The first experiments on the observation of short pulsed superradiant (SR) emission with the excitation of a surface wave by a relativistic electron bunch moving in an oversized corrugated waveguide were performed. Subterahertz SR pulses with a central frequency of 0.14 THz, an ultrashort duration of 150 ps, and an extremely high peak power of 50–70 MW were generated. The experiments were based on a theoretical consideration including the quasioptical approach and direct particle-in-cell simulations.

At the heart of today’s solar magnetic field evolution models lies the alpha dynamo description. In this work, we investigate the fate of alpha dynamos as the magnetic Reynolds number $Rm$ is increased. Using Floquet theory, we are able to precisely quantify mean-field effects like the alpha and beta effect (i) by rigorously distinguishing dynamo modes that involve large-scale components from the ones that only involve small scales, and by (ii) providing a way to investigate arbitrary large-scale separations with minimal computational cost. We apply this framework to helical and nonhelical flows as well as to random flows with short correlation time. Our results determine that the alpha description is valid for $Rm$ smaller than a critical value $R{m}_c$ at which small-scale dynamo instability starts. When $Rm$ is above $R{m}_c$, the dynamo ceases to follow the mean-field description and the growth rate of the large-scale modes becomes independent of the scale separation, while the energy in the large-scale modes is inversely proportional to the square of the scale separation. The results in this second regime do not depend on the presence of helicity. Thus, alpha-type modeling for solar and stellar models needs to be reevaluated and new directions for mean-field modeling are proposed.

We develop a method to accurately and efficiently determine the vibrational free energy as a function of temperature and volume for substitutional alloys from first principles. Taking ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Al}}_x\mathrm{N}$ alloy as a model system, we calculate the isostructural phase diagram by finding the global minimum of the free energy corresponding to the true equilibrium state of the system. We demonstrate that the vibrational contribution including anharmonicity and temperature dependence of the mixing enthalpy have a decisive impact on the calculated phase diagram of a ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Al}}_x\mathrm{N}$ alloy, lowering the maximum temperature for the miscibility gap from 6560 to 2860 K. Our local chemical composition measurements on thermally aged ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{Al}}_{0.5}\mathrm{N}$ alloys agree with the calculated phase diagram.

We study the transport properties of frustrated itinerant magnets comprising localized classical moments, which interact via exchange with the conduction electrons. Strong frustration stabilizes a liquidlike spin state, which extends down to temperatures well below the effective Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction scale. The crossover into this state is characterized by spin structure factor enhancement at wave vectors smaller than twice the Fermi wave vector magnitude. The corresponding enhancement of electron scattering generates a resistivity upturn at decreasing temperatures.

We obtain the local density of states (LDOS) for any nanoplasmonic system in the frequency range dominated by a localized surface plasmon. By including the Ohmic losses in a consistent way, we show that the plasmon LDOS is proportional to the local field intensity normalized by the absorbed power. We obtain explicit formulas for the energy transfer (ET) between quantum emitters and plasmons as well as between donors and acceptors situated near a plasmonic structure. In the latter case, we find that the plasmon-assisted ET rate is proportional to the LDOS product at the donor and acceptor positions, obtain, in a general form, the plasmon ET enhancement factor, and establish the transition onset between Förster-dominated and plasmon-dominated ET regimes.

Investigations of strain correlations at the glass transition reveal unexpected phenomena. The shear strain fluctuations show an Eshelby-strain pattern [$\sim \cos (4\theta )/r^2$], characteristic of elastic response, even in liquids, at long times. We address this using a mode-coupling theory for the strain fluctuations in supercooled liquids and data from both video microscopy of a two-dimensional colloidal glass former and simulations of Brownian hard disks. We show that the long-ranged and long-lived strain signatures follow a scaling law valid close to the glass transition. For large enough viscosities, the Eshelby-strain pattern is visible even on time scales longer than the structural relaxation time $\tau$ and after the shear modulus has relaxed to zero.

A new method (“explosive immunization”) is proposed for immunization and targeted destruction of networks. It combines the explosive percolation (EP) paradigm with the idea of maintaining a fragmented distribution of clusters. The ability of each node to block the spread of an infection (or to prevent the existence of a large cluster of connected nodes) is estimated by a score. The algorithm proceeds by first identifying low score nodes that should not be vaccinated or destroyed, analogously to the links selected in EP if they do not lead to large clusters. As in EP, this is done by selecting the worst node (weakest blocker) from a finite set of randomly chosen “candidates.” Tests on several real-world and model networks suggest that the method is more efficient and faster than any existing immunization strategy. Because of the latter property it can deal with very large networks.

Entanglement allows for the nonlocality of quantum theory, which is the resource behind device-independent quantum information protocols. However, not all entangled quantum states display nonlocality. A central question is to determine the precise relation between entanglement and nonlocality. Here we present the first general test to decide whether a quantum state is local, and show that the test can be implemented by semidefinite programing. This method can be applied to any given state and for the construction of new examples of states with local hidden variable models for both projective and general measurements. As applications, we provide a lower-bound estimate of the fraction of two-qubit local entangled states and present new explicit examples of such states, including those that arise from physical noise models, Bell-diagonal states, and noisy Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and $W$ states.

Constructing local hidden variable (LHV) models for entangled quantum states is a fundamental problem, with implications for the foundations of quantum theory and for quantum information processing. It is, however, a challenging problem, as the model should reproduce quantum predictions for all possible local measurements. Here we present a simple method for building LHV models, applicable to any entangled state and considering continuous sets of measurements. This leads to a sequence of tests which, in the limit, fully captures the set of quantum states admitting a LHV model. Similar methods are developed for local hidden state models. We illustrate the practical relevance of these methods with several examples.

The Schmidt coefficients capture all entanglement properties of a pure bipartite state and therefore determine its usefulness for quantum information processing. While the quantification of the corresponding properties in mixed states is important both from a theoretical and a practical point of view, it is considerably more difficult, and methods beyond estimates for the concurrence are elusive. In particular this holds for a quantitative assessment of the most valuable resource, the forms of entanglement that can only exist in high-dimensional systems. We derive a framework for lower bounding the appropriate measure of entanglement, the so-called $G$-concurrence, through few local measurements. Moreover, we show that these bounds have relevant applications also for multipartite states.

Many superconducting qubit systems use the dispersive interaction between the qubit and a coupled harmonic resonator to perform quantum state measurement. Previous works have found that such measurements can induce state transitions in the qubit if the number of photons in the resonator is too high. We investigate these transitions and find that they can push the qubit out of the two-level subspace, and that they show resonant behavior as a function of photon number. We develop a theory for these observations based on level crossings within the Jaynes-Cummings ladder, with transitions mediated by terms in the Hamiltonian that are typically ignored by the rotating wave approximation. We find that the most important of these terms comes from an unexpected broken symmetry in the qubit potential. We confirm the theory by measuring the photon occupation of the resonator when transitions occur while varying the detuning between the qubit and resonator.

In this Letter, we present a result on the nonequilibrium dynamics causing equilibration and Gaussification of quadratic noninteracting fermionic Hamiltonians. Specifically, based on two basic assumptions—clustering of correlations in the initial state and the Hamiltonian exhibiting delocalizing transport—we prove that non-Gaussian initial states become locally indistinguishable from fermionic Gaussian states after a short and well controlled time. This relaxation dynamics is governed by a power-law independent of the system size. Our argument is general enough to allow for pure and mixed initial states, including thermal and ground states of interacting Hamiltonians on large classes of lattices as well as certain spin systems. The argument gives rise to rigorously proven instances of a convergence to a generalized Gibbs ensemble. Our results allow us to develop an intuition of equilibration that is expected to be more generally valid and relates to current experiments of cold atoms in optical lattices.

The redshift factor $z$ is an invariant quantity of fundamental interest in post-Newtonian and self-force descriptions of compact binaries. It connects different approximation schemes, and plays a central role in the first law of binary black hole mechanics, which links local quantities to asymptotic measures of energy and angular momentum in these systems. Through this law, the redshift factor is conjectured to have a close relation to the surface gravity of the event horizons of black holes in circular orbits. We propose and implement a novel method for extracting the redshift factor on apparent horizons in numerical simulations of quasicircular binary inspirals. Our results confirm the conjectured relationship between $z$ and the surface gravity of the holes and that the first law holds to a remarkable degree for binary inspirals. The redshift factor enables tests of analytic predictions for $z$ in spacetimes where the binary is only approximately circular, giving a new connection between analytic approximations and numerical simulations.