We study the efficiency fluctuations of a stochastic heat engine made of $N$ interacting unicyclic machines and undergoing a phase transition in the macroscopic limit. Depending on $N$ and on the observation time, the machine can explore its whole phase space or not. This affects the engine efficiency that either strongly fluctuates on a large interval of equiprobable efficiencies (ergodic case) or fluctuates close to several most likely values (nonergodic case). We also provide a proof that despite the phase transition, the decay rate of the efficiency distribution at the reversible efficiency remains largest one although other efficiencies can now decay equally fast.

We experimentally study resonant light scattering by a one-dimensional randomly filled chain of cold two-level atoms. By a local measurement of the light scattered along the chain, we observe constructive interferences in light-induced dipole-dipole interactions between the atoms. They lead to a shift of the collective resonance despite the average interatomic distance being larger than the wavelength of the light. This result demonstrates that strong collective effects can be enhanced by structuring the geometrical arrangement of the ensemble. We also explore the high intensity regime where atoms cannot be described classically. We compare our measurement to a mean-field, nonlinear coupled-dipole model accounting for the saturation of the response of a single atom.

We perform fully kinetic simulations of flows known to produce dynamo in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), considering scenarios with low Reynolds number and high magnetic Prandtl number, relevant for galaxy cluster scale fluctuation dynamos. We find that Landau damping on the electrons leads to a rapid decay of magnetic perturbations, impeding the dynamo. This collisionless damping process operates on spatial scales where electrons are nonmagnetized, reducing the range of scales where the magnetic field grows in high magnetic Prandtl number fluctuation dynamos. When electrons are not magnetized down to the resistive scale, the magnetic energy spectrum is expected to be limited by the scale corresponding to magnetic Landau damping or, if smaller, the electron gyroradius scale, instead of the resistive scale. In simulations we thus observe decaying magnetic fields where resistive MHD would predict a dynamo.

The counterintuitive phenomenon of pressure-induced softening in materials is likely to be caused by the same dynamical behavior that produces negative thermal expansion. Through a combination of molecular dynamics simulation on an idealized model and neutron diffraction at variable temperature and pressure, we show the existence of extraordinary and unprecedented pressure-induced softening in the negative thermal expansion material scandium fluoride ${\mathrm{ScF}}_3$. The pressure derivative of the bulk modulus $B$, $B^{\prime }=(\partial B/\partial P{)}_{P=0}$, reaches values as low as $-220\pm 30$ at 50 K, and is constant at $-50$ between 150 and 250 K.

A radically different approach for separation of molecular mixtures is proposed. A judicious combination of levitation effect observed in zeolites with a counter intuitive Landauer blow torch effect provides driving forces for the two components of the mixture to move in opposite directions. Using nonequilibrium Monte Carlo simulations, we illustrate the efficacy of the method for separating real mixtures of both linear $n$-pentane and its branched isomer, neopentane, and linear $n$-hexane and its branched isomer, 2,2-dimethylbutane. The method yields several orders of magnitude improvement in separation factor and relative energy efficiency by using submicron zeolite column. The extremely high purity of the resulting single components makes the method best suited for green chemistry.

When a volatile droplet is deposited on a floating swellable sheet, it becomes asymmetric, lobed and mobile. We describe and quantify this phenomena that involves nonequilibrium swelling, evaporation and motion, working together to realize a self-excitable spatially extended oscillator. Solvent penetration causes the film to swell locally and eventually buckle, changing its shape and the drop responds by moving. Simultaneously, solvent evaporation from the swollen film causes it to regain its shape once the droplet has moved away. The process repeats and leads to complex pulsatile spinning and/or sliding movements. We use a one-dimensional experiment to highlight the slow swelling of and evaporation from the film and the fast motion of the drop, a characteristic of excitable systems. Finally, we provide a phase diagram for droplet excitability as a function of drop size and film thickness and scaling laws for the motion of the droplet.

The nonequilibrium steady state of the one-dimensional (1D) Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class has been studied in-depth by exact solutions, yet no direct experimental evidence of its characteristic statistical properties has been reported so far. This is arguably because, for an infinitely large system, infinitely long time is needed to reach such a stationary state and also to converge to the predicted universal behavior. Here we circumvent this problem in the experimental system of growing liquid-crystal turbulence, by generating an initial condition that possesses a long-range property expected for the KPZ stationary state. The resulting interface fluctuations clearly show characteristic properties of the 1D stationary KPZ interfaces, including the convergence to the Baik-Rains distribution. We also identify finite-time corrections to the KPZ scaling laws, which turn out to play a major role in the direct test of the stationary KPZ interfaces. This paves the way to explore unsolved properties of the stationary KPZ interfaces experimentally, making possible connections to nonlinear fluctuating hydrodynamics and quantum spin chains as recent studies unveiled relation to the stationary KPZ.

We present a simple mechanism for generating a Higgs quartic in composite Higgs models without a corresponding quadratic term. This quartic term will originate from a Higgs dependent kinetic mixing between additional fermionic states. The mechanism can be naturally embedded to models with maximal symmetry as well as twin Higgs models. The resulting twin Higgs models will have a fully natural realistic Higgs potential, where the quartic mechanism will serve as the only source for the $Z_2$ breaking, while the top and gauge sectors can remain exactly $Z_2$ invariant.

According to the familiar Breit-Wigner formula, tunneling through a potential barrier is strongly enhanced when the energy of the projectile is equal to the resonance energy. Here we show how a weak continuous wave laser can qualitatively change the character of resonance tunneling, and enforce a sudden and total suppression of the transmission by inducing an exceptional point (EP, special non-Hermitian degeneracy). Our findings are relevant not only for laser control of transmission in the resonance tunneling diodes, but also in the context of electron scattering through any type of metastable (e.g., autoionization, Auger, intermolecular Coulombic decay) atomic or molecular states, and even in the case of transmission of light or sound waves in active systems with gain and loss.

We experimentally realized Floquet topological photonic insulators using a square lattice of direct-coupled octagonal resonators. Unlike previously reported topological insulator systems based on microring lattices, the nontrivial topological behaviors of our system arise directly from the periodic evolution of light around each octagon to emulate a periodically driven system. By exploiting asynchronism in the evanescent coupling between adjacent octagonal resonators, we could achieve strong and asymmetric couplings in each unit cell, which are necessary for realizing anomalous Floquet insulator behaviors. Direct imaging of scattered light from fabricated samples confirmed the existence of chiral edge states as predicted by the topological phase map of the lattice. In addition, by exploiting the frequency dispersion of the coupling coefficients, we could also observe topological phase changes of the lattice from a normal insulator to Chern and Floquet insulators. Our lattice thus provides a versatile nanophotonic system for investigating 2D Floquet topological insulators.

We characterize a process of energy extraction via rectification of strongly turbulent flow by using tools of stochastic thermodynamics. We study the dynamics of an asymmetric autonomous rotor that shows biased direction of rotation when placed in a stream. We give experimental evidence that a fluctuation theorem can be used to describe the work injected in the rotor via its coupling with the turbulent flow structure. This approach allows to measure the mean power extracted from the chaotic fluid motion over a broad range of turbulent kinetic energy. A nontrivial dependence of the rotor power on flow kinetic energy is identified. This observation is described by a model taking into account the dissipation of the rotor energy and the temporal memory of coherent structures present in the turbulent flow.

A familiar problem in space and astrophysical plasmas is to understand how dissipation and heating occurs. These effects are often attributed to the cascade of broadband turbulence which transports energy from large scale reservoirs to small scale kinetic degrees of freedom. When collisions are infrequent, local thermodynamic equilibrium is not established. In this case the final stage of energy conversion becomes more complex than in the fluid case, and both pressure-dilatation and pressure strain interactions ($\mathrm{Pi}\text{−}\mathrm{D}\equiv -{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{ij}{D}_{ij}$) become relevant and potentially important. Pi-D in plasma turbulence has been studied so far primarily using simulations. The present study provides a statistical analysis of Pi-D in the Earth’s magnetosheath using the unique measurement capabilities of the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. We find that the statistics of Pi-D in this naturally occurring plasma environment exhibit strong resemblance to previously established fully kinetic simulations results. The conversion of energy is concentrated in space and occurs near intense current sheets, but not within them. This supports recent suggestions that the chain of energy transfer channels involves regional, rather than pointwise, correlations.

In the presence of attraction, the jamming transition of packings of frictionless particles corresponds to the rigidity percolation. When the range of attraction is long, the distribution of the size of rigid clusters, $P(s)$, is continuous and shows a power-law decay. For systems with short-range attractions, however, $P(s)$ appears discontinuous. There is a power-law decay for small cluster sizes, followed by a low probability gap and a peak near the system size. We find that this appearing “discontinuity” does not mean that the transition is discontinuous. In fact, it signifies the coexistence of two distinct length scales, associated with the largest cluster and smaller ones, respectively. The comparison between the largest and second largest clusters indicates that their growth rates with system size are rather different. However, both cluster sizes tend to diverge in the large system size limit, suggesting that the jamming transition of systems with short-range attractions is still continuous. In the framework of the two-scale scenario, we also derive a generalized hyperscaling relation. With robust evidence, our work challenges the former single-scale view of the rigidity percolation.

Enhanced Coulomb interactions in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides cause tightly bound electron-hole pairs (excitons) that dominate their linear and nonlinear optical response. The latter includes bleaching, energy renormalizations, and higher-order Coulomb correlation effects like biexcitons and excitation-induced dephasing. While the first three are extensively studied, no theoretical footing for excitation-induced dephasing in exciton-dominated semiconductors is available so far. In this Letter, we present microscopic calculations based on excitonic Heisenberg equations of motion and identify the coupling of optically pumped excitons to exciton-exciton scattering continua as the leading mechanism responsible for an optical-power-dependent linewidth broadening (excitation-induced dephasing) and sideband formation. Performing time-, momentum-, and energy-resolved simulations, we quantitatively evaluate the exciton-induced dephasing for the most common monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides and find an excellent agreement with recent experiments.

We introduce a class of non-Hermitian systems that break electromagnetic reciprocity while preserving time-reversal symmetry, and describe its novel polarization dynamics. We show that this class of systems can be realized using van der Waals heterostructures involving transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Our work provides a path towards achieving strong optical nonreciprocity and polarization-dependent directional amplification using compact, large-area and magnet-free structures.

Under favorable conditions, microscopic phytoplankton cells dwelling in the oceans can divide rapidly and reach high concentrations, forming blooms that span kilometers and last for weeks. When blooms collapse, dead cells settle and aggregate into “marine snow” particles, resulting in a large and climatically important vertical flux of carbon from the ocean surface to its depth, a process known as the “biological pump.” To date, the formation of marine snow has been modeled as coagulation between spherical particles driven by gravitational settling and turbulent mixing, characterized by coagulation dynamics that converge onto time-independent concentrations of aggregates. However, many phytoplankton species are elongated and how their rodlike shape affects the aggregation process has remained unknown. Here, we study marine snow formation in a quiescent fluid assuming the constituent particles are elongated and form bundles upon encounter. We derive the collision kernel between dissimilar rods settling under gravity and discover that the most frequent collisions occur between the thinnest and thickest bundles, rather than between bundles of similar size. As a consequence, in the full coagulation model that combines exponential growth with settling, the thin-thick coupling can lead to statistically stationary states where the concentrations of aggregates of different size oscillate in time, exhibiting periodic bursts. The bursts are predicted to occur on the scale of a week and eventually lead to broadening of aggregate size spectra and may thus be highly relevant for plankton dynamics and the carbon cycle in the ocean.