We study the effects of chirality at the segment scale on the thermodynamics of block copolymer melts using self-consistent field theory. In linear diblock melts where segments of one block prefer a twisted, or cholesteric, texture, we show that melt assembly is critically sensitive to the ratio of random coil size to the preferred pitch of cholesteric twist. For weakly chiral melts (large pitch), mesophases remain achiral, while below a critical value of pitch, two mesoscopically chiral phases are stable: an undulated lamellar phase and a phase of hexagonally ordered helices. We show that the nonlinear sensitivity of mesoscale chiral order to preferred pitch derives specifically from the geometric and thermodynamic coupling of the helical mesodomain shape to the twisted packing of chiral segments within the core, giving rise to a second-order cylinder-to-helix transition.

We show that gels formed by arrested spinodal decomposition of protein solutions exhibit elastic properties in two distinct frequency domains, both elastic moduli exhibiting a remarkably strong dependence on volume fraction. Considering the large difference between the protein size and the characteristic length of the network we model the gels as porous media and show that the high and low frequency elastic moduli can be respectively attributed to stretching and bending modes. The unexpected decoupling of the two modes in the frequency domain is attributed to the length scale involved: while stretching mainly relates to the relative displacement of two particles, bending involves the deformation of a strand with a thickness of the order of a thousand particle diameters.

We show that the total entropy production in stochastic processes with odd-parity variables (under time reversal) is separated into three parts, only two of which satisfy the integral fluctuation theorems in general. One is the usual excess contribution that can appear only transiently and is called nonadiabatic. Another one is attributed solely to the breakage of detailed balance. The last part that does not satisfy the fluctuation theorem comes from the steady-state distribution asymmetry for odd-parity variables that is activated in a nontransient manner. The latter two parts combine together as the housekeeping (adiabatic) contribution, whose positivity is not guaranteed except when the excess contribution completely vanishes. Our finding reveals that the equilibrium requires the steady-state distribution symmetry for odd-parity variables independently, in addition to the usual detailed balance.

We develop diagnostic tools that would provide incontrovertible evidence for the presence of more than one Higgs boson near 125 GeV in the LHC data.

For the first time, differential cross sections for the production of $W$ bosons in conjunction with up to three jets, computed at next-to leading order in QCD and including parton shower corrections, are presented and compared to recent experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider.

We suggest a method to simulate compact quantum electrodynamics using ultracold atoms in optical lattices, which includes dynamical Dirac fermions in $2+1$ dimensions. This allows us to test the dynamical effects of confinement as well as the deformations and breaking of two-dimensional flux loops, and to observe the Wilson-loop area law.

We provide a joint theoretical and experimental investigation of the temperature dependence of the collective oscillations of first sound nature exhibited by a highly elongated harmonically trapped Fermi gas at unitarity, including the region below the critical temperature for superfluidity. Differently from the lowest axial breathing mode, the hydrodynamic frequencies of the higher-nodal excitations show a temperature dependence, which is calculated starting from Landau two-fluid theory and using the available experimental knowledge of the equation of state. The experimental results agree with high accuracy with the predictions of theory and provide the first evidence for the temperature dependence of the collective frequencies near the superfluid phase transition.

We consider the problem of $N$ identical fermions of mass $m_{\uparrow }$ and one distinguishable particle of mass $m_{\downarrow }$ interacting via short-range interactions in a confined quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) geometry. For $N=2$ and mass ratios $m_{\uparrow }/m_{\downarrow }<13.6$, we find non-Efimov trimers that smoothly evolve from 2D to 3D. In the limit of strong 2D confinement, we show that the energy of the $N+1$ system can be approximated by an effective two-channel model. We use this approximation to solve the $3+1$ problem and we find that a bound tetramer can exist for mass ratios $m_{\uparrow }/m_{\downarrow }$ as low as 5 for strong confinement, thus providing the first example of a universal, non-Efimov tetramer involving three identical fermions.

We extend the terrace-step-kink model of crystal growth to impure solutions where the impurities act as barriers to step motion. The effects of supersaturation, step curvature, step repulsions, and impurities on step motion are treated in a unified free energy framework. The model reproduces several features seen in experiments on growth of potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals, wherein a dead zone at low supersaturations and a recovery of crystal growth by motion of large coherent step bunches at larger supersaturations are observed. We identify a key feature of solution growth that leads to these effects.

We show that the main mechanism for the dc voltage or dc current induced insulator-metal transition in vanadium dioxide ${\mathrm{VO}}_2$ is due to local Joule heating and not a purely electronic effect. This “tour de force” experiment was accomplished by using the fluorescence spectra of rare-earth doped micron sized particles as local temperature sensors. As the insulator-metal transition is induced by a dc voltage or dc current, the local temperature reaches the transition temperature indicating that Joule heating plays a predominant role. This has critical implications for the understanding of the dc voltage or dc current induced insulator-metal transition and has a direct impact on applications which use dc voltage or dc current to externally drive the transition.

Structural and electronic properties of oligothiophene nanowires and rings synthesized on a Au(111) surface are investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. The spectroscopic data of the linear and cyclic oligomers show remarkable differences which, to a first approximation, can be accounted by considering electronic state confinement to one-dimensional boxes having, respectively, fixed and periodic boundary conditions. A more detailed analysis shows that polythiophene must be treated as a ribbon (i.e., having an effective width) rather than a purely 1D structure. A fascinating consequence is that the molecular nanorings act as whispering gallery mode resonators for electrons, opening the way for new applications in quantum electronics.

We study the pattern formation of a chiral nematic liquid crystal under a wetting transition. In the isotropic-liquid crystal transition, a surface-enhanced effect happens and a thin liquid crystal layer forms at the substrates of the cell. In this confined system, chirality, elastic anisotropy, surface anchoring, and wetting strength interplay. A striped pattern is formed due to the chiral nature of the material and the tilted anchoring at the isotropic boundary. As the wetting layer grows from cooling the sample, first the stripes rotate through a process where dislocation defects are formed. As the wetting layer grows further, the periodicity of the stripe structure changes, and finally a splitting of the stripes occurs. Because of the unique properties of this system, new insights about pitch-thickness ratio, interface anchoring, and elastic anisotropy effect are found. Since the anchoring at the isotropic boundary is weak, the critical ratio between the thickness of the wetting layer and the helical pitch is different from that reported in the literature. We also discover that the elastic anisotropy and elastic constant ratios play a critical role in stripe formation. Because of the similarity with biological fibrous composites (twisted plywood), our system may be used as a synthetic version to mimic the naturally occurring one. We carry out a simulation study to explain the experimental results.

We apply scanning fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to study the structure of individual DNA coils in dilute and semidilute solutions. In dilute solutions, over two decades in length, from 0.6 to $46\mu \mathrm{m}$, DNA behave as ideal chains, in agreement with theoretical predictions and in disagreement with prior experiments. In semidilute solutions, up to very high densities, the structures of individual DNA coils are independent of concentration, unlike flexible coils that shrink with increasing density. Our experimental findings are consistent with the marginal solution theory of semiflexible polymers.

We investigate Lee-Yang zeros of generating functions of dynamical observables and establish a general relation between phase transitions in ensembles of trajectories of stochastic many-body systems and the time evolution of high-order cumulants of such observables. This connects dynamical free energies for full counting statistics in the long-time limit, which can be obtained via large-deviation methods and whose singularities indicate dynamical phase transitions, to observables that are directly accessible in simulation and experiment. As an illustration, we consider facilitated spin models of glasses and show that from the short-time behavior of high-order cumulants, it is possible to infer the existence and location of dynamical or “space-time” transitions in these systems.

We present numerical simulations of high-order harmonic generation in helium using a temporally synthesized and spatially nonhomogeneous strong laser field. The combination of temporal and spatial laser field synthesis results in a dramatic cutoff extension far beyond the usual semiclassical limit. Our predictions are based on the convergence of three complementary approaches: resolution of the three dimensional time dependent Schrödinger equation, time-frequency analysis of the resulting dipole moment, and classical trajectory extraction. A laser field synthesized both spatially and temporally has been proven capable of generating coherent extreme ultraviolet photons beyond the carbon $K$ edge, an energy region of high interest as it can be used to initiate inner-shell dynamics and study time-resolved intramolecular attosecond spectroscopy.

We propose a scheme to significantly enhance the sensitivity of atom interferometry performed with Bose-Einstein condensates. When an optical two-photon Raman transition is used to split the condensate into two modes, some information about the number of atoms in one of the modes is contained in one of the optical modes. We introduce a simple model to describe this process, and find that by processing this information in an appropriate way, the phase sensitivity of atom interferometry can be enhanced by more than a factor of 10 for realistic parameters.

Through particle-in-cell simulations, we show that plasma waves carrying trapped electrons can be amplified manyfold via compressing plasma perpendicularly to the wave vector. These simulations are the first ab initio demonstration of the conservation of nonlinear action for such waves, which contains a term independent of the field amplitude. In agreement with the theory, the maximum of amplification gain is determined by the total initial energy of the trapped-particle average motion but otherwise is insensitive to the particle distribution. Further compression destroys the wave; electrons are then untrapped at suprathermal energies and form a residual beam. As compression continues, the bump-on-tail instability is triggered each time one of the discrete modes comes in resonance with this beam. Hence, periodic bursts of the electrostatic energy are produced until a wide quasilinear plateau is formed.

We propose a mixed-geometry system of fermionic species selectively confined in lattices of different geometry. We investigate how such asymmetry can lead to exotic multiband fermion pairing in an example system of honeycomb and triangular lattices. A rich phase diagram of interband pairing with gapped and gapless excitations is found at zero temperature. We find that the two-band contribution of the honeycomb lattices to the paired state helps to stabilize the gapless phase with one or two Fermi surfaces. We also show that the Fermi surface topology further divides the gapless phase into subclasses between which the system undergoes density-driven Lifshitz transitions.

The atomic structure of CoPt and FePt nanoparticles (with a diameter between 2 and 5 nm) has been studied by transmission electron microscopy. The particles have been produced by a laser vaporization cluster source and annealed under vacuum in order to promote chemical ordering. For both alloys, we observe a coexistence of crystalline and multiply twinned particles with decahedral or icosahedral shapes. In addition to particles corresponding to a single $L{1}_0$ ordered domain, we put into evidence that even small particles can display several $L{1}_0$ domains. In particular, the chemical order can be preserved across twin boundaries which can give rise to spectacular chemically ordered decahedral particles made of five $L{1}_0$ domains. The stability of such structures, which had been recently predicted from theoretical simulations, is thus unambiguously experimentally confirmed.

The synchrotron x-ray absorption near edge structures (XANES) technique was used in conjunction with first-principles calculations to characterize Al-doped ZnO films. Standard characterizations revealed that the amount of carrier concentration and mobility depend on the growth conditions, i.e. ${\mathrm{H}}_2$ $(\mathrm{or}{\mathrm{O}}_2)/\mathrm{Ar}$ gas ratio and Al concentration. First-principles calculations showed that Al energetically prefers to substitute on the Zn site, forming a donor ${\mathrm{Al}}_{\mathrm{Zn}}$, over being an interstitial (${\mathrm{Al}}_i$). The measured Al $K$-edge XANES spectra are in good agreement with the simulated spectra of ${\mathrm{Al}}_{\mathrm{Zn}}$, indicating that the majority of Al atoms are substituting for Zn. The reduction in carrier concentration or mobility in some samples can be attributed to the ${\mathrm{Al}}_{\mathrm{Zn}}\mathrm{\text{−}}{V}_{\mathrm{Zn}}$ and $2{\mathrm{Al}}_{\mathrm{Zn}}\mathrm{\text{−}}{V}_{\mathrm{Zn}}$ complex formations that have similar XANES features. In addition, XANES of some samples showed additional features that are the indication of some $\alpha \mathrm{\text{−}}{\mathrm{Al}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3$ or $n{\mathrm{Al}}_{\mathrm{Zn}}\mathrm{\text{−}}{\mathrm{O}}_i$ formation, explaining their poorer conductivity.