We report unambiguous in situ observation of the coalescence of macroscopic flux ropes by the magnetospheric multiscale (MMS) mission. Two coalescing flux ropes with sizes of $\sim 1R_E$ were identified at the subsolar magnetopause by the occurrence of an asymmetric quadrupolar signature in the normal component of the magnetic field measured by the MMS spacecraft. An electron diffusion region (EDR) with a width of four local electron inertial lengths was embedded within the merging current sheet. The EDR was characterized by an intense parallel electric field, significant energy dissipation, and suprathermal electrons. Although the electrons were organized by a large guide field, the small observed electron pressure nongyrotropy may be sufficient to support a significant fraction of the parallel electric field within the EDR. Since the flux ropes are observed in the exhaust region, we suggest that secondary EDRs are formed further downstream of the primary reconnection line between the magnetosheath and magnetospheric fields.

We prove that there is no finite-alphabet nonlocal box that generates exactly those correlations that can be generated using a maximally entangled pair of qubits. More generally, we prove that if some finite-alphabet nonlocal box is strong enough to simulate arbitrary local projective measurements of a maximally entangled pair of qubits, then that nonlocal box cannot itself be simulated using any finite amount of entanglement. We also give a quantitative version of this theorem for approximate simulations, along with a corresponding positive result.

Intensity interferometry is a technique that has been used to measure the size of sources ranging from the quark-gluon plasma formed in heavy ion collisions to the radii of stars. We investigate using the same technique to measure protoneutron star (PNS) radii with the neutrino signal received from a core-collapse supernovae. Using a full wave-packet analysis, including the neutrino mass for the first time, we derive criteria where the effect can be expected to provide the desired signal, and find that neutrinos from the next Galactic supernova should contain extractable PNS radius information.

Despite decades of gas-phase studies on dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to various molecules, as yet there has been no direct detection and characterization of the neutral radical species produced by this process. In this study, we performed stepwise electron spectroscopy to directly measure and characterize the neutrals produced upon zero-electron-energy DEA to the model molecule, carbon tetrachloride (${\mathrm{CCl}}_4$). We observed the direct yield of the trichloromethyl radical (${\mathrm{CCl}}_3^{·}$) formed by DEA to ${\mathrm{CCl}}_4$ and measured the appearance energies of all the other neutral species. By combining these experimental findings with high-level quantum chemical calculations, we performed a complete analysis of both the DEA to ${\mathrm{CCl}}_4$ and the subsequent electron-impact ionization of ${\mathrm{CCl}}_3^{·}$. This work paves the way toward a complete experimental characterization of DEA processes, which will lead to a better understanding of the low-energy electron-induced formation of radical species.

It is generally believed that when a single metallic nanowire is sufficiently small, it scatters like a point electric dipole. We show theoretically when a metallic nanowire is placed inside specially designed beams, the magnetic dipole contribution along with the electric dipole resonance can lead to unidirectional scattering in the far field, fulfilling Kerker’s condition. Remarkably, this far-field unidirectional scattering encodes information that is highly dependent on the nanowire’s deflection at a scale much smaller than the wavelength. The special roles of small but essential magnetic response along with the plasmonic resonance are highlighted for this extreme sensitivity as compared with the dielectric counterpart. In addition, the same essential role of the magnetic dipole contribution is also presented for a very small metallic nanosphere.

We study the chaoticity and the predictability of a turbulent flow on the basis of high-resolution direct numerical simulations at different Reynolds numbers. We find that the Lyapunov exponent of turbulence, which measures the exponential separation of two initially close solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations, grows with the Reynolds number of the flow, with an anomalous scaling exponent, larger than the one obtained on dimensional grounds. For large perturbations, the error is transferred to larger, slower scales, where it grows algebraically generating an “inverse cascade” of perturbations in the inertial range. In this regime, our simulations confirm the classical predictions based on closure models of turbulence. We show how to link chaoticity and predictability of a turbulent flow in terms of a finite size extension of the Lyapunov exponent.

We present a study of electric, thermal and thermoelectric response in noncollinear antiferromagnet ${\mathrm{Mn}}_3\mathrm{Sn}$, which hosts a large anomalous Hall effect (AHE). Berry curvature generates off-diagonal thermal (Righi-Leduc) and thermoelectric (Nernst) signals, which are detectable at room temperature and invertible with a small magnetic field. The thermal and electrical Hall conductivities respect the Wiedemann-Franz law, implying that the transverse currents induced by the Berry curvature are carried by Fermi surface quasiparticles. In contrast to conventional ferromagnets, the anomalous Lorenz number remains close to the Sommerfeld number over the whole temperature range of study, excluding any contribution by inelastic scattering and pointing to the Berry curvature as the unique source of AHE. The anomalous off-diagonal thermo-electric and Hall conductivities are strongly temperature dependent and their ratio is close to $k_B/e$.

The frontier orbital sequence of individual dicyanovinyl-substituted oligothiophene molecules is studied by means of scanning tunneling microscopy. On $\mathrm{NaCl}/\mathrm{Cu}(111)$, the molecules are neutral, and the two lowest unoccupied molecular states are observed in the expected order of increasing energy. On $\mathrm{NaCl}/\mathrm{Cu}(311)$, where the molecules are negatively charged, the sequence of two observed molecular orbitals is reversed, such that the one with one more nodal plane appears lower in energy. These experimental results, in open contradiction with a single-particle interpretation, are explained by a many-body theory predicting a strongly entangled doubly charged ground state.

The frustrated pyrochlore magnet ${\mathrm{Yb}}_2{\mathrm{Ti}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$ has the remarkable property that it orders magnetically but has no propagating magnons over wide regions of the Brillouin zone. Here we use inelastic neutron scattering to follow how the spectrum evolves in cubic-axis magnetic fields. At high fields we observe, in addition to dispersive magnons, a two-magnon continuum, which grows in intensity upon reducing the field and overlaps with the one-magnon states at intermediate fields leading to strong renormalization of the dispersion relations, and magnon decays. Using heat capacity measurements we find that the low- and high-field regions are smoothly connected with no sharp phase transition, with the spin gap increasing monotonically in field. Through fits to an extensive data set of dispersion relations combined with magnetization measurements, we reevaluate the spin Hamiltonian, finding dominant quantum exchange terms, which we propose are responsible for the anomalously strong fluctuations and quasiparticle breakdown effects observed at low fields.

The ultrafast elastic light scattering technique is applied to reveal the strong nonlinearity of ${\mathrm{V}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_5$ associated with a photoinduced insulator-metal phase transition. Observation of time-domain relaxation dynamics suggests several stages of structural transition. We discuss the nonequilibrium processes in ${\mathrm{V}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_5$ in terms of photoinduced melting of a polaronic Wigner crystal, coalescence of V-O octahedra, and photogeneration of acoustical phonons in the low-$T$ and high-$T$ phases of ${\mathrm{V}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_5$. A molecular dynamics computation supports experimentally observed stages of ${\mathrm{V}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_5$ relaxation dynamics.

We generalize the Vicsek model to describe the collective behavior of polar circle swimmers with local alignment interactions. While the phase transition leading to collective motion in 2D (flocking) occurs at the same interaction to noise ratio as for linear swimmers, as we show, circular motion enhances the polarization in the ordered phase (enhanced flocking) and induces secondary instabilities leading to structure formation. Slow rotations promote macroscopic droplets with late time sizes proportional to the system size (indicating phase separation) whereas fast rotations generate patterns consisting of phase synchronized microflocks with a controllable characteristic size proportional to the average single-particle swimming radius. Our results defy the viewpoint that monofrequent rotations form a vapid extension of the Vicsek model and establish a generic route to pattern formation in chiral active matter with possible applications for understanding and designing rotating microflocks.

Motivated by the experimental realization of quantum spin models of polar molecule KRb in optical lattices, we analyze the spin $1/2$ dipolar Heisenberg model with competing anisotropic, long-range exchange interactions. We show that, by tilting the orientation of dipoles using an external electric field, the dipolar spin system on square lattice comes close to a maximally frustrated region similar, but not identical, to that of the $J_1\text{−}{J}_2$ model. This provides a simple yet powerful route to potentially realize a quantum spin liquid without the need for a triangular or kagome lattice. The ground state phase diagrams obtained from Schwinger-boson and spin-wave theories consistently show a spin disordered region between the Néel, stripe, and spiral phase. The existence of a finite quantum paramagnetic region is further confirmed by an unbiased variational ansatz based on tensor network states and a tensor renormalization group.

We prove that the entanglement entropy of any state evolved under an arbitrary $1/r^{\alpha }$ long-range-interacting $D$-dimensional lattice spin Hamiltonian cannot change faster than a rate proportional to the boundary area for any $\alpha >D+1$. We also prove that for any $\alpha >2D+2$, the ground state of such a Hamiltonian satisfies the entanglement area law if it can be transformed along a gapped adiabatic path into a ground state known to satisfy the area law. These results significantly generalize their existing counterparts for short-range interacting systems, and are useful for identifying dynamical phase transitions and quantum phase transitions in the presence of long-range interactions.

We study the algebraic and analytic structure of Feynman integrals by proposing an operation that maps an integral into pairs of integrals obtained from a master integrand and a corresponding master contour. This operation is a coaction. It reduces to the known coaction on multiple polylogarithms, but applies more generally, e.g., to hypergeometric functions. The coaction also applies to generic one-loop Feynman integrals with any configuration of internal and external masses, and in dimensional regularization. In this case, we demonstrate that it can be given a diagrammatic representation purely in terms of operations on graphs, namely, contractions and cuts of edges. The coaction gives direct access to (iterated) discontinuities of Feynman integrals and facilitates a straightforward derivation of the differential equations they admit. In particular, the differential equations for any one-loop integral are determined by the diagrammatic coaction using limited information about their maximal, next-to-maximal, and next-to-next-to-maximal cuts.

We consider the possibility that supersymmetry is broken above the inflationary mass scale and that the only “low” energy remnant of supersymmetry is the gravitino with a mass of the order of the EeV scale. The gravitino in this class of models becomes a candidate for the dark matter of the Universe. To avoid the overproduction of gravitinos from the decays of the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle we argue that the supersymmetric spectrum must lie above the inflationary mass scale ($M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}>{10}^{-5}{M}_{\mathrm{P}}\sim 10^{13}\mathrm{GeV}$). Since $m_{3/2}\simeq M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}^2/M_{\mathrm{P}}$, we expect $m_{3/2}\gtrsim 0.2\mathrm{EeV}$. Cosmological constraints then predict a relatively large reheating temperature between $10^{10}$ and $10^{12}\mathrm{GeV}$.

The relative phase of the order parameters in the collision of two condensates can influence the outcome of their collision in the case of weak coupling. With increasing interaction strength, however, the initially independent phases of the two order parameters in the colliding partners quickly become phase locked, as the strong coupling favors an overall phase rigidity of the entire condensate, and upon their separation the emerging superfluid fragments become entangled.

A low-energy enhancement of radiative strength functions was deduced from recent experiments in several mass regions of nuclei, which is believed to impact considerably the calculated neutron capture rates. In this Letter we investigate the behavior of the low-energy $\gamma$-ray strength of the ${}^{44}\mathrm{Sc}$ isotope, for the first time taking into account both electric and magnetic dipole contributions obtained coherently in the same theoretical approach. The calculations are performed using the large-scale shell-model framework in a full $1\hslash \omega sd\text{−}pf\text{−}gds$ model space. Our results corroborate previous theoretical findings for the low-energy enhancement of the $M1$ strength but show quite different behavior for the $E1$ strength.

Established x-ray diffraction methods allow for high-resolution structure determination of crystals, crystallized protein structures, or even single molecules. While these techniques rely on coherent scattering, incoherent processes like fluorescence emission—often the predominant scattering mechanism—are generally considered detrimental for imaging applications. Here, we show that intensity correlations of incoherently scattered x-ray radiation can be used to image the full 3D arrangement of the scattering atoms with significantly higher resolution compared to conventional coherent diffraction imaging and crystallography, including additional three-dimensional information in Fourier space for a single sample orientation. We present a number of properties of incoherent diffractive imaging that are conceptually superior to those of coherent methods.