The flavor composition of cosmic neutrinos probes both the physical properties of their sources and oscillations over energies and distances unreachable by terrestrial experiments. Using 11.4 yr of IceCube data, we analyze the flavor composition of the all-sky neutrino flux from 5 TeV–10 PeV, significantly lowering the analysis threshold from a previous minimum of 35 TeV. The best-fit flavor fractions are $f_e,f_{\mu },f_{\tau }=0.30_{-0.15}^{+0.20}$, ${0.37}_{-0.16}^{+0.14}$, ${0.33}_{-0.25}^{+0.24}$. For the first time, we report that neutrinos of all three flavors are present in the observed cosmic neutrino flux at $>90\%$ confidence level. We infer the flavor composition at their sources, finding good agreement with pion decay while pure neutron decay is disfavored, with posterior probability $2.7\times {10}^{-5}$ ($\sim 4\sigma$).

We present observational constraints on large-scale white noise (LSWN) in the cosmic density field, a phenomenon predicted to arise from nonlinear mode coupling during cosmological evolution. Building on the theoretical framework of our companion paper, where we demonstrated that nonlinearities inevitably redistribute power from small to large scales through mode mixing, we confront these predictions with current cosmological data. We modify the class Boltzmann code to incorporate a white noise component $k_{\mathrm{BH}}/k$ in the primordial power spectrum and perform parameter estimation using current cosmological data. The nondetection of excess power on the largest observable scales places stringent upper bounds: $k_{\mathrm{BH}}\le 1.80\times {10}^{-13}{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ at 99% confidence. These constraints imply the primordial power spectrum must deviate from a power law on small scales, perhaps with a sharp cutoff at $k_{\mathrm{cut}}\lesssim 0.03{\mathrm{pc}}^{-1}$ or through running of the spectral index with ${\alpha }_s\lesssim -0.019$. Our results demonstrate that LSWN provides a powerful probe of the primordial spectrum at scales orders of magnitude smaller than those directly observable, offering unique constraints on early-universe physics.

The formation of gravitationally bound overdensities of dark matter (DM), or halos, is a generic prediction of theories with particle DM. We present a measurement of halo properties in 28 quadruple image strong lens systems recently observed by JWST, and use these observations to constrain the free-streaming length, ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{FS}}$, of DM, a quantity that depends on the DM particle mass and formation mechanism. We improve on previous lensing analyses by simultaneously reconstructing extended lensed arcs with image positions and relative magnifications, enhancing sensitivity to perturbations by halos. Our analysis rules out deviations from the predictions of cold dark matter (CDM) on scales above ${10}^{7.2}{M}_{\odot }$ and ${10}^{7.4}{M}_{\odot }$ for subhalo abundance predicted by cosmological $N$-body simulations and semianalytic models, respectively. These bounds correspond to upper limits ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{FS}}<6.0\mathrm{kpc}$ and ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{FS}}<7.0\mathrm{kpc}$, and lower limits on the mass of a spin–1/2 thermal relic DM particle $m_{\text{therm}}>7.4\mathrm{keV}$ and $m_{\text{therm}}>6.5\mathrm{keV}$. Conversely, assuming a negligible free-streaming length, as predicted by CDM, we measure a projected mass in subhalos around elliptical galaxies ${1.7}_{-1.2}^{+2.6}\times {10}^7{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }{\mathrm{kpc}}^{-2}$ at 95% confidence. These inferences confirm key predictions of the CDM paradigm.

The frequency-domain waveform emitted by a two-body scattering process is computed in the extreme-mass-ratio limit through the fifth post-Minkowskian (PM) order [i.e., $O(G^5)$] and the fractional sixth post-Newtonian (PN) order. The current accuracy of the scattering waveform obtained by quantum amplitude methods is the one-loop level corresponding to the 3PM order, whereas the 4PM waveform is known up to the 2PN order only as derived within the traditional multipolar-post-Minkowskian formalism. Direct comparison between these waveforms to the first order in the mass ratio shows that they differ at most by the effect of an angular-independent time shift, leading to a complete physical agreement at the same level of accuracy. The new results at the 4PM and 5PM orders thus provide a benchmark for future multiloop calculations. The waveform is also used to obtain the radiated energy at $O(G^6)$, extending it from 3PN to 6PN level.

We develop a consistent partially off-shell framework for evaluating higher-derivative actions of five-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ gauged supergravity with Abelian vector multiplets on ${\mathrm{AdS}}_5$. Using the superconformal formalism, we show that the resulting holographic expression reproduces the trial $a$-anomaly coefficient of the dual conformal field theory, identifying the supergravity equations of motion with $a$ maximization. We present an exact correspondence between Chern-Simons couplings and the anomaly polynomial of the boundary theory. We illustrate our proposal by applying it to all known two- and four-derivative actions, including the “off-diagonal” invariants never before considered in the gauged supergravity literature. Finally, we argue that all invariants beyond four derivative yield no genuinely new contributions to asymptotically ${\mathrm{AdS}}_5$ BPS backgrounds, but instead reduce to linear combinations of the established two- and four-derivative actions.

Isotopic measurements of presolar silicon carbide grains from dying stars have revealed a puzzling overabundance of ${}^{94}\mathrm{Mo}$ that stellar nucleosynthesis models have failed to reproduce for two decades. This discrepancy challenged our understanding of the slow neutron-capture process ($s$-process) that forges approximately half of the elements heavier than iron. The key uncertainty lies at ${}^{94}\mathrm{Nb}$, a radioactive branching point where competition between neutron capture and beta decay governs the ${}^{94}\mathrm{Mo}$ production, yet the neutron-capture cross section had never been measured. Here, we report the first experimental determination of the ${}^{94}\mathrm{Nb}(\mathrm{n},\gamma ){}^{95}\mathrm{Nb}$ cross section important for Mo isotopic abundances. The measurement was enabled by a coordinated effort involving high-purity target preparation at Institute of Solid State and Materials Research Dresden, radioactive sample production at the Institut Laue-Langevin Grenoble, radiochemical characterization at Paul Scherrer Institut Villigen, and the time-of-flight CERN n_TOF facility using for the first time segmented total-energy detectors. Incorporation of the resulting Maxwellian-averaged cross section into fully coupled nucleosynthesis models of low-mass asymptotic giant-branch stars brings them into agreement with the presolar grain data. These results remove a major nuclear-physics input uncertainty at the ${}^{94}\mathrm{Nb}$ branching point and provide a firmer foundation for understanding the origin of ${}^{94}\mathrm{Mo}$ in the Solar System.

Non-Hermitian systems exhibit anomalous scaling, a striking departure from conventional bulk laws, rooted in the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE). Here, we experimentally uncover this scaling and demonstrate its active control in a temporal photonic lattice. By tracking the real-time evolution of all eigenstates as system size varies, we directly observe scaling-driven spectral reshaping and eigenstate localization, revealing phenomena absent in Hermitian or NHSE-free lattices. In a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattice, scaling alone can trigger a non-Hermitian topological phase transition, with edge modes remaining protected. Crucially, Kerr interactions open the frontier of nonlinear non-Hermitian physics: weak nonlinearity accelerates or decelerates anomalous scaling, while strong nonlinearity suppresses it entirely. These results establish the first experimental platform for linear and nonlinear anomalous scaling engineering, paving the way for compact non-Hermitian devices and exploration of nonlinear and many-body non-Hermitian phenomena.

Though highly impacting our lives, rotating turbulent flows are not well understood. These anisotropic three-dimensional fluctuating flows are governed by different nonlinear processes, each of which can be dominant in a different range of parameters. More than 20 years ago, Galtier used weak wave turbulence theory (WTT) to derive explicit predictions for the energy spectrum of rotating turbulence. The spectrum is an outcome of forward energy transfer by inertial waves, the linear modes of rotating fluid systems. This spectrum has not yet been observed in the presence of significant quasi-two-dimensional geostrophic modes. In this Letter, we show that the predicted WTT field spectra do exist in steady rotating turbulence, alongside with the more energetic quasi-two-dimensional turbulent field. By removing the 2D component from the steady state velocity field, we show that the residual three-dimensional field consists of inertial waves and agrees with WTT spectra predictions. Our analysis examines the dependence of the energy spectrum on all four relevant parameters and provides limits within which WTT predictions hold. These results provide a solid basis for new theoretical and experimental works focused on the coexistence of the quasi-2D field and the inertial waves field and on their interactions.

Chiral superconductivity is a novel superconducting phase characterized by order parameters that break time-reversal symmetry, endowing the state with a definite handedness. Unlike conventional superconductors, the Cooper pairs in a chiral superconductor carry nonzero orbital angular momentum. Through coupling with an external magnetic field, the finite angular momentum of the Cooper pair modulates the temperature-magnetic field phase boundary in a distinctive way, which could serve as an experimental signature of the chiral superconducting state. Here we demonstrate that the chiral signature can be detected in mesoscopic superconducting rings of $\beta \text{−}{\mathrm{Bi}}_2\mathrm{Pd}$, manifesting as a linear-in-field modulation of the critical temperature in the Little-Parks effect. Our findings establish a new experimental method for detecting chiral superconductivity.

Spin density waves (SDWs) represent a fundamental paradigm of spatially modulated order in condensed matter systems, yet their electrical and mechanical analogs—polarization and strain density waves (PDWs and StDWs)—have remained elusive as equilibrium phases. Here, we introduce a general, symmetry-driven strategy to unlock static PDWs and StDWs in perovskites ${\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$ and ${\mathrm{SrMnO}}_3$. Using first-principles calculations, we uncover a previously overlooked soft antiferrodistortive tilt gradient mode at small-$q$ wave vector in the phonon dispersion of their presumed $Ima2$ ground state under moderate tensile strain. Group-theory analysis reveals that a hard polar-acoustic phonon, which intrinsically carries PDWs and StDWs, is improperly destabilized by a trilinear coupling with this modulated tilt mode and an inherently uniform tilt mode. This interaction drives a structural transition from the $Ima2$ phase to a novel lower-energy $Pmn{2}_1$ phase that hosts long-range-ordered PDWs and StDWs. Strikingly, the engineered StDWs in ${\mathrm{SrMnO}}_3$ activate an electrically tunable SDW via the flexomagnetic effect. These discoveries fundamentally revise the strain-phase diagrams of prototypical perovskites and establish a unified phonon engineering framework that links modulated phonon instabilities to targeted density-wave order, offering new pathways for designing advanced electromechanical and magnetoelectric functionalities.

We investigate the microscopic properties of the kagome compound ${\mathrm{Cs}}_2{\mathrm{Cu}}_3{\mathrm{SnF}}_{12}$ using ${}^{63,65}\mathrm{Cu}$ nuclear quadrupolar resonance. Analysis of the local hyperfine fields below the Néel temperature $T_{\mathrm{N}}=20\mathrm{K}$ indicates a spin structure consistent with $P{2}_1/n$ symmetry of negative vector chirality. Measurements of the spin-lattice relaxation rate $T_1^{-1}$ reveal signatures of a gapless ground state and two-dimensional Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless–type correlations above $T_{\mathrm{N}}$, extending over a broad temperature range of approximately 130 K in zero magnetic field. Within the same temperature range, the observed increase in the nuclear quadrupolar resonance linewidth is consistent with short-range chiral order recently identified by neutron scattering. Our results establish ${\mathrm{Cs}}_2{\mathrm{Cu}}_3{\mathrm{SnF}}_{12}$ as a unique quantum kagome system exhibiting Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless behavior.

Recent studies have revealed that the quantum geometry of electronic bands determines the electromagnetic properties of noninteracting insulators and semimetals. However, the role of quantum geometry in the optical responses of interacting electron systems remains largely unexplored. Here, we examine the interplay between Coulomb interactions and Bloch-band quantum geometry in clean metals. We demonstrate that the low-frequency optical conductivity of a correlated metal encodes the structure of Bloch wave functions at the Fermi surface. This response originates from integrating out highly off-resonant interband scattering processes enabled by Coulomb interactions. The resulting quantum-geometric contribution appears generically in multiband systems but becomes the dominant effect in the optical conductivity for a parabolic band. We consider a dilute correlated metal near a topological band inversion and show that the doping dependence of optical absorption can measure how the orbital character of Bloch wave functions changes at the Fermi surface. Our results illustrate how the confluence of quantum geometry and Coulomb interactions can enable optical processes and enrich the physics of Fermi liquids.

Topological superconductors are believed to host exotic quasiparticle excitations known as Majorana zero modes (MZMs), with much of the evidence based on BCS mean-field theory. The direct application of mean-field arguments is tenuous in finite, isolated systems relevant in some experiments. Here, we develop a new correlation-based method for identifying MZMs in interacting, number-conserving systems. Using the density matrix renormalization group, we study fermion number-conserving models with long-range interactions, which under periodic boundary conditions exhibit robust topological and nontopological superconductivity, tuned by the strength of interaction [Ortiz et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 267002 (2014)]. We find evidence that, on the topological side, Majorana edge modes appear in open chains, manifesting as the vanishing of the energy splitting between odd- and even-parity ground states with increasing system size. Additionally, off-diagonal two-point correlation functions show nonlocal, parity-dependent edge effects. These correlations reveal the spatial structure of Majorana modes in the many-body wave function. We show that the correlation diagnostic applies broadly, including to short-range interacting models, where topological superconductivity is more fragile due to the absence of a bulk excitation gap.

We investigate the equilibrium properties of a quantum Brownian particle moving in a periodic potential, specifically addressing the nature of the dissipation-driven Schmid transition in the Ohmic regime. By employing world-line Monte Carlo in the path-integral formalism and introducing a specific binary order parameter, we demonstrate that the transition belongs to the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless universality class. This classification is substantiated through finite-size scaling analysis that reveals the characteristic logarithmic decay of the correlation functions associated with the order parameter at the critical point. Quantum phase transition turns out to be extremely fragile: it disappears in both over- and sub-Ohmic dissipation regimes. Crucially, we find that the presence of the periodic potential does not alter the localization properties in the sub-Ohmic and super-Ohmic regimes, where the system exhibits the same qualitative behavior as the free quantum Brownian particle. These findings highlight that the emergence of critical behavior is strictly governed by the low-frequency form of the environmental spectral function, which determines the long-range temporal decay of the dissipative kernel.

An in-principle exact working equation to compute electronic affinity and ionization Fukui functions is derived within the $N$-centered (Nc) ensemble extension of density functional theory (DFT). It circumvents the kernel derivative discontinuity problem of DFT for fractional electron numbers, whose contribution is recovered through weight derivatives of the ensemble density functional potential. Thus, it allows for the design of alternative and effective approximations, such as the weight-dependent scaling of regular functionals or the interpolation between known limits of Nc ensembles.

In Hopfield-type associative memory models, memories are stored in the connectivity matrix and can be retrieved subsequently thanks to the collective dynamics of the network. In these models, the retrieval of a particular memory can be hampered by overlaps between the network state and other memories, termed “spurious overlaps” since these overlaps collectively introduce noise in the retrieval process. In classic models, spurious overlaps increase the variance of synaptic inputs but do not affect the mean. We show here that, in models equipped with a learning rule inferred from neurobiological data, spurious overlaps collectively reduce the mean synaptic inputs to neurons, and that this mean reduction causes in turn an increase in storage capacity through a sparsening of network activity. Our Letter demonstrates a link between a specific feature of experimentally inferred plasticity rules and network storage capacity.

Exotic spin-spin-velocity-dependent interactions, predicted in extensions of the standard model involving new bosonic fields, could resolve fundamental puzzles from dark matter to cosmic asymmetry. However, exploring these weak potential interactions at centimeter scales presents formidable challenges, primarily due to the overwhelming dominance of electromagnetic backgrounds that can easily obscure the weak exotic signals. Here, we utilize a levitated magnet force sensor with ultrahigh electron spin density to probe these interactions. We constrain two interactions individually through a designed spin source and a multilayer magnetic shielding system that suppresses electromagnetic backgrounds. In this Letter, we constrain two types of interactions: the $V_6$ potential at force ranges from ${10}^{-3}$ to $6\times {10}^{-2}\mathrm{m}$ and the $V_{14}$ potential at ranges greater than ${10}^{-3}\mathrm{m}$. Our measurements establish 95% confidence-level bounds of $|f_6|\le 2.12\times {10}^{-13}$ and $|f_{14}|\le 2.34\times {10}^{-23}$ at $\lambda =1.6\times {10}^{-2}\mathrm{m}$, improving prior limits by up to 12 and 13 orders of magnitude, respectively. Our result demonstrates the levitated magnet as a highly sensitive probe for detecting new bosonic fields in extensions of the standard model.

We consider the anomalous dimension ${\gamma }_{gg}^{(3)}(N)$ of the twist-two gluon operator of arbitrary Lorentz spin $N$ in the quark flavor singlet sector of a general gauge theory at four loops and construct its contribution proportional to $\zeta (3)$ in analytic form by applying the Lenstra-Lenstra-Lovász algorithm to the available low-$N$ moments. We exploit generalized Gribov-Liptov reciprocity, establish new self-tuning relations for the anomalous dimension matrix of the singlet sector, and inject information from $\mathcal{N}=1$, 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories. We also present the contribution to the rational part of ${\gamma }_{gg}^{(3)}(N)$ with color factor $C_F^2{n}_f^2$. Exact contributions to the four-loop splitting function $P_{gg}^{(3)}(x)$ hence resulting via inverse Mellin transformation help us to reduce theoretical uncertainties in scaling violations of parton distribution functions in QCD.