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A combination of detailed photoelectron spectroscopy measurements and numerical simulations reveal the presence of so-called Dirac node arcs in the electronic structure of PtSn4.
It takes extreme sensitivity to measure the elementary excitations in liquid helium-4. An optomechanical cavity with a thin film of superfluid inside can be used to both observe and control phonons in real time.
A magnetic analogue of the Poole–Frenkel effect shows that magnetic monopole quasiparticles in a spin ice behave similar to electrons in a semiconductor, with an attractive Coulomb force acting between positive and negative monopoles.
Non-classical states of light, such as squeezed states, are used in quantum metrology to improve the sensitivity of mechanical motion sensing, but conversely mechanical oscillations can enhance the measurement of squeezed light.
Experiments combining dynamic and static light scattering have probed a colloidal hard-sphere system for the formation of dynamical and structural heterogeneities, which play a role in both forms of solidification: crystallization and vitrification.
Defects affect materials’ properties. A method is now presented for studying dynamic processes during the growth of thin films — specifically, the evolution of defects — based on the coherent mixing of bulk and surface X-ray scattering signals.
The change in pitch of a passing car engine is a classic example of the translational Doppler effect, but rotational Doppler shifts can also arise, as shown for circularly polarized light passing through a spinning nonlinear optical crystal.
Atoms in optical lattices are interesting for quantum technologies but engineering entanglement between atom pairs is difficult. Using the double-well potentials of a superlattice, the generation and detection of entanglement is more straightforward.
Entanglement in many-body systems is notoriously hard to quantify, but in certain situations relevant to atomic and condensed-matter experiments an entanglement witness, the quantum Fisher information, becomes measurable by means of the dynamic susceptibility.
Aspects of the disordered Bose–Hubbard model, such as the Bose glass–superfluid transition, are still incompletely understood, but this can now be probed in an ultracold atomic gas in an optical lattice using controlled quantum quenches of disorder.
Using a frequency-comb nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy technique it is possible to probe the fluctuations in the nuclear spin bath of a self-assembled quantum dot and reveal long nuclear spin correlation times over one second.
Josephson junctions incorporating ferromagnetic spin valves are shown to be switchable between the 0 and π states, opening up interesting wider implications for possible devices.
When general relativity is included in large-scale simulations of the cosmic structure of the Universe, relativistic effects turn out to be small but measurable, thus providing tests for models of dark matter and dark energy.
Multidimensional protein-folding dynamics are often probed experimentally by projecting into a single dimension. Single-molecule experiments now verify the idea that folding can be understood in terms of one-dimensional diffusion over a landscape.
Segregation between binding and non-binding proteins in the space between cells is critical for immune response. In vitro experiments show that size alone suffices to explain the exclusion of non-binding proteins from membrane interfaces.
The stability of a large class of elemental knots and links to so-called reconnections is studied numerically using the Gross–Pitaevskii model for a superfluid, demonstrating that they universally untie.
Spin–orbit coupling in two dimensions is essential for observing topological phases in ultracold atoms. Such a coupling was produced in a gas of potassium atoms and a robust Dirac point was observed in the energy dispersions of the dressed atoms.
Coherent valley exciton dynamics are directly probed in a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide, providing access to the valley coherence time and decoherence mechanisms — crucial for developing methods for manipulating the valley pseudospin.
The magnetic response of nanoparticles made from wide-bandgap oxides that don’t contain any magnetic cations is somewhat of a mystery. Experiments with CeO2 suggest that the origin may be due to vacuum fluctuations.
Rogue waves have been observed in fluids and other wave contexts. Experiments now show the formation of 3D acoustic rogue waves in dusty plasmas; they result from wave–particle interactions driving the dust particles into high-amplitude dynamics.