Papers

Hall measurements in superconducting bilayer nickelate films show sign reversals that cannot be explained by rigid-band electron doping alone. We combine a DFT+CDMFT-derived correlated multi-orbital quasiparticle model with a $T$-matrix treatment of oxygen-vacancy scattering in a semiclassical Boltzmann transport framework. We find that multiband compensation is insufficient by itself: in-plane vacancies selectively suppress the transport channel dominated by the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbital and drive $R_H$ through zero, whereas inner-apical vacancies make $R_H$ more negative. These results identify pocket-resolved and orbital-selective oxygen-vacancy scattering as the microscopic origin of the Hall coefficient sign reversal and provide a framework for oxygen-stoichiometry-dependent transport in nickelate films.

This study presents a comprehensive investigation of the pressure dependent structural, electronic, optical, mechanical, and bonding properties of orthorhombic boron rich chalcogenides B6S and B6Se. Calculations were performed using density functional theory across a wide range of hydrostatic pressures. The computed elastic constants, bulk, Young, shear moduli, and Poisson ratio, revealed mechanical robustness and strong resistance to deformation, even under significant compression. Electronic band structure and density of states analyses indicate that the materials exhibit indirect bandgap semiconducting behavior. Optical results reveal clear pressure induced spectral shifts, particularly in the visible and ultraviolet regions, suggesting modified light matter interaction under compression. Phonon dispersion curves verified the dynamical stability of both materials within the investigated pressure range. Hardness estimations, combined with elastic parameters, and melting temperatures, further indicate that B6S and B6Se possess significant mechanical strength suitable for applications under harsh environments. The thermal properties suggest that both these compounds possess features suitable to be used as excellent thermal barrier coating materials.

Infrared divergences (IRDs) are usually treated as pathologies to be cancelled, regularized, or hidden in dressed asymptotic states. This paper develops a complementary and constructive viewpoint: an IRD is the signature of an itinerant vacuum – a quantum vacuum that wanders continuously through a family of inequivalent states as a classical order parameter evolves. Each value of the order parameter carries its own coherent vacuum, so moving the order parameter means traversing a succession of orthogonal vacua. The IRD is the field-theoretic cost of this wandering, and the $1/f$ noise, gravitational memory, and non-Gaussian fluctuations that emerge from it are its observable classical remnants. The technical core is an exact separation in the real-time closed-time-path (CTP) effective action. The infrared-divergent imaginary part of the influence functional must not be left as a divergent coefficient in a deterministic equation of motion; it is instead converted, by a Hubbard–Stratonovich identity, into a classical stochastic source. This step is an algebraic identity of the generating functional and requires no prior coarse graining or decoherence assumption: the retarded kernel encodes the memory of past vacuum transitions, while the noise kernel encodes the quantum uncertainty of the next one. We apply this construction to four parallel arenas – soft QED, scalar fields in de Sitter space, soft gravitons, and non-equilibrium phase transitions – and show that the same itinerant-vacuum mechanism underlies $1/f$ current noise, the primordial power spectrum, gravitational memory, and order-parameter dynamics. A geometric formulation in terms of a Hilbert-space bundle over the vacuum manifold is outlined as an outlook.

We demonstrate that the polarity of the Josephson diode effect in Corbino Josephson junctions can be deterministically controlled by the Josephson-vortex number, which arises as a generic consequence of structured spatial inhomogeneity. By solving the continuum Andreev spectral problem, we identify a mechanism in which the vortex number selectively filters specific spatial Fourier harmonics of the local inhomogeneity. This harmonic selection reshapes the amplitudes and relative phases of higher-order Josephson current harmonics, ultimately reversing the critical-current asymmetry. Numerical simulations of both an effective one-dimensional edge model and full two-dimensional lattice models confirm the robustness of this mechanism. Crucially, our results show that a vortex-parity-dependent reversal of diode polarity is not an exclusive signature of Majorana physics, but can emerge generically from geometric and structural inhomogeneities in Corbino junctions.

Parity-protected superconducting qubits offer intrinsically long coherence, but many current implementations require magnetic-flux biasing, which introduces flux noise, control overhead, and limited scalability. Here we propose a parity-protected qubit based on a gate-tunable superconductor-altermagnet-superconductor Josephson junction. Altermagnets are compensated magnets with momentum-dependent spin splitting and zero net magnetization, providing spin-dependent functionality without external magnetic fields. In the proposed junction, the two spin sectors acquire opposite phase shifts, generating two Josephson channels whose interference is controlled electrically by the chemical potential. At the tuned $0$-$\pi$ transition, the first Josephson harmonic is strongly suppressed while the second harmonic dominates, yielding a double-well potential with two nearly degenerate states of opposite Cooper-pair parity. For realistic gatemon-compatible parameters, we estimate coherence times of up to tens of milliseconds while maintaining fully gate-controlled qubit operations. These results establish altermagnetic Josephson junctions as a promising route toward protected superconducting qubits with local, scalable, and all-electrical control.

We overview similarities and, importantly, differences in computational bottlenecks and accuracy requirements that can be addressed with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in electronic and nuclear DFT. From these follow different promising methodological and algorithmic choices depending on whether one machine learns the exchange correlation (XC) functional, the kinetic energy functional (KEF), the density or the basis functions. In particular, while the popular deep neural networks remain a potent choice in the context of KS DFT, we highlight their disadvantages when building KEFs and highlight conceptual advantages - yet to be fully realized - of symbolic regression for both electronic and nuclear DFT. We point out promising approaches that can be carried from the more extensively investigated ML-enhanced electronic DFT to nuclear DFT.

Artificial atom-like systems are a promising candidate for next generation quantum processing. Among them, dark excitons exhibit one of the longest lifetimes at high temperatures. Here, we demonstrate coherent control of dark excitonic states in metal-organic chalcogenolates (MOChas) by using an ultrafast pulse shaper at room temperature. These dark exciton states are optically accessed via two-photon absorption and directly read out with a four-wave mixing process. The system is described by a non-perturbative, two-photon Hamiltonian based on well-known atomic physics and applied to a three level system comprised of two dark excitons. Empirical and theoretical state specific optical access is shown via a simple optical pulse shape. The developed Hamiltonian-based description is a first step towards a quantum processing platform using three-level systems and two photon transitions, one example being dark excitons in the MOCha silver benzeneselenolate (mithrene). Simple conditions for gate operations are laid out and described.

In the theoretical study of nonequilibrium non-Hermitian systems, obtaining exact analytical solutions for their nonadiabatic dynamics is highly desirable yet often challenging. In this work, we identify a class of non-Hermitian quantum systems where this difficulty can be substantially reduced. Employing the Wei-Norman approach, we show that for a spin-$S$ subject to a general non-Hermitian time-dependent drive, the matrix elements of the evolution operator can be expressed in closed analytical forms (via Jacobi polynomials) in terms of the corresponding spin-$1/2$ model. This approach is straightforward and accessible to nonspecialists in Lie algebra. As an application, we investigate a specific nonequilibrium non-Hermitian phenomenon known as defect freezing, i.e., the existence of excitations in the adiabatic limit, in spin-$S$ extensions of the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model under linear quenches. We derive exact analytical expressions for the momentum-resolved excitation probabilities and the total excitation densities. Our results reveal that defect freezing occurs exclusively in momentum sectors that traverse the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry-broken region – and thus pass through a pair of higher-order exceptional points (EPs) – during the quench; notably, the excitation density exhibits a singularity at a critical value of the non-Hermiticity parameter. This work enriches the analytical toolkit for nonadiabatic dynamics in multi-level non-Hermitian systems and provides quantitative, testable predictions for defect freezing across higher-order EPs, possibly accessible on platforms such as electric circuit networks and photonic lattices.

In spread complexity, the growth rate of the average position of a time-evolved state along its Krylov chain recovers the proper radial momentum of an infalling particle in AdS. It is, however, a measure of the first moment only, irrespective of the spread of the wavepacket away from its classical trajectory. The rate of a normalized Krylov-Wigner negativity can be proposed as a diagnostic of the second moment of the boundary state that captures this spreading. Starting with the seed-normalized Krylov-Wigner distribution, that is, the Wigner transform of the descendant cloud with the decaying return amplitude divided out, we obtain an analytic Bessel form in the macroscopic limit and compute its total negativity explicitly. Retaining the Bessel variable all the way through, we find that the negativity goes as $\sinh^{4\Delta}(\pi t/\beta)$. But the raw normalized-state negativity saturates to an $O(1)$ constant, well below the $O(\sqrt{D})$ bound. Using the exact negative binomial statistics of the Krylov chain, the normalized negativity is at late times a fixed power of the second moment of the Krylov wavepacket, $\mathcal{N}(t)\propto[\mathrm{Var}(\hat{N}_{\mathrm{Krylov}})]^{\Delta}$, for every $\Delta>1/2$. The relation linearizes precisely at $\Delta=1$. In this regime via the momentum dictionary of Caputa et al. (arXiv:2410.23334), the rate becomes the product of the proper radial position and momentum, $\mathcal{R}\propto\mathcal{C}\,P_\rho$, which we interpret as the rate of the tidal stretch of nearby geodesics falling into the horizon. We also comment briefly on a speculative direction for future research, in particular the interpretation of the transverse string size operator in terms of the Krylov number operator through the common $\mathrm{SU}(1,1)$ discrete series.

We investigate quantum entanglement in a spin-1/2 Heisenberg trimer with spin-induced electric polarization described by the Katsura-Nagaosa-Balatsky (KNB) mechanism in the presence of external magnetic and electric fields. The electric field is assumed to lie in the plane of the magnetic ions, allowing its strength and orientation to be tuned independently. We analyze both bipartite and tripartite entanglement and demonstrate that the spin-electric-field coupling provides an efficient mechanism for controlling quantum correlations within the molecular nanomagnet. Depending on the electric-field parameters, the bipartite entanglement can be significantly enhanced or suppressed, while the multipartite entanglement exhibits a rich dependence on the microscopic spin-electric coupling. Most notably, we demonstrate that a rotating in-plane electric field of constant magnitude induces a controllable transfer of bipartite entanglement between different spin pairs. In the symmetric case of homogeneous exchange interactions and uniform KNB coupling, this transfer is found to be nearly ideal, with the bipartite negativity approaching its theoretical maximum for one spin pair while simultaneously vanishing for the remaining pairs. We show that the efficiency of the transfer can be tailored through the exchange interactions, bond geometry, and nonuniform spin-electric coupling. These results establish molecular nanomagnets with KNB spin-electric coupling as a promising platform for the electrical manipulation, steering, and localization of quantum entanglement at the molecular scale.

Transverse-electric/Transverse-magnetic splitting in dielectric-mirror microcavities introduces an effective spin-orbit coupling for photons. While the bulk states remain linearly polarized, for exponentially localized edge states in a photonic lattice, this coupling induces elliptical polarization whose handedness is locked to the propagation direction, analogous to the transverse spin of evanescent electromagnetic waves. We reveal spin-momentum locking through Stokes polarimetry of zigzag edge states in a honeycomb exciton-polariton lattice. The effect persists in a stretched honeycomb supporting a photonic bandgap, where spin-polarized carrier injection enables selective lasing of either chiral edge states. Our results provide a route toward ultrafast spin-controlled unidirectional propagation in polariton systems without external magnetic fields.

Low dimensional tight-binding lattices in presence of quasiperiodic disorder generally exhibits localization transition. The system supports diffusive modes upto a limiting strength of disorder and all the eigenstates become localized beyond that critical strength thereby quenching the kinetic signature of the wavepacket. However, moving away from this situation, we demonstrate that with minimal long-range off-diagonal modulation, the eigenspectrum again may offer delocalization of electronic states for some subtle combination of kinetic parameters of the Hamiltonian leading to a second quantum phase change. The localization transitions are associated with the obvious presence of single-particle mobility edges. Multifractal energy landscape also shows quantum butterfly pattern with the in-gap robust edge modes. The re-emerging localization transition is manifested through the evaluation of inverse participation ratio, eigenspectrum and a pertinent quantum dynamical study.

Strong coupling to a reservoir can do more than shift, broaden, or dress the work peaks of a driven quantum system. When the reservoir is infrared singular, a sudden change of a local control parameter can alter the boundary condition seen by infinitely many low-energy modes, converting a quasiparticle-like threshold line into a many-body edge. We demonstrate this mechanism for the inclusive work distribution of the biased spin-boson model under a sudden bias inversion. In the independent-boson limit, the problem is exactly solvable and gives a sharp infrared classification: a super-Ohmic bath can retain a finite elastic threshold weight, whereas Ohmic and sub-Ohmic baths extinguish the elastic line through boundary orthogonality. At the Ohmic fixed point, the same exponent controls both the vanishing elastic residue and the low-work continuum. We then ask how this edge is resolved away from the static-boundary limit. Using displaced-basis exact diagonalization of logarithmically discretized baths, we find that finite tunnelling leaves an edge-like continuum over the accessible energy window, while separating two operational diagnostics of the threshold: the cumulative-continuum exponent extracted from $z$-interleaved spectra lies above the elastic-overlap exponent extracted from $z$-averaged overlaps, $\theta_C>\theta_Z$. We interpret this separation as a finite-energy crossover away from the static-boundary fixed point, not as evidence for a new asymptotic fixed point. The separation survives fitting-window variation, oscillator-cutoff checks, spectrum-size checks, and leave-one-$z$-out tests, while time-domain characteristic functions provide a compatible but non-decisive diagnostic. Finally, the same threshold edge controls the sampling cost of Jarzynski-type exponential averages, making rare low-work events increasingly important at low temperature.

Disentangling transformations play a central role in the classical simulation of quantum many-body systems, yet their analytic structure and underlying mechanism remain largely unexplored. Here, we study the structure of the disentangler in the Haldane phase of spin-1 systems using generalized Clifford circuits. To this end, we extend the Clifford-circuit-augmented matrix product states (CAMPS)-based density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method to spin-1 systems. Within this framework, we find that the local disentanglers optimized for the Haldane phase implement the generalized Kramers–Wannier (KW) transformation, and we analytically verify its optimality for the Affleck–Kennedy–Lieb–Tasaki (AKLT) state. Beyond reducing entanglement, the KW transformation maps the Haldane phase to a phase with spontaneously broken $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ symmetry. This mapping is distinct from the Kennedy–Tasaki transformation and provides a new unitary route from symmetry-protected topological order to symmetry breaking.

We propose an effective, singularity-free model of the black hole interior described entirely by a scalar field with a non-linear self-interaction potential. The interior consists of three layers – a core, a transition layer, and a crust – each fixed by the local quasi-particle density and the corresponding extremum of the potential of the field. The crust is a layer of massive, positive-energy thermal excitations above the zero-potential well, beneath a genuine Schwarzschild horizon at $r = 2GM_{\rm ADM}$. The core is an AdS-type region of negative energy density, it simulates a condensate of quasi-particles which carry zero classical kinetic energy and form a negative potential well governed by a negative inverse temperature parameter. The two regions are joined through Israel matching across the transition layer, which sits at an approximately null-gravity hypersurface of maximal regular matter density and where both the sign of the energy density and the type of thermal excitations change. Solving the static Einstein equations, we obtain the metric and mass functions of each layer, the edge equation of state of the crust, the linear stability condition of the null-gravity surface for ordinary and effectively negative mass matter, and the two-temperature thermodynamics linking the kinetic excitations to the negative temperature ground state. The framework unifies core and crust within a single field description and highlights the role of the negative energy AdS core and the associated negative temperature notion in describing black hole interior. In this picture the formation and Hawking evaporation of a black hole appear as a quasi-static cycle of an almost adiabatic thermodynamic engine, with the negative energy core as the working substance.

Antinodal angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) in cuprate superconductors reveals a broad incoherent background alongside a temperature-dependent superconducting contribution. We show that both features are naturally captured by a single family of parabolic cylinder functions (PCFs). First, the broad antinodal background in \BiCuprate\ is well described by a primitive PCF branch of the form $e^{-z^2/4}D_{-1/2}(z)$. Second, a superconductivity-associated component isolated via time-resolved ARPES subtraction follows a distinct $D_{3/2}$ branch. Third, the same $D_{3/2}$ structure is recovered in equilibrium temperature differences and across doping series. These findings motivate the minimal decomposition $\rho(E,T)=\rho_{\rm BG}(E,T)+\rho_{\rm SC}(E,T)$, where the superconductivity-associated spectral weight scales as $A_{\rm SC}(T)\propto |\Delta(T)|^2$. Dynamically, these branches originate from a Cooper-pair field with finite temporal memory: a smooth memory kernel generates a leading Gaussian temporal envelope $\exp(-t^2/2\tau_G^2)$ at short times, while algebraic many-body prefactors select the PCF branch index. If the finite-memory and algebraic incoherent dressing is formally removed, the resulting structure connects to the standard Bogoliubov/BCS spectrum. The main conclusion is that the incoherent antinodal continuum and the longer-lived superconductivity-associated component are distinct projections of a common memory-dressed pair field.

Quantum states of Neon-20 are generally agreed to lie in rotational-vibrational bands of a cluster of five alpha particles. However, more than one cluster shape has been proposed as dominant at low energy. As relative motion within a cluster is soft in certain directions, we investigate how the low-lying rotational bands of Neon-20 can arise from a circle of clusters connecting favoured shapes: a triangular bipyramid, a square pyramid, and a $D_{2d}$-symmetric distorted tetrahedron – a twisted bow-tie. Motion around the circle extends the Berry pseudo-rotation that connects differently oriented bipyramids.

The state-of-the-art concerning the modeling of the thermomechanical response of graphite to runaway electron (RE) impact is based on one-way coupled linear thermoelasticity combined with Rankine's strength-based failure criterion and limited to the onset of material failure. Here, the predictive capabilities are extended to the nonlinear damage phase characterized by material fragmentation and debris expulsion. This is achieved by introducing plasticity via the Johnson-Holmquist constitutive model, adopting an effective plastic strain-based failure criterion and coupling finite element analysis with smoothed-particle hydrodynamics. The extended thermomechanical model is successfully benchmarked against the results of two controlled RE-induced damage experiments recently carried out in DIII-D. This constitutes an important step towards the final objective of quantitatively describing the thermomechanical response of tungsten to REs.

Two-dimensional (2D) altermagnets (AMs) are highly desirable for ultrafast, stray-field-free spintronics because they combine compensated magnetic order and momentum-dependent spin splitting with the scalability, tunability, and interface compatibility of atomically thin materials. However, practical 2D AMs remain scarce. Rather than relying solely on the search for intrinsic 2D AMs, an appealing route is to transform known 2D antiferromagnets (AFMs) into AMs through symmetry engineering. Here, we propose surface functionalization as a symmetry-guided, nonvolatile chemical switch for realizing this AFM-to-AM transformation. By breaking inversion and out-of-plane mirror symmetries while preserving the rotation symmetry connecting opposite-spin sublattices, single-sided functionalization lifts spin degeneracy and induces altermagnetic spin splitting. Using monolayer FeSe as a representative platform, first-principles calculations show that hydrogenation, oxidation, and fluorination convert spin-degenerate antiferromagnetic FeSe into a d-wave AM with pronounced momentum-dependent spin splitting. At the device level, our transport simulations reveal that the functionalized FeSe monolayer magnetic tunnel junctions exhibit giant tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) up to $1.87\times10^3\%$, originating from momentum-selective spin filtering between parallel and antiparallel Néel-vector configurations. The strong dependence of TMR on functionalization geometry further demonstrates that surface chemistry provides an effective control knob for altermagnetic transport. Our work establishes a symmetry-to-chemistry-to-device strategy for engineering 2D AMs and developing high-performance altermagnetic spintronic devices.

Two-component bosonic droplets are commonly described within Bogoliubov theory, where beyond-mean-field quantum fluctuations stabilize the system against mean-field collapse. In the interaction regime where droplets form, however, the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum contains an imaginary branch associated with the underlying instability, which is typically omitted when evaluating the beyond-mean-field energy. Bosonic pairing theory provides an alternative description with a fully real excitation spectrum. In this work, we reformulate bosonic pairing theory within an operator formalism, making its underlying approximations transparent, and compare its predictions with those of Bogoliubov theory for a homonuclear binary Bose mixture across the crossover from a weakly interacting gas to the droplet regime. Working at fixed particle density, we determine the variational parameters of bosonic pairing theory self-consistently and focus on the regime in which both theories possess real excitation spectra, allowing a direct comparison. We find that bosonic pairing theory yields a lower grand potential than Bogoliubov theory and predicts qualitatively distinct correlation signatures, including enhanced long-wavelength interspecies momentum-space correlations and a finite density static structure factor at experimentally accessible low momenta. These differences persist over a broad range of interaction strengths and suggest that correlation and structure-factor measurements can provide direct experimental tests of bosonic pairing across the gas-to-droplet crossover.

Morphology, material property, and mechanical constraint jointly govern the chemo-mechanical behavior of ion-intercalation particles, yet their coupled effects remain insufficiently understood. Here we establish a thermodynamically consistent single-particle framework and combine analytical solutions with multiphysics simulations to determine how these factors regulate lithiation and stress generation. We study hollow spherical, cylindrical, and ellipsoidal particles with isotropic or transversely isotropic material properties under fully constrained, inner-free, or unconstrained boundary conditions. We show that the transient lithiation pathway and the associated stress and strain fields are governed not by morphology, property, or constraint alone, but by their coupled interaction: isotropic particles are sensitive to the mechanical constraint, whereas transversely isotropic particles exhibit persistent heterogeneous lithiation dominated by anisotropic diffusivity. Flux decomposition analysis reveals that the mechanical contribution to Li flux is negligible in spheres but dominant in ellipsoids. Correlation analysis further shows that Li concentration and volumetric strain exhibit strong anti-correlation in unconstrained particles but weak correlation under full constraints. Bayesian optimization of hollow ellipsoids identifies Pareto-optimal morphologies that balance lithiation capacity against peak tensile stress. These results provide a unified framework for the morphology-property interplay in intercalation particles and offer morphology design principles for chemo-mechanical stability.

We demonstrate controlled transitions between competing radiative and nonradiative decay channels in the up-conversion luminescence of NaYF4:Er3+/Yb3+ nanocrystals placed in proximity to metallic nanowires. The nanocrystal-nanowire separation is used as a key control parameter governing the optical response. An essential aspect of our approach is the removal of inhomogeneous residual polymer layers from the nanowires, eliminating any compromise on distance control and reproducibility in emitter-metal hybrid nanostructures. Replacing them with a well-defined polymer spacer yields controlled access to three qualitatively distinct interaction regimes: luminescence quenching, plasmonic enhancement, and effective decoupling. Transitions between these regimes are shown to reflect changes in the dominant energy relaxation pathways: from nonradiative losses in direct contact with the metal, through modification of the local photonic density of states and coupling to plasmon-mediated modes, to behavior characteristic of quasi-isolated emitters. The plasmonic origin of the emission enhancement in the intermediate regime is evidenced by an increase in luminescence intensity accompanied by shortened decay times, as revealed by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy of up-conversion nanocrystals. All experiments were performed on single nanostructures, thereby excluding artefacts arising from aggregation effects and strengthening the interpretation of the observed phenomena. The presented approach provides controlled access to plasmon-modified decay channels and offers a basis for the rational design of functional nanophotonic and sensing structures with tailored optical properties.

Reweighting of probability measures provides a unifying perspective on ensemble transformations in statistical mechanics. We distinguish two complementary classes of reweighting: soft constraints, which redistribute probability while preserving the support of the reference measure, and hard constraints, which impose support restrictions through conditioning. We show that exponential tilting and conditioning on an exact observable value arise as the minimum relative entropy updates associated with soft expectation constraints and hard exact-value constraints, respectively. Their relative entropies naturally inherit complementary thermodynamic structures: exponential tilting gives rise to the Legendre structure of the canonical ensemble and reduces, for a uniform reference measure, to Gibbs entropy, whereas conditioning reduces to Boltzmann entropy through the surprisal of the constrained macrostate. By introducing an enlarged probability space in which observables are treated as explicit random variables, we further show that canonical and microcanonical ensembles arise as marginal and conditional distributions of a common joint reference measure. In the thermodynamic limit, large-deviation concentration makes soft and hard constraints macroscopically equivalent, providing a probabilistic interpretation of canonical–microcanonical ensemble equivalence. Finally, we outline how the same information-theoretic framework naturally extends to path space, suggesting a unified probabilistic description of equilibrium statistical mechanics and conditioned stochastic dynamics.

We investigate a quantum tunneling Mpemba effect for a particle in a continuous one-dimensional symmetric double-well potential subject to irreversible boundary loss. The dissipation is described by a complex absorbing potential (CAP) and the corresponding conditional no-jump evolution. Using a biorthogonal spectral representation, we derive the exact non-Hermitian decomposition of the subnormalized density matrix and analyze the corresponding relaxation dynamics. We show that the off-diagonal coefficients exhibit a parity selection rule, leaving same-parity interference terms in general. To isolate the interplay between thermal spectral preparation and mode-dependent decay rates, we introduce a diagonal spectral relaxation measure $S(t,T_i)$. For a quartic double well, numerical calculations reveal finite-time crossings of $S(t,T_i)$ prepared at different initial temperatures, as well as a non-monotonic temperature dependence of selected diagonal spectral weights. These features are explained by the enhanced thermal population of spatially extended, rapidly leaking excited states. In contrast, the trace distance of the normalized conditional state to the asymptotic quasi-stationary state exhibits no crossing, demonstrating that the anomalous ordering is specifically a spectral Mpemba effect rather than a universal acceleration of the complete conditional state. Our continuous-space formulation provides a real-space perspective on anomalous quantum relaxation without invoking universal nodal or topological theorems.

The lead-free perovskite ferroelectrics captivate researchers with their unique functional properties leading to important technological applications. In the search for a new lead-free perovskite of technological importance, we develop a first-principles based atomistic model to accurately predict the properties of BiAlO$_3$ in experimentally relevant conditions. Consistent with the experimental observations, our simulations predict a rhombohedral ferroelectric ($R3c$) ground state for BiAlO$_3$ facilitated by a structural phase transition from paraelectric (cubic, $Pm\Bar{3}m$) phase. The room-temperature spontaneous polarization and Curie temperature are obtained to be 81 $\mu$C/cm$^2$ (along [111] direction) and 1160 K, respectively. Our simulations reveal strong coupling between ferroelectric and antiferrodistortive modes for a broad spectrum of temperature and electric field. We find that hydrostatic pressure suppresses both spontaneous polarization and Curie temperature, while both uniaxial and biaxial stresses induce multiple phase transitions in BiAlO$_3$.

The structural, electronic, and optical properties of monolayer $\alpha$-graphdiyne ($\alpha$-GDY) are systematically investigated using density-functional theory within the plane-wave pseudopotential formalism. The electronic band structure reveals a gapless Dirac crossing at the K point, indicating Dirac-semimetallic behavior within the PBE/GGA framework. The calculated total and orbital-projected density of states show that the electronic states near the Fermi level are dominated by the carbon $2p$ orbitals, while the contribution of the $2s$ orbitals is comparatively weak. The optical response exhibits pronounced polarization dependence. The in-plane dielectric function displays a strong low-energy electronic response and negative values of its real part, whereas the out-of-plane component remains positive throughout the investigated energy range. Consistently, the absorption coefficient, extinction coefficient, reflectivity, and electron energy-loss spectra reveal pronounced optical anisotropy. The calculated plasma frequencies are approximately $3.21$~eV for in-plane polarization and $1.06$~eV for out-of-plane polarization, highlighting the strongly anisotropic electronic response of the monolayer. These findings demonstrate that $\alpha$-GDY combines Dirac-like electronic behavior with highly anisotropic optical properties, indicating its potential relevance to polarization-sensitive optoelectronic, plasmonic, and nanoelectronic applications.

Phononic frequency combs offer a rich platform for nonlinear sensing, yet how their observable properties respond to changes in physical parameters remains poorly understood. Using a reduced two-mode autoparametric resonance model, we investigate how primary and secondary detuning, drive amplitude, and relative damping jointly shape amplitude and frequency sensitivity across the nonlinear parameter space. We find that sensitivity is far from uniform: primary detuning shifts the comb response smoothly, secondary detuning produces sharply localized transitions near resonance manifolds, and drive amplitude concentrates peak sensitivity close to the activation threshold rather than deep within the comb state. The relative damping redistributes energy continuously between modes without introducing discontinuities. The nonlinear sensitivity of amplitude and frequency observables across all parameters points to a common physical origin in autoparametric resonance, nonlinear saturation, and coupling-induced synchronization, offering a coherent basis for designing nonlinear sensing platforms with deliberate, parameter-aware sensitivity engineering.

In this work, we propose a group II/IIIA-based Janus MBene, MgAlB_2, and investigate its electrochemical properties using first-principles calculations. The substitution of one Mg layer in Mg_2B_2 MBene by an Al layer breaks the structural symmetry and generates a permanent out-of-plane polarization, giving rise to a distinct electronic environment compared with the parent Mg_2B_2 and Al_2B_2 monolayers. Electronic-structure analysis reveals enhanced orbital hybridization among B, Mg, and Al states near the Fermi level, resulting in improved electronic delocalization across the monolayer. The Janus MgAlB_2 monolayer is found to possess excellent dynamical, mechanical, and thermal stability. Owing to its polarization-modified energy landscape, Li ions migrate with an exceptionally low diffusion barrier of 17.1 meV, corresponding to a room-temperature diffusion coefficient of 3.43x10^-10 cm^2/s. Unlike the pristine Mg_2B_2 and Al_2B_2 monolayers, which support only a single stable adsorption layer, MgAlB_2 accommodates two complete Li layers. Detailed analysis shows that the residual polarization retained after first-layer lithiation continues to promote Li adsorption, whereas increasing Li-Li electrostatic interactions eventually limit further storage. As a result, the Janus monolayer delivers a high theoretical specific capacity of 1470.24 mAh/g together with a small volume expansion of only 3.7% during maximum lithiation. The present study demonstrates that intrinsic polarization can be utilized to regulate both the thermodynamics and kinetics of Li storage, providing a design strategy for high-rate and high-capacity two-dimensional electrode materials.

We study continuously monitored dynamics of a quasiperiodic free-fermion chain defined on a Fibonacci lattice. We focus on fluctuations of the local particle number, which exhibit a spatially uniform distribution in the unitary limit. Remarkably, we demonstrate that they exhibit a nonuniform spatial pattern originating from the quasiperiodic long-range order under continuous measurement. Furthermore, employing both physicaland perpendicular-space analyses, we elucidate that measurement-induced crossover emerges in fluctuations due to the interplay between the incommensurate modulation and the continuous measurement. While weak measurement yields a distribution reflecting the long-range spatial structure of the quasiperiodic system, an increase in measurement strength alters the distribution into one dominated by the local environment of each site. We also elucidate that the measurement-induced crossover emerges in other physical quantities such as connected correlation functions. These findings offer insights into nonequilibrium quasiperiodic phenomena emerging in continuously monitored dynamics.

Quantum entanglement is widely used as a diagnostic of topological phases of matter. Beyond entanglement, non-stabilizerness captures a distinct aspect of quantum many-body states by quantifying their distance from the manifold of stabilizer states. In this work, we study the stabilizer Rényi entropy in symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases, including both gapped SPT, non-intrinsically gapless SPT, and intrinsically gapless SPT phases. Under symmetry preserving perturbations, we find numerically that the stabilizer Rényi entropy exhibits an extremum near the phase transition. However, the stabilizer Rényi entropy alone cannot distinguish different SPT phases. In contrast, the Pauli spectrum reveals a characteristic crossing structure at the transition point. This crossing reflects the exchange of dominant Pauli-string correlations associated with the non-local string order parameters of the two topological distinct phases. For gapped SPT and non-intrinsically gapless SPT phases, the crossing structure can be understood from a local-unitary duality that maps the Pauli spectrum between the two phases. For intrinsically gapless SPT phases, such a local-unitary mapping is absent. Instead, we find that the Pauli spectrum mapping is generated by a non-invertible duality transformation. These results show that although the stabilizer Rényi entropy provides only a coarse diagnostic of phase transitions, the Pauli spectrum contains finer information about the exchange of string order sectors. Our findings demonstrate that quantum magic offers a complementary perspective for characterizing both gapped and gapless SPT phases.