Papers

Ternary intermetallics use a ZrNiAl-type chemical structure known as a kagome system. Complexity observed in the phase diagrams of these compounds is attributed to the geometric frustration. The 5f-electron compound URhSn exhibits two phase transitions at 16 K and 54 K. No super-lattice reflections in neutron powder diffraction patterns are detected in the intermediate range of temperatures (16 K - 54 K). Recent resonant x-ray diffraction patterns for uranium ions in the intermediate phase suggest a chiral structure and a trigonal Sohncke space group. It is firmly established that a simple hexagonal space group describes the parent structure at room temperature. A ferroic order parameter that includes hexadecapoles is shown to characterize the trigonal Sohncke phase. Resonant x-ray diffraction by this phase is fully investigated with our symmetry informed theory. It repairs symmetry in the original data analysis by using a grey group, and it lifts an unjustified spatial condition on uranium positions. The theory uses axial atomic multipoles that satisfy sum-rules established in the first instance for x-ray dichroic signals. A confrontation between observed and calculated diffraction patterns lends support to a trigonal Sohncke phase, and exposes grounds for additional experimental work on an enigmatic compound.

Pressure is a critical thermodynamic parameter that profoundly influences the physical properties of glasses. Pressure-induced densification and structural transformation endow glasses manufactured under such conditions with exceptional mechanical and optical properties. Although pressure-treated glasses have been characterized by ensemble-averaged methods such as X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, their microscopic dynamics have rarely been addressed, limiting our understanding of the coupling among structure, dynamics, and mechanics. Here, using a binary hard-sphere colloidal glass confined in cylindrical capillary tubes, we impose a constant pressure on the particles through the tangential component of gravity. This approach enables the first investigation of pressure effects on colloidal glasses. We find that the dynamics are substantially frozen, whereas the structural change remains comparatively mild. At low pressure, spatial correlations among structural, dynamical, and local elastic heterogeneities are observed. Remarkably, dynamical anisotropy emerges in response to pressure, characterized by faster motion parallel to the pressure direction than perpendicular to it. This anisotropy is attributed to an instability induced by the strong pressure force. Concurrently, structural and dynamical heterogeneities are strongly suppressed under pressure. Our experiments characterize the microscopic dynamics of colloidal glasses under pressure and offer design principles for the manufacturing protocol of glass materials.

This paper investigates Anderson localization in subwavelength elastic periodic systems with random perturbations. For the unperturbed system, we use layer potential techniques to reformulate the eigenvalue problem as boundary integral equations, and derive asymptotic formulas for the subwavelength eigenvalues. For perturbed systems, we apply the Floquet transform to obtain a periodic formulation and derive equations determining the resonant frequencies under general perturbations. Numerical experiments for perturbed periodic monomers and dimers agree with the theoretical predictions. We further demonstrate Anderson localization by increasing the strength and number of random perturbations. These results provide a mathematical foundation for understanding subwavelength localization in elastic metamaterials.

Slowly sheared granular materials generally store mechanical energy and dilate between abrupt failures that release energy and compact the material. Here, simultaneous measurements of torque, layer thickness, acoustic emission, and photoelastic force networks reveal all four combinations of energy release or storage with contraction or dilation in a compressed granular fault. Most strikingly, some avalanches both dilate the layer and increase the elastic energy transmitted to the resisting boundary. These events reorganize force chains beyond the shear band and produce a distinct acoustic response. The results show that an avalanche need not relax a driven disordered material; it can instead redistribute stress into a more highly loaded configuration, a mechanism with potential relevance to the physics of both laboratory and natural faults.

Directional dissipation can concentrate relaxation modes in space, but connecting this accumulation to controlled microscopic processes in correlated matter requires separating virtual charge motion from spin coherence. We study this connection in a half-filled Hubbard chain with reciprocal hopping and number-conserving, direction-selective returns of virtual doublon–hole defects. Eliminating charge defects and then Mott coherences yields asymmetric spin-exchange rates under an explicit separation of timescales, with full short-chain dynamics supporting the reduction on finite exchange times. Balanced random returns concentrate the stationary population and several low-lying right modes at sample-selected positions rather than a predetermined edge, producing random Liouvillian skin localization despite zero end-to-end logarithmic rate bias. The accumulated rate imbalance determines an exact finite-density hard-core stationary state and a one-particle activated relaxation scale governed by random barriers. This connection between locally calibrated return rates, many-body stationary weights and slow relaxation offers a means of controlling transport in constrained open quantum matter without changing the reciprocal Hamiltonian.

We introduce high-order Winfree models for oscillatory associative memory. We characterize memory performance through the local-stability dichotomy between stored and unstored patterns. Using this criterion, we show that crosstalk noise drives a cascade of ferromagnetic, mixed, and spin-glass transitions as the memory load increases. For both polynomial and exponential Winfree models, we derive the phase boundaries and develop auxiliary-field modulation schemes adapted to the different phases. We further present corresponding circuit designs and numerical simulations that support our theoretical predictions.

Synchronization is a collective phenomenon in which interacting nonlinear oscillators develop a persistent relation between their phases and frequencies. In quantum systems, its description requires connecting the classical dynamics of limit-cycle oscillators with quantum fluctuations, dissipation, and the notion of phase. In this tutorial review, we offer a systematic framework for analyzing synchronization in classical and quantum dynamical systems. Starting from amplitude-phase dynamics, we introduce successively topics of relevance, such as phase locking, the Adler equation, Arnold tongues, and the Kuramoto model, and use these concepts to analyze coupled oscillators and their stability. We then formulate the corresponding description for quantum limit-cycle oscillators using Lindblad master equations and phase-space methods, with explicit examples of two and many coupled oscillators. We further discuss noise, synchronization measures, and the extreme quantum regime, including synchronization in spin systems. The emphasis throughout is on analytical derivations and a practical methodology for identifying synchronized states, determining their stability, and characterizing synchronization in quantum systems. The review is designed as a self-contained guide from which we hope that students can learn the essential concepts and techniques, while researchers can readily find the analytical tools and methodological insights needed to approach new synchronization problems.

Mapping crystalline phases at heterogeneous interfaces is essential for understanding material performance and degradation. However, structural heterogeneity, phase overlap, and local disorder complicate diffraction interpretation, while growing data volumes make manual analysis increasingly impractical. We introduce 4DMulti, a physics-guided learning framework for automated multicomponent identification from large-scale four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) data. The supporting diffraction data resource comprises over 6 million high-quality experimental patterns and labeled patterns generated by Sim2real. A retrieval-conditioned latent diffusion transformer (Sim2real) translates simulated patterns into experimental-style examples under constraints designed to preserve Bragg geometry, while a rotation-invariant coordinate convolutional network identifies phases across in-plane rotations. 4DMulti achieves 98.82% classification accuracy on a five-phase experimental nanoparticle benchmark, with ablation studies supporting the complementary benefits of domain adaptation and rotation-invariant classification. We define diffraction-inferred structural complexity (DISC), a normalized predictive entropy score that quantifies phase-assignment ambiguity within a specified candidate phase library. We apply 4DMulti to generate structural maps of superconducting heterostructures, corroded alloy surfaces, and degraded solid-state battery interfaces down to single-nanometer spatial resolution. 4DMulti connects simulation-derived crystallographic knowledge to automated experimental interpretation, establishing a foundation for scalable analysis of complex interfaces and data-driven discovery of interfacial design principles.

We observe the emergence of extreme events in an active fluid involving two distinct chemical species that regulate active stress. One species is slow diffusing and the other is fast diffusing, and the growth of the fast-diffusing species is modelled using a nonlinear logistic term. We demonstrate the presence of extreme events in the temporal evolution of the concentrations, as well as in the spatial profile of the system,in regimes of merging-emerging soliton-like dynamics and spatio-temporal chaos, through analysis of the time-series, bifurcation diagrams, probability distribution functions of the concentration of the two species, return maps and distributions of inter-event intervals. Interestingly, we also find evidence of pronounced bunching of extreme events and super-extreme events in the slow chemical species in the soliton-like regime. We go on to systematically explore the dependence of the extreme event occurrences on the Péclet number and the strength of the nonlinear growth term, and find that the probability of extreme events increases after a critical Péclet number, while increasing the nonlinearity suppresses extreme events. Lastly, in order to gain further insight, we investigate a modified mode-truncated reduced order model comprising of coupled differential equations mimicking this active fluid system. We find that this reduced order model also exhibits extreme events whose emergence is correlated with a sudden expansion in attractor size due to a crisis arising from attractor collision.So these results demonstrate the existence of extreme events in an active fluid system, and are of potential relevance to biological phenomena where active transport plays an important role.

Swift electrons in scanning transmission electron microscopy transfer both linear and angular momentum to nanoparticles, underlying electron-beam-driven nanoscale manipulation ("electron tweezers"). Prior theory relied either on the small-particle (dipolar) approximation, valid only well below experimentally relevant sizes, or on frequency-integrated multipolar calculations that leave the spectral structure of the interaction unresolved. Here we present a fully retarded, causal, multipole-converged electrodynamical methodology for the angular momentum transfer from a swift electron to an isolated spherical nanoparticle, based on a closed-surface Maxwell stress tensor formulation whose angular integrals reduce analytically to a small, material- and trajectory-independent set of irreducible integrals over associated Legendre functions. This lowers the cost of the double multipolar sum, enabling convergence up to l_max=51 for nanoparticles as large as a=50 nm, nearly four times the order of the largest previous calculation at this size and previously unreached for an optically complex, interband-dominated material. Applied to aluminum and gold nanoparticles up to a=50 nm, the method resolves the transfer spectral density across the full frequency domain, showing it is set by interference between the electron field and the field scattered by the nanoparticle, which dominates the scattered-scattered contribution at essentially every frequency; the electric contribution dominates at moderate speeds, but the magnetic contribution, of the same sign, grows steadily in relative weight with electron speed, from a few percent of the total at v = 0.5c to between a quarter and a half of it at v = 0.95c for trajectories passing close to the nanoparticle surface.

As stretchable electronics advance toward higher integration density and finer feature sizes, stretchable conductors, which serve as the architectural backbone of these electronics, must be scaled down accordingly. However, achieving both high stretchability and high electrical conductivity at high resolution remains a challenge using existing conductive materials. Here, through material design and interfacial engineering, we develop a thiol-functionalized conducting polymer/gold hybrid stack that can be patterned down to 4 micrometer linewidths using standard photolithography, while maintaining high stretchability, metal-like conductivity (>40,000 S/cm), and environmental stability. Leveraging this capability, we demonstrate grid-based stretchable transparent electrodes that surpass the figure-of-merit of indium tin oxide, as well as a 1000-pixel-per-inch image interconnected with stretchable lines. This work helps to broaden the scope of next-generation functional soft electronics, including e-skins and bioelectronics.

Pseudo entropy extends entanglement entropy from a single quantum state to a pair of nonorthogonal states and is generally complex. Taking advantage of Cauchy-Riemann equations, Kramers-Kronig relations, and analytic continuation in state parameters, we show how and to what extent real and imaginary parts of pseudo entropy can be derived from ordinary entanglement entropy. For families with holomorphic coefficients in finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, the reduced transition matrix equals the ordinary reduced density matrix formula evaluated at complex parameters. Then a convergent Taylor series gives the real and imaginary parts of pseudo entropy from even and odd derivatives of entanglement entropy at the real midpoint. The matrix identity also gives formulae for excess pseudo entropy and Renyi entropies, and interpolation formulae for families with polynomial coefficients. We apply these results to boundary-state quenches and thermal states in conformal field theory, and to fermionic and bosonic Gaussian states and quenches. In conformal field theory, Kramers-Kronig relations give the first moment of the imaginary part in terms of the central charge and one-point functions for boundary states.

This paper investigates the holographic Casimir effect in AdS/BCFT with a brane-localized scalar field. The scalar field takes different values at the strip's two boundaries, leading to mixed boundary conditions. The massive brane-localized scalar field typically breaks the boundary conformal symmetries, allowing us to study the holographic Casimir effect in non-CFTs. In two-dimensional spacetime, we apply the holographic g-theorem to prove the holographic bound on the Casimir effect for general brane-localized matter fields. In higher dimensions, we find that the brane-localized scalar field reduces the Casimir amplitude when the mass squared \(m^2=0\), but can increase it when \(m^2 < 0\). Additionally, there is a no-hair theorem for the cases where \(m^2>0\). These findings indicate that relevant boundary deformations can enhance the Casimir effect. As a byproduct, we obtain a gravitational dual of the repulsive Casimir force under mixed boundary conditions and argue that it aligns with the cosmic censorship conjecture.

Orbitronics has attracted significant attention as a platform for information storage and processing that exploits the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of electrons without the need for spin-orbit coupling. However, experimental evaluation of OAM-charge interconversion remains a challenge and the results are often controversial due to the coexistence of bulk and interfacial contributions and the complexity in sample structures. Here, using circularly polarized light pulses and terahertz (THz) polarimetry, we developed a non-contact method to observe the inverse orbital Hall effect as a bulk response within a single material without employing heterostructure samples. In a semiconductor GaN, we directly captured the OAM-to-charge current conversion of holes in the THz frequency range. By analyzing the sharp frequency dependence of the Hall conductivity, we disentangled the competing microscopic mechanisms and revealed the dominant role of extrinsic contributions to the orbital Hall effect in the dc limit. By contrast, the Hall conductivity at THz frequencies above the impurity scattering rate is attributed to the intrinsic Berry-curvature mechanism,allowing a quantitative comparison with the microscopic theory. Furthermore, the ultrafast dynamics of the inverse orbital Hall signal directly revealed sub-picosecond OAM relaxation of holes, comparable to that of phonon-mediated thermalization. The quantitative argument based on theoretical calculations suggested the existence of an even faster decay channel due to momentum redistribution by acoustic phonons, suggesting a sub-nanometer-scale OAM relaxation length. Our results provide comprehensive and crucial insights into OAM transport and establish an ultrafast, contact-free approach for investigating OAM-to-charge conversion.

Space thermal control is critically important to ensure proper operation of on-board equipment in a regulated temperature range. Passive thermal control with variable-emittance coatings (VECs) could help save power consumption in a dynamically changing space thermal environment. Vanadium dioxide (VO2) based VECs have been studied for space thermal control but its intrinsic phase transition around 68{\deg}C limits its wider space applications where lower temperature ranges are expected. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate enhanced radiative heat dissipation in space-like thermal environment via cryothermal measurements with VECs of undoped and tungsten doped VO2. The fabricated undoped VEC exhibits a large emittance change of 0.6 across the phase transition, while the 1 at.% tungsten doped one shows an appreciable emittance variable of 0.4 with phase transition temperature lowered by 25{\deg}C. A vacuum cryothermal setup is developed with a liquid nitrogen cooled coldfinger to mimic cold space thermal background and a custom-designed sample mount suspended by nylon wires. After careful calibration and validation, greatly enhanced radiative heat dissipation upon VO2 phase transition up to 3.5 times with transition temperature lowered by 25{\deg}C from 1 at.% tungsten doping is clearly observed from the cryothermal tests. In the actual space thermal environment, radiative heat flux could further increase across phase transition from 160 W/m2 to 650 W/m2 with undoped VO2 coating from 55{\deg}C to 80{\deg}C, and from 175 W/m2 to 493 W/m2 with 1 at.% tungsten doped VEC from 30{\deg}C to 55{\deg}C.

We give a quantitative disorder comparison for the zero-field Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model at inverse temperature one. For any fixed number of replicas, replacing Gaussian couplings by independent couplings from a bounded symmetric variance-one law changes a bounded replica expectation by at most a constant times the Gaussian overlap second moment plus $N^{-1}$. A multiplicative comparison for nonnegative observables controls the tails. The proof uses Talagrand's positive-observable estimates and Yu-Ting Chen's fourth-order replica cancellation. Assuming the Gaussian critical overlap limit stated by Du and Huang, we obtain the same limit for the random quenched overlap measure in the iterated Wasserstein-2 topology. No separate moment assumption is needed for this transfer. Their additional exponential moment bound gives convergence of the rescaled spin-glass susceptibility in every finite Wasserstein distance. The coupling class includes fair signs, uniform disorder, and signs thinned at any fixed positive density.

Classical theories of random neural networks typically assume independent connectivity, overlooking the local motif structures prevalent in biological circuits. Here, we investigate how four second-order synaptic motifs (chain, reciprocal, convergent, and divergent) shape the dynamics of nonlinear firing-rate networks. While previous studies have established that chain correlations generate outlier eigenvalues, we demonstrate that these motifs also jointly reshape the Jacobian eigenvalue bulk. Using the path-integral formalism, we derive a dynamic mean-field theory which reveals that the chain motif acts as a retarded feedback of the ensemble-mean activity through the response kernel, producing a rich repertoire of dynamical regimes, including ferromagnetic states and limit cycles. At sufficiently large magnitude, negative chain correlations produce a glassy, multistable regime that was previously mainly associated with partially symmetric networks. Our theory also distinguishes convergent from divergent motifs: divergent correlations primarily rescale temporal noise, while convergent correlations suppress temporal chaos by converting nonzero mean activity into quenched heterogeneity. Finally, analyses of the Lyapunov spectrum and participation-ratio dimension show that motif structure changes the geometry of chaotic activity, reducing entropy production and attractor dimensionality even when the effective spectral edge is held fixed. Together, these findings establish second-order motifs as a fundamental structural mechanism governing the dynamical regimes of local cortical circuits.

We consider the effect of light decoherence in a Fabri-Perot (FP) microcavity. We show that, when present, it may significantly change its linear response to the incident light.The optical properties of the bounding mirrors are described using the classical electrodynamics, and the light scattering causing the phase breaking is treated as a multichannel scattering problem employing a model introduced by Büttiker to describe dephasing in electron transport. We show that the dephasing causes a gradual erosion of the cavity photon mode and thus impedes the formation of molecular polaritons. Consequently, the polaritons signatures in the transmission and absorption optical spectra of the microcavity are fading away as the scattering intensifies.

Advances in solid-state physics, materials science, and device engineering have accelerated the development of superconducting qubits. Among emerging platforms, van der Waals (vdW) materials and their heterostructures are potentially attractive building blocks for quantum devices, yet their realization in qubit architectures remains largely underexplored. Here we report an all-vdW superconducting qubit based on a NbSe$_2$-hBN-NbSe$_2$ junction, in which a thin hBN layer simultaneously provides Josephson coupling and capacitive shunting between two NbSe$_2$ islands, forming a "merged-element" transmon. Temporal characterization using circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) techniques yields an average energy-relaxation time $T_{1,\mathrm{avg}} = 55 ~\mu s$, Hahn-echo coherence time $T_{2\mathrm{E},\mathrm{avg}} = 21 ~\mu s$, and Ramsey coherence time $T_{2\mathrm{R},\mathrm{avg}} = 1.9~\mu s$. The relatively low Ramsey time is primarily attributable to an enhanced sensitivity to charge noise consistent with the realized device parameters and not a fundamental limitation. These results show that lumped-element superconducting qubits based on vdW heterostructures can achieve coherence times comparable to those of conventional Al-AlO$_\mathrm{x}$-Al qubits, while offering a reduced device footprint and suppressed stray capacitive coupling.

Interaction effects and fluctuations govern the phase diagram of systems with multiple competing phases. In particular, as individual phases are destroyed by increasing temperature, fluctuations can still produce a composite `vestigial' order given by a product of individual order parameters. Here, we describe vestigial Altermagnetism (AM) from the thermal melting of antiferromagnetic (AFM) and orbital orders (OO) on the square lattice. The coexistence of AFM and OO can give rise to conventional AM with ordering wave vector $\mathbf{Q}=(\pi,\pi)$. We show that a distinct `vestigial AM' phase with $\mathbf{Q}=0$ can arise from thermal melting of AFM and OO, and investigate its generic phase diagram. We find that the transition from the high-temperature disordered phase into the vestigial AM phase can be either first or second order, depending on the AFM and OO bare susceptibilities and their interactions. We then investigate the unique experimental signatures by calculating the electron spectral function for a minimal two-orbital model. Despite the fact that the vestigial AM order parameter does not couple to electrons directly, fluctuations dominate the self-energy corrections giving rise to a spin- and orbital-dependent quasi-particle lifetime with the AM symmetry.

Relativistic $5d$ Mott insulators host a rich variety of exotic hidden multipolar order, whose microscopic nature remains heavily debated. A broken local point-symmetry (BLPS) phase followed by antiferromagnetism was previously observed in the doped compound Ba$_2$Na$_{0.1}$Ca$_{0.9}$OsO$_6$, where mixed Os valence places the system toward the $5d^2$ end of the $5d^1$-$5d^2$ regime. In contrast, pristine $5d^2$ Ba$_2$CaOsO$_6$ has shown a single octupolar transition with average cubic symmetry, raising the question of whether BLPS arises from chemical disorder in the doped systems. Here, we discover the BLPS phase in pristine Ba$_2$CaOsO$_6$ emerging at $T^* \approx 50$ K, precisely coincident with the octupolar transition. Beyond standard ${}^{43}$Ca nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral analysis, our spin-echo nutation measurements detect a finite electric field gradient, demonstrating spontaneous symmetry breaking despite the cubic average structure. While our NMR data support the previously identified octupolar order, the BLPS phase reveals a subdominant quadrupolar contribution, establishing that the hidden order in Ba$_2$CaOsO$_6$ is intrinsically multicomponent. Such mixed multipolar states lie beyond conventional theoretical descriptions of the $5d^2$ ground state. Our results establish local symmetry breaking as an intrinsic property of the clean $5d^2$ limit and provide a new constraint on microscopic theories of strongly spin-orbit-coupled Mott insulators.

We prove a lower comparison for disorder-averaged ferromagnetic XY correlations: independent nonnegative random couplings $K_e$ can be replaced by $-\frac12\log\mathbb{E}e^{-2K_e}$. Ginibre's inequality makes each normalized correlation convex in $1-e^{-2K_e}$, so conditional Jensen and thinning compare Bernoulli bond densities; two star-wise Jensen passes handle site dilution on bipartite graphs. Together with the phase-existence theorem of Dario and Garban, these comparisons give local Lipschitz regularity of both the averaged algebraic-phase and susceptibility-divergence thresholds throughout the supercritical density intervals on $\mathbb{Z}^2$. The clean finite-domain criterion of van Engelenburg and Lis also yields explicit finite-size susceptibility lower bounds in a weak-dilution region. For bounded centered bond noise, the possible suppression of the algebraic-phase temperature is at most quadratic in the noise amplitude. Finally, at finite positive thresholds we prove total-variation continuity for bounded iid coupling laws whose essential supremum equals the common support cap, with local Lipschitz control when the reference law has an atom at that cap.

We formulate a Maxwell-Jüttner averaged extension of relativistic nonaffine shear-viscosity theory for a classical gas of massive particles. The starting point is the relativistic nonaffine response formula derived from generalized Langevin dynamics, where proper-momentum dissipation produces a Lorentz-factor enhancement of the viscosity. Since a thermal relativistic gas is not characterized by a single Lorentz factor, we replace this scalar enhancement by an equilibrium momentum average over the Maxwell-Jüttner distribution. Within the scalar transverse mean-field closure used in this work, the minimal relativistic correction is the Maxwell-Jüttner mean of the Lorentz factor and becomes a finite-mass enhancement function of $\zeta=mc^2/(k_BT)$. In the general closure, the averaged object is the full product of the Lorentz factor, the zero-frequency memory kernel, and the nonaffine affine-force correlator. This construction separates kinematic relativistic enhancement from dynamical dissipation encoded in the bath memory and collective mode spectrum. We derive the nonrelativistic and ultrarelativistic limits, show that a specified effective hard-sphere scaling reproduces the classical square-root law as a consistency test, and identify the assumptions under which a cubic high-temperature law follows. Comparison with relativistic kinetic-theory examples clarifies that the memory kernel is not equivalent to a relaxation time unless a microscopic closure is specified. Retaining the full frequency dependence instead yields a relaxation spectrum. A single dominant pole reduces this spectrum to one shear relaxation time and gives the usual transient shear equation.

Electron-phonon coupling is generally expected to suppress band topology, driving a topological band insulator into a trivial phase. Here we show that, using the prototypical Haldane-Holstein model at partial filling of a topological band, strong electron-phonon coupling can instead stabilize topological phases of matter. The electron-phonon coupling plays a double role: it generates the longer-range interactions that correlate the carriers and, in the attractive channel, also binds them into bosonic pairs. For spinful electrons, it pairs opposite spins into charge-$2e$ bipolarons that form a bosonic fractional Chern insulator (FCI) at filling $\nu=1/2$ with charge-$e$ semionic excitations. Tuning the band topology and the coupling strength maps out a rich phase diagram containing this bosonic FCI, superconductors condensed at the $M$ and $K$ points, and several charge-ordered solids. For spin-polarized electrons, strong coupling instead stabilizes a $C=2$ quantum anomalous Hall crystal (QAHC) at $\nu=1/3$. Electron-phonon coupling thus emerges as a route to, rather than an obstruction against, topology in partially filled Chern bands.

The homogeneous form associated with a symmetric tensor, restricted to the sphere, is the objective of the best rank-one approximation problem and, with random coefficients, the energy of a mean-field spin glass. Its critical points have been studied extensively, but the global organization of the landscape they form is far less understood. We study this global structure for positive orthogonally decomposable tensors. We determine the persistent homology of the sublevel and superlevel filtrations in closed form, for every homological dimension $q$, every ambient dimension $D$ and every tensor order $k$, via a recurrence in the ambient dimension. Taking the coefficients to be random, we further prove laws of large numbers for the resulting persistence diagrams at dimension $0$ and $D-2$, giving an exact description of the typical global topology of a spin-glass-like energy landscape. We illustrate our results with numerical computations and simulations.

Axial chiral phonons, which carry angular momentum and exhibit unusually large magnetic moments, provide a new degree of freedom for controlling the time-reversal symmetry and magnetic properties of quantum materials. While infrared-active axial phonons are efficiently excited to large amplitudes by circularly polarized terahertz pulses, their application may be constrained by short lifetimes, small penetration depths, low spatial resolution, and limited availability of optical sources. Here, we report that an axial Raman-active phonon mode in CeF3 exhibits a significant magnetic moment and an exceedingly long lifetime that more closely matches the paramagnetic spin dynamics. The axial phonon population is resonantly driven by a near-infrared laser pulse with rotating linear polarization, known as an optical centrifuge, a coherent control scheme never applied to solids before. The phonon-driven magnetization observed by time-resolved Faraday rotation scales quadratically with incident power and rapidly decreases at high temperatures, consistent with phonon inverse Faraday effect from many-body spin-phonon coupling. Our findings open a new avenue for using shaped laser pulses from widely accessible light sources to manipulate coherent axial chiral phonons and ultrafast spintronics.

How much can a magnetic field change before a quantum spin texture loses its skyrmion charge? For a triangulated spin-$s$ texture on $N$ quantum sites, we determine the smallest change in its local moments that makes the reconstructed topological charge ill-defined, allowing unequal error bounds and fixed boundary moments. Combined with spectral perturbation theory, this geometric threshold yields explicit magnetic-field intervals that preserve the ground-state charge, scaling as $1/N$ when the gap and geometric margin have positive limits. We apply the bounds to finite spin-$1/2$ systems with exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. In a rigorously verified seven-spin example the charge changes at a single certified field, while the excitation gap and all local spin polarizations remain bounded away from zero; there the geometric margin vanishes linearly.

Scale-invariant avalanche dynamics are commonly associated with criticality and robust, universal size exponents. Dissipation is generally expected to drive the system away from the critical point, progressively suppressing large events. The Olami–Feder–Christensen (OFC) model challenges this picture: in its non-conservative regime, the avalanche-size exponent is non-universal and can exceed the mean-field value $\tau=3/2$, while system-spanning events persist even at large dissipation. Here, we show that these apparently anomalous features are also observed experimentally in a two-dimensional granular system displaying scale-invariant avalanche dynamics. By increasing interparticle friction, and therefore dissipation, the avalanche-size exponent increases from $\tau=1.58$ to $\tau=1.83$, while the upper cutoff remains proportional to the system size. We further identify similarities between experiment and the OFC model in their memory effects, local dynamics, and the emergence of better-than-random predictability of large events. The latter indicates that the system does not remain permanently critical, but instead evolves through configurations with different propensities to generate extreme events. Our results suggest that OFC-like dynamics are not merely an anomalous feature of a particular model, but may provide a relevant framework for understanding scale-invariant dynamics with $\tau>3/2$ in real dissipative systems.

The Scharnhorst effect in quantum electrodynamics predicts a superluminal velocity shift $\delta c>0$ at low photon frequencies due to vacuum fluctuations between two mirrors. Although theoretically robust (no causality violation), the effect is extraordinarily small ($\delta c/c\approx 10^{-32}$ for mirrors $1\,\mu{\rm m}$ apart) and outside current experimental reach. Here we propose a condensed matter analogue, replacing the photons in the electromagnetic vacuum by phonon excitations of a Bose-Einstein condensate. In an idealized geometry, the two-dimensional surface of a cylinder (circumference $L$) at zero temperature, the axial speed of sound is increased due to zero-point fluctuations of the condensate by $\delta c/c\simeq 5\times 10^{-3}\,\tilde{g}$ at $L\simeq 2\,\xi$, to first order in the dimensionless interaction constant $\tilde{g}\simeq 10^{-1}$ of the Bose gas of healing length $\xi\simeq 1\,\mu{\rm m}$. This is 28 orders of magnitude larger than the photonic effect, basically because phonons have a self-interaction while photons only interact via massive electrons. We discuss the prospects for observation of the acoustic Scharnhorst effect, the main restriction being the low-temperature requirement.

Hidden-free-fermion (HFF) Hamiltonians exhibit free-fermion spectra despite lacking an explicit quadratic representation, yet their algebraic provenance and periodic-boundary behavior remain open questions. Here we establish that a broad class of HFF models arises from distinct Lax operator realizations of a twisted multistate Perk–Schultz \(R\) matrix. Its reflected degeneration generates a closed finite hierarchy of mutually commuting transfer matrices, whose functional relations determine the complete many-body spectrum. As a decisive example, we solve the inhomogeneous free-fermions-in-disguise (FFD) chain, which exhibits HFF, nested HFF, or interacting spectra, depending on its coupling. The homogeneous FFD chain with both one-wrap and periodic boundary conditions exhibits an emergent cubic finite-size gap while retaining the exact \(z=3/2\) bulk behavior. The construction extends to higher-state and face-type realizations, providing a common algebraic framework for coupling-dependent spectral organization and multiscale behavior in interacting quantum systems.