Altermagnetism and fully compensated ferrimagnetism are distinct classes of zero-net-magnetization order that combine antiferromagnetic compensation with ferromagneticlike spin splitting. In altermagnets, spin splitting arises from crystal symmetry and alternates in momentum space, whereas in compensated ferrimagnets it originates from band-filling constraints and remains uniform across the Brillouin zone. A controllable pathway connecting these regimes has remained elusive. Here we show that chemical symmetry breaking provides a general mechanism to interconvert these two orders. Using symmetry analysis, tight-binding theory, and first-principles calculations, we identify the Cairo-pentagonal lattice as a platform that generically hosts altermagnetic order and demonstrate its conversion to a fully compensated ferrimagnetic state via site-selective functionalization that lifts sublattice symmetry without inducing net magnetization. This transition removes symmetry-enforced momentum-space sign reversal of spin splitting, leading to enhanced anomalous Hall response and the emergence of magneto-optical Kerr effects. Our results establish a material route for interconverting zero-magnetization orders and identify chemically programmable two-dimensional metal–organic frameworks as a versatile platform for symmetry-controlled spintronic functionalities.

We address a central open question in driven topological matter by investigating the nonequilibrium response of a two-dimensional magnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions subjected to a periodically oscillating magnetic field. Using extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we uncover a dynamically reentrant skyrmion phase that emerges within a finite window of field amplitudes and bias fields, sandwiched between the conventional skyrmion and polarized ferromagnetic phases. This phase has no equilibrium counterpart and originates from an imbalance between skyrmion creation and annihilation over a single field cycle, leading to a reversal of the period-averaged topological charge. We show that the reentrant phase exists only in the dynamic response regime where the system can follow the drive, and is suppressed at higher driving frequencies. Our results establish periodic driving as a nonequilibrium control parameter for stabilizing and reversing skyrmion topology.

We describe a geometric phenomenon in which a traveling wave made of degenerate Goldstone modes leaves behind a transformed ground state. In a triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet, a pulse of circularly polarized spin waves rotates the spins within their plane. An exact solution of the nonlinear equations of motion demonstrates that the accumulated rotation is a geometric phase related to parallel transport of the order parameter. We point out a curious analogy between the motion of the magnetic order parameter and that of a wobbling coin. This phenomenon opens a new route for controlling antiferromagnetic order by spin waves and may extend to other frustrated magnets as well as other physical systems with noncommuting broken-symmetry generators.

Multiferroic oxides, which host coexisting ferroelectric and magnetic orders, are central to understanding correlated quantum phenomena. Yet, as thickness approaches the two-dimensional (2D) limit, both ferroelectricity and magnetism are generally expected to be strongly suppressed by depolarization fields and finite-size effects, respectively. Here, we show that hexagonal ${\mathrm{LuFeO}}_3$ ($h\text{−}{\mathrm{LuFeO}}_3$) retains multiferroic behavior down to a thickness of only one and a half unit cells. The polar structural distortion remains robust at room temperature and is comparable to that of the bulk, while robust magnetic order persists at low temperatures. We further find that the magnetic response can be reproducibly modulated through ferroelectric domain-state control. Structural analysis indicates that the $K_3$ distortion remains stable down to the two-dimensional limit, providing the basis for the survival of improper ferroelectricity in this regime. These results establish $h\text{−}{\mathrm{LuFeO}}_3$ as an oxide platform in which ferroelectricity and magnetic order coexist at the atomic-scale limit, and provide insight into how coupled ferroic behavior can persist in ultrathin complex oxides.

We report a quantum energy truncation terahertz coherence tomography technique that enables highly localized extraction of molecular-species-specific THz responses. The method exploits resonant photon loss when the emitter THz energy matches molecular vibration quanta. Reflected THz radiation is recorded and mapped into depth-coded image sequences, from which subsurface structural information and molecular fingerprints are retrieved to construct three-dimensional tomograms. This approach resolves major limitations of conventional continuous-wave (CW) THz imaging—namely, its lack of spectroscopic specificity and dependence on angular scanning—by directly correlating molecular excitation spectra with depth information. As a result, quantum energy truncation terahertz coherence tomography enables rapid, three-dimensional THz imaging with selective sensitivity to discrete molecular quantum energy transitions, providing new opportunities for nondestructive characterization of material refractive indices, molecular composition, and subsurface structures.

We study mean-field Ising models in which the coupling depends on the magnetization via a feedback function. We identify mixed phases (MPs) and show that they can be stable at zero temperature for sufficiently strong feedback. Moreover, stable MPs are always superstable, meaning that perturbations decay linearly in time. Feedback Ising models (FIMs) provide a useful framework for phase transformations between aligned phases via stable and unstable intermediate phases in multistable systems. We also analyze the dynamical behavior of FIMs driven by a varying magnetic field and discuss basic properties of finite-dimensional FIMs.

The second-order phase transitions in the Ising model and liquid-gas systems share a universality class and critical exponents, despite the absence of $Z_2$ symmetry in the liquid-gas Hamiltonian. This discrepancy highlights a central puzzle in critical phenomena: what is the influence of asymmetry on scaling laws? For over a century, this question has been explored through examining violations of the empirical “rectilinear diameter law” for the subcritical coexistence curve, where asymmetry could generate singular corrections. Here, we extend this investigation to the supercritical regime. We propose a supercritical-subcritical correspondence, drawing a formal analogy between the subcritical coexistence curve and recently defined supercritical boundary lines ($L^{\pm }$ lines). Our theory predicts that the linear mixing of physical fields—a hallmark of asymmetric systems—produces universal scaling corrections, with antisymmetric coefficients, in these supercritical loci. We verify these predictions using liquid-gas data from the NIST database and a model liquid-liquid transition. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the same asymmetric scaling framework governs the behavior of higher-order cumulants in the order parameter distribution.

Controlling bond breaking is a long-standing goal in molecular physics. Infrared nanocavities are currently being developed for reaching exotic coupling regimes of cavity QED with a few molecules, but it is not well understood how chemical reactions would proceed in such systems. We study infrared laser photodissociation of a single molecule that strongly interacts with a resonant infrared vacuum, subject to a strong laser field that either resonantly drives the molecule or injects photons into the cavity. We show that the intensities required for photodissociation are significantly lower inside the cavity than in free space. By directly injecting photons into the cavity, the molecule dissociates with 2 orders of magnitude less laser energy than by directly driving the vibrational mode. This photodissociation enhancement is a purely quantum mechanical effect that cannot be captured semiclassically. Our Letter provides fundamental mechanistic understanding of chemical dynamics that can be used for designing new types of nanophotonics experiments that probe single-molecule chemistry.

Time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) is a standard approach for calculating optical excitations of molecules and solids, while ensemble DFT (EDFT) is a promising alternative under development. We introduce ensemble TDDFT (ETDDFT), a practical theory that combines the two, generalizing both; we ensemble generalize the Gross-Kohn equation and the exchange-correlation kernel of TDDFT, and generalize EDFT to time-dependent problems. We relate coordinate scaling to the adiabatic connection. The new theory provides multiple avenues for constructing and using approximations. We illustrate these on the two-site Hubbard model. We connect our results to the more general case of nonperturbative time dependence.

Crumpled Mylar sheets exhibit logarithmic relaxation under both force and displacement-controlled conditions. We perform cyclic relaxation experiments and reveal a continuous family of force-displacement curves that evolve toward equilibrium, bounded by instantaneous and fully relaxed limits. By generalizing the Amir-Oreg-Imry model to include nonlinear elasticity, we predict and experimentally confirm an intrinsic asymmetry in the relaxation response: while force relaxes independently of fluctuations in the elastic response, displacement relaxation inherits its temporal evolution from them. This asymmetry implies that, regardless of the imposed boundary condition, relaxation in crumpled sheets occurs solely via a spectrum of force-relaxation modes.

Free probability provides a framework for describing correlations between noncommuting observables in complex quantum systems whose Hilbert-space states follow maximum-entropy distributions. We examine the robustness of this framework under a minimal deviation from freeness: the coupling of a single ancilla qubit to a Haar-distributed quantum circuit of dimension $D_0\gg 1$. We find that, even in this setting, the correlation functions predicted by free probability theory receive corrections of order $\mathcal{O}(1)$. These modifications persist at long times, when the dynamics of the coupled system is already ergodic. We trace their origin to nonuniformly distributed stationary quantum states, which we characterize analytically and confirm numerically.

We study the scattering of two boson stars by comparing four sequences (at fixed energy and varying impact parameter) of numerical relativity simulations to an effective-one-body analytic description, taking into account both gravitational effects (point-mass and tidal) and short-range scalar-field interactions. We obtain excellent agreement between analytical and numerical results, exhibiting the importance of short-range scalar-field interactions for small impact parameters. Our Letter paves the way toward analytic waveform templates of exotic compact object binaries.

We compute the complete potential-graviton contributions to the conservative radial action and scattering angle for two nonspinning bodies in general relativity, accurate through fifth order in Newton’s constant and including second-order self-force effects. The calculation is carried out in the scattering-amplitude framework, combining the double-copy, effective field theory, and multiloop integration techniques based on integration by parts and differential equations. To address a major computational bottleneck, we develop improved integration-by-parts algorithms that render calculations at this order tractable. The post-Minkowskian amplitude is presented as a series expansion, following the strategy used earlier in maximal supergravity. For the first self-force sector, which involves only polylogarithmic functions, we also provide a closed-form analytic expression. For the second self-force sector, as in earlier supergravity work, we find nontrivial cancellations among contributions related to integrals supported on Calabi-Yau geometry.

A combination of measurements of the $CP$ properties of Higgs boson interactions with electroweak gauge bosons is presented, using $140{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$ recorded by the ATLAS detector. Results from vector boson fusion $H\to \tau \tau /W{W}^{*}/\gamma \gamma$, inclusive $H\to Z{Z}^{*}$, and $WH,H\to b\overline{b}$ channels are combined. No evidence of $CP$ violation is observed, and constrains on the $CP$-violating operators in the Standard Model effective field theory framework (SMEFT) are set in the Warsaw basis. The results from the combination improve by over 40% on previous individual limits on $c_{H\tilde{W}}$ and, for the first time, simultaneous constraints on three coefficients $c_{H\tilde{W}}$, $c_{H\tilde{B}}$, and $c_{H\tilde{W}B}$ are set. These limits are the most stringent constraints to date on the relevant Wilson coefficients in the SMEFT framework with minimum model dependence.

The production of a top-quark pair, the heaviest known elementary particle, in association with a light jet is a key process for studying the properties of the standard model of particle physics. Due to its significance as a signal process with considerable sensitivity to the top-quark mass and as a background process for new physics searches, it is crucial to predict differential cross sections with high precision. In this Letter, we present, for the first time, predictions for various kinematical observables at next-to-next-to-leading order in quantum chromodynamics. The perturbative behavior is analyzed, and uncertainties arising from missing higher-order contributions are substantially reduced. The necessary two-loop amplitudes have been evaluated in the leading-color approximation, and we provide estimates for the impact of the missing contributions.

Recent models of the rapid proton ($rp$) capture process indicate that a competition between the ${}^{59}\mathrm{Cu}(p,\gamma ){}^{60}\mathrm{Zn}$ and ${}^{59}\mathrm{Cu}(p,\alpha ){}^{56}\mathrm{Ni}$ reactions may result in the formation of a nickel-copper (NiCu) cycle that traps the flux of material between ${}^{56}\mathrm{Ni}$ and ${}^{60}\mathrm{Zn}$. Here, we report the identification of 15 proton-unbound levels in ${}^{60}\mathrm{Zn}$, populated via ${}^{59}\mathrm{Cu}(d,n)$ transfer, which govern the rate of the ${}^{59}\mathrm{Cu}(p,\gamma ){}^{60}\mathrm{Zn}$ reaction in XRBs. Precise excitation energies for levels in ${}^{60}\mathrm{Zn}$ were obtained from observed $\gamma$ decays, and spectroscopic factors were determined from angle-integrated cross sections. Incorporating these results into stellar-model calculations, we find that with experimentally constrained uncertainties a NiCu cycle in XRBs is indeed possible, though we limit its branching strength to less than 38%. While modest, such a branching has significant impact on the light curve, motivating further studies of the relevant rates. Our calculations also indicate that a significant NiCu cycle leads to an increase in the amount of odd-$A$ nuclei in the burst ashes, which may affect Urca cooling processes in neutron star crusts.

We present a novel method for accurately measuring the absolute electric quadrupole moments of light transition elements $(23\le Z\le 30)$. Our approach is based on performing precision muonic x-ray spectroscopy of the $2s-2p$ manifold, which is also referred to as the Lamb shift. These transitions are too weak to be detected with dispersive methods and too overlapping to be resolved by solid-state detectors. Here, we propose the use of cryogenic microcalorimeters, which possess high efficiency and excellent energy resolution in the relevant energy regime, coupled with state-of-the-art theoretical calculations. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach by performing extensive calculations and realistic simulations. In this way, we establish that the uncertainty in the absolute moment, which is transferred to the quadrupole moments of all isotopes in the chain, could be reduced by up to an order of magnitude within a day of measurement. These precise reference quadrupole moments serve as valuable inputs for nuclear structure studies and for benchmarking state-of-the-art quantum chemistry calculations in open-shell elements.

The observation of filamentary x-ray structures near bow-shock pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe)—such as the Guitar, Lighthouse, and PSR $\mathrm{J}2030+4415$ nebulae—and of slow-diffusion regions around pulsars like Geminga, Monogem, and PSR $\mathrm{J}0622+3749$, challenges the standard picture of cosmic-ray transport in the interstellar medium, implying a diffusion coefficient 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the Galactic average. The suppressed diffusion can be attributed to self-generated magnetic turbulence driven, via the nonresonant streaming instability, by electron-positron pairs escaping the PWNe. This instability requires a net current, yet the beam of escaping pairs is expected to be charge neutral. We show that a charge-neutral pair beam propagating through an electron-proton plasma can spontaneously generate a net current. Using fully kinetic two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations with realistic mass ratios, we find that beam electrons get focused into self-generated magnetic filaments produced by the nonlinear evolution of the Weibel instability, while beam positrons remain unconfined. We show that in three-dimensional simulations, the resulting net (positron) current drives the nonresonant streaming instability, further amplifying the magnetic field. This mechanism provides a pathway for the onset of charge asymmetries in initially charge-neutral pair beams and for the growth of magnetic fluctuations that efficiently scatter the beam particles, with implications for the formation of x-ray filaments and, potentially, for particle self-confinement in TeV halos around PWNe.