We study the ground-state cooling of a mechanical oscillator linearly coupled to the charge of a quantum dot inserted between a normal metal and a superconducting contact. Such a system can be realized, e.g., by a suspended carbon nanotube quantum dot with a capacitive coupling to a gate contact. Focusing on the subgap transport regime, we analyze the inelastic Andreev reflections which drive the resonator to a nonequilibrium state. For small coupling, we obtain that vibration-assisted reflections can occur through two distinct interference paths. The interference determines the ratio between the rates of absorption and emission of vibrational energy quanta. We show that ground-state cooling of the mechanical oscillator can be achieved for many of the oscillator’s modes simultaneously or for single modes selectively, depending on the experimentally tunable coupling to the superconductor.

Fermions become polarized in a vortical fluid due to spin-vorticity coupling, and the polarization density is proportional to the local fluid vorticity. The radial expansion converts spatial vortical structures in the transverse plane to spin correlations in the azimuthal angle of final $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ hyperons’ transverse momentum in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Using a $(3+1)\mathrm{D}$ viscous hydrodynamic model with fluctuating initial conditions from a multiphase transport (AMPT) model, we reveal two vortical structures that are common in many fluid dynamic systems: a right-handed toroidal structure around each beam direction for transverse vorticity and pairing of longitudinal vortices with opposite signs in the transverse plane. The calculated azimuthal correlation of the transverse spin is shown to have a cosine form plus an offset due to the toroidal structure of the transverse vorticity around the beam direction and the global spin polarization. The longitudinal spin correlation in the azimuthal angle shows an oscillatory structure due to multiple vorticity pairs in the transverse plane. Mechanisms of these vortical structures, physical implications of hyperon spin correlations, dependence on colliding energy, rapidity, centrality, and sensitivity to the shear viscosity are also investigated.

We consider critical quantum transport in disordered topological quantum wires at the transition between phases with different topological indices. Focusing on the example of thermal transport in class $D$ (“Majorana”) quantum wires, we identify a transport universality class distinguished for anomalous retardation in the propagation of excitations—a quantum generalization of Sinai diffusion. We discuss the expected manifestations of this transport mechanism for heat propagation in topological superconductors near criticality and provide a microscopic theory explaining the phenomenon.

Terahertz magnetic fields with amplitudes of up to 0.4 Tesla drive magnon resonances in nickel oxide while the induced dynamics is recorded by femtosecond magneto-optical probing. We observe distinct spin-mediated optical nonlinearities, including oscillations at the second harmonic of the 1 THz magnon mode. The latter originate from coherent dynamics of the longitudinal component of the antiferromagnetic order parameter, which are probed by magneto-optical effects of second order in the spin deflection. These observations allow us to dynamically disentangle electronic from lattice-related contributions to magnetic linear birefringence and dichroism—information so far only accessible by ultrafast THz spin control. The nonlinearities discussed here foreshadow physics that will become essential in future subcycle spin switching.

For a general thermodynamic system described as a Markov process, we prove a general lower bound for dissipation in terms of the square of the heat current, thus establishing that nonvanishing current inevitably implies dissipation. This leads to a universal trade-off relation between efficiency and power, with which we rigorously prove that a heat engine with nonvanishing power never attains the Carnot efficiency. Our theory applies to systems arbitrarily far from equilibrium, and does not assume any specific symmetry of the model.

The mechanics of complex soft matter often cannot be understood in the classical physical frame of flexible polymers or rigid rods. The underlying constituents are semiflexible polymers, whose finite bending stiffness ($\kappa$) leads to nontrivial mechanical responses. A natural model for such polymers is the protein actin. Experimental studies of actin networks, however, are limited since the persistence length ($l_p\propto \kappa$) cannot be tuned. Here, we experimentally characterize this parameter for the first time in entangled networks formed by synthetically produced, structurally tunable DNA nanotubes. This material enabled the validation of characteristics inherent to semiflexible polymers and networks thereof, i.e., persistence length, inextensibility, reptation, and mesh size scaling. While the scaling of the elastic plateau modulus with concentration $G_0\propto c^{7/5}$ is consistent with previous measurements and established theories, the emerging persistence length scaling $G_0\propto l_p$ opposes predominant theoretical predictions.

The tunneling between the two ground states of an Ising ferromagnet is a typical example of many-body tunneling processes between two local minima, as they occur during quantum annealing. Performing quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations we find that the QMC tunneling rate displays the same scaling with system size, as the rate of incoherent tunneling. The scaling in both cases is $O({\mathrm{\Delta }}^2)$, where $\mathrm{\Delta }$ is the tunneling splitting (or equivalently the minimum spectral gap). An important consequence is that QMC simulations can be used to predict the performance of a quantum annealer for tunneling through a barrier. Furthermore, by using open instead of periodic boundary conditions in imaginary time, equivalent to a projector QMC algorithm, we obtain a quadratic speedup for QMC simulations, and achieve linear scaling in $\mathrm{\Delta }$. We provide a physical understanding of these results and their range of applicability based on an instanton picture.

Scalar particles $S$ that are singlets under the standard model gauge group are generic features of many models of fundamental physics, in particular, as possible mediators to a hidden sector. We show that the decay $S\to Zh$ provides a powerful probe of the $CP$ nature of the scalar, because it is allowed only if $S$ has $CP$-odd interactions. We perform a model-independent analysis of this decay using an effective Lagrangian and compute the relevant Wilson coefficients arising from integrating out heavy fermions to one-loop order.

We argue, based on typical properties of known solutions of string or $M$ theory, that the lightest supersymmetric particle of the visible sector is likely to be unstable. In other words, dark matter is probably not a particle with standard model quantum numbers, such as a weakly interacting massive particle. The argument is simple and based on the typical occurrence of (a) hidden sectors, (b) interactions between the standard model (visible) sector and these hidden sectors, and (c) the lack of an argument against massive neutral hidden sector particles being lighter than the lightest visible supersymmetric particle. These conclusions do not rely on arguments such as $R$-parity violation.

We present the first ab initio calculations for $p$-shell hypernuclei including hyperon-nucleon-nucleon (YNN) contributions induced by a similarity renormalization group transformation of the initial hyperon-nucleon interaction. The transformation including the YNN terms conserves the spectrum of the Hamiltonian while drastically improving model-space convergence of the importance-truncated no-core model, allowing a precise extraction of binding and excitation energies. Results using a hyperon-nucleon interaction at leading order in chiral effective field theory for lower- to mid-$p$-shell hypernuclei show a good reproduction of experimental excitation energies while hyperon separation energies are typically overestimated. The induced YNN contributions are strongly repulsive and we show that they are related to a decoupling of the $\mathrm{\Sigma }$ hyperons from the hypernuclear system, i.e., a suppression of the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\text{−}\mathrm{\Sigma }$ conversion terms in the Hamiltonian. This is linked to the so-called hyperon puzzle in neutron-star physics and provides a basic mechanism for the explanation of strong $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{NN}$ three-baryon forces.

We utilize various ab initio approaches to search for a low-lying resonance in the four-neutron ($4n$) system using the JISP16 realistic $NN$ interaction. Our most accurate prediction is obtained using a $J$-matrix extension of the no-core shell model and suggests a $4n$ resonant state at an energy near $E_r=0.8\mathrm{MeV}$ with a width of approximately $\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.4\mathrm{MeV}$.

Masses of ${}^{52g,52m}\mathrm{Co}$ were measured for the first time with an accuracy of $\sim 10\mathrm{keV}$, an unprecedented precision reached for short-lived nuclei in the isochronous mass spectrometry. Combining our results with the previous $\beta \text{−}\gamma$ measurements of ${}^{52}\mathrm{Ni}$, the $T=2$, $J^{\pi }=0^{+}$ isobaric analog state (IAS) in ${}^{52}\mathrm{Co}$ was newly assigned, questioning the conventional identification of IASs from the $\beta$-delayed proton emissions. Using our energy of the IAS in ${}^{52}\mathrm{Co}$, the masses of the $T=2$ multiplet fit well into the isobaric multiplet mass equation. We find that the IAS in ${}^{52}\mathrm{Co}$ decays predominantly via $\gamma$ transitions while the proton emission is negligibly small. According to our large-scale shell model calculations, this phenomenon has been interpreted to be due to very low isospin mixing in the IAS.

We report the direct observation of the onset of turbulence in propagating one-dimensional optical waves. The transition occurs as the disordered hosting material passes from being linear to one with extreme nonlinearity. As the response grows, increased wave interaction causes a modulational unstable quasihomogeneous flow to be superseded by a chaotic and spatially incoherent one. Statistical analysis of high-resolution wave behavior in the turbulent regime unveils the emergence of concomitant rogue waves. The transition, observed in a photorefractive ferroelectric crystal, introduces a new and rich experimental setting for the study of optical wave turbulence and information transport in conditions dominated by large fluctuations and extreme nonlinearity.

Observations made using the Wind spacecraft of Hall magnetic fields in solar wind reconnection exhausts are presented. These observations are consistent with the generation of Hall fields by a narrow ion inertial scale current layer near the separatrix, which is confirmed with an appropriately scaled particle-in-cell simulation that shows excellent agreement with observations. The Hall fields are observed thousands of ion inertial lengths downstream from the reconnection $X$ line, indicating that narrow regions of kinetic dynamics can persist extremely far downstream.

We show that a Fermi surface reconstruction due to spiral antiferromagnetic order may explain the rapid change in the Hall number as recently observed near optimal doping in cuprate superconductors [Badoux et al., Nature (London) 531, 210 (2016)]. The single-particle spectral function in the spiral state exhibits hole pockets which look like Fermi arcs due to a strong momentum dependence of the spectral weight. Adding charge-density wave order further reduces the Fermi surface to a single electron pocket. We propose quantum oscillation measurements to distinguish between commensurate and spiral antiferromagnetic order. Similar results apply to certain metals in which topological order replaces antiferromagnetic order.

A complete physical description of membrane remodeling processes, such as fusion or fission, requires knowledge of the underlying free energy landscapes, particularly in barrier regions involving collective shape changes, topological transitions, and high curvature, where Canham-Helfrich (CH) continuum descriptions may fail. To calculate these free energies using atomistic simulations, one must address not only the sampling problem due to high free energy barriers, but also an orthogonal sampling problem of combinatorial complexity stemming from the permutation symmetry of identical lipids. Here, we solve the combinatorial problem with a permutation reduction scheme to map a structural ensemble into a compact, nondegenerate subregion of configuration space, thereby permitting straightforward free energy calculations via umbrella sampling. We applied this approach, using a coarse-grained lipid model, to test the CH description of bending and found sharp increases in the bending modulus for curvature radii below 10 nm. These deviations suggest that an anharmonic bending term may be required for CH models to give quantitative energetics of highly curved states.