A combination of fifteen top quark mass measurements performed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC is presented. The datasets used correspond to an integrated luminosity of up to 5 and $20{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, respectively. The combination includes measurements in top quark pair events that exploit both the semileptonic and hadronic decays of the top quark, and a measurement using events enriched in single top quark production via the electroweak $t$ channel. The combination accounts for the correlations between measurements and achieves an improvement in the total uncertainty of 31% relative to the most precise input measurement. The result is $m_t=172.52\pm 0.14(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.30(\mathrm{syst})\mathrm{GeV}$, with a total uncertainty of 0.33 GeV.

Laser cooling of solids currently has a temperature floor of 50–100 K. We propose a method that could overcome this using defects, such as diamond color centers, with narrow electronic manifolds and bright optical transitions. It exploits the dressed states formed in strong fields which extend the set of phonon transitions and have tunable energies. This allows an enhancement of the cooling power and diminishes the effect of inhomogeneous broadening. We demonstrate these effects theoretically for the silicon vacancy and the germanium vacancy, and discuss the role of background absorption, phonon-assisted emission, and nonradiative decay.

Solid-state spin qubits are promising candidates for quantum information processing, but controlled interactions and entanglement in large, multiqubit systems are currently difficult to achieve. We describe a method for programmable control of multiqubit spin systems, in which individual nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond nanopillars are coupled to magnetically functionalized silicon nitride mechanical resonators in a scanning probe configuration. Qubits can be entangled via interactions with nanomechanical resonators while programmable connectivity is realized via mechanical transport of qubits in nanopillars. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, we characterize both the mechanical properties and the magnetic field gradients around the micromagnet placed on the nanobeam resonator. We demonstrate coherent manipulation of a spin qubit in the proximity of a transported micromagnet by utilizing nuclear spin memory and use the NV center to detect the time-varying magnetic field from the oscillating micromagnet, extracting a spin-mechanical coupling of 7.7(9) Hz. With realistic improvements, the high-cooperativity regime can be reached, offering a new avenue toward scalable quantum information processing with spin qubits.

Precision measurements by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station of the deuteron ($D$) flux are presented. The measurements are based on $21\times {10}^6$ $D$ nuclei in the rigidity range from 1.9 to 21 GV collected from May 2011 to April 2021. We observe that over the entire rigidity range the $D$ flux exhibits nearly identical time variations with the $p$, ${}^3\mathrm{He}$, and ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ fluxes. Above 4.5 GV, the $D/{}^4\mathrm{He}$ flux ratio is time independent and its rigidity dependence is well described by a single power law $\propto R^{\mathrm{\Delta }}$ with ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{D/{}^4\mathrm{He}}=-0.108\pm 0.005$. This is in contrast with the ${}^3\mathrm{He}/{}^4\mathrm{He}$ flux ratio for which we find ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{{}^3\mathrm{He}/{}^4\mathrm{He}}=-0.289\pm 0.003$. Above $\sim 13\mathrm{GV}$ we find a nearly identical rigidity dependence of the $D$ and $p$ fluxes with a $D/p$ flux ratio of $0.027\pm 0.001$. These unexpected observations indicate that cosmic deuterons have a sizable primarylike component. With a method independent of cosmic ray propagation, we obtain the primary component of the $D$ flux equal to $9.4\pm 0.5\%$ of the ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ flux and the secondary component of the $D$ flux equal to $58\pm 5\%$ of the ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ flux.

A system of particles with motility variable in terms of a vision-type of perception is investigated by a combination of Langevin dynamics simulations in two-dimensional systems and an analytical approach based on conservation law principles. Persistent swirling with predetermined direction is here induced by differentiating the self-propulsion direction and the perception cone axis. Clusters can have a fluidlike center with a rotating outer layer or display a solidlike rotation driven by the outer layer activity. Discontinuous motility with misaligned perception might therefore serve as a powerful self-organization strategy in microrobots.

Dissipative processes can drive different magnetic orders in quantum spin chains. Using a nonperturbative analytic mapping framework, we systematically show how to structure different magnetic orders in spin systems by controlling the locality of the attached baths. Our mapping approach reveals analytically the impact of spin-bath couplings, leading to the suppression of spin splittings, bath dressing and mixing of spin-spin interactions, and emergence of nonlocal ferromagnetic interactions between spins coupled to the same bath, which become long ranged for a global bath. Our general mapping method can be readily applied to a variety of spin models: we demonstrate (i) a bath-induced transition from antiferromagnetic (AFM) to ferromagnetic ordering in a Heisenberg spin chain, (ii) AFM to extended Neel phase ordering within a transverse-field Ising chain with pairwise couplings to baths, and (iii) a quantum phase transition in the fully connected Ising model. Our method is nonperturbative in the system-bath coupling. It holds for a variety of non-Markovian baths and it can be readily applied towards studying bath-engineered phases in frustrated or topological materials.

Nuclear spin polarization plays a crucial role in quantum information processing and quantum sensing. In this work, we demonstrate a robust and efficient method for nuclear spin polarization with boron vacancy (${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{B}}^{-}$) defects in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) using ground-state level anticrossing (GSLAC). We show that GSLAC-assisted nuclear polarization can be achieved with significantly lower laser power than excited-state level anticrossing, making the process experimentally more viable. Furthermore, we have demonstrated direct optical readout of nuclear spins for ${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{B}}^{-}$ in h-BN. Our findings suggest that GSLAC is a promising technique for the precise control and manipulation of nuclear spins in ${\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{B}}^{-}$ defects in h-BN.

Most high-energy constructions that realize a phase of cosmic inflation contain many degrees of freedom. Yet, cosmological observations are all consistent with single-field embeddings. We show how volume selection effects explain this apparent paradox. Because of quantum diffusion, different regions of space inflate by different amounts. In regions that inflate most, and eventually dominate the volume of the Universe, a generic mechanism is unveiled that diverts the inflationary dynamics towards single-field attractors. The formalism of constrained stochastic inflation is developed to this end.

The recently discovered superconductivity with critical temperature $T_c$ up to 80 K in the double-layer Nickelate ${\mathrm{La}}_3{\mathrm{Ni}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{7-\delta }$ under pressure has drawn great attention. Here, we report the positive muon spin relaxation (${\mu }^{+}\mathrm{SR}$) study of polycrystalline ${\mathrm{La}}_3{\mathrm{Ni}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{6.92}$ under ambient pressure. Zero-field ${\mu }^{+}\mathrm{SR}$ experiments reveal the existence of magnetic order in ${\mathrm{La}}_3{\mathrm{Ni}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{6.92}$ with $T_N=154\mathrm{K}$. The weak transverse field ${\mu }^{+}\mathrm{SR}$ measurements reveal the bulk nature of magnetism. In addition, a small quantity of oxygen deficiencies can greatly broaden the internal magnetic field distribution sensed by muons.

Applying the quantum field theoretic perturbiner approach to Einstein gravity, we compute the metric of a Schwarzschild black hole order by order in perturbation theory. Using recursion, this calculation can be carried out in de Donder gauge to all orders in Newton’s constant. The result is a geometric series which is convergent outside a disk of finite radius, and it agrees within its region of convergence with the known de Donder gauge metric of a Schwarzschild black hole. It thus provides a first all-order perturbative computation in Einstein gravity with a matter source, and this series converges to the known nonperturbative expression in the expected range of convergence.

We report on the coherent excitation of the ultranarrow ${}^1{S}_0–{}^3{P}_2$ magnetic quadrupole transition in ${}^{88}\mathrm{Sr}$. By confining atoms in a state insensitive optical lattice, we achieve excitation fractions of 97(1)% and observe linewidths as narrow as 58(1) Hz. With Ramsey spectroscopy, we find coherence times of 14(1) ms, which can be extended to 266(36) ms using a spin-echo sequence. We determine the lifetime of the ${}^3{P}_2$ level for spontaneous emission of magnetic quadrupole radiation to be 110(31) min, confirming long-standing theoretical predictions. These results establish an additional clock transition in strontium and pave the way for applications of the metastable ${}^3{P}_2$ state in quantum computing and quantum simulations.

An elongated object can be rotated around one of its short axes, like a propeller, or around its long axis, like a spinning top. Using optically levitated nanoparticles, short-axis rotation and libration have been systematically investigated in several recent studies. Notably, short-axis rotational degrees of freedom have been cooled to millikelvin temperatures and driven into gigahertz rotational speeds. However, controlled long-axis spinning has so far remained an unrealized goal. Here, we demonstrate controlled long-axis spinning of an optically levitated nanodumbbell with spinning rates exceeding 1 GHz. We show that the damping rate in high vacuum can be as low as a few millihertz. Our results open up applications in inertial torque sensing and studies of rotational quantum interference.

Semi-inclusive hadron production processes in deep-inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering are important probes of the quark flavor structure of the nucleon and of the fragmentation dynamics of quarks into hadrons. We compute the full next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the coefficient functions for semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering in analytical form. The numerical impact of these corrections for precision physics is illustrated by a detailed comparison with data on single inclusive hadron spectra from the CERN COMPASS experiment.

We present the first results for the next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO) corrections to the semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering process in perturbative quantum chromodynamics. We consider the quark initiated flavor nonsinglet process and obtain the complete contributions analytically at leading color. All relevant virtual and real emission Feynman diagrams have been computed using integration-by-parts reduction to master integrals and two approaches for their subsequent evaluation (parametric phase-space integration and method of differential equations). The numerical analysis demonstrates the significance of the NNLO corrections and their great impact on the reduction of the residual scale dependence.

Converting angular momentum between different degrees of freedom within a magnetic material results from a dynamic interplay between electrons, magnons, and phonons. This interplay is pivotal to implementing spintronic device concepts that rely on spin angular momentum transport. We establish a new concept for long-range angular momentum transport that further allows us to address and isolate the magnonic contribution to angular momentum transport in a nanostructured metallic ferromagnet. To this end, we electrically excite and detect spin transport between two parallel and electrically insulated ferromagnetic metal strips on top of a diamagnetic substrate. Charge-to-spin current conversion within the ferromagnetic strip generates electronic spin angular momentum that is transferred to magnons via electron-magnon coupling. We observe a finite angular momentum flow to the second ferromagnetic strip across a diamagnetic substrate over micron distances, which is electrically detected in the second strip by the inverse charge-to-spin current conversion process. We discuss phononic and dipolar interactions as the likely cause to transfer angular momentum between the two strips. Moreover, our Letter provides the experimental basis to separate the electronic and magnonic spin transport and thereby paves the way towards magnonic device concepts that do not rely on magnetic insulators.

Whether positive operator-valued measures (POVMs) provide advantages in demonstrating Bell nonlocality has remained unknown, even in the simple scenario of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering with noisy singlet state, known as Werner states. Here we resolve this long-standing open problem by constructing a local hidden state model for Werner states with any visibility $r\le 1/2$ under general POVMs, thereby closing the so-called Werner gap. This construction is based on an exact measurement compatibility model for the set of all noisy POVMs and also provides a local hidden variable model for a larger range of Werner states than previously known.

It is a crucial feature of quantum mechanics that not all measurements are compatible with each other. However, if measurements suffer from noise they may lose their incompatibility. Here, we consider the effect of white noise and determine the critical visibility such that all qubit measurements, i.e., all positive operator-valued measures (POVMs), become compatible, i.e., jointly measurable. In addition, we apply our methods to quantum steering and Bell nonlocality. We obtain a tight local hidden state model for two-qubit Werner states of visibility $1/2$. This determines the exact steering bound for two-qubit Werner states and also provides a local hidden variable model that improves on previously known models. Interestingly, this proves that POVMs are not more powerful than projective measurements to demonstrate quantum steering for these states.

Real networks are complex dynamical systems, evolving over time with the addition and deletion of nodes and links. Currently, there exists no principled mathematical theory for their dynamics—a grand-challenge open problem. Here, we show that the popularity and similarity trajectories of nodes in hyperbolic embeddings of different real networks manifest universal self-similar properties with typical Hurst exponents $H\ll 0.5$. This means that the trajectories are predictable, displaying antipersistent or “mean-reverting” behavior, and they can be adequately captured by a fractional Brownian motion process. The observed behavior can be qualitatively reproduced in synthetic networks that possess a latent geometric space, but not in networks that lack such space, suggesting that the observed subdiffusive dynamics are inherently linked to the hidden geometry of real networks. These results set the foundations for rigorous mathematical machinery for describing and predicting real network dynamics.

Materials manifesting the Kitaev model, characterized by bond-dependent interactions on a honeycomb lattice, can host exotic phenomena like quantum spin liquid states and topological magnetic excitations. However, finding such materials remains a formidable challenge. Here, we report high-resolution inelastic neutron scattering measurements performed on ${\mathrm{VI}}_3$, a van der Waals ferromagnetic Mott insulator, covering a wide range of reciprocal space. Our measurements unveil highly anisotropic magnetic excitations in momentum space. Through a comprehensive comparative analysis of various models that incorporate diverse symmetry-allowed magnetic interactions, we find the observed excitations are well captured by a model with a large bond-dependent Kitaev interaction. These results not only help to understand the intriguing properties of ${\mathrm{VI}}_3$, such as the pronounced anomalous thermal Hall effects and strong pressure or structure dependence of magnetism, but also open a new avenue for exploring Kitaev physics.

One of the key problems in active materials is the control of shape through actuation. A fascinating example of such control is the elephant trunk, a long, muscular, and extremely dexterous organ with multiple vital functions. The elephant trunk is an object of fascination for biologists, physicists, and children alike. Its versatility relies on the intricate interplay of multiple unique physical mechanisms and biological design principles. Here, we explore these principles using the theory of active filaments and build, theoretically, computationally, and experimentally, a minimal model that explains and accomplishes some of the spectacular features of the elephant trunk.