By combining vibrational annealing and shear dimensionality, we experimentally show (1) a fast reversible crystallization fcc-bct (face-centered cubic–body-centered tetragonal) in a granular system that is composed of dissipative millimeter-sized dry spheres, (2) a two-dimensional (planar) shear promotes self-assembly into an fcc crystal, while one-dimensional shear produces a bct crystal, and (3) in analogy with heterogeneous nucleation, a granular temperature gradient leads to the formation of crystal domains showing competition of polymorphic phases in the cold regions. Our findings suggest that controlling the directionality of the interactions steers to reversible crystallization of hard spheres, adds clues for theoretical studies, and provides a novel mechanism for the technological development of the applications of self-assembling phononic crystals.

We propose an incident direction independent wave propagation generated by properly assembling different unidirectional destructive interferences (UDIs), which is a consequence of the appropriate match between synthetic magnetic fluxes and the incident wave vector. Single-direction lasing at spectral singularity is feasible without introducing nonlinearity. UDI allows unidirectional lasing and unidirectional perfect absorption; when they are combined in a parity-time-symmetric manner, the spectral singularities vanish with bounded reflections and transmissions. Furthermore, the simultaneous unidirectional lasing and perfect absorption for incidences from opposite directions is created. Our findings provide insights into light control and may shed light on the explorations of desirable functionality in fundamental research and practical applications.

The controlled rotation of solid particles trapped in a liquid by an ultrasonic vortex beam is observed. Single polystyrene beads, or clusters, can be trapped against gravity while simultaneously rotated. The induced rotation of a single particle is compared to a torque balance model accounting for the acoustic response of the particle. The measured torque ($\sim 10\mathrm{pN}\mathrm{m}$ for a driving acoustic power $\sim 40\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$) suggests two dominating dissipation mechanisms of the acoustic orbital angular momentum responsible for the observed rotation. The first takes place in the bulk of the absorbing particle, while the second arises as dissipation in the viscous boundary layer in the surrounding fluid. Importantly, the dissipation processes affect both the dipolar and quadrupolar particle vibration modes suggesting that the restriction to the well-known Rayleigh scattering regime is invalid to model the total torque even for spheres much smaller than the sound wavelength. The findings show that a precise knowledge of the probe elastic absorption properties is crucial to perform rheological measurements with maneuverable trapped spheres in viscous liquids. Further results suggest that the external rotational steady flow must be included in the balance and can play an important role in other liquids.

A hypothesis about the average phase-space distribution of resonance eigenfunctions in chaotic systems with escape through an opening is proposed. Eigenfunctions with decay rate $\gamma$ are described by a classical measure that (i) is conditionally invariant with classical decay rate $\gamma$ and (ii) is uniformly distributed on sets with the same temporal distance to the quantum resolved chaotic saddle. This explains the localization of fast-decaying resonance eigenfunctions classically. It is found to occur in the phase-space region having the largest distance to the chaotic saddle. We discuss the dependence on the decay rate $\gamma$ and the semiclassical limit. The hypothesis is numerically demonstrated for the standard map.

The present study demonstrates that large electric fields progressively enhance the conductivity of ionic systems up to timescales corresponding to those on which their structural rearrangements take place. Yet, in many ionic materials, some regarded as candidates for electrical energy storage applications, the structural relaxation process can be tremendously slower than (or highly decoupled from) the charge fluctuations. Consequently, nonlinear dielectric spectroscopy may be employed to access rheological information in dynamically decoupled ionic conductors, whereas the combination of large electric power density and good mechanical stability, both technologically highly desired, imposes specific experimental constraints to reliably determine the steady-state conductivity of such materials.

We explore the dynamical response of dissipative Kerr solitons to changes in pump power and detuning and show how thermal and nonlinear processes couple these parameters to the frequency-comb degrees of freedom. Our experiments are enabled by a Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) stabilization approach that provides on-demand, radio-frequency control of the frequency comb. PDH locking not only guides Kerr-soliton formation from a cold microresonator but opens a path to decouple the repetition and carrier-envelope-offset frequencies. In particular, we demonstrate phase stabilization of both Kerr-comb degrees of freedom to a fractional frequency precision below ${10}^{-16}$, compatible with optical-time-keeping technology. Moreover, we investigate the fundamental role that residual laser-resonator detuning noise plays in the spectral purity of microwave generation with Kerr combs.

The radiation pressure force on a nearly single-order diffraction grating was measured for a transmission grating near the Littrow angles at wavelengths of 808 and 447 nm. The component of force parallel to the grating agreed well with our prediction, being proportional to the product of the grating order and the ratio of the wavelength and grating period. The normal component of force varied with the incident angle, vanishing near the Littrow angle as expected. The measurements verify a correspondence between the Fourier grating momentum and the mechanical momentum. This Letter provides opportunities for in-space fly-by-light sailcraft as well as terrestrial applications.

Complicated multipath trajectories of waves in disordered cavities cause object localization to be very challenging with traditional ray-tracing approaches. Yet it is known that information about the object position is encoded in the Green’s function. After a calibration step, traditional time-reversal approaches retrieve a source’s location from a broadband impulse response measurement. Here, we show that a nonemitting object’s scattering contribution to a reverberant medium suffices to localize the object. We demonstrate our finding in the microwave domain. Then, we further simplify the scheme by replacing the temporal degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) of the broadband measurement with spatial d.o.f. obtained from wave front shaping. A simple electronically reconfigurable reflectarray inside the cavity dynamically modulates parts of the cavity boundaries, thereby providing spatial d.o.f. The demonstrated ability to localize multiple noncooperative objects with a single-frequency scheme may have important applications for sensors in smart homes.

The dispute on whether the three-dimensional (3D) incompressible Euler equations develop an infinitely large vorticity in a finite time (blowup) keeps increasing due to ambiguous results from state-of-the-art direct numerical simulations (DNS), while the available simplified models fail to explain the intrinsic complexity and variety of observed structures. Here, we propose a new model formally identical to the Euler equations, by imitating the calculus on a 3D logarithmic lattice. This model clarifies the present controversy at the scales of existing DNS and provides the unambiguous evidence of the following transition to the blowup, explained as a chaotic attractor in a renormalized system. The chaotic attractor spans over the anomalously large six-decade interval of spatial scales. For the original Euler system, our results suggest that the existing DNS strategies at the resolution accessible now (and presumably rather long into the future) are unsuitable, by far, for the blowup analysis, and establish new fundamental requirements for the approach to this long-standing problem.

We propose using the effective spin-orbit coupling of light in Bragg-modulated cylindrical waveguides for the efficient separation of spin-up and spin-down photons emitted by a single photon emitter. Because of the spin and directional dependence of photonic stop bands in the waveguides, spin-up (-down) photon propagation in the negative (positive) direction along the waveguide axis is blocked while the same photon freely propagates in the opposite direction. Frequency shifts of photonic band structures induced by the spin-orbit coupling are verified by finite-difference time-domain numerical simulations.

Reconstructing network connectivity from the collective dynamics of a system typically requires access to its complete continuous-time evolution, although these are often experimentally inaccessible. Here we propose a theory for revealing physical connectivity of networked systems only from the event time series their intrinsic collective dynamics generate. Representing the patterns of event timings in an event space spanned by interevent and cross-event intervals, we reveal which other units directly influence the interevent times of any given unit. For illustration, we linearize an event-space mapping constructed from the spiking patterns in model neural circuits to reveal the presence or absence of synapses between any pair of neurons, as well as whether the coupling acts in an inhibiting or activating (excitatory) manner. The proposed model-independent reconstruction theory is scalable to larger networks and may thus play an important role in the reconstruction of networks from biology to social science and engineering.

Bubbles play an important role in the transport of chemicals and nutrients in many natural and industrial flows. Their dispersion is crucial to understanding the mixing processes in these flows. Here we report on the dispersion of millimetric air bubbles in a homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flow with a Taylor Reynolds number from 110 to 310. We find that the mean squared displacement (MSD) of the bubbles far exceeds that of fluid tracers in turbulence. The MSD shows two regimes. At short times, it grows ballistically ($\propto {\tau }^2$), while at larger times, it approaches the diffusive regime where the $\mathrm{MSD}\propto \tau$. Strikingly, for the bubbles, the ballistic-to-diffusive transition occurs one decade earlier than for the fluid. We reveal that both the enhanced dispersion and the early transition to the diffusive regime can be traced back to the unsteady wake-induced motion of the bubbles. Further, the diffusion transition for bubbles is not set by the integral timescale of the turbulence (as it is for fluid tracers and microbubbles), but instead, by a timescale of eddy crossing of the rising bubbles. The present findings provide a Lagrangian perspective towards understanding mixing in turbulent bubbly flows.

Rapid layering of viscous materials in microsystems encompasses a range of hydrodynamic instabilities that facilitate mixing and emulsification processes of fluids having large differences in viscosity. We experimentally study the stability of high-viscosity stratifications made of miscible and immiscible fluid pairs in square microchannels and characterize the propagation dynamics of interfacial waves, including breaking and viscous ligament entrainment from wave crests at moderate Reynolds numbers. For large viscosity contrasts, parallel fluid streams adopt widely different velocities and provide a simple model system to probe the role of inflectional instabilities of stratified microflows in relation with classic inviscid-stability theory. We reveal novel viscous wave regimes and unravel dispersion relationships in the presence and absence of interfacial tension. Detailed examination of wave celerity shows the existence of optimal operation conditions for passively disturbing miscible fluid flows and continuously dispersing low-and high-viscosity fluids at the small scale.

We study the dynamics of a flexible fiber freely moving in a three-dimensional fully developed turbulent field and present a phenomenological theory to describe the interaction between the fiber elasticity and the turbulent flow. This theory leads to the identification of two distinct regimes of flapping, which we validate against direct numerical simulations fully resolving the fiber dynamics. The main result of our analysis is the identification of a flapping regime where the fiber, despite its elasticity, is slaved to the turbulent fluctuations. In this regime the fiber can be used to measure two-point statistical observables of turbulence, including scaling exponents of velocity structure functions, the sign of the energy cascade and the energy flux of turbulence, as well as the characteristic times of the eddies within the inertial range of scales. Our results are expected to have a deep impact on the experimental turbulence research as a new way, accurate and efficient, to measure two-point, and more generally multipoint, statistics of turbulence.

We demonstrate intervalley Bloch oscillation (BO) and Landau-Zener tunneling (LZT) in an optically induced honeycomb lattice with a refractive-index gradient. Unlike previously observed BO in a gapped square lattice, we show nonadiabatic beam dynamics that are highly sensitive to the direction of the index gradient and the choice of the Dirac cones. In particular, a symmetry-preserving potential leads to nearly perfect LZT and coherent BO between the inequivalent valleys, whereas a symmetry-breaking potential generates asymmetric scattering, imperfect LZT, and valley-sensitive generation of vortices mediated by a pseudospin imbalance. This clearly indicates that, near the Dirac points, the transverse gradient does not always act as a simple scalar force, as commonly assumed, and the LZT probability is strongly affected by the sublattice symmetry as analyzed from an effective Landau-Zener Hamiltonian. Our results illustrate the anisotropic response of an otherwise isotropic Dirac platform to real-space potentials acting as strong driving fields, which may be useful for manipulation of pseudospin and valley degrees of freedom in graphenelike systems.

Being motivated by the recent prediction of high-$Q$ modes in subwavelength dielectric resonators inspired by bound states in the continuum (BIC), we study the second-harmonic generation from isolated subwavelength AlGaAs nanoantennas. We reveal that nonlinear effects at the nanoscale can be enhanced dramatically provided the resonator parameters are tuned to the BIC regime. We predict a record-high conversion efficiency for nanoscale resonators that exceeds by 2 orders of magnitude the conversion efficiency observed at the magnetic dipole Mie resonance, thus opening the way for highly efficient nonlinear metasurfaces and metadevices.