We experimentally demonstrate a protocol for entanglement distribution by a separable quantum system. In our experiment, two spatially separated modes of an electromagnetic field get entangled by local operations, classical communication, and transmission of a correlated but separable mode between them. This highlights the utility of quantum correlations beyond entanglement for the establishment of a fundamental quantum information resource and verifies that its distribution by a dual classical and separable quantum communication is possible.

A limit on a possible cosmological variation of the proton-to-electron mass ratio $\mu$ is derived from methanol (${\mathrm{CH}}_3\mathrm{OH}$) absorption lines in the benchmark PKS1830–211 lensing galaxy at redshift $z=0.89$ observed with the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope, the Institute de Radio Astronomie Millimétrique 30-m telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Ten different absorption lines of ${\mathrm{CH}}_3\mathrm{OH}$ covering a wide range of sensitivity coefficients $K_{\mu }$ are used to derive a purely statistical $1\sigma$ constraint of $\Delta \mu /\mu =(1.5\pm 1.5)\times {10}^{-7}$ for a lookback time of 7.5 billion years. Systematic effects of chemical segregation, excitation temperature, frequency dependence, and time variability of the background source are quantified. A multidimensional linear regression analysis leads to a robust constraint of $\Delta \mu /\mu =(-1.0\pm {0.8}_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm {1.0}_{\mathrm{sys}})\times {10}^{-7}$.

Metadynamics is a commonly used and successful enhanced sampling method. By the introduction of a history dependent bias which depends on a restricted number of collective variables it can explore complex free energy surfaces characterized by several metastable states separated by large free energy barriers. Here we extend its scope by introducing a simple yet powerful method for calculating the rates of transition between different metastable states. The method does not rely on a previous knowledge of the transition states or reaction coordinates, as long as collective variables are known that can distinguish between the various stable minima in free energy space. We demonstrate that our method recovers the correct escape rates out of these stable states and also preserves the correct sequence of state-to-state transitions, with minimal extra computational effort needed over ordinary metadynamics. We apply the formalism to three different problems and in each case find excellent agreement with the results of long unbiased molecular dynamics runs.

We demonstrate that pure $\mathcal{N}=4$ supergravity is ultraviolet divergent at four loops. The form of the divergence suggests that it is due to the rigid $U(1)$ duality-symmetry anomaly of the theory. This is the first known example of an ultraviolet divergence in a pure ungauged supergravity theory in four dimensions. We use the duality between color and kinematics to construct the integrand of the four-loop four-point amplitude, whose ultraviolet divergence is then extracted by standard integration techniques.

We introduce the concept and practical design of broadband, ultrathin cloaks based on non-Foster, negatively capacitive metasurfaces. By using properly tailored, active frequency-selective screens conformal to an object, within the realm of a practical realization, we show that it is possible to drastically reduce the scattering over a wide frequency range in the microwave regime, orders of magnitude broader than any available passive cloaking technology. The proposed active cloak may impact not only invisibility and camouflaging, but also practical antenna and sensing applications.

We provide theoretical arguments that dark-matter axions from the galactic halo that pass through Earth may generate a small observable signal in resonant S/N/S Josephson junctions. The corresponding interaction process is based on the uniqueness of the gauge-invariant axion Josephson phase angle modulo $2\pi$ and is predicted to produce a small Shapiro steplike feature without externally applied microwave radiation when the Josephson frequency resonates with the axion mass. A resonance signal of so far unknown origin observed by C. Hoffmann et al. [Phys. Rev. B 70, 180503(R) (2004)] is consistent with our theory and can be interpreted in terms of an axion mass $m_a{c}^2=0.11\mathrm{meV}$ and a local galactic axionic dark-matter density of $0.05\mathrm{GeV}/{\mathrm{cm}}^3$. We discuss future experimental checks to confirm the dark-matter nature of the observed signal.

We use the classical Bogomol’nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) soliton solutions of the BPS Skyrme model together with corrections from the collective coordinate quantization of spin and isospin, the electrostatic Coulomb energies, and a small explicit breaking of the isospin symmetry—accounting for the proton-neutron mass difference—to calculate nuclear binding energies. We find that the resulting binding energies are already in excellent agreement with their physical values for heavier nuclei, demonstrating thereby that the BPS Skyrme model is a distinguished starting point for a detailed quantitative investigation of nuclear and low-energy strong interaction physics.

Huge numbers of double layers carrying electric fields parallel to the local magnetic field line have been observed on the Van Allen probes in connection with in situ relativistic electron acceleration in the Earth’s outer radiation belt. For one case with adequate high time resolution data, 7000 double layers were observed in an interval of 1 min to produce a 230 000 V net parallel potential drop crossing the spacecraft. Lower resolution data show that this event lasted for 6 min and that more than 1 000 000 volts of net parallel potential crossed the spacecraft during this time. A double layer traverses the length of a magnetic field line in about 15 s and the orbital motion of the spacecraft perpendicular to the magnetic field was about 700 km during this 6 min interval. Thus, the instantaneous parallel potential along a single magnetic field line was the order of tens of kilovolts. Electrons on the field line might experience many such potential steps in their lifetimes to accelerate them to energies where they serve as the seed population for relativistic acceleration by coherent, large amplitude whistler mode waves. Because the double-layer speed of $3100\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}$ is the order of the electron acoustic speed (and not the ion acoustic speed) of a 25 eV plasma, the double layers may result from a new electron acoustic mode. Acceleration mechanisms involving double layers may also be important in planetary radiation belts such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, in the solar corona during flares, and in astrophysical objects.

“Structural lubricity” refers to a unique friction state in which two flat surfaces are sliding past each other with ultralow resistance due to incommensurate atomic lattice structures. In this case, theory anticipates sublinear scaling for the area dependence of friction. Here, we experimentally confirm these predictions by measuring the sliding resistance of amorphous antimony and crystalline gold nanoparticles on crystalline graphite. For the amorphous particles a square root relation between friction and contact area is observed. For crystalline gold particles we find a more complex scaling behavior related to variations in particle shape and orientation. These results allow us to link mesoscopic friction to atomic principles.

The most precise determination of the neutron lifetime using the beam method was completed in 2005 and reported a result of ${\tau }_n=(886.3\pm 1.2[\mathrm{stat}]\pm 3.2[\mathrm{syst}])\mathrm{s}$. The dominant uncertainties were attributed to the absolute determination of the fluence of the neutron beam (2.7 s). The fluence was measured with a neutron monitor that counted the neutron-induced charged particles from absorption in a thin, well-characterized ${}^6\mathrm{Li}$ deposit. The detection efficiency of the monitor was calculated from the areal density of the deposit, the detector solid angle, and the evaluated nuclear data file, ENDF/B-VI ${}^6\mathrm{Li}(n,t){}^4\mathrm{He}$ thermal neutron cross section. In the current work, we measure the detection efficiency of the same monitor used in the neutron lifetime measurement with a second, totally absorbing neutron detector. This direct approach does not rely on the ${}^6\mathrm{Li}(n,t){}^4\mathrm{He}$ cross section or any other nuclear data. The detection efficiency is consistent with the value used in 2005 but is measured with a precision of 0.057%, which represents a fivefold improvement in the uncertainty. We verify the temporal stability of the neutron monitor through ancillary measurements, allowing us to apply the measured neutron monitor efficiency to the lifetime result from the 2005 experiment. The updated lifetime is ${\tau }_n=(887.7\pm 1.2[\mathrm{stat}]\pm 1.9[\mathrm{syst}])\mathrm{s}$.

The relationship between antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and superconductivity has become a central topic of research in studies of superconductivity in the iron pnictides. We present unambiguous evidence of the absence of magnetic fluctuations in the nonsuperconducting collapsed tetragonal phase of ${\mathrm{CaFe}}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$ via inelastic neutron scattering time-of-flight data, which is consistent with the view that spin fluctuations are a necessary ingredient for unconventional superconductivity in the iron pnictides. We demonstrate that the collapsed tetragonal phase of ${\mathrm{CaFe}}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$ is nonmagnetic, and discuss this result in light of recent reports of high-temperature superconductivity in the collapsed tetragonal phase of closely related compounds.

Synchronization of driven oscillators is a key aspect of flow generation in artificial and biological filaments such as cilia. Previous theoretical and numerical studies have considered the “rotor” model of a cilium in which the filament is coarse grained into a colloidal sphere driven with a given force law along a predefined trajectory to represent the oscillating motion of the cilium. These studies pointed to the importance of two factors in the emergence of synchronization: the modulation of the driving force around the orbit and the deformability of the trajectory. In this work it is shown via experiments, supported by numerical simulations and theory, that both of these factors are important and can be combined to produce strong synchronization (within a few cycles) even in the presence of thermal noise.

The telomere length can either be shortened or elongated by an enzyme called telomerase after each cell division. Interestingly, the shortest telomere is involved in controlling the ability of a cell to divide. Yet, its dynamics remains elusive. We present here a stochastic approach where we model this dynamics using a Markov jump process. We solve the forward Fokker-Planck equation to obtain the steady state distribution and the statistical moments of telomere lengths. We focus specifically on the shortest one and we estimate its length difference with the second shortest telomere. After extracting key parameters such as elongation and shortening dynamics from experimental data, we compute the length of telomeres in yeast and obtain as a possible prediction the minimum concentration of telomerase required to ensure a proper cell division.

Common nematic oils, such as 5CB, experience planar anchoring at aqueous interfaces. When these oils are emulsified, this anchoring preference and the resulting topological constraints lead to the formation of droplets that exhibit one or two point defects within the nematic phase. Here, we explore the interactions of adsorbed particles at the aqueous interface through a combination of experiments and coarse-grained modeling, and demonstrate that surface-active particles, driven by elastic forces in the droplet, readily localize to these defect regions in a programmable manner. When droplets include two nanoparticles, these preferentially segregate to the two poles, thereby forming highly regular dipolar structures that could serve for hierarchical assembly of functional structures. Addition of sufficient concentrations of surfactant changes the interior morphology of the droplet, but pins defects to the interface, resulting in aggregation of the two particles.

The slowing down of molecular dynamics when approaching the glass transition generally proceeds much stronger than expected for thermally activated motions. This strange phenomenon can be formally ascribed to a temperature-dependent activation energy $E(T)$. In the present work, via measurements of the third-order nonlinear dielectric susceptibility, we deduce the increase of the number of correlated molecules $N_{\mathrm{corr}}$ when approaching the glass transition and find a surprisingly simple correlation of $E(T)$ and $N_{\mathrm{corr}}(T)$. This provides strong evidence that the noncanonical temperature development of glassy dynamics is caused by a temperature-dependent energy barrier arising from the cooperative motion of ever larger numbers of molecules at low temperatures.

We set up a macroscopic model of bacterial growth and transport based on a dynamic preferred direction—the collective velocity of the bacteria. This collective velocity is subject to the isotropic-nematic transition modeling the density-controlled transformation between immotile and motile bacterial states. The choice of the dynamic preferred direction introduces a distinctive coupling of orientational ordering and transport not encountered otherwise. The approach can also be applied to other systems spontaneously switching between individual (disordered) and collective (ordered) behavior and/or collectively responding to density variations, e.g., bird flocks, fish schools, etc. We observe a characteristic and robust stop-and-go behavior. The inclusion of chirality results in a complex pulsating dynamics.

We demonstrate the energy- and time-resolved detection of single-electron wave packets from a clock-controlled source transmitted through a high-energy quantum Hall edge channel. A quantum dot source is loaded with single electrons which are then emitted $\sim 150\mathrm{meV}$ above the Fermi energy. The energy spectroscopy of emitted electrons indicates that at high magnetic field these electrons can be transported over several microns without inelastic electron-electron or electron-phonon scattering. Using a time-resolved spectroscopic technique, we deduce the wave packet size at picosecond resolution. We also show how this technique can be used to switch individual electrons into different electron waveguides (edge channels).

We report on the electrical detection of the dynamical part of the spin-pumping current emitted during ferromagnetic resonance using inverse spin Hall effect methods. The experiment is performed on a $\mathrm{YIG}|\mathrm{Pt}$ bilayer. The choice of yttrium iron garnet (YIG), a magnetic insulator, ensures that no charge current flows between the two layers and only the pure spin current produced by the magnetization dynamics is transferred into the adjacent strong spin-orbit Pt layer via spin pumping. To avoid measuring the parasitic eddy currents induced at the frequency of the microwave source, a resonance at half the frequency is induced using parametric excitation in the parallel geometry. Triggering this nonlinear effect allows us to directly detect on a spectrum analyzer the microwave component of the inverse spin Hall effect voltage. Signals as large as $30\mu \mathrm{V}$ are measured for precession angles of a couple of degrees. This direct detection provides a novel efficient means to study magnetization dynamics on a very wide frequency range with great sensitivity.

We demonstrate a new class of synthetic colloidal suspensions capable of exhibiting negative polarizabilities, and observe for the first time robust propagation and enhanced transmission of self-trapped light over long distances that would have been otherwise impossible in conventional suspensions with positive polarizabilities. Such light penetration through the strong scattering environment is attributed to the interplay between optical forces and self-activated transparency effects while no thermal effect is involved. By judiciously mixing colloidal particles of both negative and positive polarizabilities, we show that the resulting nonlinear response of these systems can be fine-tuned. Our experimental observations are in agreement with theoretical analysis based on a thermodynamic model that takes into account particle-particle interactions. These results may open up new opportunities in developing soft-matter systems with engineered optical nonlinearities.

We show that the recent AMS-02 positron fraction measurement is consistent with a secondary origin for positrons and does not require additional primary sources such as pulsars or dark matter. The measured positron fraction at high energy saturates the previously predicted upper bound for secondary production, obtained by neglecting radiative losses. This coincidence, which will be further tested by upcoming AMS-02 data at higher energy, is a compelling indication for a secondary source. Within the secondary model, the AMS-02 data imply a cosmic ray propagation time in the Galaxy of $<{10}^6\mathrm{yr}$ and an average traversed interstellar matter density of $\sim 1{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$, comparable to the density of the Milky Way gaseous disk, at a rigidity of 300 GV.