Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The interplay between superconductivity that might break time-reversal symmetry and charge order is a key issue in kagome materials. Now, optical measurements show that spatial and time-reversal symmetries are broken at the onset of charge order.
Hexagonal boron nitride is a common component of 2D heterostructures. Defects implanted in boron nitride crystals can be used to perform spatially resolved sensing of properties, including temperature, magnetism and current.
Ultracold gases composed of lanthanide atoms are characterized by long-range dipolar interactions. These have now been exploited to observe quantized vortices in a dipolar condensate through the manipulation of the atoms by rotating external magnetic fields.
The transition from a glassy to a liquid phase is normally assumed to take place cooperatively across the whole material. But now, experiments show that, under certain conditions, isolated regions of liquid can form in the glassy matrix first.
Embryo patterning relies on morphogen gradients. Now, a morphogen gradient also encodes an unjamming transition, enabling collective cellular flows that re-shape embryos while preserving patterning.
Collective and self-organized behaviour of sheep consists of intermittent episodes in which the animals follow a temporal leader—a role that is switched between various members of the group.
The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.
The Lorentz transformation of electromagnetic potentials is confirmed in experiments with a highly energetic electron beam. This provides another test of the predictions of special relativity.
A noise-resilient protocol implemented in a cavity resonator coupled to a qubit demonstrates that large nonlinear couplings are not a necessary requirement for the fast universal control and state preparation of engineered quantum systems.
Interacting quantum systems near criticality have been proposed as potential probes for quantum metrology. An experiment with Rydberg atoms now proves the enhanced sensitivity of critical many-body systems to small variations in external parameters.
A quantum simulation experiment reveals the thermalization of a ferromagnetic system realized with a one-dimensional spinor Bose gas, providing quantitative insights into the condensation dynamics of large magnetic systems.
Measurements of the proton’s generalized spin polarizabilities provide discriminating power between effective descriptions of the strong interaction at low energy.
Many-body quantum systems that escape thermalization are promising candidates for quantum information applications. A weak-ergodicity-breaking mechanism—quantum scarring—has now been observed with superconducting qubits in unconstrained models.
A quantum many-body system’s equilibrium behaviour is described by its partition function, which is hard to compute. Now it has been shown that the easier task of finding an approximation could define a distinct class of computational problems.
Properties of relaxor ferroelectrics are governed by polar nanodomains. Polarization rotation facilitated by these domains investigated by means of epitaxial strain reveals a competition between chemistry-driven disorder and strain-driven order.
Many important cellular structures in the body are curved at the scale of multiple cell lengths. Cells respond collectively to this curvature, and it influences their migration during development and growth.
Cervix and breast carcinomas are highly heterogeneous in their mechanical properties across scales. This heterogeneity provides the tumour with stability and room for cell motility.
Shot noise has traditionally been used to measure the charge of quasiparticles in a variety of mesoscopic systems. However, at sufficiently low temperatures, this usual notion tends to break down for fractional quantum Hall effect states.
Unconventional quasiparticles carrying spin but not electric charge emerge in quantum spin liquid phases. The Kondo interaction of these spinon quasiparticles with magnetic impurities may now have been observed.
A Mott insulator forms when strong interactions between particles cause them to become localized. A cold atom simulator has now been used to realize a selective Mott insulator in which atoms are localized or propagating depending on their spin state.