We report the experimental evidence of the existence of a random attractor in a fully developed turbulent swirling flow. By defining a global observable which tracks the asymmetry in the flux of angular momentum imparted to the flow, we can first reconstruct the associated turbulent attractor and then follow its route towards chaos. We further show that the experimental attractor can be modeled by stochastic Duffing equations, that match the quantitative properties of the experimental flow, namely, the number of quasistationary states and transition rates among them, the effective dimensions, and the continuity of the first Lyapunov exponents. Such properties can be recovered neither using deterministic models nor using stochastic differential equations based on effective potentials obtained by inverting the probability distributions of the experimental global observables. Our findings open the way to low-dimensional modeling of systems featuring a large number of degrees of freedom and multiple quasistationary states.

We study the behavior of the Uhlmann connection in systems of fermions undergoing phase transitions. In particular, we analyze some of the paradigmatic cases of topological insulators and superconductors in one dimension, as well as the BCS theory of superconductivity in three dimensions. We show that the Uhlmann connection signals phase transitions in which the eigenbasis of the state of the system changes. Moreover, using the established fidelity approach and the study of the edge states, we show the absence of thermally driven phase transitions in the case of topological insulators and superconductors. We clarify what is the relevant parameter space associated with the Uhlmann connection so that it signals the existence of order in mixed states. In addition, the study of Majorana modes at finite temperature opens the possibility of applications in realistic stable quantum memories. Finally, the analysis of the different behavior of the BCS model and the Kitaev chain, with respect to the Uhlmann connection, suggested that in realistic scenarios the gap of topological superconductors could also, generically, be temperature dependent.

There has been a surge of recent interest in the role of anisotropy in interaction-induced phenomena in two-dimensional (2D) charged carrier systems. A fundamental question is how an anisotropy in the energy-band structure of the carriers at zero magnetic field affects the properties of the interacting particles at high fields, in particular of the composite fermions (CFs) and the fractional quantum Hall states (FQHSs). We demonstrate here tunable anisotropy for holes and hole-flux CFs confined to GaAs quantum wells, via applying in situ in-plane strain and measuring their Fermi wave vector anisotropy through commensurability oscillations. For strains on the order of ${10}^{-4}$ we observe significant deformations of the shapes of the Fermi contours for both holes and CFs. The measured Fermi contour anisotropy for CFs at high magnetic field (${\alpha }_{\mathrm{CF}}$) is less than the anisotropy of their low-field hole (fermion) counterparts (${\alpha }_{\mathrm{F}}$), and closely follows the relation ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{CF}}=\sqrt{{\alpha }_{\mathrm{F}}}$. The energy gap measured for the $\nu =2/3$ FQHS, on the other hand, is nearly unaffected by the Fermi contour anisotropy up to ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{F}}\sim 3.3$, the highest anisotropy achieved in our experiments.

Spin-polarized materials with Dirac features have sparked great scientific interest due to their potential applications in spintronics. But such a type of structure is very rare and none has been fabricated. Here, we investigate the already experimentally synthesized manganese fluoride (${\mathrm{MnF}}_3$) as a novel spin-polarized Dirac material by using first-principles calculations. ${\mathrm{MnF}}_3$ exhibits multiple Dirac cones in one spin orientation, while it behaves like a large gap semiconductor in the other spin channel. The estimated Fermi velocity for each cone is of the same order of magnitude as that in graphene. The 3D band structure further reveals that ${\mathrm{MnF}}_3$ possesses rings of Dirac nodes in the Brillouin zone. Such a spin-polarized multiple Dirac ring feature is reported for the first time in an experimentally realized material. Moreover, similar band dispersions can be also found in other transition metal fluorides (e.g., ${\mathrm{CoF}}_3$, ${\mathrm{CrF}}_3$, and ${\mathrm{FeF}}_3$). Our results highlight a new interesting single-spin Dirac material with promising applications in spintronics and information technologies.

For weakly disordered fractional quantum Hall phases, the nonlinear photoconductivity is related to the charge susceptibility of the clean system by a Floquet boost. Thus, it may be possible to probe collective charge modes at finite wave vectors by electrical transport. Incompressible phases, irradiated at slightly above the magnetoroton gap, are predicted to exhibit negative photoconductivity and zero resistance states with spontaneous internal electric fields. Nonlinear conductivity can probe composite fermions’ charge excitations in compressible filling factors.

The instability of the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect has been studied as a function of the electric current and temperature in ferromagnetic topological insulator thin films. We find that a characteristic current for the breakdown of the QAH effect is roughly proportional to the Hall-bar width, indicating that the Hall electric field is relevant to the breakdown. We also find that electron transport is dominated by variable range hopping (VRH) at low temperatures. Combining the current and temperature dependences of the conductivity in the VRH regime, the localization length of the QAH state is evaluated to be about $5\mu \mathrm{m}$. The long localization length suggests a marginally insulating nature of the QAH state due to a large number of in-gap states.

High-performance piezoelectric materials constantly attract interest for both technological applications and fundamental research. The understanding of the origin of the high-performance piezoelectric property remains a challenge mainly due to the lack of direct experimental evidence. We perform in situ high-energy x-ray diffraction combined with 2D geometry scattering technology to reveal the underlying mechanism for the perovskite-type lead-based high-performance piezoelectric materials. The direct structural evidence reveals that the electric-field-driven continuous polarization rotation within the monoclinic plane plays a critical role to achieve the giant piezoelectric response. An intrinsic relationship between the crystal structure and piezoelectric performance in perovskite ferroelectrics has been established: A strong tendency of electric-field-driven polarization rotation generates peak piezoelectric performance and vice versa. Furthermore, the monoclinic $M_A$ structure is the key feature to superior piezoelectric properties as compared to other structures such as monoclinic $M_B$, rhombohedral, and tetragonal. A high piezoelectric response originates from intrinsic lattice strain, but little from extrinsic domain switching. The present results will facilitate designing high-performance perovskite piezoelectric materials by enhancing the intrinsic lattice contribution with easy and continuous polarization rotation.

A new semiclassical “divide-and-conquer” method is presented with the aim of demonstrating that quantum dynamics simulations of high dimensional molecular systems are doable. The method is first tested by calculating the quantum vibrational power spectra of water, methane, and benzene—three molecules of increasing dimensionality for which benchmark quantum results are available—and then applied to ${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$, a system characterized by 174 vibrational degrees of freedom. Results show that the approach can accurately account for quantum anharmonicities, purely quantum features like overtones, and the removal of degeneracy when the molecular symmetry is broken.

We introduce general bounds for the parameter estimation error in nonlinear quantum metrology of many-body open systems in the Markovian limit. Given a $k$-body Hamiltonian and $p$-body Lindblad operators, the estimation error of a Hamiltonian parameter using a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state as a probe is shown to scale as $N^{-[k-(p/2)]}$, surpassing the shot-noise limit for $2k>p+1$. Metrology equivalence between initial product states and maximally entangled states is established for $p\ge 1$. We further show that one can estimate the system-environment coupling parameter with precision $N^{-(p/2)}$, while many-body decoherence enhances the precision to $N^{-k}$ in the noise-amplitude estimation of a fluctuating $k$-body Hamiltonian. For the long-range Ising model, we show that the precision of this parameter beats the shot-noise limit when the range of interactions is below a threshold value.

We analyze the quantum dynamics of periodically driven, disordered systems in the presence of long-range interactions. Focusing on the stability of discrete time crystalline (DTC) order in such systems, we use a perturbative procedure to evaluate its lifetime. For 3D systems with dipolar interactions, we show that the corresponding decay is parametrically slow, implying that robust, long-lived DTC order can be obtained. We further predict a sharp crossover from the stable DTC regime into a regime where DTC order is lost, reminiscent of a phase transition. These results are in good agreement with the recent experiments utilizing a dense, dipolar spin ensemble in diamond [Nature (London) 543, 221 (2017)]. They demonstrate the existence of a novel, critical DTC regime that is stabilized not by many-body localization but rather by slow, critical dynamics. Our analysis shows that the DTC response can be used as a sensitive probe of nonequilibrium quantum matter.

We propose to use a dissipatively stabilized nitrogen vacancy (NV) center as a mediator of interaction between two nuclear spins that are protected from decoherence and relaxation of the NV due to the periodical resets of the NV center. Under ambient conditions this scheme achieves highly selective high-fidelity quantum gates between nuclear spins in a quantum register even at large NV-nuclear distances. Importantly, this method allows for the use of nuclear spins as a sensor rather than a memory, while the NV spin acts as an ancillary system for the initialization and readout of the sensor. The immunity to the decoherence and relaxation of the NV center leads to a tunable sharp frequency filter while allowing at the same time the continuous collection of the signal to achieve simultaneously high spectral selectivity and high signal-to-noise ratio.

We initiate a holographic study of coupling-dependent heavy ion collisions by analyzing, for the first time, the effects of leading-order, inverse coupling constant corrections. In the dual description, this amounts to colliding gravitational shock waves in a theory with curvature-squared terms. We find that, at intermediate coupling, nuclei experience less stopping and have more energy deposited near the light cone. When the decreased coupling results in an 80% larger shear viscosity, the time at which hydrodynamics becomes a good description of the plasma created from high energy collisions increases by 25%. The hydrodynamic phase of the evolution starts with a wider rapidity profile and smaller entropy.

A $SU(N{)}_L\times SU(N{)}_R$ gauge theory for a scalar multiplet $Y$ transforming in the bifundamental representation $(N,\overline{N})$ preserves, for $N>4$, an accidental $U(1)$ symmetry first broken at operator dimension $N$. A vacuum expectation value for $Y$ can break the symmetry to ${\mathcal{H}}_s=SU(N{)}_{L+R}$ or to ${\mathcal{H}}_h=SU(N-1{)}_L\times SU(N-1{)}_R\times U(1{)}_{L+R}$. In the first case the accidental $U(1)$ gets also broken, yielding a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson with mass suppression controlled by $N$. In the second case a global $U(1)$ remains unbroken. The strong $CP$ problem is solved by coupling $Y$ to new fermions carrying color. The first case allows for a Peccei-Quinn solution with $U(1{)}_{\mathrm{PQ}}$ protected by the gauge symmetry up to order $N$. In the second case $U(1)$ can get broken by condensates of the new strong dynamics, resulting in a composite axion. By coupling $Y$ to fermions carrying only weak isospin, models for axionlike particles can be constructed.

New measurements of the beam normal single spin asymmetry in the electron elastic and quasielastic scattering on the proton and deuteron, respectively, at large backward angles and at $⟨Q^2⟩=0.22(\mathrm{GeV}/c{)}^2$ and $⟨Q^2⟩=0.35(\mathrm{GeV}/c{)}^2$ are reported. The experimentally observed asymmetries are compared with the theoretical calculation of Pasquini and Vanderhaeghen [Phys. Rev. C 70, 045206 (2004).]. The agreement of the measurements with the theoretical calculations shows a dominance of the inelastic intermediate excited states of the nucleon, $\pi N$ and the $\mathrm{\Delta }$ resonance. The measurements explore a new, important parameter region of the exchanged virtual photon virtualities.

We show that Born-Oppenheimer surfaces can intrinsically decohere, implying loss of coherence among constituent electronic basis states. We consider the example of interatomic forces due to resonant dipole-dipole interactions within a dimer of highly excited Rydberg atoms, embedded in an ultracold gas. These forces rely on a coherent superposition of two-atom electronic states, which is destroyed by continuous monitoring of the dimer state through a detection scheme utilizing the background gas atoms. We show that this intrinsic decoherence of the molecular energy surface can gradually deteriorate a repulsive dimer state, causing a mixing of attractive and repulsive character. For sufficiently strong decoherence, a Zeno-like effect causes a complete cessation of interatomic forces. We finally show how short decohering pulses can controllably redistribute population between the different molecular energy surfaces.

The Bose polaron is a quasiparticle of an impurity dressed by surrounding bosons. In few-body physics, it is known that two identical bosons and a third distinguishable particle can form a sequence of Efimov bound states in the vicinity of interspecies scattering resonance. On the other hand, in the Bose polaron system with an impurity atom embedded in many bosons, no signature of Efimov physics has been reported in the existing spectroscopy measurements to date. In this Letter, we propose that a large mass imbalance between a light impurity and heavy bosons can help produce visible signatures of Efimov physics in such a spectroscopy measurement. Using the diagrammatic approach in the virial expansion to include three-body effects from pair-wise interactions, we determine the impurity self-energy and its spectral function. Taking the ${}^6\mathrm{Li}\text{−}{}^{133}\mathrm{Cs}$ system as a concrete example, we find two visible Efimov branches in the polaron spectrum, as well as their hybridizations with the attractive polaron branch. We also discuss the general scenarios for observing the signature of Efimov physics in polaron systems. This work paves the way for experimentally exploring intriguing few-body correlations in a many-body system in the near future.

Crystallization is a process of great practical relevance in which rare but crucial fluctuations lead to the formation of a solid phase starting from the liquid. As in all first order first transitions, there is an interplay between enthalpy and entropy. Based on this idea, in order to drive crystallization in molecular simulations, we introduce two collective variables, one enthalpic and the other entropic. Defined in this way, these collective variables do not prejudge the structure into which the system is going to crystallize. We show the usefulness of this approach by studying the cases of sodium and aluminum that crystallize in the bcc and fcc crystalline structures, respectively. Using these two generic collective variables, we perform variationally enhanced sampling and well tempered metadynamics simulations and find that the systems transform spontaneously and reversibly between the liquid and the solid phases.