Topological spin textures, such as merons and skyrmions, have shown significance in both fundamental science and practical applications across diverse physical systems. The optical skyrmionic textures in real space have been extensively explored, but those in momentum space are still rarely studied. Here, we report the experimental generation of momentum-space meron spin textures via bound states in the continuum (BICs) in photonic crystal slabs. We show that under circularly polarized illumination, the momentum-space vortex topology of BICs can transform light with meron spin textures in momentum space. These merons exhibit polarity-switchable configurations controlled by incident light polarization. We theoretically and experimentally verify the generation of momentum-space merons and demonstrate their operational flexibility across a broad spectral range. Our results establish a connection between different momentum-space topologies and provide a robust and compact platform for generating topological spin textures.

Cosmic rays are deemed to be generated by a process known as “Fermi acceleration” in which charged particles scatter against magnetic fluctuations in astrophysical plasmas. The process itself is, however, universal, has both classical and quantum formulations, and is at the basis of dynamical systems with interesting mathematical properties, such as the celebrated Fermi-Ulam model. Despite its effectiveness in accelerating particles, Fermi acceleration has so far eluded unambiguous verifications in laboratory settings. Here, we realize a fully controllable Fermi accelerator by colliding ultracold atoms against engineered movable potential barriers. We demonstrate that our Fermi accelerator, which is only $100\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$ in size, can produce ultracold atomic jets with velocities above $0.5\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}$. Adding dissipation, we also experimentally test Bell’s general argument for the ensuing energy spectra, which is at the basis of any model of cosmic ray acceleration. On the one hand, our Letter effectively opens the window to the use of cold atoms to study phenomena relevant for high energy astrophysics. On the other, the performance of our Fermi accelerator is competitive with those of best-in-class accelerating methods used in quantum technology and quantum colliders, but with substantially simpler implementation and no fundamental physics limit.

Two-dimensional topological insulators are characterized by an insulating bulk and conductive edge states protected by the nontrivial topology of the bulk electronic structure. They remain robust against moderate disorder until Anderson localization occurs and destroys the topological phase. Interestingly, disorder can also induce a topological phase—known as a topological Anderson insulator—starting from an otherwise pristine trivial phase. While topological invariants are generally regarded as global quantities, we argue that space-resolved topological markers can act as local order parameters, revealing the role of fluctuations and correlations in the local topology under Anderson disorder and vacancies. With this perspective, we perform numerical simulations of disorder-driven topological phase transitions in the Haldane and Kane-Mele models, using supercells with both open and periodic boundary conditions. We find that short-scale fluctuations of topological markers vanish upon coarse graining, except at the topological phase transition, where their correlation length peaks and large-scale fluctuations remain. Notably, such a topological correlation function is characterized by critical exponents that appear universal across disorder types, yet they can resolve different topological phase transitions.

Quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetimes predicts the amplification of field excitations and the occurrence of classical and quantum correlations, as in the Hawking effect for example. This raises interest in experiments in which the curvature of spacetime can be controlled and amplification measured, as in fluids going from subsonic to supersonic speeds where acoustic excitations are effectively trapped inside an acoustic horizon. Quantum fluctuations of the acoustic field are predicted to yield entangled emission across the horizon, as in black holes. Here, we introduce such a QFT simulator in a one-dimensional polaritonic fluid of light. We demonstrate the unique tunability of our system by engineering smooth and steep horizons, which respectively have quasithermal, but weak, and strong Hawking radiation. We measure the spectrum on either side of the horizon and evidence the excitation of negative energy waves in fluids of light for the first time. Notably, we explicitly show that, beyond phononic excitations as in other systems, our simulator also supports excitations with a massive, relativistic dispersion. In the future, quantum optics techniques offer the possibility to measure entanglement in unexplored regimes, giving insight in this outstanding prediction of relativistic QFT.

Understanding how statistical equilibrium can occur in out-of-equilibrium systems is of paramount interest, as it would enable the use of statistical mechanics tools to these systems. Here, we report the first experimental evidence of statistical equilibrium of the large scales of hydroelastic turbulent waves driven by small-scale random forcing. The wave field statistics at scales larger than the forcing scale, resolved in space and time, align well with the predictions of Rayleigh-Jeans equilibrium spectra over more than a decade. We measure zero net energy flux in this regime, as expected. We also determine the effective temperature, entropy, and heat capacity of this nonequilibrium system, demonstrating that classical thermodynamic concepts apply to describe large scales in statistical equilibrium of turbulent systems.

We demonstrate that the effective internal entropy of quasiparticles within the non-Abelian fractional quantum Hall effect manifests in the heat current through a tunneling barrier. We derive the electric current and heat current resulting from voltage and heat biases of the junction, taking into account the quasiparticles’ internal entropy. We find that when the tunneling processes are dominated by quasiparticle tunneling of one type of charge, the effective internal entropy can be inferred from the measurement of the heat current and the charge current. Our methods may be used to conclusively identify non-Abelian quasiparticles, such as the anyons that emerge in the $\nu =5/2$ fractional quantum Hall state.

Knowledge of the pressure of cold and dense quark matter is known to significantly constrain the equation of state of neutron-star matter, a quantity playing a key role in deciphering the stars’ internal structure. In this Letter, we make important progress toward determining the last unknown contribution to the pressure at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant ${\alpha }_s$, available through the sum of all four-loop vacuum diagrams of dense quantum chromodynamics. We demonstrate the cancellation of both the covariant gauge parameter and all infrared divergences in the sum, showcasing the effective-field-theory paradigm in action. For the remaining infrared-finite four-loop integrals, we demonstrate the efficacy of the dense loop tree duality method—a novel numerical framework for multiloop calculations in thermal field theory. Together, our results show that completing the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order pressure of cold quark matter is no longer merely possible but for the first time within reach.

Quantum stochastic rectification arises from the dc response of a system subjected to both quantum noise and a small, periodic sinusoidal voltage modulation. In this Letter, we demonstrate quantum stochastic rectification by using inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy with a scanning tunneling microscope to monitor the conformational switching of a single pyrrolidine molecule adsorbed on a Cu(001) surface. By applying quasistatic and nonequilibrium approximations, we elucidate the underlying dynamic response mechanisms. Additionally, we establish a quantitative relationship between the critical driving frequency in rectification measurements and the system’s relaxation time, facilitating the measurement of rapid relaxation rates in single molecules.

Historically, amorphous solid water (ASW) films have been created by physical vapor deposition both naturally on interstellar particles and in the laboratory. The present study focuses on the role of the mobile surface layer, which can be observed during vapor deposition and characterized by dielectric relaxation techniques. It is shown that the mobility of the surface layer can determine whether an as-deposited film is porous (p-ASW), collapsed (c-ASW), or crystallized to cubic ice ($I_c$). The latter case occurs when the fictive temperature of the surface reaches deep into the so-called “no man’s land”, whereas the actual temperature remains below that of the glass transition at $T_{\mathrm{g}}$. The dynamics of this surface layer is independent of deposition temperature in the 15 to 120 K range.

We identify hydrogen ordering in ${\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$ ices spectroscopically in the near-infrared (NIR) range ($10000–4000{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1}/1–2.5\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$) based on the example of ices V/XIII. Previously it was thought that hydrogen ordering can only be revealed on the basis of lattice phonons, i.e., intermolecular vibrations. Here we show differences in the overtone spectrum of the intramolecular OH-stretching vibration. This makes NIR spectroscopy the first remote sensing method that is sensitive to different orientations of the water dipoles within ice. As such it will allow for future observations of the hydrogen order of ices in space by the James-Webb Space Telescope or the JUICE mission.

Fermionic dark matter absorption on nuclear targets via neutral current interactions is explored using a nonrelativistic effective field theory framework. An analysis of data from the PICO-60 ${\mathrm{C}}_3{\mathrm{F}}_8$ bubble chamber sets leading constraints on spin-independent absorption for dark matter masses below $23\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$ and establishes the first limits on spin-dependent absorptive interactions. These results demonstrate the sensitivity of bubble chambers to low-mass dark matter and underscore the importance of absorption searches in expanding the parameter space of direct detection experiments.

We report results of a search for nuclear recoils induced by weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter using the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) two-phase xenon time projection chamber. This analysis uses a total exposure of $4.2\pm 0.1$ tonne-years from 280 live days of LZ operation, of which $3.3\pm 0.1$ tonne-years and 220 live days are new. A technique to actively tag background electronic recoils from ${}^{214}\mathrm{Pb}$ $\beta$ decays is featured for the first time. Enhanced electron-ion recombination is observed in two-neutrino double electron capture decays of ${}^{124}\mathrm{Xe}$, representing a noteworthy new background. After removal of artificial signal-like events injected into the dataset to mitigate analyzer bias, we find no evidence for an excess over expected backgrounds. World-leading constraints are placed on spin-independent (SI) and spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon cross sections for masses $\ge 9\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$. The strongest SI exclusion set is $2.2\times {10}^{-48}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ at the 90% confidence level and the best SI median sensitivity achieved is $5.1\times {10}^{-48}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$, both for a mass of $40\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$.

Internal gravity waves are an essential feature of stratified media, such as oceans and atmospheres. To investigate their dynamics, we perform simulations of the forced-dissipated kinetic equation describing the evolution of the energy spectrum of weakly nonlinear internal gravity waves. During the early evolution, three well-known nonlocal interactions, the elastic scattering, the induced diffusion, and the parametric subharmonic instability, together with a superharmonic resonance play a prominent role. In contrast, local interactions are responsible for anisotropic energy cascade on longer timescales. We reveal emergence of a condensate at small horizontal wave vectors that can be interpreted as a pure wave-wave interaction-mediated layering process.

The Rabi oscillation effect, which is among the most celebrated quantum phenomena arising from the wave nature of matter, has been widely studied in two-level quantum systems, superconductors, Bose-Einstein condensates, and photonic crystals. Here we show that the Rabi oscillation can be achieved in a laser-plasma system, in which a femtosecond probe laser pulse interacts with a defective plasma photonic crystal (PPC). The defective PPC is formed in underdense plasma irradiated by two groups of two-color driver laser pulses. By changing the plasma and driver laser parameters, the photonic band structure of defective PPCs as well as the Rabi oscillation frequency of a trapped probe laser pulse can be tuned flexibly. Moreover, the Rabi oscillation may result in the ladder climbing of trapped laser intensity by use of multiple probe pulses in the defective PPC. This not only provides a novel plasma optical approach to investigate the Rabi oscillation in a new system, but also offers a new route to manipulate the propagation of intense laser pulses for various applications.

The diversity of 2D materials and their van der Waals (vdW) stacking presents fertile ground for engineering novel multifunctional materials and quantum states of matter. This permits unique opportunities to tailor the electronic properties of vdW heterostructures by the insertion of only a single 2D material layer. However, such vdW materials engineering at the atomic scale has yet to be investigated for spin-charge interconversion phenomena. Here, we report on the control of these effects at the monolayer level, where a drastic increase in intensity and change in sign of THz spintronic emission are demonstrated by inserting a single layer of ${\mathrm{MoSe}}_2$ between ${\mathrm{PtSe}}_2$ and graphene in a fully epitaxial, large area stacked structure. By using a combination of spin and angle resolved photoemission and density functional theory to reveal the electronic and spin structures, we illustrate two different mechanisms relying on charge transfer and electronic hybridization for the formation of Rashba states, which are responsible for spin-charge conversion and hence the THz spintronic emission. These findings open new pathways to design, at the atomic scale, efficient THz spintronic emitters made of 2D materials and other spintronic devices based on spin-charge interconversion phenomena.

The Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation stating the equivalence of emissivity and absorptivity at the same wavelength, angle, and polarization, has completely constrained emission and absorption processes. Achieving strong nonreciprocal emission points to fundamental advances for applications such as energy harvesting, heat transfer, and sensing, but strong nonreciprocal thermal emission has not been experimentally realized. Here, we observe strong nonreciprocal thermal emission using a custom-designed angle-resolved magnetic thermal emission spectroscopy and an epitaxially transferred gradient-doped metamaterial. We show that under magnetic field, the metamaterial strongly breaks Kirchhoff’s law, with a difference between emissivity and absorptivity at the same wavelength and angle reaching as high as 0.43. Significant nonreciprocal emission persists over broad spectral and angular ranges. The demonstration of strong nonreciprocal thermal emission and the approach can be useful for systematic exploration of nonreciprocal thermal photonics for thermal management, infrared camouflage, and energy conversion.

Fermionic superfluid junctions typically exhibit suppressed thermal and spin transport due to the presence of a pairing gap but allow coherent particle transport. While dissipation generally weakens coherent transport, it can also induce excitations that open other transport channels. In this work, we experimentally study a one-dimensional superfluid junction of strongly interacting fermions with local particle loss and observe dissipation-induced thermal and spin transport that appear to saturate at strong dissipation. Notably, in this regime, the measured thermal and spin conductances are comparable to the universal quantized conductance of one-dimensional ideal Fermi gas. Qualitatively similar behavior is observed for two dissipation mechanisms, either spin-imbalanced or pairwise losses. Our findings provide new insights into transport in interacting open quantum systems and suggest possibilities of dissipative control of spin and thermoelectric transport.

Feature-learning deep nets progressively collapse data to a regular low-dimensional geometry. How this emerges from the collective action of nonlinearity, noise, learning rate, and other factors, has eluded first-principles theories built from microscopic neuronal dynamics. We exhibit a noise–nonlinearity phase diagram that identifies regimes where shallow or deep layers learn more effectively and propose a macroscopic mechanical theory that reproduces the diagram and links feature learning across layers to generalization.

Multivariate information theory provides a general and principled framework for understanding how the components of a system are connected. Existing analyses are coarse in nature—built up from characterizations of discrete subsystems—and can be computationally prohibitive. In this work, we propose to study the continuous space of possible descriptions of a composite system as a window into its organizational structure. A description consists of specific information conveyed about each of the components, and the space of possible descriptions is equivalent to the space of lossy compression schemes of the components. We introduce a machine-learning framework to optimize descriptions that extremize key information theoretic quantities used to characterize organization, such as total correlation and O-information. Through case studies on spin systems, sudoku boards, and letter sequences from natural language, we identify extremal descriptions that reveal how system-wide variation emerges from individual components. By integrating machine learning into a fine-grained information theoretic analysis of composite random variables, our framework opens a new avenues for probing the structure of real-world complex systems.

Quantum Hall Fabry-Pérot interferometers are sensitive to the properties of bulk quasiparticles enclosed by the interferometer loop, with the interference phase containing information about both the quasiparticle statistics and the Coulomb-mediated bulk-edge coupling. Previous studies have explored the role of the bulk-edge coupling in an equilibrium picture where quasiparticles enter and exit the interferometer rapidly compared to the timescale over which the interferometer phase is measured. Here, we present data from a monolayer graphene quantum Hall interferometer in the integer quantum Hall regime at $\nu =-1$ and $\nu =-2$. Quantum interference shows phase slips associated with the entrance of quasiparticles to the interferometer bulk. Tracing the dependence of these phase slips on the magnetic field, we show that the equilibration time can become as long as several minutes. We further use our multigated geometry to identify two classes of phase slips. The first is associated with the addition of a quasiparticle to a bulk “puddle” of quasiparticles uniformly coupled to the entire chiral edge state, while the second is associated with the addition of a quasiparticle trapped by a defect site that couples predominantly to the closest portion of the edge.