We study topological excitations in two-component nematic superconductors, with a particular focus on ${\mathrm{Cu}}_x{\mathrm{Bi}}_2{\mathrm{Se}}_3$ as a candidate material. We find that the lowest-energy topological excitations are coreless vortices: a bound state of two spatially separated half-quantum vortices. These objects are nematic Skyrmions, since they are characterized by an additional topological charge. The inter-Skyrmion forces are dipolar in this model, i.e., attractive for certain relative orientations of the Skyrmions, hence forming multi-Skyrmion bound states.

Thermal fluctuations can lift the degeneracy of a ground state manifold, producing a free-energy landscape without accidentally degenerate minima. In a process known as order by disorder, a subset of states incorporating symmetry breaking may be selected. Here, we show that such a free-energy landscape can be controlled in a nonequilibrium setting as the slow motion within the ground state manifold is governed by the fast modes out of it. For the paradigmatic case of the classical pyrochlore $XY$ antiferromagnet, we show that a uniform magnetic field pulse can excite these fast modes to generate a tunable effective free-energy landscape with minima at thermodynamically unstable portions of the ground state manifold.

Interfaces are of critical importance to many materials and phenomena yet are difficult to probe. This difficulty is compounded in three-dimensional nanostructures and with delicate organic materials. Here we demonstrate a quantitative spectral analysis of resonant soft x-ray scattering that can accurately measure properties of buried nonplanar interfaces within polymeric systems. We measure the scattering invariant on an absolute scale to quantify the interfacial volume and width involved in mixing at the interface of block copolymer nanostructures. Using continuous contrast tuning, this spectral analysis enables the separation and identification of any number of unique scatterers in complex nanostructures.

We analyze the collective behavior of hydrodynamically coupled molecular motors. We show that the local fluxes induced by motor displacement can induce the experimentally observed bidirectional motion of cargoes and vesicles. By means of a mean-field approach we show that sustained oscillations as well as bistable collective motor motion arise even for very large collection of motors, when thermal noise is irrelevant. The analysis clarifies the physical mechanisms responsible for such dynamics by identifying the relevant coupling parameter and its dependence on the geometry of the hydrodynamic coupling as well as on system size. We quantify the phase diagram for the different phases that characterize the collective motion of hydrodynamically coupled motors and show that sustained oscillations can be reached for biologically relevant parameters, hence, demonstrating the relevance of hydrodynamic interactions in intracellular transport.

We present an approach to generate chimera dynamics (localized frequency synchrony) in oscillator networks with two populations of (at least) two elements using a general method based on a delayed interaction with linear and quadratic terms. The coupling design yields robust chimeras through a phase-model-based design of the delay and the ratio of linear and quadratic components of the interactions. We demonstrate the method in the Brusselator model and experiments with electrochemical oscillators. The technique opens the way to directly bridge chimera dynamics in phase models and real-world oscillator networks.

We propose and analyze a nonlinear optical apparatus in which the direction of asymmetric steering is controllable within the apparatus, rather than by adding noise to measurements. Using a nondegenerate parametric oscillator with an injected signal field, we show how the directionality and extent of the steering can be readily controlled for output modes that can be up to one octave apart. The two down-converted modes, which exhibit the greater violations of the steering inequalities, can also be controlled to exhibit asymmetric steering in some regimes.

We report on the first experimental realization of the controlled-not (cnot) quantum gate and entanglement for two individual atoms of different isotopes and demonstrate a negligible cross talk between two atom qubits. The experiment is based on a strong Rydberg blockade for ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ and ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms confined in two single-atom optical traps separated by $3.8\mu \mathrm{m}$. The raw fidelities of the cnot gate and entanglement are $0.73\pm 0.01$ and $0.59\pm 0.03$, respectively, without any corrections for atom loss or trace loss. Our work has applications for simulations of many-body systems with multispecies interactions, for quantum computing, and for quantum metrology.

We develop a generalized framework for constructing many-body-interaction operations either in linear time or in logarithmic time with a linear number of ancilla qubits. Exact gate decompositions are given for Pauli strings, many-control Toffoli gates, number- and parity-conserving interactions, unitary coupled cluster operations, and sparse matrix generators. We provide a linear time protocol that works by creating a superposition of exponentially many different possible operator strings and then uses dynamical decoupling methodology to undo all the unwanted terms. A logarithmic time protocol overcomes the speed limit of the first by using ancilla registers to condition evolution to the support of the desired many-body interaction before using parallel chaining operations to expand the string length. The two techniques improve substantially on current strategies (reductions in time and space ranging from linear to exponential), are applicable to different physical interaction mechanisms such as cnot, $XX$, and $XX+YY$, and generalize to a wide range of many-body operators.

The time delay between gravitational wave signals arriving at widely separated detectors can be used to place upper and lower bounds on the speed of gravitational wave propagation. Using a Bayesian approach that combines the first three gravitational wave detections reported by the LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations we constrain the gravitational waves propagation speed $c_{\mathrm{gw}}$ to the 90% credible interval $0.55c<c_{\mathrm{gw}}<1.42c$, where $c$ is the speed of light in vacuum. These bounds will improve as more detections are made and as more detectors join the worldwide network. Of order 20 detections by the two LIGO detectors will constrain the speed of gravity to within 20% of the speed of light, while just five detections by the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra network will constrain the speed of gravity to within 1% of the speed of light.

We describe a large family of nonequilibrium steady states (NESS) corresponding to forced flows over obstacles. The spatial structure at large distances from the obstacle is shown to be universal, and can be quantitatively characterized in terms of certain collective modes of the strongly coupled many body system, which we define in this work. In holography, these modes are spatial analogues of quasinormal modes, which are known to be responsible for universal aspects of relaxation of time dependent systems. These modes can be both hydrodynamical or nonhydrodynamical in origin. The decay lengths of the hydrodynamic modes are set by $\eta /s$, the shear viscosity over entropy density ratio, suggesting a new route to experimentally measuring this ratio. We also point out a new class of nonequilibrium phase transitions, across which the spatial structure of the NESS undergoes a dramatic change, characterized by the properties of the spectrum of these spatial collective modes.

We propose a novel dark matter (DM) detection strategy for models with a nonminimal dark sector. The main ingredients in the underlying DM scenario are a boosted DM particle and a heavier dark sector state. The relativistic DM impinged on target material scatters off inelastically to the heavier state, which subsequently decays into DM along with lighter states including visible (standard model) particles. The expected signal event, therefore, accompanies a visible signature by the secondary cascade process associated with a recoiling of the target particle, differing from the typical neutrino signal not involving the secondary signature. We then discuss various kinematic features followed by DM detection prospects at large-volume neutrino detectors with a model framework where a dark gauge boson is the mediator between the standard model particles and DM.

An intriguing phenomenon in topological semimetals and topological insulators is the negative magnetoresistance (MR) observed when a magnetic field is applied along the current direction. A prevailing understanding to the negative MR in topological semimetals is the chiral anomaly, which, however, is not well defined in topological insulators. We calculate the MR of a three-dimensional topological insulator, by using the semiclassical equations of motion, in which the Berry curvature explicitly induces an anomalous velocity and orbital moment. Our theoretical results are in quantitative agreement with the experiments. The negative MR is not sensitive to temperature and increases as the Fermi energy approaches the band edge. The orbital moment and $g$ factors also play important roles in the negative MR. Our results give a reasonable explanation to the negative MR in 3D topological insulators and will be helpful in understanding the anomalous quantum transport in topological states of matter.

We theoretically show that, despite Earnshaw’s theorem, a nonrotating single magnetic domain nanoparticle can be stably levitated in an external static magnetic field. The stabilization relies on the quantum spin origin of magnetization, namely, the gyromagnetic effect. We predict the existence of two stable phases related to the Einstein–de Haas effect and the Larmor precession. At a stable point, we derive a quadratic Hamiltonian that describes the quantum fluctuations of the degrees of freedom of the system. We show that, in the absence of thermal fluctuations, the quantum state of the nanomagnet at the equilibrium point contains entanglement and squeezing.

We consider the process of conversion between linear polarizations as light is reflected from a photonic crystal slab. We observe that, over a wide range of frequencies, complete polarization conversion can be found at isolated wave vectors. Moreover, such an effect is topological: the complex reflection coefficients have a nonzero winding number in the wave vector space. We also show that bound states in continuum in this system have their wave vectors lying on the critical coupling curve that defines the condition for complete polarization conversion. Our work points to the use of topological photonics concepts for the control of polarization, and suggests the exploration of topological properties of scattering matrices as a route towards creating robust optical devices.

We give a systematic derivation of positive lower bounds for the expected entropy production (EP) rate in classical statistical mechanical systems obeying a dynamical large deviation principle. The logic is the same for the return to thermodynamic equilibrium as it is for steady nonequilibria working under the condition of local detailed balance. We recover there recently studied “uncertainty” relations for the EP, appearing in studies about the effectiveness of mesoscopic machines. In general our refinement of the positivity of the expected EP rate is obtained in terms of a positive and even function of the expected current(s) which measures the dynamical activity in the system, a time-symmetric estimate of the changes in the system’s configuration. Also underdamped diffusions can be included in the analysis.