We study phonon-mediated pairings in a single-flavor metal with a tunable Berry curvature. In the absence of Berry curvature, we discover an unexpected possibility: $p$-wave superconductivity emerging purely from the retardation effect, while the static Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) approximation fails to predict its existence. The gap function exhibits sign-change behavior in frequency (owing to the dynamical structure of the phonon-mediated interaction in the $p$-wave channel), and $T_c$ obeys a BCS-like scaling. We further show that the Berry curvature stabilizes the chiral $p$-wave superconductivity and can induce transitions to higher-angular-momentum pairings. Our results establish that the phonon-mediated mechanism is a viable pairing candidate in single-flavor systems, such as the quarter-metal superconductivity observed in rhombohedral graphene multilayers.

The thermodynamic critical field $B_{\mathrm{c}}$ provides direct access to the superconducting condensation energy, yet its pressure dependence has been studied much less extensively than that of the transition temperature. Here, muon-spin-rotation relaxation measurements of the thermodynamic critical field $B_{\mathrm{c}}$ of elemental Pb under hydrostatic pressure up to $\simeq 2.3\mathrm{GPa}$ are reported. From the magnetic-field distribution in the intermediate state, $B_{\mathrm{c}}(T)$ is determined and $B_{\mathrm{c}}(0)$ is extracted at different pressures, thereby providing direct thermodynamic access to the pressure evolution of the condensation-energy scale. It is shown that, within the experimentally accessible pressure range, the pressure dependence of $B_{\mathrm{c}}(0)$ follows that of the superconducting gap $\mathrm{\Delta }(0)$ more closely than that of the transition temperature $T_{\mathrm{c}}$. The measured pressure derivative of the coupling ratio $\alpha =\mathrm{\Delta }(0)/(k_{\mathrm{B}}{T}_{\mathrm{c}})$ is furthermore found to agree with the difference between the pressure derivatives of $B_{\mathrm{c}}(0)$ and $T_{\mathrm{c}}$, providing a direct thermodynamic confirmation of the relation between these quantities. Together, these results show that pressure suppresses strong-coupling effects in Pb. When viewed together with previously reported high-pressure data for $B_{\mathrm{c}}$ and $T_{\mathrm{c}}$, the present results indicate that this tendency continues toward a regime in which $\alpha$ becomes nearly pressure independent.

Quantum geometry, characterized by the quantum metric and Berry curvature, is a powerful framework for understanding diverse physical phenomena in quantum materials, but its behavior in nonperiodic systems remains largely uncharted. Here, we uncover a universal mechanism for the divergent enhancement of the quantum metric in one-dimensional quasiperiodic systems, governed by the interplay of wave function criticality and spectral fractality. Using the paradigmatic Fibonacci chain, we demonstrate that the quantum metric displays a hierarchical scaling structure that mirrors the fractal organization of the energy spectrum. A real-space renormalization-group analysis yields an analytic power-law scaling, $\mathcal{G}\propto (\mathrm{\Delta }E{)}^{-k}$, between the quantum metric $\mathcal{G}$ and spectral gap $\mathrm{\Delta }E$, with the exponent $k$ dictated by the system’s self-similarity. This scaling persists in the critical Aubry-André-Harper model but disappears in both its localized and extended phases, confirming its universality across different quasiperiodic paradigms and its unique link to criticality. Our results show that the quantum metric provides a sensitive geometric indicator of quasiperiodic criticality, and highlight quasicrystals as promising platforms for realizing unconventional giant quantum geometric effects beyond the limits of periodic crystals.

Supersymmetric conformal field theories form a unique subset of quantum field theories that provide powerful insights into strongly coupled critical phenomena. Here, we present a microscopic and nonperturbative realization of the three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ superconformal Ising critical point based on a Yukawa-type coupling between a 3D Ising conformal field theory and a gauged Majorana fermion. Using the recently developed fuzzy-sphere regularization, we directly extract the scaling dimensions of low-lying operators via the state-operator correspondence. At the critical point, we demonstrate conformal multiplet structure together with the hallmark of emergent spacetime supersymmetry through characteristic relations between fermionic and bosonic operators. Moreover, by tuning the Yukawa coupling, we explicitly track the evolution of operator spectra from the decoupled Ising-Majorana fixed point to the interacting superconformal fixed point, revealing renormalization group flow at the operator level. Our results establish a nonperturbative microscopic route to 3D supersymmetric conformal field theories.

The $p$-wave magnet has emerged as a new type of magnetism exhibiting odd-parity, time-reversal-symmetric spin splitting in momentum space, and has attracted considerable interest as a promising platform for spintronic applications. However, the theoretical understanding of the fundamental mechanism responsible for stabilizing this phase remains limited. In this Letter, we identify a microscopic interacting model that realizes the $p$-wave magnet as its ground state. We first introduce a Hubbard model and derive the corresponding low-energy spin Hamiltonian. At the classical level, we find that the $p$-wave magnet is stabilized but remains energetically degenerate with competing noncoplanar states. Quantum fluctuations lift this degeneracy, selecting the $p$-wave magnet as the unique ground state. The resulting electronic structure exhibits finite spin accumulation via the Edelstein effect, highlighting the potential of $p$-wave magnetism for spintronic applications. We further discuss the relevance of our theory to quasi-two-dimensional honeycomb magnets such as ${\mathrm{Ni}}_2{\text{Mo}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_8$. Our findings establish the possibility of spontaneous $p$-wave magnetism.

Altermagnetism and fully compensated ferrimagnetism are distinct classes of zero-net-magnetization order that combine antiferromagnetic compensation with ferromagneticlike spin splitting. In altermagnets, spin splitting arises from crystal symmetry and alternates in momentum space, whereas in compensated ferrimagnets it originates from band-filling constraints and remains uniform across the Brillouin zone. A controllable pathway connecting these regimes has remained elusive. Here we show that chemical symmetry breaking provides a general mechanism to interconvert these two orders. Using symmetry analysis, tight-binding theory, and first-principles calculations, we identify the Cairo-pentagonal lattice as a platform that generically hosts altermagnetic order and demonstrate its conversion to a fully compensated ferrimagnetic state via site-selective functionalization that lifts sublattice symmetry without inducing net magnetization. This transition removes symmetry-enforced momentum-space sign reversal of spin splitting, leading to enhanced anomalous Hall response and the emergence of magneto-optical Kerr effects. Our results establish a material route for interconverting zero-magnetization orders and identify chemically programmable two-dimensional metal–organic frameworks as a versatile platform for symmetry-controlled spintronic functionalities.

We address a central open question in driven topological matter by investigating the nonequilibrium response of a two-dimensional magnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions subjected to a periodically oscillating magnetic field. Using extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we uncover a dynamically reentrant skyrmion phase that emerges within a finite window of field amplitudes and bias fields, sandwiched between the conventional skyrmion and polarized ferromagnetic phases. This phase has no equilibrium counterpart and originates from an imbalance between skyrmion creation and annihilation over a single field cycle, leading to a reversal of the period-averaged topological charge. We show that the reentrant phase exists only in the dynamic response regime where the system can follow the drive, and is suppressed at higher driving frequencies. Our results establish periodic driving as a nonequilibrium control parameter for stabilizing and reversing skyrmion topology.

We describe a geometric phenomenon in which a traveling wave made of degenerate Goldstone modes leaves behind a transformed ground state. In a triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet, a pulse of circularly polarized spin waves rotates the spins within their plane. An exact solution of the nonlinear equations of motion demonstrates that the accumulated rotation is a geometric phase related to parallel transport of the order parameter. We point out a curious analogy between the motion of the magnetic order parameter and that of a wobbling coin. This phenomenon opens a new route for controlling antiferromagnetic order by spin waves and may extend to other frustrated magnets as well as other physical systems with noncommuting broken-symmetry generators.

Multiferroic oxides, which host coexisting ferroelectric and magnetic orders, are central to understanding correlated quantum phenomena. Yet, as thickness approaches the two-dimensional (2D) limit, both ferroelectricity and magnetism are generally expected to be strongly suppressed by depolarization fields and finite-size effects, respectively. Here, we show that hexagonal ${\mathrm{LuFeO}}_3$ ($h\text{−}{\mathrm{LuFeO}}_3$) retains multiferroic behavior down to a thickness of only one and a half unit cells. The polar structural distortion remains robust at room temperature and is comparable to that of the bulk, while robust magnetic order persists at low temperatures. We further find that the magnetic response can be reproducibly modulated through ferroelectric domain-state control. Structural analysis indicates that the $K_3$ distortion remains stable down to the two-dimensional limit, providing the basis for the survival of improper ferroelectricity in this regime. These results establish $h\text{−}{\mathrm{LuFeO}}_3$ as an oxide platform in which ferroelectricity and magnetic order coexist at the atomic-scale limit, and provide insight into how coupled ferroic behavior can persist in ultrathin complex oxides.

We report a quantum energy truncation terahertz coherence tomography technique that enables highly localized extraction of molecular-species-specific THz responses. The method exploits resonant photon loss when the emitter THz energy matches molecular vibration quanta. Reflected THz radiation is recorded and mapped into depth-coded image sequences, from which subsurface structural information and molecular fingerprints are retrieved to construct three-dimensional tomograms. This approach resolves major limitations of conventional continuous-wave (CW) THz imaging—namely, its lack of spectroscopic specificity and dependence on angular scanning—by directly correlating molecular excitation spectra with depth information. As a result, quantum energy truncation terahertz coherence tomography enables rapid, three-dimensional THz imaging with selective sensitivity to discrete molecular quantum energy transitions, providing new opportunities for nondestructive characterization of material refractive indices, molecular composition, and subsurface structures.

We study mean-field Ising models in which the coupling depends on the magnetization via a feedback function. We identify mixed phases (MPs) and show that they can be stable at zero temperature for sufficiently strong feedback. Moreover, stable MPs are always superstable, meaning that perturbations decay linearly in time. Feedback Ising models (FIMs) provide a useful framework for phase transformations between aligned phases via stable and unstable intermediate phases in multistable systems. We also analyze the dynamical behavior of FIMs driven by a varying magnetic field and discuss basic properties of finite-dimensional FIMs.

The second-order phase transitions in the Ising model and liquid-gas systems share a universality class and critical exponents, despite the absence of $Z_2$ symmetry in the liquid-gas Hamiltonian. This discrepancy highlights a central puzzle in critical phenomena: what is the influence of asymmetry on scaling laws? For over a century, this question has been explored through examining violations of the empirical “rectilinear diameter law” for the subcritical coexistence curve, where asymmetry could generate singular corrections. Here, we extend this investigation to the supercritical regime. We propose a supercritical-subcritical correspondence, drawing a formal analogy between the subcritical coexistence curve and recently defined supercritical boundary lines ($L^{\pm }$ lines). Our theory predicts that the linear mixing of physical fields—a hallmark of asymmetric systems—produces universal scaling corrections, with antisymmetric coefficients, in these supercritical loci. We verify these predictions using liquid-gas data from the NIST database and a model liquid-liquid transition. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the same asymmetric scaling framework governs the behavior of higher-order cumulants in the order parameter distribution.

Controlling bond breaking is a long-standing goal in molecular physics. Infrared nanocavities are currently being developed for reaching exotic coupling regimes of cavity QED with a few molecules, but it is not well understood how chemical reactions would proceed in such systems. We study infrared laser photodissociation of a single molecule that strongly interacts with a resonant infrared vacuum, subject to a strong laser field that either resonantly drives the molecule or injects photons into the cavity. We show that the intensities required for photodissociation are significantly lower inside the cavity than in free space. By directly injecting photons into the cavity, the molecule dissociates with 2 orders of magnitude less laser energy than by directly driving the vibrational mode. This photodissociation enhancement is a purely quantum mechanical effect that cannot be captured semiclassically. Our Letter provides fundamental mechanistic understanding of chemical dynamics that can be used for designing new types of nanophotonics experiments that probe single-molecule chemistry.

Time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) is a standard approach for calculating optical excitations of molecules and solids, while ensemble DFT (EDFT) is a promising alternative under development. We introduce ensemble TDDFT (ETDDFT), a practical theory that combines the two, generalizing both; we ensemble generalize the Gross-Kohn equation and the exchange-correlation kernel of TDDFT, and generalize EDFT to time-dependent problems. We relate coordinate scaling to the adiabatic connection. The new theory provides multiple avenues for constructing and using approximations. We illustrate these on the two-site Hubbard model. We connect our results to the more general case of nonperturbative time dependence.

Crumpled Mylar sheets exhibit logarithmic relaxation under both force and displacement-controlled conditions. We perform cyclic relaxation experiments and reveal a continuous family of force-displacement curves that evolve toward equilibrium, bounded by instantaneous and fully relaxed limits. By generalizing the Amir-Oreg-Imry model to include nonlinear elasticity, we predict and experimentally confirm an intrinsic asymmetry in the relaxation response: while force relaxes independently of fluctuations in the elastic response, displacement relaxation inherits its temporal evolution from them. This asymmetry implies that, regardless of the imposed boundary condition, relaxation in crumpled sheets occurs solely via a spectrum of force-relaxation modes.

Free probability provides a framework for describing correlations between noncommuting observables in complex quantum systems whose Hilbert-space states follow maximum-entropy distributions. We examine the robustness of this framework under a minimal deviation from freeness: the coupling of a single ancilla qubit to a Haar-distributed quantum circuit of dimension $D_0\gg 1$. We find that, even in this setting, the correlation functions predicted by free probability theory receive corrections of order $\mathcal{O}(1)$. These modifications persist at long times, when the dynamics of the coupled system is already ergodic. We trace their origin to nonuniformly distributed stationary quantum states, which we characterize analytically and confirm numerically.

We study the scattering of two boson stars by comparing four sequences (at fixed energy and varying impact parameter) of numerical relativity simulations to an effective-one-body analytic description, taking into account both gravitational effects (point-mass and tidal) and short-range scalar-field interactions. We obtain excellent agreement between analytical and numerical results, exhibiting the importance of short-range scalar-field interactions for small impact parameters. Our Letter paves the way toward analytic waveform templates of exotic compact object binaries.

We compute the complete potential-graviton contributions to the conservative radial action and scattering angle for two nonspinning bodies in general relativity, accurate through fifth order in Newton’s constant and including second-order self-force effects. The calculation is carried out in the scattering-amplitude framework, combining the double-copy, effective field theory, and multiloop integration techniques based on integration by parts and differential equations. To address a major computational bottleneck, we develop improved integration-by-parts algorithms that render calculations at this order tractable. The post-Minkowskian amplitude is presented as a series expansion, following the strategy used earlier in maximal supergravity. For the first self-force sector, which involves only polylogarithmic functions, we also provide a closed-form analytic expression. For the second self-force sector, as in earlier supergravity work, we find nontrivial cancellations among contributions related to integrals supported on Calabi-Yau geometry.