Volume 19 Issue 2, February 2023

The authority of science within society is contested by antiscientific movements. To restore trust, science education should involve students in the social processes of knowledge production.

Ultrafast laser fields are able to widely tune the physical properties of semiconductors by generating virtual states. Using strong fields at energies below the optical bandgap, control of excitons in two-dimensional semiconductors has now been demonstrated.

The magnetic flux in a superconducting loop can only change by discrete jumps called phase slips. The energy dissipated by an individual phase slip has now been detected thanks to advances in precision temperature measurements.

Manipulating the chirality of electron vortices using attosecond metrology allows the clocking of continuum–continuum transitions, bringing the dream of time-resolved quantum physics a little closer.

Ten years after the discovery of the Higgs boson, the ATLAS Collaboration probes its underlying mechanism, the electroweak symmetry breaking, by measuring the scattering of Z bosons, one of the mediators of the weak interactions.

Particles in space can be accelerated to high energy, the distribution of which follows a power law. This has now been reproduced in laboratory experiments mimicking astrophysical scenarios, which helps to understand the underlying mechanisms.

Quantum mechanical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in a vacuum between two close together objects result in an attractive force. Now, it has been experimentally shown that by exploiting a similar repulsive interaction, attraction between objects can be modulated simply by tuning temperature.

Organs in the human body have complex networks of fluid-filled tubes and loops with different geometries and topologies. By studying self-organized, synthetic tissues, the link between topological transitions and the emergence of tissue architecture was revealed.

Majorana zero modes are emergent excitations in topological superconductors. This Perspective introduces the physics of these modes, recaps the recent history of the experimental search for them and discusses the future prognosis for success.

The interaction of strong laser fields with tungsten disulfide leads to light-dressed Floquet replica of excitonic states, which manifest as new features in the transient absorption spectrum.

During development, tissues with complex topology emerge from collections of cells with simple geometry. This process in neuroepithelial organoids is governed by two topologically distinct modes of epithelial fusion.

A formal analysis of the physical limits of entanglement manipulation shows that it cannot be done reversibly, highlighting an important difference from thermodynamics.

Generalized measurements that do not correspond to conventional basis projections of the quantum wavefunction are a part of several important protocols in quantum information. These measurements can be certifiably performed on higher-dimensional systems using optical fibre technology.

Superconducting currents around a loop containing a weak link can be quantized and only change during discrete events called phase slips. Now, the heat generated by a single phase slip and the subsequent relaxation have been experimentally observed.

Multidimensional coherent spectroscopy measurements in iron-based superconductors demonstrate how the coupling between a superconductor and strong light pulses can drive the transition into a non-equilibrium superconducting state with distinct collective modes.

In bosonic systems, the presence of particles in a given quantum level can enhance the transition rates into that state, an effect known as bosonic stimulation. Bosonic enhancement of light scattering has now been observed in an ultracold Bose gas.

The intermediate states in photo-excited phase transitions are expected to be inhomogeneous. However, ultrafast X-ray imaging shows the early part of the metal–insulator transition in VO₂ is homogeneous but then becomes heterogeneous.

Most temporal analyses of multivariate time series rely on pairwise statistics. A study combining network theory and topological data analysis now shows how to characterize the dynamics of signals at all orders of interactions in real-world data.

Attosecond circular-dichroism chronoscopy—a spectroscopy technique that employs two circularly polarized pulses in co-rotating and counter-rotating geometries—can measure the amplitudes and phases of continuum–continuum transitions in electron vortices.

The ATLAS Collaboration reports the observation of the electroweak production of two jets and a Z-boson pair. This process is related to vector-boson scattering and allows the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking to be probed.

Laboratory experiments demonstrate that electrons are accelerated to high energies by the reconnection electric field in magnetically driven reconnection. This mechanism is expected to be relevant for many astrophysical environments.

Laboratory experiments reveal the underlying mechanism of turbulent reconnection, including electron acceleration. These findings are directly relevant for studies of flares in the solar corona.

Casimir forces are normally attractive and cause stiction, that is, static friction preventing surfaces in contact from starting to move. Now, a system exhibiting tunable repulsive critical Casimir forces, relevant for the development of micro- and nanodevices, is demonstrated.

Substrate stiffness influences cellular cluster migration through collective durotaxis. Now, the underlying mechanism of this process is explained by considering the wetting dynamics of the clusters.

Interfaces between non-excitable tissues can be electrically excitable, suggesting a possible bioelectrical mechanism for interface sensing.

Standards recommended by the International Organization for Standardization are often hidden in plain sight. Angelique Botha, Chair of ISO/TC 334 for Reference Materials, tells us where to look.