Cosmological correlators encode invaluable information about the wave function of the primordial Universe. In this Letter we present a duality between correlators and wave function coefficients that is valid to all orders in the loop expansion and manifests itself as a ${\mathbb{Z}}_4$ symmetry. To demonstrate the power of the duality, we derive a correlator-to-correlator factorization formula for the parity-odd part of cosmological correlators that relates $n$-point observables to lower-point ones via a series of diagrammatic cuts. These relations serve as the first example of physically testable cutting rules as they involve observables defined for arbitrary physical kinematics. We further show how the duality allows us to translate the cosmological optical theorem for wave function coefficients into statements about cosmological correlators.

We study thermodynamic phase transitions between integrable and chaotic dynamics. We do so by analyzing models that interpolate between the chaotic double scaled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) and the integrable $p$-spin systems, in a limit where they are described by chord diagrams. We develop a path integral formalism by coarse graining over the diagrams, which we use to argue that the system has two distinct phases: one is continuously connected to the chaotic system, and the other to the integrable. They are separated by a line of first order transition that ends at some finite temperature.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment is a dual-phase xenon time project chamber operating in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, USA. We report on the results of a relativistic extension to the nonrelativistic effective field theory (NREFT) from a 5.5 t fiducial mass and 60 live days of exposure. We present constraints on couplings from covariant interactions arising from the coupling of vector, axial currents, and electric dipole moments of the nucleon to the magnetic and electric dipole moments of the weakly interacting massive particle which cannot be described by recasting previous results described by an NREFT. Using a profile-likelihood ratio analysis, in an energy region between $0{\mathrm{keV}}_{\mathrm{nr}}$ to $270{\mathrm{keV}}_{\mathrm{nr}}$, we report 90% confidence level exclusion limits on the coupling strength of five interactions in both the isoscalar and isovector bases.

The electronic bridge (EB) excitation of nuclei has been found as a versatile approach to efficiently excite the ${}^{229}\mathrm{Th}$ isomers. Previous studies on EB excitation have typically disregarded the hyperfine structure as well as the decay of the excited atoms and ions by just treating the nucleus-electron coupling perturbatively. In the present work, we apply a quantum-optical approach to nonperturbatively investigate EB excitation of ${}^{229}{\mathrm{Th}}^{3+}$ ions. This approach considers both the hyperfine structure and atomic decay through dressed hyperfine state and quantum master equation techniques. Numerical results show that the isomeric steady-state population of the time-independent scheme is constrained by atomic decay to a maximum of only 27.9%. By leveraging the dark state, however, the (time-dependent) stimulated Raman adiabatic passage method theoretically reaches a remarkable 99.7% isomeric population transfer and demonstrates a potential nuclear-laser scheme via the EB mechanism. Our quantum-optical approach exhibits a large flexibility and paves a promising avenue for utilizing advanced quantum-control technologies to design and optimize experimental schemes of EB excitation.

We investigate the properties of the photon Bose-Einstein condensate in the limit of small mode spacing. Alongside the well-known threshold of the phase transition at large mode spacings, we find an emergence of a second threshold for sufficiently small mode spacings, defining the crossover to a fully condensed state. Furthermore, we present our findings for the mode occupations in the precondensate or supercooling region towards the continuum limit.

We investigate the effect of a mirror-symmetry plane in multiple-scattering media under plane-wave illumination along the symmetry plane. Designed and fabricated samples’ optical transport properties are compared quantitatively with three-dimensional modeling. Strong polarization-dependent deviations of the bulk speckle-averaged intensity distribution at the symmetry plane are observed, showing either up to a factor 2 enhancement or complete suppression of the ensemble-averaged intensities. We derive analytical expressions for the ensemble-averaged intensity profiles near the symmetry plane. Apart from their interest to fundamental light propagation studies, applications of mirror-symmetric scattering media are envisioned in anticounterfeiting.

Disorder is ubiquitous in real materials and can have dramatic effects on quantum phase transitions. Originating from the disorder enhanced quantum fluctuation, quantum Griffiths singularity (QGS) has been revealed as a universal phenomenon in quantum criticality of low-dimensional superconductors. However, due to the weak fluctuation effect, QGS is very challenging to detect experimentally in three-dimensional (3D) superconducting systems. Here we report the discovery of QGS associated with the quantum phase transition from 3D superconductor to Anderson critical insulator in a spinel oxide ${\mathrm{MgTi}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_4$ (MTO). Under both perpendicular and parallel magnetic field, the dynamical critical exponent diverges when approaching the quantum critical point, demonstrating the existence of 3D QGS. Among 3D superconductors, MTO shows a relatively strong fluctuation effect featured as a wide superconducting transition region. The enhanced fluctuation, which may arise from the mobility edge of Anderson localization, finally leads to the occurrence of 3D quantum phase transition and QGS. Our findings offer a new perspective to understand quantum phase transitions in strongly disordered 3D systems.

We study the Josephson effect in a superconductor-altermagnet-superconductor junction. We find anomalous phenomena, including $0\text{−}\pi$ transition and multinodal current-phase relations. Similar to a $d$-wave superconductor, a $d$-wave altermagnet can support a $\phi$ junction where free-energy minima locate neither $\phi =0$ nor $\pm \pi$ with double degeneracy. These properties can be tunable by parameters, e.g., the exchange energy, the orientation of crystal axis, the length, and the chemical doping of the altermagnet. These rich features lead to accessible functionality of superconductor-altermagnet-superconductor junctions.

External coherent fields can drive quantum materials into nonequilibrium states, revealing exotic properties that are unattainable under equilibrium conditions—an approach known as “Floquet engineering.” While optical lasers have commonly been used as the driving fields, recent advancements have introduced nontraditional sources, such as coherent phonon drives. Building on this progress, we demonstrate that driving a metallic quantum nanowire with a coherent wave of terahertz phonons can induce an electronic steady state characterized by a persistent quantized current along the wire. The quantization of the current is achieved due to the coupling of electrons to the nanowire’s vibrational modes, providing the low-temperature heat bath and energy relaxation mechanisms. Our findings underscore the potential of using nonoptical drives, such as coherent phonon sources, to induce nonequilibrium phenomena in materials. Furthermore, our approach suggests a new method for the high-precision detection of coherent phonon oscillations via transport measurements.

The discovery of quantum spin Hall effect characterized by the first spin-Chern numbers in 2D systems has significantly advanced topological materials. To explore its 4D counterpart is of fundamental importance, but so far remains elusive in experiments. Here, we realize a topological phononic fiber protected by the second spin-Chern number in a 4D manifold, using a 3D geometric structure combined with a 1D rotational parameter space. We experimentally observe spin-momentum-locked core states traveling along a vortex line where the Dirac mass varies continuously. A novel higher-order face-centered bound state is further demonstrated. These findings underscore the interplay between higher-dimensional topological physics and defects, opening up a topological path for fibers.

Time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is the key technique to probe the real-time nonequilibrium dynamics of electronic states. Theoretical predictions of the time dependent spectral function for realistic systems is however, a challenge. Employing the Kadanoff-Baym equations to find this quantity results in a cubic scaling in the total number of time steps, quickly becoming prohibitive and often fail quantitatively and even qualitatively. In comparison, mean-field methods have more favorable numerical scaling both in the number of time steps and in the complexity associated with the cost of evolving for a single time step, however they miss key spectral properties such as emergent spectral features. Here we present a scheme that allows for the inclusion of dynamical correlations to the spectral function while maintaining the same scaling in the number of time steps as for mean-field approaches, while capturing the emergent physics. Further, the scheme can be efficiently implemented on top of equilibrium real-time many-body perturbation theory schemes and codes. We see excellent agreement with exact results for test systems. Furthermore, we exemplify the method on a periodic system and demonstrate clear evidence that our proposed scheme produces complex spectral features including excitonic band replicas, features that are not observed using static mean-field approaches.

Capturing the intricate dynamics of partially coherent patterns in coupled oscillator systems is vibrant and one of the crucial areas of nonlinear sciences. Considering higher-order Fourier modes in the coupling, we discover a novel type of clustered coherent state in phase models, where inside the coherent region oscillators are further split into $q$ dynamically equivalent subgroups with a $2\pi /q$ phase difference between two neighboring subgroups, forming a multicoherent-phase (MUP) chimera state. Both a self-consistency analysis and the Ott-Antonsen dimension reduction techniques are used to theoretically derive these solutions, whose stability are further demonstrated by spectral analysis. The universality of MUP effects is demonstrated by generalized twisted states and higher-order spatial swarm chimera states of swarmalators which are beyond pure phase models since oscillators can move in space.

The Wigner function formalism has played a pivotal role in examining the nonclassical aspects of quantum states and their classical simulatability. Nevertheless, its application in qubit systems faces limitations due to negativity induced by Clifford gates. In this Letter, we propose a novel classical simulation method for qubit Clifford circuits based on the framed Wigner function, an extended form of the Wigner function with an additional phase degree of freedom. In our framework, Clifford gates do not induce negativity by switching to a suitable frame; thereby, a wide class of nonstabilizer states can be represented positively. By leveraging this technique, we show that some marginal outcomes of Clifford circuits with nonstabilizer state inputs can be efficiently sampled at polynomial time and memory costs. We develop a graph-theoretical approach to identify classically simulatable marginal outcomes and apply it to log-depth random Clifford circuits. We also present the outcome probability estimation scheme using the framed Wigner function and discuss its precision. Our approach opens new avenues for utilizing quasiprobabilities to explore classically simulatable quantum circuits.

The recent Dark Energy Survey Year 1 (DES-Y1) analysis of galaxy cluster abundances and weak lensing produced ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{m}}$ and ${\sigma }_8$ constraints in $5.6\sigma$ tension with those derived from Planck. It is suggested in that work that this tension is driven by unmodeled systematics in optical cluster selection. We present a novel simulation-based forward modeling framework that explicitly incorporates cluster selection into its model predictions. Applying this framework to the DES-Y1 data we find consistency with Planck, possibly resolving the tension found in the DES-Y1 analysis. An extension of this approach to the final DES data set will produce robust constraints on $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ parameters and correspondingly strong tests of cosmological models.

Slow first-order phase transitions generate large inhomogeneities that can lead to the formation of primordial black holes. We show that the gravitational wave spectrum then consists of a primary component sourced by bubble collisions and a secondary one induced by large perturbations. The latter gives the dominant peak if $\beta /H_0<12$, impacting, in particular, the interpretation of the recent pulsar timing array data. The gravitational wave signal associated with a particular primordial black hole population is stronger than in typical scenarios because of a negative non-Gaussianity of the perturbations, and it has a distinguishable shape with two peaks.

The first model-independent sensitivity to $CPT$ violation in the top-quark sector is extracted from ATLAS and CMS measurements of the top and antitop kinematical mass difference. We find that the temporal component of a $CPT$-violating background field interacting with the top-quark vector current is restricted within the interval $[-0.13,0.29]\mathrm{GeV}$ at 95% confidence level.

Cold ions in traps are well-established, highly controllable systems with a wide variety of applications in quantum science, precision spectroscopy, clocks, and chemistry. Nanomechanical oscillators are used in advanced sensing applications and for exploring the border between classical and quantum physics. Here, we report on the implementation of a hybrid system combining a metallic nanowire with laser-cooled ions in a miniaturized ion trap. Operating the experiment in the classical regime, we demonstrate resonant and off-resonant coupling of the two systems and the coherent motional excitation of the ion by the mechanical drive of the nanowire. The present results prove the feasibility of mechanically coupling ions to nanooscillators and open up avenues for mechanically manipulating the motion of trapped ions as well as for the development of ion-mechanical hybrid quantum systems.