Papers

The multiplicative cascade is a well-known method for generating random fields that are both genuinely non-Gaussian and scale invariant. Its one-point and scaling statistics, namely the multifractal spectra $\tau(q)$, $D_q$, and $f(\alpha)$, are known exactly; however, its geometric and topological measures are not. In this work, we show that the topological structures of a conservative (microcanonical) random permutation cascade can be precisely predicted. We compute the digital (cubical) Euler characteristic, or genus, of the level-$j$ excursion set of the two-dimensional cascade in closed form, using a transfer operator on the cascade's $b$-ary tree closed by its ultrametric structure and a conservative without-replacement sibling split. The result requires no Monte Carlo and matches simulated realizations with a maximum residual of $\sim\!10^{-4}$ in the Euler density, a controlled discretization artifact of the atomic measure. We tie the genus scaling analytically to the multifractal spectrum, and show that for a geometric ladder of weights the genus is exactly self-similar under the multifractal-width dial. The construction uses the tree-sum cumulant machinery of Greiner et al. (Phys. Rev. E 58, 554, 1998), specialized to topological functionals; the conservative split carries the microcanonical fingerprint $\mathrm{Cov}(\ln w_a,\ln w_b)/\mathrm{Var}(\ln w)=-1/(n-1)$ that distinguishes it from canonical and lognormal cascades. The cascade is the multiplicative counterpart of the Rayleigh–Lévy flight and a controlled benchmark for the morphology of strongly non-Gaussian fields.

Claims of quantum advantage should remain robust even when classical strategies have access to side information correlated with the benchmark under evaluation, just as Bell certification must account for measurement dependence. We formalize such correlations as benchmark dependence, a task-level generalization of measurement dependence. For every bounded-reward task, we show that the optimal benchmark-dependent classical score obeys $S_\eta\leq\min\{1,S_{\mathrm{cl}}+\eta\}$, and construct a family of tasks that saturates this bound, showing that the linear dependence on $\eta$ is tight without further assumptions. For repeated product tasks with roundwise dependence, we obtain the stronger multiplicative bound $S_\eta^{(n)}\leq(\omega_{\mathrm c}+\eta)^n$, and extend the framework to finite-sample data, mutual-information constraints, multipartite tasks, and correlations distributed along a causal path. Applying these results to aggregated IBM hardware data, we obtain positive raw-count cycle-product certificates of 0.0812 for CHSH and 0.2178 for Mermin–GHZ, while the nine-context magic-square construction remains uncertified; readout-mitigated values are reported separately as sensitivity estimates. We also analyze a non-Bell quantum-kernel benchmark, where a label-construction variable has measured conditional dependence $\widehat{\eta}_{\lambda}^{(Y)}=0.5$, above the threshold $\eta_{\mathrm{req}}=0.375$, required to close the reported score gap, and yields perfect classical classification. The framework therefore converts a quantum–classical score separation into a quantitative lower bound on the benchmark-correlated classical information required to explain the score separation.

Among the various mechanisms proposed for unconventional superconductivity, this paper focuses on the Coulomb interaction responsible for $d$-wave and $s_\pm$-wave pairing symmetries in cuprates and iron pnictides. Although the effective multi-orbital interaction $U_\text{eff}=U-J$ is predominantly repulsive, an attractive component driven by the Hund's coupling parameter $J$ is sufficient to bind fractional charges. This attractive multi-orbital contribution and a repulsive term of the single-band Hubbard model yield the superconducting pairing gap $\Delta_0$ and an estimate of the transition temperature $T_c$. Given the complex electronic structure and vast compositional space of these materials, the model focuses exclusively on the doped superconducting plane hosting these fractional charges. Through this approach, an analytical expression mainly dependent on the Hubbard $U$ and Hund $J$ parameters that reproduces the empirical superconducting dome is derived. Furthermore, the model addresses the characteristic electron and hole doping asymmetry observed in cuprates by accounting for Hund's coupling parameters. Finally, while the model describes strange metal behavior, it currently provides only a qualitative explanation for the pseudogap phase and the underdoped isotope effect.

The recent discovery of room-temperature superconductivity in hydrogen-rich materials under extreme pressures has renewed interest in phonon-mediated pairing mechanisms described by the Eliashberg theory, which generalizes the BCS framework by incorporating phonon retardation effects. In this article, we present an analytical solution to the isotropic Eliashberg equations for the superconducting critical temperature, formulated within the Debye model. This solution exhibits good agreement with fully selfconsistent numerical calculations across both weak- and strong-coupling regimes, correctly reproducing the exponential and square-root dependences on the electron-phonon coupling parameter. We further apply the solution to YH6, benchmarking against experiment and the McMillan-Allen-Dynes formula. More broadly, across a diverse set of hydride superconductors, the predicted critical temperature shows scaling consistency with ab initio calculations and experimental data.

Altermagnetic spintronics requires materials in which compensated magnetic order, symmetry-controlled electronic responses, and epitaxial tunability can be combined in experimentally accessible thin films. MnTe is a key material in this context, but experimental studies have focused mainly on the stable NiAs-type polymorph, whereas the polar wurtzite phase remains largely unexplored. Here we demonstrate molecular-beam epitaxy growth and investigate properties of nearly phase-pure wurtzite MnTe deposited directly on GaAs(111)B, and show that small changes in the growth conditions strongly modify the phase composition, from a multiphase state with endotaxial NiAs-type inclusions embedded in wurtzite MnTe matrix to an almost single-phase polar wurtzite layer.

Active biological microswimmers typically combine persistent self-propulsion with cyclic motion generated by flagellar or ciliary beating. However, standard active Brownian motion (ABM) does not explicitly account for these intrinsic oscillations. This limitation is particularly relevant for sperm cells, whose transport depends not only on directional persistence and stochastic reorientation but also on periodic head motion. Here we introduce oscillatory active Brownian motion (OABM), a minimal extension of ABM in which the swimmer orientation undergoes directional diffusion while being modulated by a periodic angular drive. The model yields analytical expressions for experimentally relevant observables, including the time-averaged mean-squared displacement, velocity autocorrelation function, and transverse excursion amplitude. A central prediction is a crossover between two ballistic regimes: short-time motion governed by the swimming velocity and an intermediate regime with a reduced, oscillation-averaged effective velocity determined by the angular beat amplitude. Using trajectories of human sperm, we infer model parameters from standard motility measures. The model quantitatively reproduces both single-cell trajectories and population-level dynamics under control conditions and following induction of hyperactivation. Overall, OABM provides a compact active-matter framework that links measurable flagellar kinematics to coarse-grained transport, enabling a description of sperm motility across different physiological states.

In this work, the Maxwell–Cattaneo–Vernotte (MCV) equation is used to model the one-dimensional hyperbolic Stefan problem in the limit of a small Stefan number (Ste $\ll$ 1). The solutions are approximated with perturbation series expansions using a reformulation in which time is expressed as a function of the solid-liquid interface position. The first proposed solution is derived in a framework that considers diffusive heat transfer at the phase change interface, for analytic tractability. Two rectification strategies are proposed to address the asymptotic divergence present in this formulation: a rescaled inner solution which is then combined with the outer solution to yield a composite solution, and size-dependent thermo-physical system parameters for better capture of hyperbolic effects at the phase change interface. The resulting interface profiles exhibit a characteristic parabolic-like shape, consistent with diffusive Stefan problem findings, with pronounced early-time hyperbolic effects at larger thermal relaxation times. Parametric studies are done over three pertinent variables in the dimensionless system: the Stefan number ($\mathrm{Ste}$), the dimensionless thermal relaxation time ($\widetilde \tau$), and the thermal diffusivity ($\alpha$). The studies suggest that model error scales with the Stefan number in accordance with the theoretical truncation error of the perturbation expansion. Additionally, larger values of $\widetilde \tau$ amplify early-time hyperbolic effects, thereby increasing model error, while larger $\alpha$ extends the relative temporal domain over which these hyperbolic effects remain significant, also corresponding to an increase in model error.

Nonequilibrium systems can exploit energy to amplify their sensitivity to external stimuli, allowing them to be harnessed for a variety of functions in both engineered devices and living organisms. An assortment of theoretical results capture different facets of this nonequilibrium amplification, including fluctuation-response relations as well as bounds and constraints that limit the potential behavior. Here, we take a broader perspective, aiming for a systematic characterization of the full range of possible response behaviors. For a wide class of nonequilibrium dynamics, we identify a collection of optimally sensitive models whose behavior is determined by the topology of the state space. We further conjecture that every response can be written as a convex combination of these optimal models, thereby structuring the entire space of responses. We use this geometric perspective to put sensitivity limits on nonmonotonic biochemical input-output functions, and identify all optimal kinetic schemes for the unordered binding of molecules among three sites.

Harvesting – the periodic removal of individuals above or below a threshold trait value – reshapes heterogeneous populations without altering their underlying stochastic dynamics. We study how repeated harvesting events steer the evolution of probability densities for classes of stochastic processes exhibiting both normal and anomalous dynamics, as well as a prototypical predator-prey model. Removal of the upper portion of the density drives the system to a quasi-steady state when viewed at the “harvesting clock”. This state depends only on the harvesting threshold and frequency but not on the initial conditions. Removal of the lower portion of the density fixes its shape while generating a constant effective drift that exceeds that of the unharvested mean. Our results suggest the possibility of manipulating the dynamics of stochastic populations through external selection interventions.

In this paper, we discuss the validity of the composite worldline instanton approach for the nonperturbative decay of charged particles in constant electric and magnetic fields. It is shown that the instanton results in the leading exponential approximation in the different limits agree with the ones obtained by the imaginary part of the self-energy in the external field and by overlap of the wave functions. We comment on the possible application of our results for the estimation of the decay rate of the proton in the external electric and magnetic field in the leading exponential approximation. The effects of entanglement of the particles in the final state are briefly mentioned.

Oxygen vacancies in ceria CeO$_2$ donate electrons that localize as Ce$^{3+}$ ($4f^1$, $S=1/2$) small polarons, creating rare-earth spin centers through native defect chemistry rather than implantation or extrinsic doping. We investigate the magnetic environment of these centers using first-principles PBE$+U$ calculations with a linear-response Hubbard parameter ($U=5.8382$ eV), hyperfine tensors from the all-electron reconstruction of the projector-augmented-wave method, and Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker exchange calculations within the coherent-potential approximation. Four vacancy configurations spanning concentrations from $3.125\%$ to $12.5\%$ are considered. A distinctive feature of the host follows from cerium isotopics: all naturally occurring cerium isotopes possess nuclear spin $I=0$, eliminating on-site hyperfine interactions at the Ce$^{3+}$ center and leaving the nuclear-spin bath entirely on the oxygen sublattice, whose sole magnetic isotope, $^{17}O$ ($I=5/2$), occurs at $0.038\%$ natural abundance. The resulting $^{17}O$ hyperfine landscape consists of a small number of strongly coupled, nearly axial first-shell nuclei with contact couplings reaching $6$~MHz, surrounded by a weakly coupled and strongly anisotropic outer shell. These tensors define experimentally accessible signatures for $^{17}O$ ESEEM and HYSCORE measurements and provide the microscopic hyperfine parameters required for cluster-correlation-expansion calculations of spin coherence. Exchange interactions between neighboring polarons are weak and oxygen-mediated, leaving the vacancy-generated spins largely independent over the concentration range considered. Together, these results establish oxygen-deficient CeO$_2$ as a chemically generated and intrinsically nuclear-spin-dilute host for rare-earth spin centers, and provide the first-principles magnetic parameters needed to assess their coherence properties.

We determine the quantum corrections to transport arising from fluctuations of the near-AdS${}_2$ throat of near-extremal black branes in holographic models with momentum relaxation. By computing the shear viscosity and electrical conductivity at both zero and finite chemical potential, we uncover a universal low-temperature enhancement of transport generated by Schwarzian quantum fluctuations. Specifically, transport coefficients extracted from retarded Green's functions increase throughout the regime $C T \ll 1$. For operators with Schwarzian scaling dimension $\Delta >1$, this enhancement is preceded by a universal minimum at a characteristic temperature $T_{\rm min} \propto C^{-1}$, leading to a non-monotonic temperature dependence strikingly similar to that observed in many correlated materials. In contrast, for the case $\Delta =1$, relevant for the electrical conductivity, the transport coefficient evolves monotonically toward a constant value. Our results identify universal signatures of near-horizon quantum gravity in the transport properties of holographic quantum matter.

We revisit holographic electrical conductivity in the regime of very low temperatures where quantum fluctuations in the throat of the near-extremal, asymptotically AdS$_4$ dual black brane are strongly coupled. We treat the fluctuations via an effective two-dimensional action capturing the effects of the Schwarzian modes at the scale $1/C$. Our main result is a non-monotonic temperature dependence: the quantum-corrected conductivity decreases as the temperature is lowered, reaches a minimum at $(CT_{\mathrm{min}}\simeq 0.023)$, and grows as $(1/\sqrt{CT})$ for $(CT\ll 1)$. We further estimate the one-loop contribution to the conductivity directly from the four-dimensional gravitational path integral and find qualitative agreement with the effective two-dimensional description in the regime $(CT\gg 1)$. We find that quantum corrections substantially modify the low-temperature behavior of the holographic conductivity in both approaches.

Many active particles phase-separate due to quorum-sensing interactions, and their self-propulsion mechanisms often break chiral symmetry. Using particle and continuum models, we uncover the role of chirality in inducing bulk or microphase separation, including a chiral phase formed of vapor bubbles. Analytical predictions for the emergence of these phases require a coarse-graining technique based on multiple-scale analysis. Further, introducing a minimal active field theory, we show that, in the bulk phase separation regime, chirality does not alter the diffusive $t^{1/3}$ coarsening law nor the dynamical exponent associated with capillary waves, but induces traveling waves at the interface. We finally demonstrate that, even in the absence of fluid flows, chirality can cause the breakup of elongated droplets, resembling phenomena previously observed experimentally.

At the bulk upper critical dimension, marginally irrelevant interactions generate multiplicative logarithmic corrections to mean-field scaling. While these corrections are well understood for bulk observables, their consequences for boundary criticality, particularly for finite-size scaling, remain much less explored. Here we combine large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations with boundary renormalization-group analysis to study a (3 + 1)D O(3) quantum critical point. After verifying the known logarithmically modified bulk finite-size scaling, including the correlation-length scaling governed by the logarithmic finite-size exponent \hat{\coppa}, we tune the surface coupling to identify ordinary, special, and extraordinary boundary regimes. For the ordinary and special transitions, we derive logarithmic correction exponents and \hat{\coppa}-dependent finite-size scaling forms for boundary correlations, including results that have not been systematically established before. These predictions are quantitatively supported by Monte Carlo data. In the extraordinary regime, we find long-range surface magnetic order and a logarithmically enhanced surface-bulk correlation.

We present a comprehensive theory of mapping flux excitations, or vortices, to electric and magnetic particles in the toric code phases of generalizations of the Kitaev honeycomb model in two spatial dimensions. Our method, which is formulated with the Majorana fermion representation, utilizes the fusion rule of the Abelian anyons and the physical constraint on the fermion parity, and applies to generic model parameters including any perturbative limit. Not only are we able to reproduce the known mapping scheme in the dimer limit, we also derive the conditions for the invariance of anyon species of individual vortices. We prove that the mapping of anyons is left unchanged by any continuous evolution of model parameters that does not close the fermion gap in both the vortex-free and two-vortex sectors, which enables precise demarcations between multiple regimes associated with different maps within a single phase characterized by a trivial Chern number. We illustrate our theory via extensive computations for a number of selected models, in particular those defined on the square-octagon lattice and the honeycomb lattice with a Kekulé structure. We also demonstrate that distinct mappings of anyons can nevertheless exhibit the same weak symmetry breaking, and further argue that they belong to the same symmetry-enriched topological order.

Although symmetry-protected topological phases (SPTs) can be distinguished by their entanglement properties, it has been unclear how to extract this information directly from expectation values beyond the 1D case. Here, we close this gap and propose a pair of nonlocal order parameters that can detect and distinguish all bosonic SPTs in 2D protected by internal discrete, Abelian unitary symmetries. The desired topological invariants are extracted by these quantities by effectively simulating the SPT path integral on topologically non-trivial spacetime manifolds. Our order parameters are defined in terms of expectation values of partial symmetry and permutation operations acting on fixed numbers of replicas of the system in finite spatial regions. These expectation values correspond to symmetry-twisted versions of multipartite entanglement quantities known as multi-entropies. We show explicitly that our two order parameters detect symmetry-protected four-party and six-party entanglement, respectively, and we constrain possible "spurious" contributions. We analytically test our proposal in fixed-point lattice models. Our results suggest multipartite entanglement to be a defining feature of SPTs; indeed, we expect our methods to generalize to fermionic and higher-dimensional systems.

We study strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB) at finite temperature and its implications in holography. SWSSB is a novel critical phenomenon that arises only in mixed states. We demonstrate SWSSB with the BTZ black hole and show that, in the bulk, it is realized through wormhole geometries connecting the two copies in the thermofield-double construction. We point out that SWSSB can be recast as an emergence of global symmetries under ensemble averaging. We further examine the interplay between SWSSB and the swampland program, and propose a new swampland conjecture for quantum-gravity theories involving ensemble averages.

We curated 320 cubic ($Fd\bar{3}m$) spinel entries from the Materials Project-nitrides, oxides, sulfides, and selenides, including single-cation mixed-valence $A_3X_4$ compounds-and trained tree-ensemble surrogates for the formation energy, energy above the convex hull, band gap, total magnetization, and metallicity. Cations were assigned to tetrahedral-like and octahedral-like groups from CrystalNN coordination numbers rather than from element identity, and the evaluation was group-aware throughout: splits were grouped by reduced formula, every transform was fit on training folds only, and champion models were selected on cross-validated scores before the holdout was examined. Over twenty repeated grouped holdouts (single-seed refits that reuse the tuned hyperparameters, and are therefore mildly optimistic) the champions reach mean absolute errors of $0.121\pm0.030$ eV/atom for the formation energy, $0.048\pm0.013$ eV/atom for the hull distance, and $1.27\pm0.19$~\muBfu{} for the magnetization, with a metallicity accuracy of $0.85\pm0.06$. Band-gap regression does not beat a trivial baseline on the 19-member non-metal holdout under paired bootstrap testing, we report this negative result and trace it to sample scarcity and to the semi-local DFT labels. On the identical grouped split, the tabular champion is more accurate than an untuned MEGNet trained from scratch (0.087 versus 0.209 eV/atom formation-energy MAE on the primary holdout), a comparison that bounds, rather than settles, the descriptor-versus-graph question at this data scale. SHAP attribution ties the magnetization model to octahedral $d$-occupancy and the formation-energy and band-gap models to electronegativity descriptors, and grouped conformal intervals, permutation nulls, and leave-one-chemistry-out tests bound a domain of applicability that is uneven across anions and cations.

The classical Gibbs-Duhem relation applies to quasi-static processes and neglects kinetic effects, leaving a fundamental gap between Gibbs thermodynamics and Newtonian mechanics. Here, we derive a generalized Gibbs-Duhem framework that incorporates kinetic contributions, thereby establishing a unified connection between classical thermodynamics and Newtonian mechanics. Based on this framework, we propose an alternative evolution equation governing density dynamics at fluid-fluid interfaces. In appropriate limiting cases, the resulting density evolution equation naturally recovers the definition of the speed of sound, Bernoulli's law, and the van der Waals equation of state (EOS).

For a reversible system relaxing to equilibrium, the obvious fastest strategy is to lower all kinetic barriers (open all gates). We find that such intuition holds at three levels: the all-open-gate strategy achieves the highest local conductance, it maximizes the instantaneous speed of approach in every $f$-divergence, and it simultaneously maximizes all relaxation eigenvalues. Nevertheless, we show that a counter-intuitive finite-time optimum lies beyond this intuition and operates at a fourth level, invisible to all three: eigenvector rotation. Noncommutativity enables timed schedules to reproject residual amplitudes across relaxation modes, thereby achieving faster relaxation. Optimal schedules are bang–bang. In our illustrative example, the best-found schedule also employs counter-gating, transiently raising selected barriers, and reduces the terminal residual by a factor of $130$ relative to all-open, and by $7$ relative to the best static landscape. A no-go theorem shows that noncommutativity is necessary: commuting generators collapse every schedule to a static time-averaged landscape, worse than the intuitive static control. In the reverse problem, the dual schedule preserves nonequilibrium free energy far more effectively than intuitively keeping all barriers at maximum heights. Whether accelerating or delaying relaxation, barrier control performs no work on the reduced Markov system; it only re-times a fixed total dissipation budget.

Quantum light sources capable of generating single photons are fundamental building blocks for photonic quantum technologies. In the ongoing search for an ideal quantum emitter, inorganic halide perovskite nanocrystals have emerged as a promising source of single photons. Their unique optical response, with an unmatched ease of synthetic tunability, stands out amongst the competing platforms. However, their stochastic dispersion in solution challenges the deterministic and stable integration of individual emitters with photonic structures that is required for practical technologies. Notably, resolution and material compatibility constraints make conventional top-down fabrication processes insufficient for such heterogeneous integration. Here, we report direct writing of perovskite quantum dots (QDs) with individual-emitter resolution. By inducing a nanoscale-confined formation volume using a thermal scanning probe method, we achieve site-selective synthesis down to a single atomic-scale QD with spectral tunability and < 25 nm spatial control. As a result, we demonstrate high-yield arrays of CsPbI3 single-photon emitters with narrow linewidths and high single-photon purity up to 98% at room temperature, performance consistent with that of their state-of-the-art colloidal counterparts. Through such deterministic control, we uniquely realize the precise, on-demand coupling of these emitters to photonic cavities, as evidenced by a measured enhancement in the spontaneous emission rate. This represents a key advancement toward addressing the longstanding integration obstacles of these materials. Overall, by combining the atomic-scale tunability of chemical synthesis with the spatial control of additive manufacturing, our work opens new emitter engineering strategies to realize the untapped potential of colloidal materials for next-generation quantum technologies.

The sample complexity is the minimum number of copies required to learn an accurate classical description of a quantum state. Bosonic and fermionic Gaussian quantum states are families of quantum states that play a key role in quantum science and technology, from quantum optics and many-body physics to quantum chemistry, quantum computing, and quantum information theory. Despite their importance, their sample complexity had not been fully determined. We settle this open problem and show that both bosonic and fermionic Gaussian states can be learned using a number of copies that scales quadratically in the number of modes, regardless of whether the state is pure or mixed, and independently of any energy bound on the state. We derive these results by using the representation theory of Gaussian unitaries and by putting forth a generalization of the random purification channel to this setting and beyond.

Silicon spin qubits are a leading candidate for large-scale quantum computing owing to their compatibility with semiconductor manufacturing. However, scaling to useful fault-tolerant processors will likely generate thermal loads that exceed the cooling power available at millikelvin temperatures. Raising the operating temperature eases cooling requirements but reduces gate fidelity, increasing the overhead of quantum error correction. Identifying the operating temperature that minimizes total power consumption is therefore a key challenge for commercially viable quantum computers. Here, we use gate set tomography to benchmark two-qubit silicon chips fabricated in both industrial and academic environments over a range of temperatures. Elevated temperatures substantially shorten coherence times and increase gate and state-preparation-and-measurement infidelities. Based on these measurements, we develop a general power model for silicon quantum computers that combines cryogenic cooling requirements with error-correction overheads. We show that a finite optimal operating temperature exists and is strongly influenced by a crossover temperature near 1 K in current devices, above which gate fidelity degrades rapidly. These results connect device-level fidelity limitations to system-level power requirements, providing design guidelines for large-scale silicon quantum computers.

Which properties of a quantum many-body system are operationally accessible is a central question underlying spectroscopy, thermodynamics, and quantum information science. Conventional response theory answers this question within a system-only paradigm: one perturbs and measures the matter itself, obtaining susceptibility built from causally ordered nested commutators. Here we show that coherently controlled quantum probes, when measured at the end, define a strictly larger operational learning framework beyond that accessible from response theory. We establish this through a quantum-circuit description that unifies spectroscopy, probe microscopy, and probe-based quantum technologies within a common operational framework, from which we develop quantum protocols for learning many-body properties from probe readout only. This advantage arises because the reduced dynamics of quantum probes generically encode anti-commutator and mixed-order correlators of the target; therefore, measurements on the probe provide access to fluctuations, non-equilibrium structure, and entanglement entropy that are in general not accessible through response functions or a single probe alone. Moreover, we demonstrate that entangled probes can access many-body properties such as von Neumann entropy. We prove that the required probe resources scale with the complexity of the target correlations rather than with the size of the many-body system. Quantum probes are therefore not merely more sensitive sensors but provide a new way to learn many-body properties distinct from those of tomography or quantum simulation.

Yield-stress fluids transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior at a critical stress threshold, governing phenomena from industrial processing to geological flows. While predominantly investigated under steady shear, large-amplitude oscillatory tests force these materials to cyclically navigate between arrested and fluidized states. Here, we discover a hidden universal behavior where the dynamic viscoelastic moduli of yield-stress fluids collapse onto master curves, revealing that these materials rearrange almost instantaneously to maintain a constant intra-cycle stress state. We fully capture this behavior using a novel theoretical framework based on the minimization of a governing function that exhibits symmetry breaking. Our findings reveal that recoverable elastic energy, yielding abruptness, and entropy production during stress inversion are fundamentally intertwined. This connection provides a unified physical picture for the dynamic yield stress, offering a novel thermomechanical foundation to define and predict this threshold across soft matter physics and materials science.

The Mpemba effect is the counterintuitive phenomenon in which an initially hotter system cools faster than a colder, otherwise identical system. It has been experimentally demonstrated in various classical overdamped systems. Here, we explore the existence of the same effect in a regime where inertia cannot be neglected, namely, the underdamped regime. We consider the underdamped dynamics of a Brownian particle in a potential. We show perturbatively that, if the effect exists in the overdamped limit, it persists for sufficiently large but finite damping. In the ultra-weak-damping limit, we show that the effect cannot occur for smooth confining single-well potentials with canonical initial states, but can arise in more complex potentials. We demonstrate our results numerically using double-well potentials, the canonical setting for the Mpemba effect in the overdamped limit.

Electronic flat bands in an elemental two-dimensional material provide an attractive setting for electron interactions competing with suppressed kinetic energy. Here we propose a buckled silicon kagome lattice (SiKL), an unfunctionalized six-atom monolayer of bond-linked Si$_3$ triangles and dodecagonal pores. Its planar parent hosts a dispersionless Kohn–Sham band near the Fermi level but is unstable to out-of-plane distortions. Following three soft zone-centre phonons and relaxing displaced structures yields two nearly degenerate buckled forms. The high-buckling form retains a partially flat kagome-derived band near the Fermi level. Biaxial tension controls lattice dynamics and electronic dispersion: at 10% strain, the bandwidth decreases significantly, the density-of-states peak approaches the Fermi level, and the softest phonon hardens. At 315 K, $6\times6$ ab initio MD shows the unstrained network disordering while the strained network remains ordered, indicating finite-temperature metastability. Fifty-nanosecond classical MD of $36\times36$ sheets reveals a strain-controlled crystalline–amorphous transition and local-bonding crossover near 2% strain. Low-strain trajectories show gradual, two-stage disordering; higher strains undergo an abrupt, first-order-like collapse, with the transition temperature reaching approximately 600 K at 10% strain. An exploratory Ag(111) substrate model suggests epitaxial mismatch could supply comparable tension, retain a narrow SiKL band, and preserve crystalline order above room temperature. Unlike passivated or hybrid-lattice silicon kagome proposals aimed mainly at conventional semiconductors, SiKL is elemental and uses strain alone to couple thermal metastability, bond rearrangement, and near-Fermi flat-band tuning. Buckled SiKL is a candidate platform for strain-controlled flat-band and electronic correlation physics.

Chiral molecules have attracted broad interdisciplinary interest for their ability to produce highly spin-polarized current. This phenomenon, known as the chiral-induced spin selectivity effect, holds great potential in the field of spintronics. Here, we propose to combine chiral molecules with altermagnets to construct highly efficient and tunable spin valves. Using the nonequilibrium Green's function method and the Landauer-Büttiker formula, we obtain the conductance and the magnetoresistance of a normal metal/chiral molecule/altermagnet spin valve. Our theoretical results reveal that the conductance of the spin valve can be effectively tuned by reorienting the Néel vector of the altermagnet, and the magnetoresistance of the spin valve increases with molecular length and altermagnetic anisotropy. Moreover, the magnetoresistance vanishes for achiral molecules or in the absence of molecular spin-orbit coupling. Our work paves the way for developing efficient, controllable, and stray-field-free spintronic devices.

The superconducting gap symmetry of pressurized La$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$ remains unsettled because conventional weak-coupling calculations often place the system close to competing sign-changing $s$- and $d$-wave instabilities. Using the four-orbital Wannier Hamiltonian of Xia et al., we combine single-site two-orbital dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) with a self-energy-renormalized random-phase approximation (RPA). The central step is to replace the bare particle-hole bubble $G_0G_0$ of ordinary RPA by a $G_{\rm DMFT}G_{\rm DMFT}$ bubble, while keeping the same residual Slater–Kanamori interaction vertices. In the bare RPA benchmark, the leading pairing eigenvalue belongs to the $B_{2g}$ $d_{xy}$ channel. Once the DMFT self-energy is included, the hierarchy is reversed: the $A_{1g}$ sign-changing $s_{\pm}$ state becomes dominant, the $B_{1g}$ $d_{x^2-y^2}$ channel is subleading, and the original $B_{2g}$ instability is strongly suppressed. Pocket-pair decomposition and orbital-resolved susceptibilities show that the reversal originates from orbital-selective renormalization of the $d_{3z^2-r^2}$ sector, which filters the $\gamma$-pocket scattering processes that stabilize $d_{xy}$ pairing in bare RPA while preserving distributed inter-pocket processes favorable to $s_{\pm}$ pairing. As an independent two-particle validation, we further compute the static spin susceptibility using the dual Bethe–Salpeter equation with the local DMFT vertex. The resulting susceptibility retains a broad finite-momentum magnetic response and is weak near $\Gamma$, strengthening the spin-fluctuation background for the correlation-stabilized $s_{\pm}$ state. Our results demonstrate that strong correlations are not a secondary correction in La$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$: an appropriate treatment of correlation-renormalized quasiparticles is essential for predicting the superconducting pairing symmetry.