Chicago – Kavli Institute Pre-Print Publications

The Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey X: Density and Pressure Profiles of Clumpy Circumgalactic Gas at $z=0.4-0.7$

Posted by klaurent October 26, 2026Chicago

Kavli Affiliate: Hsiaowen Chen |Summary:The thermodynamic state and turbulent properties of the cool circumgalactic medium (CGM) are investigated for 23 galaxies and galaxy groups at intermediate redshift ($z=0.4$–0.7) in the Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) midz sample using background QSOs within the virial radius. Kinematically resolved absorption-line measurements from Hubble Space Telescope/COS and STIS spectra, […]

Continue..

Reconfigurable Free-Space Optical Interconnects

Posted by klaurent October 22, 2026October 26, 2026Chicago, This Week: Astrophysics

Kavli Affiliate: David W. Miller | Summary:Free-space optical interconnects can support many low-data-rate channels while avoiding the cost, energy consumption, and packaging constraints of optical waveguide- or fiber-based systems that are widely used today. We propose a free-space optical interconnect system based on reconfigurable micromirror arrays, and show that it scales favorably due to its […]

Continue..

Kinetic-inductance Parametric Amplification in Superconducting Hybrid Magnonics

Posted by klaurent October 21, 2026October 26, 2026Chicago, This Week: Astrophysics

Kavli Affiliate: Clarence Chang | Summary:Parametric amplification enables sensitive microwave detection and signal processing by amplifying weak signals with minimal added noise. Here, we demonstrate kinetic inductance mediated parametric amplification in a hybrid magnonic system comprising a nonlinear NbN nanowire resonator strongly coupled to a yttrium iron garnet sphere. The resonator exhibits four wave mixing […]

Continue..

Cosmic Ray Observations using Coincident Scintillator and Radio Signals with the Beamforming Elevated Array for COsmic Neutrinos (BEACON)

Posted by klaurent October 21, 2026October 26, 2026Chicago, This Week: Astrophysics

Kavli Affiliate: Eric Oberla | Summary:At energies above 100 PeV, coherent radio frequency (RF) emission across the 10 — 1000 MHz band from cosmic particle-induced atmospheric showers becomes increasingly dominant, making radio detection a powerful probe at ultrahigh energies. The Beamforming Elevated Array for COsmic Neutrinos (BEACON) considers mountaintop phased radio arrays to monitor large […]

Continue..

Microlens-Integrated Grating Couplers for Efficient Free-Space Coupling in Silicon Photonics

Posted by klaurent October 20, 2026October 26, 2026Chicago, This Week: Astrophysics

Kavli Affiliate: David W. Miller | Summary:Grating-coupler arrays are used to couple free-space light into photonic chips, but the space required for tapers and routing waveguides limits their optical fill factor. Microlens arrays can increase the effective fill factor by collecting light over a larger area and focusing it onto each grating. Separately fabricated lens […]

Continue..

LLM Trojans that Increase Response Lengths and Cost

Posted by klaurent October 17, 2026Chicago

Kavli Affiliate: David W. Miller | Summary:Management of the token-based costs of using LLMs has emerged as a significant problem. Some frontier-model providers charge five times per response token than per prompt token, while others offer prefilling discounts for prompt tokens. In this paper, we devise a defense against a new data-poisoning attack that plants […]

Continue..

Forecasting the Resolvability of Stellar Velocity Dispersions in Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxies

Posted by klaurent October 17, 2026Chicago

Kavli Affiliate: Alexander Ji | Summary:Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs)—the smallest and most dark-matter dominated galactic systems—push the boundaries of our understanding of galaxy formation in the cold dark matter paradigm. As current and near-future imaging surveys continue to expand the known population of extremely faint systems, spectroscopic resources have become a major limitation in our […]

Continue..

EDGE-INFERNO: The chemical signatures of assembly history in reionization fossils

Posted by klaurent October 13, 2026October 26, 2026Chicago

Kavli Affiliate: Alexander Ji | Summary:In galaxies, stellar populations represent a superposition of both in situ and accreted components, tracing internal chemical evolution as well as the histories of merged satellites. We investigate how assembly history shapes the chemical properties of present-day stellar populations in low-mass dwarf galaxies. We analyze a suite of EDGE-INFERNO star-by-star […]

Continue..

TDCOSMO 2026: new insights on the Hubble tension from strong lensing time delays

Posted by klaurent October 10, 2026Chicago

Kavli Affiliate: Joshua Frieman | Summary:We discuss the measurement of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) in flat $Λ$ cold dark matter cosmology based on the blind hierarchical analysis of 11 multiply-imaged quasars (hereafter the TDCOSMO-2026 sample) and described in greater detail in a companion paper. In addition to the time delays, we use lens models based […]

Continue..

TDCOSMO 2026: A 3% measurement of the Hubble constant from strong lensing and stellar kinematics

Posted by klaurent October 10, 2026Chicago

Kavli Affiliate: Joshua Frieman | Summary:We present cosmological constraints from 11 strongly lensed quasars with measured time delays (hereafter, the TDCOSMO-2026 sample). In addition to expanding the sample, we improve many aspects of our blind analysis with respect to our 2025 analysis. Among other improvements, spatially resolved kinematics are available for nine systems, including six […]

Continue..