We describe a symmetron model in which the screening of fifth forces arises at the one-loop level through the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. We show that such a theory can avoid current constraints on the existence of fifth forces but still has the potential to give rise to observable deviations from general relativity, which could be seen in cold atom experiments.

The only available analytical framework for investigating QED processes in a strong laser field systematically relies on approximating the latter as a plane wave. However, realistic high-intensity laser beams feature much more complex space-time structures than plane waves. Here, we show the feasibility of an analytical framework for investigating strong-field QED processes in laser beams of arbitrary space-time structure by determining the energy spectrum of positrons produced via nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production as a function of the background field in the realistic assumption that the energy of the incoming photon is the largest dynamical energy in the problem. A numerical evaluation of the angular resolved positron spectrum shows significant quantitative differences with respect to the analogous result in a plane wave, such that the present results will be also important for the design of upcoming strong laser facilities aiming at measuring this process.

Interference lies at the heart of the behavior of classical and quantum light. It is thus crucial to understand the boundaries between which interference patterns can be explained by a classical electromagnetic description of light and which, on the other hand, can only be understood with a proper quantum mechanical approach. While the case of two-mode interference has received a lot of attention, the multimode case has not yet been fully explored. Here we study a general scenario of intensity interferometry: we derive a bound on the average correlations between pairs of output intensities for the classical wavelike model of light, and we show how it can be violated in a quantum framework. As a consequence, this violation acts as a nonclassicality witness, able to detect the presence of sources with sub-Poissonian photon-number statistics. We also develop a criterion that can certify the impossibility of dividing a given interferometer into two independent subblocks.

Much of the physical world around us can be described in terms of harmonic oscillators in thermodynamic equilibrium. At the same time, the far-from-equilibrium behavior of oscillators is important in many aspects of modern physics. Here, we investigate a resonating system subject to a fundamental interplay between intrinsic nonlinearities and a combination of several driving forces. We have constructed a controllable and robust realization of such a system using a macroscopic doubly clamped string. We experimentally observe a hitherto unseen double hysteresis in both the amplitude and the phase of the resonator’s response function and present a theoretical model that is in excellent agreement with the experiment. Our work unveils that the double hysteresis is a manifestation of an out-of-equilibrium symmetry breaking between parametric phase states. Such a fundamental phenomenon, in the most ubiquitous building block of nature, paves the way for the investigation of new dynamical phases of matter in parametrically driven many-body systems and motivates applications ranging from ultrasensitive force detection to low-energy computing memory units.

The role of multiple soliton and breather interactions in the formation of very high waves is disclosed within the framework of the integrable modified Korteweg–de Vries (MKdV) equation. Optimal conditions for the focusing of many solitons are formulated explicitly. Namely, trains of ordered solitons with alternate polarities evolve to huge strongly localized transient waves. The focused wave amplitude is exactly the sum of the focusing soliton heights; the maximum wave inherits the polarity of the fastest soliton in the train. The focusing of several solitary waves or/and breathers may naturally occur in a soliton gas and will lead to rogue-wave-type dynamics; hence, it represents a new nonlinear mechanism of rogue wave generation. The discovered scenario depends crucially on the soliton polarities (phases), and is not taken into account by existing kinetic theories. The performance of the soliton mechanism of rogue wave generation is shown for the example of the focusing MKdV equation, when solitons possess “frozen” phases (certain polarities), though the approach is efficient in some other integrable systems which admit soliton and breather solutions.

Helium bubbles are one of the typical radiation microstructures in metals and alloys, significantly influencing their deformation behavior. However, the dynamic evolution of helium bubbles under straining is less explored so far. Here, by using in situ micromechanical testing inside a transmission electron microscope, we discover that the helium bubble not only can coalesce with adjacent bubbles, but also can split into several nanoscale bubbles under tension. Alignment of the splittings along a slip line can create a bubble-free channel, which appears softer, promotes shear localization, and accelerates the failure in the shearing-off mode. Detailed analyses unveil that the unexpected bubble fragmentation is mediated by the combination of dislocation cutting and internal surface diffusion, which is an alternative microdamage mechanism of helium irradiated copper besides the bubble coalescence.

The equivalent behavior among analogous block copolymer systems involving chemically distinct molecules or mathematically different models has long hinted at an underlying universality, but only recently has it been rigorously demonstrated by matching results from different simulations. The profound implication of universality is that simple coarse-grained models can be calibrated so as to provide quantitatively accurate predictions to experiment. Here, we provide the first compelling demonstration of this by simulating a polyisoprene-polylactide diblock copolymer melt using a previously calibrated lattice model. The simulation successfully predicts the peak in the disordered-state structure function, the position of the order-disorder transition, and the latent heat of the transition in excellent quantitative agreement with experiment. This could mark a new era of precision in the field of block copolymer research.

We introduce a minimal generative model for densifying networks in which a new node attaches to a randomly selected target node and also to each of its neighbors with probability $p$. The networks that emerge from this copying mechanism are sparse for $p<\frac{1}{2}$ and dense (average degree increasing with number of nodes $N$) for $p\ge \frac{1}{2}$. The behavior in the dense regime is especially rich; for example, individual network realizations that are built by copying are disparate and not self-averaging. Further, there is an infinite sequence of structural anomalies at $p=\frac{2}{3}$, $\frac{3}{4}$, $\frac{4}{5}$, etc., where the $N$ dependences of the number of triangles (3-cliques), 4-cliques, undergo phase transitions. When linking to second neighbors of the target can occur, the probability that the resulting graph is complete—all nodes are connected—is nonzero as $N\to \infty$.

We quantify the amount of data needed in order to measure the size and position of the ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ neutrino production region within the solar core, for experiments looking at elastic scattering between electrons and solar neutrinos. The directions of the electrons immediately after scattering are strongly correlated with the incident directions of the neutrinos; however, this is degraded significantly by the subsequent scattering of these electrons in the detector medium. We generate distributions of such electrons for different neutrino production profiles, and use a maximum likelihood analysis to make projections for future experimental sensitivity. We find that with approximately 20 years worth of data the Super Kamiokande experiment could constrain the central radius of the shell in which ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ neutrinos are produced to be less than 0.22 of the total solar radius at 95% confidence.

A coordinate-invariant generalization of the Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation is presented for polar vibrations in materials with monoclinic and triclinic crystal systems. The generalization is derived from an eigendielectric displacement vector summation approach, which is equivalent to the microscopic Born-Huang description of polar lattice vibrations in the harmonic approximation. An expression for a general oscillator strength is also described for materials with monoclinic and triclinic crystal systems. A generalized factorized form of the dielectric response characteristic for monoclinic and triclinic materials is proposed. The generalized Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation is found valid for monoclinic $\beta \text{−}{\mathrm{Ga}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3$, where accurate experimental data became available recently from a comprehensive generalized ellipsometry investigation [Phys. Rev. B 93, 125209 (2016)]. Data for triclinic crystal systems can be measured by generalized ellipsometry as well, and are anticipated to become available soon and results can be compared with the generalized relations presented here.

The affinity $A_{\mathrm{Ps}}$ of positronium (Ps) atoms for a metal is the negative of the maximum kinetic energy with which Ps is emitted into vacuum when thermalized positrons in a metal encounter the surface. When this quantity is measured by ground state Ps time of flight (TOF), the precision is severely limited by the short triplet state lifetime of 142 ns. By quickly converting the emitted Ps atoms into long-lived Rydberg states, we are able to dramatically increase the TOF to allow precision measurements of $A_{\mathrm{Ps}}$. From our measurements made on a Cu(110) sample at $T=128\mathrm{K}$, we find $A_{\mathrm{Ps}}(128\mathrm{K})=(-2.476\pm 0.010_{\text{stat}}\pm 0.013_{\text{syst}})\mathrm{eV}$, compared with the result $A_{\mathrm{Ps}}(128\mathrm{K})=(-2.545\pm 0.010_{\text{num}}\pm 0.010_{\text{syst}})\mathrm{eV}$ found using highly accurate generalized gradient approximations for both electrons and positrons within density functional theory. Such precision opens up opportunities in the quest for an improved density functional.

Fractional quantum Hall liquids exhibit a rich set of excitations, the lowest energy of which are the magnetorotons with dispersion minima at a finite momentum. We propose a theory of the magnetorotons on the quantum Hall plateaux near half filling, namely, at filling fractions $\nu =N/(2N+1)$ at large $N$. The theory involves an infinite number of bosonic fields arising from bosonizing the fluctuations of the shape of the composite Fermi surface. At zero momentum there are $O(N)$ neutral excitations, each carrying a well-defined spin that runs integer values $2,3,\dots$. The mixing of modes at nonzero momentum $q$ leads to the characteristic bending down of the lowest excitation and the appearance of the magnetoroton minima. A purely algebraic argument shows that the magnetoroton minima are located at $q{\ell }_B=z_i/(2N+1)$, where ${\ell }_B$ is the magnetic length and $z_i$ are the zeros of the Bessel function $J_1$, independent of the microscopic details. We argue that these minima are universal features of any two-dimensional Fermi surface coupled to a gauge field in a small background magnetic field.

In a collinear antiferromagnet with easy-axis anisotropy, symmetry guarantees that the spin wave modes are doubly degenerate. The two modes carry opposite spin angular momentum and exhibit opposite chirality. Using a honeycomb antiferromagnet in the presence of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, we show that a longitudinal temperature gradient can drive the two modes to opposite transverse directions, realizing a spin Nernst effect of magnons with vanishing thermal Hall current. We find that magnons around the $\mathrm{\Gamma }$ point and the $K$ point contribute oppositely to the transverse spin transport, and their competition leads to a sign change of the spin Nernst coefficient at finite temperature. Possible material candidates are discussed.

We predict that a temperature gradient can induce a magnon-mediated spin Hall response in an antiferromagnet with nontrivial magnon Berry curvature. We develop a linear response theory which gives a general condition for a Hall current to be well defined, even when the thermal Hall response is forbidden by symmetry. We apply our theory to a honeycomb lattice antiferromagnet and discuss a role of magnon edge states in a finite geometry.

Weyl semimetals are predicted to realize the three-dimensional axial anomaly first discussed in particle physics. The anomaly leads to unusual transport phenomena such as the chiral magnetic effect in which an applied magnetic field induces a current parallel to the field. Here we investigate diagnostics of the axial anomaly based on the fundamental equations of axion electrodynamics. We find that materials with Weyl nodes of opposite chirality and finite energy separation immersed in a uniform magnetic field exhibit an anomaly-induced oscillatory magnetic field with a period set by the chemical potential difference of the nodes. In the case where a chemical potential imbalance is created by applying parallel electric and magnetic fields, we find a suppression of the magnetic-field component parallel to the electric field inside the material for rectangular samples, suggesting that the chiral magnetic current opposes this imbalance. For cylindrical geometries, we instead find an enhancement of this magnetic-field component along with an anomaly-induced azimuthal component. We propose experiments to detect such magnetic signatures of the axial anomaly.