The fermionic $t\text{−}J$ model has been widely recognized as a canonical model for broad range of strongly correlated phases, particularly the high-$T_{\mathrm{c}}$ superconductor. Simulating this model with controllable quantum platforms offers new possibilities to probe high-$T_{\mathrm{c}}$ physics, yet suffers challenges. Here we propose a novel scheme to realize a highly tunable extended $t\text{−}J$ model in a programmable Rydberg-dressed tweezer array. Through engineering the Rydberg-dressed dipole-dipole interaction and intertweezer couplings, the fermionic $t\text{−}J$ model with independently tunable exchange and hopping couplings is achieved. With the high tunability, we explore quantum many-body dynamics in the large $J/t$ limit, a regime well beyond the conventional optical lattices and cuprates, and predict an unprecedented many-body self-pinning effect related to the local quantum entanglement with emergent conserved quantities. The self-pinning effect leads to novel nonthermal quantum many-body dynamics, which violates eigenstate thermalization hypothesis in Krylov subspace. Our prediction opens a new horizon in exploring exotic quantum many-body physics with $t\text{−}J$ model, and shall also make a step toward simulating the high-$T_{\mathrm{c}}$ physics in neutral atom systems.

By means of the variational method and numerical simulations, we demonstrate the existence of stable 3D nonlinear modes, viz. vortex “bullets,” in the form of pulsed beams carrying orbital angular momentum, that can self-trap in a 2D waveguiding structure. Despite the attractive self-interaction, which is necessary for producing the bullets (bright solitons), and which readily leads to the collapse in the 3D setting as well as to spontaneous splitting of vortex modes, we find a critical value of the trapping depth securing the stabilization of the vortex bullets. We identify experimental conditions for the creation of these topological modes in the context of coherent optical and matter waves. Collisions between the bullets moving in the unconfined direction are found to be elastic. These findings contribute to the understanding of self-trapping in nonlinear multidimensional systems and suggest new possibilities for the stabilization and control of 3D topological solitons.

One of the signature observables for the electronic multichannel Kondo model is the impurity entropy, which was found in $J_1\text{−}{J}_2$ Heisenberg chains with the open boundary condition (OBC) and periodic boundary condition (PBC), for the one-channel and two-channel cases, respectively. However, it is not clear how to generalize OBC and PBC in Heisenberg chains to find the multichannel Kondo impurity entropy with more than two channels. In this Letter, we demonstrate that the correct boundary condition for realizing multichannel Kondo physics in Heisenberg chains is the image impurity boundary condition (IIBC) which preserves reflection symmetry and yields the expected impurity entropy, $\ln [(\sqrt{5}+1)/2]$ for the three-channel case and $\ln \sqrt{3}$ for the four-channel case. Moreover, the IIBC reduces to OBC for the one-channel case and to PBC for the two-channel case. With IIBC, the finite-size scaling of the impurity entropy and the total impurity spin match the finite-temperature corrections in the electronic multichannel Kondo model. Additionally, we show dependence of the impurity entropy, the total impurity spin, and their scaling behaviors on the XXZ anisotropy $\mathrm{\Delta }$ (equivalently the Luttinger liquid parameter), revealing impurity physics in a multichannel Luttinger liquid.

Optical cavities have been widely applied to manipulate the properties of solid state materials inside them. We propose that in systems embedded within optical cavities driven by incident pump light, the pump induces generic phase transitions into new nonequilibrium steady states. This effect arises from the ponderomotive potential, the effective static potential exerted by the pump on the low energy degrees of freedom, which exhibits a universal steplike structure that pushes the matter degrees of freedom in the direction that redshifts the cavity photon modes. For a two dimensional electron liquid in a driven cavity, this steplike potential pushes the electron density to jump to a smaller value so that a hybrid cavity photon mode is redshifted to slightly below the pump frequency. Similarly, for a dirty superconductor in such a driven cavity, this potential acts on the superconducting order parameter and causes a first order phase transition to a new steady state with a smaller gap. By realistic electromagnetic modeling of the cavity that includes all cavity modes, we construct the nonequilibrium phase diagrams for experimentally relevant devices.

We propose a mechanism for the generation of magnetic fields on cosmological scales that is operative after recombination. An essential ingredient is an instability (of parametric resonance type) of the electromagnetic field driven by an oscillating pseudoscalar dark-matter field, $\varphi$, that is coupled to the electromagnetic field tensor via a $\varphi F\wedge F$ term in the Lagrangian of axion electrodynamics. We find that magnetic fields larger than the observational lower bounds can be generated soon after recombination on scales of 1 Mpc.

We propose a probabilistic construction of imaginary Liouville field theory based on a real (noncompactified) Gaussian free field. We argue that our theory represents the first explicit Lagrangian field theory that generates the imaginary Dorn, Otto, Zamolodchikov, and Zamolodchikov (DOZZ) constants without requiring a neutrality constraint. The validity of our theory is backed up by exact results on the behavior of the imaginary multiplicative chaos on a circle, and by numerical simulations on the theory on the sphere. In particular, the three point functions of the theory that are in a very good agreement with the imaginary DOZZ constant.

Extracting continuum properties of quantum field theories from discretized spacetime is challenging due to lattice artifacts. Renormalization-group (RG)-improved lattice actions can preserve continuum properties, but are in general difficult to parameterize. Machine learning (ML) with gauge-equivariant convolutional neural networks provides a way to efficiently describe such actions. We test a machine-learned RG-improved lattice gauge action, the classically perfect fixed-point (FP) action, for four-dimensional SU(3) gauge theory through Monte Carlo simulations. We establish that the gradient flow of the FP action is free of tree-level discretization effects to all orders in the lattice spacing, making it classically perfect. This allows us to test the quality of improvement of the FP action, without introducing additional artifacts. We find that discretization effects in gradient-flow observables are highly suppressed and less than 1% up to lattice spacings of 0.14 fm, allowing continuum physics to be extracted from coarse lattices. The quality of improvement achieved motivates the use of the FP action in future gauge theory studies. The advantages of ML-based parameterizations also highlight the possibility of realizing quantum perfect actions in lattice gauge theory.

We demonstrate that a two-polariton blockade (2PB) can occur under resonant single-polariton driving in an atom-cavity system operating in the ultrastrong coupling (USC) regime—a phenomenon qualitatively distinct from, and unattainable in, both the strong and weak coupling regimes. In the USC regime, where the ratio of the atom-cavity coupling strength to the cavity resonance frequency exceeds 0.1, hybrid light-matter quasiparticles known as polaritons emerge. By employing modified second- and third-order correlation functions appropriate for the USC regime, we predict the emergence of 2PB, characterized by pronounced two-polariton bunching accompanied by suppressed three-polariton coincidences. This Letter introduces a novel route to achieving 2PB, with promising implications for the realization of multiparticle quantum light sources in the USC regime.

The famous two-fluid model of finite-temperature superfluids has been recently extended to describe the mixed classical-superfluid dynamics of the newly discovered supersolid phase of matter. We show that for rigidly rotating supersolids one can derive a more appropriate single-fluid model, in which the seemingly classical and superfluid contributions to the motion emerge from a spatially varying phase of the global wave function. That allows one to design experimental protocols to excite and detect the peculiar rotation dynamics of annular supersolids, including partially quantized supercurrents, in which each atom brings less than $\hslash$ units of angular momentum. Our results are valid for a more general class of density-modulated superfluids.

Moiré superlattices with long-range periodicity exhibit Hofstadter energy spectra under accessible magnetic fields, enabling the exploration of emergent quantum phenomena through a hierarchy of fractal states. However, higher-order features, located at elevated energies with narrow bandwidths, typically require high carrier densities and remain difficult to resolve using conventional electrical transport due to limited sensitivity and strong background conductivity. Here, we utilize acoustoelectric (AE) transport to probe high-order fractal states and the Hofstadter spectrum in graphene/hBN moiré superlattices. Surface acoustic waves on a ferroelectric ${\mathrm{LiNbO}}_3$ substrate generate an AE voltage proportional to the derivative of electrical conductivity, significantly enhancing sensitivity to weak spectral features. Combined with substrate-induced high electron doping, this technique resolves fractal Brown-Zak oscillations up to the fifth-order and provides the first AE observation of the Hofstadter butterfly, revealing high-order fractal magnetic Bloch states and symmetry-broken Landau levels over a wide carrier density range. Our results establish AE transport as a powerful derivative-sensitive probe for emergent fractal quantum states in moiré-engineered 2D systems.

We propose a novel mechanism of impurity screening in $(1+1)d$ quantum critical states described by conformal field theories (CFTs). An impurity can be screened if it has the same quantum numbers as some gapless degrees of freedom of the CFT. The common source of these degrees of freedom is the chiral primary fields of the CFT, but we uncover that topological defect lines of the CFT may also take this role. Theoretical analysis relies on the insight that the impurities can be interpreted as edge modes of certain symmetry-protected topological (SPT) states. By stacking a SPT state with a CFT, one or two interfaces on which the SPT edge modes reside are created. If screening occurs due to topological defect lines, a symmetry-enriched CFT with exotic boundary states is obtained. The boundary conditions that appear in these cases are difficult to achieve using previously known methods. As a concrete example, we consider a spin-1 chain whose bulk is described by the ${\mathrm{SU}(3)}_1$ CFT and edges are coupled to spin-$1/2$ impurities. We demonstrate that both the low-energy eigenstates and the extracted Affleck-Ludwig entropy are in excellent agreement with our theoretical predictions.

We propose the van der Waals layered ternary transition metal chalcogenides ${\mathrm{FeTa}X}_2$ ($X=\mathrm{S}$, Se, Te) as a new family of ferrimagnetic quantum anomalous Hall insulators with a sizable bulk gap and high Chern number $\mathcal{C}=-2$. The magnetic order arises primarily from Fe atoms, whose strong ferromagnetic exchange induces moments on neighboring Ta sites. The large topological gap originates from a strong $s\text{−}d$-type band inversion between spin-down Ta $d_{z^2}$ and $d_{xy}$ orbitals near the Fermi level—a mechanism unique to $d$-orbital systems. Remarkably, the Curie temperature of monolayer ${\mathrm{FeTa}X}_2$ is predicted to significantly exceed that of monolayer ${\mathrm{MnBi}}_2{\mathrm{Te}}_4$. Furthermore, both the Curie temperature and topological gap scale positively with the spin-orbit coupling strength of the $d$ electrons, suggesting a common physical origin. These findings, if realized experimentally, could open new avenues for the research and application of topological quantum physics.

We investigate the landscape of many-body memories: families of local nonequilibrium dynamics that retain information about their initial conditions for thermodynamically long timescales, even in the presence of arbitrary perturbations. In two dimensions, the only well-studied memory is Toom’s rule. Using a combination of rigorous proofs and machine learning methods, we show that the landscape of 2D memories is in fact quite vast. We discover memories that correct errors in ways qualitatively distinct from Toom’s rule, have ordered phases stabilized by fluctuations, and preserve information only in the presence of noise. Taken together, our results show that physical systems can perform robust information storage in many distinct ways, and demonstrate that the physics of many-body memories is richer than previously realized.

Fundamental understanding of electrical double layers (EDL) has been gleaned mostly on ideally planar electrodes, while realistic electrodes usually exhibit surface roughness on multiple scales. The influence of mesoscopic roughness (1–10 nm) is elusive, representing a cutting-edge challenge to theoretical modeling as both quantum- and classical-mechanical effects should be treated efficiently on the same footing. Addressing this challenge, we combine semiclassical models and Kohn-Sham density functional theory calculations to study the influence of mesoscopic roughness on the work function and the potential of zero free charge (PZFC) of silver electrodes. While the work function decreases at rougher electrodes as expected, the change in the PZFC is, unexpectedly, much smaller. The weakened correlation between work function and PZFC is ascribed to the decreased interfacial permittivity in the valley caused by a large, local, electron-spilling-induced electric field. In addition, the rough EDL at PZFC is heterogeneously charged with excess cations in the valley and excess anions near the peak, leading to the deviation of the potential of minimal capacitance from the PZFC.

We exploit the controlled drying of millimeter-sized gel beads to investigate the isotropic compression of colloidal fractal gels. Using a custom dynamic light scattering setup, we demonstrate that stresses imposed by drying on the bead surface propagate homogeneously throughout the gel volume, inducing plastic rearrangements. We find that the Young modulus and yield stress of the gels increase monotonically with the instantaneous colloid volume fraction, $\phi$, exhibiting a mechanical response that depends solely on $\phi$, regardless of the drying history. In striking contrast, small-angle x-ray scattering reveals that the gel microstructure retains a strong memory of its initial state, depending on both $\phi$ and the entire compression pathway. Our findings challenge the prevailing paradigm of a one-to-one relationship between microstructure and elasticity in colloidal fractal gels, opening new avenues for independent control over the structural and mechanical properties of soft materials.

Can activity be transmitted from smaller to larger scales? We report on such a transfer from a homogeneous active medium to a Newtonian spherical probe. The active medium consists of faster and dilute self-propelled particles, modeled as run-and-tumble particles in 1D or as active Brownian particles in 2D. We derive the reduced fluctuating dynamics of the probe, valid for arbitrary probe velocity, characterized by velocity-dependent friction and noise. In addition to a standard passive regime, we identify peculiar active regimes where the probe becomes self-propelled with high persistence, and its velocity distribution begets peaks at nonzero values. These features are quantitatively confirmed by numerical simulations of the composite probe-medium system. The emergence of active regimes depends not only on the far-from-equilibrium nature of the medium but also on the probe-medium coupling. Our findings reveal how, solely via the induced friction and noise, persistence can cross different scales to transfer active motion.

Enhanced enzyme diffusion (EED), in which the diffusion coefficient of an enzyme transiently increases during catalysis, has been extensively reported experimentally, although its existence remains under debate. In this Letter, we investigate what macroscopic consequences would arise if EED exists. Through numerical simulations and theoretical analysis, we demonstrate that such enzymes can act as Maxwell’s demons: They use their enhanced diffusion as a memory of the previous catalytic reaction, to gain information and drive steady-state chemical concentrations away from chemical equilibrium. Our theoretical analysis identifies the conditions under which this process could operate and discusses its possible biological relevance.

In quantum systems, purification can map mixed states into pure states and a nonunitary evolution into a unitary one by enlarging the Hilbert space. We establish a connection between the complexities of mixed quantum states and their purification, proposing new inequalities among these complexities. By examining single qubits, two-qubit Werner states, eight-dimensional Gaussian random unitary ensembles, and infinite-dimensional systems, we demonstrate how these relationships manifest across a broad class of systems. We find that the spread complexity of purification of a vacuum state evolving into a thermal state equals the average number of Rindler particles. This complexity is also shown to adhere to the Lloyd-like bound, indicating a further relation to the quantum speed limit. Finally, using mutual Krylov complexity, we observe subadditivity of the Krylov complexities, which contrasts with known results from holographic volume complexity. We put forward Krylov mutual complexity as a diagnosis of a potential gravity dual of Krylov complexities.