“Species” form biodiversity, and “speciation” is the evolutionary process that originate them. Speciation can occur by stochastic processes —neutral theory— or through the influence of ecological factors —selection theory—. They are not competing theories, but rather explain different facets of speciation. But the mechanisms of speciation seem quite to depend on the group of study and its underlying spatial and temporal factors. Why do in some groups species are more prone to evolve via selection or stochastically than others? It does not exist a unified theory that can explain and predict events of speciation at the global level. However, I hypothesize that there is a latitude-association between two main mechanisms of speciation: 1) “allopatric speciation by means of niche conservatism” and 2) “ecological speciation by means of niche divergence”. The first is hypothetically more common at low latitudes, and the second is more common at high latitudes. In this context, I will use the recent results of my own empirical research on the plant cycad genus Ceratozamia from Mexico as an example to show how mechanisms of speciation seem to covariate with latitude. Hopefully, you can help me to formulate a theory that can explain where and under what factors speciation can occur.

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are a class of hypothetical bosons which feebly interact with ordinary matter. The hot plasma of stars and core-collapse supernovae is a possible laboratory to explore physics beyond the standard model including ALPs. Once produced in a supernova, some of the ALPs can be absorbed by the supernova matter and affect energy transfer. We recently calculated the ALP emission in core-collapse supernovae and the backreaction on supernova dynamics consistently. It is found that the stalled bounce shock can be revived if the coupling between ALPs and photons is as high as $g_{a\gamma}\sim 10^{-9}$ GeV$^{-1}$ and the ALP mass is 40-400 MeV.

Recently, the phase of the two-flavor quark matter with the new
pattern of color superconductivity was proposed so that the continuous
crossover from the hadronic to the quark phase is realized [1]; it is
in consonance with the recent observation of neutron stars.
In this talk, I will show the classification of the topological
vortices in this phase. We found that the stable vortices are what we
call the "non-Abelian Alice strings" [2]. They are superfluid
vortices carrying 1/3 quantized circulation and color magnetic fluxes.
I will discuss their properties in comparison to the well-established
CFL vortices in three-flavor symmetric setup, by putting some emphasis
on their peculiarity: the non-Abelian generalization of the Alice
property. I will then discuss in detail the possibility that these
vortices are confined as well as how the vortices in the quark phase
can be connected to those in the hadronic phase [3].

[1] Y. Fujimoto, K. Fukushima, W. Weise, PRD 101, 094009 (2020) [1908.09360].
[2] Y. Fujimoto, M. Nitta, PRD 103, 054002 (2021) [2011.09947]; JHEP 09 (2021) 192 [2103.15185].
[3] Y. Fujimoto, M. Nitta, PRD 103, 114003 (2021) [2102.12928].

We consider the infrared (IR) aspects of the gauge invariant S-matrix in QED. I will review the problem of IR divergences in QED, and introduce the dressed state formalism to obtain IR-safe S-matrix elements. I will show a condition for dressed states to obtain IR-safe S-matrix elements, and explain that this condition can be interpreted as the memory effect and is related to asymptotic symmetry. I also explain that IR divergences are necessary to prohibit the violation of asymptotic symmetry. We also argue that the difference between dressed and undressed states can be observed, even if we are able to observe an inclusive cross-section summing over soft photons.

Recent developments in statistical mechanics have revealed a tradeoff between heat current and dissipation [1,2]. In various situations, this current-dissipation tradeoff represents a relationship between thermal energy flow and entropy increase, similar to Joule’s law W=RI^2.

On the other hand, the coherence effect on the current-dissipation tradeoff has not been thoroughly analyzed. Here, we systematically analyze how coherence affects the current-dissipation tradeoff [3]. The results can be summarized in the following three rules: