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Understanding the precise role of hydrodynamic interactions in the self-organization of circle-swimming active matter is an exciting avenue. Here, in a mixture of counter-rotating disks, the authors show that phase separation formed the largest size structure directly, without domain coarsening, and is driven by the inverse cascade phenomena characteristic of 2D turbulence.
Turbulence of collisionless magnetized plasmas is ubiquitous in space as well as laboratory plasmas, and as such is subject to intense study. The authors present experimental evidence of the existence of entropy cascade by direct visualization of entropy distribution in the phase-space of turbulence in laboratory experiments.
Strongly correlated electron systems, such as the chromates, can exhibit a range of unique electronic configurations, the phase diagram of which can become even richer when considering non-equilibrium properties. Here, the authors apply ultrafast optical spectroscopy to α-Sr2CrO4 in order to investigate its spin and orbital ordering dynamics and the changes that occur when varying the pump photon energy.
Neutron stars are compact object with strong magnetic fields which can also generate pulsation. The authors numerically investigate oscillations of a magnetized neutron star using a general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics code to study the modifications to oscillation modes in the presence of extremely strong magnetic fields.
The authors address a long-standing puzzle of pseudogap phenomenon observed in high temperature cuprates. Based on numerical calculations for the Hubbard model with analytic considerations, they find that a combination of strong-coupling antiferromagnetic fluctuations and particle-hole asymmetry leads to the pseudogap at finite temperature in certain doping regime.
Combinatorial optimization problems, such as the max-cut problem, present efficiency challenges for traditional algorithms but can be solved using unconventional computing platforms. Here we demonstrate that electrical-oscillator networks can suitably function as a computing architecture to minimize Ising-spin Hamiltonians for various 3-regular graphs.
Optical nonreciprocity is of fundamental importance for signal processing in modern optical communication systems but is still facing issues on either high energy consumption, complicated design or on-chip integration. Here, an all-fiber device, containing two mutually coupled Fabry-Perot resonators to realize broken parity-time (PT) symmetry is demonstrated, which may find applications in software-defined optical networks.
Droplet rebound on superhydrophobic surfaces usually occurs during the retraction phase after reaching a maximum spread diameter, even in binary impacts. The authors report a rebound phenomenon in which a sessile droplet on a hydrophobic surface lifts off in its spreading phase following the impact from a soft hydrogel bead.
Weyl semimetals exhibit a unique feature known as Weyl nodes, which give rise to non-trivial topological features such as an anomalous Hall effect, and there are many efforts to try and control such properties. Here, the authors report light-induced chirality switching in a ferromagnetic Weyl semimetal Co3Sn2S2 using circularly polarized mid-infrared light pulse excitation.
Locking of oscillators to ultra-stable external sources is of paramount importance for improving close-to-carrier phase noise in free running oscillators. Here, the authors demonstrate a giant phase-locking bandwidth exceeding 60% of the natural frequency of the oscillator, which greatly overcomes other approaches exploiting external locking.
Hall-Petch behaviour dictates that with a reduction in grain size the strength of a polycrystalline material increases. Here, the authors model glass-crystal composites of soft and hard particles uncovering a power-law strengthening behaviour beyond the Hall-Petch and inverse-Hall-Petch regimes when grain size is reduced to below 3 nm.
Recently, study of topological states of matter has moved to amorphous and quasicrystalline systems, which offer further diversity in the physics and resultant phenomena. Here, the authors study tight-binding models on random fractal networks and find a robust quantum Hall phase with quantized Hall conductance at certain fillings arguing that the phase is different from the conventional one in two dimensions.
The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) is not bound to the fundamental limitations of conventional electronic charge transport in photovoltaic materials. By investigating the response of the BPVE to a magnetic field in an oxide perovskite system (BiFeO3/SrTiO3) they show that the BPVE exhibits Hall effect behaviour and is ballistic in nature at low temperatures.
Ordered materials, such as liquid crystals and Bose-Einstein condensates, support topological vortices, which are analogous to vortices in water, but have qualitatively different properties. Here, the authors show that some links of topological vortices can exhibit much greater stability than analogous structures in water.
Lattice dynamics and molecular dynamics simulations are used to analyze normal modes and thermal conductivity of amorphous polymers. Here, the authors show that the localized modes are dominant, both in mode population and in their contributions to thermal conductivity for all three examples of amorphous polymers studied in this work.
Theoretical understanding of the interaction between electron vortex beams (EVBs) and magnetic samples is important for practical application in 3D magnetic imaging. The authors calculated the EVB magnetic phase shift upon transmission and developed a corresponding phase-reconstruction method, enabling potential robust implementations of EVB-based phase microscopy in magnetic as well as chiral materials.
The transition metal dichalcogenide IrTe2 is a candidate system to realise topological superconductivity, a sought-after state which could host Majorana fermions, and hence is of interest to the field of quantum computing. Here, the authors combine high-pressure X-ray diffraction and DFT calculations to investigate the evolution in the crystal- and electronic structure of IrTe2 as a function of pressure, highlighting the role of the Te-Ir-Te bond angle.
The SI units, some of which were initially defined using physical objects, have come to rely on more stable and reproducible forms of measurement in order to improve accuracy. Here, the authors integrate a quantum Hall resistance array and programmable Josephson voltage standard in a circuit to quantum mechanically determine current and, via a Kibble balance, measure the unit of mass as well.
No physical system is truly isolated, and the influence of the external world on structure and dynamics of quantum many-body systems is not well explored. Alpha decays in mirror nuclei studied in this work demonstrate significant restructuring of quantum states due to decay.
The bulk-boundary correspondence is a defining feature of non-trivial topological matter and extends from the many topological orders that can exist in these systems. Here, the authors theoretically propose a feature distinct from the conventional bulk-boundary correspondence whereby localised modes exist between two flat-band systems with different geometric characters.
