Quenched disorder affects how nonequilibrium systems respond to driving. In the context of artificial spin ice, an athermal system comprised of geometrically frustrated classical Ising spins with a twofold degenerate ground state, we give experimental and numerical evidence of how such disorder washes out edge effects and provide an estimate of disorder strength in the experimental system. We prove analytically that a sequence of applied fields with fixed amplitude is unable to drive the system to its ground state from a saturated state. These results should be relevant for other systems where disorder does not change the nature of the ground state.

Using resonant x-ray diffraction, we observe an easy $c$-axis collinear antiferromagnetic structure for the bilayer ${\mathrm{Sr}}_3{\mathrm{Ir}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$, a significant contrast to the single layer ${\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_4$ with in-plane canted moments. Based on a microscopic model Hamiltonian, we show that the observed spin-flop transition as a function of number of ${\mathrm{IrO}}_2$ layers is due to strong competition among intra- and interlayer bond-directional pseudodipolar interactions of the spin-orbit entangled $J_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ moments. With this we unravel the origin of anisotropic exchange interactions in a Mott insulator in the strong spin-orbit coupling regime, which holds the key to the various types of unconventional magnetism proposed in $5d$ transition metal oxides.

The Landau-Zener transition is a fundamental concept for dynamical quantum systems and has been studied in numerous fields of physics. Here, we present a classical mechanical model system exhibiting analogous behavior using two inversely tunable, strongly coupled modes of the same nanomechanical beam resonator. In the adiabatic limit, the anticrossing between the two modes is observed and the coupling strength extracted. Sweeping an initialized mode across the coupling region allows mapping of the progression from diabatic to adiabatic transitions as a function of the sweep rate.

In a variety of biological processes, eukaryotic cells use cilia to transport flow. Although cilia have a remarkably conserved internal molecular structure, experimental observations report very diverse kinematics. To address this diversity, we determine numerically the kinematics and energetics of the most efficient cilium. Specifically, we compute the time-periodic deformation of a wall-bound elastic filament leading to transport of a surrounding fluid at minimum energetic cost, where the cost is taken to be the positive work done by all internal molecular motors. The optimal kinematics are found to strongly depend on the cilium bending rigidity through a single dimensionless number, the Sperm number, and closely resemble the two-stroke ciliary beating pattern observed experimentally.

The fastest self-sustained chemical reactions in nature occur during detonation of energetic materials where reactions are thought to occur on nanosecond or longer time scales in carbon-containing materials. Here we perform the first atomistic simulation of an azide energetic material, ${\mathrm{HN}}_3$, from the beginning to the end of the chemical evolution and find that the time scale for complete decomposition is a mere 10 ps, orders of magnitude shorter than that of secondary explosives and approaching the fundamental limiting time scale for chemistry; i.e., vibrational time scale. We study several consequences of the short time scale including a state of vibrational disequilibrium induced by the fast transformations.

We report relaxation times ($\tau$) for surface capillary waves on 27–127 nm polystyrene (PS) top layers in bilayer films using x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. At $\sim 10°\mathrm{C}$ above the PS glass transition temperature ($T_g$), $\tau$ tracks with underlayer modulus, being significantly smaller on softer substrates at low in-plane scattering wave vector. Relative to capillary wave theory, we also report stiffening behavior upon nanoconfinement of the PS layers. At PS $T_g+40°\mathrm{C}$, both effects become negligible. We demonstrate how neighboring polymer domains impact dynamics over substantial length scales.

Atomic masses of the neutron-rich isotopes ${}^{121–128}\mathrm{Cd}$, ${}^{129,131}\mathrm{In}$, ${}^{130–135}\mathrm{Sn}$, ${}^{131–136}\mathrm{Sb}$, and ${}^{132–140}\mathrm{Te}$ have been measured with high precision (10 ppb) using the Penning-trap mass spectrometer JYFLTRAP. Among these, the masses of four $r$-process nuclei ${}^{135}\mathrm{Sn}$, ${}^{136}\mathrm{Sb}$, and ${}^{139,140}\mathrm{Te}$ were measured for the first time. An empirical neutron pairing gap expressed as the odd-even staggering of isotopic masses shows a strong quenching across $N=82$ for Sn, with a $Z$ dependence that is unexplainable by the current theoretical models.

We demonstrate electrically driven nonreciprocity on a silicon chip. By achieving an indirect interband photonic transition, we show that the transmission coefficients between two single-mode waveguides become dependent on the propagation directions only in the presence of the electrical drive. Our structure is characterized by a nonsymmetric scattering matrix identical to a linear magneto-optical device.

We investigate how generic the onset of chaos in interacting many-body classical systems is in the context of lattices of classical spins with nearest-neighbor anisotropic couplings. Seven large lattices in different spatial dimensions were considered. For each lattice, more than 2000 largest Lyapunov exponents for randomly sampled Hamiltonians were numerically computed. Our results strongly suggest the absence of integrable nearest-neighbor Hamiltonians for the infinite lattices except for the trivial Ising case. In the vicinity of the Ising case, the largest Lyapunov exponents exhibit a power-law growth, while further away they become rather weakly sensitive to the Hamiltonian anisotropy. We also provide an analytical derivation of these results.

Control of collective properties of relativistic particles is increasingly important in modern accelerators. In particular, shot noise affects accelerator performance by driving instabilities or by competing with coherent processes. We present experimental observations of shot noise suppression in a relativistic beam at the Linac Coherent Light Source. By adjusting the dispersive strength of a chicane, we observe a decrease in the optical transition radiation emitted from a downstream foil. We show agreement between the experimental results, theoretical models, and 3D particle simulations.

We present a measurement of the spectral index of density fluctuations between ion and electron scales in solar wind turbulence using the EFI instrument on the ARTEMIS spacecraft. The mean spectral index at 1 AU was found to be $-2.75\pm 0.06$, steeper than predictions for pure whistler or kinetic Alfvén wave turbulence but consistent with previous magnetic field measurements. The steep spectra are also consistent with expectations of increased intermittency or damping of some of the turbulent energy over this range of scales. Neither the spectral index nor the flattening of the density spectra before ion scales were found to depend on the proximity to the pressure anisotropy instability thresholds, suggesting that they are features inherent to the turbulent cascade.

We report a measurement of the electron temperature in a plasma generated by a high-intensity laser focused into a jet of neon. The 15 eV electron temperature is determined using an analytic solution of the plasma equations assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium, initially developed for ultracold neutral plasmas. We show that this analysis method accurately reproduces more sophisticated plasma simulations in our temperature and density range. While our plasma temperatures are far outside the typical “ultracold” regime, the ion temperature is determined by the plasma density through disorder-induced heating just as in ultracold neutral plasma experiments. Based on our results, we outline a pathway for achieving a strongly coupled neutral laser-produced plasma that even more closely resembles ultracold neutral plasma conditions.

We study the growth dynamics of ordered structures of strongly interacting polar molecules in optical lattices. Using a dipole blockade of microwave excitations, we map the system onto an interacting spin-$1/2$ model possessing ground states with crystalline order, and describe a way to prepare these states by nonadiabatically driving the transitions between molecular rotational levels. The proposed technique bypasses the need to cross a phase transition and allows for the creation of ordered domains of considerably larger size compared to approaches relying on adiabatic preparation.

Twisted zinc oxide nanowires and nanotubes were recently synthesized by screw-dislocation growth. We show theoretically that once their diameter increases above a critical size of the order of a few atomic spacings, the existence of these structures can be rationalized in terms of the energetics of surfaces and veritable Eshelby’s twist linear elasticity mechanics supplemented by a nonlinear core term. For Burgers vector larger than the minimum allowed one, a twisted nanotube with well-defined thickness, rather than a nanowire, is the most stable nanostructure. Results are assistive for designing ultrathin nanostructures made out of nonlayered materials.

Clarification of critical wetting with short-range forces by simulations has been hampered by the lack of accurate methods to locate where the transition occurs. We solve this problem by developing an anisotropic finite-size scaling approach and show that then the wetting transition is a “bulk” critical phenomenon with order parameter exponent equal to zero. For the Ising model in two dimensions, known exact results are straightforwardly reproduced. In three dimensions, it is shown that previous estimates for the location of the transition need revision, but the conclusions about a slow crossover away from mean-field behavior remain unaltered.

We report the first observation of cyclotron resonance in the hidden-order phase of ultraclean ${\mathrm{URu}}_2{\mathrm{Si}}_2$ crystals, which allows the full determination of angle-dependent electron-mass structure of the main Fermi-surface sheets. We find an anomalous splitting of the sharpest resonance line under in-plane magnetic-field rotation. This is most naturally explained by the domain formation, which breaks the fourfold rotational symmetry of the underlying tetragonal lattice. The results reveal the emergence of an in-plane mass anisotropy with hot spots along the [110] direction, which can account for the anisotropic in-plane magnetic susceptibility reported recently. This is consistent with the “nematic” Fermi liquid state, in which itinerant electrons have unidirectional correlations.

We calculate the exact Kohn-Sham potential that describes, within time-dependent density-functional theory, the propagation of an electron quasiparticle wave packet of nonzero crystal momentum added to a ground-state model semiconductor. The potential is observed to have a highly nonlocal functional dependence on the charge density, in both space and time, giving rise to features entirely lacking in local or adiabatic approximations. The dependence of the nonequilibrium part of the Kohn-Sham electric field on the local current and charge density is identified as a key element of the correct Kohn-Sham functional.

We present magnetization and magnetostriction studies of ${\mathrm{LaCoO}}_3$ in magnetic fields approaching 100 T. In contrast with expectations from single-ion models, the data reveal two distinct first-order transitions and well-defined magnetization plateaus. The magnetization at the higher plateau is only about half the saturation value expected for spin-1 ${\mathrm{Co}}^{3+}$ ions. These findings strongly suggest collective behavior induced by interactions between different electronic configurations of ${\mathrm{Co}}^{3+}$ ions. We propose a model that predicts crystalline spin textures and a cascade of four magnetic phase transitions at high fields, of which the first two account for the experimental data.

Motivated by the long-standing unresolved enigma of the relaxor ferroelectric ground state, we performed a high-resolution heat capacity and polarization study of the field-induced phase transition in the relaxor ferroelectric single crystal $\mathrm{Pb}({\mathrm{Mg}}_{1/3}{\mathrm{Nb}}_{2/3}){\mathrm{O}}_3$ (PMN) oriented along the [110] direction. We show that the discontinuous evolution of polarization as a function of the electric field or temperature is a consequence of a true first order transition from a glassy to ferroelectric state, which is accompanied by an excess heat capacity anomaly and released latent heat. We also find that in a zero field there is no ferroelectric phase transition in bulk PMN at any temperature, indicating that the nonergodic dipolar glass phase persists down to the lowest temperatures.

In a soft elastic film compressed on a stiff substrate, creases nucleate at preexisting defects and grow across the surface of the film like channels. Both nucleation and growth are resisted by the surface energy, which we demonstrate by studying creases for elastomers immersed in several environments—air, water, and an aqueous surfactant solution. Measurement of the position where crease channeling is arrested on a gradient thickness film provides a uniquely characterized strain that quantitatively reveals the influence of surface energy, unlike the strain for nucleation, which is highly variable due to the sensitivity to defects. We find that these experimental data agree well with the prediction of a scaling analysis.