Matter
Phase transitions, critical phenomena, and complex systems.
Scientists have taken a major step toward ultra-secure quantum communication by demonstrating a remarkably stable quantum encryption system that worked across more than 120 kilometers of optical fiber
A major obstacle may be standing in the way of the next generation of ultra-tiny computer chips. Researchers discovered that many promising 2D materials lose their advantages because an invisible atom
Physicists may have just cracked open a hidden side of the quantum world. For decades, every known particle was thought to belong to one of two categories — bosons or fermions — but researchers have n
Researchers have developed a sensor about the size of a grain of rice that can measure forces and twisting motions in all directions using light instead of traditional electronics. The new sensor coul
Over the past few decades, some physicists worldwide have been investigating unusual particle-like magnetic structures known as topological solitons. These structures could potentially be leveraged to
Scientists may have uncovered a surprising secret behind why life exists at all. A new study suggests that the Universe’s fundamental constants — the deep physical rules that govern everything from at
In a process analogous to how solids melt into liquids, the electrons in many different metals form crystal-like patterns that can deform and melt, opening new pathways for neuromorphic computing and
Researchers have developed, for the first time in the world, incoherent dielectric tensor tomography (iDTT), a technology that can read complex three-dimensional optical fingerprints inside materials
For years, quantum computers have lived under a huge bubble of hype, promising to revolutionize numerous fields, from medicine and battery design to materials science and cybersecurity. But realizing
Quantum thermalization describes how interacting quantum systems relax toward thermal equilibrium, a central problem in modern physics. Yet most experimental information on many-body systems comes from short-time transition spectroscopy, typically interpreted within Kubo's linear-response framework.
Instabilities in thermodynamic systems are often undesirable, as they can lead to loss of control or even catastrophic behavior. Yet, the same mechanisms can also generate rich nonequilibrium behavior and may play a constructive role in living systems. We introduce a theoretical framework, inspired
Vesicle-mediated secretion of ions or molecules is a central mechanism of cellular communication, for example in processes such as neurotransmission or hormone release. These events are inherently stochastic: vesicle fusions lead to bursts of variable sizes, releasing discrete packets of transmitter
Universality and scaling are hallmarks of second-order phase transitions but are generally unexpected in first-order quantum phase transitions (FOQPTs). We present a microscopic theory showing that quantum criticality can emerge around the quantum spinodal point of FOQPTs where metastability disappe
Combinatorial optimization problems in logistics, finance, energy, and scheduling routinely involve multi-state decision variables. Ising machines (IMs) require binary expansions (e.g., one-hot encoding) to encode such variables, whereas Potts machines (PMs) represent them natively. By doing so, PMs
The optimal control of passive systems in equilibrium typically favours quasistatic (infinite-time) protocols. We show that a breakdown of quasistatic optimality occurs when the controller itself is dissipative. Concretely, we study a Brownian particle confined by a harmonic trap with stochastically
We analyze the dynamics towards partial thermalization and subsequent cooling in the defocusing two-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger model, using direct simulations and insights from the wave-kinetic equations (WKE) and a fourth-order differential approximation model (DAM). We show that the evolvin
Higher-order interactions are increasingly recognized as a key component of ecological dynamics. However, we show that higher-order Lotka-Volterra dynamics can, in some scenarios, be accurately reproduced by effective pairwise models fitted to the same abundance time series. Consequently, higher-ord