We use a first-principles rational-design approach to identify a previously unrecognized class of ferroelectric materials in the $P{6}_{3}mc$ LiGaGe structure type. We calculate structural parameters, polarization, and ferroelectric well depths both for reported and as-yet hypothetical representatives of this class. Our results provide guidance for the experimental realization and further investigation of high-performance materials suitable for practical applications.

In hydrogen-bonded liquids including monohydroxy alcohols, the prominent Debye process that often dominates the dielectric relaxation behavior is associated with hydrogen bonding, but its microscopic origin has remained unclear to date. High electric field impedance spectroscopy on 5-methyl-3-heptanol reveals a field-induced change in the Kirkwood-Fröhlich correlation factor $g_K$, viewed as evidence for an electric field driven conversion from ring- to chain-type hydrogen-bonded structures. The concomitant rearrangement of the chain structure is observed to occur on the time scale of the Debye process, suggesting that the Debye peak of monohydroxy alcohols originates from a fluctuation of the net dipole moment via $g_K$ of the chain structures on a time scale that is largely controlled by viscosity.

Interactions in aqueous media between uniformly charged surfaces are well understood, but most real surfaces are heterogeneous and disordered. Here we show that two such heterogeneous surfaces covered with random charge domains experience a long-range attraction across water that is orders of magnitude stronger than van der Waals forces, even in the complete absence of any charge correlations between the opposing surfaces. We demonstrate that such strong attraction may arise generally, even for overall neutral surfaces, from the inherent interaction asymmetry between equally and between oppositely charged domains.

A fundamental task in modern cryptography is the joint computation of a function which has two inputs, one from Alice and one from Bob, such that neither of the two can learn more about the other’s input than what is implied by the value of the function. In this Letter, we show that any quantum protocol for the computation of a classical deterministic function that outputs the result to both parties (two-sided computation) and that is secure against a cheating Bob can be completely broken by a cheating Alice. Whereas it is known that quantum protocols for this task cannot be completely secure, our result implies that security for one party implies complete insecurity for the other. Our findings stand in stark contrast to recent protocols for weak coin tossing and highlight the limits of cryptography within quantum mechanics. We remark that our conclusions remain valid, even if security is only required to be approximate and if the function that is computed for Bob is different from that of Alice.

We provide quantitative bounds on the characterization of multiparticle separable states by states that have locally symmetric extensions. The bounds are derived from two-particle bounds and relate to recent studies on quantum versions of de Finetti’s theorem. We discuss algorithmic applications of our results, in particular a quasipolynomial-time algorithm to decide whether a multiparticle quantum state is separable or entangled (for constant number of particles and constant error in the norm induced by one-way local operations and classical communication, or in the Frobenius norm). Our results provide a theoretical justification for the use of the search for symmetric extensions as a test for multiparticle entanglement.

Present measurements of $b\to c\tau \nu$ and $b\to u\tau \nu$ transitions differ from the standard model predictions of lepton flavor universality by almost $4\sigma$. We examine new physics interpretations of this anomaly. An effective field theory analysis shows that minimal flavor violating models are not preferred as an explanation, but are also not yet excluded. Allowing for general flavor violation, right-right vector and right-left scalar quark currents are identified as viable candidates. We discuss explicit examples of two Higgs doublet models, leptoquarks as well as quark and lepton compositeness. Finally, implications for LHC searches and future measurements at the (super-)$B$ factories are presented.

We investigate the transition to synchrony in a system of phase oscillators that are globally coupled with a phase lag (Sakaguchi-Kuramoto model). We show that for certain unimodal frequency distributions there appear unusual types of synchronization transitions, where synchrony can decay with increasing coupling, incoherence can regain stability for increasing coupling, or multistability between partially synchronized states and/or the incoherent state can appear. Our method is a bifurcation analysis based on a frequency dependent version of the Ott-Antonsen method and allows for a universal description of possible synchronization transition scenarios for any given distribution of natural frequencies.

We report the results of the recent high power testing of superconducting radio frequency photonic band gap (PBG) accelerator cells. Tests of the two single-cell 2.1 GHz cavities were performed at both 4 and 2 K. An accelerating gradient of $15\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$ and an unloaded quality factor $Q_0$ of $4\times {10}^9$ were achieved. It has been long realized that PBG structures have great potential in reducing long-range wakefields in accelerators. A PBG structure confines the fundamental ${\mathrm{TM}}_{01}$-like accelerating mode, but does not support higher order modes. Employing PBG cavities to filter out higher order modes in superconducting particle accelerators will allow suppression of dangerous beam instabilities caused by wakefields and thus operation at higher frequencies and significantly higher beam luminosities. This may lead towards a completely new generation of colliders for high energy physics and energy recovery linacs for the free-electron lasers.

Direct measurements of micro-, meso-, and macroscale transport phenomena in the FT-2 tokamak are shown to be quantitatively reproduced by global full $f$ nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation predictions. A detailed agreement with mean equilibrium $E\times B$ flows, oscillating fine-scale zonal flows, and turbulence spectra observed by a set of sophisticated microwave backscattering techniques as well as a good fit of the thermal diffusivity data are demonstrated. A clear influence of the impurity ions on the fluctuating radial electric field is observed.

We use x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy to investigate the structural relaxation process in a metallic glass on the atomic length scale. We report evidence for a dynamical crossover between the supercooled liquid phase and the metastable glassy state, suggesting different origins of the relaxation process across the transition. Furthermore, using different cooling rates, we observe a complex hierarchy of dynamic processes characterized by distinct aging regimes. Strong analogies with the aging dynamics of soft glassy materials, such as gels and concentrated colloidal suspensions, point at stress relaxation as a universal mechanism driving the relaxation dynamics of out-of-equilibrium systems.

We demonstrate by using density functional calculations that the $\mathrm{In}/\mathrm{Si}(111)\mathrm{\text{−}}\sqrt{7}\times \sqrt{3}$ surface consists of an In double layer, contrary to the prevailing idea that the In overlayer on this surface is just one atom thick and thus can be used to represent the ultimate 2D limit of metal overlayer properties. The double-layer In structure is sound energetically and microscopically and, above all, well reproduces the measured photoemission band structure that could not be fairly compared with any single-layer In model. The present double-layer model urges a reconsideration on the recent experimental claims that the In overlayer properties were pushed to a single-layer limit in this surface.

${\mathrm{Cs}}_3{\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ in the $A15$ structure is an antiferromagnet at ambient pressure in contrast with other superconducting trivalent fullerides. Superconductivity is recovered under pressure and reaches the highest critical temperature of the family. Comparing density-functional calculations with generalized gradient approximation to the hybrid functional of Heyd, Scuseria, and Ernzerhof, which includes a suitable component of exchange, we establish that the antiferromagnetic state of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_3{\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ is not due to a Slater mechanism, and it is stabilized by electron correlation. Pressure reduces the stability of the antiferromagnetic state. Our findings corroborate previous analyses suggesting that the properties of this compound can be understood as the result of the interplay between electron correlations and Jahn-Teller electron-phonon interaction.

We report about the magnetization dynamics of a ferromagnetic nickel film at room temperature excited by acoustic pulses generated with femtosecond laser pulses. The ultrafast change of magnetization is detected from both the front and back sides of the nickel film. The propagating strain associated with the acoustic pulses modifies the magnetic anisotropy and induces a precession of the magnetization. We model the time-dependent magnetoacoustic response of the metallic film by combining a three temperature model for the temperatures of the charges, the spins, and the lattice, the wave equation for the strain, and the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation for the magnetization. It is shown that the precession dynamics can be controlled by matching the precession period with the round trip time of the acoustic echoes. The calculation of the time-dependent precession torque $\tau =|M\times H_{\mathrm{eff}}|$ allows understanding the underlying physics.

We predict an unconventional spin-transfer torque (STT) acting on the magnetization of a free ferromagnetic (F) layer within N/TI/F vertical heterostructures, which originates from strong spin-orbit coupling on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator (TI), as well as from charge current becoming spin polarized in the direction of transport as it flows perpendicularly from the normal metal (N) across the bulk of the TI layer. The STT vector has both in-plane and perpendicular components that are comparable in magnitude to conventional torque in ${\mathrm{F}}^{\prime }/\mathrm{I}/\mathrm{F}$ (where I stands for insulator) magnetic tunnel junctions, while not requiring additional spin-polarizing ${\mathrm{F}}^{\prime }$ layer with fixed magnetization, which makes it advantageous for spintronics applications. Our principal formal result is a derivation of the nonequilibrium Green function-based formula and the corresponding gauge-invariant nonequilibrium density matrix, which makes it possible to analyze the components of the STT vector in the presence of arbitrary strong spin-orbit coupling either in the bulk or at the interface of the free F layer.

We investigated ultrafast carrier dynamics in graphene with near-infrared transient absorption measurement after intense half-cycle terahertz pulse excitation. The terahertz electric field efficiently drives the carriers, inducing large transparency in the near-infrared region. Theoretical calculations using the Boltzmann transport equation quantitatively reproduce the experimental findings. This good agreement suggests that the intense terahertz field should promote a remarkable impact ionization process and increase the carrier density.

We present a generally applicable parameter-free first-principles method to determine electronic spin relaxation times and apply it to the technologically important group-IV materials silicon, diamond, and graphite. We concentrate on the Elliott-Yafet mechanism, where spin relaxation is induced by momentum scattering off phonons and impurities. In silicon, we find a $\sim T^{-3}$ temperature dependence of the phonon-limited spin relaxation time $T_1$ and a value of 4.3 ns at room temperature, in agreement with experiments. For the phonon-dominated regime in diamond and graphite, we predict a stronger $\sim T^{-5}$ and $\sim T^{-4.5}$ dependence that limits $T_1$ (300 K) to 180 and 5.8 ns, respectively. A key aspect of this Letter is that the parameter-free nature of our approach provides a method to study the effect of any type of impurity or defect on spin transport. Furthermore we find that the spin-mix amplitude in silicon does not follow the $E_g^{-2}$ band gap dependence usually assigned to III-V semiconductors but follows a much weaker and opposite $E_g^{0.67}$ dependence. This dependence should be taken into account when constructing silicon spin transport models.

Helical spin textures with marked spin polarizations of topological surface states have been unveiled for the first time by state-of-the-art spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy for two promising topological insulators, ${\mathrm{Bi}}_2{\mathrm{Te}}_2\mathrm{Se}$ and ${\mathrm{Bi}}_2{\mathrm{Se}}_2\mathrm{Te}$. Their highly spin-polarized natures are found to be persistent across the Dirac point in both compounds. This novel finding paves a pathway to extending the utilization of topological surface states of these compounds for future spintronic applications.

We demonstrate the generation of light in an optical waveguide strongly coupled to a periodic array of metallic nanoantennas. This coupling gives rise to hybrid waveguide-plasmon polaritons (WPPs), which undergo a transmutation from plasmon to waveguide mode and vice versa as the eigenfrequency detuning of the bare states transits through zero. Near zero detuning, the structure is nearly transparent in the far-field but sustains strong local field enhancements inside the waveguide. Consequently, light-emitting WPPs are strongly enhanced at energies and in-plane momenta for which WPPs minimize light extinction. We elucidate the unusual properties of these polaritons through a classical model of coupled harmonic oscillators.

We demonstrate a total charge parity measurement by detecting the radio frequency signal that is reflected by a lumped-element resonator coupled to a single InAs nanowire double quantum dot. The high frequency response of the circuit is used to probe the effects of the Pauli exclusion principle at interdot charge transitions. Even parity charge transitions show a striking magnetic field dependence that is due to a singlet-triplet transition, while odd parity transitions are relatively insensitive to a magnetic field. The measured response agrees well with cavity input-output theory, allowing accurate measurements of the interdot tunnel coupling and the resonator-charge coupling rate $g_c/2\pi \sim 17\mathrm{MHz}$.

The electrical conductance of epitaxial Bi thin films grown on ${\mathrm{BaF}}_2(111)$ by molecular beam epitaxy has been systematically investigated as a function of both film thickness (4–540 nm) and temperature (5–300 K). Unlike bulk Bi as a prototypical semimetal, the Bi thin films up to 90 nm are found to be insulating in the interior but metallic on the surface. This finding not only has unambiguously resolved the long-standing controversy about the existence of the semimetal-semiconductor transition in Bi thin films but also provided a straightforward interpretation for the perplexing temperature dependence of the resistivity of Bi thin films, which in turn might have some potential applications in spintronics.