Scalar-tensor theories of gravity can lead to modifications of the gravitational force inside astrophysical objects. We exhibit that compact stars such as white dwarfs provide a unique setup to test beyond Horndeski theories of $G^3$ type. We obtain stringent and independent constraints on the parameter $\mathrm{\Upsilon }$ characterizing the deviations from Newtonian gravity using the mass-radius relation, the Chandrasekhar mass limit, and the maximal rotational frequency of white dwarfs. We find that white dwarfs impose stronger constraints on $\mathrm{\Upsilon }$ than red and brown dwarfs.

We demonstrate that an undamped few-body precursor of the Higgs mode can be investigated in a harmonically trapped Fermi gas. Using exact diagonalization, the lowest monopole mode frequency is shown to depend nonmonotonically on the interaction strength, having a minimum in a crossover region. The minimum deepens with increasing particle number, reflecting that the mode is the few-body analogue of a many-body Higgs mode in the superfluid phase, which has a vanishing frequency at the quantum phase transition point to the normal phase. We show that this mode mainly consists of coherent excitations of time-reversed pairs, and that it can be selectively excited by modulating the interaction strength, using, for instance, a Feshbach resonance in cold atomic gases.

Resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy was used to determine the pressure dependence of the $f$-electron occupancy in the Kondo insulator ${\mathrm{SmB}}_6$. Applied pressure reduces the $f$ occupancy, but surprisingly, the material maintains a significant divalent character up to a pressure of at least 35 GPa. Thus, the closure of the resistive activation energy gap and onset of magnetic order are not driven by stabilization of an integer valent state. Over the entire pressure range, the material maintains a remarkably stable intermediate valence that can in principle support a nontrivial band structure.

Superconducting qubits are among the most promising platforms for building a quantum computer. However, individual qubit coherence times are not far past the scalability threshold for quantum error correction, meaning that millions of physical devices would be required to construct a useful quantum computer. Consequently, further increases in coherence time are very desirable. In this Letter, we blueprint a simple circuit consisting of two transmon qubits and two additional lossy qubits or resonators, which is passively protected against all single-qubit quantum error channels through a combination of continuous driving and engineered dissipation. Photon losses are rapidly corrected through two-photon drive fields implemented with driven superconducting quantum interference device couplings, and dephasing from random potential fluctuations is heavily suppressed by the drive fields used to implement the multiqubit Hamiltonian. Comparing our theoretical model to published noise estimates from recent experiments on flux and transmon qubits, we find that logical state coherence could be improved by a factor of 40 or more compared to the individual qubit $T_1$ and $T_2$ using this technique. We thus demonstrate that there is substantial headroom for improving the coherence of modern superconducting qubits with a fairly modest increase in device complexity.

It was recently proposed that a giant flare of the blazar PKS B1424-418 at redshift $z=1.522$ is in association with a PeV-energy neutrino event detected by IceCube. Based on this association we here suggest that the flight time difference between the PeV neutrino and gamma-ray photons from blazar flares can be used to constrain the violations of equivalence principle and the Lorentz invariance for neutrinos. From the calculated Shapiro delay due to clusters or superclusters in the nearby universe, we find that violation of the equivalence principle for neutrinos and photons is constrained to an accuracy of at least $10^{-5}$, which is 2 orders of magnitude tighter than the constraint placed by MeV neutrinos from supernova 1987A. Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) arises in various quantum-gravity theories, which predicts an energy-dependent velocity of propagation in vacuum for particles. We find that the association of the PeV neutrino with the gamma-ray outburst set limits on the energy scale of possible LIV to $>0.01E_{pl}$ for linear LIV models and $>6\times {10}^{-8}{E}_{pl}$ for quadratic order LIV models, where $E_{pl}$ is the Planck energy scale. These are the most stringent constraints on neutrino LIV for subluminal neutrinos.

We propose to employ the circular polarization of gravitational waves emitted by core-collapse supernovae as an unequivocal indication of rapid rotation deep in their cores just prior to collapse. It has been demonstrated by three dimensional simulations that nonaxisymmetric accretion flows may develop spontaneously via hydrodynamical instabilities in the postbounce cores. It is not surprising, then, that the gravitational waves emitted by such fluid motions are circularly polarized. We show, in this Letter, that a network of the second generation detectors of gravitational waves worldwide may be able to detect such polarizations up to the opposite side of the Galaxy as long as the rotation period of the core is shorter than a few seconds prior to collapse.

We explore the photon population dynamics in two coupled circuit QED systems. For a sufficiently weak intercavity photon hopping, as the photon-cavity coupling increases, the dynamics undergoes double transitions first from a delocalized to a localized phase and then from the localized to another delocalized phase. The latter delocalized phase is distinguished from the former one; instead of oscillating between the two cavities, the photons rapidly quasiequilibrate over the two cavities. These intriguing features are attributed to an interplay between two qualitatively distinctive nonlinear behaviors of the circuit QED systems in the utrastrong coupling regime, whose distinction has been widely overlooked.

By exciting electron-hole pairs that survive for picoseconds strong femtosecond lasers may transiently influence the bonding properties of semiconductors, causing structure changes, in particular, ultrafast melting. In order to determine the energy flow during this process in silicon we performed ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and an analysis in quasimomentum space. We found that energy flows very differently as a function of increasing excitation density, namely, mainly through long wavelength, $L$-point, or $X$-point lattice vibrations, respectively.

The interaction of a multipicosecond, kilojoule laser pulse with a surface of a solid target has been shown to produce electrons with energies far beyond the free-electron ponderomotive limit $m_e{c}^2{a}_0^2/2$. Particle-in-cell simulations indicate that an increase in the pulse duration from 1 to 10 ps leads to the formation of a low-density shelf (about 10% of the critical density). The shelf extends over $100\mu \mathrm{m}$ toward the vacuum side, with a nonstationary potential barrier forming in that area. Electrons reflected from the barrier gain superponderomotive energy from the potential. Some electrons experience an even greater energy gain due to ponderomotive acceleration when their “dephasing rate” $R=\gamma -p_x/m_{e}c$ drops well below unity, thus increasing acceleration by a factor of $1/R$. Both 1D and 2D simulations indicate that these mechanisms are responsible for the generation of extensive thermal distributions with $T_e>10\mathrm{MeV}$ and a high-energy cutoff of hundreds of MeV.

The dynamics of a quantum phase transition are explored using slow quenches from the polar to the broken-axisymmetry phases in a small spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate. Measurements of the evolution of the spin populations reveal a power-law scaling of the temporal onset of excitations versus quench speed as predicted from quantum extensions of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. The satisfactory agreement of the measured scaling exponent with the analytical theory and numerical simulations provides experimental confirmation of the quantum Kibble-Zurek model.

Molecular recognition between two double stranded (ds) DNA with homologous sequences may not seem compatible with the B-DNA structure because the sequence information is hidden when it is used for joining the two strands. Nevertheless, it has to be invoked to account for various biological data. Using quantum chemistry, molecular mechanics, and hints from recent genetics experiments, I show here that direct recognition between homologous dsDNA is possible through the formation of short quadruplexes due to direct complementary hydrogen bonding of major-groove surfaces in parallel alignment. The constraints imposed by the predicted structures of the recognition units determine the mechanism of complexation between long dsDNA. This mechanism and concomitant predictions agree with the available experimental data and shed light upon the sequence effects and the possible involvement of topoisomerase II in the recognition.