We create fermionic dipolar ${}^{23}\mathrm{Na}{}^6\mathrm{Li}$ molecules in their triplet ground state from an ultracold mixture of ${}^{23}\mathrm{Na}$ and ${}^6\mathrm{Li}$. Using magnetoassociation across a narrow Feshbach resonance followed by a two-photon stimulated Raman adiabatic passage to the triplet ground state, we produce $3\times 10^4$ ground state molecules in a spin-polarized state. We observe a lifetime of 4.6 s in an isolated molecular sample, approaching the $p$-wave universal rate limit. Electron spin resonance spectroscopy of the triplet state was used to determine the hyperfine structure of this previously unobserved molecular state.

Inelastic neutron scattering measurements on the itinerant antiferromagnet ${\mathrm{CaCo}}_{2-y}{\mathrm{As}}_2$ at a temperature of 8 K reveal two orthogonal planes of scattering perpendicular to the Co square lattice in reciprocal space, demonstrating the presence of effective one-dimensional spin interactions. These results are shown to arise from near-perfect bond frustration within the $J_1\text{−}{J}_2$ Heisenberg model on a square lattice with ferromagnetic $J_1$ and hence indicate that the extensive previous experimental and theoretical study of the $J_1\text{−}{J}_2$ Heisenberg model on local-moment square spin lattices should be expanded to include itinerant spin systems.

A quantum theory of multiphase estimation is crucial for quantum-enhanced sensing and imaging and may link quantum metrology to more complex quantum computation and communication protocols. In this Letter, we tackle one of the key difficulties of multiphase estimation: obtaining a measurement which saturates the fundamental sensitivity bounds. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for projective measurements acting on pure states to saturate the ultimate theoretical bound on precision given by the quantum Fisher information matrix. We apply our theory to the specific example of interferometric phase estimation using photon number measurements, a convenient choice in the laboratory. Our results thus introduce concepts and methods relevant to the future theoretical and experimental development of multiparameter estimation.

We search for single-photon events in $53{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collision data collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II $B$-Factory. We look for events with a single high-energy photon and a large missing momentum and energy, consistent with production of a spin-1 particle $A^{\prime }$ through the process $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to \gamma A^{\prime }$; $A^{\prime }\to \text{invisible}$. Such particles, referred to as “dark photons,” are motivated by theories applying a $U(1)$ gauge symmetry to dark matter. We find no evidence for such processes and set 90% confidence level upper limits on the coupling strength of $A^{\prime }$ to $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ in the mass range $m_{A^{\prime }}\le 8\mathrm{GeV}$. In particular, our limits exclude the values of the $A^{\prime }$ coupling suggested by the dark-photon interpretation of the muon $(g-2{)}_{\mu }$ anomaly, as well as a broad range of parameters for the dark-sector models.

Underwater metastability hinders the durable application of superhydrophobic surfaces. In this work, through thermodynamic analysis, we theoretically demonstrate the existence of an ultimate stable state on underwater superhydrophobic surfaces. Such a state is achieved by the synergy of mechanical balance and chemical diffusion equilibrium across the entrapped liquid-air interfaces. By using confocal microscopy, we in situ examine the ultimate stable states on structured hydrophobic surfaces patterned with cylindrical micropores in different pressure and flow conditions. The equilibrium morphology of the meniscus is tuned by the dissolved gas saturation degree within a critical range at a given liquid pressure. Moreover, with fresh lotus leaves, we prove that the ultimate stable state can also be realized on randomly rough superhydrophobic surfaces. The finding here paves the way for applying superhydrophobic surfaces in environments with different liquid pressure and flow conditions.

The second law of photochemistry states that, in most cases, no more than one molecule is activated for an excited-state reaction for each photon absorbed by a collection of molecules. In this Letter, we demonstrate that it is possible to trigger a many-molecule reaction using only one photon by strongly coupling the molecular ensemble to a confined light mode. The collective nature of the resulting hybrid states of the system (the so-called polaritons) leads to the formation of a polaritonic “supermolecule” involving the degrees of freedom of all molecules, opening a reaction path on which all involved molecules undergo a chemical transformation. We theoretically investigate the system conditions for this effect to take place and be enhanced.

We report an experimental study of the scaling of zero-bias conductance peaks compatible with Majorana zero modes as a function of magnetic field, tunnel coupling, and temperature in one-dimensional structures fabricated from an epitaxial semiconductor-superconductor heterostructure. Results are consistent with theory, including a peak conductance that is proportional to tunnel coupling, saturates at $2e^2/h$, decreases as expected with field-dependent gap, and collapses onto a simple scaling function in the dimensionless ratio of temperature and tunnel coupling.

We have developed ultralow-noise electronics in combination with repetitive, nondestructive readout of a thick, fully depleted charge-coupled device (CCD) to achieve an unprecedented noise level of $0.068e^{-}\mathrm{rms}/\mathrm{pixel}$. This is the first time that discrete subelectron readout noise has been achieved reproducible over millions of pixels on a stable, large-area detector. This enables the contemporaneous, discrete, and quantized measurement of charge in pixels, irrespective of whether they contain zero electrons or thousands of electrons. Thus, the resulting CCD detector is an ultra-sensitive calorimeter. It is also capable of counting single photons in the optical and near-infrared regime. Implementing this innovative non-destructive readout system has a negligible impact on CCD design and fabrication, and there are nearly immediate scientific applications. As a particle detector, this CCD will have unprecedented sensitivity to low-mass dark matter particles and coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering, while future astronomical applications may include direct imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets.

The splitting function is a universal property of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) which describes how energy is shared between partons. Despite its ubiquitous appearance in many QCD calculations, the splitting function cannot be measured directly, since it always appears multiplied by a collinear singularity factor. Recently, however, a new jet substructure observable was introduced which asymptotes to the splitting function for sufficiently high jet energies. This provides a way to expose the splitting function through jet substructure measurements at the Large Hadron Collider. In this Letter, we use public data released by the CMS experiment to study the two-prong substructure of jets and test the $1\to 2$ splitting function of QCD. To our knowledge, this is the first ever physics analysis based on the CMS Open Data.

We propose a model for the formation of chromatin loops based on the diffusive sliding of molecular slip links. These mimic the behavior of molecules like cohesin, which, along with the CTCF protein, stabilize loops which contribute to organizing the genome. By combining 3D Brownian dynamics simulations and 1D exactly solvable nonequilibrium models, we show that diffusive sliding is sufficient to account for the strong bias in favor of convergent CTCF-mediated chromosome loops observed experimentally. We also find that the diffusive motion of multiple slip links along chromatin is rectified by an intriguing ratchet effect that arises if slip links bind to the chromatin at a preferred “loading site.” This emergent collective behavior favors the extrusion of loops which are much larger than the ones formed by single slip links.

The decay path of the Hoyle state in ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ ($E_x=7.654\mathrm{MeV}$) has been studied with the ${}^{14}\mathrm{N}(d,{\alpha }_2){}^{12}\mathrm{C}(7.654)$ reaction induced at 10.5 MeV. High resolution invariant mass spectroscopy techniques have allowed us to unambiguously disentangle direct and sequential decays of the state passing through the ground state of ${}^8\mathrm{Be}$. Thanks to the almost total absence of background and the attained resolution, a fully sequential decay contribution to the width of the state has been observed. The direct decay width is negligible, with an upper limit of 0.043% (95% C.L.). The precision of this result is about a factor 5 higher than previous studies. This has significant implications on nuclear structure, as it provides constraints to $3\alpha$ cluster model calculations, where higher precision limits are needed.

Excited states in certain atomic nuclei possess an unusual structure, where the dominant degrees of freedom are those of $\alpha$ clusters rather than individual nucleons. It has been proposed that the diffuse $3\alpha$ system of the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ Hoyle state may behave like a Bose-Einstein condensate, where the $\alpha$ clusters maintain their bosonic identities. By measuring the decay of the Hoyle state into three $\alpha$ particles, we obtained an upper limit for the rare direct $3\alpha$ decay branch of 0.047%. This value is now at a level comparable with theoretical predictions and could be a sensitive probe of the structure of this state.

Development of miniaturized magnetostriction-associated devices requires low-field-triggered large magnetostriction. In this study, we acquired a large magnetostriction (800 ppm) triggered by a low saturation field (0.8 kOe) in iron-palladium (Fe-Pd) alloys. Magnetostriction enhancement jumping from 340 to 800 ppm was obtained with a slight increase in Pd concentration from 31.3 to 32.3 at. %. Further analysis showed that such a slight increase led to suppression of the long-range ordered martensitic phase and resulted in a frozen short-range ordered strain glass state. This strain glass state possessed a two-phase nanostructure with nanosized frozen strain domains embedded in the austenite matrix, which was responsible for the unique magnetostriction behavior. Our study provides a way to design novel magnetostrictive materials with low-field-triggered large magnetostriction.

We present results from moist convection in a mixture of pressurized sulfur hexafluoride (liquid and vapor), and helium (gas) to model the wet and dry components of the Earth’s atmosphere. To allow for homogeneous nucleation, we operate the experiment close to critical conditions. We report on the nucleation of microdroplets in the wake of large cold liquid drops falling through the supersaturated atmosphere and show that the homogeneous nucleation is caused by isobaric cooling of the saturated sulfur hexafluoride vapor. Our results carry over to atmospheric clouds: falling hail and cold rain drops may enhance the heterogeneous nucleation of microdroplets in their wake under supersaturated atmospheric conditions. We also observed that under appropriate circumstances settling microdroplets form a rather stable horizontal cloud layer, which separates regions of super- and subcritical saturation.

We propose generalized magnetic mirrors that can be achieved by excitations of sole electric resonances. Conventional approaches to obtain magnetic mirrors rely heavily on exciting the fundamental magnetic dipoles, whereas here we reveal that, besides magnetic resonances, electric resonances of higher orders can be also employed to obtain highly efficient magnetic mirrors. Based on the electromagnetic duality, it is also shown that electric mirrors can be achieved by exciting magnetic resonances. We provide direct demonstrations of the generalized mirrors proposed in a simple system of a one-dimensional periodic array of all-dielectric wires, which may shed new light on many advanced fields of photonics related to resonant multipolar excitations and interferences.

We theoretically demonstrate that a type-II class of tilted Dirac cones can emerge in generalized two-dimensional anisotropic lattice arrangements. This is achieved by introducing a special set of graphynelike exchange bonds by means of which the complete spectrum of the underlying Weyl Hamiltonian can be realized. Our ab initio calculations demonstrate a unique class of eigensolutions corresponding to a type-II class of Dirac fermionic excitations. Based on our approach, one can systematically synthesize a wide range of strongly anisotropic band diagrams having tilted Dirac cones with variable location and orientation. Moreover, we show that asymmetric conical diffraction, as well as edge states, can arise in these configurations. Our results can provide a versatile platform to observe, for the first time, optical transport around type-II Dirac points in two-dimensional optical settings under linear, nonlinear, and non-Hermitian conditions.

The spontaneous emergence of vector vortex beams with nonuniform polarization distribution is reported in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with frequency-selective feedback. Antivortices with a hyperbolic polarization structure and radially polarized vortices are demonstrated. They exist close to and partially coexist with vortices with uniform and nonuniform polarization distributions characterized by four domains of pairwise orthogonal polarization. The spontaneous formation of these nontrivial structures in a simple, nearly isotropic VCSEL system is remarkable and the vector vortices are argued to have solitonlike properties.

Physical implementations of quantum annealing unavoidably operate at finite temperatures. We point to a fundamental limitation of fixed finite temperature quantum annealers that prevents them from functioning as competitive scalable optimizers and show that to serve as optimizers annealer temperatures must be appropriately scaled down with problem size. We derive a temperature scaling law dictating that temperature must drop at the very least in a logarithmic manner but also possibly as a power law with problem size. We corroborate our results by experiment and simulations and discuss the implications of these to practical annealers.

The rotation curves of spiral galaxies exhibit a diversity that has been difficult to understand in the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm. We show that the self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) model provides excellent fits to the rotation curves of a sample of galaxies with asymptotic velocities in the $25–300\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}$ range that exemplify the full range of diversity. We assume only the halo concentration-mass relation predicted by the CDM model and a fixed value of the self-interaction cross section. In dark-matter-dominated galaxies, thermalization due to self-interactions creates large cores and reduces dark matter densities. In contrast, thermalization leads to denser and smaller cores in more luminous galaxies and naturally explains the flatness of rotation curves of the highly luminous galaxies at small radii. Our results demonstrate that the impact of the baryons on the SIDM halo profile and the scatter from the assembly history of halos as encoded in the concentration-mass relation can explain the diverse rotation curves of spiral galaxies.

Spontaneous collapse models predict that a weak force noise acts on any mechanical system, as a consequence of the collapse of the wave function. Significant upper limits on the collapse rate have been recently inferred from precision mechanical experiments, such as ultracold cantilevers and the space mission LISA Pathfinder. Here, we report new results from an experiment based on a high-$Q$ cantilever cooled to millikelvin temperatures, which is potentially able to improve the current bounds on the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model by 1 order of magnitude. High accuracy measurements of the cantilever thermal fluctuations reveal a nonthermal force noise of unknown origin. This excess noise is compatible with the CSL heating predicted by Adler. Several physical mechanisms able to explain the observed noise have been ruled out.