The way in which glassy materials age can be difficult to describe. The concept of material time allows for the description of this physical ageing in a linear way. Multispeckle dynamic light scattering experiments now provide experimental access to material time and show that intensity fluctuations become statistically reversible when referenced in this way.

See Böhmer

The dynamics of isolated quantum many-body systems far from equilibrium is a field of study that pertains to many situations, including ultracold atoms, quantum spin magnets, and quark–gluon matter. Here, magnetization measurements in a spinor atomic gas show a way to classify universal dynamics based on symmetry and topology.

See Huh et al. and Prüfer

The dynamics of complex systems are often modelled using low-rank matrices, but the formal validity of this method has not yet been confirmed. Thibeault et al. present an analysis of random networks and real-world data that sheds light on this low-rank hypothesis and its implications.

See Thibeault et al. and Gao

Non-Hermitian physics enables dynamic control of optical behaviour in real time, such as reflectionless scattering modes, which have now been demonstrated in a chaotic photonic microcavity.

See Jiang et al. and Stone