The inherently disordered nature of hydrogenated amorphous silicon ($a$-Si:H) obscures the influence of atomic features on the trapping of holes. To address this, we have created a set of over two thousand ab initio structures of $a$-Si:H and explored the influence of geometric factors on the occurrence of deep hole traps using density-functional theory. Statistical analysis of the relative contribution of various structures to the trap distribution shows that floating bonds and ionization-induced displacements correlate most strongly with hole traps in our ensemble.

The spectral density $S_{\Phi }(f)=A^2/(f/1\mathrm{Hz}{)}^{\alpha }$ of magnetic flux noise in ten dc superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) with systematically varied geometries shows that $\alpha$ increases as the temperature is lowered; in so doing, each spectrum pivots about a nearly constant frequency. The mean-square flux noise, inferred by integrating the power spectra, grows rapidly with temperature and at a given temperature is approximately independent of the outer dimension of a given SQUID. These results are incompatible with a model based on the random reversal of independent, surface spins.

Magnetic correlations in isovalently doped $\mathrm{Ba}({\mathrm{Fe}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Ru}}_x{)}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$ ($x=0.25$, $T_c=14.5\mathrm{K}$; $x=0.35$, $T_c=20\mathrm{K}$) are studied by elastic and inelastic neutron scattering techniques. A relatively large superconducting spin gap accompanied by a weak resonance mode is observed in the superconducting state in both samples. In the normal state, the magnetic excitation intensity is dramatically reduced with increasing Ru doping toward the optimally doped regime. Our results favor that the weakening of the electron-electron correlations by Ru doping is responsible for the dampening of the resonance mode, as well as the suppression of the normal state antiferromagnetic correlations near the optimally doped regime in this system.

Thin Pt films on an yttrium iron garnet ($\mathrm{YIG}={\mathrm{Y}}_3{\mathrm{Fe}}_5{\mathrm{O}}_{12}$) show ferromagneticlike transport properties, which may impact the functionality of Pt in spin current detection, but do not provide direct quantitative information on the Pt magnetization. We report magnetic x-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements of $\mathrm{YIG}/\mathrm{Pt}(1.5\mathrm{nm})$ showing an average Pt moment of $0.054{\mu }_{\mathrm{B}}$ at 300 K and $0.076{\mu }_{\mathrm{B}}$ at 20 K. This observation indicates strong proximity effects and induced magnetic ordering in Pt on magnetic insulators and their contribution to the spin-related measurements should not be neglected. The transport characteristics also suggest considerable modifications in the Pt electronic structure due to magnetic ordering.

Relaxor ferroelectrics have been a focus of intense attention due to their anomalous properties, and understanding the structure and dynamics of relaxors has been one of the long-standing challenges in solid-state physics. We investigate the local structure and dynamics in 75%${\mathrm{PbMg}}_{1/3}{\mathrm{Nb}}_{2/3}{\mathrm{O}}_3$-25%${\mathrm{PbTiO}}_3$ using molecular dynamics simulations and the dynamic pair distribution function technique. We show that relaxor transitions can be described by local order parameters. The relaxor phase is characterized by the presence of highly anisotropic correlations between the local cation displacements that resemble the hydrogen bond network in water. This contradicts the current model of polar nanoregion inside a nonpolar matrix. We therefore suggest a new model of a homogeneous random network of anisotropically coupled dipoles.

We present a semiempirical model for calculating the electron emission from any organic compound after ion impact. With only the input of the density and composition of the target we are able to evaluate its ionization cross sections using plausible approximations. Results for protons impacting in the most representative biological targets (such as water or DNA components) show a very good comparison with experimental data. Because of its simplicity and great predictive effectiveness, the method can be immediately extended to any combination of biological target and charged particle of interest in ion beam cancer therapy.

DNA supercoiling plays a role in genetic control by imposing torsional stress. This can induce writhe, which changes the global shape of the DNA. We have used atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to partition the free energy changes driving the writhing and unwrithing transitions in supercoiled minicircle DNA. The calculations show that while writhing is energetically driven, the unwrithing transition occurs because the circular state has a higher configurational entropy than the plectoneme. Writhing improves the van der Waals interactions between stacked bases, but can be suppressed by electrostatic repulsion within the negatively charged backbone strands in low salt conditions where electrostatic screening is poor. The free energy difference between circular and plectonemic DNA is determined by such a delicate balance of opposing thermodynamic terms that any perturbation in the environment, such as a change in salt concentration, can be sufficient to convert between these two states. This switchable behavior provides a mechanism for supercoiled DNA to store and communicate biological information physically as well as chemically.

We investigate, via numerical simulations, mean field, and density functional theories, the magnetic response of a dipolar hard sphere fluid at low temperatures and densities, in the region of strong association. The proposed parameter-free theory is able to capture both the density and temperature dependence of the ring-chain equilibrium and the contribution to the susceptibility of a chain of generic length. The theory predicts a nonmonotonic temperature dependence of the initial (zero field) magnetic susceptibility, arising from the competition between magnetically inert particle rings and magnetically active chains. Monte Carlo simulation results closely agree with the theoretical findings.

We investigate the detectability of modules in large networks when the number of modules is not known in advance. We employ the minimum description length principle which seeks to minimize the total amount of information required to describe the network, and avoid overfitting. According to this criterion, we obtain general bounds on the detectability of any prescribed block structure, given the number of nodes and edges in the sampled network. We also obtain that the maximum number of detectable blocks scales as $\sqrt{N}$, where $N$ is the number of nodes in the network, for a fixed average degree $⟨k⟩$. We also show that the simplicity of the minimum description length approach yields an efficient multilevel Monte Carlo inference algorithm with a complexity of $O(\tau N\log N)$, if the number of blocks is unknown, and $O(\tau N)$ if it is known, where $\tau$ is the mixing time of the Markov chain. We illustrate the application of the method on a large network of actors and films with over ${10}^6$ edges, and a dissortative, bipartite block structure.

The spin magnetic moment of a single proton in a cryogenic Penning trap was coupled to the particle’s axial motion with a superimposed magnetic bottle. Jumps in the oscillation frequency indicate spin flips and were identified using a Bayesian analysis.

Previous measurements with a single trapped proton ($p$) or antiproton ($\overline{p}$) detected spin resonance from the increased scatter of frequency measurements caused by many spin flips. Here a measured correlation confirms that individual spin transitions and states are rapidly detected instead. The 96% fidelity and an efficiency expected to approach unity suggests that it may be possible to use quantum jump spectroscopy to measure the $p$ and $\overline{p}$ magnetic moments much more precisely.

A search for the pair production of a heavy, narrow resonance decaying into two jets has been performed using events collected in $\sqrt{s}=7\mathrm{TeV}$ $pp$ collisions with the CMS detector at the LHC. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $5.0{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. Events are selected with at least four jets and two dijet combinations with similar dijet mass. No resonances are found in the dijet mass spectrum. The upper limit at 95% confidence level on the product of the resonance pair production cross section, the branching fractions into dijets, and the acceptance varies from 0.22 to 0.005 pb, for resonance masses between 250 and 1200 GeV. Pair-produced colorons decaying into $q\overline{q}$ are excluded for coloron masses between 250 and 740 GeV.

In this Letter we show that, in spectral regions where there are no orbital cladding resonances to cause transmission loss, the core mode of a continuously twisted photonic crystal fiber (PCF) exhibits optical activity, and that the magnitude of the associated circular birefringence increases linearly with twist rate and is highly reproducible. In contrast to previous work on twist-induced circular birefringence, PCF has zero linear birefringence and an on-axis core, making the appearance of circular birefringence rather unexpected. A theoretical model based on symmetry properties and perturbation theory is developed and used to show that both spin and orbital angular momentum play a role in this effect. It turns out that the degenerate left- and right-circularly polarized modes of the untwisted PCF are not 100% circularly polarized but carry a small amount of orbital angular momentum caused by the interaction between the core mode and the hollow channels.

We study the superfluid state of atomic fermions in a tunable optical kagome lattice motivated by recent experiments. We show that the imposed superflow induces spatial modulations in the density and order parameter of the pair condensate and leads to a charge modulated superfluid state analogous to a supersolid state. The spatial modulations in the superfluid emerge due to the geometric effect of the kagome lattice that introduces anisotropy in hopping amplitudes of fermion pairs in the presence of superflow. We also study superflow instabilities and find that the critical current limited by the dynamical instability is quite enhanced due to the large density of states associated with the flatband. The charge modulated superfluid state can sustain high temperatures close to the transition temperature that is also enhanced due to the flatband and is therefore realizable in experiments.

Thirty-five years ago, Sanders and Walton [Phys. Rev. B 15, 1489 (1977)] proposed a method to measure the phonon-magnon interaction in antiferromagnets through thermal transport which so far has not been verified experimentally. We show that a dynamical variant of this approach allows direct extraction of the phonon-magnon equilibration time, yielding $400\mu \mathrm{s}$ for the cuprate spin-ladder system ${\mathrm{Ca}}_9{\mathrm{La}}_5{\mathrm{Cu}}_{24}{\mathrm{O}}_{41}$. The present work provides a general method to directly address the spin-phonon interaction by means of dynamical transport experiments.

Hair cells of the inner ear contain an active amplifier that allows them to detect extremely weak signals. As one of the manifestations of an active process, spontaneous oscillations arise in fluid immersed hair bundles of in vitro preparations of selected auditory and vestibular organs. We measure the phase-locking dynamics of oscillatory bundles exposed to low-amplitude sinusoidal signals, a transition that can be described by a saddle-node bifurcation on an invariant circle. The transition is characterized by the occurrence of phase slips, at a rate that is dependent on the amplitude and detuning of the applied drive. The resultant staircase structure in the phase of the oscillation can be described by the stochastic Adler equation, which reproduces the statistics of phase slip production.

Using experiments and simulations, we investigate the clusters that form when colloidal spheres stick irreversibly to—or “park” on—smaller spheres. We use either oppositely charged particles or particles labeled with complementary DNA sequences, and we vary the ratio $\alpha$ of large to small sphere radii. Once bound, the large spheres cannot rearrange, and thus the clusters do not form dense or symmetric packings. Nevertheless, this stochastic aggregation process yields a remarkably narrow distribution of clusters with nearly 90% tetrahedra at $\alpha =2.45$. The high yield of tetrahedra, which reaches 100% in simulations at $\alpha =2.41$, arises not simply because of packing constraints, but also because of the existence of a long-time lower bound that we call the “minimum parking” number. We derive this lower bound from solutions to the classic mathematical problem of spherical covering, and we show that there is a critical size ratio ${\alpha }_c=(1+\sqrt{2})\approx 2.41$, close to the observed point of maximum yield, where the lower bound equals the upper bound set by packing constraints. The emergence of a critical value in a random aggregation process offers a robust method to assemble uniform clusters for a variety of applications, including metamaterials.

We study the dynamic fracture of thin layers of suspensions of non-Brownian rigid particles. The impact of a projectile triggers a liquid-to-solid transition and a hole opens in the layer. We show that the occurrence of fracture and the spatial and dynamic features of the cracks depend mostly on the thickness of the layer and the particle volume fraction. In contrast, the properties of the fractured material seem independent of volume fraction. Finally, we measure the velocity of the crack tip, from which we estimate an effective value of the shear modulus of the fractured material.

We establish coherent triggered-exchange two-dimensional (TE2D) electronic spectroscopy as an expansion of pump-repump-probe transient absorption spectroscopy and uniquely elucidate the role of higher-lying electronic states in ultrafast photochemistry. As an example, this is demonstrated for a molecular switch present in two ring-open conformations. The formation of a new species—the radical cation—is observed and its precursor state is identified via TE2D.

We point out an earlier unnoticed implication of quantum indistinguishability, namely, a property which we call “dualism” that characterizes the entanglement of two identical particles (say, two ions of the same species)—a feature which is absent in the entanglement of two nonidentical particles (say, two ions of different species). A crucial application of this property is that it can be used to test quantum indistinguishability without bringing the relevant particles together, thereby avoiding the effects of mutual interaction. This is in contrast to the existing tests of quantum indistinguishability. Such a scheme, being independent of the nature and strength of mutual interactions of the identical particles involved, has potential applications, including the probing of the transition from quantum indistinguishability to classical distinguishability.