The quantum battery capacity is introduced in this Letter as a figure of merit that expresses the potential of a quantum system to store and supply energy. It is defined as the difference between the highest and the lowest energy that can be reached by means of the unitary evolution of the system. This function is closely connected to the ergotropy, but it does not depend on the temporary level of energy of the system. The capacity of a quantum battery can be directly linked with the entropy of the battery state, as well as with measures of coherence and entanglement.

We show that double-copy maps for amplitudes in effective field theory are severely constrained at four points by self-consistency and locality at six points. The resulting double-copy kernel depends only on two parameters as well as a specific symmetric function in $s$, $t$, $u$ and interpolates between the original Kawai-Lewellen-Tye (KLT) string double copy and the open and closed string period integrals. Amplitudes double copied with this map must obey either the string monodromy relations or the field theory Kleiss-Kuijf (KK) and Bern, Carrasco, and Johansson (BCJ) relations; there are no other options. Our construction elucidates the “single-valued projection” property of the Riemann zeta-function values for the four-point string theory double copy.

In quantum field theory, the Dyson-Schwinger equations are an infinite set of coupled equations relating $n$-point Green’s functions in a self-consistent manner. They have found important applications in nonperturbative studies, ranging from quantum chromodynamics and hadron physics to strongly correlated electron systems. However, they are notoriously formidable to solve. One of the main obstacles is that a finite truncation of the infinite system is underdetermined. Recently, Bender et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 101602 (2023)] proposed to make use of the large-$n$ asymptotic behaviors and successfully obtained accurate results in $D=0$ spacetime. At higher $D$, it seems more difficult to deduce the large-$n$ behaviors. In this Letter, we propose another avenue in light of the null bootstrap. The underdetermined system is solved by imposing the null state condition. This approach can be extended to $D>0$ more readily. As concrete examples, we show that the cases of $D=0$ and $D=1$ indeed converge to the exact results for several Hermitian and non-Hermitian theories of the $g{\varphi }^n$ type, including the complex solutions.

The emergence of photonic quantum correlations is typically associated with emitters strongly coupled to a photonic mode. Here, we show that semiconductor Rydberg excitons, which are only weakly coupled to a free-space light mode can produce strongly antibunched fields, i.e., quantum light. This effect is fueled by a micron-scale excitation blockade between Rydberg excitons inducing pair-wise polariton scattering events. Photons incident on an exciton resonance are scattered into blue- and red-detuned pairs, which enjoy relative protection from absorption and thus dominate the transmitted light. We demonstrate that this effect persists in the presence of additional phonon coupling, strong nonradiative decay, and across a wide range of experimental parameters. Our results pave the way for the observation of quantum statistics from weakly coupled semiconductor excitons.

Viscous flows through pipes and channels are steady and ordered until, with increasing velocity, the laminar motion catastrophically breaks down and gives way to turbulence. How this apparently discontinuous change from low- to high-dimensional motion can be rationalized within the framework of the Navier-Stokes equations is not well understood. Exploiting geometrical properties of transitional channel flow we trace turbulence to far lower Reynolds numbers (Re) than previously possible and identify the complete path that reversibly links fully turbulent motion to an invariant solution. This precursor of turbulence destabilizes rapidly with Re, and the accompanying explosive increase in attractor dimension effectively marks the transition between deterministic and de facto stochastic dynamics.

The low-energy $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ band of ${\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_4$ bears stark resemblances with the $x^2-y^2$ band of ${\mathrm{La}}_2{\mathrm{CuO}}_4$, and yet no superconductivity has been found so far by doping ${\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_4$. Behind such a behavior could be inherent failures of the $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ picture, in particular when electrons or holes are introduced in the ${\mathrm{IrO}}_2$ planes. In view of this, here we reanalyze the $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ scenario. By using the local-density approximation plus dynamical mean-field theory approach, we show that the form of the effective $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ state is surprisingly stable upon doping. This supports the $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ picture. We show that, nevertheless, ${\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_4$ remains in essence a multiorbital system: The hybridization with the $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=3/2$ orbitals sizably reduces the Mott gap by enhancing orbital degeneracy, and part of the holes go into the $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=3/2$ channels. These effects cannot be reproduced by a simple effective screened Coulomb repulsion. In the optical conductivity spectra, multiorbital processes involving the $j_{\mathrm{eff}}=3/2$ states contribute both to the Drude peak and to relatively low-energy features.

New or enlarged symmetries can emerge at the low-energy spectrum of a Hamiltonian that does not possess the symmetries, if the symmetry breaking terms in the Hamiltonian are irrelevant under the renormalization group flow. We propose a tensor network based algorithm to numerically extract lattice operator approximation of the emergent conserved currents from the ground state of any quantum spin chains, without the necessity to have prior knowledge about its low-energy effective field theory. Our results for the spin-$1/2$ $J\text{−}Q$ Heisenberg chain and a one-dimensional version of the deconfined quantum critical points demonstrate the power of our method to obtain the emergent lattice Kac-Moody generators. It can also be viewed as a way to find the local integrals of motion of an integrable model and the local parent Hamiltonian of a critical gapless ground state.

Gaining control over the motion of active particles is crucial for applications ranging from targeted cargo delivery to nanomedicine. While much progress has been made recently to control active motion based on external forces, flows, or gradients in concentration or light intensity, which all have a well-defined direction or bias, little is known about how to steer active particles in situations where no permanent bias can be realized. Here, we show that ac fields with a vanishing time average provide an alternative route to steering active particles. We exemplify this route for inertial active particles in a gravitational field, observing that a substantial fraction of them persistently travels in the upward direction upon switching on the ac field, resulting in an inverted sedimentation profile at the top wall of a confining container. Our results offer a generic control principle that could be used in the future to steer active motion, direct collective behaviors, and purify mixtures.

We report on the experimental realization of a Kapitza trap for ultracold atoms. Using time-periodic attractive and repulsive Gaussian potentials, we create an effective trap for ultracold neutral atoms in a regime where the time average of the potential is equal to zero. We analyze the role of experimental imperfections, the stability of the trapped atomic cloud, and the magnitude of the effective potential. We find good agreement with the high-frequency expansion of the underlying system dynamics. Our experimental approach opens up new possibilities to study Floquet systems of neutral atoms.

Trapped atomic ion crystals are a leading platform for quantum simulations of spin systems, with programmable and long-range spin-spin interactions mediated by excitations of phonons in the crystal. We describe a complementary approach for quantum simulations of bosonic systems using phonons in trapped-ion crystals, here mediated by excitations of the trapped-ion spins. The scheme enables a high degree of programability across a dense graph of bosonic couplings, utilizing long-lived collective phonon modes in a trapped-ion chain. As such, it is well suited for tackling hard problems such as boson sampling and simulations of long-range bosonic and spin-boson Hamiltonians.

The many-body decay of extended collections of two-level systems remains an open problem. Here, we investigate whether an array of emitters coupled to a one-dimensional bath undergoes Dicke superradiance. This is a process whereby a completely inverted system becomes correlated via dissipation, leading to the release of all the energy in the form of a rapid photon burst. We derive the minimal conditions for the burst to happen as a function of the number of emitters, the chirality of the waveguide, and the single-emitter optical depth, both for ordered and disordered ensembles. Many-body superradiance occurs because the initial fluctuation that triggers the emission is amplified throughout the decay process. In one-dimensional baths, this avalanchelike behavior leads to a spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking, with large shot-to-shot fluctuations in the number of photons emitted to the left and right. Superradiant bursts may thus be a smoking gun for the generation of correlated photon states of exotic quantum statistics.

Efficient light-matter interaction at the single-photon level is of fundamental importance in emerging photonic quantum technology. A fundamental challenge is addressing multiple quantum emitters at once, as intrinsic inhomogeneities of solid-state platforms require individual tuning of each emitter. We present the realization of two semiconductor quantum dot emitters that are efficiently coupled to a photonic-crystal waveguide and individually controllable by applying a local electric Stark field. We present resonant transmission and fluorescence spectra in order to probe the coupling of the two emitters to the waveguide. We exploit the single-photon stream from one quantum dot to perform spectroscopy on the second quantum dot positioned $16\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$ away in the waveguide. Furthermore, power-dependent resonant transmission measurements reveal signatures of coherent coupling between the emitters. Our work provides a scalable route to realizing multiemitter collective coupling, which has inherently been missing for solid-state deterministic photon emitters.

In this Letter, we introduce the concept of dynamical degeneracy splitting to describe the anisotropic decay behaviors in non-Hermitian systems. We demonstrate that systems with dynamical degeneracy splitting exhibit two distinctive features: (i) the system shows frequency-resolved non-Hermitian skin effect; (ii) Green’s function exhibits anomalous behavior at given frequency, leading to uneven broadening in spectral function and anomalous scattering. As an application, we propose directional invisibility based on wave packet dynamics to investigate the geometry-dependent skin effect in higher dimensions. Our work elucidates a faithful correspondence between non-Hermitian skin effect and Green’s function, offering a guiding principle for exploration of novel physical phenomena emerging from this effect.

A realistic first-principle-based spin Hamiltonian is constructed for the type-II multiferroic ${\mathrm{NiI}}_2$, using a symmetry-adapted cluster expansion method. Besides single ion anisotropy and isotropic Heisenberg terms, this model further includes the Kitaev interaction and a biquadratic term, and can well reproduce striking features of the experimental helical ground state, that are, e.g., a proper screw state, canting of rotation plane, propagation direction, and period. Using this model to build a phase diagram, it is demonstrated that, (i) the in-plane propagation direction of $⟨1\overline{1}0⟩$ is determined by the Kitaev interaction, instead of the long-believed exchange frustrations and (ii) the canting of rotation plane is also dominantly determined by Kitaev interaction, rather than interlayer couplings. Furthermore, additional Monte Carlo simulations reveal three equivalent domains and different topological defects. Since the ferroelectricity is induced by spins in type-II multiferroics, our work also implies that Kitaev interaction is closely related to the multiferroicity of ${\mathrm{NiI}}_2$.

Neutral atoms are a promising platform for scalable quantum computing, however, prior demonstration of high fidelity gates or low-loss readout methods have employed restricted numbers of qubits. Using randomized benchmarking of microwave-driven single-qubit gates, we demonstrate average gate errors of $7(2)\times {10}^{-5}$ on a 225 site atom array using conventional, destructive readout. We further demonstrate a factor of 1.7 suppression of the primary measurement errors via low-loss, nondestructive, and state-selective readout on 49 sites while achieving gate errors of $2(9)\times {10}^{-4}$.