Papers

We analyze the physical mechanisms underlying the production of dry-cured hams, including prosciutto and jamón. Key processes such as osmosis and diffusion govern water removal and salt penetration, while enzymatic activity during long-term air curing develops flavor and texture without heat. The study quantifies diffusion depths, evaporation rates, and the effects of airflow and humidity on preventing defects like case hardening. By highlighting the physics behind salting and curing, the work provides a deeper understanding of how traditional techniques achieve safe, tender, and flavorful hams.

TiO2 nanocrystals can be fabricated by carving the TiO2 bulk polycrystals using reductive H2-bearing gases, yielding single-crystal [001] nanowire arrays. However, the origin of the strongly anisotropic nanowire morphology during nanocarving remains largely unexplored. In this study, we formulate a 2-D phase-field model to investigate the TiO2 morphology evolution during nanocarving processes. The model incorporates TiO2 reduction reaction, Ti3+ diffusion, and anisotropies in surface energy, diffusivity and reaction rate. Through systematic simulations in both single- and poly-crystals, we elucidate the roles of different anisotropy factors in nanocrystal morphologies at different carving stages, identifying the strong reaction rate anisotropy as the dominant factor for experimentally observed nanowire morphologies. We further explore the effect of grain misorientation angle, generating a nanocarving morphology map to guide grain orientation control. This study provides insights into microstructure evolution mechanisms during nanocarving and guidances for related microstructure control.

We study scalar theories obtained by pulling a free massive multiplet back through a polynomial field redefinition with constant unit Jacobian. Our main example uses the three-variable noninjective map recently announced by Alpöge. After a linear normalization, it defines a three-scalar sigma model with a flat, unit-volume field-space metric and three isolated vacua. Each vacuum is locally described by three free modes of mass m, and the exact equations of motion reduce locally on each sheet to free Klein–Gordon equations. The global theory is nevertheless not a single free theory: the field-space metric is incomplete, the number of real preimages changes across target space, and the commuting position operators have nonconstant joint spectral multiplicity. This rules out a global unitary implementation of the field redefinition and a regular Weyl exponentiation of the formal canonical momenta. We then analyze a four-scalar map with a generic quintic fiber. It exhibits the same mechanism with an additional field that controls the fiber polynomial. The two examples separate perturbative equivalence on a chosen local sheet from global quantum equivalence of the full field space.

Nonreciprocal superconducting transport enables dissipationless rectification and has attracted considerable interest, yet its microscopic origin is typically sought in bulk electronic states. Here, we show that boundary-controlled chiral edge states in topological systems provide a simple yet largely overlooked mechanism for nonreciprocal superconducting transport. Focusing on chiral kagome antiferromagnets, we demonstrate that out-of-plane spin canting or spin-orbit coupling opens a high-Chern-number bulk gap, giving rise to multiple chiral edge modes. Strikingly, sublattice-dependent boundary termination selects a single-valley character for the edge states, leading to asymmetric edge spectra at opposite edges. This boundary asymmetry directly yields observable nonreciprocal signatures in Josephson junctions oriented transverse to the edges, including asymmetric Andreev spectra, Josephson diode effect, and anomalous Fraunhofer interference patterns. These findings broaden the microscopic understanding of superconducting nonreciprocity and highlight boundary engineering as a tunable route toward superconducting diode devices.

Conventional superconductivity derives its pairing glue from lattice vibrations, tying its characteristic scales to chemistry and atomic masses. Plasmons$-$the collective oscillations of electrons$-$can instead be reshaped through electronic structure engineering, but the principles governing optimal plasmon-mediated pairing remain unclear. Here, we establish such principles for two-carrier systems in which heavy-electron plasmons mediate the pairing of light electrons. Within the random-phase approximation and Eliashberg theory, we calculate the optimal $T_c$ of minimal metallic models and show that it is controlled by a competition between the plasmon energy scale and retardation-driven suppression of the repulsion, yielding optimal carrier densities and band masses. While the plasmon channel alone reaches only $T_c\sim$ 0.1 K, a moderate phonon attraction cooperates with it, boosting $T_c$ by two orders of magnitude to above 20 K. However, the band flattening needed for slow metallic plasmons also favors the development of competing orders. We therefore consider an insulating system in which coherent interband transitions between flat bands generate gapped interband plasmons without free carriers. The heavy-band quantum metric governs the dispersion and electron-plasmon pairing strength of the interband plasmon, while the quantum geometry of the light band suppresses static screening and enhances the net attraction. Because layer separation rapidly weakens pairing, we propose systems with coexisting light and heavy electrons living in different mirror-symmetry sectors of the same layer as promising platforms. Our results establish a new role for flat-band systems in superconductivity: rather than hosting the paired electrons themselves, they can serve as a tunable pairing mediator whose collective charge excitations set the superconducting energy scale beyond their narrow bandwidth.

The parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) approach is the state of the art formalism for performing theory independent tests of weak-field gravity, and for constraining possible deviations from Einstein's theory. Within this framework, global conservation laws are useful for the calculation of dynamics and for giving meaning to parameters. In this paper we extend the concept of semi-conservative and fully-conservative theories of gravity to include situations in which compact astrophysical bodies are modeled as masses that are sensitive to their local environment, as relevant for theories that violate the strong equivalence principle. We find that globally conserved quantities can still exist in the presence of such sensitivities, and find their explicit forms when they do. We identify new ways of writing the coefficients that enter into the PPN metric when a theory of gravity admits conserved quantities in the presence of a sensitive body, and demonstrate the applicability of our approach by comparing it to known results in scalar-tensor theories of gravity.

We construct and experimentally implement compact gate-native circuits that simulate the state-transfer interference underlying three- and four-level chiral-resolution protocols. Both models are encoded in a two-qubit register, with the enantiomer-dependent sign of one of the couplings simulated by a conditional-phase operation in the four-level circuit and by the sign of a final rotation in the three-level circuit. On an IBM quantum processor, the two circuits produce the expected enantiomer-dependent output states with probabilities of nearly $98\%$. We then use these circuits as physically motivated, phase-sensitive benchmarks for composite quantum gates. We introduce rotation-angle error to the single-qubit operations and replace them by several composite gates, including B5, SK1, BB1, H5s, and X5. The comparison demonstrates that single-gate robustness does not translate to equivalent whole-circuit robustness. In particular, variable-rotation sequences do not preserve the required relative phases, making them unsuitable for error correction in circuits. By contrast, the H5s/X5 sequences maintain high target-state populations for relative errors as large as $50\%$, whereas elementary rotations reach the same threshold only for approximately $8\%$. The three-level circuit exhibits a similar enhancement and additionally reveals an error-cancellation symmetry whose protection under composite replacement is exact only when the relevant full propagators satisfy an inverse relation.

The fourth observing run (O4) of Advanced LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA presents unparalleled sensitivity, rendering unsupervised pipelines highly vulnerable to the non-stationary domain shift of the detectors' noise manifolds. We present DANTE V3, concluding a longitudinal investigation into unmodeled anomalies during early O4a. By expanding to a multi-scale geometric framework (0.5 s to 4.0 s), we amplify morphological sensitivity, extracting 10,372 unique candidates. To mitigate domain-shift artifacts, we introduce a block-bootstrap Domain Shift Defense (DSD) against a vector-quantized native background index. While 28.3% of candidates survive recalibration, global topological analysis reveals they lack discrete morphological cohesion. The survivors coalesce into a single macro-cluster without compact substructure; we show explicitly that morphological "diffusivity" comparisons used previously are confounded and retire them. Pristine background is even more monolithic (100% in one cluster vs 99.77% for survivors): this topology is a property of the embedding geometry, not of anomaly status. Executing a definitive physical environment monitoring (PEM) cross-correlation defense using an empirically calibrated null, one singleton is vetoed by a control-line coupling, while another survives as an uncatalogued instrumental outlier. Replacing the embedding-similarity cross-detector coincidence test with a physical normalized cross-correlation test, we find no coincident events among 8,749 candidates. We quote 90% frequentist Poisson upper limits on the rate of novel uncatalogued instrumental morphologies — $R_{90} \le 5.83 \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ (H1) and $R_{90} \le 5.63 \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$ (L1). This underscores the absolute necessity of native background recalibration and physical auxiliary vetoes in unsupervised gravitational-wave astronomy.

The mechanical reliability of nitrogen-doped graphene is often attributed to its nitrogen content, yet nitrogen occurs in chemically distinct configurations whose individual mechanical roles, and whose interactions with other defects, remain unresolved. Here, molecular dynamics simulations of uniaxial tension are used to separate the contributions of nitrogen chemistry, missing atoms, and defect arrangement to the strength and fracture of graphene. Three size-matched defects, a graphitic-nitrogen cluster, a void, and a pyridinic-nitrogen cluster, are compared so that two controlled contrasts isolate the effects of edge chemistry and of the vacancy independently. The graphitic cluster leaves the mechanical properties essentially unchanged (a strength reduction of <1 %), whereas the void degrades the ultimate strength by ~23 % and the pyridinic cluster, which combines the same vacancy with edge nitrogen, is the most damaging (~30 %), failing abruptly from its nitrogen-decorated rim rather than through the damage-tolerant process of the bare void. The mechanical impact of a nitrogen cluster is therefore governed by whether it carries vacancies, not by nitrogen itself. When a nitrogen cluster and a void coexist, their interaction is controlled by orientation relative to the load: in-line defects interact negligibly and fail at the more severe member, whereas side-by-side defects couple through overlapping stress fields and weaken the sheet progressively as they approach, an interaction that persists to separations of ~80 Å. These results establish that the mechanical integrity of nitrogen-modified graphene is determined by the configuration of defects, the bonding environment of nitrogen, and the arrangement of coexisting defects relative to the load, rather than by nitrogen content or defect density alone, thereby providing a basis for defect-tolerant design.

Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs) are a leading paradigm for near-term quantum computing, combining parameterized quantum circuits with classical optimization across quantum chemistry, combinatorial optimization, and quantum machine learning. Since real-world VQA deployments routinely require circuits that exceed available hardware capacity, quantum circuit cutting has become an indispensable execution strategy, and pre-trained parameters are increasingly distributed through public repositories, introducing supply-chain security risks that have received little attention. Prior quantum backdoor attacks either introduce detectable circuit modifications or depend on device-specific noise, and none consider circuit cutting as an attack surface. We present CutBackdoor, the first parameter-supply-chain backdoor that uses cut circuit execution from CutQC as the deployment-time trigger against VQAs. Under noisy finite-shot circuit-cut execution, poisoned parameters preserve full-circuit validation performance while substantially increasing cut-path reconstruction error, without any circuit modification. The trigger activates when a resource-limited victim responds to a qubit-capacity mismatch by invoking the cutting workflow, requiring no attacker presence at deployment. We provide a theoretical analysis and empirically validate it across varying shot budgets. Evaluation across multiple VQA benchmarks on IBM quantum backends demonstrates cut-path energy amplification of $1.3\times$ to $2.9\times$ \revA{over clean baselines on the VQE and VQD benchmarks while maintaining small stealthiness error on the full-circuit path. The cut-path gap persists across the evaluated backends and cut placements under matched compilation; Zero-Noise Extrapolation provides only partial mitigation, and the diagonal-cost QAOA benchmark delineates the attack's structural boundary

Twin neutron stars (NSs), characterized by identical gravitational masses but different radii, are among the most promising astrophysical signatures of a strong first-order hadron–quark phase transition in supradense matter. We investigate how increasingly precise NS radius measurements improve the Bayesian inference of twin-star observability using mock radius data for a canonical $1.4\,M_\odot$ NS. Radius uncertainties are varied from the current level of about $0.9$ km to the $\approx 0.1$ km precision anticipated from future X-ray and gravitational-wave observations. We quantify the information gained using the posterior distribution of the maximum twin-star radius separation $\Delta R$ together with an analytical model of branch distinguishability and complementary information-theoretic measures based on the branch observational efficiency and the Shannon entropy. The combined analyses reveal three inference regimes: a prior-dominated regime for $\sigma_R \gtrsim 0.6$ km, a rapid information-gain regime for $0.2 \lesssim \sigma_R \lesssim 0.6$ km, and an information-saturation regime for $\sigma_R \lesssim 0.2$ km. These complementary analyses consistently indicate that radius measurements with a precision of about $0.2$ km already extract most of the information available for identifying twin NSs within the present Bayesian framework. Beyond establishing a quantitative observational benchmark for future high-precision radius measurements, this work provides a general Bayesian framework for quantifying the information gain from progressively more precise observations and identifying the point of diminishing scientific returns.

Radio-frequency (RF) capacitively coupled plasmas (CCPs) are widely utilized in semiconductor manufacturing. Efficiently and accurately solving the underlying fluid governing equations to resolve the complex multi-physics fields is crucial for optimizing plasma reactor designs and process control. To overcome the severe numerical stiffness and prohibitive time-step constraints inherent in low-temperature plasma modeling, we present a robust, low-storage implicit dual-time finite-volume framework for RF CCP simulations, establishing a highly efficient and memory-friendly pathway for the predictive modeling of multi-dimensional low-temperature plasmas. In this approach, the physical time advancement is strictly decoupled from explicit stability limits through a backward-difference formula (BDF), while the resulting nonlinear system is efficiently solved using pseudo-time iterations. A localized block-implicit relaxation method is employed to handle the stiff transport and chemical source terms at the cell level, effectively circumventing the massive memory overhead typical of conventional fully implicit solvers. Concurrently, a semi-implicit treatment of Poisson's equation is integrated to accelerate the electrostatic coupling. The framework is first verified against a standard one-dimensional argon discharge benchmark, demonstrating that a highly accurate periodic state can be achieved with satisfactory computational efficiency through the optimal selection of the physical time step, pseudo-CFL number, and inner iteration step. To further demonstrate the multidimensional applicability of the proposed method, the solver is extended to genuine two-dimensional configurations. The numerical results show the multi-dimensional distortion of the electrostatic potential and localized electron heating zones induced by the transverse boundaries.

Following approach of Iorgov–Lisovyy–Teschner, we construct solutions of the (modified) Riemann–Hilbert problem using conformal blocks of $(1,k)$ Virasoro models. For $k>1$ case, the solution of this Riemann–Hilbert problem is not unique due to more singular behavior at punctures. On the CFT side the dimension of the space of conformal blocks also increases. We specifically study the $k=2$ case, which corresponds to the central charge $c=-2$ and symplectic fermions. We explicitly construct a corresponding solution of the modified Riemann–Hilbert problem in the case of 3 punctures and prove its uniqueness under suitable initial data conditions. We also obtain new bilinear relations for $c=-2$ tau functions.

Strong-field photoelectron holography encodes ultrafast electron dynamics through momentum-space interference. However, the orbit-resolved origin of spider-like spin fringes and the mechanism underlying their target dependence remain unclear. Here, we resolve both issues by analyzing photoelectron spin textures generated during tunneling ionization. We use the Coulomb quantum-orbit strong-field approximation, benchmarked against time-dependent Schrödinger equation simulations for $\mathrm{He^+}$ and Xe, to separate orbital-channel and quantum-orbit contributions. Spider-like fringes arise from interference between $p$-orbital ionization channels with different magnetic quantum numbers within an individual orbit class and therefore do not require interorbit interference. The observable polarization along these fringes, however, depends on the balance among orbit-class contributions. The decomposition associates the opposite first-leg polarizations of $\mathrm{He^+}$ and Xe with different relative weights of laser-deflected and forward-scattered trajectories, consistent with target-dependent Coulomb focusing. Photoelectron spin textures thus complement momentum distributions as probes of Coulomb-driven strong-field dynamics.

We reexamine the crystal structure, electronic structure, lattice dynamics, phonon dispersion, electron-phonon coupling, and superconducting properties of MgHCu3 perovskite using the PBEsol and PBE functionals. This perovskite phase was recently proposed to exhibit superconductivity with the critical superconducting temperature, TC, of 42 K, which falls slightly over the classical 40 K limit for the phonon driven superconductivity. We show that although the crystal and electronic structure of this hypothetical compound are quite robust with respect to the k point mesh and functional used, yet the phonons and phonon related properties are extremely sensitive to the density of the grid chosen as well as functional used for calculations. Correspondingly, the values of the critical superconducting temperature calculated here for different Gaussian broadenings vary in a broad range of ca. 10 to 31 K and they do not exceed the classical limit. We suggest that the properties of this and many other high TC hydrides claimed should be thoroughly scrutinized using a variety of functionals, and benchmarked with experiment, to provide more reliable values of TC.

Can a quantum PDE algorithm avoid the polynomial cost of resolving a fine spatial mesh? For standard fixed-order discretizations, direct classical methods require work polynomial in $h^{-1}$, or equivalently in the number of spatial degrees of freedom $N_h=\Theta(h^{-d})$. Direct quantum implementations of a parabolic semigroup still have coherent complexity $\widetilde{\mathcal O}(\sqrt{T}/h)$, and gradient-dependent observables such as heat flux and dissipation introduce additional mesh dependence. Decay of the solution norm will further suppress the postselection probability for preparing a normalized final state. We develop a multilevel quantum algorithm that estimates linear and quadratic observables $directly$ and places the fine–coarse cancellation inside the circuit before measurement. A contour-based LCU reconstructs each target-time correction from a coherent family of shifted resolvent differences. Rather than block encoding the fine and coarse inverses separately, we encode their difference through a shifted Ritz–Schur factorization, exposing its $\mathcal O(h_\ell^2)$ two-grid normalization. For Fourier hierarchies, the corresponding SELECT oracle consists of a quantum Fourier or sine transform, a spectral-band selector, and reversible diagonal arithmetic. We also give a non-Fourier realization based on energy-orthogonal dyadic midpoint details in one dimension, together with structured tensor-product extensions under fixed-rank coefficient and access assumptions. For readouts with derivative order $0\le\chi\le2$, optimized amplitude estimation removes $all$ polynomial dependence on the finest mesh size. Under the stated access assumptions, both linear and quadratic observables can be estimated with complexity $\widetilde{\mathcal O}(1+(T\epsilon)^{-1})$, with only polylogarithmic dependence on $h^{-1}$.

Cosmic Domain Wall networks are among the most interesting sources of a stochastic Gravitational Wave (GW) background from the early Universe. We present a thorough analysis of their annihilation, with a focus on scenarios where the collapse is induced by a population bias, whereby one of two degenerate vacua is initially preferred over the other. Our state-of-the-art $3+1$ lattice field theory simulations in the expanding Universe reveal that the network decays around the temperature $T_\text{ann}\sim T_s\,\mathcal{B}_s^{0.8}$, where $\mathcal{B}_s$ quantifies the preference for one vacuum over the other at the onset of the scaling regime at the temperature $T_s$. Furthermore, we obtain the spectrum of GWs from such networks, and provide a detailed comparison with the alternative potential bias annihilation mechanism that relies on a small explicit symmetry breaking in the potential. En passant, we update results on the evolution of these networks and on their GWs, and clarify existing disagreements in the recent literature. Our results sharpen the phenomenological viability of spontaneously broken discrete symmetries, and provide GW spectra that Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) and ground-based interferometers (LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA) can readily use in their searches for a cosmological GW background.

We investigate the topology of the set $\mathsf E$ of entangled bipartite density operators acting on $\mathbb{C}^{n_1}\otimes\mathbb{C}^{n_2}$. We start by showing that $\mathsf E$ is path-connected, and even simply connected except in the two-qubit case. In this exceptional case $\mathsf E$ turns out to be homotopy equivalent to the set of maximally entangled states, which itself is homeomorphic to $\mathbb{RP}^3$. Here we also compute the complete homology of the closure and interior of $\mathsf E$. In all larger dimensions, we show that the homology and homotopy groups of $\mathsf E$ vanish in degrees $1\leq k\leq 2(n_1-1)(n_2-1)-2$, and all homology groups of degree $k\geq (n_1n_2)^2-3$ also vanish. This range is controlled by the space $\mathsf W$ of entanglement witnesses, which we show is highly connected beyond two qubits and homotopy equivalent to $\mathsf E$. By computing the Euler characteristic, using a torus-action fixed point argument together with Alexander duality, we show that $\mathsf E$ nevertheless has non-trivial reduced homology over every field for all $n_1, n_2 \geq 2$.

We construct the periodic directed landscape, which is the conjectured scaling limit for periodic models in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class. We establish the convergence of periodic exponential last passage percolation to the periodic directed landscape. Moreover, we confirm conjectures by Baik, Liao and Liu on the local structure of the periodic KPZ fixed point, and establish the convergence of periodic ASEPs to periodic KPZ fixed points, coupled according to the same periodic directed landscape. Our main tool to construct the periodic directed landscape (and prove convergence to it) is a technique for gluing full-space directed landscapes (and their prelimits), which is of independent interest.

Fast and accurate fluid simulation of radio-frequency capacitively coupled plasmas (RF CCPs) is of great importance for the iterative design and parameter optimization of modern plasma reactors. This study presents the first successful extension of the time-domain harmonic balance (HB) method to a fully coupled drift-diffusion-Poisson system with complete electron-energy transport for RF plasma simulations. To resolve the severe numerical stiffness arising from highly nonlinear energy-dependent kinetics and dense phase-coupling, a highly efficient spatiotemporal operator-splitting strategy is employed. By sequentially executing a spatial implicit relaxation and a cell-local temporal inversion, this strategy entirely avoids the memory-intensive assembly of global Jacobians while preserving robust numerical stability. The proposed method is rigorously validated against a standard parallel-plate argon CCP benchmark. Evaluated across all discrete temporal collocation points, the HB solution demonstrates that retaining eight harmonics perfectly resolves both the quasi-steady bulk plasma and the highly nonlinear transient sheath dynamics, yielding macroscopic relative errors strictly below 0.3% compared to conventional dual-time stepping (DTS) solutions. Beyond its high physical fidelity, the time-domain HB method completely bypasses the prohibitive physical transients required by conventional time-marching methods. Evaluated on a purely sequential single-core execution, the HB method delivers a greater than 10-fold speedup over fully converged DTS baselines and remains over 5 times faster than the coarsest time-marching configurations. These results establish the time-domain HB framework as a physically rigorous, memory-efficient, and highly accelerated paradigm for practical RF plasma simulations.

Refractory high-entropy alloys are promising candidates for high-temperature applications, yet the effects of composition on their chemical-ordering pathways and mechanical properties remain insufficiently understood. Here, a universal MLIP combined with MC and MD simulations is employed to investigate the temperature-dependent thermodynamic and mechanical behavior of (MoCrTi)(100-x)Alx alloys. Atomic configurations, sublattice occupations, and simulated diffraction intensities reveal pronounced B2-type chemical ordering at low temperatures, with Mo and Al occupying one sublattice and Cr and Ti occupying the other. The configurational heat capacities and SRO parameters further reveal a strong composition dependence of the ordering pathway. The Mo25Cr25Ti25Al25 and Mo32Cr32Ti32Al4 alloys exhibit a single dominant ordering stage involving cooperative changes in multiple B2-type pair correlations. By contrast, Mo28Cr28Ti28Al16 and Mo30Cr30Ti30Al10 exhibit two distinct ordering stages. Their low-temperature features are associated primarily with changes in the Mo-Al and Al-Al correlations, respectively, whereas their high-temperature features involve collective changes in the remaining B2-type pair correlations. Chemical ordering also fundamentally alters the composition dependence of mechanical stiffness. Whereas the elastic constants of disordered configurations increase approximately monotonically with decreasing Al content, those of the ordered configurations exhibit a non-monotonic dependence and reach a maximum in Mo30Cr30Ti30Al10. This anomalous enhancement originates from a SRO induced redistribution of atomic pairs, particularly Mo-Cr pairs. These results establish a direct atomistic connection among alloy composition, multistage chemical ordering, and mechanical stiffness, providing guidance for tuning the mechanical behavior of RHEAs through compositional control.

Polaron formation localizes charge carriers and drives a crossover from band-like to hopping transport in materials. Hopping dynamics can be obtained from DFT supercell calculations of transition states, but these suffer from polaron self-interaction, spurious electrostatics, and poor scaling with polaron size. We introduce a supercell-free framework for ab initio polaron hopping transport based on the ab initio polaron equations formalism, its variational formulation, and the string method. The approach avoids explicit real-space DFT supercell calculations: it optimizes transition states directly in reciprocal space and provides the polaron configurations along the path, enabling the evaluation of adiabatic hopping rates and mobilities. We apply the method to LiF and rutile TiO$_2$, revealing multi-step and anisotropic hopping mechanisms. In rutile TiO$_2$, we compare the computed electron-polaron mobility with experiments and with alternative first-principles approaches. Our results establish a scalable route to first-principles polaron-hopping dynamics in materials in which charge motion is governed by self-trapping.

Hydrogen-rich superconductors have garnered considerable interest following the discovery of hot superconductivity in high pressure H$_3$S, reviving prospects for room temperature superconductors under high-pressures. Using H$_3$Se as a reference system, we investigate the vibrational and superconducting properties of D$_3$Se in the Im\bar{3}m phase across 60-200 GPa by combining first-principles calculations with the stochastic self-consistent harmonic approximation to treat ionic quantum and anharmonic effects. These effects introduce significant renormalization to the phonon spectra and stabilize the lattice down to at least 70 GPa, well below the harmonic prediction of >110 GPa. Ultimately, the phonon renormalizations alter the electron-phonon coupling, introducing a decrease in the superconducting critical temperature by about 3-16 K across the studied pressure range with respect to standard calculations. Including anharmonic phonons within the Migdal-Eliashberg theory yields $T_c \approx 154$ K at 75 GPa (with ${\mu}^* = 0.1$, ${\lambda} = 3.0$), highlighting D3Se as a promising high-Tc superconductor at moderate pressures. Examining the role of anharmonicity in the isotope effect, we find that at 200 GPa it suppresses the isotope coefficient $\alpha$ to 0.29 one third below the harmonic value (0.44) which approaches the BCS limit of 0.5. This dramatic reduction demonstrates that anharmonicity fundamentally governs the isotope effect on this system. The stark discrepancy between anharmonic and harmonic descriptions underscores the need for targeted experimental efforts to resolve the origin of the persistent theory-experiment discrepancy in compressed hydrides.

Recent experiments report high-temperature superconductivity in the hybrid nickelate $\mathrm{La}_5\mathrm{Ni}_3\mathrm{O}_{11}$, which is composed of alternating stacks of bilayer $\mathrm{La}_3\mathrm{Ni}_2\mathrm{O}_7$ and monolayer $\mathrm{La}_2\mathrm{NiO}_4$. However, the superconducting transition temperature $T_c \approx 64~\mathrm{K}$ for $\mathrm{La}_5\mathrm{Ni}_3\mathrm{O}_{11}$ is remarkably lower than the $80~\mathrm{K}$ observed for pressurized $\mathrm{La}_3\mathrm{Ni}_2\mathrm{O}_7$. Thus, an unified microscopic theory is required to address the difference in the pairing mechanisms between these systems. Here, we develop a phenomenological symmetry-based approach to systematically analyze the low-energy physics in $\mathrm{La}_5\mathrm{Ni}_3\mathrm{O}_{11}$, which is obtained by a charge self-consistent density functional theory plus dynamical mean-field theory method. We show that the superconductivity in $\mathrm{La}_5\mathrm{Ni}_3\mathrm{O}_{11}$ exhibits a two-gap nature, consisting of a leading interlayer pairing between the $d_{z^2}$ orbitals and a subleading intralayer pairing between the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbitals. The reduction of $T_c$ can be attributed to the diminished contribution of the interlayer pairing, as reflected by the hopping parameter ratio $|t_{\perp}^z/t_{\parallel}^{x}|$. Base on this unified picture, we discuss the possible pairing mechanism and the role of $\gamma$ pocket for the superconductivity in the bilayer NiO$_2$ planes of nickelate superconductors.

Crystal structure databases curated by high-throughput density functional theory calculations typically serve as the starting point for computational materials discovery efforts. Thermodynamic stability data, such as formation energies and the energy above the convex hull, are important quantities to guide the search for novel materials, enabling filtering for (meta)stable structures. Here, we present the thermodynamic stability of the fully open-source, reproducible, and experimentally focused Materials Cloud three-dimensional crystals database (MC3D). We compare against two other DFT databases, the Open Quantum Materials Database (OQMD) and the Materials Project (MP), as well as against experimental formation enthalpies. We then demonstrate how recent foundational machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) trained at the r$^2$SCAN level (specifically, we test PET-OMATPES here) can be leveraged to improve the agreement of formation energies with experiment, reducing the mean absolute error by more than 40% relative to GGA without requiring any additional DFT calculation. Our results validate and extend the established practice of combining PBEsol geometries with meta-GGA energies to the era of foundational MLIPs. Finally, we train classical machine learning models to further correct the formation energies in a delta-learning framework, where we use the information-rich latent features of the foundational MLIP. These models further reduce the mean absolute error below 50 meV/atom, bringing it down to values comparable with the experimental uncertainty itself. Notably, compared to purely compositional features, the latent features (combined with carefully tuned regularization) simultaneously reduce the prediction error and limit the impact of the learned corrections on the relative phase stability.

Granular suspensions are intrinsically nonequilibrium systems in which dissipative grain-grain collisions coexist with solvent-induced forcing. We study the particle-scale structure of a granular suspension modeled by smooth inelastic hard spheres immersed in a thermal bath and compare Langevin-dynamics simulation results for the radial distribution function $g(r)$ and the static structure factor $S(q)$ with predictions of an equilibrium-inspired rational function approximation (RFA). The equilibrium hard-sphere RFA is supplied with nonequilibrium input for the contact value and a reduced isothermal-compressibility-like quantity, yielding analytical expressions for $g(r)$ in Laplace space and for $S(q)$. We find that the RFA gives a very good description of the short- and intermediate-range structure of the suspension over a broad range of densities, drag coefficients, and inelasticities. It reproduces $g(r)$ substantially better than the Percus-Yevick approximation in inelastic states, especially near contact, and gives a good account of $S(q)$ except at the smallest wave numbers. There, simulations show a drag-dependent enhancement over the RFA prediction, indicating additional long-wavelength nonequilibrium correlations beyond the present equilibrium-like description. These results show that an equilibrium-based hard-sphere approach provides an accurate description of the particle-scale structure of the present Langevin model with inelastic hard spheres (except in the smallest-$q$ region), and suggest that similar equilibrium-inspired approaches may also be useful for related nonequilibrium hard-sphere suspension models, including multicomponent systems.

Predictive modeling of ultrashort-pulse laser ablation requires temperature-dependent material parameters derived from the electronic structure, namely the electronic thermal conductivity, electron–phonon coupling, and heat capacity. These parameters are well documented for elemental metals but remain sparsely documented for alloys, apart from application-relevant exceptions such as stainless steels. The technologically important titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V is a prominent example, which is still modeled using elemental-titanium values. We compute the electronic transport of hcp Ti and Ti-6Al-4V from first principles, using the Kubo–Greenwood formalism within the Korringa–Kohn–Rostoker coherent-potential-approximation framework, treating chemical and thermal disorder on equal footing. For elemental Ti, the calculated electrical resistivity agrees with independent abinit electron–phonon calculations and experiment, and also reproduces the high-temperature saturation near the Mott–Ioffe–Regel limit. Under electron–phonon nonequilibrium, the electronic thermal conductivity saturates and then decreases with electronic temperature, reaching a maximum of about \SI{2.97}{\kilo\watt\per\metre\per\kelvin} in Ti but only \SI{0.47}{\kilo\watt\per\metre\per\kelvin} in Ti-6Al-4V, a factor of 6.4 lower. In two-temperature-model simulations the alloy and elemental parameter sets yield peak lattice temperatures differing by only about 1.4%, consistent with reported experimental ablation thresholds that differ by about 3%, well within their measurement uncertainties. Replacing the first-principles thermal conductivity with the low-temperature Drude limit shifts the peak lattice temperature by up to 19%, showing that the functional form of the transport model is even more important than the elemental vs alloy distinction for predictive accuracy.

We analyse resonant excitations of ferromagnetic magnons via microwave pumping using Floquet theory. Special focus is put on driving frequencies that are below the corresponding magnon energy, which can be excited in large parameter regions via parametric resonances. We develop a theoretical framework that analytically predicts the regions of resonances and resonance thresholds in thin films of ferro- and ferri-magnetic materials like YIG as a function of damping, amplitude and frequency. Resonance regions are separated by exceptional points of the quasi-energies and the results are compared with micromagnetic simulations. The corresponding threshold amplitudes can be estimated from a characteristic powerlaw with damping, leading to the possibility of targeted exciatations at selected wavenumbers using low frequency drive.

Hubbard-corrected density-functional theory (DFT+$U$) is a popular tool for first-principles modeling of materials with localized $d$ or $f$ electrons, but its on-site corrections tend to over-localize charge and break covalent bonds. Inter-site $+V$ corrections were introduced to counter this and are now widely used, but a formal justification has been lacking. Here we show that – to first order in $V/U$ – inter-site corrections are exactly equivalent to on-site DFT+$U$ evaluated on a density-matrix-dependent redefinition of the Hubbard projectors, hybridized with those of neighboring sites, providing insight into the explicit mechanism by which $V$ affects covalency. If the projectors are held frozen, as is common practice, the equivalence partially breaks down. Beyond reinterpreting the formalism, these results sharpen the questions of how $V$ should be computed and what the Hubbard subspaces fundamentally are.

We introduce a family of random connected closed subsets of planar Brownian motion, called Brownian loop-catchers, which interpolate between the continuum loop-erased random-walk (LERW) and the Brownian trace. This provides the canonical continuation of Brownian loop soup clusters to central charges $-2\le c<0$. For each such $c$, the corresponding loop-catcher satisfies the following recovery property: adding all loops from an independent Brownian loop soup of intensity $-c/2$ that intersect it recovers the Brownian trace. Furthermore, no such law exists for $c<-2$. We also show that its outer boundary is locally SLE$_\kappa$ with $\kappa = \frac{1}{3}\left(13 - c - \sqrt{(1-c)(25-c)}\right)\in[2,\frac83)$, and the probability that it intersects an interior ball of radius $\varepsilon$ is asymptotically proportional to $|\log\varepsilon|^{-1+\frac{c}{2}}$ when $-2<c<0$. Therefore, a planar Brownian trace contains an SLE$_\kappa$-type curve for every $\kappa\in[2,\frac83]$. Our construction begins with a random-walk loop-catcher on any finite graph such that recursively inserting loops from an independent random-walk loop soup to it recovers the original random walk. The key ingredient is a new entangled multipath LERW, which recovers a union of independent random-walk paths when decorated with a single common random-walk loop soup. We then prove that the random-walk loop-catcher converges to the Brownian loop-catcher under lattice approximations. To this end, we propose a novel Green function test which converts the recovery property of the Brownian loop-catcher into all mixed moments of Green functions in the remaining domain, based on the entangled multipath LERW. Consequently, the recovery property characterizes the full law of the Brownian loop-catcher, not only its filling. The Green function test also extends to the three-dimensional case.