Quantum Monte Carlo methods have proved valuable to study the structure and reactions of light nuclei and nucleonic matter starting from realistic nuclear interactions and currents. These ab initio calculations reproduce many low-lying states, moments, and transitions in light nuclei, and simultaneously predict many properties of light nuclei and neutron matter over a rather wide range of energy and momenta. The nuclear interactions and currents are reviewed along with a description of the continuum quantum Monte Carlo methods used in nuclear physics. These methods are similar to those used in condensed matter and electronic structure but naturally include spin-isospin, tensor, spin-orbit, and three-body interactions. A variety of results are presented, including the low-lying spectra of light nuclei, nuclear form factors, and transition matrix elements. Low-energy scattering techniques, studies of the electroweak response of nuclei relevant in electron and neutrino scattering, and the properties of dense nucleonic matter as found in neutron stars are also described. A coherent picture of nuclear structure and dynamics emerges based upon rather simple but realistic interactions and currents.

The theory of random matrices originated half a century ago as a universal description of the spectral statistics of atoms and nuclei, dependent only on the presence or absence of fundamental symmetries. Applications to quantum dots (artificial atoms) followed, stimulated by developments in the field of quantum chaos, as well as applications to Andreev billiards—quantum dots with induced superconductivity. Superconductors with topologically protected subgap states, Majorana zero modes, and Majorana edge modes, provide a new arena for applications of random-matrix theory. These recent developments are reviewed, with an emphasis on electrical and thermal transport properties that can probe the Majorana fermions.

Surface nanobubbles are nanoscopic gaseous domains on immersed substrates which can survive for days. They were first speculated to exist about 20 years ago, based on stepwise features in force curves between two hydrophobic surfaces, eventually leading to the first atomic force microscopy (AFM) image in 2000. While in the early years it was suspected that they may be an artifact caused by AFM, meanwhile their existence has been confirmed with various other methods, including through direct optical observation. Their existence seems to be paradoxical, as a simple classical estimate suggests that they should dissolve in microseconds, due to the large Laplace pressure inside these nanoscopic spherical-cap-shaped objects. Moreover, their contact angle (on the gas side) is much smaller than one would expect from macroscopic counterparts. This review will not only give an overview on surface nanobubbles, but also on surface nanodroplets, which are nanoscopic droplets (e.g., of oil) on (hydrophobic) substrates immersed in water, as they show similar properties and can easily be confused with surface nanobubbles and as they are produced in a similar way, namely, by a solvent exchange process, leading to local oversaturation of the water with gas or oil, respectively, and thus to nucleation. The review starts with how surface nanobubbles and nanodroplets can be made, how they can be observed (both individually and collectively), and what their properties are. Molecular dynamic simulations and theories to account for the long lifetime of the surface nanobubbles are then reported on. The crucial element contributing to the long lifetime of surface nanobubbles and nanodroplets is pinning of the three-phase contact line at chemical or geometric surface heterogeneities. The dynamical evolution of the surface nanobubbles then follows from the diffusion equation, Laplace’s equation, and Henry’s law. In particular, one obtains stable surface nanobubbles when the gas influx from the gas-oversaturated water and the outflux due to Laplace pressure balance. This is only possible for small enough surface bubbles. It is therefore the gas or oil oversaturation $\zeta$ that determines the contact angle of the surface nanobubble or nanodroplet and not the Young equation. The review also covers the potential technological relevance of surface nanobubbles and nanodroplets, namely, in flotation, in (photo)catalysis and electrolysis, in nanomaterial engineering, for transport in and out of nanofluidic devices, and for plasmonic bubbles, vapor nanobubbles, and energy conversion. Also given is a discussion on surface nanobubbles and nanodroplets in a nutshell, including theoretical predictions resulting from it and future directions. Studying the nucleation, growth, and dissolution dynamics of surface nanobubbles and nanodroplets will shed new light on the problems of contact line pinning and contact angle hysteresis on the submicron scale.

In recent years the research community has accumulated overwhelming evidence for the emergence of complex and heterogeneous connectivity patterns in a wide range of biological and sociotechnical systems. The complex properties of real-world networks have a profound impact on the behavior of equilibrium and nonequilibrium phenomena occurring in various systems, and the study of epidemic spreading is central to our understanding of the unfolding of dynamical processes in complex networks. The theoretical analysis of epidemic spreading in heterogeneous networks requires the development of novel analytical frameworks, and it has produced results of conceptual and practical relevance. A coherent and comprehensive review of the vast research activity concerning epidemic processes is presented, detailing the successful theoretical approaches as well as making their limits and assumptions clear. Physicists, mathematicians, epidemiologists, computer, and social scientists share a common interest in studying epidemic spreading and rely on similar models for the description of the diffusion of pathogens, knowledge, and innovation. For this reason, while focusing on the main results and the paradigmatic models in infectious disease modeling, the major results concerning generalized social contagion processes are also presented. Finally, the research activity at the forefront in the study of epidemic spreading in coevolving, coupled, and time-varying networks is reported.

In little more than 20 years, the number of applications of the density functional (DF) formalism in chemistry and materials science has grown in an astonishing fashion. The number of publications alone shows that DF calculations make up a huge success story, and many younger colleagues are surprised to learn that the widespread application of density functional methods, particularly in chemistry, began only after 1990. This is indeed unexpected, because the origins are usually traced to the papers of Hohenberg, Kohn, and Sham more than a quarter of a century earlier. The DF formalism, its applications, and prospects were reviewed for this journal in 1989. About the same time, the combination of DF calculations with molecular dynamics promised to provide an efficient way to study structures and reactions in molecules and extended systems. This paper reviews the development of density-related methods back to the early years of quantum mechanics and follows the breakthrough in their application after 1990. The two examples from biochemistry and materials science are among the many current applications that were simply far beyond expectations in 1990. The reasons why—50 years after its modern formulation and after two decades of rapid expansion—some of the most cited practitioners in the field are concerned about its future are discussed.

High-transition temperature (high-$T_c$) superconductivity in the iron pnictides or chalcogenides emerges from the suppression of the static antiferromagnetic order in their parent compounds, similar to copper oxide superconductors. This raises a fundamental question concerning the role of magnetism in the superconductivity of these materials. Neutron scattering, a powerful probe to study the magnetic order and spin dynamics, plays an essential role in determining the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity in high-$T_c$ superconductors. The rapid development of modern neutron time-of-flight spectrometers allows a direct determination of the spin dynamical properties of iron-based superconductors throughout the entire Brillouin zone. In this paper, an overview is presented of the neutron scattering results on iron-based superconductors, focusing on the evolution of spin-excitation spectra as a function of electron and hole doping and isoelectronic substitution. Spin dynamical properties of iron-based superconductors are compared with those of copper oxide and heavy fermion superconductors and the common features of spin excitations in these three families of unconventional superconductors and their relationship with superconductivity are discussed.

Nearly five decades have elapsed since the seminal 1966 paper of P. W. Anderson on the flow of superfluid helium, ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ at that time. Some of his “considerations”—the role of the quantum phase as a dynamical variable, the interplay between the motion of quantized vortices and potential superflow, its incidence on dissipation in the superfluid and the appearance of critical velocities, the quest for the hydrodynamic analogs of the Josephson effects in helium—and the way they have evolved over the past half century are recounted in this review. But it is due to key advances on the experimental front that phase slippage could be harnessed in the laboratory, leading to a deeper understanding of superflow, vortex nucleation, the various intrinsic and extrinsic dissipation mechanisms in superfluids, macroscopic quantum effects, and the superfluid analog of both ac and dc Josephson effects—pivotal concepts in superfluid physics—have been performed. Some of the experiments that have shed light on the more intimate effect of quantum mechanics on the hydrodynamics of the dense heliums are surveyed, including the nucleation of quantized vortices both by Arrhenius processes and by macroscopic quantum tunneling, the setting up of vortex mills, and superfluid interferometry.

Recent advances in the generation of well-characterized subfemtosecond laser pulses have opened up unpredicted opportunities for the real-time observation of ultrafast electronic dynamics in matter. Such attosecond chronoscopy allows a novel look at a wide range of fundamental photophysical and photochemical processes in the time domain, including Auger and autoionization processes, as well as photoemission from atoms, molecules, and surfaces, complementing conventional energy-domain spectroscopy. Attosecond chronoscopy raises fundamental conceptual and theoretical questions as to which novel information becomes accessible and which dynamical processes can be controlled and steered. Several of these questions, currently a matter of lively debate, are addressed in this review. The focus is placed on one prototypical case, the chronoscopy of the photoelectric effect by attosecond streaking. Is photoionization instantaneous or is there a finite response time of the electronic wave function to the photoabsorption event? Answers to this question turn out to be far more complex and multifaceted than initially thought. They touch upon fundamental issues of time and time delay as observables in quantum theory. Recent progress of our understanding of time-resolved photoemission from atoms, molecules, and solids is reviewed. Unresolved and open questions are highlighted and future directions are discussed addressing the observation and control of electronic motion in more complex nanoscale structures and in condensed matter.

Carbon nanotubes are a versatile material in which many aspects of condensed matter physics come together. Recent discoveries have uncovered new phenomena that completely change our understanding of transport in these devices, especially the role of the spin and valley degrees of freedom. This review describes the modern understanding of transport through nanotube devices. Unlike in conventional semiconductors, electrons in nanotubes have two angular momentum quantum numbers, arising from spin and valley freedom. The interplay between the two is the focus of this review. The energy levels associated with each degree of freedom, and the spin-orbit coupling between them, are explained, together with their consequences for transport measurements through nanotube quantum dots. In double quantum dots, the combination of quantum numbers modifies the selection rules of Pauli blockade. This can be exploited to read out spin and valley qubits and to measure the decay of these states through coupling to nuclear spins and phonons. A second unique property of carbon nanotubes is that the combination of valley freedom and electron-electron interactions in one dimension strongly modifies their transport behavior. Interaction between electrons inside and outside a quantum dot is manifested in SU(4) Kondo behavior and level renormalization. Interaction within a dot leads to Wigner molecules and more complex correlated states. This review takes an experimental perspective informed by recent advances in theory. As well as the well-understood overall picture, open questions for the field are also clearly stated. These advances position nanotubes as a leading system for the study of spin and valley physics in one dimension where electronic disorder and hyperfine interaction can both be reduced to a low level.

Optical atomic clocks represent the state of the art in the frontier of modern measurement science. In this article a detailed review on the development of optical atomic clocks that are based on trapped single ions and many neutral atoms is provided. Important technical ingredients for optical clocks are discussed and measurement precision and systematic uncertainty associated with some of the best clocks to date are presented. An outlook on the exciting prospect for clock applications is given in conclusion.

Stationary nonequilibrium states describe steady flows through macroscopic systems. Although they represent the simplest generalization of equilibrium states, they exhibit a variety of new phenomena. Within a statistical mechanics approach, these states have been the subject of several theoretical investigations, both analytic and numerical. The macroscopic fluctuation theory, based on a formula for the probability of joint space-time fluctuations of thermodynamic variables and currents, provides a unified macroscopic treatment of such states for driven diffusive systems. A detailed review of this theory including its main predictions and most relevant applications is given.

A review is given of the theory and phenomenology of neutrino electromagnetic interactions, which provide powerful tools to probe the physics beyond the standard model. After a derivation of the general structure of the electromagnetic interactions of Dirac and Majorana neutrinos in the one-photon approximation, the effects of neutrino electromagnetic interactions in terrestrial experiments and in astrophysical environments are discussed. The experimental bounds on neutrino electromagnetic properties are presented and the predictions of theories beyond the standard model are confronted.

Random walk is a fundamental concept with applications ranging from quantum physics to econometrics. Remarkably, one specific model of random walks appears to be ubiquitous across many fields as a tool to analyze transport phenomena in which the dispersal process is faster than dictated by Brownian diffusion. The Lévy-walk model combines two key features, the ability to generate anomalously fast diffusion and a finite velocity of a random walker. Recent results in optics, Hamiltonian chaos, cold atom dynamics, biophysics, and behavioral science demonstrate that this particular type of random walk provides significant insight into complex transport phenomena. This review gives a self-consistent introduction to Lévy walks, surveys their existing applications, including latest advances, and outlines further perspectives.

The electronic phase diagrams of many highly correlated systems, and, in particular, the cuprate high temperature superconductors, are complex, with many different phases appearing with similar (sometimes identical) ordering temperatures even as material properties, such as dopant concentration, are varied over wide ranges. This complexity is sometimes referred to as “competing orders.” However, since the relation is intimate, and can even lead to the existence of new phases of matter such as the putative “pair-density wave,” the general relation is better thought of in terms of “intertwined orders.” Some of the experiments in the cuprates which suggest that essential aspects of the physics are reflected in the intertwining of multiple orders, not just in the nature of each order by itself, are selectively analyzed. Several theoretical ideas concerning the origin and implications of this complexity are also summarized and critiqued.

The asymmetries in top quark pair production at the Tevatron and the LHC are reviewed. The experimental measurements and the interpretations of a possible excess in terms of new physics are summarized. Other top quark properties are also reviewed, emphasizing effects related to the $t\overline{t}$ asymmetries, as well as other collider signals.

Photonic nanostructures provide a means of tailoring the interaction between light and matter and the past decade has witnessed tremendous experimental and theoretical progress on this subject. In particular, the combination with semiconductor quantum dots has proven successful. This manuscript reviews quantum optics with excitons in single quantum dots embedded in photonic nanostructures. The ability to engineer the light-matter interaction strength in integrated photonic nanostructures enables a range of fundamental quantum-electrodynamics experiments on, e.g., spontaneous-emission control, modified Lamb shifts, and enhanced dipole-dipole interaction. Furthermore, highly efficient single-photon sources and giant photon nonlinearities may be implemented with immediate applications for photonic quantum-information processing. This review summarizes the general theoretical framework of photon emission including the role of dephasing processes and applies it to photonic nanostructures of current interest, such as photonic-crystal cavities and waveguides, dielectric nanowires, and plasmonic waveguides. The introduced concepts are generally applicable in quantum nanophotonics and apply to a large extent also to other quantum emitters, such as molecules, nitrogen vacancy centers, or atoms. Finally, the progress and future prospects of applications in quantum-information processing are considered.

Active quantum error correction using qubit stabilizer codes has emerged as a promising, but experimentally challenging, engineering program for building a universal quantum computer. In this review the formalism of qubit stabilizer and subsystem stabilizer codes and their possible use in protecting quantum information in a quantum memory are considered. The theory of fault tolerance and quantum error correction is reviewed, and examples of various codes and code constructions, the general quantum error-correction conditions, the noise threshold, the special role played by Clifford gates, and the route toward fault-tolerant universal quantum computation are discussed. The second part of the review is focused on providing an overview of quantum error correction using two-dimensional (topological) codes, in particular, the surface code architecture. The complexity of decoding and the notion of passive or self-correcting quantum memories are discussed. The review does not focus on a particular technology but discusses topics that will be relevant for various quantum technologies.