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.
Observing magnetic reconnection directly is generally difficult, but looking at the reconnection between erupting solar filaments and nearby coronal loops uncovers many fine details with unprecedented clarity.
Populations of growing yeast are shown to undergo a jamming transition typically observed in gravity-driven granular flows. The pressures generated by intercellular forces are found to be large enough to destroy the cells’ micro-environment.
An ultracold gas trapped in a symmetric double-well potential should populate both wells equally; however, the gas spontaneously localizes in one well when the interaction between atoms reaches a critical value, thus breaking parity symmetry.
The molecular motors that package DNA into viruses stall frequently under conditions promoting DNA–DNA attraction. Single-molecule experiments suggest the stalling is due to a nonequilibrium jamming transition induced by the attractive interactions.
A so-called Josephson ϕ0-junction based on a nanowire quantum dot is reported. By means of electrostatic gating, it is possible to controllably introduce a phase offset taking any value between 0 and π in the ground state of the junction.
An unexpected optical momentum and force perpendicular to the wavevector are measured using a nano-cantilever in an evanescent optical field, confirming a 75-year-old prediction.
Overlaying two transparent phase masks in a light beam results in a far-field achromatic intensity pattern. This effect lies at the basis of a polychromatic far-field interferometer for use in X-ray phase-contrast imaging without absorption gratings.
Magnetic adatoms offer an appealing platform for building idealized spin models, but achieving sufficient control to do so is challenging. Now, arrays of Co atoms evaporated on a Cu2N/Cu(100) surface are shown to behave like a spin-1/2 XXZ Heisenberg chain.
Radio and X-ray observations of the jet emission from M81∗, the nearest low-luminosity supermassive black hole, reveal a knot structure. The knot is unexpected, as models generally assume a continuous and compact jet.
A scanning tunnelling microscopy study demonstrates that one-dimensional charge density waves can form at twin boundaries in a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide.
The final stage of the Venus Express mission involved aerobraking — or deceleration by atmospheric drag — through the upper atmosphere above the northern pole of Venus. Concurrent measurements revealed two kinds of waves.
Experiments showing that electron dynamics can be controlled on attosecond timescales suggest that wide-bandgap semiconductors could be exploited for petahertz signal processing technologies.
A combination of detailed photoelectron spectroscopy measurements and numerical simulations reveal the presence of so-called Dirac node arcs in the electronic structure of PtSn4.
A magnetic analogue of the Poole–Frenkel effect shows that magnetic monopole quasiparticles in a spin ice behave similar to electrons in a semiconductor, with an attractive Coulomb force acting between positive and negative monopoles.
Non-classical states of light, such as squeezed states, are used in quantum metrology to improve the sensitivity of mechanical motion sensing, but conversely mechanical oscillations can enhance the measurement of squeezed light.
The change in pitch of a passing car engine is a classic example of the translational Doppler effect, but rotational Doppler shifts can also arise, as shown for circularly polarized light passing through a spinning nonlinear optical crystal.
Aspects of the disordered Bose–Hubbard model, such as the Bose glass–superfluid transition, are still incompletely understood, but this can now be probed in an ultracold atomic gas in an optical lattice using controlled quantum quenches of disorder.
Using a frequency-comb nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy technique it is possible to probe the fluctuations in the nuclear spin bath of a self-assembled quantum dot and reveal long nuclear spin correlation times over one second.
Josephson junctions incorporating ferromagnetic spin valves are shown to be switchable between the 0 and π states, opening up interesting wider implications for possible devices.