The internal energy of capacitive porous carbon electrodes was determined experimentally as a function of applied potential in aqueous salt solutions. Both the electrical work and produced heat were measured. The potential dependence of the internal energy is explained in terms of two contributions, namely the field energy of a dielectric layer of water molecules at the surface and the potential energy of ions in the pores. The average electric potential of the ions is deduced, and its dependence on the type of salt suggests that the hydration strength limits how closely ions can approach the surface.

We propose a universal gate set for quantum computing with all-to-all connectivity and intrinsic robustness to bit-flip errors based on parity encoding. We show that logical controlled phase gate and $R_z$ rotations can be implemented in parity encoding with single-qubit operations. Together with logical $R_x$ rotations, implemented via nearest-neighbor controlled-NOT gates and an $R_x$ rotation, these form a universal gate set. As the controlled phase gate requires only single-qubit rotations, the proposed scheme has advantages for several cornerstone quantum algorithms, e.g., the quantum Fourier transform. We present a method to switch between different encoding variants via partial on-the-fly encoding and decoding.

Time-efficient control schemes for manipulating quantum systems are of great importance in quantum technologies, where environmental forces rapidly degrade the quality of pure states over time. In this Letter, we formulate an approach to time-optimal control that circumvents the boundary-value problem that plagues the quantum brachistochrone equation at the expense of relaxing the form of the control Hamiltonian. In this setting, a coupled system of equations, one for the control Hamiltonian and another one for the duration of the protocol, realizes an ansatz-free approach to quantum control theory. We show how driven systems, in the form of a Landau-Zener type Hamiltonian, can be efficiently maneuvered to speed up a given state transformation in a highly adiabatic manner and with a low energy cost.

The crossover from quantum to semiclassical behavior in the seminal Rabi model of light-matter interaction still, surprisingly, lacks a complete and rigorous understanding. A formalism for deriving the semiclassical model directly from the quantum Hamiltonian is developed here. Working in a displaced Fock-state basis $|\alpha ,n⟩$, the semiclassical limit is obtained by taking $|\alpha |\to \infty$ and the coupling to zero. This resolves the discrepancy between coherent-state dynamics and semiclassical Rabi oscillations in both standard and ultrastrong coupling and driving regimes. Furthermore, it provides a framework for studying the quantum-to-semiclassical transition, with potential applications in quantum technologies.

We consider passive imaging tasks involving discrimination between known candidate objects and investigate the best possible accuracy with which the correct object can be identified. We analytically compute quantum-limited error bounds for hypothesis tests on any library of incoherent, quasimonochromatic objects when the imaging system is dominated by optical diffraction. We further show that object-independent linear-optical spatial processing of the collected light exactly achieves these ultimate error rates, exhibiting scaling superior to spatially resolved direct imaging as the scene becomes more severely diffraction limited. We apply our results to example imaging scenarios and find conditions under which superresolution object discrimination can be physically realized.

We present the first measurement of dihadron angular correlations in electron-nucleus scattering. The data were taken with the CLAS detector and a 5.0 GeV electron beam incident on deuterium, carbon, iron, and lead targets. Relative to deuterium, the nuclear yields of charged-pion pairs show a strong suppression for azimuthally opposite pairs, no suppression for azimuthally nearby pairs, and an enhancement of pairs with large invariant mass. These effects grow with increased nuclear size. The data are qualitatively described by the gibuu model, which suggests that hadrons form near the nuclear surface and undergo multiple scattering in nuclei.These results show that angular correlation studies can open a new way to elucidate how hadrons form and interact inside nuclei.

Anisotropic strain is an external field capable of selectively addressing the role of nematic fluctuations in promoting superconductivity. We demonstrate this using polarization-resolved elasto-Raman scattering by probing the evolution of nematic fluctuations under strain in the normal and superconducting state of the paradigmatic iron-based superconductor $\mathrm{Ba}({\mathrm{Fe}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{Co}}_x{)}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$. In the parent compound ${\mathrm{BaFe}}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$ we observe a strain-induced suppression of the nematic susceptibility which follows the expected behavior of an Ising order parameter under a symmetry breaking field. For the superconducting compound, the suppression of the nematic susceptibility correlates with the decrease of the critical temperature $T_c$, indicating a significant contribution of nematic fluctuations to electron pairing. Our results validate theoretical scenarios of enhanced $T_c$ near a nematic quantum critical point.

The number of atomic layers confined in a two-dimensional structure is crucial for the electronic and magnetic properties. Single-layer and bilayer $J_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ square lattices are well-known examples where the presence of the extra layer turns the $XY$ anisotropy to the $c$-axis anisotropy. We report on experimental realization of a hybrid ${\mathrm{SrIrO}}_3/{\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$ superlattice that integrates monolayer and bilayer square lattices in one layered structure. By synchrotron x-ray diffraction, resonant x-ray magnetic scattering, magnetization, and resistivity measurements, we found that the hybrid superlattice exhibits properties that are distinct from both the single-layer and bilayer systems and cannot be explained by a simple addition of them. In particular, the entire hybrid superlattice orders simultaneously through a single antiferromagnetic transition at temperatures similar to the bilayer system but with all the $J_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/2$ moments mainly pointing in the $ab$ plane similar to the single-layer system. The results show that bringing monolayer and bilayer with orthogonal properties in proximity to each other in a hybrid superlattice structure is a powerful way to stabilize a unique state not obtainable in a uniform structure.

We report the control of Rashba spin-orbit interaction by tuning asymmetric hybridization between Ti orbitals at the ${\mathrm{LaAlO}}_3/{\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$ interface. This asymmetric orbital hybridization is modulated by introducing a ${\mathrm{LaFeO}}_3$ layer between ${\mathrm{LaAlO}}_3$ and ${\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$, which alters the Ti-O lattice polarization and traps interfacial charge carriers, resulting in a large Rashba spin-orbit effect at the interface in the absence of an external bias. This observation is verified through high-resolution electron microscopy, magnetotransport and first-principles calculations. Our results open hitherto unexplored avenues of controlling Rashba interaction to design next-generation spin orbitronics.

Under the influence of oscillatory shear, a monolayer of frictional granular disks exhibits two dynamical phase transitions: a transition from an initially disordered state to an ordered crystalline state and a dynamic active-absorbing phase transition. Although there is no reason a priori for these to be at the same critical point, they are. The transitions may also be characterized by the disk trajectories, which are nontrivial loops breaking time-reversal invariance.

We show both numerically and analytically that a chemically patterned active pore can act as a micro- or nanopump for fluids, even if it is fore-aft symmetric. This is possible due to a spontaneous symmetry breaking which occurs when advection rather than diffusion is the dominant mechanism of solute transport. We further demonstrate that, for pumping and tuning the flow rate, a combination of geometrical and chemical inhomogeneities is required. For certain parameter values, the flow is unsteady, and persistent oscillations with a tunable frequency appear. Finally, we find that the flow exhibits convection rolls and hence promotes mixing in the low Reynolds number regime.

We present a minimal non-Hermitian model where a topologically nontrivial complex energy spectrum is induced by interparticle interactions. Our model consists of a one-dimensional chain with a dynamical non-Hermitian gauge field with density dependence. The model is topologically trivial for a single-particle system, but exhibits nontrivial non-Hermitian topology with a point gap when two or more particles are present in the system. We construct an effective doublon model to describe the nontrivial topology in the presence of two particles, which quantitatively agrees with the full interacting model. Our model can be realized by modulating hoppings of the Hatano-Nelson model; we provide a concrete Floquet protocol to realize the model in atomic and optical settings.

In the absence of quantum repeaters, quantum communication proved to be nearly impossible across optical fibers longer than $\gtrsim 20\mathrm{km}$ due to the drop of transmissivity below the critical threshold of $1/2$. However, if the signals fed into the fiber are separated by a sufficiently short time interval, memory effects must be taken into account. In this Letter, we show that by properly accounting for these effects it is possible to devise schemes that enable unassisted quantum communication across arbitrarily long optical fibers at a fixed positive qubit transmission rate. We also demonstrate how to achieve entanglement-assisted communication over arbitrarily long distances at a rate of the same order of the maximum achievable in the unassisted noiseless case.

We suggest a novel resolution for a decades old mystery—what happens when a positron scatters off a minimal grand-unification-theory monopole in an s wave, a puzzle first discussed by Callan in 1983. Using the language of on shell amplitudes and pairwise helicity we suggest that the final state contains two up quarks and a down quark in an entangled “pairwise” multiparticle state—the only particle final state that satisfies angular momentum and gauge charge conservation. The cross section for this process is as large as in the original Rubakov-Callan effect, only suppressed by the QCD scale. The final state we find cannot be seen in Callan’s truncated 2D theory, since our new pairwise state appears only in more than two dimensions.

Molecules have long been known to align in moderately intense, far off-resonance laser fields with a large variety of applications in physics and optics. We illustrate and describe the physical origin of a previously unexplored phenomenon in the adiabatic alignment dynamics of molecules, which is fundamentally interesting and also has an important practical implication. Specifically, the intensity dependence of the degree of adiabatic alignment exhibits a threshold behavior, below which molecules are isotropically distributed rotationally and above which the alignment rapidly reaches a plateau. Furthermore, we show that both the intensity and the temperature dependencies of the alignment of all linear molecules exhibit universal curves and derive analytical forms to describe these dependencies. Finally, we illustrate that the alignment threshold occurs very generally at a lower intensity than the off-resonance ionization threshold, a numerical observation that is readily illustrated analytically. The threshold behavior is attributed to a tunneling mechanism that rapidly switches off at the threshold intensity, where tunneling between the potential wells corresponding to the two orientations of the aligned molecules becomes impossible. The universal threshold behavior of molecular alignment is a simple phenomenon, but one that was not realized before and can be readily tested experimentally.