A colourised picture of a quantum transducer.

May issue

This month we feature an Insight on cold and ultracold molecules, and examine burning plasmas and fuel gain exceeding unity in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion.

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  • Artistic schematic of two atoms forming a molecule.

    This Insight issue celebrates and reviews recent progress in the generation and study of cold and ultracold molecules and ions for applications in quantum simulation, metrology and chemistry.

Nature Physics is a Transformative Journal; authors can publish using the traditional publishing route OR via immediate gold Open Access.

Our Open Access option complies with funder and institutional requirements.

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  • Remote detection protocols use waves scattering off a target, but a formal description of how waves acquire and transmit information about objects has been lacking. The density and flux of Fisher information now provide a way to understand this process.

    • Jakob Hüpfl
    • Felix Russo
    • Stefan Rotter
    Article
  • Topological boundary modes within charge-ordered states have not yet been observed experimentally. Now an in-gap boundary mode, stemming solely from the charge order, is visualized in the topological material Ta2Se8I.

    • Maksim Litskevich
    • Md Shafayat Hossain
    • M. Zahid Hasan
    Article
  • An analysis of images from the Juno spacecraft reveals dynamics at high latitudes that are reminiscent of the generation of frontal structures in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.

    • Lia Siegelman
    • Patrice Klein
    Article
  • Supracellular cues play a key role in directing collective cell migration in processes such as wound healing and cancer invasion. New findings emphasize the importance of all length scales of the microenvironment in shaping cell migration patterns.

    • Mathilde Lacroix
    • Bart Smeets
    • Pascal Silberzan
    Article
    • A superfluid is a macroscopic system with zero viscosity through which entropy is reversibly transported by waves. An unexpected transport phenomenon has now been observed between two superfluids, where irreversible entropy transport is enhanced by superfluidity.

      • Marion Delehaye
      News & Views
    • In solids, the quantum metric captures the quantum coherence of the electron wavefunctions. Recent experiments demonstrate the detection and manipulation of the quantum metric in a noncollinear topological antiferromagnet at room temperature.

      • Su-Yang Xu
      News & Views
    • Multi-step transitions between a variety of topological spin textures have been unveiled in a centrosymmetric magnet, which may enable efficient multistate memory and logic devices.

      • Jayjit Kumar Dey
      • Sujit Das
      News & Views
    • A clear picture of how and why cells inevitably lose viability is still lacking. A dynamical systems view of starving bacteria points to a continuous energy expenditure needed for maintaining the right osmotic pressure as an important factor.

      • Ann Xu
      • Hyun Youk
      News & Views
    • Ultrafast light pulses, if they are sufficiently intense, can induce phase transitions on ultrafast timescales. It is now shown that when a system is first excited by a weak preparatory pulse, this generates local changes in structure that transiently lower the energy barrier to the phase transition, enabling high-speed and energy-efficient transitions.

      Research Briefing
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