We present experimental studies on ion acceleration using an 800-nm circularly polarized laser pulse with a peak intensity of $6.9\times {10}^{19}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ interacting with an overdense plasma that is produced by a laser prepulse ionizing an initially ultrathin plastic foil. The proton spectra exhibit spectral peaks at energies up to 9 MeV with energy spreads of 30% and fluxes as high as $3\times {10}^{12}\mathrm{protons}/\mathrm{MeV}/\mathrm{sr}$. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations reveal that collisionless shocks are efficiently launched by circularly polarized lasers in exploded plasmas, resulting in the acceleration of quasimonoenergetic proton beams. Furthermore, this scheme predicts the generation of quasimonoenergetic proton beams with peak energies of approximately 150 MeV using current laser technology, representing a significant step toward applications such as proton therapy.

Higgs plus multigluon amplitudes in QCD can be computed in an effective Lagrangian description. In the infinite top-mass limit, an amplitude with a Higgs boson and $n$ gluons is computed by the form factor of the operator $\mathrm{Tr}{F}^2$. Up to two loops and for three gluons, its maximally transcendental part is captured entirely by the form factor of the protected stress tensor multiplet operator ${\mathcal{T}}_2$ in $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The next order correction involves the calculation of the form factor of the higher-dimensional, trilinear operator $\mathrm{Tr}{F}^3$. We present explicit results at two loops for three gluons, including the subleading transcendental terms derived from a particular descendant of the Konishi operator that contains $\mathrm{Tr}{F}^3$. These are expressed in terms of a few universal building blocks already identified in earlier calculations. We show that the maximally transcendental part of this quantity, computed in nonsupersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, is identical to the form factor of another protected operator, ${\mathcal{T}}_3$, in the maximally supersymmetric theory. Our results suggest that the maximally transcendental part of Higgs amplitudes in QCD can be entirely computed through $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory.

We develop general counting formulas for primary fields in free four dimensional (4D) scalar conformal field theory (CFT). Using a duality map between primary operators in scalar field theory and multivariable polynomial functions subject to differential constraints, we identify a sector of holomorphic primary fields corresponding to polynomial functions on a class of permutation orbifolds. These orbifolds have palindromic Hilbert series, which indicates they are Calabi-Yau orbifolds. We construct the unique top-dimensional holomorphic form expected from the Calabi-Yau property. This sector includes and extends previous constructions of infinite families of primary fields. We sketch the generalization of these results to free 4D vector and matrix CFTs.

Here we show scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), noncontact atomic force microscopy (AFM), and inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) measurements on an organic molecule with a CO-terminated tip at 5 K. The high-resolution contrast observed simultaneously in all channels unambiguously demonstrates the common imaging mechanism in STM/AFM/IETS, related to the lateral bending of the CO-functionalized tip. The IETS spectroscopy reveals that the submolecular contrast at 5 K consists of both renormalization of vibrational frequency and variation of the amplitude of the IETS signal. This finding is also corroborated by first principles simulations. We extend accordingly the probe-particle AFM/STM/IETS model to include these two main ingredients necessary to reproduce the high-resolution IETS contrast. We also employ the first principles simulations to get more insight into a different response of frustrated translation and rotational modes of the CO tip during imaging.

Electron tomography bears promise for widespread determination of the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in solids. However, it remains unclear whether methods successful for crystals are optimal for amorphous solids. Here, we explore the relative difficulty encountered in atomic-resolution tomography of crystalline and amorphous nanoparticles. We define an informational entropy to reveal the inherent importance of low-entropy zone-axis projections in the reconstruction of crystals. In turn, we propose considerations for optimal sampling for tomography of ordered and disordered materials.

We present an embedded-cluster method, based on the triply irreducible local expansion formalism. It turns the Fierz ambiguity, inherent to approaches based on a bosonic decoupling of local fermionic interactions, into a convergence criterion. It is based on the approximation of the three-leg vertex by a coarse-grained vertex computed from a self-consistently determined cluster impurity model. The computed self-energies are, by construction, continuous functions of momentum. We show that, in three interaction and doping regimes of the two-dimensional Hubbard model, self-energies obtained with clusters of size four only are very close to numerically exact benchmark results. We show that the Fierz parameter, which parametrizes the freedom in the Hubbard-Stratonovich decoupling, can be used as a quality control parameter. By contrast, the $GW+\mathrm{extended}$ dynamical mean field theory approximation with four cluster sites is shown to yield good results only in the weak-coupling regime and for a particular decoupling. Finally, we show that the vertex has spatially nonlocal components only at low Matsubara frequencies.

Quantum tomography is a critically important tool to evaluate quantum hardware, making it essential to develop optimized measurement strategies that are both accurate and efficient. We compare a variety of strategies using nearly pure test states. Those that are informationally complete for all states are found to be accurate and reliable even in the presence of errors in the measurements themselves, while those designed to be complete only for pure states are far more efficient but highly sensitive to such errors. Our results highlight the unavoidable trade-offs inherent in quantum tomography.

The operational characterization of quantum coherence is the cornerstone in the development of the resource theory of coherence. We introduce a new coherence quantifier based on maximum relative entropy. We prove that the maximum relative entropy of coherence is directly related to the maximum overlap with maximally coherent states under a particular class of operations, which provides an operational interpretation of the maximum relative entropy of coherence. Moreover, we show that, for any coherent state, there are examples of subchannel discrimination problems such that this coherent state allows for a higher probability of successfully discriminating subchannels than that of all incoherent states. This advantage of coherent states in subchannel discrimination can be exactly characterized by the maximum relative entropy of coherence. By introducing a suitable smooth maximum relative entropy of coherence, we prove that the smooth maximum relative entropy of coherence provides a lower bound of one-shot coherence cost, and the maximum relative entropy of coherence is equivalent to the relative entropy of coherence in the asymptotic limit. Similar to the maximum relative entropy of coherence, the minimum relative entropy of coherence has also been investigated. We show that the minimum relative entropy of coherence provides an upper bound of one-shot coherence distillation, and in the asymptotic limit the minimum relative entropy of coherence is equivalent to the relative entropy of coherence.

We report the demonstration of a mirrorless optical parametric oscillator with a tunable threshold in laser-cooled atoms with four-wave mixing (FWM) using electromagnetically induced transparency. Driven by two classical laser beams, the generated Stokes and anti-Stokes fields counterpropagate and build up efficient intrinsic feedback through the nonlinear FWM process. This feedback does not involve any cavity or spatially distributed microstructures. We observe the transition of photon correlation properties from the biphoton quantum regime (below the threshold) to the oscillation regime (above the threshold). The pump threshold can be tuned by varying the operating parameters. We achieve the oscillation with a threshold as low as $15\mu \mathrm{W}$.

We consider quantum key distribution (QKD) and entanglement distribution using a single-sender multiple-receiver pure-loss bosonic broadcast channel. We determine the unconstrained capacity region for the distillation of bipartite entanglement and secret key between the sender and each receiver, whenever they are allowed arbitrary public classical communication. A practical implication of our result is that the capacity region demonstrated drastically improves upon rates achievable using a naive time-sharing strategy, which has been employed in previously demonstrated network QKD systems. We show a simple example of a broadcast QKD protocol overcoming the limit of the point-to-point strategy. Our result is thus an important step toward opening a new framework of network channel-based quantum communication technology.

We autonomously stabilize arbitrary states of a qubit through parametric modulation of the coupling between a fixed frequency qubit and resonator. The coupling modulation is achieved with a tunable coupling design, in which the qubit and the resonator are connected in parallel to a superconducting quantum interference device. This allows for quasistatic tuning of the qubit-cavity coupling strength from 12 MHz to more than 300 MHz. Additionally, the coupling can be dynamically modulated, allowing for single-photon exchange in 6 ns. Qubit coherence times exceeding $20\mu \mathrm{s}$ are maintained over the majority of the range of tuning, limited primarily by the Purcell effect. The parametric stabilization technique realized using the tunable coupler involves engineering the qubit bath through a combination of photon nonconserving sideband interactions realized by flux modulation, and direct qubit Rabi driving. We demonstrate that the qubit can be stabilized to arbitrary states on the Bloch sphere with a worst-case fidelity exceeding 80%.

Results are reported from a search for supersymmetric particles in proton-proton collisions in the final state with a single lepton, multiple jets, including at least one $b$-tagged jet, and large missing transverse momentum. The search uses a sample of proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$ recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $35.9{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The observed event yields in the signal regions are consistent with those expected from standard model backgrounds. The results are interpreted in the context of simplified models of supersymmetry involving gluino pair production, with gluino decay into either on- or off-mass-shell top squarks. Assuming that the top squarks decay into a top quark plus a stable, weakly interacting neutralino, scenarios with gluino masses up to about 1.9 TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level for neutralino masses up to about 1 TeV.

The differential production cross sections of $B^{\pm }$ mesons are measured via the exclusive decay channels $B^{\pm }\to J/\psi K^{\pm }\to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}{K}^{\pm }$ as a function of transverse momentum in $p$$p$ and Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02\mathrm{TeV}$ per nucleon pair with the CMS detector at the LHC. The $pp(\mathrm{Pb-Pb})$ data set used for this analysis corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $28.0{\mathrm{pb}}^{-1}$ ($351\mu {\mathrm{b}}^{-1}$). The measurement is performed in the $B^{\pm }$ meson transverse momentum range of 7 to $50\mathrm{GeV}/c$, in the rapidity interval $|y|<2.4$. In this kinematic range, a strong suppression of the production cross section by about a factor of 2 is observed in the Pb-Pb system in comparison to the expectation from $pp$ reference data. These results are found to be roughly compatible with theoretical calculations incorporating beauty quark diffusion and energy loss in a quark-gluon plasma.

A Kuznetsov-Ma soliton that exhibits an unusual pulsating dynamics has attracted particular attention in hydrodynamics and plasma physics in the context of understanding nonlinear coherent phenomena. Here, we demonstrate theoretically the formation of a novel form of Kuznetsov-Ma soliton in a microfabricated optomechanical array, where both photonic and phononic evolutionary dynamics exhibit periodic structure and coherent localized behavior enabled by radiation-pressure coupling of optical fields and mechanical oscillations, which is a manifestation of the unique property of optomechanical systems. Numerical calculations of the optomechanical dynamics show an excellent agreement with this theory. In addition to providing insight into optomechanical nonlinearity, optomechanical Kuznetsov-Ma soliton dynamics fundamentally broadens the regime of cavity optomechanics and may find applications in on-chip manipulation of light propagation.

Inks of permanent markers and waterproof cosmetics create elastic thin films upon application on a surface. Such adhesive materials are deliberately designed to exhibit water-repellent behavior. Therefore, patterns made up of these inks become resistant to moisture and cannot be cleaned by water after drying. However, we show that sufficiently slow dipping of such elastic films, which are adhered to a substrate, into a bath of pure water allows for complete removal of the hydrophobic coatings. Upon dipping, the air-water interface in the bath forms a contact line on the substrate, which exerts a capillary-induced peeling force at the edge of the hydrophobic thin film. We highlight that this capillary peeling process is more effective at lower velocities of the air-liquid interface and lower viscosities. Capillary peeling not only removes such thin films from the substrate but also transfers them flawlessly onto the air-water interface.

Spatial properties of high-order harmonic beams produced by high-intensity laser-matter interactions carry rich information on the physics of the generation process, and their detailed understanding is essential for applications of these light beams. We present a thorough study of these properties in the case of harmonic generation from plasma mirrors, up to the relativistic interaction regime. In situ ptychographic measurements of the amplitude and phase spatial profiles of the different harmonic orders in the target plane are presented, as a function of the key interaction parameters. These measurements are used to validate analytical models of the harmonic spatial phase in different generation regimes, and to benchmark ultrahigh-order Maxwell solvers of particle-in-cell simulation codes.