The presence of interfaces in semiconductor devices substantially hinders thermal transport, contributing disproportionately to the overall thermal resistance. However, approaches to enhance interfacial thermal transport remain scarce without changing the interface structure, as the intrinsic electron and phonon properties of constituent materials set an upper limit. Here, we find a new thermal transport pathway, electronic heat tunneling, to enhance interfacial thermal conductance through metal-insulator-semiconductor junctions. By applying photoexcitation or bias voltage, we observe remarkable thermal conductance increases in operando, opening a new channel for efficient interfacial heat dissipation. The electron quantum tunneling pathway is parallel to conventional phonon-mediated interfacial thermal transport, and violates the Wiedemann-Franz law since this pathway deviates from the paradigm of diffusive transport. Moreover, we develop a tunneling mismatch model to describe the enhanced thermal conductance, originating from tunneling heat flux. Our Letter demonstrates a previously unexplored heat transport mechanism to enhance thermal conductance, bypassing the need for interface engineering. These findings emphasize the essential need to understand semiconductor thermal properties under realistic operating conditions.

Categorical symmetries have recently been shown to generalize the classification of phases of matter, significantly broadening the traditional Landau paradigm. To test these predictions, we propose a simple spin chain model that encompasses all gapped phases and second-order phase transitions governed by the categorical symmetry $\mathsf{Rep}(D_8)$. This model not only captures the essential features of noninvertible phases but is also straightforward enough to enable practical realization. Specifically, we outline an implementation using neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays. Employing a dual-species setup and Rydberg blockade, we propose a digital simulation approach that can efficiently implement the many-body evolution in several nontrivial quantum phases.

Circularly polarized light is well known to induce, or flip the direction of, magnetization in solids. At its heart, this arises from time-reversal symmetry breaking by the vector potential, causing inverse-Faraday or analogous physical effects. We show here that very short few-cycle pulses can cause similar phenomena even when they are linearly polarized and off resonant. We analyze the new effect with ab initio calculations and demonstrate that it similarly arises due to broken time-reversal symmetry and is carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) sensitive. Coherently tuning the CEP causes the induced magnetism to oscillate from zero to few percent Bohr magneton within few femtoseconds. By changing the laser angle and intensity, the magnetization sign and magnitude can be controlled. Remarkably, due to the nature of the physical mechanism that relies on spin-orbit interactions and orbital currents, the magnetization survives CEP averaging and the effect should be accessible even in the absence of CEP stabilization. Our Letter opens new routes for ultrafast coherent tuning and probing of magnetism and circumvents the need for circularly polarized driving or external magnetic fields.

Models of coupled binary elements capture memory effects in complex dissipative materials, such as transient responses or sequential computing, when their interactions are chosen appropriately. However, for random interactions, self-loops—cyclic transition sequences incompatible with dissipative dynamics—dominate the response and undermine statistical approaches. Here we reveal that self-loops originate from energy injection and limit cycles in the underlying physical system. We, furthermore, introduce interaction ensembles that strongly suppress or completely eliminate self-loops, allowing statistical studies of memory in large dissipative systems. Our Letter opens a route toward a unified description of passive and active multistable materials using hysteron models.

Solving short- and long-time dynamics of closed quantum many-body systems is one of the main challenges of both atomic and condensed matter physics. For locally interacting closed systems, the dynamics of local observables can always be expanded into (pseudolocal) eigenmodes of the Liouvillian, so-called dynamical symmetries. They come in two classes: transient operators, which decay in time and perpetual operators, which either oscillate forever or stay the same (conservation laws). These operators provide a full characterization of the dynamics of the system. Deriving these operators, apart from a very limited class of models, has not been possible. Here, we present a method to numerically and analytically derive some of these dynamical symmetries in infinite closed systems by introducing a naturally emergent open boundary condition on the Krylov chain. This boundary condition defines a partitioning of the Krylov space into system and environment degrees of freedom, where nonlocal operators make up an effective bath for the local operators. We demonstrate the practicality of the method on some numerical examples and derive analytical results in two idealized cases. Our approach lets us directly relate the operator growth hypothesis to thermalization and exponential decay of observables in chaotic systems and provides a powerful approach for computing notably challenging many-body dynamics.

Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is the cornerstone of our understanding of quantum phases of matter. Recent works have generalized this concept to the domain of mixed states in open quantum systems, where symmetries can be realized in two distinct ways dubbed strong and weak. Novel intrinsically mixed phases of quantum matter can then be defined by the spontaneous breaking of strong symmetry down to weak symmetry. However, proposed order parameters for strong-to-weak SSB (based on mixed-state fidelities or purities) seem to require exponentially many copies of the state, raising the question: Is it possible to efficiently detect strong-to-weak SSB, in general? Here, we answer this question negatively in the paradigmatic cases of ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ and U(1) symmetries. We construct ensembles of pseudorandom mixed states that do not break the strong symmetry yet are computationally indistinguishable from states that do. This rules out the existence of efficient state-agnostic protocols to detect strong-to-weak SSB.

Enhancing the precision of a thermodynamic process inevitably necessitates a thermodynamic cost. This notion was recently formulated as the thermodynamic uncertainty relation, which states that the lower bound on the relative variance of thermodynamic currents decreases as entropy production increases. From another viewpoint, the thermodynamic uncertainty relation implies that if entropy production were allowed to become infinitely large, the lower bound on the relative variance could approach zero. However, it is evident that realizing infinitely large entropy production is infeasible in reality. This indicates that physical constraints impose precision limits on the system, independent of its dynamics. In this study, we derive fundamental precision limits, dynamics-independent bounds on the relative variance and the expectations of observables, for open quantum thermal machines operating within a finite-dimensional system and environment. These bounds are set by quantities such as dimensions, energy bandwidth, and initial minimum eigenvalue, which depend only on the initial configuration and are independent of the dynamics. Using a quantum battery model, the fundamental precision limits show that there is a trade-off between the amount of energy storage and the charging precision. Additionally, we investigate how quantum coherence affects these fundamental limits, demonstrating that the presence of coherence can improve the precision limits. Our findings provide insights into fundamental limits on the precision of quantum thermal machines.

Black hole quasinormal mode frequencies can be very close to each other (“avoided crossings”) or even completely degenerate (“exceptional points”) when the system is characterized by more than one parameter. We investigate this resonant behavior and demonstrate that near exceptional points, the two modes are just different covers of the same complex function on a Riemann surface. We also study the characteristic time domain signal due to the resonance in the frequency domain, illustrating the analogy between black hole signals at resonance and harmonic oscillators driven by a resonant external force. We consider a specific toy model displaying a resonance between the fundamental mode and the first overtone, and we find that taking into account the linear growth in time due to the resonance is necessary to accurately recover the quasinormal mode frequencies.

We introduce generalized pinning fields in conformal field theory that model a large class of critical impurities at large distance, enriching the familiar universality classes. We provide a rigorous definition of such defects as certain unbounded operators on the Hilbert space and prove that when inserted on codimension-one surfaces they factorize the spacetime into two halves. The factorization channels are further constrained by symmetries in the bulk. As a corollary, we solve such critical impurities in the 2D minimal models and establish the factorization phenomena previously observed for localized mass deformations in the 3D $\mathrm{O}(N)$ model.

We present the first lattice QCD calculations of the isovector helicity transverse momentum-dependent parton distribution function (TMDPDF) and the flavor-dependent unpolarized TMDPDFs for up and down quarks in the proton. Our computations utilize domain-wall fermion discretization with physical quark masses. Employing Coulomb-gauge-fixed quark correlation functions within the large-momentum effective theory framework, we access nonperturbative transverse quark separations $b_T$ up to approximately 1 fm, corresponding to transverse momenta as low as 200 MeV. Based on the quasi-TMD factorization theorem, we construct renormalization-group–invariant ratios that are equal to the corresponding light-cone TMDPDF ratios. At moderate $x$, our results reveal that the isovector helicity and unpolarized TMDPDFs exhibit nearly identical transverse structure up to a normalization factor, and the unpolarized distributions display only mild flavor dependence. These findings not only support key trends observed in recent global analyses but also provide robust, nonperturbative constraints that can distinguish between different parameterizations. This Letter establishes a first-principles benchmark for TMDPDFs, offering valuable input for ongoing and future experimental efforts to map the proton’s three-dimensional structure.

Solute transport in a channel has important implications in industrial processes, biomechanics, and drug delivery. When flow is driven down a channel by a pressure gradient, solute is spread axially by shear and laterally by molecular diffusion. The combination causes the effective axial diffusivity to exceed the molecular diffusivity, a phenomenon known as Taylor dispersion. Here we show, however, that if the channel walls are permeable to the fluid but not to the solute, solute in the channel can be consolidated, making the effective axial diffusivity negative, a phenomenon we call “antidispersion.” We present a theoretical model, with numerical validation, to study antidispersion, demonstrating that it occurs both with boluses of solute and with moving solute fronts. We determine the conditions in which antidispersion exceeds dispersion: high dimensionless permeability, moderate dimensionless flow speed, and concentration gradients that are not too steep. Our findings may inform understanding of biological circulation systems and design of systems for controlling solute concentration, as in drug delivery and desalination.

Wall-attached bubbles can produce repeated jets under gentle ultrasound stimulation through the Faraday instability. We identify three distinct jetting regimes defined by the jetting frequency and the bubble surface topology. We demonstrate that these jets form via flow-focusing singularities following two distinct collapse modes of the bubble interface: conical, producing a jet toward the substrate, or parabolic, generating a pair of oppositely directed jets. Scaling laws governing these collapse events are derived, revealing a universal self-similar structure governed by inertia and capillarity. Furthermore, we establish the dependence of the interface acceleration for jetting on driving frequency and characterize the jet speed as a function of Faraday wave height and bubble size. These findings may inform the design of low-power biofilm removal ultrasound systems and contribute to improved safety in targeted drug delivery.

Kinetic frictional forces resisting droplet motion often appear to be separate from surface wettability and adhesive forces. Here we show that such friction arises from a simple combination of the contact angle hysteresis and adhesive force. We show theoretically, and confirm using tilt angle experiments of droplets on liquidlike surfaces, the dependence of the coefficient of droplet-on-solid kinetic friction on system parameters. We also show that a molecular kinetic-type model can describe the observed nonlinear velocity-force relationship. Our findings provide a fundamental understanding of the relationship between droplet-on-solid friction, and wettability and liquid adhesion.

The transition from distributed damage to strain localization in rocks during brittle creep remains mechanistically unclear. Through uniaxial creep experiments on polystyrene plates with a preexisting closed crack, we demonstrate that low-stress creep is governed by frictional slip with shear stress redistribution rather than fracture, mediated by rate- and state-dependent friction (RSF). A finite element model of rock with randomly distributed microcracks, integrating RSF behavior with damage mechanics, reproduces the spatio-temporal evolution of microcracking during brittle creep. The simulated acoustic emission analysis reveals that the initial distributed damage, characterized by independent events, transitions gradually to strain localization through a prolonged fault nucleation progress, marked by progressive clustering and event triggering. We identify four stress modulation modes of microcracks that govern the competition between stress concentration and relaxation, elucidating the micromechanical evolution in brittle creep. By bridging microscale time-dependent friction to macroscale rupture, this framework offers a physics-based interpretation of failure precursors, with implications for earthquake hazard mitigation and brittle material failure prediction.

Coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) is crucial for the development of powerful ultrashort light sources. We present a mechanism for generating CSR in the form of generalised superradiance, based on surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), which are resonantly excited on a solid, near-critical-density inner surface of a microtube. A high-intensity, circularly polarized laser pulse, propagating along the microtube axis, efficiently couples the cylindrical SPP modes. This process creates azimuthally structured, rotating electromagnetic fields. These rotating fields subsequently confine, modulate, and directly accelerate surface electrons to emit CSR in the Vavilov-Cherenkov angle. We further demonstrate that by improving the azimuthal symmetry of these electrons, the helical modulation enables CSR emission across all azimuthal directions in the form of isolated harmonics, significantly enhancing radiation intensity even when full coherence is imperfect. Our full 3D particle-in-cell simulations indicate this scheme can generate x-rays with coherence enhanced by up to 2 orders of magnitude compared to incoherent emission. The challenges to experimentally realize this scheme are discussed, including the need for high-contrast lasers to prevent preplasma formation and the demanding tolerances for microtube fabrication and alignment, while these challenges are not beyond the scope of existing or near-future experimental capabilities.

Antiferroelectric (AFE) materials are rarer than ferroelectrics (FEs). Yet they hold great potential for niche applications, mostly thanks to the electric-field induced reversible transformation between the AFE and FE states. In addition to the extrinsic method of chemical doping, intrinsically converting a FE material into AFE presents significant scientific and technological interest. Here, using a first-principles-based computational scheme, we demonstrate that thin films offer an opportunity to modify the FE ground state of the well-known room-temperature multiferroic ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_3$ into an AFE phase by controlling the film thickness and electrostatic boundary conditions. Such transition results from a surface effect related to the delicate balance between the short-range and long-range dipole-dipole interactions, and the particular structure of the AFE phase. Simulations reveal the criteria for double hysteresis loop formation. The effect of temperature and strain on the stability of the AFE state is further discussed.