Gabriel Cuomo, Fanny Eustachon, Eren Firat, Brian Henning, Riccardo Rattazzi

SciPost Phys. 20, 018 (2026) · published 21 January 2026 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We provide a comprehensive picture for the formulation of the perfect fluid in the modern effective field theory formalism at both the classical and quantum level. Due to the necessity of decomposing the hydrodynamical variables $(\rho, p, u^\mu)$ into other internal degrees of freedom, the procedure is inherently not unique. We discuss and compare the different inequivalent formulations. These theories possess a peculiarity: the presence of an infinite dimensional symmetry implying a vanishing dispersion relation $\omega = 0$ for the transverse modes. This sets the stage for UV-IR mixing in the quantum theory, which we study in the different formulations focussing on the incompressible limit. We observe that the dispersion relation gets modified by quantum effects to become $\omega \propto k^2$, where the fundamental excitations can be viewed as vortex-anti-vortex pairs. The spectrum exhibits infinitely many types of degenerate quanta. The unusual sensitivity to UV quantum fluctuations renders the implementation of the defining infinite symmetry somewhat subtle. However we present a lattice regularization that preserves a deformed version of such symmetry.

Matjaž Kebrič, Ulrich Schollwöck, Fabian Grusdt

SciPost Phys. 20, 017 (2026) · published 21 January 2026 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Lattice gauge theories (LGTs) provide valuable insights into problems in strongly correlated many-body systems. Confinement which arises when matter is coupled to gauge fields is just one of the open problems, where LGT formalism can explain the underlying mechanism. However, coupling gauge fields to dynamical charges complicates the theoretical and experimental treatment of the problem. Developing a simplified mean-field theory is thus one of the ways to gain new insights into these complicated systems. Here we develop a mean-field theory of a paradigmatic 1+1D $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory with superconducting pairing term, the gauged Kitaev chain, by decoupling charge and $\mathbb{Z}_2$ fields while enforcing the Gauss law on the mean-field level. We first determine the phase diagram of the original model in the context of confinement, which allows us to identify the symmetry-protected topological transition in the Kitaev chain as a confinement transition. We then compute the phase diagram of the effective mean-field theory, which correctly captures the main features of the original LGT. This is furthermore confirmed by the Green's function results and a direct comparison of the ground state energy. This simple LGT can be implemented in state-of-the art cold atom experiments. We thus also consider string-length histograms and the electric field polarization, which are easily accessible quantities in experimental setups and show that they reliably capture the various phases.

Hee-Cheol Kim, Cumrun Vafa, Kai Xu

SciPost Phys. 20, 016 (2026) · published 21 January 2026 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We present a bottom-up argument showing that the number of massless fields in six-dimensional quantum gravitational theories with eight supercharges is uniformly bounded. Specifically, we show that the number of tensor multiplets is bounded by $T≤ 193$, and the rank of the gauge group is restricted to $r(V)≤ 480$. Given that F-theory compactifications on elliptic CY 3-folds are a subset, this provides a bound on the Hodge numbers of elliptic CY 3-folds: $h^{1,1}({\rm CY_3})≤ 491$, $h^{1,1}({\rm Base})≤ 194$ which are saturated by special elliptic CY 3-folds. This establishes that our bounds are sharp and also provides further evidence for the string lamppost principle. These results are derived by a comprehensive examination of the boundaries of the tensor moduli branch, showing that any consistent supergravity theory with $T≠0$ must include a BPS string in its spectrum corresponding to a "little string theory" (LST) or a critical heterotic string. From this tensor branch analysis, we establish a containment relationship between SCFTs and LSTs embedded within a gravitational theory. Combined with the classification of 6d SCFTs and LSTs, this then leads to the above bounds. Together with previous works, this establishes a bound on the number of massless fields in the supergravity for $d≥ 6$.

Joseph McGovern

SciPost Phys. 20, 015 (2026) · published 20 January 2026 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We apply the methods of [S. Alexandrov et al., Commun. Number Theory Phys. 18, 49 (2024)] to compute generating series of D4D2D0 indices with a single unit of D4 charge for several compact Calabi-Yau threefolds, assuming modularity of these indices. Our examples include a $\mathbb{Z}_7$ quotient of Rødland's pfaffian threefold, a $\mathbb{Z}_5$ quotient of Hosono-Takagi's double quintic symmetroid threefold, the $\mathbb{Z}_3$ quotient of the bicubic intersection in $\mathbb{P}^5$, and the $\mathbb{Z}_5$ quotient of the quintic hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^4$. For these examples we compute GV invariants to the highest genus that available boundary conditions make possible, and for the case of the quintic quotient alone this is sufficiently many GV invariants for us to make one nontrivial test of the modularity of these indices. As discovered in [S. Alexandrov et al., Commun. Number Theory Phys. 18, 49 (2024)], the assumption of modularity allows us to compute terms in the topological string genus expansion beyond those obtainable with previously understood boundary data. We also consider five multiparameter examples with $h^{1,1}>1$, for which only a single index needs to be computed for modularity to fix the rest. We propose a modification of the formula in [S. Alexandrov et al., Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 27, 683 (2023)] that incorporates torsion to solve these models. Our new examples are only tractable because they have sufficiently small triple intersection and second Chern numbers, which happens because all of our examples are suitable quotient manifolds. In an appendix we discuss some aspects of quotient threefolds and their Wall data.

Luciano Rezzolla, Christian Ecker

SciPost Phys. 20, 014 (2026) · published 19 January 2026 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The stellar compactness, that is, the dimensionless ratio between the mass and radius of a compact star, $\mathcal{C} := M/R$, plays a fundamental role in characterising the gravitational and nuclear-physics aspects of neutron stars. Yet, because the compactness depends sensitively on the unknown equation of state (EOS) of nuclear matter, the simple question: "how compact can a neutron star be?" remains unanswered. To address this question, we adopt a statistical approach and consider a large number of parameterised EOSs that satisfy all known constraints from nuclear theory, perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and astrophysical observations. Next, we conjecture that, for any given EOS, the maximum compactness is attained by the star with the maximum mass of the sequence of nonrotating configurations. While we can prove this conjecture for a rather large class of solutions, its general proof is still lacking. However, the evidence from all of the EOSs considered strongly indicates that it is true in general. Exploiting the conjecture, we can concentrate on the compactness of the maximum-mass stars and show that an upper limit appears for the maximum compactness and is given by $\mathcal{C}_{\rm max} = 1/3$. Importantly, this upper limit is essentially independent of the stellar mass and a direct consequence of perturbative-QCD constraints.