Papers

Droplets in complex environments often encounter compositional gradients that drive their propulsion. For example, surfactant gradients induce surface-tension-driven propulsion via the Marangoni effect. Here, we show that such propulsion emerges generically, even in the absence of surfactants. Employing a thin-interface approximation, we derive a compact expression for the droplet velocity in terms of droplet size, viscosity, the sensitivity of surface tension to a regulating component, and the chemical potential gradient of that component. Our theory reveals that droplets move toward regions of lower stability, as encoded in the morphology of the phase diagram, particularly near critical points. Numerical simulations confirm these results, which establish a general route to predicting and designing droplet motility from the phase behavior of complex fluids.

Carrier-induced helical magnetism can arise in interacting one-dimensional systems coupled to localized moments. Here, we investigate the coupled-wire sliding-Luttinger-liquid counterparts with and without valley degrees of freedom, using isolated Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids as reference limits. The carrier spin susceptibility mediates a Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction that selects the helical ordering wave vector, while interchannel correlations lock the relative helix phases and stabilize a collective quasi-two-dimensional texture. Using a variational treatment, we estimate the helix-induced partial gap and analyze the reconstruction of the remaining gapless carrier modes. To probe the spatial texture through transport, we incorporate the helix into an anisotropic superconductor-normal-metal-superconductor Josephson junction motivated by the coupled-channel structure of twisted bilayer WTe$_2$. We exploit flux focusing near the junction interfaces to make an applied in-plane field a controlled probe of the spin helix. Relative to junctions without the helix, the helical exchange field modifies the central-lobe width and relative lobe weights. In the transverse-channel geometry, it also produces field-dependent side-lobe asymmetry and central-peak displacement, which remain negligible in the matched references for the parameters considered. The reconstructed carrier sector also exhibits modified local-density-of-states exponents, spin-relaxation behavior, and competing correlations, with distinct signatures in isolated and coupled-wire systems. Our results connect collective helical order in coupled-wire systems to carrier-sector reconstruction and identify field-tunable Josephson interferometry as a complementary transport probe of the spatial spin texture.

A two-component Bose–Einstein condensate can host a pseudospin Hopf texture coupled to the viscous normal flow of its thermal cloud. Motivated by OpenAI's reported finite-time Navier–Stokes singular solution, we evolve such a texture in a smooth flow reproducing the geometry and similarity scaling of the collapsing axisymmetric core. The evolution creates and annihilates preimage pairs while preserving the Hopf charge. The first one-to-three transition exhibits the square-root opening characteristic of a Thom $A_2$ fold. A subsequent three-to-five transition precedes a burst-like regime of recurrent fold catastrophes and near-caustic activity.

A stochastic optimisation method was recently proposed to efficiently compute large deviation functions, used in statistical physics to characterise the fluctuations of nonequilibrium systems, modelled as Markov processes. The method, called LDSTOP, combines numerical techniques from control theory and machine learning to iteratively construct the "driven process", a controlled version of the Markov process used as a model of nonequilibrium system that realises a given fluctuation or large deviation of that system in an optimal way. Compared to other methods based on spectral approximations, importance sampling, cloning or splitting, LDSTOP is simple, flexible, and scalable, as it works by simulating single trajectories that are gradually guided towards the driven process. Here, we illustrate these advantages by applying the method on the full range of Markov processes considered in applications, namely, discrete-time Markov chains, continuous-time jump processes, and diffusion processes. For each type, we define the objective function to be optimised, explain different options available for representing the driven process (using, e.g., neural networks), and provide implementation details through simple applications. With these contributions, we aim to showcase the method's efficiency, as well as its ease of use when combined with available machine learning packages, such as PyTorch, TensorFlow and JAX, for simulating stochastic processes and solving high-dimensional optimisation problems.

We study secondary pairing in the two-flavor color-superconducting (2SC) phase, where the residual ungapped quarks form a same-chirality $J^P=1^+$ condensate driven by an attractive instanton-induced interaction. We determine its symmetry realization, quasiparticle structure, anomaly matching, and low-energy effective theory. The pairing gap is necessarily nodal; in particular, the complex axial state has two point nodes and realizes a spinful relativistic superfluid. This state preserves the full chiral symmetry ${\rm SU}(2)_{\rm L}\times{\rm SU}(2)_{\rm R}$ while breaking the modified baryon-number symmetry ${\rm U}(1)_{\tilde{\rm B}}$ and spatial rotations, with rotations about the nodal axis locked to the condensate phase. This locking gives rise to a Berry term, the Mermin-Ho relation, and a type-B orientational Nambu-Goldstone mode in addition to the superfluid phonon. We also show how anomaly matching is reorganized by secondary pairing: the perturbative mixed ${\rm SU}(2)_{\rm L,R}^2{\rm U}(1)_{\tilde{\rm B}}$ anomaly is realized by a Wess-Zumino coupling of the superfluid phonon, whereas the ${\rm SU}(2)_{\rm L}$ and ${\rm SU}(2)_{\rm R}$ Witten anomalies are carried by the point-node Bogoliubov-de Gennes flavor doublets. The resulting theory provides a concrete dense-QCD realization of a spinful relativistic superfluid with nodal fermions required by anomaly matching.

The intermittent, stick-slip flow of amorphous systems is characterized by avalanches whose statistical properties display robust power-laws. In this paper, we study avalanche statistics in a field theoretical model of a soft-glassy system under shear. The order parameter in our model is the fluidity, which is related to the local rate of plastic events in a soft-glass. While avalanche sizes $S$ have been extensively characterized, the statistics of interevent times $t_i$ have remained largely unexplored. Here, we find that both $S$ and $t_i$ are power-law distributed and that their scaling exponents satisfy a precise relation. The model enables the analytical derivation of the scaling exponents and the reproduction of the behavior observed across a wide class of amorphous systems.

Parallel graphic processing units have been employed for fast simulations of the switching dynam- ics of Josephson junctions subject to critical current fluctuations. Such a system is modeled by a nonequilibrium washboard model with multiplicative noise, for which analytical results are lacking. The proposed approach allows us to execute extensive numerical simulation in short time and with relatively inexpensive resources. This allows us to fully characterize the effect of the noise on the junction switching current distributions at realistic bias current sweeprates.

We present a first-principles study of the electronic structure and thermoelectric properties of Zn-doped SnTe using the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method within the coherent potential approximation, complemented by pseudopotential calculations. SnTe is a lead-free analogue of PbTe and a candidate thermoelectric material in which Zn doping has been experimentally reported to enhance the performance of $p$-type samples. We show that Zn introduces a resonant-like impurity state, located within the conduction band, which evolves strongly depending on the Zn concentration. This feature leads to a significant enhancement of the thermopower in $n$-type SnTe. In the valence band, Zn doping induces L-$\Sigma$ band convergence, also resulting in an increased $p$-type Seebeck coefficient over a broad concentration range and delaying the onset of the bipolar effect. We further demonstrate that the Zn-induced band-structure modifications drive a transition from an inverted to a trivial band ordering, indicating a controllable topological phase transition. Our results clarify the microscopic role of Zn in SnTe and identify doping as a mechanism for simultaneously tuning thermoelectric and topological properties.

Memory is an inherent feature of the dynamics of physical systems. It typically emerges when the complex structure of the system is simplified during the modeling process, obscuring a part of its underlying behavior. Consequently, the correct description of such a physical model requires knowledge of not only its present, but also its past states, leading to non-Markovian dynamics. The resulting interactions depending on the system history, however, introduce a significant layer of mathematical complexity. For this reason, when the memory time is significantly shorter than the time scales characterizing the dynamics, it is typically neglected at the cost of losing information regarding its role in the system behavior. In this dissertation, I introduce a novel methodology, namely the effective mass approach, which bridges the Markovian and non-Markovian regimes and provides an accessible framework for analyzing systems with short memory. In this method, the non-Markovian system is approximated with its Markovian counterpart, in which the short-memory effects are encapsulated within an effective mass. I then utilize this approach to demonstrate that the impact of short memory on physical dynamics can be remarkably pronounced. In particular, I show that the directed transport of a Brownian particle in an environment exhibiting temporal correlations can be reversed relative to its behavior in a memoryless medium. Moreover, I propose a setup wherein memory serves as a~control parameter for the generation of random information bits. Collectively, the results of this dissertation underscore the critical importance of short-time correlations in microscopic systems.

A direct charge-\(4e\) superconductor exhibits coherent four-electron order without condensation in any charge-\(2e\) pairing channel. We establish three complementary results. First, a particle-number-conserving Hamiltonian with electron hopping and two-body interactions moves bound quartets efficiently: for electron- and pair-hopping amplitudes \(t\) and \(K\) and local gap \(U_0\), virtual pair transfer produces quartet hopping at order \(K^2/U_0\), whereas electron hopping alone contributes only at order \(t^4/U_0^3\). Second, the microscopic theory identifies an exactly solvable parent Hamiltonian at the phase-separation boundary. Its ground state combines quartet off-diagonal long-range order and finite phase stiffness without pair condensation, while rigorous bounds establish quartet order beyond the parent in a family with explicit quartet transfer. Third, a single convergent strong-coupling expansion simultaneously controls quartet kinetics and thermodynamic stability and rules out condensation in every pair channel of the microscopic model. On bipartite hypercubic lattices at half quartet filling, it yields a parametrically controlled homogeneous phase for \(d\geq2\), with quartet order, a linear collective mode, and gapped charge-\(2e\) excitations. Virtual pair transfer thus enables a direct charge-\(4e\) superconducting ground state without pair condensation.

We study the emergence of non-equilibrium steady states (NESS) in stochastic processes under threshold resetting, an event-driven protocol in which the system resets to its initial configuration upon crossing a prescribed spatial boundary (threshold). In contrast to externally driven resetting, whose steady-state properties are well understood, the behavior under threshold resetting remains largely unexplored. We derive general conditions for the existence of a NESS and show that, whenever it exists, the steady state at a given position $x$ can be expressed as the ratio of two fundamental quantities: the mean local time (MLT) at $x$ and the mean first-passage time (MFPT) to hit the threshold. In particular, for noisy systems, a finite MFPT guarantees the existence of a NESS. As an illustrative example, we analyze a drift-diffusion process in one dimension and uncover rich intermediate-time dynamics, including anomalous relaxation in the spatial distribution, damped oscillations in the moments and in the mean-squared displacement (MSD), governed by system parameters. Our findings provide a general understanding of the emergence of non-equilibrium steady states and relaxation dynamics under threshold resetting, revealing how induced events shape the spatial and temporal properties of a broad class of stochastic processes.

Repulsively bound doublons are two-particle composites formed by strong interactions and are usually separated from the scattering continuum. Introducing spin-orbit coupling fundamentally alters the underlying band structure, providing a powerful tuning knob to shift these isolated pairs toward this continuum. However, because entering such a regime typically dictates immediate dissociation, whether this coupling can drive these pairs inside while preserving their bound nature constitutes a fundamental unresolved challenge. Here we show that spin-orbit coupling in the one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model can drive doublons into the two-particle scattering continuum. Most of these states hybridize with extended channels and decay, whereas a subset remains decoupled and spatially bound, forming many-body bound states in the continuum (BICs). We map the interacting two-particle problem onto a two-dimensional lattice of coupled acoustic cavities, and experimentally observe both the radiating doublon continuum and the confined BIC states. These results demonstrate that spin-orbit coupling can turn selected doublons into interaction-induced BICs, deepening the understanding of continuum physics for interaction-bound pairs.

We analyse two-dimensional isotropic heterogeneous diffusion with a radially decaying diffusion coefficient $D(\rho)=D_0/\rho^2$, subject to Poissonian stochastic resetting to the origin. Since multiplicative noise makes the process interpretation-dependent, we treat the Itô, Stratonovich, and Hänggi–Klimontovich prescriptions within a single approach. For each, we obtain the exact probability density function, the non-equilibrium stationary state induced by resetting, the mean squared displacement, and the first-passage properties. The non-equilibrium stationary state is governed by modified Bessel functions and departs from the Laplace form found for homogeneous diffusion under resetting, while the mean squared displacement saturates at long times as $\langle\rho^2\rangle\sim\bar{r}^{-1/2}$, $\bar{r}$ being the resetting rate. The mean first-passage time to an absorbing boundary exhibits an optimal resetting rate at which it is minimised. In addition, we incorporate memory effects through a subordination (continuous-time random walk) approach with a power-law kernel, deriving the fractional Fokker–Planck equation together with the non-equilibrium stationary state, the mean squared displacement expressed via the three-parameter Mittag-Leffler function, and the first-passage statistics; the optimal resetting rate increases as the memory exponent decreases.

The exact behaviour of the enveloppes of the single-time and two-time correlators is found for the voter model on a fractal substrate, with nearest-neighbour interactions. Herein the geometry of the fractal substrate is described by its non-integer geometric fractal dimension $d_f$, and its topology and diffusive transport by the distinct spectral dimension $d_s$. On the level of the equations of motion of the correlators this can be modelled by considering a space-dependent diffusion constant ${\cal D}(r)\sim r^{-\theta}$ which implies the spectral index $\theta$, itself a function of $d_f$ and $d_s$. With a scaling ansatz, the generic phenomenology of ageing is confirmed and the dynamic exponent ${z}=2+\theta$ and the autocorrelation exponent $\lambda=d_f$ are derived. The explicitly found dynamic scaling functions are shown to depend only on the spectral dimension $d_s$. The decay of the enveloppe of the density of active interfaces with time is described by the exponent $\alpha=1-d_s/2$ for $d_s<2$, confirming the results of preexisting numerical simulations.

The logistic map is a quintessential model in the study of low-dimensional chaos. High-dimensional chaos, on the other hand, presents itself in disordered systems with many interacting and heterogeneously coupled components. Here, we formulate a system of many logistic maps, interacting through disordered couplings. Using a combination of dynamic mean-field theory, random matrix theory and numerical simulations, we show that even the smallest amount of disorder can remove the period-doubling cascade in the conventional logistic map. Instead we find a transition to high-dimensional chaos, marked by an oscillatory instability not previously reported for disordered systems. We also show that with sufficiently strong homogeneous coupling between the maps one recovers elements of the conventional period-doubling cascade. Our findings indicate that well-known phenomena in dynamical systems can be fragile in the face of disorder. At the same time, new phenomena emerge that are neither found in simple low-dimensional dynamics nor in high-dimensional disordered systems.

Domain walls in ferroic oxides can host emergent functionalities that differ fundamentally from those of the surrounding bulk, making their microscopic structure central to understanding and controlling macroscopic behaviour. We use scanning three-dimensional X-ray diffraction to map the spatial evolution of coupled octahedral distortion modes across ferroelastic domain walls in the hybrid improper ferroelectric Ca$_{2.15}$Sr$_{0.85}$Ti$_{2}$O$_{7}$. By combining tomographic reconstruction with symmetry-adapted analysis of the octahedral rotation and tilt and associated strain modes, we map their spatial evolution across individual walls in the bulk crystal. We find that the walls are intrinsically extended, with widths far exceeding those expected for conventional Ising-like ferroic interfaces. The wall structure is characterised by a continuous rotation of the tilt order parameter through a tetragonal intermediate. These results provide new microscopic insight into the structural mechanisms governing ferroelastic wall formation, ferroelectric switching, and emergent functionality at domain walls.

In a hexagonal crystal the $a$ and $c$ axes change their lengths at different rates with increasing temperature, and the thermal expansion is described by two coefficients, one for each axis. The equilibrium lattice parameters at each temperature are found by minimizing the Helmholtz free energy over the lattice parameters, and the coefficients are their logarithmic derivatives with respect to temperature. This report describes a procedure for this minimization as implemented in phonopy. The free energy is computed with harmonic force constants at a finite set of values of $a$ and $c$, and a free-energy surface over $a$ and $c$ is fitted to these values. In a variant, the harmonic force constants are replaced by temperature-dependent force constants from a self-consistent harmonic approximation, with the forces computed by a machine-learning potential fitted at each of these values. The $\alpha$ and $\omega$ phases of titanium are the worked example. Both calculations give negative thermal expansion of the $c$ axis of $\alpha$-Ti at low temperature and none in $\omega$-Ti, and they differ most for the $c$ axis of $\alpha$-Ti. The axial coefficients are harder to compute than the volumetric one, because the two axes are coupled in the free energy. In both phases of titanium the thermal effect that lengthens $a$ also shortens $c$. The coefficient of the $c$ axis is then the sum of two terms of opposite sign that partly cancel, and a small error in either term gives a large relative error in the coefficient. The report measures how much each setting of the procedure changes the thermal expansion coefficients, with the $c$ axis of $\alpha$-Ti as the most sensitive case.

Photonic time crystals amplify waves through temporal modulation. We study a temporal analogue of the non-Hermitian Aubry-André-Harper model. By continuing an incommensurate temporal modulation into the complex phase plane, we find that the bulk amplification rate as a function of the complexification coordinate is organized into distinct integer phases, with its slope locked to an integer within each phase. This integer is Avila's acceleration, connecting a global structure of quasiperiodic operator theory with a directly observable optical propagation response. The quantized response persists in the presence of defects in the time-dependent permittivity modulation that preserve the underlying analytic phase structure. As a wave-level consequence, two input frequencies belonging to different integer phases acquire exponentially separated amplification, producing spectral selection and reshaping the temporal beat pattern. Our results establish that a global integer of quasiperiodic operator theory can govern a tunable, quantized growth response in a non-Hermitian photonic time quasicrystal.

While much effort are now concentrated on exploration of crystalline form of MoS$_2$ as a two-dimensional material, we show that room-temperature DC magnetron sputtering from pressurized MoS$_2$ powder target produces amorphous MoS$_x$ films with optical properties fundamentally different from those of crystalline MoS$_2$. The films were found to have a sulfur content of approximately $x=1.8$, indicating sulfur deficiency. They are optically isotropic and exhibit rather low optical losses, with a refractive index of about 2 over the visible and near-infrared spectral range. Their compatibility with lift-off lithography and dry etching makes amorphous MoS$_x$ a promising material for integrated photonic applications.

The Mott-Hubbard transition is a paradigmatic phenomenon driven by strong electronic correlations. We investigate this transition in a three-orbital modified periodic Anderson model using slave-rotor mean-field theory. A minimal two-site cluster extension is introduced to understand the minimal effects of short-range spatial correlations. In comparison to the single-site solution, short-range spatial correlations reveal a shift of the transition point. Going beyond the slave-rotor analysis, we also evaluate the dynamical self-energy and map it onto the boundary Green's function of a non-interacting semi-infinite auxiliary chain. For the metallic phase, the resulting hopping pattern corresponds to a topologically trivial generalized Su–Schrieffer–Heeger chain. This construction provides a framework for exploring the possible topological character of the Mott transition in this model.

We theoretically investigate the thickness-dependent evolution of Majorana modes in $C_{2h}$-symmetric topological superconductor films (such as the recently discovered 2M-WS$_2$) proximity coupled with magnetic insulators. For sufficiently thick films, two Majorana bound states coexist as end modes at the surface and interface along a vortex line, with the interfacial mode evolving into a chiral Majorana edge mode upon increasing the proximity-induced exchange field. The intrinsic $C_{2h}$ crystalline symmetry selects two chiral Majorana modes circulating along the hinges on two of the four side surfaces of the film. When the penetration depth of the exchange field is sufficiently shallow, the two circulating modes are localized near the interface, but with qualitatively different subsequent evolutions. One of them further collapses to form two Majorana corner modes, while the other merges with the chiral Majorana mode circulating around the interface. Importantly, the corner modes are well decoupled from the interfacial chiral mode, thereby enabling an unprecedented coexistence of first-, second-, and third-order Majorana modes within a single material platform. We further show that such coexistence persists even in the ultrathin-film limit, where the electric-field-controlled two-dimensional $Z_2$ topology offers an extra advantage to readily interconvert the multiple-order Majorana modes. These findings highlight the pivotal role of the proper crystalline symmetry in enabling emergence, manipulation, and potential braiding of Majorana modes for demonstrating non-Abelian statistics and fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Annealing a semiconductor makes its vacancies mobile; they aggregate into multi-vacancy complexes that often carry spin. Such centres are a magnetic-noise source for any spin qubit among them, in silicon and silicon carbide as well as in diamond, and they are accordingly blamed for NV-decoherence in irradiated and implanted diamond, with two coherence records credited to removing them. Cluster-correlation-expansion simulations driven by published electron-paramagnetic-resonance parameters invert that attribution. At a fixed paramagnetic spin density a multi-vacancy bath gives a Hahn-echo coherence time 3.1-7.1 times longer than a bath of isolated negative vacancies, over three decades of concentration. A bath dephases the qubit because its spins exchange spin projections with one another, and two can exchange only if their transition frequencies match. A fine-structure splitting shifts those frequencies. Were every defect on the same crystallographic site, all would shift alike and still match: worth only a factor 1.15. Real defects occupy symmetry-equivalent sites pointing in different directions, so neighbours land at different frequencies and stop exchanging: a further 2.7. What governs the coherence time is therefore the fraction of bath pairs sharing a transition frequency, not the zero-field splitting. Vacancy aggregation extends NV- spin coherence rather than shortening it.

Machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) can treat large-scale material systems with near first-principles accuracy and have been widely used to accelerate point-defect simulations. However, the training of MLIPs usually relies on large amounts of DFT data. This issue is particularly pronounced for charged defects, for which DFT calculations of large supercells are required to avoid long-range Coulomb interactions and finite-size effects, making the construction of datasets computationally expensive. In this work, we propose an efficient MLIP training scheme for neutral and lowly charged point defects based on small supercells (less than 100 atoms) and limited number of DFT calculations. The scheme requires only four DFT structural relaxations to construct the training dataset and the trained MLIPs dedicated for the defect can predict the defect formation energies in larger supercells (over 200 atoms) with small errors (mostly smaller than 0.3 eV). Using defects in GaN, SiO$_2$, and $\mathrm{Cu}_2\mathrm{ZnSnS}_4$ as representative examples, we evaluate the extrapolation capability of this scheme for predicting defect total energies and structural relaxations across different supercell sizes. The results show that an MLIP trained only on single small defect supercell produces severe errors when treating large supercells. Incorporating defect data from multiple supercell sizes improves the predictive performance of the MLIP, while adding pristine defect-free bulk supercells further enhances the accuracy. These results provide practical guidance for training MLIP models of defect systems with low computational costs.

Electronic entropy is usually treated as a secondary correction to structural stability, but under strong electronic excitation it can become a primary thermodynamic driving force. Here we show that electronic entropy can drive both polymorphic and stoichiometric phase transformations in compressed iron oxides. Using finite-temperature density functional theory, we calculate the electronic-temperature-dependent Gibbs free energies of Fe$_2$O, FeO, Fe$_4$O$_5$, Fe$_3$O$_4$, and multiple Fe$_2$O$_3$ polymorphs, including $\alpha$-, $\iota$-, $\zeta$-, $\eta$-, and $\theta$-Fe$_2$O$_3$, over the pressure range 60–260 GPa. At 60-140 GPa, electronic excitation mainly reorganizes the relative stability of Fe$_2$O$_3$ polymorphs, driving transitions from $\iota$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ to $\eta$-Fe$_2$O$_3$. At 180 GPa, the free-energy landscape becomes strongly competitive as FeO is stabilized over an intermediate range of electronic temperature, while $\eta$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ becomes favourable at higher T. At 220-260 GPa, the lowest-free-energy phase at low T is the Fe-rich compound Fe$_2$O, but increasing electronic temperature stabilizes FeO. These results demonstrate that electronic entropy can control not only the relative stability of crystal structures at fixed composition, but also the competition between different iron-oxide stoichiometries. The predicted electronic-entropy-driven phase boundaries provide a route to nonthermal structural transformations in ultrafast and high-energy-density experiments.

In this work, we characterize the glassy character of the Bose-glass phase in a disordered Bose-Hubbard model using three complementary diagnostics: the finite-temperature spectral function, spatial inhomogeneity, and the inverse participation ratio. Spectral analysis, obtained from finite-temperature Green's function and random phase approximation, shows that disorder introduces localized low-energy states within the Mott gap, eventually closing the gap at sufficiently strong disorder. Spatial inhomogeneity, calculated using the Gutzwiller ansatz, increases sharply with disorder and then saturates at moderate disorder strengths. The inverse participation ratio has been calculated from the exact diagonalization of a small system, and it reveals enhanced localization with stronger disorder. Increasing temperature suppresses these disorder-induced features: the low-energy spectral weight diminishes, the spatial inhomogeneity varies more smoothly, and the IPR decreases. Taken together, these diagnostics show that disorder drives the development of glassy character, while thermal fluctuations gradually wash out its signatures. The early saturation of spatial inhomogeneity compared with the continued evolution of low-energy excitations and the inverse participation ratio demonstrates that no single diagnostic fully captures the evolution of the Bose-glass state, highlighting the need for a combined characterization.

We study continuous scalar-hair bifurcations from stationary black holes with a nonextremal Cauchy horizon. Although the exterior deformation vanishes at criticality, the critical zero mode generically develops a logarithmic branch at the reference Cauchy horizon, producing a nonuniform critical limit. We show that the coefficient of this logarithm in the scalar perturbation, together with local Cauchy-horizon data, determines the exponential collapse rate of the Einstein-Rosen bridge. If the post-collapse geometry evolves into a Kasner regime, the boundary order-parameter scaling $O\propto|\lambda-\lambda_c|^\beta$ further implies $ 1-p_t\propto|\lambda-\lambda_c|^{2\beta}. $ Crucially, zero-mode matching fixes both the critical exponents and the associated amplitudes, without any fit to the nonlinear interior. We illustrate this mechanism in the transition from rotating BTZ to hairy rotating black holes. For scalarized RN-AdS$_4$ black branes, we quantitatively verify the predicted Kasner scaling using fully nonlinear numerical solutions. At low temperature, two charged models with identical linear critical data instead approach different infrared endpoints, yielding respectively power-law and inverse-logarithmic Kasner scaling. Thus interiors near a finite-temperature bifurcation are controlled by zero-mode transmission, whereas low temperature scaling is governed by the nonlinear infrared completion.

Universal power-law decay of spin-mixing oscillations has been observed in a harmonically trapped spin-$3/2$ Fermi gas, whose exactly equally spaced spectrum represents a highly special case. To gain insight into the origin of this behavior, we investigate the dynamics in traps with increasing and decreasing level spacings, represented by the infinite square well and the Pöschl–Teller potential, respectively. Despite pronounced differences in their single-particle spectra, all systems exhibit power-law decay of coherent oscillations, described by $A(t) = A_{0} - \gamma t^{\alpha}$. The exponent $\alpha$ remains insensitive to particle number, interaction strength, and the overall energy scale, but exhibits systematic differences among traps with distinct spectral structures. In contrast, the decay parameter $\gamma$ is strongly influenced by both the spectral structure and the overall energy scale. These findings demonstrate that power-law decay is not restricted to the harmonic trap but persists across qualitatively distinct spectral structures. The observed variation of $\alpha$ among different traps further suggests that the underlying single-particle spectrum plays an important role in shaping the decay dynamics.

Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity among natural materials. Reducing isotope scattering can further push the limit of thermal conductivity of diamond. Here, we report the room-temperature thermal conductivity of a diamond single crystal with an exceptionally low ppm-level 13C content. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) reveals a 13C concentration of only ~0.00024% and negligible other impurities, placing this sample as the most isotopically purified diamond samples reported to date. Time-domain thermoreflectance measurements show a room-temperature thermal conductivity of ~3100 W m-1 K-1. Although this value is markedly higher than that of natural diamond, it remains comparable to the best reported values for less isotopically 12C pure diamond. This result suggests that additional phonon-scattering mechanisms beyond isotope scattering may exist at this extreme isotopic purification level. Vacancy defects may contribute to the remaining suppression of thermal conductivity.

Magnetic symmetry can lift spin degeneracy in momentum space without producing net magnetization, generating spin textures classified by their parity under momentum reversal. Even-parity textures have well established in altermagnets. Odd-parity spin textures have recently emerged in electronic bands of compensated magnets, but their counterpart in collective bosonic excitations remains experimentally unresolved. Magnons provide a natural setting for this extension because they carry spin angular momentum through insulating magnets without accompanying charge flow. Beyond realizing this missing state, a broader challenge is to program spin splitting with voltage at room temperature. Here we report room-temperature transport evidence for ferroelectric switching odd-parity magnon spin splitting in multiferroic BiFeO3. Symmetry analysis and spin-wave calculations reveal that the cycloidal chirality splits opposite-spin magnon branches with an odd-in-momentum dependence and sets the sign. Experimentally, an injected in-plane-polarized spin current generates an out-of-plane magnon spin component during propagation. This component exhibits the crystalline angular dependence predicted by theory and reverses upon ferroelectric switching, providing a transport fingerprint of the spin-split magnon state. We use the programmed magnon spin to drive deterministic field-free switching of a perpendicular ferromagnet and demonstrate XNOR logic-in-memory. Our results extend odd-parity spin splitting from fermionic electronic states to bosonic collective modes and establish nonvolatile electrical control at room temperature.

We use the Mori-Zwanzig formalism to derive an exact generalized Langevin equation governing the dynamics of magnetic skyrmions. Using standard approximations, this generalized Langevin equation is found to reduce to the usual Thiele equation. Our approach provides a general route for obtaining extensions of the Thiele equation applicable to magnetic textures and degrees of freedom not covered by the standard derivation route. It also provides some insights into the microscopic justification of the standard Thiele equation, specifically concerning contributions of fast modes to the form of the drift and diffusion terms in the Fokker-Planck equation for skyrmions.