We study the energy and entanglement dynamics of $(1+1)\mathrm{D}$ conformal field theories (CFTs) under a Floquet drive with the sine-square deformed (SSD) Hamiltonian. Previous work has shown that this model supports both a nonheating and a heating phase. Here, we analytically establish several robust and “superuniversal” features of the heating phase which rely on conformal invariance but not on the details of the CFT involved. First, we show the energy density is concentrated in two peaks in real space, a chiral and an antichiral peak, which leads to an exponential growth in the total energy. The peak locations are set by fixed points of the Möbius transformation. Second, all of the quantum entanglement is shared between these two peaks. In each driving period, a number of Bell pairs are generated, with one member pumped to the chiral peak and the other member pumped to the antichiral peak. These Bell pairs are localized, accumulate at these two peaks, and can serve as a source of quantum entanglement. Third, in both the heating and nonheating phases, we find that the total energy is related to the half system entanglement entropy by a simple relation $E(t)\propto c\exp [(6/c)S(t)]$ with $c$ being the central charge. In addition, we show that the nonheating phase, in which the energy and entanglement oscillate in time, is unstable to small fluctuations of the driving frequency in contrast to the heating phase. Finally, we point out an analogy to the periodically driven harmonic oscillator which allows us to understand global features of the phases and introduce a quasiparticle picture to explain the spatial structure, which can be generalized to setups beyond the SSD construction.

Manipulating the polarization of light on the microscale or nanoscale is essential for integrated photonics and quantum optical devices. Nowadays, the metasurface allows one to build on-chip devices that efficiently manipulate the polarization states. However, it remains challenging to generate different types of polarization states simultaneously, which is required to encode information for quantum computing and quantum cryptography applications. By introducing geometrical-scaling-induced (GSI) phase modulations, we demonstrate that an assembly of circularly polarized ($\mathrm{C}\mathrm{P}$) and linearly polarized (LP) states can be simultaneously generated by a single metasurface made of $L$-shaped resonators with different geometrical features. Upon illumination, each resonator diffracts the $\mathrm{C}\mathrm{P}$ state with a certain GSI phase. The interaction of these diffractions leads to the desired output beams, where the polarization state and the propagation direction can be accurately tuned by selecting the geometrical shape, size, and spatial sequence of each resonator in the unit cell. As an example of potential applications, we show that an image can be encoded with different polarization profiles at different diffraction orders and decoded with a polarization analyzer. This approach resolves a challenging problem in integrated optics and is inspiring for on-chip quantum information processing.

In magic angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), electron-electron interactions play a central role, resulting in correlated insulating states at certain integer fillings. Identifying the nature of these insulators is a central question, and it is potentially linked to the relatively high-temperature superconductivity observed in the same devices. Here, we address this question using a combination of analytical strong-coupling arguments and a comprehensive Hartree-Fock numerical calculation, which includes the effect of remote bands. The ground state we obtain at charge neutrality is an unusual ordered state, which we call the Kramers intervalley-coherent (K-IVC) insulator. In its simplest form, the K-IVC order exhibits a pattern of alternating circulating currents that triples the graphene unit cell, leading to an “orbital magnetization density wave.” Although translation and time-reversal symmetry are broken, a combined “Kramers” time-reversal symmetry is preserved. Our analytic arguments are built on first identifying an approximate $\mathrm{U}(4)\times \mathrm{U}(4)$ symmetry, resulting from the remarkable properties of the TBG band structure, which helps select a low-energy manifold of states that are further split to favor the K-IVC state. This low-energy manifold is also found in the Hartree-Fock numerical calculation. We show that symmetry-lowering perturbations can stabilize other insulators and the semimetallic state, and we discuss the ground state at half-filling and give a comparison with experiments.

The iron-based superconductor FeSe has attracted much recent attention because of its simple crystal structure, distinct electronic structure, and rich physics exhibited by itself and its derivatives. Determination of its intrinsic electronic structure is crucial to understanding its physical properties and superconductivity mechanism. Both theoretical and experimental studies so far have provided a picture that FeSe consists of one holelike Fermi surface around the Brillouin zone center in its nematic state. Here we report direct observation of two holelike Fermi surface sheets around the Brillouin zone center, and the splitting of the associated bands, in the nematic state of FeSe by taking high-resolution laser-based angle-resolved photoemission measurements. These results indicate that, in addition to nematic order and spin-orbit coupling, there is an additional order in FeSe that breaks either inversion or time-reversal symmetries. The new Fermi surface topology asks for reexamination of the existing theoretical and experimental understanding of FeSe and stimulates further efforts to identify the origin of the hidden order in its nematic state.

The high kinetic inductance offered by granular aluminum (grAl) has recently been employed for linear inductors in superconducting high-impedance qubits and kinetic inductance detectors. Because of its large critical current density compared to typical Josephson junctions, its resilience to external magnetic fields, and its low dissipation, grAl may also provide a robust source of nonlinearity for strongly driven quantum circuits, topological superconductivity, and hybrid systems. Having said that, can the grAl nonlinearity be sufficient to build a qubit? Here we show that a small grAl volume ($10\times 200\times 500{\mathrm{nm}}^3$) shunted by a thin film aluminum capacitor results in a microwave oscillator with anharmonicity $\alpha$ two orders of magnitude larger than its spectral linewidth ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{01}$, effectively forming a transmon qubit. With increasing drive power, we observe several multiphoton transitions starting from the ground state, from which we extract $\alpha =2\pi \times 4.48\mathrm{MHz}$. Resonance fluorescence measurements of the $|0⟩\to |1⟩$ transition yield an intrinsic qubit linewidth $\gamma =2\pi \times 10\mathrm{kHz}$, corresponding to a lifetime of $16\mu \mathrm{s}$, as confirmed by pulsed time-domain measurements. This linewidth remains below $2\pi \times 150\mathrm{kHz}$ for in-plane magnetic fields up to $\sim 70\mathrm{mT}$.

We report the experimental observation of a spatiotemporal Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference of biphoton states of extremely high Schmidt number. Two-photon interference of 1500 spatial modes and a total of more than $3\times {10}^6$ spatiotemporal modes is evidenced by measuring momentum spatial coincidences, without any prior selection of the photons in time and space coincidence, between the pixels of the far-field images of two strongly multimode spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) beams propagating through a HOM interferometer. The outgoing SPDC beams are recorded on two separate detector arrays operating in the photon-counting regime. The properties of HOM interference are investigated both in the time and space domains. We show that the two-photon interference exhibits temporal and two-dimensional spatial HOM dips with visibilities of 60% and widths in good agreement with the spatiotemporal coherence properties of the biphoton state. Moreover, we demonstrate that maxima of momentum spatial coincidences are evidenced within each image, in correspondence with these dips.

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI QKD) removes all detector side channels and enables secure QKD with an untrusted relay. It is suitable for building a star-type quantum access network, where the complicated and expensive measurement devices are placed in the central untrusted relay and each user requires only a low-cost transmitter, such as an integrated photonic chip. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a 1.25-GHz silicon photonic chip-based MDI QKD system using polarization encoding. The photonic chip transmitters integrate the necessary encoding components for a standard QKD source. We implement random modulations of polarization states and decoy intensities, and demonstrate a finite-key secret rate of $31\mathrm{bit}/\mathrm{s}$ over 36-dB channel loss (or 180-km standard fiber). This key rate is higher than state-of-the-art MDI QKD experiments. The results show that silicon photonic chip-based MDI QKD, benefiting from miniaturization, low-cost manufacture, and compatibility with CMOS microelectronics, is a promising solution for future quantum secure networks.

Seeing and recognizing an object whose size is much smaller than the illumination wavelength is a challenging task for an observer placed in the far field, due to the diffraction limit. Recent advances in near- and far-field microscopy have offered several ways to overcome this limitation; however, they often use invasive markers and require intricate equipment with complicated image postprocessing. On the other hand, a simple marker-free solution for high-resolution imaging may be found by exploiting resonant metamaterial lenses that can convert the subwavelength image information contained in the near field of the object to propagating field components that can reach the far field. Unfortunately, resonant metalenses are inevitably sensitive to absorption losses, which has so far largely hindered their practical applications. Here, we solve this vexing problem and show that this limitation can be turned into an advantage when metalenses are combined with deep learning techniques. We demonstrate that combining deep learning with lossy metalenses allows recognizing and imaging largely subwavelength features directly from the far field. Our acoustic learning experiment shows that, despite being 30 times smaller than the wavelength of sound, the fine details of images can be successfully reconstructed and recognized in the far field, which is crucially favored by the presence of absorption. We envision applications in acoustic image analysis, feature detection, object classification, or as a novel noninvasive acoustic sensing tool in biomedical applications.

The properties of organic conductors are often tuned by the application of chemical or external pressure, which change orbital overlaps and electronic bandwidths while leaving the molecular building blocks virtually unperturbed. Here, we show that, unlike any other method, light can be used to manipulate the local electronic properties at the molecular sites, giving rise to new emergent properties. Targeted molecular excitations in the charge-transfer salt $\kappa \text{−}{(\mathrm{BEDT}-\mathrm{TTF})}_2\mathrm{Cu}[\mathrm{N}{(\mathrm{CN})}_2]\mathrm{Br}$ induce a colossal increase in carrier mobility and the opening of a superconducting optical gap. Both features track the density of quasiparticles of the equilibrium metal and can be observed up to a characteristic coherence temperature $T^{*}\simeq 50\mathrm{K}$, far higher than the equilibrium transition temperature $T_{\mathit{C}}=12.5\mathrm{K}$. Notably, the large optical gap achieved by photoexcitation is not observed in the equilibrium superconductor, pointing to a light-induced state that is different from that obtained by cooling. First-principles calculations and model Hamiltonian dynamics predict a transient state with long-range pairing correlations, providing a possible physical scenario for photomolecular superconductivity.

We propose the use of two-dimensional Penning trap arrays as a scalable platform for quantum simulation and quantum computing with trapped atomic ions. This approach involves placing arrays of microstructured electrodes defining static electric quadrupole sites in a magnetic field, with single ions trapped at each site and coupled to neighbors via the Coulomb interaction. We solve for the normal modes of ion motion in such arrays and derive a generalized multi-ion invariance theorem for stable motion even in the presence of trap imperfections. We use these techniques to investigate the feasibility of quantum simulation and quantum computation in fixed ion lattices. In homogeneous arrays, we show that sufficiently dense arrays are achievable, with axial, magnetron, and cyclotron motions exhibiting interion dipolar coupling with rates significantly higher than expected decoherence. With the addition of laser fields, these can realize tunable-range interacting spin Hamiltonians. We also show how local control of potentials allows isolation of small numbers of ions in a fixed array and can be used to implement high-fidelity gates. The use of static trapping fields means that our approach is not limited by power requirements as the system size increases, removing a major challenge for scaling which is present in standard radio-frequency traps. Thus, the architecture and methods provided here appear to open a path for trapped-ion quantum computing to reach fault-tolerant scale devices.

We show that any Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev- (SYK) like model with finite-body interactions among local degrees of freedom, e.g., bosons or spins, has a fundamental difference from the standard fermionic model: The former model fails to be described by an annealed free energy at low temperature. In this respect, such models more closely resemble spin glasses. We demonstrate this by two means: first, a general theorem proving that the annealed free energy is divergent at low temperature in any model with a tensor product Hilbert space, and second, a replica treatment of two prominent examples which exhibit phase transitions from an “annealed” phase to a “nonannealed” phase as a function of the temperature. We further show that this effect appears only at $O(N)$th order in a $1/N$ expansion, even though lower-order terms misleadingly seem to converge. Our results prove that the nonbosonic nature of the particles in the SYK model is an essential ingredient for its physics, highlight connections between local models and spin glasses, and raise important questions as to the role of fermions and/or glassiness in holography.

Room-temperature metallicity of lightly doped ${\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$ is puzzling, because the combination of mobility and the effective mass would imply a mean-free path below the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit and a scattering time shorter than the Planckian time (${\tau }_P=\hslash /k_{B}T$). We present a study of electric resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and inelastic neutron scattering extended to very high temperatures, which deepens the puzzle. Metallic resistivity persists up to 900 K and is accompanied by a large Seebeck coefficient whose magnitude (as well as its temperature and doping dependence) indicates that carriers are becoming heavier with rising temperature. Combining this with neutron scattering data, we find that between 500 and 900 K the Bohr radius and the electron wavelength become comparable to each other and twice the lattice parameter. According to our results, between 100 and 500 K, metallicity is partially driven by temperature-induced amplification of the carrier mass. We contrast this mass amplification of nondegenerate electrons with the better-known case of heavy degenerate electrons. Above 500 K, the mean-free path continues to shrink with warming in spite of becoming shorter than both the interatomic distance and the thermal wavelength of the electrons. The latter saturates to twice the lattice parameter. Available theories of polaronic quasiparticles do not provide satisfactory explanation for our observations.

We investigate the collective dynamics of nonlinearly interacting modes in multimode photonic settings. To this end, we have established a connection with the theory of spin networks. The emerging “photonic spins” are complex, soft (their size is not fixed), and their dynamics has two constants of motion. Our analysis sheds light on the nature of the thermal equilibrium states and reveals the existence of optical phase transitions which resemble a paramagnetic to a ferromagnetic and to a spin-glass phase transition occurring in spin networks. We show that, for fixed optical power, these transitions are driven by the type of the network connectivity, its coordination number, and the total energy of the optical signal. In strictly one-dimensional photonic networks we establish a universal one-parameter scaling that dictates the crossover from a (quasi)ferromagnetic phase to a paramagnetic phase.

In the study of quantum limits to parameter estimation, the high dimensionality of the density operator and that of the unknown parameters have long been two of the most difficult challenges. Here, we propose a theory of quantum semiparametric estimation that can circumvent both challenges and produce simple analytic bounds for a class of problems in which the dimensions are arbitrarily high, few prior assumptions about the density operator are made, but only a finite number of the unknown parameters are of interest. We also relate our bounds to Holevo’s version of the quantum Cramér-Rao bound, so that they can inherit the asymptotic attainability of the latter in many cases of interest. The theory is especially relevant to the estimation of a parameter that can be expressed as a function of the density operator, such as the expectation value of an observable, the fidelity to a pure state, the purity, or the von Neumann entropy. Potential applications include quantum state characterization for many-body systems, optical imaging, and interferometry, where full tomography of the quantum state is often infeasible and only a few select properties of the system are of interest.

We present a practical roadmap to achieve optical cycling and laser cooling of asymmetric top molecules (ATMs). Our theoretical analysis describes how reduced molecular symmetry, as compared to diatomic and symmetric nonlinear molecules, plays a role in photon scattering. We present methods to circumvent limitations on rapid photon cycling in these systems. We calculate vibrational branching ratios for a diverse set of asymmetric top molecules and find that many species within a broad class of molecules can be effectively cooled with a manageable number of lasers. We also describe methods to achieve rotationally closed optical cycles in ATMs. Despite significant structural complexity, laser cooling can be made effective by using extensions of the current techniques for linear molecules. Potential scientific impacts of laser-cooled ATMs span frontiers in controlled chemistry, quantum simulation, and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model.

We study properties of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) eigenmodes by decomposing the data of MHD simulations into linear MHD modes—namely, the Alfvén, slow magnetosonic, and fast magnetosonic modes. We drive turbulence with a mixture of solenoidal and compressive driving while varying the Alfvén Mach number ($M_A$), plasma $\beta$, and the sonic Mach number from subsonic to transsonic. We find that the proportion of fast and slow modes in the mode mixture increases with increasing compressive forcing. This proportion of the magnetosonic modes can also become the dominant fraction in the mode mixture. The anisotropy of the modes is analyzed by means of their structure functions. The Alfvén-mode anisotropy is consistent with the Goldreich-Sridhar theory. We find a transition from weak to strong Alfvénic turbulence as we go from low to high $M_A$. The slow-mode properties are similar to the Alfvén mode. On the other hand, the isotropic nature of fast modes is verified in the cases where the fast mode is a significant fraction of the mode mixture. The fast-mode behavior does not show any transition in going from low to high $M_A$. We find indications that there is some interaction between the different modes, and the properties of the dominant mode can affect the properties of the weaker modes. This work identifies the conditions under which magnetosonic modes can be a major fraction of turbulent astrophysical plasmas, including the regime of weak turbulence. Important astrophysical implications for cosmic-ray transport and magnetic reconnection are discussed.

Recent ferromagnetic resonance experiments and theory of $\mathrm{Pt}/\mathrm{Nb}/{\mathrm{Ni}}_8{\mathrm{Fe}}_2$ proximity-coupled structures strongly suggest that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in Pt in conjunction with a magnetic exchange field in ${\mathrm{Ni}}_8{\mathrm{Fe}}_2$ are the essential ingredients to generate a pure spin supercurrent channel in Nb. Here, by substituting Pt for a perpendicularly magnetized $\mathrm{Pt}/\mathrm{Co}/\mathrm{Pt}$ spin sink, we are able to demonstrate the role of SOC and show that pure spin supercurrent pumping efficiency across Nb is tunable by controlling the magnetization direction of Co. By inserting a Cu spacer with weak SOC between Nb and $\mathrm{Pt}/(\mathrm{Co}/\mathrm{Pt})$ spin sink, we also prove that Rashba-type SOC is key for forming and transmitting pure spin supercurrents across Nb. Finally, by engineering these properties within a single multilayer structure, we demonstrate a prototype superconductor spin-wave device in which lateral spin-wave propagation is gateable via the opening or closing of a vertical pure spin supercurrent channel in Nb.

The performance characteristics of magnetic nanoparticles toward application, e.g., in medicine and imaging or as sensors, are directly determined by their magnetization relaxation and total magnetic moment. In the commonly assumed picture, nanoparticles have a constant overall magnetic moment originating from the magnetization of the single-domain particle core surrounded by a surface region hosting spin disorder. In contrast, this work demonstrates the significant increase of the magnetic moment of ferrite nanoparticles with an applied magnetic field. At low magnetic field, the homogeneously magnetized particle core initially coincides in size with the structurally coherent grain of 12.8(2) nm diameter, indicating a strong coupling between magnetic and structural disorder. Applied magnetic fields gradually polarize the uncorrelated, disordered surface spins, resulting in a magnetic volume more than 20% larger than the structurally coherent core. The intraparticle magnetic disorder energy increases sharply toward the defect-rich surface as established by the field dependence of the magnetization distribution. In consequence, these findings illustrate how the nanoparticle magnetization overcomes structural surface disorder. This new concept of intraparticle magnetization is deployable to other magnetic nanoparticle systems, where the in-depth knowledge of spin disorder and associated magnetic anisotropies are decisive for a rational nanomaterials design.

Many living and complex systems exhibit second-order emergent dynamics. Limited experimental access to the configurational degrees of freedom results in data that appear to be generated by a non-Markovian process. This limitation poses a challenge in the quantitative reconstruction of the model from experimental data, even in the simple case of equilibrium Langevin dynamics of Hamiltonian systems. We develop a novel Bayesian inference approach to learn the parameters of such stochastic effective models from discrete finite-length trajectories. We first discuss the failure of naive inference approaches based on the estimation of derivatives through finite differences, regardless of the time resolution and the length of the sampled trajectories. We then derive, adopting higher-order discretization schemes, maximum-likelihood estimators for the model parameters that provide excellent results even with moderately long trajectories. We apply our method to second-order models of collective motion and show that our results also hold in the presence of interactions.

Bacteria which grow not on the featureless agar plates of the microbiology lab but in the real world must navigate topologies which are nontrivially complex, such as mazes or fractals. We show that chemosensitive motile E. coli can efficiently explore nontrivial mazes in times much shorter than a no-memory (Markovian) walk would predict, and can collectively escape from a fractal topology. The strategies used by the bacteria include individual power-law probability distribution function exploration, the launching of chemotactic collective waves with preferential branching at maze nodes and defeating of fractal pumping, and bet hedging in case the more risky attempts to find food fail.