Physics articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Research Briefing |

    Ultrafast light pulses, if they are sufficiently intense, can induce phase transitions on ultrafast timescales. It is now shown that when a system is first excited by a weak preparatory pulse, this generates local changes in structure that transiently lower the energy barrier to the phase transition, enabling high-speed and energy-efficient transitions.

  • Review Article |

    The study of quantum systems in a programmable and controllable fashion is one of the aims of both quantum simulation and computing. This Review covers the prospects and opportunities that ultracold molecules offer in these fields.

    • Simon L. Cornish
    • , Michael R. Tarbutt
    •  & Kaden R. A. Hazzard

  • Review Article |

    Ultracold atoms are a well-established platform for quantum sensing and metrology. This Review discusses the enhanced sensing capabilities that molecules offer for a range of phenomena, including symmetry-violating forces and dark matter detection.

    • David DeMille
    • , Nicholas R. Hutzler
    •  & Tanya Zelevinsky

  • Review Article |

    Molecular ions and hybrid platforms that integrate cold trapped ions and neutral particles offer opportunities for many quantum technologies. This Review surveys recent methodological advances and highlights in the study of cold molecular ions.

    • Markus Deiß
    • , Stefan Willitsch
    •  & Johannes Hecker Denschlag

  • Review Article |

    Cold and ultracold molecules have emerged in the past two decades as a central topic in quantum gas studies. This Review charts the recent advances in cooling and quantum state control techniques that are shaping this evolving field.

    • Tim Langen
    • , Giacomo Valtolina
    •  & Jun Ye

  • Review Article |

    Ultracold molecules and ion–neutral systems offer unique access to chemistry in a coherent quantum regime. This Review charts the progress of studies of quantum chemistry in such platforms, highlighting the synergy between theory and experiments.

    • Tijs Karman
    • , Michał Tomza
    •  & Jesús Pérez-Ríos

  • Article |

    The mechanism by which two-dimensional materials remain stable at a finite temperature is still under debate. Now, numerical calculations suggest that rotational symmetry is crucial in suppressing anharmonic effects that lead to structural instability.

    • Unai Aseginolaza
    • , Josu Diego
    •  & Ion Errea

  • Article |

    Active cell contraction drives hole nucleation, fracture and crack propagation in a tissue monolayer through a process reminiscent of dewetting thin films.

    • Jian-Qing Lv
    • , Peng-Cheng Chen
    •  & Bo Li

  • Article |

    Many recent experiments have stored quantum information in bosonic modes, such as photons in resonators or optical fibres. Now an adaptation of the classical spherical codes provides a framework for designing quantum error correcting codes for these platforms.

    • Shubham P. Jain
    • , Joseph T. Iosue
    •  & Victor V. Albert

  • News & Views |

    The properties of quantum matter arise from the combined effects of dimensionality, interactions and quantum statistics. An experiment now studies what happens to ultracold bosons when the dimensionality of the system changes continuously between one and two dimensions.

    • Jérôme Beugnon

  • News & Views |

    Spiral waves of cell density can form and propagate through bacterial biofilms. These waves are formed by a self-organization process that coordinates pulling forces between neighbouring cells.

    • Guram Gogia
    •  & David R. Johnson

  • News & Views |

    The determination of the order parameter symmetry is a critical issue in the study of unconventional superconductors. Ultrasound measurements on UTe2, a candidate spin-triplet superconductor, now provide evidence for the single-component nature of its order parameter.

    • Bohm-Jung Yang

  • Research Briefing |

    The nuclear pore complex of eukaryotic cells senses the mechanical directionality of translocating proteins, favouring the passage of those that have a leading mechanically labile region. Adding an unstructured, mechanically weak peptide tag to a translocating protein increases its rate of nuclear import and accumulation, suggesting a biotechnological strategy to enhance the delivery of molecular cargos into the cell nucleus.

  • Article |

    A Dirac quantum spin liquid phase is predicted to have a continuum of fractionalized spinon excitations with a Dirac cone dispersion. A spin continuum consistent with this picture has now been observed in neutron scattering measurements.

    • Zhenyuan Zeng
    • , Chengkang Zhou
    •  & Shiliang Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A successful silicon spin qubit design should be rapidly scalable by benefiting from industrial transistor technology. This investigation of exchange interactions between two FinFET qubits provides a guide to implementing two-qubit gates for hole spins.

    • Simon Geyer
    • , Bence Hetényi
    •  & Andreas V. Kuhlmann

  • Research Briefing |

    The Q-value of electron capture in 163Ho has been determined with an uncertainty of 0.6 eV c–2 through a combination of high-precision Penning-trap mass spectrometry and precise atomic physics calculations. This high-precision measurement provides insight into systematic errors in neutrino mass measurements.

  • Research Briefing |

    As counterparts to optical frequency combs, magnonic frequency combs could have broad applications if their initiation thresholds were low and the ‘teeth’ of the comb plentiful. Progress has now been made through exploiting so-called exceptional points to enhance the nonlinear coupling between magnons and produce wider magnonic frequency combs.

  • Research Briefing |

    A practical and hardware-efficient blueprint for fault-tolerant quantum computing has been developed, using quantum low-density-parity-check codes and reconfigurable neutral-atom arrays. The scheme requires ten times fewer qubits and paves the way towards large-scale quantum computing using existing experimental technologies.

  • Article |

    Frequency combs, which are important for applications in precision spectroscopy, depend on material nonlinearities for their function, which can be hard to engineer. Now an approach combining magnons and exceptional points is shown to be effective.

    • Congyi Wang
    • , Jinwei Rao
    •  & Wei Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Connecting two superfluid reservoirs leads to both particle and entropy flow between the systems. Now, a direct measurement of the entropy current and production in ultracold quantum gases reveals how superfluidity enhances entropy transport.

    • Philipp Fabritius
    • , Jeffrey Mohan
    •  & Tilman Esslinger

  • Article |

    Controlling orbital magnetic moments for applications can be difficult. Now local probes of a kagome material, TbV6Sn6, demonstrate how the spin Berry curvature can produce a large orbital Zeeman effect that can be tuned with a magnetic field.

    • Hong Li
    • , Siyu Cheng
    •  & Ilija Zeljkovic

  • Measure for Measure |

    Bart Verberck uses the musical cent as a pretext to touch on some of the intricacies of musical tuning systems.

    • Bart Verberck

  • Article |

    As amorphous solids, glasses and gels are similar, but the origins of their different elastic properties are unclear. Simulations now suggest differing free-energy-minimizing pathways: structural ordering for glasses and interface reduction for gels.

    • Yinqiao Wang
    • , Michio Tateno
    •  & Hajime Tanaka

  • News & Views |

    Questioning the validity of axioms can teach us about physics beyond the standard model. A recent search for the violation of charge conservation and the Pauli exclusion principle yields limits on these scenarios.

    • Alessio Porcelli

  • Comment |

    The time has come to consider appropriate guardrails to ensure quantum technology benefits humanity and the planet. With quantum development still in flux, the science community shares a responsibility in defining principles and practices.

    • Urs Gasser
    • , Eline De Jong
    •  & Mauritz Kop

  • Article |

    Photoemission experiments demonstrate that the photon number statistics of the exciting light can be imprinted on the emitted electrons, allowing the controlled generation of classical or non-classical electron number statistics of free electrons.

    • Jonas Heimerl
    • , Alexander Mikhaylov
    •  & Peter Hommelhoff

  • Perspective |

    Although topological photonics has been an active field of research for some time, most studies still focus on the linear optical regime. This Perspective summarizes recent investigations into the nonlinear properties of discrete topological photonic systems.

    • Alexander Szameit
    •  & Mikael C. Rechtsman

  • News & Views |

    The shape and trajectory of a crack plays a crucial role in material fracture. High-precision experiments now directly capture this phenomenon, unveiling the intricate 3D nature of cracks.

    • Michael D. Bartlett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Leggett modes can occur when superconductivity arises in more than one band in a material and represent oscillation of the relative phases of the two superconducting condensates. Now, this mode is observed in Cd3As2, a Dirac semimetal.

    • Joseph J. Cuozzo
    • , W. Yu
    •  & Enrico Rossi

  • Article |

    The occurrence of propagating spiral waves in multicellular organisms is associated with key biological functions. Now this type of wave has also been observed in dense bacterial populations, probably resulting from non-reciprocal cell–cell interactions.

    • Shiqi Liu
    • , Ye Li
    •  & Yilin Wu

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