Human collective behavior can vary from calm to panicked depending on social context. Using videos publicly available online, we study the highly energized collective motion of attendees at heavy metal concerts. We find these extreme social gatherings generate similarly extreme behaviors: a disordered gaslike state called a mosh pit and an ordered vortexlike state called a circle pit. Both phenomena are reproduced in flocking simulations demonstrating that human collective behavior is consistent with the predictions of simplified models.

We devise powerful algorithms based on differential evolution for adaptive many-particle quantum metrology. Our new approach delivers adaptive quantum metrology policies for feedback control that are orders-of-magnitude more efficient and surpass the few-dozen-particle limitation arising in methods based on particle-swarm optimization. We apply our method to the binary-decision-tree model for quantum-enhanced phase estimation as well as to a new problem: a decision tree for adaptive estimation of the unknown bias of a quantum coin in a quantum walk and show how this latter case can be realized experimentally.

We report on a source of ultranarrow-band photon pairs generated by widely nondegenerate cavity-enhanced spontaneous down-conversion. The source is designed to be compatible with ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{3+}$ solid state quantum memories and telecommunication optical fibers, with signal and idler photons close to 606 nm and 1436 nm, respectively. Both photons have a spectral bandwidth around 2 MHz, matching the bandwidth of ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{3+}$ doped quantum memories. This source is ideally suited for long distance quantum communication architectures involving solid state quantum memories.

Realizing optical-nonlinear effects at a single-photon level is a highly desirable but also extremely challenging task, because of both fundamental and practical difficulties. We present an avenue to surmounting these difficulties by exploiting quantum Zeno blockade in nonlinear optical systems. Considering specifically a lithium-niobate microresonator, we find that a deterministic phase gate can be realized between single photons with near-unity fidelity. Supported by established techniques for fabricating and operating such devices, our approach can provide an enabling tool for all-optical applications in both classical and quantum domains.

We study the dynamics of small vortex clusters with a few (2–4) corotating vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates by means of experiments, numerical computations, and theoretical analysis. All of these approaches corroborate the counterintuitive presence of a dynamical instability of symmetric vortex configurations. The instability arises as a pitchfork bifurcation at sufficiently large values of the vortex system angular momentum that induces the emergence and stabilization of asymmetric rotating vortex configurations. The latter are quantified in the theoretical model and observed in the experiments. The dynamics is explored both for the integrable two-vortex particle system, where a reduction of the phase space of the system provides valuable insight, as well as for the nonintegrable three- (or more) vortex case, which additionally admits the possibility of chaotic trajectories.

Single donors close to the ZnO(0001) surface are investigated with scanning tunneling microscopy. Their binding energies and depths are determined from spatially resolved spectra of the differential conductance. At elevated bias of the STM tip, vertical motion of the donors can be induced. The direction of the motion can be controlled by the bias polarity.

We report results of directional solidification experiments conducted on board the International Space Station and quantitative phase-field modeling of those experiments. The experiments image for the first time in situ the spatially extended dynamics of three-dimensional cellular array patterns formed under microgravity conditions where fluid flow is suppressed. Experiments and phase-field simulations reveal the existence of oscillatory breathing modes with time periods of several 10’s of minutes. Oscillating cells are usually noncoherent due to array disorder, with the exception of small areas where the array structure is regular and stable.

Photoinduced effects caused by intramolecular excitation were investigated by simultaneous optical and transport measurement in two charge-ordered organic salts, $(\mathrm{BEDT}\mathrm{\text{−}}\mathrm{TTF}{)}_3{X}_2$ ($X={\mathrm{ReO}}_4$, ${\mathrm{ClO}}_4$) [$\mathrm{BEDT}-\mathrm{TTF}=\mathrm{\text{bis}}(\mathrm{\text{ethylenedithio}})\mathrm{\text{tetrathiafulvalene}}$]. Although the two salts have the same molecular (average) charge and arrangement, they showed different photoinduced effects. A photoinduced insulator-to-metal phase transition with a metastable charge order-melting state was observed in the ${\mathrm{ReO}}_4$ salt where the charge ordered state is associated with the lattice distortion. On the other hand, no photoinduced insulator-to-metal phase transition was noted in the ${\mathrm{ClO}}_4$ salt where the charge ordered state is not accompanied by the lattice distortion. This comparative study suggested that the lattice distortion plays a key role in the stabilization of the photoinduced phase.

Self-sustained turbulent structures have been observed in a wide range of living fluids, yet no quantitative theory exists to explain their properties. We report experiments on active turbulence in highly concentrated 3D suspensions of Bacillus subtilis and compare them with a minimal fourth-order vector-field theory for incompressible bacterial dynamics. Velocimetry of bacteria and surrounding fluid, determined by imaging cells and tracking colloidal tracers, yields consistent results for velocity statistics and correlations over 2 orders of magnitude in kinetic energy, revealing a decrease of fluid memory with increasing swimming activity and linear scaling between kinetic energy and enstrophy. The best-fit model allows for quantitative agreement with experimental data.

This Letter reports on how the interfaces in the ($1+1$)-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) class undergo, in the course of time, a transition from the flat, growing regime to the stationary one. Simulations of the polynuclear growth model and experiments on turbulent liquid crystal reveal universal functions of the KPZ class governing this transition, which connect the distribution and correlation functions for the growing and stationary regimes. This in particular shows how interfaces realized in experiments and simulations actually approach the stationary regime, which is never attained unless a stationary interface is artificially given as an initial condition.

Finite-time transport between distinct flow regions is of great relevance to many scientific applications, yet quantitative studies remain scarce to date. The primary obstacle is computing the evolution of material volumes, which is often infeasible due to extreme interfacial stretching. We present a framework for describing and computing finite-time transport in $n$-dimensional (chaotic) volume-preserving flows that relies on the reduced dynamics of an ($n-2$)-dimensional “minimal set” of fundamental trajectories. This approach has essential advantages over existing methods: the regions between which transport is investigated can be arbitrarily specified; no knowledge of the flow outside the finite transport interval is needed; and computational effort is substantially reduced. We demonstrate our framework in 2D for an industrial mixing device.

We use a spring-and-plaquette network model to analyze the repulsion between elastic disks in contact. By studying various 2D geometries, we find that as disks approach the incompressibility limit the many-body effects become dominant and the disk-disk interaction is not pairwise additive. Upon compression, the disks undergo a transition from the localized to the distributed deformation regime accompanied by a steep increase of energy consistent with the onset of a hard core. These results shed new light on the structures formed by deformable objects such as soft nanocolloids.

The ion dynamics in a collisionless magnetic reconnection layer are studied in a laboratory plasma. The measured in-plane plasma potential profile, which is established by electrons accelerated around the electron diffusion region, shows a saddle-shaped structure that is wider and deeper towards the outflow direction. This potential structure ballistically accelerates ions near the separatrices toward the outflow direction. Ions are heated as they travel into the high-pressure downstream region.

The history dependence of glasses formed from flow-melted steady states by a sudden cessation of the shear rate $\dot{\gamma }$ is studied in colloidal suspensions, by molecular dynamics simulations and by mode-coupling theory. In an ideal glass, stresses relax only partially, leaving behind a finite persistent residual stress. For intermediate times, relaxation curves scale as a function of $\dot{\gamma }t$, even though no flow is present. The macroscopic stress evolution is connected to a length scale of residual liquefaction displayed by microscopic mean-squared displacements. The theory describes this history dependence of glasses sharing the same thermodynamic state variables but differing static properties.

A distinctly temperature-dependent Nernst coefficient, $\nu$, which is strongly enhanced over that of ${\mathrm{LaCu}}_2{\mathrm{Si}}_2$, is observed between $T=2$ and 300 K for ${\mathrm{CeCu}}_2{\mathrm{Si}}_2$ and ${\mathrm{Ce}}_{0.8}{\mathrm{La}}_{0.2}{\mathrm{Cu}}_2{\mathrm{Si}}_2$. The enhanced $\nu (T)$ is determined by the asymmetry of the on-site Kondo (conduction electron $-4f$ electron) scattering rate. Taking into account the measured Hall mobility, ${\mu }_H$, the highly unusual thermopower, $S$, of these systems can be semiquantitatively described by $S(T)=-\nu (T)/{\mu }_H(T)$, which explicitly demonstrates that the thermopower originates from the local Kondo scattering process over a wide temperature range from far above to well below the coherence temperature ($\approx 20\mathrm{K}$ for ${\mathrm{CeCu}}_2{\mathrm{Si}}_2$). Our results suggest that the Nernst effect can act as a proper probe of local charge-carrier scattering. This promises to impact on exploring the unconventional enhancement of the thermopower in correlated materials suited for potential applications.

We carry out an ab initio study of the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of zigzag graphene nanoribbons on Cu(111), Ag(111), and Au(111). Both, H-free and H-terminated nanoribbons are considered revealing that the nanoribbons invariably possess edge states when deposited on these surfaces. In spite of this, they do not exhibit a significant magnetization at the edge, with the exception of H-terminated nanoribbons on Au(111), whose zero-temperature magnetic properties are comparable to those of free-standing nanoribbons. These results are explained by the different hybridization between the graphene $2p$ orbitals and those of the substrates and, for some models, also by the charge transfer between the surface and the nanoribbon. Interestingly, H-free nanoribbons on Au(111) and Ag(111) exhibit two main peaks in the local density of states around the Fermi energy, which originate from different states and, thus, do not indicate edge magnetism.

The nodal band dispersion in $(\mathrm{Bi},\mathrm{Pb}{)}_2(\mathrm{Sr},\mathrm{La}{)}_2{\mathrm{CuO}}_{6+\delta }$ (Bi2201) is investigated over a wide range of doping by using 7-eV laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We find that the low-energy band renormalization (“kink”), recently discovered in ${\mathrm{Bi}}_2{\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{CaCu}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_{8+\delta }$ (Bi2212), also occurs in Bi2201, but at a binding energy around half that in Bi2212. Surprisingly, the coupling energy dramatically increases with a decrease of carrier concentration, showing a sharp enhancement across the optimal doping. These properties (material and doping dependence of the coupling energy) demonstrate the significant correlation among the mode coupling, the energy gap close to the node, and the strong electron correlation. Our results suggest forward scattering arising from the interplay between the electrons and in-plane polarized acoustic phonon branch as the origin of the low-energy renormalization.

We performed resonant x-ray diffraction experiments at the $L$ absorption edges for the post-perovskite-type compound ${\mathrm{CaIrO}}_3$ with a $(t_{2g}{)}^5$ electronic configuration. By observing the magnetic signals, we could clearly see that the magnetic structure was a striped ordering with an antiferromagnetic moment along the $c$ axis and that the wave function of a $t_{2g}$ hole is strongly spin-orbit entangled, the $J_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ state. The observed spin arrangement is consistent with theoretical work predicting a unique superexchange interaction in the $J_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ state and points to the universal importance of the spin-orbit coupling in Ir oxides, independent of the octahedral connectivity and lattice topology. We also propose that nonmagnetic resonant scattering is a powerful tool for unraveling an orbital state even in a metallic iridate.

We use Monte Carlo methods to study spinons in two-dimensional quantum spin systems, characterizing their intrinsic size $\lambda$ and confinement length $\Lambda$. We confirm that spinons are deconfined, $\Lambda \to \infty$ and $\lambda$ finite, in a resonating valence-bond spin-liquid state. In a valence-bond solid, we find finite $\lambda$ and $\Lambda$, with $\lambda$ of a single spinon significantly larger than the bound state—the spinon is soft and shrinks as the bound state is formed. Both $\lambda$ and $\Lambda$ diverge upon approaching the critical point separating valence-bond solid and Néel ground states. We conclude that the spinon deconfinement is marginal in the lowest-energy state in the spin-1 sector, due to weak attractive spinon interactions. Deconfinement in the vicinity of the critical point should occur at higher energies.

We demonstrate how to use feedback to control the internal states of trapped coherent ensembles of two-level atoms, and to protect a superposition state against the decoherence induced by a collective noise. Our feedback scheme is based on weak optical measurements with negligible backaction followed by coherent microwave manipulations. The efficiency of the feedback system is studied for a simple binary noise model and characterized in terms of the trade-off between information retrieval and destructivity from the optical probe. We also demonstrate the correction of more general types of collective noise. This technique can be used for the operation of atomic interferometers beyond the standard Ramsey scheme, opening the way towards improved atomic sensors.