dark matter, as microlenses in addition to ICL stars. The derived parameter space indicates that a large abundance of PBHs with a mass around $1\ M_{\odot}$ and a fraction of PBHs to the total dark matter of $f_{\rm PBH} \gtrsim 0.2$ cannot explain the observed number of Icarus-like events and therefore is excluded. The methodology developed in this paper can be used to place tighter constraints on the fraction of PBHs from ongoing and future observations of ultrahigh magnification events.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Galaxy-galaxy strong lensing cross-section with fuzzy dark matter model

The galaxy-galaxy strong lensing (GGSL) cross-section in observed galaxy clusters has been reported to be more than an order of magnitude higher than the theoretical prediction by the standard cold dark matter (CDM) model. In this study, we focus on the fuzzy dark matter (FDM) model and study the GGSL cross-section numerically and analytically. We find that FDM subhalos can produce larger cross-sections than the CDM subhalos due to the presence of the soliton core. The maximum cross-section is obtained when the core radius is about the same as the size of the critical curve. The peak ratio of the cross-sections between the FDM subhalos and the CDM subhalos is about two when including the baryon distribution, indicating that the FDM with any masses might not produce the expected observed cross-section.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Analytic model for the statistics of ultra-high magnification events

Highly magnified individual stars such as Icarus and Earendel have recently been observed near critical curves of galaxy clusters with Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations. These stars are estimated to be magnified with a factor of more than a few thousands. In addition to the smooth mass distribution in the macro-lens model, the distribution of microlenses originating from, for instance, intracluster stars affects the event rate and the peak magnification significantly. We propose an analytic model of the high-magnification tail of the probability distribution function (PDF) in which the probability is assumed to be proportional to the number of independent microlens critical curves. Our model can explain the parameter dependence of the PDF on the mass fraction of the microlenses and the background magnification seen in ray-tracing simulations. The effect of a finite source size is also studied to derive a fitting formula for the suppression factor. For an application of our model, we calculate the event rate of the Icarus-like system and the probability distribution of observed positions of such system, showing good agreement with the HST observations. Our model predicts a complicated dependence of the probability distribution of observed positions of highly magnified events on the magnification threshold.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Modeling the core-halo mass relation in fuzzy dark matter halos

Fuzzy dark matter (FDM) is an intriguing candidate alternative to the standard cold dark matter (CDM). The FDM model predicts that dark halos have characteristic core structures generated by the effect of quantum pressure, which is different from the structure of CDM halos. We devise a semi-analytic model of a FDM halo density profile by assuming that the density distribution results from the redistribution of mass in a halo with the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We calculate the mass redistribution radius by considering dynamical relaxation within the FDM halo. We adopt a concentration-halo mass relation with lower concentration compared to that in the CDM model below the half mode mass, which originates from the suppressed matter density fluctuations at small length scales. Our model reproduces the core-halo mass relation (CHMR) found in the numerical simulation of \citet{2014NatPh..10..496S} at $z<1$. We show that the CHMR is well described by a double power law, unlike previous studies that approximate it by a single power law. Our model predictions are in reasonable agreement with the results of the largest FDM simulation of \citet{2021MNRAS.506.2603M} at $z=3$. We find that the core mass for a given halo mass follows the log-normal distribution, both in our model and in the simulation results for the first time, and quantitatively compare the variance of the distribution among them. Although our model does not fully explain the scatter of the CHMR, we show the scatter of the concentration-halo mass relation sizably contributes to them.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Dark Matter distinguished by skewed microlensing in the "Dragon Arc"

Microlensed stars recently discovered by JWST & HST follow closely the winding critical curve of A370 along all sections of the ``Dragon Arc" traversed by the critical curve. These transients are fainter than $m_{AB}>26.5$, corresponding to the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) and microlensed by diffuse cluster stars observed with $\simeq 18M_\odot/pc^2$, or about $\simeq 1$\% of the projected dark matter density. Most microlensed stars appear along the inner edge of the critical curve, following an asymmetric band of width $\simeq 4$kpc that is skewed by $-0.7\pm0.2$kpc. Some skewness is expected as the most magnified images should form along the inner edge of the critical curve with negative parity, but the predicted shift is small $\simeq -0.04$kpc and the band of predicted detections is narrow, $\simeq 1.4$kpc. Adding CDM-like dark halos of $10^{6-8}M_\odot$ broadens the band as desired but favours detections along the outer edge of the critical curve, in the wrong direction, where sub-halos generate local Einstein rings. Instead, the interference inherent to ``Wave Dark Matter" as a Bose-Einstein condensate ($ψ$DM) forms a symmetric band of critical curves that favours negative parity detections. A de Broglie wavelength of $\simeq 10$pc matches well the observed $4$kpc band of microlenses and predicts negative skewness $\simeq -0.6$kpc, similar to the data. The implied corresponding boson mass is $\simeq 10^{-22}$eV, in good agreement with estimates from dwarf galaxy cores when scaled by momentum. Further JWST imaging may reveal the pattern of critical curves by simply ``joining the dots" between microlensed stars, allowing wave corrugations of $ψ$DM to be distinguished from CDM sub-halos

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Integrable Spin Chains from large-$N$ QCD at strong coupling

We study a spin chain for a confining string that arises at first order in degenerate perturbation from the strong-coupling expansion of the Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian on a square lattice in the leading large $N$ expansion. We show some subsectors are integrable and that with a relaxed constraint related to zigzag symmetry, the full spin chain is integrable in arbitrary dimensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Analytic approach to astrometric perturbations of critical curves by substructures

Astrometric perturbations of critical curves in strong lens systems are thought to be one of the most promising probes of substructures down to small-mass scales. While a smooth mass distribution creates a symmetric geometry of critical curves with radii of curvature about the Einstein radius, substructures introduce small-scale distortions on critical curves, which can break the symmetry of gravitational lensing events near critical curves, such as highly magnified individual stars. We derive a general formula that connects the fluctuation of critical curves with the fluctuation of the surface density caused by substructures, which is useful when constraining models of substructures from observed astrometric perturbations of critical curves. We numerically check that the formula is valid and accurate as long as substructures are not dominated by a small number of massive structures. As a demonstration of the formula, we also explore the possibility that an anomalous position of an extremely magnified star, recently reported as ``Mothra,'' can be explained by fluctuations in the critical curve due to substructures. We find that cold dark matter subhalos with masses ranging from $5 \times 10^7 M_{\odot}/h$ to $10^9 M_{\odot}/h$ can well explain the anomalous position of Mothra, while in the fuzzy dark matter model, the very small mass of $\sim 10^{-24}~\mathrm{eV}$ is needed to explain it.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

U(1) Fields from Qubits: an Approach via D-theory Algebra

A new quantum link microstructure was proposed for the lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) Hamiltonian, replacing the Wilson gauge links with a bilinear of fermionic qubits, later generalized to D-theory. This formalism provides a general framework for building lattice field theory algorithms for quantum computing. We focus mostly on the simplest case of a quantum rotor for a single compact $U(1)$ field. We also make some progress for non-Abelian setups, making it clear that the ideas developed in the $U(1)$ case extend to other groups. These in turn are building blocks for $1 + 0$-dimensional ($1 + 0$-D) matrix models, $1 + 1$-D sigma models and non-Abelian gauge theories in $2+1$ and $3+1$ dimensions. By introducing multiple flavors for the $U(1)$ field, where the flavor symmetry is gauged, we can efficiently approach the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of the quantum $O(2)$ rotor with increasing flavors. The emphasis of the method is on preserving the symplectic algebra exchanging fermionic qubits by sigma matrices (or hard bosons) and developing a formal strategy capable of generalization to $SU(3)$ field for lattice QCD and other non-Abelian $1 + 1$-D sigma models or $3 +3$-D gauge theories. For $U(1)$, we discuss briefly the qubit algorithms for the study of the discrete $1+1$-D Sine-Gordon equation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

X-ray/H$α$ scaling relationships in stellar flares

We report on the results of our simultaneous observations of three large stellar flares with soft X-rays (SXRs) and an H$\mathrmα$ emission line from two binary systems of RS CVn type. The energies released in the X-ray and H$\mathrmα$ emissions during the flares were $10^{36}$--$10^{38}$ and $10^{35}$--$10^{37}$ erg, respectively. It renders the set of the observations as the first successful simultaneous X-ray/H$\mathrmα$ observations of the stellar flares with energies above $10^{35}$ erg; although the coverage of the H$\mathrmα$ observations of the stellar flares with energies above $10^{35}$ erg; although the coverage of the H$\mathrmα$ observations was limited, with $\sim$10\% of the $e$-folding time in the decay phase of the flares, that of the SXR ones was complete. Combining the obtained physical parameters and those in literature for solar and stellar flares, we obtained a good proportional relation between the emitted energies of X-ray and H$\mathrmα$ emissions for a flare energy range of $10^{29}$--$10^{38}$ erg. The ratio of the H$\mathrmα$-line to bolometric X-ray emissions was $\sim$0.1, where the latter was estimated by converting the observed SXR emission to that in the 0.1--100 keV band according to the best-fitting thin thermal model. We also found that the $e$-folding times of the SXR and H$\mathrmα$ light curves in the decaying phase of a flare are in agreement for a time range of $1$--$10^4$~s. Even very large stellar flares with energies of six orders of magnitude larger than the most energetic solar flares follow the same scaling relationships with solar and much less energetic stellar flares. This fact suggests that their physical parameters can be estimated on the basis of the known physics of solar and stellar flares.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

An analytic model for the sub-galactic matter power spectrum in fuzzy dark matter halos

Fuzzy dark matter (FDM), a scalar particle coupled to the gravitational field without self-interaction whose mass range is $m \sim 10^{-24} - 10^{-20}\ \rm{eV}$, is one of the promising alternative dark matter candidates to cold dark matter. The quantum interference pattern, which is a unique structure of FDM, can be seen in halos in cosmological FDM simulations. In this paper, we first provide an analytic model of the sub-galactic matter power spectrum originating from quantum clumps in FDM halos, in which the density distribution of the FDM is expressed by a superposition of quantum clumps whose size corresponds to the de Broglie wavelength of the FDM. These clumps are assumed to be distributed randomly such that the ensemble averaged density follows the halo profile such as the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We then compare the convergence power spectrum projected along the line of sight around the Einstein radius, which is converted from the sub-galactic matter power spectrum, to that measured in the strong lens system SDSS J0252+0039. While we find that the current observation provides no useful constraint on the FDM mass, we show that future deep, high spatial resolution observations of strong lens systems can tightly constrain FDM with the mass around $10^{-22}\ \rm{eV}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

The RS CVn type star GT Mus shows most energetic X-ray flares throughout the 2010s

We report that the RS CVn-type star GT Mus (HR 4492, HD 101379 + HD 101380) was the most active star in the X-ray sky in the last decade in terms of the scale of recurrent energetic flares. We detected 11 flares from GT Mus in 8 yr of observations with Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) from 2009 August to 2017 August. The detected flare peak luminosities were 1-4 $\times$ 10$^{33}$ erg s$^{-1}$ in the 2.0-20.0 keV band for its distance of 109.6 pc. Our timing analysis showed long durations ($τ_{\rm r} + τ_{\rm d}$) of 2-6 days with long decay times ($τ_{\rm d}$) of 1-4 days. The released energies during the decay phases of the flares in the 0.1-100 keV band ranged 1-11 $\times$ 10$^{38}$ erg, which are at the upper end of the observed stellar flare. The released energies during whole duration time ranged 2-13 $\times$ 10$^{38}$ erg in the same band. We carried out X-ray follow-up observations for one of the 11 flares with Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) on 2017 July 18 and found that the flare cooled quasi-statically. On the basis of a quasi-static cooling model, the flare loop length is derived to be 4 $\times$ 10$^{12}$ cm (or 60 R$_{\odot}$). The electron density is derived to be 1 $\times$ 10$^{10}$ cm$^{-3}$, which is consistent with the typical value of solar and stellar flares (10$^{10-13}$ cm$^{-3}$). The ratio of the cooling timescales between radiative cooling ($τ_{\rm rad}$) and conductive cooling ($τ_{\rm cond}$) is estimated to be $τ_{\rm rad}$ $\sim$ 0.1$τ_{\rm cond}$ from the temperature; thus radiative cooling was dominant in this flare.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Predicting excited states from ground state wavefunction by supervised quantum machine learning

Excited states of molecules lie in the heart of photochemistry and chemical reactions. The recent development in quantum computational chemistry leads to inventions of a variety of algorithms that calculate the excited states of molecules on near-term quantum computers, but they require more computational burdens than the algorithms for calculating the ground states. In this study, we propose a scheme of supervised quantum machine learning which predicts the excited-state properties of molecules only from their ground state wavefunction resulting in reducing the computational cost for calculating the excited states. Our model is comprised of a quantum reservoir and a classical machine learning unit which processes the measurement results of single-qubit Pauli operators with the output state from the reservoir. The quantum reservoir effectively transforms the single-qubit operators into complicated multi-qubit ones which contain essential information of the system, so that the classical machine learning unit may decode them appropriately. The number of runs for quantum computers is saved by training only the classical machine learning unit, and the whole model requires modest resources of quantum hardware that may be implemented in current experiments. We illustrate the predictive ability of our model by numerical simulations for small molecules with and without noise inevitable in near-term quantum computers. The results show that our scheme well reproduces the first and second excitation energies as well as the transition dipole moment between the ground states and excited states only from the ground state as an input. We expect our contribution will enhance the applications of quantum computers in the study of quantum chemistry and quantum materials.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Optical and X-ray observations of stellar flares on an active M dwarf AD Leonis with Seimei Telescope, SCAT, NICER and OISTER

We report multi-wavelength monitoring observations of an M-dwarf flare star AD Leonis with Seimei Telescope (6150--7930 Å), SCAT (Spectroscopic Chuo-university Astronomical Telescope; 3700--7500 Å), NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer; 0.2--12.0 keV), and collaborations of OISTER (Optical and Infrared Synergetic Telescopes for Education and Research) program. Twelve flares are detected in total which include ten H$α$, four X-ray, and four optical-continuum flares; one of them is a superflare with the total energy of $\sim$ 2.0$\times$10$^{33}$ erg. We found that (1) during the superflare, the H$α$ emission line full width at 1/8 maximum dramatically increases to 14 Å from 8 Å in the low-resolution spectra (R$\sim$ 2000) accompanied with the large white-light flares, (2) some weak H$α$/X-ray flares are not accompanied with white-light emissions, and (3) the non-flaring emissions show clear rotational modulations in X-ray and H$α$ intensity in the same phase. To understand these observational features, one-dimensional hydrodynamic flare simulations are performed by using the RADYN code. As a result of simulations, we found the simulated H$α$ line profiles with hard and high-energy non-thermal electron beams are consistent with that of the initial phase line profiles of the superflares, while those with more soft- and/or weak-energy beam are consistent with those in decay phases, indicating the changes in the energy fluxes injected to the lower atmosphere. Also, we found that the relation between optical continuum and H$α$ intensity is nonlinear, which can be one cause of the non-white-light flares. The flare energy budget exhibits diversity in the observations and models, and more observations of stellar flares are necessary for constraining the occurrence of various emission line phenomena in stellar flares.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2020

VAE/WGAN-Based Image Representation Learning For Pose-Preserving Seamless Identity Replacement In Facial Images

We present a novel variational generative adversarial network (VGAN) based on Wasserstein loss to learn a latent representation from a face image that is invariant to identity but preserves head-pose information. This facilitates synthesis of a realistic face image with the same head pose as a given input image, but with a different identity. One application of this network is in privacy-sensitive scenarios; after identity replacement in an image, utility, such as head pose, can still be recovered. Extensive experimental validation on synthetic and real human-face image datasets performed under 3 threat scenarios confirms the ability of the proposed network to preserve head pose of the input image, mask the input identity, and synthesize a good-quality realistic face image of a desired identity. We also show that our network can be used to perform pose-preserving identity morphing and identity-preserving pose morphing. The proposed method improves over a recent state-of-the-art method in terms of quantitative metrics as well as synthesized image quality.

cs.CV↗