Papers

The model primarily concerns structural glasses described by systems of topological defects. We explore the scope of this approach and investigate equilibrium behavior within the mean-field approximation. Our analysis reveals three possible equilibrium scenarios, only one of which exhibits a strong glass-forming ability. These scenarios allow for the phenomenological selection of model parameters based on equilibrium behavior, which can then be used to study dynamics during quenching. We identify an upper temperature limit beyond which quenching into the glassy state becomes impossible.

A two species random field Ising model with non-reciprocal interactions between the species is studied using the greedy Glauber dynamics. By solving the dynamics exactly on a complete graph, we obtain the phase diagram of the model as a function of the non-reciprocal interaction ($K$) and the variance ($\sigma$) of the quenched random field distribution. The model exhibits a rich phase diagram with the presence of a chaotic time-oscillatory phase for intermediate values of $K$ and $\sigma$. The chaotic phase has stable time oscillations along with the autocorrelation time that diverges with system size on a complete graph and also in three dimensions. We find that the random field disorder along with non-reciprocal interaction alone can produce a time crystal without an external driving. In two dimensions the autocorrelation time does not increase with the system size and the time crystal phase is absent.

Generative machine learning is increasingly used for inorganic crystal structure generation. Most models and the corresponding evaluation approaches rely on simple forms of crystal structure representation. In this paper, we showcase the power of atom-averaged features from pretrained Machine-Learning Interatomic Potentials (MLIPs), such as MACE, for such tasks. We first introduce a distance measure that assesses the output of material generative models by capturing both quality and novelty in a single distribution-based evaluation framework. In particular, we introduce the Coarse-Fine Transport Distance (CFTD) using two different featurizers, where the quality component is based on coarse MACE features. We showcase CFTD's versatility in capturing crystal-structure quality while also detecting memorization, and compare it with the recently introduced continuous SUN metrics. We further show that coarse MACE features can be used as guidance for a material generative model.

The second law of thermodynamics still lacks a general proof applicable to both classical and quantum systems across broad ranges of time scales, interactions, and degrees of nonequilibrium. In this paper, we show that when the macrostate-level probability $f$ of an isolated system increases monotonically with the number of possible microstates $\Omega$ (i.e., $\partial f/\partial \Omega > 0$), the second law emerges naturally from the continuity equation of $f$ in phase space; a special case of $\partial f/\partial \Omega > 0$ is Boltzmann's assumption of equal a priori equilibrium probabilities. Based on this finding, the second law can be readily derived for fully chaotic systems. The derivation does not rely on dynamical details, highlighting the statistical nature of entropy increase. In contrast, for a locally nonchaotic system, the positive correlation between $f$ and $\Omega$ may break down (i.e., $\partial f/\partial \Omega \leq 0$). Consequently, the conventional framework of thermodynamics does not apply, and entropy can decrease spontaneously without any energetic penalty.

We propose and analyze the structure of a family of bosonic quantum many-body states that have the following features: (i) they include all pure Gaussian states and finite-dimensional matrix-product states as subclasses; (ii) their expectation values can be efficiently computed, allowing them to be used, among other things, for variational calculations; (iii) they admit exact parent Hamiltonians expressed as simple functions of the bosonic creation and annihilation operators.

Two-step thermochemical water splitting driven by concentrated solar heat is a scalable route to renewable hydrogen, but it requires oxides whose oxygen-vacancy formation energies balance facile reduction with favorable reoxidation. Perovskite solid solutions can tune this balance, but the relationship between bulk stoichiometry and local defect energetics remains poorly understood. Here we map oxygen-vacancy formation energetics across Ca-Ce-Ti-Mn (CCTM) perovskites by combining first-principles calculations with a coverage-constrained special quasirandom structure approach that realizes all fifteen symmetry-distinct oxygen nearest-neighbor environments, an interpretable crystal-feature model whose fitted coefficients directly encode the underlying Born-Haber thermochemistry, and a fine-tuned defect graph neural network. Local B-site chemistry dominates the oxygen-vacancy formation energy $E_\mathrm{v}$: varying the nearest-neighbor Mn fraction shifts $E_\mathrm{v}$ by 1.0-1.5 eV depending on local Ce content, whereas A-site Ce variation contributes a smaller, Mn-dependent shift of 0.2-0.6 eV. Short-range B-site cation order, if it can be established and kinetically retained through processing, is therefore a candidate means of tuning redox performance without changing bulk composition. Composition-space maps identify a Ce/Mn-balanced region ($X_\mathrm{Ce}$ = 0.29-0.33, $X_\mathrm{Mn}$ = 0.58-0.67) combining a high fraction of vacancy sites within the targeted $E_\mathrm{v}$ window with phase stability and solubility, whose predicted redox cycle capacity matches or exceeds the ceria benchmark at 1350 $^\circ$C rather than the roughly 1600 $^\circ$C ceria requires. Measurements on three CCTM compositions show cycle capacity increasing monotonically with Ce content under protocols close to the model conditions. The design rules are expected to transfer to related perovskite families.

Cavity materials engineering, aiming to manipulate material properties by coupling to vacuum fluctuations inside a cavity, is a rapidly advancing field. Despite significant progress, most studies to date have focused on specific materials and cavity configurations. Here, through a comprehensive group-theoretical analysis, we establish general symmetry rules for cavity materials engineering with linearly polarized cavity photon modes. By analyzing the symmetry of the Pauli-Fierz Hamiltonian within the long-wavelength approximation, we provide a classification of the symmetry-breaking patterns induced by cavity modes for all crystallographic point groups. The power of this framework is then demonstrated by quantum-electrodynamical density functional theory calculations. In particular, we explain the distinct cavity-induced lifting of band degeneracies in cubic BaTiO$_3$ for different cavity mode configurations, and the cavity-modified infrared and Raman spectra of monolayer MoS$_2$ due to symmetry breaking. Our results highlight the central role of symmetry in cavity materials engineering and provide general guidelines for future studies in this field.

We show that in rotationally invariant spin-$3/2$ systems the orbital Hall effect originates from interband matrix elements of the orbital magnetic moment. The resulting Hall response is governed by the quantum metric, rather than by the Berry curvature, revealing a purely geometric transport mechanism. Conventional intraband contributions associated with the orbital magnetic moment and Berry curvature are shown to vanish identically in degenerate systems. These results identify the quantum metric as the key geometric quantity controlling orbital Hall transport in degenerate multiband systems.

Local non-unitary deformations of topologically ordered wavefunctions can drive transitions into peculiar states that challenge modern perspectives on gapped quantum matter. The strongly deformed toric code offers a curious case, hosting $m$ anyon condensation alongside perimeter-law scaling of Wilson loops charged under an exact 1-form symmetry—properties that typically do not coexist in gapped ground states. Nevertheless, we rigorously construct local gapped parent Hamiltonians for these strongly deformed toric code states. The Hamiltonians we construct are not strictly finite-range, but contain sums of Wilson loop operators whose coefficients decay exponentially in their diameter. If one adopts standard locality bounds used to define gapped phases—which allow for such exponentially decaying terms—our construction shows that these states realize a trivial gapped phase. Within this locality class, we demonstrate that perimeter-law scaling of Wilson loops does not imply a spontaneously broken 1-form symmetry, and from a dual perspective, that long-range ferromagnetic order and perimeter-law disorder parameter correlations can coexist in a 2D gapped ground state. We evade a recent no-go theorem [Sahay et al., arXiv:2503.01977] by relaxing its assumptions in a manner that we quantify as benign in the thermodynamic limit. More broadly, our results highlight that stronger notions of locality are necessary for prohibiting these counterintuitive properties within a gapped phase.

Photo-induced superconducting signatures have been observed in several materials at temperatures far above their equilibrium critical temperatures, including magnetic field expulsion as in the Meissner effect. We propose driven-dissipative condensation of the superconducting order parameter as a mechanism for this phenomenon. In such a theory, optical pumping generates an effective gain (possibly via a parametric resonance) that overcomes the intrinsic damping of the pairing field, and stabilizes a non-equilibrium condensate whose phase rotates at an intrinsic frequency that is generally lower than, and incommensurate with, the drive frequency. We develop a phenomenological continuum theory that couples this slowly rotating order parameter to the conserved charge density and the electromagnetic gauge field. Despite its finite-frequency dynamics, the resulting state exhibits the conventional long-wavelength electromagnetic signatures of superconductivity. In three dimensions, it displays a static Meissner effect and a gapped plasmon generated by the Anderson–Higgs mechanism. In a two-dimensional sheet, it exhibits Pearl screening and the characteristic square-root plasmon dispersion. We further propose a direct experimental test based on a Josephson junction between the driven-dissipative state and an equilibrium superconductor. The junction supports an AC Josephson current at zero applied voltage and emits radiation at the intrinsic rotation frequency of the condensate. Its low, pump-dependent, and generally incommensurate frequency provides a clear signature distinguishing driven-dissipative superconductivity from equilibrium and drive-locked pairing states.

Exciton engineering traditionally focuses on modifying semiclassical material properties, such as the effective mass and dielectric screening, while largely overlooking the quantum geometry of the underlying electron and hole Bloch states. This approximation is adequate for many materials but breaks down near a topological band-gap closing, where the quantum metric around the band extrema becomes strongly enhanced. In this regime, Bloch states at different momenta become less similar, reducing the projected electron–hole Coulomb matrix elements and consequently weakening exciton binding. We demonstrate this mechanism in a spin–orbit-coupled Lieb-lattice model tuned toward a topological phase transition. The suppressed Coulomb matrix elements narrow the exciton wavefunction in momentum space, leading to an enlarged exciton radius in real space. This increase in exciton size produces an experimentally accessible enhancement of the weak-field diamagnetic response. Our results show that quantum geometry can fundamentally reshape exciton properties near a topological phase transition, revealing a previously underexplored route for engineering excitonic states.

Quantum-state complexity diagnostics provide valuable insight into many-body dynamics, information scrambling, and quantum computation. Here, we investigate the real-time dynamics of quantum complexity in $1+1$-dimensional Abelian U(1) and non-Abelian SU(2) lattice gauge theories (LGTs), focusing on the disorder-free localization (DFL) regime. Using stabilizer Rényi entropy, participation Rényi entropy, and fermionic non-Gaussianity as measures of complexity, we observe, for both theories, two main behaviors as a function of the gauge coupling: at intermediate values, a power-law relaxation towards saturation, consistent with observations in many-body localization, and, at sufficiently large values, an ultraslow double-logarithmic growth, which we substantiate with a configuration-space bound verified by exact counting. Our results not only provide deeper insight into the dynamics of DFL but also highlight the role of gauge invariance in constraining quantum resources and are relevant to recent quantum simulations of LGTs.

We construct an anomalous Floquet topological phase on a negatively curved hyperbolic lattice. The model is a tight-binding Hamiltonian with a periodically repeated four-color edge-hopping sequence and a sublattice-staggered onsite potential step. The topological regime is reached near the limit in which a single hopping step transfers amplitude completely across an active edge, while the trivial regime is reached near the point where two full hops occur along an active edge during a single hopping step, returning the amplitude to its starting site. In finite open patches, the topological regime is characterized by bulk quasienergy gaps at $0$ and $\pi$ that are populated by in-gap states, in contrast to a trivial regime where these gaps remain empty. Using compact periodic lattices, we map the bulk $0$ and $\pi$ quasienergy gaps and identify the gapped regions connected to the trivial and anomalous open-boundary spectra. We diagnose the in-gap states as chiral boundary modes by their real-space dynamics. Finally, we introduce a small-boundary spectral-flow diagnostic based on punctured periodic hyperbolic lattices, which avoids the ambiguity associated with the extensive outer boundary of finite hyperbolic patches. This puncture-based diagnostic should be useful for studying other topological hyperbolic systems.

Lifted product (LP) codes form an important class of quantum error correcting codes with favorable code parameters. We introduce a systematic construction of LP code families based on group extensions and graph lifts. The construction increases the code size while preserving the local structure of the Tanner graph, and relates code parameters, logical operators, and fault-tolerant logical-operation gadgets within the families through chain and cochain maps. As a first application, we obtain LP codes with better code parameters than previously reported ones. We then demonstrate that code-surgery gadgets can be transferred across the selected finite lifts through chain maps and, in several cases, implemented with lower space overhead. We also develop parallel product surgery for lifted clustered cyclic codes. Finally, we propose lifting as a systematic first step toward defining thermodynamic families for algebraically defined qLDPC codes without an underlying Euclidean lattice. For several base codes and selected lifts, coherent information exhibits finite-size crossings, while our results also indicate that additional conditions are needed to determine a unique family.

We study transport in lattice composite Fermi liquids realized in half-filled Chern bands with broken inversion symmetry. We show that reduced crystalline symmetry exposes intrinsic singular dynamical responses of composite fermions that are otherwise hidden in the conventional Landau-level setting. At zero wave vector, inversion breaking allows gauge-field fluctuations to generate a non-analytic longitudinal optical resistivity, with $\operatorname{Re}\rho^{xx}(\omega)\sim |\omega|^{4/3}$ for gate-screened Coulomb interactions. At finite wave vector $\mathbf{q}$, inversion breaking leads to nonreciprocal transport and a non-analytic $\sim |\mathbf{q}|$ dependence of the Hall conductivity, both of which can be probed through surface acoustic wave propagation. We also discuss a distinct mechanism for singular DC transport in lattice composite Fermi liquids: renormalization of $2k_F$ scattering at the composite Fermi surface enhances Umklapp relaxation and can lead to a non-analytic temperature dependence of the resistivity. Taken together, our results identify transport signatures of lattice composite Fermi liquids that are absent in their continuum quantum Hall counterparts and can be directly tested in ongoing experiments on twisted MoTe$_2$ and rhombohedral graphene, where evidence for zero-field composite Fermi liquids has recently been reported.

The physics of quantum chaos and diffusive transport is typically studied in settings with microscopic disorder or many-body interactions. In this Letter, we demonstrate that these phenomena can arise purely from geometric randomness. By studying non-interacting quantum particles on random locally tree-like layered graphs with uniform couplings, we show that the geometric randomness and effective graph dimensionality dictates the presence of chaotic dynamics or lack thereof. These graphs can be considered as structurally disordered generalisations of regular square lattices or ladders, or equivalently as multi-component one-dimensional chains with random links between the components. We find that an extensive layer size yields robust quantum chaos, level repulsion, and diffusive transport. Conversely, in the quasi-one-dimensional limit, we find the coexistence of extensive number of localised and delocalised states – this leads to suppressed level repulsion accompanied by the latter driving ballistic transport. These results establish geometric randomness as a fundamental and independent mechanism for generating and tuning quantum chaos.

In various disparate settings one studies how random processes give way to parabolic partial differential equations and in turn to functional inequalities involving gradients and variational calculus. Particles subject to gradient forces, the fields which move them, the empirical measures which they form, the smooth laws which those measures approximate, and differentiable functionals of these laws constitute a hierarchy of descriptions of diffusion. Intervening on this hierarchy is a choice of how a conintuity operator converts particle velocity to the evolution of measures. Here a central object is constructed mediating two different such descriptions. The space of smooth positive probability densities on a closed Riemannian manifold is treated as a Fréchet manifold whose full continuous cotangent space consists of nonconstant distributions and whose regular cotangent space consists of sufficiently regular nonconstant functions. Beginning from the operator on this space arising as the infinitesimal lift of diffeomorphisms of the base manifold, two different Hilbert completions of this space of densities account for a wide class of objects relevant, leading to a partial universalisation of the microscopic–mesoscopic–macroscopic hierarchy in Markov analysis.

High-accuracy molecular quantum chemistry offers a promising toolbox for applications to condensed-phase systems, but this field is difficult to enter due to its combination of topics from molecular quantum chemistry, solid-state physics, and numerical methods. Aiming to ease this transition, we present a comprehensive, pedagogical tutorial on periodic quantum chemistry calculations, using both mean-field and correlated theories. The subtleties of periodic Coulomb interactions are discussed in detail, focusing on the Ewald summation approach. We describe the two most popular periodic, one-electron basis functions—plane waves and periodic linear combinations of atomic orbitals—and we give formulas for all Hamiltonian integrals. Next, we explain the use of $k$-point sampling as a symmetry adaptation of supercell basis functions and the associated savings in computational costs as well as the use of density fitting and related approximations to further reduce costs. We present the working equations of a few example periodic quantum chemistry methods, including Hartree-Fock theory, perturbation theory, and coupled-cluster theory, and we discuss their finite-size errors and convergence to the physically relevant thermodynamic limit. Finally, we briefly discuss local correlation and quantum embedding theories, which are especially appropriate for periodic systems due to their lattice translational symmetries.

Metallic magnets exhibit complex spin dynamics governed by electronically generated interactions. Predictive simulations of such dynamics typically require repeated solutions of an underlying electronic problem throughout the time evolution, creating a major computational bottleneck. Here we introduce a graph neural network (GNN) magnetic force-field framework that learns the effective magnetic energy functional governing itinerant spin dynamics directly from electronic calculations. Conceptually analogous to machine-learned interatomic potentials, the proposed framework enables efficient evaluation of spin torques while capturing the nonlinear and spatially extended interactions generated by itinerant electrons. We benchmark the method on representative metallic magnetic systems exhibiting collinear, noncollinear, and noncoplanar magnetic order. The learned force fields accurately reproduce electronically generated spin torques and yield nonequilibrium spin dynamics in excellent agreement with direct electronic simulations. Our results establish graph neural networks as a powerful framework for machine-learned magnetic force fields, providing a pathway toward predictive large-scale simulations of nonequilibrium magnetism across multiple length and time scales.

We explore on-site interaction energies $U$ for pairs of shielded ultracold molecules on the same lattice site. We use 2-dimensional effective potentials appropriate for microwave shielding, which have dipole-dipole character at long range but feature a very large repulsive core when the two molecules come close together. This causes very strong correlation between the motions of two molecules on the same site. We find behavior very different from that for ultracold atoms: in particular, there are states for which $U$ is negative for weak lattices but crosses zero to positive values as the lattice strength increases. This behavior is found for both unbound pairs and 2-body bound states. The latter will give access to previously unexplored types of strongly dipolar Hubbard physics with multiple site occupancy.

The ideal quantum geometry (IQG) condition for the trace of quantum metric ($TrG(k)$) being equal to the magnitude of Berry curvature (|$\Omega(k)$|) as in $|\Omega|$/Tr$G$=1 has been associated with realizing fractional Chern insulators for the flat bands in a few layers of rhombohedral graphene (RG). More recently the IQG condition has also been proposed for superconductivity in the flat bands of thick RG layers. Using density functional theory and Wannier functions, we study the symmetry-protected topology of bulk RG, drumhead surface states (DSS) of semi-infinite RG surface and slabs, and the IQG condition for thin and thick RG slabs. We find that bulk RG is a weak topological insulator with spin-orbit coupling (SOC), besides being effectively a chiral semimetal with chiral nodal lines without SOC. We also find that the DSS flat bands of thick RG slabs have a sizable convex curvature with dispersion depth agreeing with the recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiment. The calculated IQG also shows a convex shape with the K point at the center having a minimum with approximately $|\Omega|$/Tr$G$$\approx$1. But the inner rim of the DSS region approaches the IQG condition of $|\Omega|$/Tr$G$=1. These results on thick RG slabs from first-principles calculations provide useful information for the pristine DSS at the single-particle level for future studies to consider when enhanced electron correlation and many-body interaction will be included.

Liquids confined to nanometer-scale geometries exhibit behavior that departs markedly from their bulk counterparts, yet studying their dynamics under controlled conditions remains experimentally challenging. Here, we use nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to probe water confined in 5.6 nm channels as a function of temperature. The system remains liquid throughout the investigated temperature range and exhibits strongly suppressed diffusivity, enabling direct detection of its 1H NMR spectrum. Occasionally, the proton resonance transforms into a doublet with a splitting of several tens of kilohertz, which we tentatively attribute to hyperfine interactions mediated by long-lived paramagnetic charge complexes, in turn seeded by solvated electrons optically injected during laser illumination. The intermittent appearance of this feature suggests a metastable state comprising a correlated population of charge-hydration complexes extending throughout the confined liquid.

We show that global optimal control can drastically suppress the impact of decoherence in globally driven superconducting quantum computing architectures, taking as a prototype a recently proposed quasi-two-dimensional ladder geometry. Using a tensor-network-based approach, we quantify how amplitude-damping and dephasing channels degrade the flow of quantum information along the ladder and the fidelity of one- and two-qubit gate operations. We then demonstrate that shaping the global drive compresses the gate sequences by an order of magnitude in time, restoring high gate fidelities. We stress that this mitigation is far from trivial: in a globally driven processor, dissipation acts on every physical qubit—including those outside the logical register that sustain the surrounding ordered phases—so its impact cannot be suppressed by protecting an isolated subsystem, and is instead overcome purely through the temporal shaping of the global drive.

We present a self-contained numerical study of the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model (TFIM), tracing its ground-state entanglement structure from exact diagonalization at small system size (L=8,14,20) through density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations up to L=100. A single, consistent methodology - identical field grid, identical convergence diagnostic (independent runs at bond dimensions chi=100 and chi=200 at every point) - is used across all seven system sizes, and we show explicitly where exact diagonalization and DMRG must agree exactly rather than merely approximately. Along the way we document and resolve a bond-dimension convergence artifact that produced a spurious discontinuity in an earlier, less systematic dataset, as a worked cautionary example for practitioners. Using the resolved dataset we extract the central charge of the transition via two complementary routes - the leading logarithmic finite-size scaling of the mid-chain entropy, and the full Calabrese-Cardy formula applied to every bond of every system size simultaneously - obtaining c_eff to 0.51-0.52 as short-distance lattice corrections are systematically excluded, consistent with the exact two-dimensional Ising value c=1/2. We review the quantum-classical (Suzuki-Trotter) correspondence that underlies this agreement and discuss how the Widom-Kadanoff scaling hypothesis transplants from the classical to the quantum problem. The manuscript is intended as both a physics result and a worked methodological example of careful finite-size numerics.

Machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs) have emerged as a transformative tool for computational materials science and chemistry, with universal potentials trained on large and diverse datasets now routinely deployed as 'foundation models' for downstream fine-tuning in targeted chemical spaces. Many scientific applications of the resulting models, such as molecular dynamics (MD), require high inference and training speeds as well as accuracy. In this work, we examine the limits of equivariant MLIPs, which directly encode physical symmetries in model architectures, to achieve these competing targets – particularly in the regime of extremely large datasets where data efficiency is less critical. We show how this trade-off can be addressed, and present a family of foundation potentials in the NequIP and Allegro equivariant MLIP architectures which achieve leading inference speeds and strong scalability as well as excellent accuracies across a range of community benchmarks – spanning materials discovery, thermal conductivity prediction, and near-equilibrium mechanical and thermodynamic properties. Accelerations implemented within the NequIP infrastructure now permit training of high-accuracy foundation potentials on ultra-large datasets with dramatically reduced computational cost. Alongside, we show that efforts to improve model accuracy for materials discovery should focus on dataset diversity and improved, consistent descriptions of transition metal compound energy surfaces.

Quenched disorder can disrupt crystalline order without immediately destroying the topology of its constituent textures, but the relation between these processes in skyrmion crystals remains unclear. Using large-scale simulations of a triangular-lattice chiral magnet with random DM interactions, we show that the magnetic field selects between two disordering routes. At high fields, global translational coherence is lost at a weak-disorder scale, while sixfold bond-orientational order survives to a larger disorder strength and the total topological charge remains nearly locked up to a substantially larger scale. The resulting interval defines a topological buffer containing a Bragg-glass- like skyrmion regime followed by a skyrmion-glass regime. Finite-size scaling, spatial correlations, defect statistics, and spin autocorrelations support their distinct structural and glassy character. At lower fields, bond-orientational disordering nearly coincides with topological reconstruction, eliminating the skyrmion-glass window and contracting the buffer. These results identify the magnetic field as a control knob for separating crystalline disordering from topological-charge loss and establish topological buffering as a mechanism by which topological textures can remain robust in structurally disordered media.

The ability to precisely control magnetic properties is central to the development of future spin-based electronics. In this work, we report the successful growth of epitaxial {\alpha}-MnTe thin films on InP(111) substrates using molecular beam epitaxy. Magneto-transport measurements at low temperatures reveal a distinct, hysteretic butterfly longitudinal magnetoresistance alongside a nonlinear transverse magneto-resistance response, suggesting the presence of a finite net magnetic polarization in the films. To understand the origin of this behavior, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed. While pristine bulk MnTe is a compensated antiferromagnet, our computational results suggest multiple pathways through which a finite magnetization can emerge in thin-film geometries, including interface-induced symmetry breaking and point defects. These findings demonstrate an epitaxial route for engineering magnetic responses in thin films.

Hydration and dehydration are powerful yet underexplored variables for controlling the architecture of layered inorganic materials, because intercalated water can modify interlayer separation, hydrogen-bonding networks, and layer stacking. Here, we report the reflux synthesis of a new family of hydrated layered copper selenites, (NH$_3$)$_2$Cu$_5$(SeO$_3$)$_2$(OH)$_6$(H$_2$O)$_{2+x}$ ($x$ = 0, 1, and 3). From the crystal structures determined using electron diffraction and single crystal X-ray diffraction, we deduce that all three compounds share an identical layer built from Cu(OH)$_4$ squares and Cu-centered square pyramids forming distorted kagomé-like Cu$^{2+}$ network. While the intralayer atomic arrangement is preserved across the series, the degree of hydration governs both the interlayer separation and the stacking sequence. These compounds therefore provide a rare platform relevant to the design of hydration-responsive materials for sensing, ion transport, separations, actuation, and energy-related applications. The preservation of distorted kagomé-like Cu$^{2+}$ layers across hydration states further suggests potential interest for examining how interlayer water and stacking sequence affect low-dimensional magnetic coupling. Under reflux conditions, these phases are also shown to act as reactive intermediates in the formation of Cu$_2$OSeO$_3$, establishing them as tunable precursors for copper oxoselenite synthesis.

Two-dimensional superconductivity is now well established in graphene-based systems, with many such realizations showing evidence for unconventional pairing. Yet in several of the gate-tuned phases that otherwise exhibit clear signatures of superconductivity, the resistance does not vanish as temperature is lowered, instead saturating at a finite value. Here we report a systematic study of this behavior in rhombohedral graphene on a WSe$_2$ substrate, finding regions of gate space with zero-resistance superconductivity alongside others with finite saturation resistance. At zero magnetic field, these regions appear as isolated pockets in gate space that otherwise exhibit strikingly similar phenomenology, including abrupt transitions to the normal state as temperature, perpendicular magnetic field, and current are raised above critical values. A small in-plane field expands and merges these pockets without qualitatively altering their behavior, producing a sharp boundary at millikelvin base temperature between states of zero or finite resistance. The finite-resistance state reproduces key phenomenology associated with the anomalous metal, a state that has been observed in thin-film superconductors for decades but lacks an accepted theoretical explanation. The tunability and reproducibility of ultra-clean rhombohedral graphene place strong constraints on extrinsic explanations and provide a new platform for understanding this behavior.

The Riviera model is a random sequential deposition model for house building on a lattice, in which a house cannot be built when both nearest-neighbor sites are already occupied. In one dimension, an attempted deposition is therefore rejected whenever the target site is an isolated vacancy. Despite the apparent simplicity of this rule, no exact analytical solution of the original model is currently known. We derive an infinite hierarchy of kinetic equations governing its dynamics and introduce a systematic closure scheme that can be implemented at arbitrary finite order. Solving the resulting systems order by order, we show that the corresponding kinetics converges rapidly toward the exact behavior. At high order, the method yields an exceptionally accurate estimate of the jamming density while retaining explicit analytical expressions for the full time-dependent evolution.