Dual-unitary circuits are being vigorously studied as models of many-body quantum chaos that can be solved exactly for correlation functions and time evolution of states. Here we study their classical counterparts defining dual-canonical transformations and associated dual-Koopman operators. Classical many-body systems constructed from these have the property, like their quantum counterparts, that the correlations vanish everywhere except on the light cone, on which they decay with rates governed by a simple contractive map. Providing a large class of such dual-canonical transformations, we study in detail the example of a coupled standard map and show analytically that arbitrarily away from the integrable case, in the thermodynamic limit the system is mixing. We also define “perfect” Koopman operators that lead to the correlation vanishing everywhere including on the light cone and provide an example of a cat-map lattice which would qualify to be a Bernoulli system at the apex of the ergodic hierarchy.

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) plays a major role in explaining thermalization of isolated quantum many-body systems. However, there has been no proof of the ETH in realistic systems due to the difficulty in the theoretical treatment of thermal energy eigenstates of nonintegrable systems. Here, we write down analytically thermal eigenstates of nonintegrable spin chains. We consider a class of theoretically tractable volume-law states, which we call entangled antipodal pair (EAP) states. These states are thermal, in the most fundamental sense that they are indistinguishable from the Gibbs state with respect to all local observables, with infinite temperature. We then identify Hamiltonians having the EAP state as an eigenstate and rigorously show that some of these Hamiltonians are nonintegrable. Furthermore, a thermal pure state at an arbitrary temperature is obtained by the imaginary time evolution of an EAP state. Our results offer a potential avenue for providing a provable example of the ETH.

Superconducting qubits are a promising platform for building fault-tolerant quantum computers, with recent achievement showing the suppression of logical error with increasing code size. However, leakage into noncomputational states, a common issue in practical quantum systems including superconducting circuits, introduces correlated errors that undermine quantum error correction (QEC) scalability. Here, we propose and demonstrate a leakage reduction scheme utilizing tunable couplers, a widely adopted ingredient in large-scale superconducting quantum processors. Leveraging the strong frequency tunability of the couplers and stray interaction between the couplers and readout resonators, we eliminate state leakage on the couplers, thus suppressing space-correlated errors caused by population propagation among the couplers. Assisted by the couplers, we further reduce leakage to higher qubit levels with high efficiency (98.1%) and low error rate on the computational subspace (0.58%), suppressing time-correlated errors during QEC cycles. The performance of our scheme demonstrates its potential as an indispensable building block for scalable QEC with superconducting qubits.

Several diatomic transition metal oxides, rare-earth metal oxides, and fluorides have the unusual property that their bond dissociation energy is larger than their ionization energy. In these molecules, bound levels above the ionization energy can be populated via strong, resonant transitions from the ground state. The only relevant decay channel of these levels is autoionization; predissociation is energetically not possible and radiative decay is many orders of magnitude slower. Starting from translationally cold neutral molecules, translationally cold molecular ions can thus be produced with very high efficiency. By populating bound levels just above the ionization energy, internally cold molecular ions, exclusively occupying the lowest rotational level, are produced. This is experimentally shown here for the dysprosium monoxide molecule DyO, for which the lowest bond dissociation energy is determined to be 0.0831(6) eV above the ionization energy.

Non-Gaussian states of light, such as Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill states, are essential resources for optical continuous-variable quantum computing. The ability to efficiently produce these states would open up tremendous prospects for quantum technologies in general and fault-tolerant quantum computing in particular. This letter demonstrates a versatile method using a quantum-memory cavity to mitigate the consequences of the probabilistic nature of the breeding protocols and generate non-Gaussian states at high rates with scalability perspectives. The performances of our experimental setup are illustrated with the generation of squeezed cat states of amplitude $\alpha =1.63$ with a fidelity of more than 60% at a generation rate in the kHz range, which is higher than the state of the art for such states.

Squeezed spin states and squeezed light are both key resources for quantum metrology and quantum information science, but have been separately investigated in experiments so far. Simultaneous generation of these two types of quantum states in one experiment setup is intriguing but remains a challenging goal. Here, we propose a novel protocol based on judiciously engineered symmetric atom-light interaction, and report proof-of-principle experimental results of concurrent spin squeezing of $0.61\pm 0.09\mathrm{dB}$ and light squeezing of ${0.65}_{-0.10}^{+0.11}\mathrm{dB}$ in a hot atomic ensemble. The squeezing process is deterministic, yielding fixed squeezing directions for both the light field and the collective atomic spin. Furthermore, the squeezed light modes lie in the multiple frequency sidebands of a single spatial mode. This new type of dual squeezed state is applicable for quantum enhanced metrology and quantum networks. Our method can be extended to other quantum platforms such as optomechanics, cold atoms, and trapped ions.

We demonstrate nonclassical correlations between phonons and photons created using opto-mechanical spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a system based on a soft-clamped ultracoherent membrane oscillator inside of a Fabry-Pérot optical resonator. Non-Gaussian quantum features are demonstrated for the center-of-mass motion of a submillimeter nanogram-scale mechanical oscillator. We show that phonons stored in the mechanical oscillator, when subsequently read out, display strong signs of quantum coherence, which we demonstrate by single-photon counting enabled by our state-of-the-art optical filtering system. We observe a violation of the classical two-time Cauchy-Schwarz inequality between a heralding write photon and a stored phonon with a confidence of $>92\%$.

Plasma-based acceleration has emerged as a highly promising candidate for future colliders and compact x-ray free electron lasers owing to its capability to efficiently accelerate electron and positron beams with high brightness over short distances. However, a major obstacle to its application in free electron lasers and colliders is the imposition of a substantial energy chirp on the output beams, resulting from the longitudinally dependent acceleration field. This Letter presents the first experimental demonstration of a beam energy dechirper using a hollow plasma channel. This novel approach simultaneously enables the mitigation of energy chirp and preservation of beam emittance. Experimental results demonstrate a substantial reduction in energy spread by nearly 1 order of magnitude (from 0.93% to 0.11% FWHM), while maintaining a negligible increase in emittance. Simulation suggests that the corrected energy spread may have been reduced to $\sim 10\mathrm{keV}$ (0.025%), thereby meeting the stringent requirement of colliders or x-ray free electron lasers.

We present the first purely theoretical calculation of the weak mixing angle in the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ scheme at low energies by combining results from lattice QCD with perturbation theory. We discuss its correlation with the hadronic contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and to the energy dependence of the electromagnetic coupling. We also compare the results with calculations using cross-section data as input. Implications for the standard model prediction of the mass of the $W$ boson are also discussed.

Magnetic excitations play a crucial role in understanding the color confinement of 4D Yang-Mills theory, and we have the monopole and the center vortex as plausible candidates to explain its mechanism. Under suitable compactified setups of 4D Yang-Mills theory, we can achieve different weakly coupled descriptions of confinement phenomena: The monopole mechanism takes place on ${\mathbb{R}}^3\times S^1$ with the double-trace deformation, and the center-vortex mechanism is effective on ${\mathbb{R}}^2\times T^2$ with the ’t Hooft flux. We unify these two semiclassical descriptions by showing the explicit relation between the monopole and center vortex.

The $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D_s^{+}{D}_{s1}(2536{)}^{-}$ and $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D_s^{+}{D}_{s2}^{*}(2573{)}^{-}$ processes are studied using data samples collected with the BESIII detector at center-of-mass energies from 4.530 to 4.946 GeV. The absolute branching fractions of $D_{s1}(2536{)}^{-}\to {\overline{D}}^{*0}{K}^{-}$ and $D_{s2}^{*}(2573{)}^{-}\to {\overline{D}}^0{K}^{-}$ are measured for the first time to be $(35.9\pm 4.8\pm 3.5)\%$ and $(37.4\pm 3.1\pm 4.6)\%$, respectively. The $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D_s^{+}{D}_{s1}(2536{)}^{-}$ and $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D_s^{+}{D}_{s2}^{*}(2573{)}^{-}$ cross sections are measured, and a resonant structure at around 4.6 GeV with a width of 50 MeV is observed in both processes with a statistical significance of $7.2\sigma$ and $15\sigma$, respectively. The state is observed for the first time in $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D_s^{+}{D}_{s2}^{*}(2573{)}^{-}$ and could be the $Y(4626)$ found by the Belle oration in the $D_s^{+}{D}_{s1}(2536{)}^{-}$ final state, since they have similar masses and widths. There is also evidence for a structure at around 4.75 GeV in both processes.

The hydrodynamic attractor is a concept that describes universal equilibration behavior in which systems lose microscopic details before hydrodynamics becomes applicable. We propose a setup to observe hydrodynamic attractors in ultracold atomic gases, taking advantage of the fact that driving the two-body $s$-wave scattering length causes phenomena equivalent to isotropic fluid expansions. We specifically consider two-component fermions with contact interactions in three dimensions and discuss their dynamics under a power-law drive of the scattering length in a uniform system. By explicit computation, we derive a hydrodynamic relaxation model. We analytically solve their dynamics and find the hydrodynamic attractor solution. Our proposed method using the scattering length drive is applicable to a wide range of ultracold atomic systems, and our results establish these as a new platform for exploring hydrodynamic attractors.

Quantum multicriticality not only has fundamental research significance but also can promote the development of emerging quantum technologies, owing to its rich phase transition mechanisms and quantum resources. While theoretical studies have predicted the multicritical phenomena in the light-matter systems, the experimental demonstration remains elusive for the challenges of achieving the system’s ground or steady states in strong coupling regimes. Here, by implementing the quantum adiabatic algorithm and the dissipative-system variational quantum algorithm on nuclear magnetic resonance quantum simulator, we successfully demonstrate the tricritical phenomena both in the closed and open systems described by the two-axis Rabi model. The experimental results clearly show that, beyond the decoherence effect, dissipation leads to the emergence of a novel multicritical phenomenon: it splits the first-order phase transition line of the closed Rabi model, and doubles the tricritical point. Our work provides a feasible technique for engineering the open quantum systems and opens a new avenue for exploring nonequilibrium many-body physics.

We investigated the film spreading during the evaporation of submillimeter oil-in-water emulsion droplets on a solid surface, and observed a novel phenomenon where the film follows a two-layer spreading. In combination with the instability at the film front, the spreading front acquires a flowerlike pattern. The emergence of the two-layer structure is attributed to micelles within the oil film that yield an oscillating disjoining pressure. By considering both the slipping condition and the disjoining pressure, a scaling analysis is carried out that agrees well with the observed film spreading dynamics. The film spreading follows Tanner’s law initially, while it becomes faster at a later stage, where the film radius follows $r\sim t^{1/2}$ for weak slip and $r\sim t^{3/8}$ for strong slip conditions.

Dreicer generation is one of the main mechanisms of runaway electron generation in weakly ionized plasmas. It is often described as a diffusive flow from the Maxwellian core into high energies under the effect of the electric field. In this Letter we demonstrate a critical role of the binary nature of inelastic collisions in weakly ionized plasma during tokamak startup, where some electrons experience virtually no collisions during acceleration to the critical energy. We show that using the Fokker-Planck collisional operator can underestimate the Dreicer generation rate by several orders of magnitude.

Multiple scattering of waves presents challenges for imaging complex media but offers potential for their characterization. Its onset is actually governed by the scattering mean free path ${\ell }_s$ that provides crucial information on the medium microarchitecture. Here, we introduce a reflection matrix method designed to estimate this parameter from the time decay of the single scattering rate. Our method is first validated by an ultrasound experiment on a tissue-mimicking phantom before being applied in vivo to a human liver. This Letter opens important perspectives for quantitative imaging of heterogeneous media with waves, whether it be for nondestructive testing, biomedical, or geophysical applications.