We report neutron scattering measurements of single-crystalline ${\mathrm{YFe}}_2{\mathrm{Ge}}_2$ in the normal state, which has the same crystal structure as the 122 family of iron pnictide superconductors. ${\mathrm{YFe}}_2{\mathrm{Ge}}_2$ does not exhibit long-range magnetic order but exhibits strong spin fluctuations. Like the iron pnictides, ${\mathrm{YFe}}_2{\mathrm{Ge}}_2$ displays anisotropic stripe-type antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations at ($\pi$, 0, $\pi$). More interesting, however, is the observation of strong spin fluctuations at the in-plane ferromagnetic wave vector (0, 0, $\pi$). These ferromagnetic spin fluctuations are isotropic in the ($H$, $K$) plane, whose intensity exceeds that of stripe spin fluctuations. Both the ferromagnetic and stripe spin fluctuations remain gapless down to the lowest measured energies. Our results naturally explain the absence of magnetic order in ${\mathrm{YFe}}_2{\mathrm{Ge}}_2$ and also imply that the ferromagnetic correlations may be a key ingredient for iron-based materials.

We present experimental data and a complete theoretical description of the magneto-optical contributions to the complex refractive index in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) range covering the $3p$ resonances of Fe, Co, and Ni. The direct comparison of the two allows us to conclude that many-body corrections to the ground state and local field effects are crucial for an accurate description of $M$-edge spectra. Our results are relevant for investigation of static magnetization, via XUV spectroscopy of multielement systems, as well as the dynamics of magnetization, as needed in the study of femtomagnetism and spintronics.

The recent discovery of magnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals systems opens the door to discovering exciting physics. We investigate how a current can control the ferromagnetic properties of such materials. Using symmetry arguments, we identify a recently realized system in which the current-induced spin torque is particularly simple and powerful. In ${\mathrm{Fe}}_3{\mathrm{GeTe}}_2$, a single parameter determines the strength of the spin-orbit torque for a uniform magnetization. The spin-orbit torque acts as an effective out-of-equilibrium free energy. The contribution of the spin-orbit torque to the effective free energy introduces new in-plane magnetic anisotropies to the system. Therefore, we can tune the system from an easy-axis ferromagnet via an easy-plane ferromagnet to another easy-axis ferromagnet with increasing current density. This finding enables unprecedented control and provides the possibility to study the Berezinskiǐ-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition in the 2D $XY$ model and its associated critical exponents.

We report a longitudinal spin Seebeck effect (SSE) study in epitaxially grown ${\mathrm{FeF}}_2(110)$ antiferromagnetic (AFM) thin films with strong uniaxial anisotropy over the temperature range of 3.8–250 K. Both the magnetic-field and temperature-dependent SSE signals below the Néel temperature ($T_N=70\mathrm{K}$) of the ${\mathrm{FeF}}_2$ films are consistent with a theoretical model based on the excitations of AFM magnons without any net induced static magnetic moment. In addition to the characteristic low-temperature SSE peak associated with the AFM magnons, there is another SSE peak at $T_N$ which extends well into the paramagnetic phase. All the SSE data taken at different magnetic fields up to 12 T near and above the critical point $T_N$ follow the critical scaling law very well with the critical exponents for magnetic susceptibility of 3D Ising systems, which suggests that the AFM spin correlation is responsible for the observed SSE near $T_N$.

The “wrapping” of polymer chains on the surface of carbon nanotubes allows one to obtain multifunctional hybrid materials with unique properties for a wide range of applications in biomedicine, electronics, nanocomposites, biosensors, and solar cell technologies. We study by means of molecular dynamics simulations the force-assisted desorption kinetics of a polymer from the surface of a carbon nanotube. We find that, due to the geometric coupling between the adsorbing surface and the conformation of the macromolecule, the process of desorption slows down dramatically upon increasing the windings around the nanotube. This behavior can be rationalized in terms of an overdamped dynamics with a frictional force that increases exponentially with the number of windings of the macromolecule, resembling the Euler-Eytelwein mechanism that describes the interplay between applied tension and frictional forces on a rope wrapped around a curved surface. The results highlight the fundamental role played by the geometry to control the dynamics and mechanical stability of hybrid materials in order to tailor properties and maximize performance.

We show that a cyclic unitary process can extract work from the thermodynamic equilibrium state of an engineered quantum dissipative process. Systems in the equilibrium states of these processes serve as batteries, storing energy. The dissipative process that brings the battery to the active equilibrium state is driven by an agent that couples the battery to thermal systems. The second law of thermodynamics imposes a work cost for the process; however, no work is needed to keep the battery in that charged state. We consider simple examples of these batteries and discuss situations in which the charged state has full population inversion, in which case the extractable work is maximal, and circumstances in which the efficiency of the process is maximal.

We present an integration-by-parts reduction of any massless tree-level string correlator to an equivalence class of logarithmic functions, which can be used to define a field-theory amplitude via a Cachazo-He-Yuan (CHY) formula. The string amplitude is then shown to be the double copy of the field-theory one and a special disk or sphere integral. The construction is generic as it applies to any correlator that is a rational function of correct SL(2) weight. By applying the reduction to open bosonic or heterotic strings, we get a closed-form CHY integrand for the $(DF{)}^2+\mathrm{Yang}\text{−}\mathrm{Mills}+{\varphi }^3$ theory.

Quark-hadron continuity is a scenario in which hadronic matter is continuously connected to a color superconductor without phase transitions as the baryon chemical potential increases. This scenario is based on Landau’s classification of phases, since they have the same symmetry breaking pattern. We address the question of whether this continuity is true as quantum phases of matter, which requires treatment beyond the Ginzburg-Landau description. To examine the topological nature of a color superconductor, we derive a dual effective theory for U(1) Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons and vortices of the color-flavor locked phase and discuss the fate of emergent higher-form symmetries. The theory has the form of a topological BF theory coupled to NG bosons, and fractional statistics of test quarks and vortices arise as a result of an emergent ${\mathbb{Z}}_3$ two-form symmetry. We find that this symmetry cannot be spontaneously broken, indicating that quark-hadron continuity is still a consistent scenario.

A simple nonlocal functional for calculation of dispersion energies is proposed. Compared to a similar formula used earlier, we introduced a regularization to remove its singularities and used a dynamic polarizability density similar to those in the so-called van der Waals density functionals. The performance of the new functional is tested on dispersion energies for a set of representative dimers, and it is found that it is significantly more accurate than published nonlocal functionals.

True contact between randomly rough solids consists of myriad individual microjunctions. While their total area controls the adhesive friction force of the interface, other macroscopic features, including viscoelastic friction, wear, stiffness, and electric resistance, also strongly depend on the size and shape of individual microjunctions. We show that, in rough elastomer contacts, the shape of microjunctions significantly varies as a function of the shear force applied to the interface. This process leads to a growth of anisotropy of the overall contact interface, which saturates in the macroscopic sliding regime. We show that smooth sphere-plane contacts have the same shear-induced anisotropic behavior as individual microjunctions, with a common scaling law over 4 orders of magnitude in the initial area. We discuss the physical origin of the observations in light of a fracture-based adhesive contact mechanics model, described in the companion article, which captures the smooth sphere-plane measurements. Our results shed light on a generic, overlooked source of anisotropy in rough elastic contacts, not taken into account in current rough contact mechanics models.

We show that vortex matter, that is, a dense assembly of vortices in an incompressible two-dimensional flow, such as a fast rotating superfluid or turbulent flows with signlike eddies, exhibits (i) a boundary layer of vorticity (vorticity layer) and (ii) a nonlinear wave localized within the vorticity layer, the edge wave. Both are solely an effect of the topological nature of vortices. Both are lost if vortex matter is approximated as a continuous vorticity patch. The edge wave is governed by the integrable Benjamin-Davis-Ono equation, exhibiting solitons with a quantized total vorticity. Quantized solitons reveal the topological nature of the vortices through their dynamics. The edge wave and the vorticity layer are due to the odd viscosity of vortex matter. We also identify the dynamics with the action of the Virasoro-Bott group of diffeomorphisms of the circle, where odd viscosity parametrizes the central extension. Our edge wave is a hydrodynamic analog of the edge states of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

A Berry curvature is an imaginary component of the quantum geometric tensor (QGT) and is well studied in many branches of modern physics; however, the quantum metric as a real component of the QGT is less explored. Here, by using tunable superconducting circuits, we experimentally demonstrate two methods to directly measure the quantum metric tensor for characterizing the geometry and topology of underlying quantum states in parameter space. The first method is to probe the transition probability after a sudden quench, and the second one is to detect the excitation rate under weak periodic driving. Furthermore, based on quantum metric and Berry-curvature measurements, we explore a topological phase transition in a simulated time-reversal-symmetric system. The work opens up a unique approach to explore the topology of quantum states with the QGT.

Quantum memories are a crucial element toward efficient quantum protocols. In the continuous variables domain, such memories need to provide high fidelity with an efficiency set to one. Moreover, one needs to store complex quantum states exhibiting negative Wigner functions after storage. We report the storage of single- and two-photon Fock states in an all-optical quantum memory. The Wigner functions of these states show negativity after a storage time of several hundred nanoseconds. This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of the storage in the optical domain of non-Gaussian states with more than one photon, captured from an external source and characterized with homodyne detection.

Results on the hardness of approximate sampling are seen as important stepping stones toward a convincing demonstration of the superior computational power of quantum devices. The most prominent suggestions for such experiments include boson sampling, instantaneous quantum polynomial time (IQP) circuit sampling, and universal random circuit sampling. A key challenge for any such demonstration is to certify the correct implementation. For all these examples, and in fact for all sufficiently flat distributions, we show that any noninteractive certification from classical samples and a description of the target distribution requires exponentially many uses of the device. Our proofs rely on the same property that is a central ingredient for the approximate hardness results, namely, that the sampling distributions, as random variables depending on the random unitaries defining the problem instances, have small second moments.

There has recently been renewed interest in the possibility that the dark matter in the Universe consists of primordial black holes (PBHs). Current observational constraints leave only a few PBH mass ranges for this possibility. One of them is around ${10}^{-12}{M}_{\odot }$. If PBHs with this mass are formed due to an enhanced scalar-perturbation amplitude, their formation is inevitably accompanied by the generation of gravitational waves (GWs) with frequency peaked in the mHz range, precisely around the maximum sensitivity of the LISA mission. We show that, if these primordial black holes are the dark matter, LISA will be able to detect the associated GW power spectrum. Although the GW source signal is intrinsically non-Gaussian, the signal measured by LISA is a sum of the signal from a large number of independent sources suppressing the non-Gaussianity at detection to an unobservable level. We also discuss the effect of the GW propagation in the perturbed Universe. PBH dark matter generically leads to a detectable, purely isotropic, Gaussian and unpolarized GW signal, a prediction that is testable with LISA.

All known examples of four-dimensional quantum field theories with asymptotic freedom or asymptotic safety at weak coupling involve non-Abelian gauge interactions. We demonstrate that this is not a coincidence: No weakly coupled fixed points, ultraviolet or otherwise, can be reliably generated in theories lacking gauge interactions. Implications for particle physics, critical phenomena, and conformal field theory are indicated.

We provide an explicit expression for the strong magnetic field limit of the Heisenberg-Euler effective Lagrangian for both scalar and spinor quantum electrodynamics. To this end, we show that the strong magnetic field behavior is fully determined by one-particle reducible contributions discovered only recently. The latter can efficiently be constructed in an essentially algebraic procedure from lower-order one-particle reducible diagrams. Remarkably, the leading strong magnetic field behavior of the all-loop Heisenberg-Euler effective Lagrangian only requires input from the one-loop Lagrangian. Our result revises previous findings based exclusively on one-particle irreducible contributions. In addition, we briefly discuss the strong electric field limit and comment on external field QED in the large $N$ limit.

The scalar nonstandard interactions (NSI) can also introduce matter effect for neutrino oscillation in a medium. Especially the recent Borexino data prefer nonzero scalar NSI, ${\eta }_{ee}=-0.16$. In contrast to the conventional vector NSI, the scalar type contributes as a correction to the neutrino mass matrix rather than the matter potential. Consequently, the scalar matter effect is energy independent while the vector one scales linearly with neutrino energy. This leads to significantly different phenomenological consequences in reactor, solar, atmospheric, and accelerator neutrino oscillations. A synergy of different types of experiments, especially those with matter density variation, is necessary to identify the scalar NSI and guarantee the measurement of $CP$ violation at accelerator experiments.