Spin torques are at the heart of spin manipulations in spintronic devices. Here, we examine the existence of an optical spin-orbit torque, a relativistic spin torque originating from the spin-orbit coupling of an oscillating applied field with the spins. We compare the effect of the nonrelativistic Zeeman torque with the relativistic optical spin-orbit torque for ferromagnetic systems excited by a circularly polarized laser pulse. The latter torque depends on the helicity of the light and scales with the intensity, while being inversely proportional to the frequency. Our results show that the optical spin-orbit torque can provide a torque on the spins, which is quantitatively equivalent to the Zeeman torque. Moreover, temperature-dependent calculations show that the effect of optical spin-orbit torque decreases with increasing temperature. However, the effect does not vanish in a ferromagnetic system, even above its Curie temperature.

Kramer's theory of activation over a potential barrier consists in computing the mean exit time from the boundary of a basin of attraction of a randomly perturbed dynamical system. Here we report that for some systems, crossing the boundary is not enough, because stochastic trajectories return inside the basin with a high probability a certain number of times before escaping far away. This situation is due to a shallow potential. We compute the mean and distribution of escape times and show how this result explains the large distribution of interburst durations in neuronal networks.

We propose a novel type of Rydberg dimer, consisting of a Rydberg-state atom bound to a distant positive ion. The molecule is formed through long-range electric-multipole interaction between the Rydberg atom and the pointlike ion. We present potential energy curves (PECs) that are asymptotically connected with Rydberg $nP$ or $nD$ states of rubidium or cesium. The PECs exhibit deep, long-range wells which support many vibrational states of Rydberg-atom-ion molecules (RAIMs). We consider photoassociation of RAIMs in both the weak and the strong optical-coupling regimes between initial and Rydberg states of the neutral atom. Experimental considerations for the realization of RAIMs are discussed.

Novel designs of Josephson weak links based on semiconducting nanowires combined with circuit QED techniques have enabled the resolution of their fine structure due to spin-orbit interactions, opening a path towards Andreev spin qubits. Nevertheless, direct manipulation of the spin within a given Andreev state is in general suppressed compared to interdoublet manipulation in the absence of Zeeman effects. In addition, noisy spin-flip mechanisms limit any coherent manipulation protocol to spin postselection. We propose a combination of a spin polarization protocol analogous to sideband cooling with stimulated Raman adiabatic passage specifically tailored for these systems. We show this approach is robust for a large range of design parameters, including the currently rather stringent coherence times.

Dynamical multiferroicity features entangled dynamic orders: fluctuating electric dipoles induce magnetization. Hence, the material with paraelectric fluctuations can develop magnetic signatures if dynamically driven. We identify the paraelectric ${\mathrm{KTaO}}_3$ (KTO) as a prime candidate for the observation of the dynamical multiferroicity. We show that when a KTO sample is exposed to a circularly polarized laser pulse, the dynamically induced ionic magnetic moments are of the order of 5% of the nuclear magneton per unit cell. We determine the phonon spectrum using ab initio methods, and we identify $T_{1u}$ as relevant phonon modes that couple to the external field and induce magnetic polarization. We also predict a corresponding electron effect for the dynamically induced magnetic moment, which is enhanced by several orders of magnitude due to the significant mass difference between electron and ionic nucleus.

A muonium hydride molecule is a bound state of muonium and hydrogen atoms. It has half the mass of a parahydrogen molecule and very similar electronic properties in its ground state. The phase diagram of an assembly of such particles is investigated by first-principles quantum simulations. In the bulk limit, the low-temperature equilibrium phase is a crystal of extraordinarily low density, lower than that of any other known atomic or molecular crystal. Despite the low density and particle mass, the melting temperature is surprisingly high (close to 9 K). No (metastable) supersolid phase is observed. We investigated the physical properties of nanoscale clusters (up to 200 particles) of muonium hydride and found the superfluid response to be greatly enhanced compared to that of parahydrogen clusters. The possible experimental realization of these systems is discussed.

The collective modes of a quantum liquid shape and impact its properties profoundly, including its emergent phenomena such as superfluidity. Here we present how a two-dimensional Bose gas responds to a moving lattice potential. In particular, we discuss how the induced heating rate depends on the interaction strength and the temperature. This study is motivated by the recent measurements of Sobirey et al. [arXiv:2005.07607], for which we provide a satisfying understanding. Going beyond the existing measurements, we demonstrate that this probing method allows us to identify two sound modes in quantum liquids. We show that the two sound modes undergo hybridization as a function of interaction strength, which we propose to detect experimentally. This gives insight into the two regimes of Bose gases, defined via the hierarchy of sound modes.

Chiral matter has a structure that lacks inversion, mirror, and rotoreflection symmetry; thus, a given chiral material has either a right- or left-handed structure. In chiral matter, electricity and magnetism can be coupled in an exotic manner beyond the classical electromagnetism (e.g., magneto chiral effect in chiral magnets). In this paper, we give a firm experimental proof of the linear electric-current-induced magnetization effect in bulk nonmagnetic chiral matter elemental trigonal tellurium. We measured a ${}^{125}\mathrm{Te}$ nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral shift under a pulsed electric current for trigonal tellurium single crystals. We provide general symmetry considerations to discuss the electrically (electric-field- and electric-current-) induced magnetization and clarify that the NMR shift observed in trigonal tellurium is caused by the linear current-induced magnetization effect, not by a higher-order magnetoelectric effect. We also show that the current-induced NMR shift is reversed by a chirality reversal of the tellurium crystal structure. This result is direct evidence of crystal-chirality-induced spin polarization, which is an inorganic-bulk-crystal analog of the chirality-induced spin selectivity in chiral organic molecules. The present findings also show that nonmagnetic chiral crystals may be applied to spintronics and coil-free devices to generate magnetization beyond the classical electromagnetism.

Spin transport phenomena underpin an extensive range of spintronic effects. In particular spin transport across interfaces occurs in most device concepts, but is so far poorly understood. As interface properties strongly impact spin transport, one needs to characterize and correlate them to the fabrication method. Here we investigate pure spin current transport across interfaces and connect this with imaging of the interfaces. We study the detection of pure spin currents via the inverse spin Hall effect in Pt and the related spin current absorption by Pt in Py-Cu-Pt lateral spin valves. Depending on the fabrication process, we either find a large (inverse) spin Hall effect signal and low spin absorption by Pt or vice versa and a similar effect is seen also for spin current absorption in CoFe-Cu–based devices. We explain these counterintuitive results by the fabrication-induced varying quality of the interfaces, which is directly revealed via a special scanning electron microscopy technique for interface imaging and correlated to the spin transport.

Magnetic skyrmions are topological quasiparticles in magnetization. Recently, as one of their photonic counterparts, Néel-type photonic skyrmions were discovered in evanescent electromagnetic waves. The deep-subwavelength features of the photonic skyrmions suggest their potential in optical imaging quantum technologies and data storage. Here, by exploiting the photonic quantum spin Hall effect of a plasmonic vortex in a trilayered structure, we predict the existence of photonic twisted-Néel- and Bloch-type skyrmions in chiral materials. Their chirality-dependent features can be considered as additional degrees of freedom for future chiral sensing, information processing, and storage technologies. In particular, our findings enrich the formations of photonic skyrmions and reveal a remarkable resemblance of the feature of chiral materials in two seemingly distant fields: photonic skyrmions and magnetic skyrmions.

We study a planar Josephson junction under an applied DC voltage bias in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. Upon tuning the bias voltage across the junction $V_{\mathrm{J}}$, the two ends of the junction are shown to simultaneously host both zero and $\pi$ Majorana modes. These modes can be probed using either a scanning-tunneling-microscopy measurement or through resonant Andreev tunneling from a lead coupled to the junction. While these modes are mostly bound to the junction's ends, they can hybridize with the bulk by absorbing or emitting photons. We analyze this process both numerically and analytically, demonstrating that it can become negligible under typical experimental conditions. Transport signatures of the zero and $\pi$ Majorana states are shown to be robust to moderate disorder.

In this short paper, we argue that the chiral central charge $c_{-}$ of a $(2+1)\mathrm{d}$ topological ordered state is sometimes strongly constrained by 't Hooft anomaly of antiunitary global symmetry. For example, if a $(2+1)\mathrm{d}$ fermionic topological quantum field theory (TQFT) has a time-reversal anomaly with $T^2={(-1)}^F$ labeled as $\nu \in {\mathbb{Z}}_{16}$, the TQFT must have $c_{-}=1/4$ mod $1/2$ for odd $\nu$, while $c_{-}=0$ mod $1/2$ for even $\nu$. This generalizes the fact that the bosonic TQFT with $T$ anomaly in a particular class must carry $c_{-}=4$ mod 8 to fermionic cases. We also study such a constraint for fermionic TQFT with $U\left(1\right)\times CT$ symmetry, which is regarded as a gapped surface of the topological superconductor in class AIII.

Driven many-body systems have been shown to exhibit discrete time crystal phases characterized by broken discrete time-translational symmetry. This has been achieved generally through a subharmonic response, in which the system undergoes one oscillation every other driving period. Here, we demonstrate that classical time crystals do not need to resonate in a subharmonic fashion but instead can also exhibit a continuously tunable anharmonic response to driving, which we show can emerge through a coresonance between modes in different branches of the dispersion relation in a parametrically driven medium. This response, characterized by a typically incommensurate ratio between the resonant frequencies and the driving frequency, is demonstrated by introducing a time crystal model consisting of an array of coupled pendula with alternating lengths. Importantly, the coresonance mechanism is the result of a bifurcation involving a fixed point and an invariant torus, with no intermediate limit cycles. This bifurcation thus gives rise to a many-body symmetry-breaking phenomenon directly connecting the symmetry-unbroken phase with a previously uncharacterized phase of matter, which we call an anharmonic time crystal phase. The mechanism is shown to generalize to driven media with any number of coupled fields and is expected to give rise to anharmonic responses in a range of weakly damped pattern-forming systems, with potential applications to the study of nonequilibrium phases, frequency conversion, and acoustic cloaking.

Quantum vortices in superfluids have been an important research area for many decades. Naturally, research on this topic has focused on two-dimensional (2D) and 3D superfluids, in which vortex cores form points and lines, respectively. Very recently, however, there has been growing interest in the quantum simulation of systems with four spatial dimensions; this raises the question of how vortices would behave in a higher-dimensional superfluid. In this paper, we begin to establish the phenomenology of vortices in 4D superfluids under rotation, where the vortex core can form a plane. In 4D, the most generic type of rotation is a “double rotation” with two angles (or frequencies). We show, by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, that the simplest case of equal-frequency double rotation can stabilize a pair of vortex planes intersecting at a point. This opens up a wide number of future research topics, including into realistic experimental models; unequal-frequency double rotations; the stability and potential reconnection dynamics of intersecting vortex surfaces; and the possibility of closed vortex surfaces.

Because of using geometric phases, nonadiabatic geometric gates have robustness against control errors. On the other hand, decoherence still affects nonadiabatic geometric gates, which is a key factor in reducing their fidelities. In this paper, we show that based on the system Hamiltonian that realizes a nonadiabatic geometric gate, one may construct a system Hamiltonian by the use of which not only the geometric feature of the nonadiabatic geometric gate is preserved, but also the system's coherence is protected. As a result, a coherence-protected nonadiabatic geometric gate is realized with this system Hamiltonian, and this gate has robustness against both control errors and decoherence. We further implement our scheme with nitrogen-vacancy centers and show that a universal set of coherence-protected nonadiabatic geometric gates can be realized. Our scheme does not need auxiliary systems or the encoding of logical qubits with physical qubits, which saves resources for the implementation. Due to the robustness against both control errors and decoherence, our scheme provides a promising way to realize high-fidelity quantum gates.

An experimental scheme is presented for generating low-divergence, ultradense, relativistic, electron-positron beams using 400 $\mathrm{GeV}/c$ protons available at facilities such as HiRadMat and AWAKE at CERN. Preliminary Monte Carlo and particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate the possibility of generating beams containing ${10}^{13}–{10}^{14}$ electron-positron pairs at sufficiently high densities to drive collisionless beam-plasma instabilities, which are expected to play an important role in magnetic field generation and the related radiation signatures of relativistic astrophysical phenomena. The pair beams are quasineutral, with size exceeding several skin depths in all dimensions, allowing the examination of the effect of competition between transverse and longitudinal instability modes on the growth of magnetic fields. Furthermore, the presented scheme allows for the possibility of controlling the relative density of hadrons to electron-positron pairs in the beam, making it possible to explore the parameter spaces for different astrophysical environments.

This paper discusses relativistic corrections to the thermal Coulomb potential for simple atomic systems. The theoretical description of the revealed thermal corrections is carried out within the framework of relativistic quantum electrodynamics. As a result, thermal corrections to the fine and hyperfine structures of atomic levels are introduced. The theory presented in this paper is based on the assumption that the atom is placed in a thermal environment created by the blackbody radiation. The numerical results allow us to expect their significance for modern experiments and testing the fundamental interactions.

Bipartite entangled quantum states with a positive partial transpose (PPT), i.e., PPT entangled states, are usually considered very weakly entangled. Since no pure entanglement can be distilled from them, they are also called bound entangled. In this paper, we present two classes of $(2d\times 2d)$-dimensional PPT entangled states for any $d\ge 2$ which outperform all separable states in metrology significantly. We present strong evidence that our states provide the maximal metrological gain achievable by PPT states for a given system size. When the dimension $d$ goes to infinity, the metrological gain of these states becomes maximal and equals the metrological gain of a pair of maximally entangled qubits. Thus, we argue that our states could be called “PPT singlets.”

Coupling a system to a nonthermal environment can profoundly affect the phase diagram of the closed system, giving rise to a special class of dissipation-induced phase transitions. Such transitions take the system out of its ground state and stabilize a higher-energy stationary state, rendering it the sole attractor of the dissipative dynamics. In this paper, we present a unifying methodology, which we use to characterize this ubiquitous phenomenology and its implications for the open system dynamics. Specifically, we analyze the closed system's phase diagram, including symmetry-broken phases, and explore their corresponding excitations' spectra. Opening the system, the environment can overwhelm the system's symmetry-breaking tendencies, and changes its order parameter. As a result, isolated distinct phases of similar order become connected, and new phase-costability regions appear. Interestingly, the excitations differ in the newly connected regions through a change in their symplectic norm, which is robust to the introduction of dissipation. As a result, by tuning the system from one phase to the other across the dissipation-stabilized region, the open system fluctuations exhibit an exceptional pointlike scenario, where the fluctuations become overdamped, only to reappear with an opposite sign in the dynamical response function of the system. The overdamped region is also associated with squeezing of the fluctuations. We demonstrate the pervasive nature of such dissipation-induced phenomena in two prominent examples, namely, in parametric resonators and in light-matter systems. Our work draws a crucial distinction between quantum phase transitions and their zero-temperature open system counterparts.

We present an extension of the atomic frequency comb protocol that utilizes the Stark effect to perform noise-free, on-demand, control. An experimental realization of this protocol was implemented in the ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{3+}:{\mathrm{Y}}_2{\mathrm{SiO}}_5$ solid-state system, and a recall efficiency of 38% for a 0.8 $\mu \mathrm{s}$ storage time was achieved. Experiments were performed with both bright pulses as well as weak-coherent states, the latter achieving a signal-to-noise ratio of $570\pm 120$ using input pulses with an average photon number of $\sim 0.1$. The principal limitation for a longer storage time was found to be the minimum peak width attainable for ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{3+}:{\mathrm{Y}}_2{\mathrm{SiO}}_5$. We employ an adaptation of an established atomic frequency comb model to investigate an on-demand, wide-bandwidth, memory based on ${\mathrm{Eu}}^{3+}:{\mathrm{Y}}_2{\mathrm{SiO}}_5$. From this, we determine that a storage time as long as 100 $\mu \mathrm{s}$ may be practical even without recourse to spin-wave storage.