Magnons in ferromagnets behave as a viscous fluid over a length scale, the momentum-relaxation length, below which momentum-conserving scattering processes dominate. We show theoretically that in this hydrodynamic regime viscous effects lead to a sign change in the magnon chemical potential, which can be detected as a sign change in the nonlocal resistance measured in spin transport experiments. This sign change is observable when the injector-detector distance becomes comparable to the momentum-relaxation length. Taking into account momentum- and spin-relaxation processes, we consider the quasiconservation laws for momentum and spin in a magnon fluid. The resulting equations are solved for nonlocal spin transport devices in which spin is injected and detected via metallic leads. Because of the finite viscosity we also find a backflow of magnons close to the injector lead. Our work shows that nonlocal magnon spin transport devices are an attractive platform to develop and study magnon-fluid dynamics.

We experimentally study the spin dynamics in a gadolinium iron garnet single crystal using broadband ferromagnetic resonance. Close to the ferrimagnetic compensation temperature, we observe ultrastrong coupling of clockwise and counterclockwise magnon modes. The magnon-magnon coupling strength reaches almost 40% of the mode frequency and can be tuned by varying the direction of the external magnetic field. We theoretically explain the observed mode coupling as arising from the broken rotational symmetry due to a weak magnetocrystalline anisotropy. The effect of this anisotropy is exchange enhanced around the ferrimagnetic compensation point.

There is increasing evidence that mammalian cells not only crawl on substrates but can also swim in fluids. To elucidate the mechanisms of the onset of motility of cells in suspension, a model which couples actin and myosin kinetics to fluid flow is proposed and solved for a spherical shape. The swimming speed is extracted in terms of key parameters. We analytically find super- and subcritical bifurcations from a nonmotile to a motile state and also spontaneous polarity oscillations that arise from a Hopf bifurcation. Relaxing the spherical assumption, the obtained shapes show appealing trends.

Quantum coherence is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics and an underlying requirement for most quantum information tasks. In the resource theory of coherence, incoherent states are diagonal with respect to a fixed orthonormal basis; i.e., they can be seen as arising from a von Neumann measurement. Here, we introduce and study a generalization to a resource theory of coherence defined with respect to the most general quantum measurements, i.e., to arbitrary positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs). We establish POVM-based coherence measures and POVM-incoherent operations that coincide for the case of von Neumann measurements with their counterparts in standard coherence theory. We provide a semidefinite program that allows us to characterize interconversion properties of resource states and exemplify our framework by means of the qubit trine POVM, for which we also show analytical results.

The fluctuation theorem is the fundamental equality in nonequilibrium thermodynamics that is used to derive many important thermodynamic relations, such as the second law of thermodynamics and the Jarzynski equality. Recently, the thermodynamic uncertainty relation was discovered, which states that the fluctuation of observables is lower bounded by the entropy production. In the present Letter, we derive a thermodynamic uncertainty relation from the fluctuation theorem. We refer to the obtained relation as the fluctuation theorem uncertainty relation, and it is valid for arbitrary dynamics, stochastic as well as deterministic, and for arbitrary antisymmetric observables for which a fluctuation theorem holds. We apply the fluctuation theorem uncertainty relation to an overdamped Langevin dynamics for an antisymmetric observable. We demonstrate that the antisymmetric observable satisfies the fluctuation theorem uncertainty relation but does not satisfy the relation reported for current-type observables in continuous-time Markov chains. Moreover, we show that the fluctuation theorem uncertainty relation can handle systems controlled by time-symmetric external protocols, in which the lower bound is given by the work exerted on the systems.

We present the first amplitude analysis of the decay $D_s^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^0\eta$. We use an $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3.19{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ collected with the BESIII detector at a center-of-mass energy of 4.178 GeV. We observe for the first time the $W$-annihilation dominant decays $D_s^{+}\to a_0(980{)}^{+}{\pi }^0$ and $D_s^{+}\to a_0(980{)}^0{\pi }^{+}$. We measure the absolute branching fraction $\mathcal{B}(D_s^{+}\to a_0(980{)}^{+(0)}{\pi }^{0^{(}+)},a_0(980{)}^{+(0)}\to {\pi }^{+(0)}\eta )=(1.46\pm 0.15_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm 0.23_{\mathrm{sys}})\%$, which is larger than the branching fractions of other measured pure $W$-annihilation decays by at least one order of magnitude. In addition, we measure the branching fraction of $D_s^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^0\eta$ with significantly improved precision.

In slow collisions of two bare nuclei with the total charge larger than the critical value $Z_{\mathrm{cr}}\approx 173$, the initially neutral vacuum can spontaneously decay into the charged vacuum and two positrons. The detection of the spontaneous emission of positrons would be direct evidence of this fundamental phenomenon. However, the spontaneously produced particles are indistinguishable from the dynamical background in the positron spectra. We show that the vacuum decay can nevertheless be observed via impact-sensitive measurements of pair-production probabilities. The possibility of such an observation is demonstrated using numerical calculations of pair production in low-energy collisions of heavy nuclei.

We experimentally demonstrate storage and on-demand release of phase-sensitive, photon-number superposition states of the form $\alpha |0⟩+\beta e^{i\theta }|1⟩$ for an optical quantized oscillator mode. For this purpose, we newly developed a phase-probing mechanism compatible with a storage system composed of two concatenated optical cavities, which was previously employed for storage of phase-insensitive single-photon states [Phys. Rev. X 3, 041028 (2013)]. This is the first demonstration of all-optically storing highly nonclassical and phase-sensitive quantum states of light. The strong nonclassicality of the states after storage becomes manifest as a negative region in the corresponding Wigner function shifted away from the origin in phase space. This negativity is otherwise, without the phase information of the memory system, unobtainable. While our scheme includes the possibility of optical storage, on-demand release and synchronization of arbitrary single-rail qubit states, it is not limited to such states. In fact, our technique is extendible to more general phase-sensitive states such as multiphoton superposition or entangled states, and thus it represents a significant step toward advanced optical quantum information processing, where highly nonclassical states are utilized as resources.

We observe the formation of a high-pressure staircase pedestal ($\approx 16–20\mathrm{kPa}$) in the DIII-D tokamak when large amplitude edge localized modes are suppressed using resonant magnetic perturbations. The staircase pedestal is characterized by a flattening of the density and temperature profiles in midpedestal creating a two-step staircase pedestal structure correlated with the appearance of midpedestal broadband fluctuations. The pedestal oscillates between the staircase and single-step structure every 40–60 ms, correlated with oscillations in the heat and particle flux to the divertor. Gyrokinetic analysis using the cgyro code shows that when the heat and particle flux to the divertor decreases, the pedestal broadens and the $E\times B$ shear at the midpedestal decreases, triggering a transport bifurcation from the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM) to trapped electron mode (TEM) limited transport that flattens the density and temperature profiles at midpedestal and results in the formation of the staircase pedestal. As the heat flux to the divertor increases, the pedestal narrows and the $E\times B$ shear at the midpedestal increases, triggering a back transition from TEM to KBM limited transport. The pedestal pressure increases during the staircase phase, indicating that enhanced midpedestal turbulence can be beneficial for confinement.

The triboelectric effect, charge transfer during sliding, is well established but the thermodynamic driver is not well understood. We hypothesize here that flexoelectric potential differences induced by inhomogeneous strains at nanoscale asperities drive tribocharge separation. Modeling single asperity elastic contacts suggests that nanoscale flexoelectric potential differences of $\pm 1–10\mathrm{V}$ or larger arise during indentation and pull-off. This hypothesis agrees with several experimental observations, including bipolar charging during stick slip, inhomogeneous tribocharge patterns, charging between similar materials, and surface charge density measurements.

Bound states in the continuum in periodic photonic systems like photonic crystal slabs are proved to be accompanied by vortex polarization singularities on the photonic bands in the momentum space. The winding structures of polarization states not only widen the field of topological physics but also show great potential that such systems could be applied in polarization manipulating. In this Letter, we report the phenomenon that by in-plane inversion ($C_2$) symmetry breaking, pairs of circularly polarized states could spawn from the eliminated bound states in the continuum. Along with the appearance of the circularly polarized states as the two poles of the Poincaré sphere together with linearly polarized states covering the equator, full coverage on the Poincaré sphere could be realized. As an application, ellipticity modulation of linear polarization is demonstrated in the visible frequency range. This phenomenon provides a new degree of freedom in modulating polarization. The $C$ points could also find applications in light-matter interactions. Further studying and manipulating the reported polarization singularities may lead to novel phenomena and physics in radiation modulating and topological photonics.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted great attention and spurred rapid development in both fundamental research and device applications. The search for exotic physical properties, such as magnetic and topological order, in 2D materials could enable the realization of novel quantum devices and is therefore at the forefront of materials science. Here, we report the discovery of twofold degenerate Weyl nodal lines in a 2D ferromagnetic material, a single-layer gadolinium-silver compound, based on combined angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements and theoretical calculations. These Weyl nodal lines are symmetry protected and thus robust against external perturbations. The coexistence of magnetic and topological order in a 2D material is likely to inform ongoing efforts study the rich physics in 2D topological ferromagnets.

We report the emergence of zero-energy states in the trivial phase of a short nanowire junction with a strong spin-orbit coupling and magnetic field, formed by strong coupling between the nanowire and two superconductors. The zero-energy states appear in the junction when the superconductors induce a large energy shift in the nanowire, such that the junction naturally forms a quantum dot, a process that is highly tunable by the superconductor width. Most importantly, we demonstrate that the zero-energy states produce a $\pi$ shift in the phase-biased supercurrent, which can be used as a simple tool for their unambiguous detection, ruling out any Majorana-like interpretation.

Investigating exotic magnetic materials with spintronic techniques is effective at advancing magnetism as well as spintronics. In this work, we report unusual field-induced suppression of the spin Seebeck effect (SSE) in a quasi-one-dimensional frustrated spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ magnet ${\mathrm{LiCuVO}}_4$, known to exhibit spin-nematic correlation in a wide range of external magnetic field $B$. The suppression takes place above $|B|\gtrsim 2\mathrm{T}$ in spite of the $B$-linear isothermal magnetization curves in the same $B$ range. The result can be attributed to the growth of the spin-nematic correlation while increasing $B$. The correlation stabilizes magnon pairs carrying spin 2, thereby suppressing the interfacial spin injection of SSE by preventing the spin-1 exchange between single magnons and conduction electrons at the interface. This interpretation is supported by integrating thermodynamic measurements and theoretical analysis on the SSE.

Quantum metrology concerns estimating a parameter from multiple identical uses of a quantum channel. We extend quantum metrology beyond this standard setting and consider the estimation of a physical process with quantum memory, here referred to as a parametrized quantum comb. We present a theoretic framework of metrology of quantum combs, and derive a general upper bound of the comb quantum Fisher information. The bound can be operationally interpreted as the quantum Fisher information of a memoryless quantum channel times a dimensional factor. We then show an example where the bound can be attained up to a factor of 4. With the example and the bound, we show that memory in quantum sensors plays an even more crucial role in the estimation of combs than in the standard setting of quantum metrology.

Quantum error correction was invented to allow for fault-tolerant quantum computation. Systems with topological order turned out to give a natural physical realization of quantum error correcting codes (QECC) in their ground spaces. More recently, in the context of the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, it has been argued that eigenstates of CFTs with a holographic dual should also form QECCs. These two examples raise the question of how generally eigenstates of many-body models form quantum codes. In this Letter we establish new connections between quantum chaos and translation invariance in many-body spin systems, on one hand, and approximate quantum error correcting codes (AQECC), on the other hand. We first observe that quantum chaotic systems obeying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis have eigenstates forming approximate quantum error-correcting codes. Then we show that AQECC can be obtained probabilistically from translation-invariant energy eigenstates of every translation-invariant spin chain, including integrable models. Applying this result to 1D classical systems, we describe a method for using local symmetries to construct parent Hamiltonians that embed these codes into the low-energy subspace of gapless 1D quantum spin chains. As explicit examples we obtain local AQECC in the ground space of the 1D ferromagnetic Heisenberg model and the Motzkin spin chain model with periodic boundary conditions, thereby yielding nonstabilizer codes in the ground space and low energy subspace of physically plausible 1D gapless models.

We report on the results of the LISA Pathfinder (LPF) free-fall mode experiment, in which the control force needed to compensate the quasistatic differential force acting on two test masses is applied intermittently as a series of “impulse” forces lasting a few seconds and separated by roughly 350 s periods of true free fall. This represents an alternative to the normal LPF mode of operation in which this balancing force is applied continuously, with the advantage that the acceleration noise during free fall is measured in the absence of the actuation force, thus eliminating associated noise and force calibration errors. The differential acceleration noise measurement presented here with the free-fall mode agrees with noise measured with the continuous actuation scheme, representing an important and independent confirmation of the LPF result. An additional measurement with larger actuation forces also shows that the technique can be used to eliminate actuation noise when this is a dominant factor.

The study of quantum phase transitions requires the preparation of a many-body system near its ground state, a challenging task for many experimental systems. The measurement of quench dynamics, on the other hand, is now a routine practice in most cold atom platforms. Here we show that quintessential ingredients of quantum phase transitions can be probed directly with quench dynamics in integrable and nearly integrable systems. As a paradigmatic example, we study global quench dynamics in a transverse-field Ising model with either short-range or long-range interactions. When the model is integrable, we discover a new dynamical critical point with a nonanalytic signature in the short-range correlators. The location of the dynamical critical point matches that of the quantum critical point and can be identified using a finite-time scaling method. We extend this scaling picture to systems near integrability and demonstrate the continued existence of a dynamical critical point detectable at prethermal timescales. We quantify the difference in the locations of the dynamical and quantum critical points away from (but near) integrability. Thus, we demonstrate that this method can be used to approximately locate the quantum critical point near integrability. The scaling method is also relevant to experiments with finite time and system size, and our predictions are testable in near-term experiments with trapped ions and Rydberg atoms.

We describe simulations of a quasi-one-dimensional, vibrated granular gas which exhibits an apparent phase separation into a liquidlike phase and a gaslike phase. In thermal equilibrium, such a phase separation in one dimension is prohibited by entropic considerations. We propose that the granular gas minimizes a function of the conserved mechanical variables alone: the particle number and volume. Simulations in small cells can be used to extract the equation of state and predict the coexisting pressure and densities, as confirmation of the minimization principle. Fluctuations in the system manifest themselves as persistent density waves but they do not destroy the phase-separated state.