We study the elastocapillary interaction between flexible microfibers in contact with bubbles trapped at the surface of a liquid bath. Microfibers placed on top of bubbles are found to migrate to and wrap into a coil around the perimeter of the bubble for certain bubble-fiber size combinations. The wrapping process is spontaneous: the coil spins atop the bubble, thereby drawing in excess fiber floating on the bath. A two-dimensional microfiber coil emerges which increases the lifetime of the bubbles. A simple model incorporating surface and bending energies captures the spontaneous winding process.

We propose a quantum enhanced interferometric protocol for gravimetry and force sensing using cold atoms in an optical lattice supported by a standing-wave cavity. By loading the atoms in partially delocalized Wannier-Stark states, it is possible to cancel the undesirable inhomogeneities arising from the mismatch between the lattice and cavity fields and to generate spin squeezed states via a uniform one-axis twisting model. The quantum enhanced sensitivity of the states is combined with the subsequent application of a compound pulse sequence that allows us to separate atoms by several lattice sites. This, together with the capability to load small atomic clouds in the lattice at micrometric distances from a surface, make our setup ideal for sensing short-range forces. We show that for arrays of ${10}^4$ atoms, our protocol can reduce the required averaging time by a factor of 10 compared to unentangled lattice-based interferometers after accounting for primary sources of decoherence.

High-order harmonic generation (HHG) in solids was expected to be efficient due to their high density. However, the strict transition laws in crystals restrict the number of HHG channels. Quasicrystals with fractal band structures could solve this problem and produce multichannel HHG emissions, which has been rarely studied. We simulate the Fibonacci quasicrystal (FQ) HHG for the first time and investigate the electron dynamics on the attosecond timescale. Our results reveal that (i) the acceleration theorem is approximately applicable in FQ, which provides us a valuable tool to analyze the electron trajectories. (ii) Fractal bands lead to more excitation channels, analogous to the forbidden nonvertical electron transitions in crystals. (iii) The broken symmetry results in more frequent backscattering of electrons. (iv) Compared with crystals, multichannel HHG in FQ has a higher yield and wider spectral range. Our results pave the way to understand and control the HHG in quasicrystals and shed light on a potential shorter and stronger attosecond light source based on compact solids.

We report a three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI) formed by stacking identical layers of Chern insulators in a hybrid real-synthetic space. By introducing staggered interlayer hopping that respects mirror symmetry, the bulk bands possess an additional ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ topological invariant along the stacking dimension, which, together with the nontrivial Chern numbers, endows the system with a $\mathbb{Z}\times {\mathbb{Z}}_2$ topology. A 4-tuple topological index characterizes the system’s bulk bands. Consequently, two distinct types of topological surface modes (TSMs) are found localized on different surfaces. Type-I TSMs are gapless and are protected by Chern numbers, whereas type-II gapped TSMs are protected by ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ bulk polarization in the stacking direction. Remarkably, each type-II TSM band is also topologically nontrivial, giving rise to second-order topological hinge modes (THMs). Both types of TSMs and the THMs are experimentally observed in an elastic metacrystal.

Hydrodynamic interactions between fluid-dispersed particles are ubiquitous in soft matter and biological systems and they give rise to intriguing collective phenomena. While it was reported that these interactions can facilitate force-driven particle motion over energetic barriers, here we show the opposite effect in a flow-driven system, i.e., that hydrodynamic interactions hinder transport across barriers. We demonstrate this result by combining experiments and theory. In the experiments, we drive colloidal particles using rotating optical traps, thus creating a vortex flow in the corotating reference frame. We observe a jamminglike decrease of particle currents with density for large barriers between traps. The theoretical model shows that this jamming arises from hydrodynamic interactions between the particles. The impact of hydrodynamic interactions is reversed compared to force-driven motion, suggesting that our findings are a generic feature of flow-driven transport.

The study of the magnonic thermal Hall effect in magnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) has recently drawn attention because of the underlying topology. Topological phase transitions may arise when there exist two or more distinct topological phases, and they are often revealed by a gap-closing phenomenon. In this work, we consider the magnons in honeycomb ferromagnets described by a Heisenberg Hamiltonian containing both an out-of-plane DMI and a Zeeman interaction. We demonstrate that the magnonic system exhibits temperature (or magnetic field) driven topological phase transitions due to magnon-magnon interactions. Specifically, when the temperature increases, the magnonic energy gap at Dirac points closes and reopens at a critical temperature, $T_c$. By showing that the Chern numbers of the magnonic bands are distinct above and below $T_c$, we confirm that the gap-closing phenomenon is indeed a signature for the topological phase transitions. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that the thermal Hall conductivity in the magnonic system exhibits a sign reversal at $T_c$, which can serve as an experimental probe of its topological nature. Our theory predicts that in ${\mathrm{CrI}}_3$ such a phenomenon exists and is experimentally accessible.

A complex interplay of different energy scales involving Coulomb repulsion, spin-orbit coupling, and Hund’s coupling energy in 2D van der Waals (vdW) material produces a novel emerging physical state. For instance, ferromagnetism in vdW charge transfer insulator ${\mathrm{CrGeTe}}_3$ provides a promising platform to simultaneously manipulate the magnetic and electrical properties for potential device implementation using few nanometers thick materials. Here, we show a continuous tuning of magnetic and electrical properties of a ${\mathrm{CrGeTe}}_3$ single crystal using pressure. With application of pressure, ${\mathrm{CrGeTe}}_3$ transforms from a ferromagnetic insulator with Curie temperature $T_C\sim 66\mathrm{K}$ at ambient condition to a correlated 2D Fermi metal with $T_C$ exceeding $\sim 250\mathrm{K}$. Notably, absence of an accompanying structural distortion across the insulator-metal transition (IMT) suggests that the pressure induced modification of electronic ground states is driven by electronic correlation furnishing a rare example of bandwidth-controlled IMT in a vdW material.

A key question in evolution is how likely a mutant is to take over. This depends on natural selection and on stochastic fluctuations. Population spatial structure can impact mutant fixation probabilities. We introduce a model for structured populations on graphs that generalizes previous ones by making migrations independent of birth and death. We demonstrate that by tuning migration asymmetry, the star graph transitions from amplifying to suppressing natural selection. The results from our model are universal in the sense that they do not hinge on a modeling choice of microscopic dynamics or update rules. Instead, they depend on migration asymmetry, which can be experimentally tuned and measured.

We show that long-distance quantum correlations probe short-distance physics. Two disjoint regions of the latticized, massless scalar field vacuum are numerically demonstrated to become separable at distances beyond the negativity sphere, which extends to infinity in the continuum limit. The size of this quantum coherent volume is determined by the highest momentum mode supported in the identical regions, each of diameter $d$. More generally, effective field theories (EFTs), describing a system up to a given momentum scale $\mathrm{\Lambda }$, are expected to share this feature—entanglement between regions of the vacuum depends upon the UV completion beyond a separation proportional to $\mathrm{\Lambda }$. Through calculations extended to three dimensions, the magnitude of the negativity at which entanglement becomes sensitive to UV physics in an EFT (lattice or otherwise) is conjectured to scale as $\sim e^{-\mathrm{\Lambda }d}$, independent of the number of spatial dimensions. It is concluded that two-region vacuum entanglement at increasing separations depends upon the structure of the theory at increasing momentum scales. This phenomenon may be manifest in perturbative QCD processes.

We propose a procedure to determine the moduli-space integrands of loop-level superstring amplitudes for massless external states in terms of the field theory limit. We focus on the type II superstring. The procedure is to (i) take a supergravity loop integrand written in a BCJ double-copy representation, (ii) use the loop-level scattering equations to translate that integrand into the ambitwistor string moduli-space integrand, localised on the nodal Riemann sphere, and (iii) uplift that formula to one on the higher-genus surface valid for the superstring, guided by modular invariance. We show how this works for the four-point amplitude at two loops, where we reproduce the known answer, and at three loops, where we present a conjecture that is consistent with a previous proposal for the chiral measure. Useful supergravity results are currently known up to five loops.

We report a measurement of the radiative lifetime of the ${}^2{F}_{7/2}$ level of ${}^{171}{\mathrm{Yb}}^{+}$ that is coupled to the ${}^2{S}_{1/2}$ ground state via an electric octupole transition. The radiative lifetime is determined to be $4.98(25)\times {10}^7\mathrm{s}$, corresponding to 1.58(8) yr. The result reduces the relative uncertainty in this exceptionally long excited state lifetime by 1 order of magnitude with respect to previous experimental estimates. Our method is based on the coherent excitation of the corresponding transition and avoids limitations through competing decay processes. The explicit dependence on the laser intensity is eliminated by simultaneously measuring the resonant Rabi frequency and the induced quadratic Stark shift. Combining the result with information on the dynamic differential polarizability permits a calculation of the transition matrix element to infer the radiative lifetime.

When a diatomic molecule is exposed to intense light, the valence electron may tunnel from a higher potential (corresponding to an upfield atom) due to the suppressed internuclear barrier. This process is known as ionization enhancement and is a key mechanism in strong field ionization of molecules. Alternatively, the bound electron wave function can evolve adiabatically in the laser field, resulting in ionization from the downfield atom. Here, we introduce a method to quantify the relative contribution of these two processes. Applying this method to experimentally measured electron momenta distributions following strong field ionization of $N_2$ with infrared laser light, we find approximately a $2:1$ ratio of electrons ionized from a downfield atom, relative to upfield. This suggests that the bound state wave function largely adapts adiabatically to the changing laser field, although the nonadiabatic process of ionization enhancement still contributes even in neutral molecules. Our method can be applied to any diatomic neutral molecule to better understand the evolution of the initially bound electron wave packet and hence the nature of the molecular ionization process.

In order for non-Hermitian (NH) topological effects to be relevant for practical applications, it is necessary to study disordered systems. Without disorder, a class of driven-dissipative cavity arrays displays directional amplification when associated with a nontrivial winding number of the NH dynamic matrix. In this work, we show analytically that the correspondence between NH topology and directional amplification holds also in the presence of disorder. We first show that a NH topological phase is preserved as long as the size of the point gap, i.e., the minimum distance of the disorderless complex spectrum from the origin, is larger than the maximum amount of disorder; the disorder is assumed to be bounded but otherwise general, i.e., complex and both local (on-site disorder) and nonlocal (disordered couplings). We then derive analytic bounds for the probability distribution of the scattering matrix elements, which show that the key features of nontrivial NH topology, namely, that the end-to-end forward (reverse) gain grows (is suppressed) exponentially with system size, are preserved in disordered systems. Our results prove that NH topology in cavity arrays is robust against disorder.

Unlike crystals, glasses age or devitrify over time, reflecting their nonequilibrium nature. This lack of stability is a serious issue in many industrial applications. Here, we show by numerical simulations that the devitrification of quasi-hard-sphere glasses is prevented by suppressing volume-fraction inhomogeneities. A monodisperse glass known to devitrify with “avalanchelike” intermittent dynamics is subjected to small iterative adjustments to particle sizes to make the local volume fractions spatially uniform. We find that this entirely prevents structural relaxation and devitrification over aging time scales, even in the presence of crystallites. There is a dramatic homogenization in the number of load-bearing nearest neighbors each particle has, indicating that ultrastable glasses may be formed via “mechanical homogenization.” Our finding provides a physical principle for glass stabilization and opens a novel route to the formation of mechanically stabilized glasses.

The ageing dynamics in a multiplicity of metastable glasses are investigated at various thermomechanical conditions. By using data analytics to deconvolute the integral effects of environmental factors (e.g., energy level, temperature, stress), and by directly scrutinizing the minimum energy pathways for local excitations, we demonstrate external shear would make the system’s energy landscape surprisingly fractal and create an emergent low-barrier mode with highly tortuous pathways, leading to an accelerated relaxation. This finding marks a departure from the classic picture of shear-induced simple bias of energy landscape. The insights and implications of this study are also discussed.

We investigated the superconducting properties of the topological superconductor $\alpha \text{−}{\mathrm{PdBi}}_2$ at ambient and external pressures up to 1.77 GPa using muon spin rotation experiments. The ambient pressure measurements evince a fully gapped $s$-wave superconducting state in the bulk of the specimen. Alternating current magnetic susceptibility and muon spin rotation measurements manifest a continuous suppression of $T_c$ with increasing pressure. In parallel, we observed a significant decrease of superfluid density by $\sim 20\%$ upon application of external pressure. Remarkably, the superfluid density follows a linear relation with $T_c$, which was found before in some unconventional topological superconductors and hole-doped cuprates. This finding signals a possible crossover from Bose-Einstein to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer like condensation in $\alpha \text{−}{\mathrm{PdBi}}_2$.

We introduce the adiabatic quantum Monte Carlo (AQMC) method, where we gradually crank up the interaction strength, as an amelioration of the sign problem. It is motivated by the adiabatic theorem and will approach the true ground state if the evolution time is long enough. We demonstrate that the AQMC algorithm enhances the average sign exponentially such that low enough temperatures can be accessed and ground-state properties probed. It is a controlled approximation that satisfies the variational theorem and provides an upper bound for the ground-state energy. We first benchmark the AQMC algorithm vis-à-vis the undoped Hubbard model on the square lattice which is known to be sign-problem-free within the conventional quantum Monte Carlo formalism. Next, we test the AQMC algorithm against the density-matrix-renormalization-group approach for the doped four-leg ladder Hubbard model and demonstrate its remarkable accuracy. As a nontrivial example, we apply our method to the Hubbard model at $p=1/8$ doping for a $16\times 8$ system and discuss its ground-state properties. We finally utilize our method and demonstrate the emergence of $U(1{)}_2\sim SU(2{)}_1$ topological order in a strongly correlated Chern insulator.

A three-dimensional singular point that consists of two oppositely aligned emergent monopoles is identified in continuous CoTb thin films, as confirmed by complementary techniques of resonant elastic x-ray scattering, Lorentz transmission electron microscopy, and scanning transmission x-ray microscopy. This new type of topological defect can be regarded as a superposition of an emergent magnetic monopole and an antimonopole, around which the source and drain of the magnetic flux overlap in space. We experimentally prove that the observed spin twist seen in Lorentz transmission electron microscopy reveals the cross section of the superimposed three-dimensional structure, providing a straightforward strategy for the observation of magnetic singularities. Such a quasiparticle provides an excellent platform for studying the rich physics of emergent electromagnetism.