Kinetic simulations of magnetotail reconnection have revealed electromagnetic whistlers originating near the exhaust boundary and propagating into the inflow region. The whistler production mechanism is not a linear instability, but rather is Čerenkov emission of almost parallel whistlers from localized moving clumps of charge (finite-size quasiparticles) associated with nonlinear coherent electron phase space holes. Whistlers are strongly excited by holes without ever growing exponentially. In the simulation the whistlers are emitted in the source region from holes that accelerate down the magnetic separatrix towards the x line. The phase velocity of the whistlers $v_{\phi }$ in the source region is everywhere well matched to the hole velocity $v_H$ as required by the Čerenkov condition. The simulation shows emission is most efficient near the theoretical maximum $v_{\phi }=\text{half}$ the electron Alfven speed, consistent with the new theoretical prediction that faster holes radiate more efficiently. While transferring energy to whistlers the holes lose coherence and dissipate over a few local ion inertial lengths. The whistlers, however, propagate to the $x$ line and out over many 10’s of ion inertial lengths into the inflow region of reconnection. As the whistlers pass near the $x$ line they modulate the rate at which magnetic field lines reconnect.

Ionic transport in conventional ionic solids is generally considered to proceed via independent diffusion events or “hops.” This assumption leads to well-known Arrhenius expressions for transport coefficients, and is equivalent to assuming diffusion is a Poisson process. Using molecular dynamics simulations of the low-temperature $B1$, $B3$, and $B4$ AgI polymorphs, we have compared rates of ion hopping with corresponding Poisson distributions to test the assumption of independent hopping in these common structure types. In all cases diffusion is a non-Poisson process, and hopping is strongly correlated in time. In $B1$ the diffusion coefficient can be approximated by an Arrhenius expression, though the physical significance of the parameters differs from that commonly assumed. In low temperature $B3$ and $B4$, diffusion is characterized by concerted motion of multiple ions in short closed loops. Diffusion coefficients cannot be expressed in a simple Arrhenius form dependent on single-ion free energies, and intrinsic diffusion must be considered a many-body process.

We introduce a novel computational approach for the investigation of complex correlated electron materials which makes it possible to evaluate interatomic forces and, thereby, determine atomic displacements and structural transformations induced by electronic correlations. It combines ab initio band structure and dynamical mean-field theory and is implemented with the linear-response formalism regarding atomic displacements. We apply this new technique to explore structural transitions of prototypical correlated systems such as elemental hydrogen, ${\mathrm{SrVO}}_3$, and ${\mathrm{KCuF}}_3$.

We present simultaneous measurements of angular-dependent magnetoresistance and thermopower along all three crystal axes in ${(\mathrm{TMTSF})}_2{\mathrm{PF}}_6$ for pressures to 7.4 kbar and magnetic fields to 35 T. ${(\mathrm{TMTSF})}_2{\mathrm{PF}}_6$ under pressure shows the coexistence of spin density wave and metal-superconducting orders. We suggest that this coexistence results neither in microscopic coexistence nor in a new soliton wall phase, contrary to previous suggestions, but in phase separation into domains of the high-pressure metal and the low-pressure spin density wave phases. Simultaneous measurement of transport along all crystal axes allows us to unambiguously describe the domain structure, whereas the superconducting transition temperature and four independent Fermi surface-sensitive magnetoresistance signatures allow us to unambiguously characterize the coexisting metallic domains.

The excitations of a two-dimensional electron gas in quantum wells with intermediate carrier density ($n_e\sim {10}^{11}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$), i.e., between the exciton-trion and the Fermi-sea range, are so far poorly understood. We report on an approach to bridge this gap by a magnetophotoluminescence study of modulation-doped (Cd,Mn)Te quantum well structures. Employing their enhanced spin splitting, we analyzed the characteristic magnetic-field behavior of the individual photoluminescence features. Based on these results and earlier findings by other authors, we present a new approach for understanding the optical transitions at intermediate densities in terms of four-particle excitations, the Suris tetrons, which were up to now only predicted theoretically. All characteristic photoluminescence features are attributed to emission from these quasiparticles when attaining different final states.

Drag friction that acts on a disk in a two-dimensional granular medium is studied at high packing fractions. We concentrate on a high-velocity region, in which the dynamic component of the force, obtained as an average of a strongly fluctuating force, clearly scales with velocity squared. We find that the total force composed of dynamic and static components, as well as its fluctuation, diverges with practically the same exponent as the packing fraction approaches the jamming point. To explain the critical behavior, we propose a simple theory equipped with a diverging length scale, which agrees well with the data and elucidates physical pictures for the divergence.

The influence of migration on the stochastic dynamics of subdivided populations is still an open issue in various evolutionary models. Here, we develop a self-consistent mean-field-like method in order to determine the effects of migration on relevant nonequilibrium properties, such as the mean fixation time. If evolution strongly favors coexistence of species (e.g., balancing selection), the mean fixation time develops an unexpected minimum as a function of the migration rate. Our analysis hinges only on the presence of a separation of time scales between local and global dynamics, and therefore, it carries over to other nonequilibrium processes in physics, biology, ecology, and social sciences.

We show that hydrodynamic theories of polar active matter generically possess inhomogeneous traveling solutions. We introduce a unifying dynamical-system framework to establish the shape of these intrinsically nonlinear patterns, and show that they correspond to those hitherto observed in experiments and numerical simulation: periodic density waves, and solitonic bands, or polar-liquid droplets both cruising in isotropic phases. We elucidate their respective multiplicity and mutual relations, as well as their existence domain.

The effect of proton tunneling on many-body correlated proton transfer in hexagonal ice is investigated by quantum simulation. Classical single-particle hopping along individual hydrogen bonds leads to charge defects at high temperature, whereas six protons in ringlike topologies can move concertedly as a delocalized quasiparticle via collective tunneling at low temperature, thus preventing the creation of high-energy topological defects. Our findings rationalize many-body quantum tunneling in hydrogen-bonded networks and suggest that this phenomenon might be more widespread than previously thought.

We construct the complete structural phase diagram of polymer adsorption at substrates with attractive stripelike patterns in the parameter space spanned by the adsorption affinity of the stripes and temperature. Results were obtained by extensive generalized-ensemble Monte Carlo simulations of a generic model for the hybrid organic-inorganic system. By comparing with adhesion properties at homogeneous substrates, we find substantial differences in the formation of adsorbed polymer structures if translational invariance at the surface is broken by a regular pattern. Beside a more specific understanding of polymer adsorption processes, our results are potentially relevant for the design of macromolecular pattern recognition devices such as sensors.

We develop a theory of charge transfer at semiconductor-catalyst interfaces to elucidate the current-potential behavior of semiconductor-catalyst-solution systems used for solar water splitting and compare simulations based on this theory to experimental data. Ion-permeable catalysts are found to form semiconductor-catalyst interfaces where the effective barrier height changes under operation yielding higher photovoltages and efficiencies relative to dense catalysts with the same catalytic activity. Such behavior is not captured by current equivalent circuit models, but is central to the study and design of efficient water-splitting systems.

We report on an experimental test of classical and quantum dimension. We have used a dimension witness that can distinguish between quantum and classical systems of dimensions two, three, and four and performed the experiment for all five cases. The witness we have chosen is a base of semi-device-independent cryptographic and randomness expansion protocols. Therefore, the part of the experiment in which qubits were used is a realization of these protocols. In our work we also present an analytic method for finding the maximum quantum value of the witness along with corresponding measurements and preparations. This method is quite general and can be applied to any linear dimension witness.

Separability criteria are typically of the necessary, but not sufficient, variety, in that satisfying some separability criterion, such as positivity of eigenvalues under partial transpose, does not strictly imply separability. Certifying separability amounts to proving the existence of a decomposition of a target mixed state into some convex combination of separable states; determining the existence of such a decomposition is “hard.” We show that it is effective to ask, instead, if the target mixed state “fits” some preconstructed separable form, in that one can generate a sufficient separability criterion relevant to all target states in some family by ensuring enough degrees of freedom in the preconstructed separable form. We demonstrate this technique by inducing a sufficient criterion for “diagonally symmetric” states of $N$ qubits. A sufficient separability criterion opens the door to study precisely how entanglement is (not) formed; we use ours to prove that, counterintuitively, entanglement is not generated in idealized Dicke model superradiance despite its exemplification of many-body effects. We introduce a quantification of the extent to which a given preconstructed parametrization comprises the set of all separable states; for “diagonally symmetric” states our preconstruction is shown to be fully complete. This implies that our criterion is necessary in addition to sufficient, among other ramifications which we explore.

In quantum mechanics, observing is not a passive act. Consider a system of two quantum particles $A$ and $B$: if a measurement apparatus $M$ is used to make an observation on $B$, the overall state of the system $AB$ will typically be altered. When this happens, no matter which local measurement is performed, the two objects $A$ and $B$ are revealed to possess peculiar correlations known as quantum discord. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that the very act of local observation gives rise to an activation protocol which converts discord into distillable entanglement, a stronger and more useful form of quantum correlations, between the apparatus $M$ and the composite system $AB$. We adopt a flexible two-photon setup to realize a three-qubit system ($A$, $B$, $M$) with programmable degrees of initial correlations, measurement interaction, and characterization processes. Our experiment demonstrates the fundamental mechanism underpinning the ubiquitous act of observing the quantum world and establishes the potential of discord in entanglement generation.

The halo structure of ${}^{31}\mathrm{Ne}$ is studied using $1n$-removal reactions on C and Pb targets at $230\mathrm{MeV}/\text{nucleon}$. A combined analysis of the cross sections of these nuclear and Coulomb dominated reactions that feed directly the ${}^{30}\mathrm{Ne}$ ground-state reveals ${}^{31}\mathrm{Ne}$ to have a small neutron separation energy, $0.15_{-0.10}^{+0.16}\mathrm{MeV}$, and spin-parity $3/2^{-}$. Consistency of the data with reaction and large-scale shell-model calculations identifies ${}^{31}\mathrm{Ne}$ as deformed and having a significant $p$-wave halo component, suggesting that halos are more frequent occurrences at the neutron drip line.

The control of quantum systems with shaped laser pulses presents a paradox since the relative ease with which solutions are discovered appears incompatible with the enormous variety of pulse shapes accessible with a standard pulse shaper. Quantum landscape theory indicates that the relevant search dimensionality is not dictated by the number of pulse shaper elements, but rather is related to the number of states participating in the controlled dynamics. The actual dimensionality is encoded within the sensitivity of the observed yield to all of the pulse shaper elements. To investigate this proposition, the Hessian matrix is measured for controlled transitions amongst states of atomic rubidium, and its eigendecomposition reveals a dimensionality consistent with that predicted by landscape theory. Additionally, this methodology furnishes a low-dimensional picture that captures the essence of the light-matter interaction and the ensuing system dynamics.

We demonstrate that strong impulsive gas heating or heating suppression at standard temperature and pressure can occur from coherent rotational excitation or deexcitation of molecular gases using a sequence of nonionizing laser pulses. For the case of excitation, subsequent collisional decoherence of the ensemble leads to gas heating significantly exceeding that from plasma absorption under the same laser focusing conditions. In both cases, the macroscopic hydrodynamics of the gas can be finely controlled with $\sim 40\mathrm{fs}$ temporal sensitivity.