Using on-shell methods, we present a new perturbative nonrenormalization theorem for operator mixing in massless four-dimensional quantum field theories. By examining how unitarity cuts of form factors encode anomalous dimensions, we show that longer operators are often restricted from renormalizing shorter operators at the first order where Feynman diagrams exist. The theorem applies quite generally and depends only on the field content of the operators involved. We apply our theorem to operators of dimension five through seven in the standard model effective field theory, including examples of nontrivial zeros in the anomalous-dimension matrix at one through four loops. The zeros at two and higher loops go beyond those previously explained using helicity selection rules. We also include explicit sample calculations at two loops.

Cold molecules provide an excellent platform for quantum information, cold chemistry, and precision measurement. Certain molecules have enhanced sensitivity to beyond standard model physics, such as the electron’s electric dipole moment ($e\text{EDM}$). Molecular ions are easily trappable and are therefore particularly attractive for precision measurements where sensitivity scales with interrogation time. Here, we demonstrate a spin precession measurement with second-scale coherence at the quantum projection noise (QPN) limit with hundreds of trapped molecular ions, chosen for their sensitivity to the $e\text{EDM}$ rather than their amenability to state control and readout. Orientation-resolved resonant photodissociation allows us to simultaneously measure two quantum states with opposite $e\text{EDM}$ sensitivity, reaching the QPN limit and fully exploiting the high count rate and long coherence.

We demonstrate imaging of ions in an atomic gas with ion–Rydberg-atom interaction induced absorption. This is made possible by utilizing a multiphoton electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) scheme and the extremely large electric polarizability of a Rydberg state with high orbital angular momentum. We process the acquired images to obtain the distribution of ion clouds and to spectroscopically investigate the effect of the ions on the EIT resonance. Furthermore, we show that our method can be employed to image the dynamics of ions in a time resolved way. As an example, we map out the avalanche ionization of a gas of Rydberg atoms. The minimal disruption and the flexibility offered by this imaging technique make it ideally suited for the investigation of cold hybrid ion-atom systems.

Photonic quantum technology increasingly uses frequency encoding to enable higher quantum information density and noise resilience. Pulsed time-frequency modes (TFM) represent a unique class of spectrally encoded quantum states of light that enable a complete framework for quantum information processing. Here, we demonstrate a technique for direct generation of entangled TFM-encoded states in single-pass, tailored down-conversion processes. We achieve unprecedented quality in state generation—high rates, heralding efficiency, and state fidelity—as characterized via highly resolved time-of-flight fiber spectroscopy and two-photon interference. We employ this technique in a four-photon entanglement swapping scheme as a primitive for TFM-encoded quantum protocols.

We report an experiment showing the submillimeter Imbert-Fedorov shift from the ultrastrong spin-orbital angular momentum coupling, which is a photonic version of the spin Hall effect, by measuring the reflection of light from the surface of a birefringent symmetrical metal cladding planar waveguide. The light incidents at a near-normal incident angle and excites resonant ultrahigh-order modes inside the waveguide. A 0.16-mm displacement of separated reflected light spots corresponding to two polarization states is distinguishable by human eyes. In our experiment, we demonstrate the control of polarizations of light and the direct observation of the spin Hall effect of light, which opens an important avenue towards potential applications for optical sensing and quantum information processing, where the spin nature of photons exhibits key features.

We present the first direct measurement of the elastohydrodynamic lift force acting on a sphere moving within a viscous liquid, near and along a soft substrate under nanometric confinement. Using atomic force microscopy, the lift force is probed as a function of the gap size, for various driving velocities, viscosities, and stiffnesses. The force increases as the gap is reduced and shows a saturation at small gap. The results are in excellent agreement with scaling arguments and a quantitative model developed from the soft lubrication theory, in linear elasticity, and for small compliances. For larger compliances, or equivalently for smaller confinement length scales, an empirical scaling law for the observed saturation of the lift force is given and discussed.

Tertiary modes in electrostatic drift-wave turbulence are localized near extrema of the zonal velocity $U(x)$ with respect to the radial coordinate $x$. We argue that these modes can be described as quantum harmonic oscillators with complex frequencies, so their spectrum can be readily calculated. The corresponding growth rate ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{TI}}$ is derived within the modified Hasegawa-Wakatani model. We show that ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{TI}}$ equals the primary-instability growth rate plus a term that depends on the local $U^{\prime \prime }$; hence, the instability threshold is shifted compared to that in homogeneous turbulence. This provides a generic explanation of the well-known yet elusive Dimits shift, which we find explicitly in the Terry-Horton limit. Linearly unstable tertiary modes either saturate due to the evolution of the zonal density or generate radially propagating structures when the shear $|U^{\prime }|$ is sufficiently weakened by viscosity. The Dimits regime ends when such structures are generated continuously.

We investigate the directional locking effects that arise when a monolayer of paramagnetic colloidal particles is driven across a triangular lattice of magnetic bubbles. We use an external rotating magnetic field to generate a two-dimensional traveling wave ratchet forcing the transport of particles along a direction that intersects two crystallographic axes of the lattice. We find that, while single particles show no preferred direction, collective effects induce transversal current and directional locking at high density via a spontaneous symmetry breaking. The colloidal current may be polarized via an additional bias field that makes one transport direction energetically preferred.

We discuss the relation between entanglement and nonlocality in the hidden nonlocality scenario. Hidden nonlocality signifies nonlocality that can be activated by applying local filters to a particular state that admits a local hidden-variable model in the Bell scenario. We present a fully biseparable three-qubit bound entangled state with a local model for the most general (nonsequential) measurements. This proves for the first time that bound entangled states can admit a local model for general measurements. We furthermore show that the local model breaks down when suitable local filters are applied. Our results demonstrate the first example of activation of nonlocality in bound entanglement. Hence, we show that genuine hidden nonlocality does not imply entanglement distillability.

The fundamental problem of sampling from the limiting distribution of quantum walks on networks, known as mixing, finds widespread applications in several areas of quantum information and computation. Of particular interest in most of these applications is the minimum time beyond which the instantaneous probability distribution of the quantum walk remains close to this limiting distribution, known as the “quantum mixing time”. However, this quantity is only known for a handful of specific networks. In this Letter, we prove an upper bound on the quantum mixing time for almost all networks, i.e., the fraction of networks for which our bound holds, goes to one in the asymptotic limit. To this end, using several results in random matrix theory, we find the quantum mixing time of Erdös-Renyi random networks: networks of $n$ nodes where each edge exists with probability $p$ independently. For example, for dense random networks, where $p$ is a constant, we show that the quantum mixing time is $\mathcal{O}(n^{3/2+o(1)})$. In addition to opening avenues for the analytical study of quantum dynamics on random networks, our work could find applications beyond quantum information processing. Owing to the universality of Wigner random matrices, our results on the spectral properties of random graphs hold for general classes of random matrices that are ubiquitous in several areas of physics. In particular, our results could lead to novel insights into the equilibration times of isolated quantum systems defined by random Hamiltonians, a foundational problem in quantum statistical mechanics.

If the length scale of possible extra dimensions is large enough, the effective Planck scale is lowered such that microscopic black holes could be produced in collisions of high-energy particles at colliders. These black holes evaporate through Hawking radiation of a handful of energetic particles drawn from the set of all kinematically and thermally allowed degrees of freedom, including dark matter. Here, we perform the first numerical black hole spectroscopic study of the dark sector. We find that if the next generation of colliders can produce microscopic black holes, then missing momentum signatures can reveal the existence of any new light ($\lesssim 10\mathrm{TeV}$) particle, regardless of the strength of its coupling to the standard model, even if there exists no such nongravitational coupling at all.

We present predictions for jet suppression from small to intermediate to very large radius, for high energy jets created in heavy ion collisions at the LHC. We find that jet suppression is surprisingly independent of the anti-kT radius $R$, first slightly increasing as one increases $R$, then at larger values of $R$ very slowly decreasing. This behavior arises from two competing effects, namely the larger energy loss of the hard jet components, which tends to increase suppression, versus the partial recovery of the lost energy due to medium response, reducing suppression.

We demonstrate theoretically the bundle emission of $n$ strongly correlated phonons in an acoustic cavity QED system. The mechanism relies on Stokes resonances that generate super-Rabi oscillations between states with a large difference in their number of excitations, which, combined with dissipation, transfer coherently pure $n$-phonon states outside of the cavity. This process works with close to perfect purity over a wide range of parameters and is tunable optically with well-resolved operation conditions. This broadens the realm of quantum phononics, with potential applications for on-chip quantum information processing, quantum metrology, and engineering of new types of quantum devices, such as optically heralded $n$-phonon guns.

We show that parity-time ($\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$) symmetry can be spontaneously broken in the recently reported energy level attraction of magnons and cavity photons. In the $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-broken phase, the magnon and photon form a high-fidelity Bell state with maximum entanglement. This entanglement is steady and robust against the perturbation of the environment, which is in contrast to the general wisdom that expects instability of the hybridized state when the symmetry is broken. This anomaly is further understood by the compete of non-Hermitian evolution and particle number conservation of the hybrid system. As a comparison, neither $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetry breaking nor steady magnon-photon entanglement is observed inside the normal level repulsion case. Our results may open an exciting window to utilize magnon-photon entanglement as a resource for quantum information science.

Non-Hermitian systems based on parity-time (PT) and anti-PT symmetry reveal rich physics beyond the Hermitian regime. So far, realizations of such symmetric systems have been limited to the spatial domain. Here we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate synthetic anti-PT symmetry in a spectral dimension induced by nonlinear Brillouin scattering in a single optical microcavity, where Brillouin scattering induced transparency or absorption in two spectral resonances provides the optical gain and loss to observe a phase transition between two symmetry regimes. This scheme provides a new paradigm towards the investigation of non-Hermitian physics in a synthetic photonic dimension for all-optical signal processing and quantum information science.

Magnetic field generated by the Biermann battery is thought to be one of the principal mechanisms behind the inhibition of heat flow in laser-plasma interactions, and is predicted to grow exponentially in some contexts due to the thermomagnetic instability [Tidman and Shanny, Phys. Fluids 17, 1207 (1974)]. In contrast to these predictions, however, we have conducted Vlasov-Fokker-Planck simulations of magnetic field dynamics under a range of classically unstable laser-fusion conditions, and find field generation to be strongly suppressed, preventing magnetization of the transport, and stabilizing instability. By deriving new scaling laws, we show that this stabilization is a consequence of (i) heavy suppression of the Biermann battery under nonlocal conditions; (ii) rapid convection of magnetic field by the heat flow; and (iii) comparatively short field length scales. Our results indicate that classical models substantially overestimate the importance of magnetic fields generated by the Biermann battery, and the susceptibility of laser-fusion plasmas to the thermomagnetic instability.

We propose a versatile framework to dynamically generate Floquet higher-order topological insulators by multistep driving of topologically trivial Hamiltonians. Two analytically solvable examples are used to illustrate this procedure to yield Floquet quadrupole and octupole insulators with zero- and/or $\pi$-corner modes protected by mirror symmetries. Furthermore, we introduce dynamical topological invariants from the full unitary return map and show its phase bands contain Weyl singularities whose topological charges form dynamical multipole moments in the Brillouin zone. Combining them with the topological index of a Floquet Hamiltonian gives a pair of ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ invariant ${\nu }_0$ and ${\nu }_{\pi }$ which fully characterize the higher-order topology and predict the appearance of zero- and $\pi$-corner modes. Our work establishes a systematic route to construct and characterize Floquet higher-order topological phases.