A search for Higgs boson ($H$) production in association with two vector bosons ($V=W$, $Z$) via vector-boson scattering (VBS) is presented using proton-proton collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$ by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $138{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. Events containing two forward jets consistent with VBS, a large-radius jet from the decay of a boosted $H$ to a pair of $b$ quarks, and zero, one, or two charged leptons coming from $V$ decays are selected. The process is excluded at 95% confidence level for observed (expected) values of the $VVHH$ coupling modifier ${\kappa }_{2V}$ outside the interval $0.40<{\kappa }_{2V}<1.60$ ($0.34<{\kappa }_{2V}<1.66$), assuming standard model values for all other couplings, thus establishing a novel probe of the $VVHH$ interaction. Constraints are also set on the individual ${\kappa }_{2W}$ and ${\kappa }_{2Z}$ coupling modifiers and on the allowed region in the ${\kappa }_{2W}\text{−}{\kappa }_{2Z}$ plane.

Diamond offers an exceptional platform for optoelectronics owing to its ultra-wide band gap, superior thermal and photonic properties. Yet its optical response is notoriously difficult to tune, as conventional doping suffers from deep impurity levels and poor activation efficiency. Here, we show that strain-gradient engineering provides a doping-free route to modulate broadband optical emission in microfabricated diamond. By taking advantage of size-induced large elasticity, we show that controlled elastic bending of diamond nanoribbons generates spatially varying strain fields that can be resolved at nanoscale using STEM-EELS, which reveals synchronous electronic bandgap shifts and phonon spectrum broadening. Spatially mapped cathodoluminescence exhibits continuous emission shifts, accompanied by intensity variations and spectral widening. Theoretical analyses show that nonuniform strain couples electronic band restructuring with phonon mode redistribution, expanding the pathways for phonon-assisted optical transitions. These findings transform diamond from a static wide-band-gap semiconductor into a mechanically reconfigurable broadband emitter, establishing strain-gradient engineering as a general paradigm for tunable photonics in wide-band-gap semiconductors.

The Eu valence in EuO under compression has been debated since the first observation of a pressure-induced isostructural volume collapse by Jayaraman five decades ago. Spectroscopic studies at the Eu $L_3$ edge suggested a valence change from divalent to trivalent due to promotion of charge from the half-filled $4f$ shell to empty $5d$ states, while density functional theory investigations have reported both support for and against such a valence change. The Eu $N_{4,5}$ edges ($4d\to 4f$ excitations) are highly sensitive to the $4f$ occupancy and thus to the Eu valence. Using x-ray Raman scattering, we measure the Eu $N_{4,5}$ edges of EuO up to 66 GPa and observe no significant change in spectral shape indicative of a modification of the $4f$ occupation. Our results therefore support a robust ${\mathrm{Eu}}^{2+}$ state across the isostructural transition at 35 GPa and the subsequent B1–B2 transition at 44 GPa.

Here, we address the fundamental question of whether an idealized system of $N$ atoms will show collective behavior and superradiance when it emits fermions instead of photons. We show that for single-fermion emission processes, the maximum emission is $\propto N$ and not $\propto N^2$, which proves the absence of superradiance and shows that the recent proposal to realize a superradiant neutrino laser is impossible. This can be understood as either destructive interference of fermionic transition amplitudes, or Pauli blockade by collective excitations with fermionic nature. We derive the exact solution of the fermionic Dicke problem and analyze the decay dynamics in various regimes. We extend the proof to arbitrary Hamiltonians and show that the jump rate operator for neutrino emission has a maximum eigenvalue of $N$ times the single-particle rate ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0$. States with low excitation can show collective behavior and emit at a rate of $N{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0$.

This Letter lays out the principles of how Bose-Einstein condensates can modify radioactive decay. We highlight the challenges of many modes and short coherence times due to the $\approx \mathrm{MeV}$ energies of the emitted radiation. Recent proposals for gamma-ray and neutrino lasers claim that using a Bose-Einstein condensate as a source would solve these issues. We show that this is not the case, and the proposed experiments would have a gain of only ${10}^{-16}$ or smaller. We also analyze proposals for gamma-ray lasers based on stimulated annihilation of positronium Bose-Einstein condensates.

${\mathrm{Ta}}_2{\mathrm{NiSe}}_5$ continues to be investigated for its phase transition at $T_{\mathrm{c}}=326\mathrm{K}$, where it develops both an electronic gap and a distortion of its $\mathrm{Ta}/\mathrm{Ni}$ chains. One intriguing feature at $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ seen in thermal transport is the giant anisotropic scattering of phonons moving perpendicular to the chains, which is apparently associated with the softening of a transverse acoustic phonon, but whose microscopic origin and significance demand clarification. By tuning the normal-state band overlap or gap with S substitution, we uncover a close connection between this soft-phonon transport anomaly and underlying electronic instabilities: when ${\mathrm{Ta}}_2\mathrm{Ni}({\mathrm{S}}_x{\mathrm{Se}}_{1-x}{)}_5$ approaches a band insulator at high $x$, and signatures of the electronic transition are suppressed, the soft-phonon transport anomaly concomitantly vanishes. Our results establish the following picture for the ${\mathrm{Ta}}_2\mathrm{Ni}({\mathrm{S}}_x{\mathrm{Se}}_{1-x}{)}_5$ family: near the S end, a sole lattice instability gives rise to a weak structural transition with $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ approaching 130 K. Near the Se end, additional electronic instabilities boost $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ up to 326 K and amplify experimental signatures of the transition. The strong interaction between electrons, holes, and the lattice is manifested as a soft-phonon transport anomaly accompanied by electronic fluctuations, which include excitonic and hybridization-gap fluctuations.

Gauge theories form a large class of interacting conformal field theories in 3D, among which critical Chern-Simons-matter theories play a prominent role. Here, we study a simple instance: a gapless complex scalar coupled to a $\mathrm{U}(1{)}_2$ Chern-Simons gauge field. This theory is conjectured to be dual to three other Chern-Simons-matter theories and to describe the transition between a Kalmeyer-Laughlin chiral spin liquid (a $\nu =1/2$ bosonic Laughlin state) and a trivially gapped phase. Using the fuzzy-sphere regularization, we realize the corresponding quantum phase transition between a ${\nu }_f=2$ fermionic integer quantum Hall state and a ${\nu }_b=1/2$ bosonic fractional quantum Hall state. We show that the transition is continuous and governed by a conformal field theory with $SO(3)$ global symmetry. The operator spectrum contains only one relevant Lorentz scalar, the SO(3) singlet with scaling dimension ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_S=1.52(18)$, which tunes the transition. Our nonperturbative results identify the universality class naturally associated with the $\mathrm{U}(1{)}_2$ Chern-Simons-Higgs theory and show that the conjectured dualities remain self-consistent.

Near-field enhancement in nanocavities governs the efficiency of nonlinear optical processes and ultrafast light-matter interactions. However, maximizing the cavity quality factor does not necessarily maximize the response under femtosecond excitation. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that hybrid metal-dielectric metasurfaces provide a practical platform for optimizing this trade-off. By coupling a low-Q localized surface plasmon resonance of Au nanodisks to a high-Q dielectric mode of a ${\mathrm{TiO}}_2$ metasurface, we continuously tune the Q factors of the hybrid modes over a broad range while preserving the plasmonic hotspot geometry. Using four-photon photoemission electron microscopy under 100-fs excitation, we map the nonlinear near-field response and correlate it with spectrally extracted Q factors and ultrafast dynamics measured by time-resolved photoemission electron microscopy. The response varies nonmonotonically with Q and reaches a maximum at $\mathrm{Q}\approx 20$, where the photoemission yield is enhanced approximately 15-fold relative to the uncoupled metasurface. These results identify pulse-cavity Q-factor matching between the cavity and the driving pulse as a key design principle for pulsed-laser nanophotonics.

Why do nonaxisymmetric stellarators avoid ballooning crashes that afflict tokamaks? Three-dimensional geometry induces Anderson localization of ballooning modes, converting a global instability into a Ginzburg-Landau network of isolated wave packets. Global stability reduces to a percolation problem: Below a critical threshold, instability is arrested; above it, a crash occurs. This explains benign stellarator saturation, predicts vulnerability in quasisymmetric designs, and introduces the critical threshold as a nonlinear stability metric for reactor optimization, pending experimental validation.

We present a rigorous derivation of the orbital magnetization for interacting electrons within the self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation. Our method also allows us to derive formulas for the orbital magnetic susceptibility. The results are expressed entirely in terms of the self-consistent wave functions and the Hartree-Fock energy spectrum at zero magnetic field. We find that the formula for the orbital magnetization is the same as in the noninteracting case, provided that the Hamiltonian and Bloch wave functions are replaced by their Hartree-Fock counterparts. By contrast, the orbital magnetic susceptibility contains an additional interaction-induced contribution that cannot be obtained by such a replacement. We test the formulas on an interacting Rashba model, finding an agreement with calculations performed at a small but nonzero external magnetic field.

In the absence of spin-orbit coupling, collinear magnets are classified as even-wave magnets, i.e., either ferromagnets, antiferromagnets, or altermagnets. It is based on the belief that collinear magnets always feature an inversion-symmetric band structure, which forbids odd-parity magnetism. Here, we show that collinear magnets, which break time-reversal symmetry in the nonmagnetic sector, e.g., through loop currents, can have an inversion-symmetry-broken band structure and lead to unconventional types of collinear magnets. Hence, collinear odd-parity magnets do exist, and we explain that a magnetic field-induced Edelstein effect is their unique signature. We propose minimal models based on the coexistence of antiferromagnet order with compensated loop current orders for all types of collinear magnets. Our Letter provides a new perspective on collinear magnets and the spin-space group classification.

To gain deeper insight into the role of hole kinetics in determining magnetism in highly frustrated doped Mott insulators, we consider the single-hole counter-Nagaoka problem on the kagome lattice, using magnetization as a tuning parameter. Near full polarization, a doped hole delocalizes upon binding reversed spins in a pattern of singlet bonds which we term resonating-valence-bond (RVB) polaron. These RVB polarons can have extremely small effective bandwidths, and hence exhibit self-trapping. By tuning the spin polarization, we track the evolution of these states toward the unpolarized sector, where we observe the emergence of $\sqrt{3}\times \sqrt{3}$ antiferromagnetic correlation reminiscent of the classical Potts and Heisenberg models on the kagome lattice. These results provide a framework to understand how RVB physics at short scales evolves into conventional magnetic correlations at long scales.

We investigate the angle of repose ${\theta }_r$ of dense suspensions of colloidal silica particles ($d=2-7\mathrm{\mu m}$) in water-filled microfluidic rotating drum experiments to probe the crossover between the thermal (colloidal) and athermal (granular) regimes. For the smallest particles, thermal agitation promotes slow creep flows, and piles always flatten completely regardless of their initial inclination angle, resulting in ${\theta }_r=0$. Above a critical particle size, piles of colloids stop flowing at a finite angle of repose, which increases with particle size but remains below the minimal value expected for athermal frictionless granular materials: $0<{\theta }_r<{\theta }_{\mathrm{ath}}\approx 5.8°$. We quantify the arrest dynamics as a function of the gravitational Péclet number ${\mathrm{Pe}}_g$, which characterizes the competition between particle weight and thermal agitation. Our measurements are consistent with a recent rheological model [A. Billon et al., Phys. Rev. Fluids 8, 034302 (2023)], in which the arrested state stems from a crossover between glass and jamming transitions as the granular pressure in the pile increases relative to the thermal pressure.

We present searches for light dark matter (DM) with masses $3–9\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$ in the presence of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering ($\mathrm{CE}\nu \mathrm{NS}$) from ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ solar neutrinos with the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment. This analysis uses a 5.7 tonne-yr exposure with data collected between March 2023 and April 2025. In an energy range spanning 1–6 keV, we report no significant excess of events attributable to dark matter nuclear recoils, but we observe a significant signal from ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ $\mathrm{CE}\nu \mathrm{NS}$ interactions that is consistent with expectation. We set world-leading limits on spin-independent and spin-dependent-neutron DM-nucleon interactions for masses down to $5\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$. In the no-dark-matter scenario, we observe a signal consistent with ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ $\mathrm{CE}\nu \mathrm{NS}$ events, corresponding to a $4.5\sigma$ statistical significance. This is the most significant evidence of ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ $\mathrm{CE}\nu \mathrm{NS}$ interactions and is enabled by robust background modeling and mitigation techniques. This demonstrates LZ’s ability to detect rare signals at keV-scale energies.

Intermittency, manifested through anomalous scaling, remains one of the central unresolved problems in turbulence theory, with few analytical approaches extending beyond idealized linear transport models. We introduce a perturbative framework for anomalous scaling in turbulent transport based on multiplier statistics, rather than zero-mode calculations. We demonstrate the approach using a shell model combining deterministic and Kraichnan-like stochastic components. We reduce the problem to the analysis of a stationary Fokker-Planck equation for Kolmogorov multipliers, defined as ratios of successive scalar amplitudes. Its solution yields the invariant measure through a perturbative expansion around a Gaussian distribution. Using the resulting multiplier statistics, we compute explicit anomalous scaling exponents for structure functions of arbitrary order, including odd, even, and noninteger moments. Although demonstrated here for a shell model, the framework suggests a systematic perturbative route toward analytical theories of intermittency in turbulence.

The nature of the superconducting pairing symmetry in the kagome metal ${\mathrm{CsV}}_3{\mathrm{Sb}}_5$ and its relationship with the charge density wave (CDW) order are central unresolved issues. Here, we investigate the evolution of superconductivity in ${\mathrm{CsV}}_3{\mathrm{Sb}}_5$ under in situ uniaxial pressure using ${}^{121}\mathrm{Sb}$ nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR). We find that tensile strain significantly enhances the superconducting transition temperature, $T_{\mathrm{c}}$, while the CDW remains unchanged, demonstrating that superconductivity can be tuned independently of the bulk charge order. At a tensile strain of $ϵ=+0.90\%$, the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate reveals a remarkable double transition: an upper transition at $T_{\mathrm{c}1}=3.6\mathrm{K}$ to a nodal gap state, and a lower one at $T_{\mathrm{c}2}=3.0\mathrm{K}$ characterized by a nodeless gap. These results evidence degenerate superconducting states with different gap symmetry in the kagome metal at ambient pressure which split under strain. Our Letter demonstrates a high tunability of superconductivity by uniaxial pressure.

Spectral gamma-ray line features are expected as key signatures from dark matter (DM) annihilations of TeV-scale particle DM. Observations of the Galactic Center with atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes are unique to probe thermal-relic TeV particle DM, well beyond the reach of direct detection and collider searches. We report here on the search for line signals in very-high-energy gamma rays using data from the Inner Galaxy Survey, consisting of 546 hours of H.E.S.S. observations of the inner few degrees of the Galactic Center. No significant signal is detected. We then compute the exclusion limits on the annihilation line cross section $⟨\sigma v{⟩}_{\mathrm{line}}$, with two-dimensional log-likelihood ratio test statistics, exploiting spectral and spatial features of the DM signal. Assuming an Einasto DM density profile for the Milky Way, our results provide the most constraining limits so far, reaching $⟨\sigma v{⟩}_{\mathrm{line}}=2.3\times {10}^{-28}$ and $2.4\times {10}^{-27}{\mathrm{cm}}^3{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ for DM masses of 1 and 10 TeV, respectively. The present limits are used to constrain the widely searched Wino, Higgsino. and Quintuplet models. For the first time, thermal Higgsino DM is probed for DM Milky Way models.

We characterize a singularity in the equal-time three-point density correlations that is generic to two-dimensional interacting Fermi liquids. In momentum space where the three-point correlation is determined by two wave vectors, ${\mathbf{q}}_1$ and ${\mathbf{q}}_2$, the singularity takes the form $|{\mathbf{q}}_1\times {\mathbf{q}}_2|$. We explain how this singularity is sharply defined in a long-wavelength collinear limit. For a noninteracting Fermi gas, the coefficient of this singularity is given by the quantized Euler characteristic of the Fermi sea, and it implies a long-range real space correlation favoring collinear configurations. We show that this singularity persists in interacting Fermi liquids, and express the renormalization of the coefficient of singularity in terms of Landau parameters, for both spinless and spinful Fermi liquids. Our results offer an independent method for measuring Landau parameters. Implications for quantum gas experiments are discussed.

We study the nonequilibrium driven dynamics at topologically nontrivial quantum critical points (QCPs) and find that topological edge modes at criticality give rise to anomalous dynamical scaling behavior. By analyzing the driven dynamics of bulk and boundary order parameters at topologically distinct QCPs in quantum spin chains, we demonstrate that, while the bulk dynamics remain indistinguishable and follow standard Kibble-Zurek (KZ) scaling, the anomalous boundary dynamics are unique to topological criticality, obeying modified scaling relation beyond the traditional KZ framework. To elucidate the unified origin of this anomaly, we further study the dynamics of defect production at topologically distinct QCPs in free-fermion models and demonstrate similar anomalous scaling exclusive to topological criticality. These findings establish the existence of anomalous dynamical scaling arising from the interplay between topology and driven dynamics, challenging standard paradigms of quantum critical dynamics.

Evolutionary game theory offers a general framework to study how behaviors evolve by social learning in a population. This body of theory can accommodate a range of social dilemmas, or games, as well as real-world complexities such as spatial structures. Nonetheless, this approach typically assumes a deterministic payoff structure for social interactions. Here, we extend evolutionary game theory to accommodate payoffs that fluctuate due to stochastic changes in social conditions. In this setting, the rewards of cooperation or defection may vary over time, even while the underlying mean game remains unchanged. We find that even unbiased environmental noise qualitatively alters evolutionary outcomes. Stochastic payoff fluctuations can stabilize coexistence between cooperators and defectors in the prisoner’s dilemma, generate bistability in snowdrift games, and produce stable limit cycles in rock-paper-scissors dynamics—dynamical phenomena that cannot occur under deterministic payoffs. These results demonstrate that environmental variability can fundamentally reshape evolutionary dynamics in a complex but comprehensible way.