Single-inclusive hadron production in electron-positron annihilation (SIA) represents the cleanest process for investigating the dynamics of parton hadronization, as encapsulated in parton fragmentation functions. In this Letter, we present, for the first time, the analytical computation of quantum chromodynamics corrections to the coefficient functions for SIA at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (${\mathrm{N}}^3\mathrm{LO}$) accuracy, achieving the highest precision to date for hadron production processes. Utilizing the BABAR measurement as a benchmark, we assess the phenomenological implications of this high-precision calculation. Our findings demonstrate a substantial reduction in scale uncertainties at ${\mathrm{N}}^3\mathrm{LO}$ and offer an improved description of the experimental data compared to lower-order calculations. This advancement underscores the importance of higher-order corrections in achieving a more accurate understanding of hadronization processes.

We introduce a high-fidelity high-throughput screening (HTS) strategy to accelerate the discovery of altermagnets by combining density functional theory (DFT) with embedded dynamical mean-field theory. Our approach improves over the HTS with the conventional DFT method in the accuracy of predicting metallicity and spin splitting, especially in transition-metal-rich compounds. Our method is based on an automated workflow that incorporates prescreening and symmetry analysis and can be applied to a variety of correlated materials. This approach identified two previously unreported metallic altermagnets, CrSe and ${\mathrm{CaFe}}_4{\mathrm{Al}}_8$ (in addition to one known altermagnet CrSb), as well as a dozen semiconducting altermagnets among over 2000 magnetic materials. Our findings reveal that while altermagnets are abundant among magnetic materials, only a tiny fraction are metallic.

Non-Hermitian systems, distinguished by the presence of exceptional points and non-Hermitian topological states, have transformed sensing technologies through the implementation of novel physical mechanisms. However, despite their demonstrated potential, existing non-Hermitian sensors are predominantly limited to static operational configurations, which substantially restricts their effects in detecting time-varying signals. Here, we transcend this limitation by introducing a new sensing framework: non-Hermitian Floquet topological sensors (NHFTSs). This approach harnesses the synergistic interplay among time-periodic driving, nonlinear dynamics, and non-Hermitian topology to enable ultrasensitive detection of dynamic signals. NHFTSs establish nonlinear non-Hermitian Floquet topological zero modes as robust global attractors. These modes manifest extraordinary sensitivity to dynamic boundary perturbations, exhibiting frequency shifts that scale exponentially with system size. Moreover, NHFTSs possess exceptional resilience against both background noise and structural perturbations, a feature enabled by the dual protective mechanisms of nonlinear stability and topological band gaps. Notably, the signal-to-noise ratio of NHFTSs can be exponentially amplified through sensor size scaling. We experimentally validate the NHFTS using time-varying topolectrical circuits, demonstrating their unparalleled capability in detecting dynamic electrical signals with high sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratios. This Letter not only establishes a new paradigm for non-Hermitian dynamical sensing but also paves the way for exploring non-Hermitian topological phenomena in Floquet nonlinear systems, with profound implications for the development of next-generation non-Hermitian sensors and beyond.

The electric magnetochiral anisotropy is a nonreciprocal phenomenon accessible via second harmonic transport in noncentrosymmetric, time-reversal invariant materials, in which the rectification of current, $\mathbf{I}$, can be controlled by an external magnetic field, $\mathbf{B}$. Quantum geometry, which characterizes the topology of Bloch electrons in a Hilbert space, provides a powerful description of the nonlinear dynamics in topological materials. Here, we demonstrate that the electric magnetochiral anisotropy in noncentrosymmetric polar media owes its existence to the quantum metric, arising from the spin-orbit coupling, and to large Born effective charges. In this context, the reciprocal magnetoresistance $\beta {\mathbf{B}}^2$ is modified to $R(I,P,B)=R_0[1+\beta B^2+{\gamma }^{\pm }\mathbf{I}·(\mathbf{P}\times \mathbf{B})]$, where the chirality dependent ${\gamma }^{\pm }$ is determined by the quantum metric dipole and $\mathbf{P}$ is the polarization. In 2D, we predict a universal scaling ${\gamma }^{\pm }(V)\sim V^{-5/2}$, which we compare to available phase sensitive, second harmonic transport measurements on hydrothermally grown tellurium films under applied gate voltage, $V$. The control of rectification by varying $\mathbf{I}$, $\mathbf{P}$, $\mathbf{B}$, and $V$, demonstrated in this work, opens up new avenues for the building of ultrascaled complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor circuits.

Intrinsic anomalous Hall effect (AHE) formulated by geometric properties of Bloch wave functions is a ubiquitous transport phenomenon not limited to magnetic systems but also allowed in nonmagnetic ones under an external field breaking time-reversal symmetry. On the other hand, detection of field-induced AHE is practically challenging because the band modulation through the Zeeman and spin-orbit couplings is typically small compared to other contributions as induced by the Lorentz force. Here, we demonstrate on Dirac semimetal ${\mathrm{Cd}}_3{\mathrm{As}}_2$ films that the field-induced AHE in nonmagnetic systems can be quantitatively probed by applying and rotating the magnetic field within the Hall deflection plane. Measurements on the ${\mathrm{Cd}}_3{\mathrm{As}}_2$ (112) plane reveal that AHE emerges as a clear threefold symmetric component for the in-plane field rotation. This intrinsic response becomes more pronounced in ultralow-electron-density films where significant variations in the geometric properties are expected under the magnetic field. Our findings open new opportunities in the research of Hall responses manifested as orbital magnetization in nonmagnetic systems.

We present controlled interplay between the surface second-order and bulk third-order nonlinearities of gold, utilizing wave mixing between surface plasmons on the metal-air interface and free-space photons. By tuning the nonlinear interactions, we demonstrate experimentally that photons emerging from these inherently different mechanisms can interfere, while both their relative amplitude and phase are controlled solely by the pump beam. These results provide a foundation for engineering plasmonic nonlinearities and open new possibilities for quantum photonic applications.

We analyze the French housing market prices in the period 1970–2022, with high-resolution data from 2018 to 2022. The spatial correlation of the observed price field exhibits logarithmic decay characteristic of the two-dimensional random diffusion equation—local interactions may create long-range correlations. We introduce a stylized model, used in the past to model spatial regularities in voting patterns, that accounts for both spatial and temporal correlations with reasonable values of parameters, some fitted on impulse response data. Our analysis reveals that price shocks are persistent in time and their amplitude is strongly heterogeneous in space. Our study quantifies the diffusive nature of housing prices that was anticipated in the 1990s, albeit on much restricted local datasets.

The bulk dynamics of dense granular materials arise through a combination of particle-scale and mesoscale effects. Theoretical and numerical studies have shown that collective effects are created by particle-scale anisotropic structures such as grain connectivity, force transmission, and frictional mobilization, all of which influence bulk properties like bulk friction and the stress tensor through the stress-force-fabric (SFF) relationship. To date, establishing the relevance of these effects to laboratory systems has remained elusive due to the challenge of measuring both normal and frictional contact forces at the particle scale. In this study, we perform experiments on a sheared photoelastic granular system in a quasi-2D annular cell. During these experiments, we measure particle locations, contacts, and normal and frictional forces vectors during loading. We reconstruct the angular distributions of the contact and force vectors, and extract the corresponding emergent anisotropies for each of these metrics. Finally, we show for the first time in an experimental system that the SFF relation quantitatively predicts the relationship between particle scale anisotropies, the stress tensor components, and the bulk friction coefficient, capturing even transient behaviors—closing the gap between experimental measurements and prior theoretical and numerical models.

We show experimentally that multiple soft glassy fluids are capable of storing directional rheological signatures from past shear history, evidenced during stress growth and overall nonmonotonic stress relaxation after small steps in strain. We illustrate theoretically that these responses can be reproduced without requiring thixotropy or shear banding, which are typically implicated in time-dependent rheological complexities. Instead, we use a simple elastoplastic rheological model with power-law yielding that incorporates a distribution of local strain states. Using insight from the model, we suggest a mechanism for the experimentally observed stress increase to be driven by residual anisotropy in strain states that are relaxed at different rates. We demonstrate that these effects persist even after material is stressed beyond the yield stress, indicating that past deformation may have more influence than previously thought.

Tissue development, physiological or pathological, commonly involves stiffness alterations in the constituent cells. Here, we develop a three-dimensional (3D) active vertex model incorporating mechanical feedback from extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) to explore mechanochemical waves in tissues with varying cell stiffness. Combining theory and simulations, we show that rich cell oscillations, mediated by cell stiffness and its spatial heterogeneity, can arise from mechanochemical instability. Increasing cell stiffness promotes the long-range force transmission and synchronization of collective waves, which exhibit robustness against cell heterogeneity of both size and stiffness. These mechanochemical waves can propagate around the locally stiffened inclusions or traverse stiff walls but retain their intrinsic modes. We further generate and interpret the ERK edge wave in 3D multicellular spheroids with stiffness variation, consistent with previous experiments. Our work uncovers the multifaceted roles of mechanics in self-organized mechanochemical dynamics within 3D multicellular tissues.

Symmetry breaking plays a central role in classifying the phases of quantum many-body systems. Recent developments have highlighted a novel symmetry-breaking pattern, in which the strong symmetry of a density matrix spontaneously breaks to the weak symmetry. This strong-to-weak symmetry breaking is typically detected using multireplica correlation functions, such as the Rényi-2 correlator. In this Letter, we propose a practical protocol for detecting strong-to-weak symmetry breaking in experiments using the randomized measurement toolbox. Our scheme involves collecting the results of random Pauli measurements for (i) the original quantum state and (ii) the quantum state after evolution with the charged operators. Based on the measurement results, with a large number of samples, we can obtain an unbiased estimate of the Rényi-2 correlator. With a small sample size, we can still provide an alternative approach to estimate the phase boundary to a decent accuracy. We perform numerical simulations of Ising chains with all-to-all decoherence as an exemplary demonstration. Our result opens the opportunity for the experimental studies of the novel quantum phases in mixed quantum states.

The preparation of nontrivial states is crucial to the study of quantum many-body physics. Such states can be prepared with adiabatic quantum algorithms, which are restricted by the minimum spectral gap along the path. In this Letter, we propose an efficient method to adiabatically prepare tensor network states (TNSs). We maximize the spectral gap leveraging degrees of freedom in the parent Hamiltonian construction. We demonstrate this efficient adiabatic algorithm for preparing TNSs, through examples of random TNSs in one dimension, AKLT (Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki), and GHZ states. The Hamiltonian optimization applies to both injective and non-injective tensors, in the latter case by exploiting symmetries present in the tensors.

High temperatures are typically thought to increase disorder. Here we examine this idea in quantum field theory in $2+1$ dimensions. For this sake we explore a novel class of tractable models, consisting of nearly-mean-field scalars interacting with critical scalars. We identify UV-complete, local, unitary models in this class and show that symmetry breaking ${\mathbb{Z}}_2\to \varnothing$ occurs at any temperature in some regions of the phase diagram. This phenomenon, previously observed in models with fractional dimensions, or in the strict planar limits, or with nonlocal interactions, is now exhibited in a local, unitary $2+1$ dimensional model with a finite number of fields.

Knots emerge in various fields of mathematics and physics today. We show that knots indeed appear as stable solitons in a realistic extension of the standard model of particle physics that provides the QCD axion and right-handed neutrinos. This result suggests that, during the early Universe, a “knot dominated era” may have existed, where knots were a dominant component of the Universe, and this scenario can be tested through gravitational wave observations. Furthermore, we propose that the end of this era involves the collapse of the knots via quantum tunneling, leading to the generation of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe.

We introduce a mixed-state generalization of the multientropy through the canonical purification, which we call “reflected multientropy.” We propose the holographic dual of this measure. For the tripartite case, a field-theoretical calculation is performed using a six-point function of twist operators at large $c$ limit. At both zero and finite temperature, the field-theoretical results match the holographic results, supporting our holographic conjecture of this new measure.

Rydberg atom radio-frequency sensors are a unique platform for precision electromagnetic field measurement; e.g., they have extraordinary carrier bandwidth spanning MHz to THz and can be self-calibrated. These photonic sensors use lasers to prepare and read out the atomic response to a radio-frequency electromagnetic field. Most work on Rydberg atom sensors centers on radio-frequency electric field strength because the sensor functions as a square law detector, unless an external radio-frequency heterodyning field is used. A heterodyning field acts as a local oscillator and enables phase readout at the expense of the radio-frequency equipment necessary to generate it. In order to overcome the disadvantages of a radio-frequency local oscillator, we investigate all-optical phase-sensitive detection using a five-level closed-loop excitation scheme. We show that under finite detuning of the loop fields, the atomic response oscillates at the frequency of the detuning. The oscillation is transferred to a probe laser absorption signal. The phase, frequency, and amplitude of the radio-frequency signal are imprinted on the oscillatory dynamics and can be determined using demodulation and matched filter techniques applied to the probe laser transmission signal.

The permutation entropy (PE) is a statistical indicator that allows the quantification of the complexity of a signal. Here, we show that it is able to identify and anticipate the threshold bifurcation of a complex laser, where thousands of modes compete for gain at the onset of lasing. In our experimental setup, the cavity round-trip time is several orders of magnitude longer than the temporal resolution of the detection system, which enables a high statistical sampling of the intensity dynamics per round trip. We show that the PE experiences a clear decrease far below the threshold and reaches a sharp minimum at the threshold bifurcation point, which reveals an abrupt increase of the temporal correlations. The evolution of the entropy is compared with standard quantifiers of approaching bifurcations. While lag-1 autocorrelation gradually grows as the threshold is approached, the PE shows a steep decrease that captures the emergence of nonlinear correlations and thus, it allows a clearer identification of the threshold.

Liquid foams exhibit menisci whose lengths range from hundreds of microns in microfoams to several centimeters in macroscopic bubble arrangements. These menisci are known to thin under gravity until reaching a steady thickness profile, where hydrostatic and capillary pressures are balanced. However, current drainage models neglect the liquid exchanges between the menisci and the adjacent soap films, assuming the latter provide a negligible liquid reservoir. Using controlled experiments, we systematically measure the shape of an isolated meniscus placed in a vertical soap film. By increasing the film thickness, we identify a flowing regime in which the flux from the film significantly enlarges the meniscus. We present an analytical model that extends the drainage equation to incorporate this dynamical effect and introduce a gravito-exchange length, which sets the minimum meniscus thickness. The model is in quantitative agreement with experiments, capturing the transition between hydrostatic and flowing menisci. This Letter has implications for flowing or rearranging foams, where thick films are commonly observed.