We derive a selection rule among the ($1+1$)-dimensional SU(2) Wess-Zumino-Witten theories, based on the global anomaly of the discrete ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ symmetry found by Gepner and Witten. In the presence of both the SU(2) and ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ symmetries, a renormalization-group flow is possible between level-$k$ and level-$k^{\prime }$ Wess-Zumino-Witten theories only if $k\equiv k^{\prime }$ mod 2 . This classifies the Lorentz-invariant, SU(2)-symmetric critical behavior into two “symmetry-protected” categories corresponding to even and odd levels, restricting possible gapless critical behavior of translation-invariant quantum spin chains.

A soft function relevant for transverse-momentum resummation for Drell-Yan or Higgs production at hadron colliders is computed through to three loops in the expansion of strong coupling, with the help of the bootstrap technique and supersymmetric decomposition. The corresponding rapidity anomalous dimension is extracted. An intriguing relation between anomalous dimensions for transverse-momentum resummation and threshold resummation is found.

We report a lattice QCD calculation of the hadronic light-by-light contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment at a physical pion mass. The calculation includes the connected diagrams and the leading, quark-line-disconnected diagrams. We incorporate algorithmic improvements developed in our previous work. The calculation was performed on the $48^3\times 96$ ensemble generated with a physical pion mass and a 5.5 fm spatial extent by the RBC and UKQCD Collaborations using the chiral, domain wall fermion formulation. We find $a_{\mu }^{\mathrm{HLbL}}=5.35(1.35)\times {10}^{-10}$, where the error is statistical only. The finite-volume and finite lattice-spacing errors could be quite large and are the subject of ongoing research. The omitted disconnected graphs, while expected to give a correction of order 10%, also need to be computed.

Starting with thermodynamic predictions and following with molecular dynamics simulations, special triaxial compression-tension states were found for which the stresses for the instability of the crystal lattice of silicon (Si) are the same for direct and reverse phase transformations (PTs) between semiconducting Si I and metallic Si II phases. This leads to unique homogeneous and hysteresis-free first-order PTs, for which each intermediate crystal lattice along the transformation path is in indifferent thermodynamic equilibrium and can be arrested and studied by fixing the strain in one direction. By approaching these stress states, a traditional two-phase system continuously transforms to homogenous intermediate phases. Zero hysteresis and homogeneous transformations are the optimal property for various PT applications, which drastically reduce damage and energy dissipation.

X-ray diffraction was employed to study the evolution of the charge density wave (CDW) in ${\mathrm{Cu}}_x{\mathrm{TiSe}}_2$ as a function of copper intercalation in order to clarify the relationship between the CDW and superconductivity. The results show a CDW incommensuration arising at an intercalation value coincident with the onset of superconductivity at around $x=0.055(5)$. Additionally, it was found that the charge density wave persists to higher intercalant concentrations than previously assumed, demonstrating that the CDW does not terminate inside the superconducting dome. A charge density wave peak was observed in samples up to $x=0.091(6)$, the highest copper concentration examined in this study. The phase diagram established in this work suggests that charge density wave incommensuration may play a role in the formation of the superconducting state.

We consider driven many-particle models which have a phase transition between an active and an absorbing phase. Like previously studied models, we have particle conservation, but here we introduce an additional symmetry—when two particles interact, we give them stochastic kicks which conserve the center of mass. We find that the density fluctuations in the active phase decay in the fastest manner possible for a disordered isotropic system, and we present arguments that the large scale fluctuations are determined by a competition between a noise term which generates fluctuations, and a deterministic term which reduces them. Our results may be relevant to shear experiments and may further the understanding of hyperuniformity which occurs at the critical point.

Collective pair conversion ${\nu }_e{\overline{\nu }}_e\leftrightarrow {\nu }_x{\overline{\nu }}_x$ by forward scattering, where $x=\mu$ or $\tau$, may be generic for supernova neutrino transport. Depending on the local angular intensity of the electron lepton number carried by neutrinos, the conversion rate can be “fast,” i.e., of the order of $\sqrt{2}{G}_F(n_{{\nu }_e}-n_{{\overline{\nu }}_e})\gg \mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{\mathrm{atm}}^2/2E$. We present a novel approach to understand these phenomena: a dispersion relation for the frequency and wave number $(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathbf{K})$ of disturbances in the mean field of ${\nu }_e{\nu }_x$ flavor coherence. Runaway solutions occur in “dispersion gaps,” i.e., in “forbidden” intervals of $\mathrm{\Omega }$ and/or $\mathbf{K}$ where propagating plane waves do not exist. We stress that the actual solutions also depend on the initial and/or boundary conditions, which need to be further investigated.

Recent advances in attosecond physics provide access to the correlated motion of valence and core electrons on their intrinsic timescales. For valence excitations, processes related to the electron spin are usually driven by nuclear motion. For core-excited states, where the core hole has a nonzero angular momentum, spin-orbit coupling is strong enough to drive spin flips on a much shorter time scale. Here, unprecedented short spin crossover is demonstrated for $L$-edge ($2p\to 3d$) excited states of a prototypical Fe(II) complex. It occurs on a time scale, which is faster than the core-hole lifetime of about 4 fs and can be manipulated by the excitation conditions. A detailed analysis of such phenomena will help to gain a fundamental understanding of spin-crossover processes and establish the basis for their control by light.

Particle-level simulations of shocked plasmas are carried out to examine kinetic properties not captured by hydrodynamic models. In particular, molecular dynamics simulations of 2D Yukawa plasmas with variable couplings and screening lengths are used to examine shock features unique to plasmas, including the presence of dispersive shock structures for weak shocks. A phase-space analysis reveals several kinetic properties, including anisotropic velocity distributions, non-Maxwellian tails, and the presence of fast particles ahead of the shock, even for moderately low Mach numbers. We also examine the thermodynamics (Rankine-Hugoniot relations) of recent experiments [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 015002 (2013)] and find no anomalies in their equations of state.

Quantum state tomography via local measurements is an efficient tool for characterizing quantum states. However, it requires that the original global state be uniquely determined (UD) by its local reduced density matrices (RDMs). In this work, we demonstrate for the first time a class of states that are UD by their RDMs under the assumption that the global state is pure, but fail to be UD in the absence of that assumption. This discovery allows us to classify quantum states according to their UD properties, with the requirement that each class be treated distinctly in the practice of simplifying quantum state tomography. Additionally, we experimentally test the feasibility and stability of performing quantum state tomography via the measurement of local RDMs for each class. These theoretical and experimental results demonstrate the advantages and possible pitfalls of quantum state tomography with local measurements.

Quantum steering is a relatively simple test for proving that the values of quantum-mechanical measurement outcomes come into being only in the act of measurement. By exploiting quantum correlations, Alice can influence—steer—Bob’s physical system in a way that is impossible in classical mechanics, as shown by the violation of steering inequalities. Demonstrating this and similar quantum effects for systems of increasing size, approaching even the classical limit, is a long-standing challenging problem. Here, we prove an experimentally feasible unbounded violation of a steering inequality. We derive its universal form where tolerance for measurement-setting errors is explicitly built in by means of the Deutsch–Maassen–Uffink entropic uncertainty relation. Then, generalizing the mutual unbiasedness, we apply the inequality to the multisinglet and multiparticle bipartite Bell state. However, the method is general and opens the possibility of employing multiparticle bipartite steering for randomness certification and development of quantum technologies, e.g., random access codes.

We describe a general approach to proving the impossibility of implementing a quantum channel by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), even with an infinite number of rounds, and find that this can often be demonstrated by solving a set of linear equations. The method also allows one to design a LOCC protocol to implement the channel whenever such a protocol exists in any finite number of rounds. Perhaps surprisingly, the computational expense for analyzing LOCC channels is not much greater than that for LOCC measurements. We apply the method to several examples, two of which provide numerical evidence that the set of quantum channels that are not LOCC is not closed and that there exist channels that can be implemented by LOCC either in one round or in three rounds that are on the boundary of the set of all LOCC channels. Although every LOCC protocol must implement a separable quantum channel, it is a very difficult task to determine whether or not a given channel is separable. Fortunately, prior knowledge that the channel is separable is not required for application of our method.

Sampling the distribution of bosons that have undergone a random unitary evolution is strongly believed to be a computationally hard problem. Key to outperforming classical simulations of this task is to increase both the number of input photons and the size of the network. We propose driven boson sampling, in which photons are input within the network itself, as a means to approach this goal. We show that the mean number of photons entering a boson sampling experiment can exceed one photon per input mode, while maintaining the required complexity, potentially leading to less stringent requirements on the input states for such experiments. When using heralded single-photon sources based on parametric down-conversion, this approach offers an $\sim e$-fold enhancement in the input state generation rate over scattershot boson sampling, reaching the scaling limit for such sources. This approach also offers a dramatic increase in the signal-to-noise ratio with respect to higher-order photon generation from such probabilistic sources, which removes the need for photon number resolution during the heralding process as the size of the system increases.

The polarization of photons produced in radiative $B_s^0$ decays is studied for the first time. The data are recorded by the LHCb experiment in $pp$ collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. A time-dependent analysis of the $B_s^0\to \varphi \gamma$ decay rate is conducted to determine the parameter ${\mathcal{A}}^{\mathrm{\Delta }}$, which is related to the ratio of right- over left-handed photon polarization amplitudes in $b\to s\gamma$ transitions. A value of ${\mathcal{A}}^{\mathrm{\Delta }}=-0.9{8_{-0.52}^{+0.46}}_{-0.20}^{+0.23}$ is measured. This result is consistent with the standard model prediction within 2 standard deviations.

The $\eta \to 3\pi$ amplitude is sensitive to the quark mass difference $m_u-m_d$ and offers a unique way to determine the quark mass ratio $Q^2\equiv (m_s^2-m_{ud}^2)/(m_d^2-m_u^2)$ from experiment. We calculate the amplitude dispersively and fit the KLOE Collaboration data on the charged mode, varying the subtraction constants in the range allowed by chiral perturbation theory. The parameter-free predictions obtained for the neutral Dalitz plot and the neutral-to-charged branching ratio are in excellent agreement with experiment. Our representation of the transition amplitude implies $Q=22.0\pm 0.7$.