Advanced materials are characterized by complex mathematical properties such as the topology and geometry of quantum states. This work demonstrates that in some systems, the evolution of a particle’s spatial distribution is a direct measure of these properties: the relative displacement in two sublattices is found to be given by the quantum metric.

In many quantum materials, different electronic phases can coexist or compete with one another. In this work uniaxial pressure is used to achieve the spatial distribution of charge order that maximizes the superconducting transition temperature.

The ionization via high-intensity X-ray irradiation can cause structural rearrangements within the sample. The authors observe a new structure in ionized liquid water emerging within few femtoseconds from the initial ionization, characterized via a peculiar partial order on a length scale much longer than normally found in water.

Quiescent galaxies have similar amount of cool gas to star forming galaxies, yet why galaxies stop forming stars remains an open question. The authors investigate why passive galaxies remain quiescent using a gravitationally lensed background galaxy to probe the faint, diffuse cool gas around a massive quiescent galaxy, and use lensing configuration to constrain the total mass and geometry of this gas reservoir.

Due to its proximity to the Sun, the space plasma environment of Mercury is tightly coupled with the interior and the surface of the planet, and their interaction facilitate the escape of planetary material and energy exchange. The authors present data from the third flyby of the BepiColombo spacecraft revealing new evidence of trapped energetic hydrogen (H⁺) with energies of around 20 keV/e and highlight the presence of cold ion population below 50 eV/e in Mercury’s magnetosphere.

Manipulation of materials properties by laser driving can lead to future technological applications, but a complete picture of its mechanisms is missing. In their paper, authors propose a method based on ultrafast x-ray diffraction that allows for resolving laser-driven electron dynamics on their natural time and length scales.

Edge-magnetoplasmon interferometers have been proposed as a tool to investigate anyonic properties of quasiparticles in the regime of the Fractional Quantum Hall effect. In this work, the authors demonstrate the possibility to control electrostatically the resonance frequency of EMP resonators of micrometric size and explain the role of gates, paving the way toward the realization of anyonic interferometers.

The authors introduce a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for photonic quantum computing that focuses on tackling continuous-variable optimization problems using fewer quantum operations than existing methods. The approach shows better performance and practical implementation potential, demonstrated on Xanadu’s quantum chip.

The reversal of spin chirality in the absence of any externally applied field would substantially broaden the use of chiral magnets for applications in spintronic devices. In this manuscript the authors demonstrate the spontaneous reversal of spin chirality in the topological magnet EuAl4 using resonant elastic x-ray scattering.

Enhancing deformation of soft microparticles such as cells, capsules and vesicles has widespread applications in cell phenotyping, drug/gene delivery and smart material synthesis. Here, the authors demonstrate that enclosing a capsule into a droplet can amplify the capsule deformation parameter by up to two orders of magnitude, compared with an isolated capsule experiencing identical channel flow conditions.

Asteroid tracking has been demonstrated as a promising and prominent probe of fifth forces arising in several well-motivated models beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. The authors use the state-of-art tracking data for the asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx mission to derive the tightest limits on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter at the lengths of solar-system objects.

The authors introduce a network growth and adoption model with preferential attachment and asymmetric mixing that can explain the inequalities observed in the group growth dynamics in scientific citation and collaboration. This model can be used to investigate the effect of intervention in group mixing preferences to overcome cumulative disparities.

Engineering sizeable spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in graphene generates effects unmatched in traditional low-dimensional systems. Here, the authors show that the periodic modulation of SOC in 1D patterned graphene heterostructures leads to unusual mini-band structures with symmetry-protected Dirac cones featuring enhanced spin Berry curvature, which paves the way to tunable spin Hall responses.