We report experimental observation of higher order mode (HOM) wakefield suppression in a room-temperature traveling-wave photonic-band-gap (PBG) accelerating structure at 11.700 GHz. It has been long recognized that PBG structures have the potential for reducing long-range wakefields in accelerators. The first ever demonstration of acceleration in a room-temperature PBG structure was conducted in 2005. Since then, the importance of PBG accelerator research has been recognized by many institutions. However, the full experimental characterization of the wakefield spectrum and demonstration of wakefield suppression when the accelerating structure is excited by an electron beam has not been performed to date. We conducted an experiment at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator test facility and observed wakefields excited by a single high charge electron bunch when it passes through a PBG accelerator structure. Excellent HOM suppression properties of the PBG accelerator were demonstrated in the beam test.

Enhanced implosion stability has been experimentally demonstrated for magnetically accelerated liners that are coated with $70\mu \mathrm{m}$ of dielectric. The dielectric tamps liner-mass redistribution from electrothermal instabilities and also buffers coupling of the drive magnetic field to the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor instability. A dielectric-coated and axially premagnetized beryllium liner was radiographed at a convergence ratio [$\mathrm{CR}=R_{\text{in},0}/R_{\text{in}}(z,t)$] of 20, which is the highest CR ever directly observed for a strengthless magnetically driven liner. The inner-wall radius $R_{\text{in}}(z,t)$ displayed unprecedented uniformity, varying from 95 to $130\mu \mathrm{m}$ over the 4.0 mm axial height captured by the radiograph.

High spatial resolution Doppler backscattering measurements in JET have enabled new insights into the development of the edge $E_r$. We observe fine-scale spatial structures in the edge $E_r$ well with a wave number $k_r{\rho }_i\approx 0.4–0.8$, consistent with stationary zonal flows, the characteristics of which vary with density. The zonal flow amplitude and wavelength both decrease with local collisionality, such that the zonal flow $E\times B$ shear increases. Above the minimum of the $L\text{−}H$ transition power threshold dependence on density, the zonal flows are present during $L$ mode and disappear following the $H$-mode transition, while below the minimum they are reduced below measurable amplitude during $L$ mode, before the $L\text{−}H$ transition.

We report on direct atomic-force-microscope measurements of capillary force hysteresis (CFH) and relaxation of a circular moving contact line (CL) formed on a long micron-sized hydrophobic fiber intersecting a water-air interface. The measured CFH and CL relaxation show a strong asymmetric speed dependence in the advancing and receding directions. A unified model based on force-assisted barrier crossing is utilized to find the underlying energy barrier $E_b$ and size $\lambda$ associated with the defects on the fiber surface. The experiment demonstrates that the pinning (relaxation) and depinning dynamics of the CL can be described by a common microscopic framework, and the advancing and receding CLs are influenced by two different sets of relatively wetting and nonwetting defects on the fiber surface.

We studied the effects of disorder in a three-dimensional layered Chern insulator, which, in the clean limit, is either a Chern insulator or a Weyl semimetal depending on an interlayer coupling strength. By calculating the localization length by the transfer matrix method, we found two distinct types of metallic phases between the Anderson insulator and the Chern insulator: one is a diffusive metallic phase and the other is a renormalized Weyl semimetal phase. By calculating the conductance and density of states, we characterize these two metallic phases and reveal a critical nature of a quantum critical line between these two metallic phases.

The recent discovery of the first Weyl semimetal in TaAs provides the first observation of a Weyl fermion in nature. Such a topological semimetal features a novel type of anomalous surface state, the Fermi arc, which connects a pair of Weyl nodes through the boundary of the crystal. Here, we present theoretical calculations of the quasiparticle interference (QPI) patterns that arise from the surface states including the topological Fermi arcs in the Weyl semimetals TaAs and NbP. Most importantly, we discover that the QPI exhibits termination points that are fingerprints of the Weyl nodes in the interference pattern. Our results, for the first time, propose a universal interference signature of the topological Fermi arcs in TaAs, which is fundamental for scanning tunneling microscope (STM) measurements on this prototypical Weyl semimetal compound. More generally, our work provides critical guideline and methodology for STM studies on new Weyl semimetals. Further, the scattering channels revealed by our QPIs are broadly relevant to surface transport and device applications based on Weyl semimetals.

Low-dimensional materials differ from their bulk counterparts in many respects. In particular, the screening of the Coulomb interaction is strongly reduced, which can have important consequences such as the significant increase of exciton binding energies. In bulk materials the binding energy is used as an indicator in optical spectra to distinguish different kinds of excitons, but this is not possible in low-dimensional materials, where the binding energy is large and comparable in size for excitons of very different localization. Here we demonstrate that the exciton band structure, which can be accessed experimentally, instead provides a powerful way to identify the exciton character. By comparing the ab initio solution of the many-body Bethe-Salpeter equation for graphane and single-layer hexagonal boron nitride, we draw a general picture of the exciton dispersion in two-dimensional materials, highlighting the different role played by the exchange electron-hole interaction and by the electronic band structure. Our interpretation is substantiated by a prediction for phosphorene.

Motivated by the recent emergence of a new class of anisotropic 2D materials, we examine their electromagnetic modes and demonstrate that a broad class of the materials can host highly directional hyperbolic plasmons. Their propagation direction can be manipulated on the spot by gate doping, enabling hyperbolic beam reflection, refraction, and bending. The realization of these natural 2D hyperbolic media opens up a new avenue in dynamic control of hyperbolic plasmons not possible in the 3D version.

The $t\text{−}J$ Hamiltonian is one of the cornerstones in the theoretical study of strongly correlated copper-oxide based materials. Using the density-matrix renormalization group method we obtain the phase diagram of the one-dimensional $t\text{−}J$ chain in the presence of a periodic hopping modulation, as a prototype of coupled-segment models. While in the uniform 1D $t\text{−}J$ model the near half-filling superconducting state dominates only at unphysically large values of the exchange coupling constant $J/t>3$; we show that a small hopping and exchange modulation very strongly reduces the critical coupling to be as low as $J/t\sim 1/3$—well within the physical regime. The phase diagram as a function of the electron filling also exhibits metallic, insulating line phases and regions of phase separation. We suggest that a superconducting state is easily stabilized if $t\text{−}J$ segments creating local spin-singlet pairing are coupled to each other—another example is the ladder system.

We study the nucleation of blebs, i.e., protrusions arising from a local detachment of the membrane from the cortex of a cell. Based on a simple model of elastic linkers with force-dependent kinetics, we show that bleb nucleation is governed by membrane peeling. By this mechanism, the growth or shrinkage of a detached membrane patch is completely determined by the linker kinetics, regardless of the energetic cost of the detachment. We predict the critical nucleation radius for membrane peeling and the corresponding effective energy barrier. These may be typically smaller than those predicted by classical nucleation theory, implying a much faster nucleation. We also perform simulations of a continuum stochastic model of membrane-cortex adhesion to obtain the statistics of bleb nucleation times as a function of the stress on the membrane. The determinant role of membrane peeling changes our understanding of bleb nucleation and opens new directions in the study of blebs.

We experimentally study the statistical properties of the energy fluxes between two trapped Brownian particles, interacting through dissipative hydrodynamic coupling, and submitted to an effective temperature difference $\mathrm{\Delta }T$, obtained by random forcing the position of one trap. We identify effective heat fluxes between the two particles and show that they satisfy an exchange fluctuation theorem in the stationary state. We also show that after the sudden application of a temperature gradient $\mathrm{\Delta }T$, the total hot-cold flux satisfies a transient exchange fluctuation theorem for any integration time, whereas the total cold-hot flux only does it asymptotically for long times.

Recent progress on studies of the nanoscale mechanical responses in disordered systems has highlighted a strong degree of heterogeneity in the elastic moduli. In this contribution, using computer simulations, we study the elastic heterogeneities in athermal amorphous solids—composed of isotropic static sphere packings—near the jamming transition. We employ techniques based on linear response methods that are amenable to experimentation. We find that the local elastic moduli are randomly distributed in space and are described by Gaussian probability distributions, thereby lacking any significant spatial correlations, that persist all the way down to the transition point. However, the shear modulus fluctuations grow as the jamming threshold is approached, which is characterized by a new power-law scaling. Through this diverging behavior we are able to identify a characteristic length scale, associated with shear modulus heterogeneities, that distinguishes between bulk and local elastic responses.

By using observations of the Hulse-Taylor pulsar, we constrain the gravitational wave (GW) speed to the level of $10^{-2}$. We apply this result to scalar-tensor theories that generalize Galileon 4 and 5 models, which display anomalous propagation speed and coupling to matter for GWs. We argue that this effect survives conventional screening due to the persistence of a scalar field gradient inside virialized overdensities, which effectively “pierces” the Vainshtein screening. In specific branches of solutions, our result allows us to directly constrain the cosmological couplings in the effective field theory of dark energy formalism.

We present quantum Monte Carlo calculations of light nuclei, neutron-$\alpha$ scattering, and neutron matter using local two- and three-nucleon ($3N$) interactions derived from chiral effective field theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order (${\mathrm{N}}^2\mathrm{LO}$). The two undetermined $3N$ low-energy couplings are fit to the ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ binding energy and, for the first time, to the spin-orbit splitting in the neutron-$\alpha$ $P$-wave phase shifts. Furthermore, we investigate different choices of local $3N$-operator structures and find that chiral interactions at ${\mathrm{N}}^2\mathrm{LO}$ are able to simultaneously reproduce the properties of $A=3,4,5$ systems and of neutron matter, in contrast to commonly used phenomenological $3N$ interactions.

When a droplet containing a nonvolatile component is dried on a substrate, it leaves a ringlike deposit on the substrate. We propose a theory that predicts the deposit distribution based on a model of fluid flow and the contact line motion of the droplet. It is shown that the deposition pattern changes continuously from a coffee ring to volcanolike and to mountainlike depending on the mobility of the contact line and the evaporation rate. An analytical expression is given for the peak position of the distribution of the deposit left on the substrate.

While strong topological insulators (STIs) were experimentally realized soon after they were theoretically predicted, a weak topological insulator (WTI) has yet to be unambiguously confirmed. A major obstacle is the lack of distinct natural cleavage surfaces to test the surface selective hallmark of a WTI. With a new scheme, we discover that $\beta \text{−}{\mathrm{Bi}}_4{X}_4$ ($X=\mathrm{Br}$, I), dynamically stable or synthesized before, can be a prototype WTI with two natural cleavage surfaces, where two anisotropic Dirac cones stabilize and annihilate, respectively. We further find four surface-state Lifshitz transitions under charge doping and two bulk topological phase transitions under uniaxial strain. Near the WTI-STI transition, there emerges a novel Weyl semimetal phase, in which the Fermi arcs generically appear at both cleavage surfaces whereas the Fermi circle only appears at one selected surface.