Volume 137, Issue 15

9 October 2026

Browse Issues:

On the Cover

Snapshot of a general relativistic particle-in-cell simulation of a collisionless plasma accreting onto a central spinning black hole, showing number density on the right and out-of-plane magnetic field on the left.

From the article:

Collisionless Accretion of Finite-Angular-Momentum Plasma onto a Spinning Black Hole
John M. Mehlhaff, Alexander Y. Chen, Martin Luepker, and Yajie Yuan
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 155201 (2026)

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Energy- and Momentum-Resolved Single-Shot Yield Fluctuations in Bright-Squeezed-Vacuum-Driven Atomic Strong-Field Ionization

Haodong Liu, Xiaoxiao Long, Peizeng Li, and Yunquan Liu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153201 (2026) - Published 7 October, 2026

When intense quantum light knocks electrons out of atoms, the statistics of the light can be transferred to the electrons.

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Stochastic Elastohydrodynamics of Soft Valves

Mengfei He, Sungkyu Cho, Gianna Dafflisio, Sitaram Emani, and L. Mahadevan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 158401 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

A simplified model of the heart’s mitral valve shows that flow fluctuations can cause a soft valve to close at about one-tenth the pressure required under steady flow.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Dissipative Acousto-Mechanical Parametric Interface between High-Overtone Acoustics and Flexural Phonons

Xun Ji, Huanying Sun, Longhao Wu, Qichun Liu, Yulong Liu, Mika A. Sillanpää, and Tiefu Li

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153602 (2026) - Published 7 October, 2026

A novel hybrid acousto-mechanical system demonstrates the highest-to-date coupling between a high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonator and low-frequency flexural modes in a suspended silicon nitride membrane.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

First Experimental Evidence of Helicon Current Drive

J. B. Lestz, R. I. Pinsker, B. Van Compernolle, S. X. Tang, A. Dupuy, A. M. Garofalo, L. McAllister, C. P. Moeller, C. C. Petty, M. Porkolab, M. P. Ross, G. Rutherford, and A. Torrezan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 155101 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Helicon current drive has been observed experimentally for the first time in dedicated DIII-D tokamak experiments, providing a proof-of-principle and an attractive source of efficient current drive in reactor-grade tokamak plasmas.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Collisionless Accretion of Finite-Angular-Momentum Plasma onto a Spinning Black Hole

John M. Mehlhaff, Alexander Y. Chen, Martin Luepker, and Yajie Yuan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 155201 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

The first fully kinetic collisionless model of a rotating plasma accreting into a black hole reveals the role of pair creation and the plasma loading of the jet funnel.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Optical Readout of the Magnetic State Using Terahertz Electric Fields

T. G. H. Blank, C. Bauer, M. X. Na, E. A. Mashkovich, A. K. Zvezdin, A. M. Kalashnikova, and A. V. Kimel

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156901 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Resonant excitation of $f$ -electrons by a terahertz optical signal rotates the magnetization in rare-earth iron garnets, establishing a new ultrafast magnetoelectric coupling that can potentially be used for ultrafast magneto-optical readout in magnetic data storage.

LETTERS

Quantum Information, Science, and Technology

Observation of the Transition from Reversible to Irreversible Decoherence of Mesoscopic Quantum Superpositions

Ri-Hua Zheng, Jia-Hao Lü, Fan Wu, Yan Xia, Li-Hua Lin, Zhen-Biao Yang, and Shi-Biao Zheng

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 150201 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Quantum Simulation of Motzkin Spin Chains with Rydberg Atoms

Kaustav Mukherjee, Hatem Barghathi, Adrian Del Maestro, and Rick Mukherjee

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 150601 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Engineered Diabatic Transition under Arbitrarily Slow Evolution via Phase-Difference Manipulation

Oubo You, Zhaoqi Jiang, Jinhui Shi, Qing Dai, Chunying Guan, and Shuang Zhang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 150801 (2026) - Published 6 October, 2026

Heralded Generation of a Three-Mode NOON State

Sukhjit P. Singh, Elnaz Bazzazi, Diego N. Bernal-García, Simon J. U. White, Hassan Jamal Latief, Alison Goldingay, Sven Rogge, Sergei Slussarenko, Farzad Ghafari, Emanuele Polino, and Nora Tischler

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 150802 (2026) - Published 7 October, 2026

Exponential Entanglement Advantage in Sensing Correlated Noise

Yu-Xin Wang (王语馨), Jacob Bringewatt, Alireza Seif, Anthony J. Brady, Changhun Oh, and Alexey V. Gorshkov

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 150803 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Coupling Free Electrons to a Trapped-Ion Quantum Computer

Elias Pescoller, Santiago Beltrán-Romero, Sebastian Egginger, Nicolas Jungwirth, Martino Zanetti, Dominik Hornof, Michael S. Seifner, Iva Březinová, Philipp Haslinger, Thomas Juffmann, Johannes Kofler, Dennis Rätzel, and Philipp Schindler

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 150804 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation

Signatures from Pion Condensation and Lepton Flavor Asymmetries in the Cosmological Gravitational Wave Background

Osvaldo Ferreira, Eduardo S. Fraga, and Jürgen Schaffner-Bielich

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 151001 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Particles and Fields

Symmetric Mass Generation as a Multicritical Point with Enhanced Symmetry

Sandip Maiti, Debasish Banerjee, Shailesh Chandrasekharan, and Marina K. Marinkovic

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 151601 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Unitarity Bounds and Sum Rules in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory

Luigi C. Bresciani, Paride Paradisi, and Andrea Sainaghi

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 151801 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Two-Dimensional Transverse-Momentum Subtraction and Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering at Next-to-Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

Liang Dong, Shen Fang, Jun Gao, Hai Tao Li, Ding Yu Shao, Hua Xing Zhu, and Yu Jiao Zhu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 151901 (2026) - Published 6 October, 2026

Nuclear Physics

Nuclear Polarization by Intense Laser Pulses

Hanxu Zhang, Tao Li, and Xu Wang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 152501 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Energy- and Momentum-Resolved Single-Shot Yield Fluctuations in Bright-Squeezed-Vacuum-Driven Atomic Strong-Field Ionization

Haodong Liu, Xiaoxiao Long, Peizeng Li, and Yunquan Liu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153201 (2026) - Published 7 October, 2026

When intense quantum light knocks electrons out of atoms, the statistics of the light can be transferred to the electrons.

Strong-Field-Driven Intermolecular Coulombic Decay in NO Dimers

Jiujiang Wang, Yinsong Tang, Xintai Hao, Xiaorui Xue, Jiaqi Zhou, Xueguang Ren, Xiaoqing Hu, Yong Wu, Jianguo Wang, Yan Yang, Junyang Ma, and Zhenrong Sun

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153202 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Microelectromechanical System Vapor Cells with Passive Internal Cavities

Rajesh Pandiyan, Sanyasi Bobbara, Somayeh Mirzaee, Su-Peng Yu, Ruoxi Wang, Adam Sibenik, Reza Kohandani, Stephanie Bohaichuk, and James P. Shaffer

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153203 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Micromotion Area as Proxy for Anomalous Floquet Topological Systems

Luca Asteria, Klaus Sengstock, André Eckardt, and Christof Weitenberg

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153401 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Long-Lived Spin Coherence in a Densely Populated Stoichiometric Rare-Earth Crystal

Mucheng Guo, Zhehao Xu, Weiye Sun, Wanting Xiao, Zongfeng Li, Matthew J. Sellars, Rose L. Ahlefeldt, Fudong Wang, Shuping Liu, and Manjin Zhong

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153601 (2026) - Published 6 October, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Dissipative Acousto-Mechanical Parametric Interface between High-Overtone Acoustics and Flexural Phonons

Xun Ji, Huanying Sun, Longhao Wu, Qichun Liu, Yulong Liu, Mika A. Sillanpää, and Tiefu Li

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 153602 (2026) - Published 7 October, 2026

Physics of Fluids, Earth & Planetary Science, and Climate

Size and Shape of Condensing Steam Jets and Plumes

N. Fourcade, F. Poydenot, P. Langlois, F. Barbe, N. Sinnathamby, P. Claudin, and B. Andreotti

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 154001 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Plasma and Solar Physics, Accelerators and Beams

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

First Experimental Evidence of Helicon Current Drive

J. B. Lestz, R. I. Pinsker, B. Van Compernolle, S. X. Tang, A. Dupuy, A. M. Garofalo, L. McAllister, C. P. Moeller, C. C. Petty, M. Porkolab, M. P. Ross, G. Rutherford, and A. Torrezan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 155101 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Collisionless Accretion of Finite-Angular-Momentum Plasma onto a Spinning Black Hole

John M. Mehlhaff, Alexander Y. Chen, Martin Luepker, and Yajie Yuan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 155201 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

The first fully kinetic collisionless model of a rotating plasma accreting into a black hole reveals the role of pair creation and the plasma loading of the jet funnel.

Condensed Matter and Materials

Eight-Unit-Cell Electronic Modulations in Cuprates Originating from Local Molecular Orbitals

Zhiheng Yao, Sixuan Chen, Jianfa Zhao, Shusen Ye, Weixiang Qu, Ning Xia, Yuling Dai, Luchuan Shi, Hongrui Zhang, Zhenqi Hao, Changqing Jin, Shuo Yang, and Yayu Wang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156001 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Melting Temperature of Bismuth to 55 GPa Using Synchrotron X-Ray Phase Contrast Imaging

Bernhard Massani, Emma Ehrenreich-Petersen, Rachel Husband, Daniel Campbell, Thea Engler, Timofey Fedotenko, Nico Giordano, Konstantin Glazyrin, Johannes Hagemann, Daniel Sneed, Zena Younes, Zsolt Jenei, Hanns-Peter Liermann, R. Stewart McWilliams, and Earl F. O’Bannon

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156101 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Microscopic Signatures of Chern Number Sign Reversal in Twisted Bilayer ${WSe}_{2}$

Ke Lv, Ya-Ning Ren, and Lin He

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156201 (2026) - Published 6 October, 2026

Néel-Antiferromagnet-Proximitized Superconductivity in the ${NbSe}_{2} / {MnPS}_{3}$ Heterostructures

Xinyi Zheng, Ruihuan Duan, Xilin Feng, Desheng Wu, Xue Yang, Lihong Hu, Lei Xu, Sicheng Zhou, Siyuan Zhou, Ximing Zhang, Zishuo Peng, Bingbing Tong, Peiling Li, Junya Feng, Zhaozheng Lyu, Hua Ke, Jie Shen, Jianlin Luo, Fanming Qu, Zheng Liu, Kam Tuen Law, Guangtong Liu, and Li Lu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156301 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Kink-Boundary-Induced Polarity Revealed by Nonreciprocal Charge Transport in ${FeTe}_{0.7} {Se}_{0.3}$ Superconductor

Shengyao Li, Ya Deng, Han Yan, Dianyi Hu, Zherui Yang, Xueyan Wang, Ming Yue, Qiong Wu, Zheng Liu, and X. Renshaw Wang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156302 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Nonuniform Thermal Conductivity in Nanoscale Multiple Hotspot Systems

Yu He (何昱), Zhihao Zhou (周志豪), Shixian Liu (刘世贤), Jing-Tao Lü (吕京涛), Lina Yang (杨哩娜), and Nuo Yang (杨诺)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156303 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Low-Rank Inversion for Single-Node 10,000-Atom Plane-Wave GW Calculations

Zhengbang Zhou, Huanhuan Ma, Wentiao Wu, Weiguo Gao, Jinlong Yang, Meiyue Shao, and Wei Hu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156401 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Criticality on Rényi Defects at $(2 + 1) D$ O(3) Quantum Critical Points

Yanzhang Zhu, Zhe Wang, Meng Cheng, and Zheng Yan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156501 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Huge Symmetric Elastoresistance in the Kondo Lattice ${YbRh}_{2} {Si}_{2}$

Soumendra Nath Panja, Jacques G. Pontanel, Julian Kaiser, Anton Jesche, and Philipp Gegenwart

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156502 (2026) - Published 8 October, 2026

Demonstration of Robust Chiral Edge Transport in Field-Induced Chern Insulator ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$ Devices with Engineered Geometric Defects

Pinyuan Wang, Jun Ge, Jiawei Luo, Xiaoqi Liu, Jiayi Yang, Fucong Fei, Fengqi Song, and Jian Wang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156601 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Non-Ohmic to Ohmic Crossover in the Breakdown of the Quantum Hall States in Graphene under Broadband Excitations

Torsten Röper, Aifei Zhang, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Olivier Maillet, François D. Parmentier, and Erwann Bocquillon

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156602 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Optical Readout of the Magnetic State Using Terahertz Electric Fields

T. G. H. Blank, C. Bauer, M. X. Na, E. A. Mashkovich, A. K. Zvezdin, A. M. Kalashnikova, and A. V. Kimel

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 156901 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Magnetic Exchange-Coupled Superconducting Devices with Broken Symmetry for Cryogenic Memory

Josep Ingla-Aynés, Lina Johnsen Kamra, Franklin Dai, Yasen Hou, Shouzhuo Yang, Peng Chen, Oleg A. Mukhanov, and Jagadeesh S. Moodera

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 157001 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Statistical Physics; Classical, Nonlinear, and Complex Systems

Information Bound on Navigation Speed in Smart Active Matter

Kristian Stølevik Olsen, Mitsusuke Tarama, and Hartmut Löwen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 157101 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

Machine Learning Topological Defect Formation: When Are the Defects Made?

Fumika Suzuki, Ying Wai Li, and Wojciech H. Zurek

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 157301 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Polymers, Chemical Physics, Soft Matter, and Biological Physics

Quantitative and Bond-Traceable Resonant X-Ray Optical Tensors of Organic Molecules

Victor Murcia, Obaid Alqahtani, Harlan Heilman, and Brian A. Collins

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 158001 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

Interaction Potential between Anisotropic Particles: From Measurements to Tailored Design

Yiming Xia, Mingcheng Yang, and Ke Chen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 158201 (2026) - Published 9 October, 2026

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Stochastic Elastohydrodynamics of Soft Valves

Mengfei He, Sungkyu Cho, Gianna Dafflisio, Sitaram Emani, and L. Mahadevan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 158401 (2026) - Published 5 October, 2026

A simplified model of the heart’s mitral valve shows that flow fluctuations can cause a soft valve to close at about one-tenth the pressure required under steady flow.