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Simulated pipe flow is interpreted using an ecological model in which predatory zonal flow preys on turbulence, and laminar flows emulate nutrients – establishing a link between turbulence and the directed percolation universality class.Letter p245; News & Views p204IMAGE: HONG-YAN SHIH, TSUNG-LIN HSIEH, NIGEL GOLDENFELD, NICHOLAS GUTTENBERGCOVER DESIGN: ALLEN BEATTIE
Physicists have finally detected gravitational waves, in a triumph of ingenuity and perseverance. And now we need to explain them to the general public.
For a problem as complex as turbulence, combining universal concepts from statistical physics with ideas from fluid mechanics has proven indispensable. Three decades since this link was formed, it is still providing food for new thought.
Intense light pulses irradiating a sample of K3C60 result in dramatic changes of its high-frequency (terahertz) conductivity. Could these be signatures of fleeting superconductivity at 100 K and beyond?
In the transition from laminar to turbulent pipe flow, puffs of turbulence form, split and decay. The phenomenology and lifetime of these turbulent puffs exhibit population dynamics that also drive predator–prey ecosystems on the edge of extinction.
In some two-dimensional materials, there's a puzzling intermediate metallic phase between superconducting and insulating states. Experiments on ultraclean crystalline samples suggest this metallic phase could be bosonic.
Owing to electron localization, two-dimensional materials are not expected to be metallic at low temperatures, but a field-induced quantum metal phase emerges in NbSe2, whose behaviour is consistent with the Bose-metal model.
Topologically non-trivial states usually emerge from systems with strong spin–orbit coupling, but evidence for such states in the Kondo insulator samarium hexaboride suggests that they can also be driven by strong electron correlations.
The detection of a single photon heralds the projection of two remote spins onto a maximally entangled state. This has been demonstrated for quantum-dot hole spins, featuring a fast generation rate that could enable quantum technology applications.
A neutron scattering study of the quantum magnet BiCu2PO6 demonstrates a phenomenon known as energy-level repulsion, which occurs between a long-lived quasiparticle state and a many-particle continuum.
Quantum liquids at equilibrium follow Fermi liquid theory, but less is known about non-equilibrium conditions. Carbon nanotubes, which exhibit universal scaling behaviour, provide a testbed for many-body physics beyond equilibrium.
When laser light is focused onto graphene devices in a magnetic field a long-range photo-Nernst effect causes photocurrents to be generated along the free edges.
Simulated pipe flow is interpreted using an ecological model in which predatory zonal flow preys on turbulence, and laminar flows emulate nutrients — establishing a link between turbulence and the directed percolation universality class.
Experiments and simulations of the transition to turbulence in fluid flow through a quasi-2D channel reveal critical exponents consistent with directed percolation — long conjectured to be the universality class associated with the transition.
Decades-old speculation that the transition to turbulence belongs to the directed percolation universality class is confirmed with experimental and numerical data for flow through a quasi-one-dimensional Couette geometry.
Fluctuations in the profile of the ocean floor can lead to large variations in tsunami wave height. A theory linking this behaviour to the branched flow characteristics of electron waves through semiconductors may provide a framework for prediction.
Merging magnetic flux ropes, which are believed to play an important role in magnetic reconnection, have now been clearly identified. Observations show that coalescence is indeed closely related to reconnection dynamics and also to turbulence.
Cassini’s encounter with Saturn’s magnetotail — the long magnetosphere region stretching into space — has revealed that plasma exits the magnetosphere through long-duration magnetic reconnection, which ejects ten times more mass than estimated.
A series of transport experiments on lanthanum antimonide reveal a plateau in its resistivity and an extremely large magnetoresistance that are consistent with topologically protected electronic states.
A study of robots jumping on granular media reveals that performance depends on an added-mass effect born of grains solidifying on impact. Techniques that are optimized for launching off hard surfaces are shown to be compromised by the effect.