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An ultracold quantum gas experiment shows that, when it crosses the many-body phase transition, the original ground state can evolve coherently into the new emergent phase, reflecting the initial global coherence presented in the system.
Taking into account the spatial distribution of population and its mobility, a reaction–diffusion model of an epidemic process reveals several different critical regimes, in which human mobility may even be detrimental to the spread of the disease.
Non-equilibrium signatures of topology—the appearance, movement and annihilation of vortices in a cold-atom system—are identified, showing that topological phase can emerge dynamically from a non-topological state.
Photon correlation measurements in driven-dissipative systems reveal the dynamical properties of dissipative phase transitions, as shown for optical bistability of cavity polaritons in GaAs.
Exploiting the magnetic field-induced shift of entropy in certain molecular salts when going from 1D short-range ordering to a 3D quantum critical point could provide a route for producing strongly fluctuating quantum materials.
Nanomagnets are often used to build artificial systems that are geometrically frustrated, but when quasiperiodic ordering is introduced, an unusual ground state can form, with an ordered skeletal structure surrounding groups of degenerate macrospins.
Theory and experiment show that quantum correlations violate the instrumental test—a common statistical method used to estimate the strength of causal relationships between two variables.
The effect of blackbody radiation is expected to be very weak. The acceleration due to the attractive optical forces from blackbody radiation is measured in an atom interferometer and, surprisingly, it dominates gravity and radiation pressure
A spiral chimera state, composed by an ordered spiral surrounding a core of asynchronous oscillators, is revealed in a large grid of chemical oscillators.
Atomically thin chromium tri-iodide is shown to be a 2D ferromagnetic insulator with an optical response dominated by ligand-field transitions, emitting circularly polarized photoluminescence with a helicity determined by the magnetization direction.
Large spin–orbit coupling can be induced when graphene interfaces with semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides, leading to strongly anisotropic spin dynamics. As a result, orientation-dependent spin relaxation is observed.
Droplets moving on the surface of a vibrating fluid bath mimic the behaviour of electrons in quantum corrals. Introducing submerged features in the bath can even drive the droplets to excite modes that induce effects reminiscent of quantum mirages.
Attosecond light pulses are used to probe ultrafast processes. The experimental observation of attosecond electron pulses now promises the marriage of these techniques with electron microscopy and diffraction.
Understanding how single cells evolved into multicellular organisms requires knowledge of the physical constraints on the evolution of cell clusters. Evidence that an evolution in cell shape delays fracturing offers a route to increased complexity.
Multiphoton superradiance is observed in a nuclear system excited by an X-ray free-electron laser. Tracking the system decay photon by photon shows strong enhancement of the first photon’s decay rate, in good agreement with Dicke’s formulation.
A photonic crystal can realize an analogue of a valley Hall insulator, promising more flexibility than in condensed-matter systems to explore these exotic topological states.
A significant enhancement in the effective mass of Dirac-like quasiparticles residing near a nodal loop in the electronic band structure provides evidence for strong correlation effects in a topological semimetal.
A liquid droplet is shown to slide across a solid surface subject to friction forces analogous with those between two solids. The phenomenon is generic, and closes a gap in our understanding of liquid–solid friction.
A tracing of the phase-ordering kinetics of a charge density wave system demonstrates the potential of ultrafast low-energy electron diffraction for studying phase transitions and ordering phenomena at surfaces and in low-dimensional systems.
The intensity correlations in incoherently scattered X-rays from a free-electron laser can be exploited to image 2D objects with a resolution close to or below the diffraction limit.