Recent advancements in small-scale observations of the cosmic microwave background have provided a unique opportunity to characterize the distribution of baryons in the outskirts of galaxies via stacking-based analyses of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect. Such measurements, mathematically equivalent to probing the galaxy-electron cross-correlation, have revealed that gas is more extended than dark matter and that the strength of baryonic feedback may vary with halo mass and redshift. However, because these analyses are conditioned on galaxy positions, deriving a host-independent description of the baryon distribution depends on uncertain galaxy-halo modeling on small scales. In this Letter, we present a novel kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich $\times$ galaxy four-point estimator that directly probes the full ionized electron field, extending beyond the gas traced by luminous galaxies. This method exploits large-scale velocity reconstruction from galaxy surveys to characterize the electron distribution unbiased by small-scale galaxy clustering. We forecast that the proposed signal can be measured with a signal-to-noise ratio of $\sim 8$ ($\sim 31$) for a configuration corresponding to Atacama Cosmology Telescope DR6 (Simons Observatory) cosmic microwave background data combined with spectroscopic galaxy samples from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. This approach will enable the first tomographic measurements of the electron autopower spectrum, providing new constraints on feedback-driven redistribution of baryons and its role in shaping cosmic structure.

We study the giant graviton integrated correlator in $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills at finite complexified coupling $\tau$. Despite the formidable complexity arising from the heavy nature of the operators considered, the large-$N$ expansion simplifies dramatically and exhibits manifest modular invariance. At each order in $1/N$, the expansion coefficients are linear combinations of nonholomorphic Eisenstein series, thus capturing the full spectrum of perturbative and nonperturbative effects in the Yang-Mills coupling. Furthermore, we find additional contributions, which are modular functions exponentially suppressed in $N$. In the ’t Hooft limit, this yields an all-orders result in the $1/N$ expansion at arbitrary coupling $\lambda$, extending beyond prior results of leading orders. For the $\mathrm{U}(N)$ theory, we obtain a closed-form expression valid for all $N$ and $\tau$ and show that the coupling-dependent sector of the large-$N$ expansion is universal between $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ and $\mathrm{U}(N)$ to all orders. Crucially, we exploit the integrated correlator constraints and determine the giant graviton correlator itself to two-loop order at finite $N$, previously only accessible in the planar limit.

Control over the internal states of trapped ions makes them the ideal system to generate single and two-photon states. Coupling a single ion to an optical cavity enables efficient emission of single photons into a single spatial mode and grants control over their temporal shape, phase, and frequency. Using the long coherence time of the ion’s internal states and employing a scheme to protect the coherence of the ion-cavity interaction, we demonstrate the generation of a two-photon entangled state with full control over the phase. Initially, ion-photon entanglement is generated. A second photon is subsequently generated, mapping the ion’s state onto the second photon. By adjusting the drive field the phase of the entangled state can be fully controlled. We implement this scheme in the most resource efficient way by utilizing a single ${{}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}}^{+}$ ion coupled to an optical cavity and demonstrate the generation of a two-photon entangled stated with full phase control with a fidelity of up to 82%.

Laser wakefield accelerators are bright, compact sources of synchrotronlike x-rays. By driving the wakefield using a 110 TW laser in a variable length gas cell, we are able to map the evolution of the electron beam and resulting x-ray emission. We find that using a laser pulse initially focused to larger than the matched spot size and extending the plasma length beyond the depletion length, dramatically increases the x-ray flux. Self-injected electrons are initially accelerated to $>2\mathrm{GeV}$, emitting x-rays with critical energy $E_c>20\mathrm{keV}$. But, as these electrons dephase, a second high-charge electron bunch is produced and accelerated to $\approx 0.7\mathrm{GeV}$. The x-rays produced by this bunch dominate the total emission with $>5\times {10}^{10}$ photons per shot with $E_{\mathrm{c}}=12–17\mathrm{keV}$ and a flux of $7\times {10}^4\mathrm{photons}/{\mathrm{mrad}}^2/0.1\%\mathrm{BW}$. Combining electron and x-ray measurements reveals that the increased emission results from the larger betatron amplitude of the secondary bunch. Simulations attribute this to rapid bubble expansion driven by laser compression over the depletion length, which leads to injection of a high-charge electron bunch with increased transverse momentum and thus stronger betatron radiation.

We develop a framework for extracting nonpolynomial analytic functions of density matrices in randomized measurement experiments by a method of analytical continuation. A central advantage of this approach, dubbed stabilized analytic continuation (SAC), is its robustness to statistical noise arising from finite repetitions of a quantum experiment, making it well suited to realistic quantum hardware. As a demonstration, we use SAC to estimate the von Neumann entanglement entropy of a numerically simulated quenched Néel state from Rényi entropies estimated via the randomized measurement protocol. We then apply the method to experimental Rényi data from a trapped-ion quantum simulator experiment, extracting subsystem von Neumann entropies at different evolution times. Finally, we briefly note that the SAC framework is readily generalizable to obtain other nonlinear diagnostics, such as the logarithmic negativity and Rényi relative entropies.

Thermal behavior in subsystems of closed quantum systems is commonly attributed to dynamical chaos, quantum ergodicity, canonical typicality, or the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, suggesting a fundamentally statistical origin of thermalization. Here, we propose a potential alternative mechanism in which thermal structures emerge deterministically from symmetry considerations alone, without recourse to statistical arguments. We prove a finite de Finetti–type theorem for quantum states invariant under energy-preserving unitaries, establishing that the reduced marginals of any such invariant $N$-qudit state are close (both in trace distance and relative entropy) to convex mixtures of thermal product states, with explicit error bounds vanishing as $N\to \infty$. We further present an example of Lindblad dynamics whose longtime limit is invariant under energy-preserving unitaries, providing a dynamical realization of the desired symmetry class. These results imply that invariance under energy-preserving unitaries suffices as a sole fundamental, deterministic principle to enforce thermal structures.

We characterize the causal structure of coherence transport in open bosonic systems using a two-tooth quantum comb. We show that, by mapping sequential interactions between a structured bosonic absorber and a long-lived coherent probe onto a process-tensor description, the probe functions as a temporal interferometer for environmental two-time correlations. We derive closed-form expressions for a nonmonotonic memory response arising from a competition between instantaneous thermal responsivity and the delay-dependent evolution of absorber correlations. By tuning the intertooth delay, the comb can enhance or suppress the net temperature imprint, providing direct access to population correlators and enabling discrimination of spectrally structured non-Markovian fluctuations from effective thermal noise. The protocol provides an explicit bosonic implementation of two-time thermal-correlation sensing, complementary to prior studies of memory effects in noisy quantum metrology.

We demonstrate an interspecies entangling Rydberg gate between rubidium (Rb) and cesium (Cs) atoms with fidelity $\mathcal{F}=0.975\pm 0.002$. The two-species atom array enables in-place quantum nondemolition (QND) qubit measurements which are a key capability for quantum error correction. We demonstrate this functionality with multiatom error syndrome measurements achieving QND measurement fidelities of ${\mathcal{F}}_{\mathrm{QND}}=0.933(12)$ and 0.865(17) for two- and three-qubit plaquettes, respectively.

Quantum metrology harnesses quantum entanglement to improve measurement precision beyond the standard quantum limit. Although nonlinear interaction is essential for generating entanglement, during signal accumulation, it becomes detrimental and therefore must be suppressed. To address this challenge, we propose an alternating in-phase and quadrature modulation (AIQM) scheme, designed to operate under a fixed nonlinear interaction. During signal accumulation, our time-interleaved approach sequentially applies the in-phase and quadrature driving fields, thereby eliminating the effects of nonlinear interaction. Our AIQM scheme achieves better metrological performance than conventional schemes, particularly under strong nonlinear interaction and prolonged signal accumulation, with pronounced robustness against parameter variations. Furthermore, we propose a full-stage AIQM protocol in which the one-axis twisting interaction remains fixed throughout the procedure. This protocol exhibits significantly better metrological performance than the protocol without AIQM, and demonstrates strong robustness against detection noise. By selectively eliminating and utilizing nonlinear interactions via AIQM, our work enables high-precision and high-accuracy entanglement-enhanced measurement without requiring active control of the nonlinear interaction for realistic quantum sensing and many-body metrology.

This Letter extends a recent IceCube sterile neutrino search to include unstable sterile neutrinos within the context of a model termed $3+1+\mathrm{Decay}$, which expands upon the $3+1$ model by introducing sterile neutrino decay to invisible particles with coupling constant $g^2$. The model is attractive since it reduces tension between oscillation experiments within the global fits and with constraints that come from cosmological observables. The analysis uses 10.7 years of up-going muon neutrino data with energy 500 GeV to 100 TeV and with improved reconstruction and modeling of systematics. The best-fit point is found to be $g^2=0$, ${\sin }^2(2{\theta }_{24})=0.16$, and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{41}^2=3.5{\mathrm{eV}}^2$, in agreement with the recent $3+1$ sterile neutrino search. Values of $g^2\ge \pi$ are excluded at 95% confidence level. This result substantially limits decay parameter space indicated by recent global fits, disfavoring the decay scenario.

We propose the use of several unconventional materials as detectors for dark matter with mass beneath the MeV scale. These include the transition-metal dichalcogenide ${\mathrm{TiSe}}_2$ hosting a low-energy plasmon in the charge-density-wave phase, ${\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{RuO}}_4$ containing a low-energy acoustic demon mode, and hole-doped diamond with tunable optical and acoustic plasmon frequencies. We perform first-principles density functional theory computations of their loss functions at nonvanishing momenta and establish their reach into light dark matter parameter space. We show that due to intense low-energy plasmon modes—of different microscopic origin in each—the reach of detectors based on these materials could surpass existing proposals by several orders of magnitude for both dark matter scattering and absorption on electrons. The anisotropic response of these materials, which enables directional detection, renders them exceptionally strong detector candidates, motivating the design and fabrication of future devices.

We report results from searches for new physics models through electron recoils using data collected by the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment during its first two science runs, with a total exposure of $4.2\mathrm{tonne}\text{−}\mathrm{years}$. The observed data are consistent with a background-only hypothesis. Constraints are derived for electromagnetic interactions of solar neutrinos, solar axionlike particles (ALPs), mirror dark matter, and the absorption of bosonic dark matter candidates. The inverse Primakoff process for ${}^{57}\mathrm{Fe}$ deexcitation solar ALPs is considered for the first time. These results represent the most stringent constraints to date on keV-scale Primakoff and ${}^{57}\mathrm{Fe}$ solar ALPs, bosonic dark matter, mirror dark matter, and neutrino millicharge, while remaining competitive for the other signal models investigated.

We determine the complete three-loop QCD soft anomalous dimension for multileg amplitudes involving a single massive colored particle and any number of massless ones. This is achieved by applying a novel strategy based on a light-cone expansion of correlators of semi-infinite Wilson lines using the method of regions. The resulting region integrals depend exclusively on rescaling-invariant ratios that remain finite in the limit. We evaluate these integrals using differential equation techniques. The result is written in terms of uniform weight five generalized polylogarithms of a 12-letter alphabet in three variables, and is compatible with the massless limit as well as with two- and three-particle collinear factorization.

The ground state of the three-proton emitter ${}^{17}\mathrm{Na}$ has been identified. Energy correlations between the protons and the ${}^{14}\mathrm{O}$ residue indicate that its decay is sequential initiated by the emission of a single proton to the ground state of ${}^{16}\mathrm{Ne}$ followed by simultaneous emission of two protons to the ground state of ${}^{14}\mathrm{O}$, and the derived total decay energy is 4.45(3) MeV. The angular distribution of the proton from the first step indicates that this emission is $d$-wave and only consistent with a spin parity of $5/2^{+}$. This assignment is consistent with state-of-the-art Gamow shell-model calculations. As the ground state of ${}^{17}\mathrm{C}$ is $3/2^{+}$, the assigned spin parity of its mirror ${}^{17}\mathrm{Na}$ indicates that the pair presents a new case of ground-state mirror symmetry violation (GMSV). Unlike other GMSV cases, which arise solely from either a Coulomb induced shift or deformation effects, the ${}^{17}\mathrm{Na}/{}^{17}\mathrm{C}$ case is generated by differences in the many-body correlations.

Many optical measurement techniques, such as light scattering from wavelength-scale particles or detecting motion of a surface with an optical lever, encode information in a complex radiation pattern. Extracting all available information is essential for many quantum-enhanced sensing protocols but is often impractical, as it requires multiple detection channels to spatially resolve the scattered signal. We present a new method to visualize how efficiently a measurement scheme captures the information available in the scattered light by mapping out the local contribution to the detection efficiency on the detector surface. We use this tool to experimentally optimize the measurement of the amplitude of motion of a mechanical resonator with a quadrant photodiode. We show that blocking sections of the photodetector enhances sensitivity, counterintuitively yielding a significant improvement in detecting higher-order mechanical modes in the system. We also show how our method can be applied to light scattering measurements of small particles.