Research articles

As the quark–gluon plasma is a short-lived state of matter, its properties cannot be measured directly. A Bayesian parameter estimation method now provides a reliable estimation of the temperature-dependent specific shear and bulk viscosities.

The proteins tasked with establishing polarity in a cell undergo reaction–diffusion dynamics that are shown here to impose a cell-size threshold on polarization. The limit may facilitate switching between symmetric and asymmetric modes of division.

Scanning tunnelling microscopy shows that electrons in twisted bilayer graphene are strongly correlated for a wide range of density. In particular, a correlated regime appears near charge neutrality and theory suggests nematic ordering.

Transport measurements on twisted bilayer graphene show that a large linear-in-temperature increase in resistivity exists for many twist angles. This may have implications for the mechanism of superconductivity in this material.

Modelling and microscopy of thousands of cells together reveal the coupling through which the cell cycle influences the circadian clock. This coupling may explain why mammalian tissues growing at different rates have shifted circadian rhythms.

Braiding by topological defects in an active nematic fluid produces macroscopic chaotic advection, such that the defects themselves act as effective stirring rods. The resultant mixing is revealed to be a result of sliding on a molecular scale.

Experiments with attosecond time resolution reveal many-body electron dynamics in transition metals before thermalization sets in. Ultrafast electronic localization on d orbitals is found to dominate the collective dynamic response of the system.

Three-dimensional spin–orbit coupling is synthesized for ultracold fermions trapped in optical Raman lattice. The band structure bearing a nodal-line semimetal character is reconstructed through a series measurement of spin textures.

At zero magnetic field, the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet NaYbO₂ shows the absence of long-range magnetic order down to 50 mK, consistent with quantum spin liquid behaviour. An external field renders the system a collinear ordered phase.

The Parker spiral—arising from the interaction between the Sun’s magnetic field with the solar wind—is recreated in the laboratory from a rapidly rotating plasma magnetosphere.

Virtual photons emitted from strong-interaction matter created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions decay into electron–positron pairs, which provide information about the system’s properties.

High harmonics are generated from a thin film by leveraging the epsilon-near-zero effect. These kinds of harmonic are found to exhibit a pronounced spectral redshift as well as linewidth broadening caused by the time-dependency of this effect.

A quantum two-level system can be coherently excited by a phase-locked dichromatic electromagnetic field. This technique can make single-photon generation more efficient as the pump light does not overlap in frequency with the emitted single photons.

Disorder present in monolayer NbSe₂ is found to be able to enhance its superconductivity. A systematic study reveals the origin—disorder-induced multifractality of the electron wavefunctions strengthens the local interactions.

A detailed neutron scattering and muon spin relaxation study uncovers a continuum of magnetic excitations down to 35 mK in the pyrochlore lattice compound Ce₂Zr₂O₇ with minimum chemical disorder, consistent with quantum spin liquid behaviour.

Potential Majorana bound states are seen in the vortex cores of a transition metal dichalcogenide. The properties of the superconductor mean that the bound states are highly anisotropic, and can appear at higher temperatures than other materials.

This investigation of the two-dimensional superconductor–insulator transition in NbSe₂ shows a strong dependence on the number of layers, and that fully dissipationless superconductivity is almost absent in the monolayer.

The authors predict that Berry flux can be spontaneously generated in a metal by plasmonic oscillations in response to illumination by light. They show that this topological ‘Berryogenesis’ can work in graphene.

Experiments report the generation and manipulation of eight photons on a silicon chip. Integrating linear and nonlinear photonic circuitry, three different boson sampling approaches are implemented and used to compute molecular vibronic spectra.

The authors demonstrate that individual atoms on a surface can be detected and distinguished from each other with subångström resolution using the electron spin resonance.