Weather extremes pose major societal risks, especially in a changing climate, but due to their rarity, they are difficult to study using limited observations or complex climate models. We introduce $\mathrm{AI}+\mathrm{RES}$, a framework coupling fast AI weather forecasts with a high-fidelity physics model using a rare-event algorithm to efficiently characterize extremes. This approach enables the study of the statistics and physics of very rare events, such as once per millennium heat waves at two orders-of-magnitude lower computational cost. $\mathrm{AI}+\mathrm{RES}$ can be applied broadly across climate science and other fields concerned with rare events.

We investigate thickness-dependent charge-density-wave (CDW) transitions in $1T\text{−}{\text{TaS}}_2$ using temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy and electrical transport. Raman measurements show that the incommensurate, nearly commensurate, and commensurate CDW phases persist down to the monolayer limit. As the thickness is reduced, the transition temperatures increase, accompanied by an orders-of-magnitude rise in sheet resistance and a sharp reduction in the carrier localization length. The first-order hysteretic commensurate CDW to nearly commensurate CDW transition is uniquely absent in the monolayer. Calculations suggest that the enhanced CDW in thin layers originates from strengthened Coulomb interactions due to reduced out-of-plane screening, particularly in the nonlocal component. These findings highlight the cooperative roles of electron correlation, electron-phonon interaction, and interlayer coupling in shaping the ground state and transition dynamics of atomically thin $1T\text{−}{\text{TaS}}_2$, opening pathways for engineering correlated phases in two-dimensional CDW systems.

Neutrino emission from nuclear reactors provides real-time insights into reactor power and fuel evolution, with potential applications in monitoring and nuclear safeguards. Following reactor shutdown, a low-intensity flux of “residual neutrinos” persists due to the decay of long-lived fission isotopes in the partially burnt fuel remaining within the reactor cores and in spent nuclear fuel stored in nearby cooling pools. The Double Chooz experiment at the Chooz B nuclear power plant in France achieved the first quantitative measurement of this residual flux based on 17.2 days of reactor-off data. In the energy range where the residual signal is most pronounced, the neutrino detector located 400 m from the cores recorded $106\pm 18$ neutrino candidate events ($5.9\sigma$ significance). This measurement is in excellent agreement with the predicted value of $88\pm 7$ events derived from detailed reactor simulations modeling the decay activities of fission products and incorporating the best-available models of neutrino spectra.

Neutral atom arrays have emerged as a powerful platform for quantum computation, simulation, and metrology. Among them, alkaline-earth-like atoms exhibit distinct advantages, including long coherence time, high-fidelity Rydberg gates, and erasure correction for efficient quantum error correction. However, their scalability has lagged behind that of the alkali atoms. Here, we report 2400 ytterbium-174 atoms trapped in an optical tweezer array with enhanced loading efficiency of 83.5(1)% via blue-detuned light-assisted collisions. We develop a quantitative model of the collision dynamics and find good agreement between the calculated inelastic collision rates and the experimentally measured loading efficiencies. Notably, the loading efficiency is largely maintained for array sizes ranging from dozens to thousands, exhibiting excellent scalability. We further demonstrate that the enhancement exists robustly across a range of interatomic potentials, suggesting its utility for other atomic species. To establish the capability of the ${}^{174}\mathrm{Yb}$ arrays toward universal quantum computation, we propose to encode the qubit in the ground-clock state manifold and estimate a 99.9% two-qubit gate fidelity with experimentally feasible parameters. Our work advances the prospects for realizing large-scale quantum computers using alkaline-earth-like atoms.

Emergent gauge fields and Coulomb liquids have long been central to the physics of frustrated pyrochlore magnets, yet their realization beyond conventional, i.e., rank-one U(1), spin ice and into fully quantum higher-rank regimes has remained elusive. Here we provide strong evidence for this physics in the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the breathing pyrochlore lattice with symmetry-allowed Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, using the pseudofermion functional renormalization group. We find a robust quantum analog of the rank-one U(1) Coulomb liquid together with compelling signatures of a putative quantum analog of the rank-two U(1) Coulomb liquid, distinguished by their characteristic multifold pinch-point morphologies in momentum space. This Letter therefore establishes a minimal three-dimensional setting in which signatures of gauge theories of different rank emerge within a single microscopic spin Hamiltonian. In addition, quantum fluctuations qualitatively reshape the classical nearest-neighbor atlas of phases, causing an incommensurate spiral instability and an extended nondipolar quantum paramagnetic regime, both absent in the classical model. Our results establish the breathing pyrochlore as a promising and experimentally relevant platform where higher-rank gauge constraints, conventional magnetic order, and fluctuation-driven quantum phases compete on equal footing, opening a direct route to diagnosing emergent gauge structure in three-dimensional quantum magnets.

We propose the sublattice currents in a compensated collinear magnetic system as a feasible route to odd-parity altermagnetism (ALM), where nonrelativistic collinear spin splitting occurs in the bands as an odd function of momentum. In contrast to previously classified ALMs, the sublattice currents break the time-reversal symmetry in the nonmagnetic crystal structure and allow for such odd-parity spin splitting. A representative example is the Haldane-Hubbard model at half filling. Although the compensated collinear magnetic ground state was previously recognized as antiferromagnetism, we show that it is actually an odd-parity ALM. Interestingly, its topological version serves as an example of an ALM Chern insulator. We further generalize the Haldane-Hubbard model to common two- and three-dimensional bipartite lattices. With spin splitting allowed by sublattice currents, the compensated collinear magnetic ground states at half filling are generally odd-parity ALM.

Quarks and gluons, as quantum particles, are subject to various effects that go beyond the naive parton picture and are not captured by ordinary parton densities. In this work, we investigate the twist-three parton distribution functions, which encode quantum interference between quark-gluon-quark states, and for the first time, determine them directly from experimental data. The analysis combines observables described by collinear and transverse-momentum–dependent factorization theorems within a unified global fit, incorporating a complete leading-order QCD evolution at the twist-three level. The extracted distributions reveal clear flavor-dependent patterns and are distinct from zero at a statistically significant level ($2-3\sigma$). These findings provide the first quantitative evidence for quark-gluon-quark correlations within the proton, revealing its genuinely quantum nature and opening a new direction for precision studies of partonic correlations.

The Landau rainbow offers a promising way for advanced multiplexed wave processing. However, current Landau rainbows are restricted with narrow $k$-space range of flat Landau levels. Meanwhile, given the promise of rainbow trapping for developing multiplexed elastic devices in integrated phononic networks, the realization of flat Landau rainbow in elastic systems—particularly in the ultrasonic regime—remains highly desirable. Here, we realize megahertz Landau rainbows in an elastic metamaterial by artificially synthesizing both pseudomagnetic fields (PMFs) and pseudoelectric fields (PEFs). Importantly, nonuniform PMFs are introduced to enhance the $k$-space range of the flat zeroth Landau levels that form the Landau rainbow. Multiplexed megahertz ultrasonic energy trappings enabled by the Landau rainbow are directly visualized via laser scanning technology, which agree well with the simulation results. Moreover, the unique field distributions of such Landau rainbows are shown to result from the mode profiles of the Landau levels with different group velocities. Our Letter not only offers a new recipe for engineering the Landau rainbow from Landau levels with enhanced flatness, but also paves the way for the development of elastic integrated devices with multiplexed wave preprocessing capacities.

The control of elastic waves on a chip is essential for next-generation signal processing and integrated acoustics. In this Letter, we experimentally demonstrate an on-chip elastic-wave rainbow capture effect. A topological rainbow emerges by introducing pseudomagnetic field and pseudoelectric fields through structural modulation, where the elastic Landau level modes of different frequencies are spatially separated at distinct positions on the same chip. Interestingly, such bulk rainbow can be captured by the topological chiral edge states originated from the pseudo-magnetic field. We directly measure the rainbow distribution and the ensuing rainbow capture of elastic waves in a silicon-based phononic chip. Our Letter establishes a functional bridge between the bulk rainbow and topological edge states, offering new possibilities for designing the multifrequency devices of elastic waves.

We report on a blinded search for dark matter (DM) using ionization-only (S2-only) signals in XENONnT with a total exposure of $7.83\text{Tonne-year}$ over 579 days in three science runs. Dedicated background suppression techniques and the first complete S2-only background model in XENONnT provide sensitivity to nuclear recoils of $[0.5,5.0]{\mathrm{keV}}_{\mathrm{nr}}$ and electronic recoils of $[0.04,0.7]{\mathrm{keV}}_{\mathrm{ee}}$. No significant excess over the expected background is observed, and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on spin-independent DM-nucleon and spin-dependent DM-neutron scattering for DM masses between 3 and $8\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$, as well as on DM-electron scattering, axionlike particles, and dark photons, improving on previous constraints. For spin-independent DM-nucleon scattering, we exclude cross sections above $6.0\times {10}^{-45}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ at a DM mass of $5\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$, pushing the XENONnT sensitivity closer to the region where coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering becomes an irreducible background.

We demonstrate a turbulence mechanism that reconciles high plasma confinement with efficient heat exhaust—a central challenge for fusion energy. Global two-fluid turbulence simulations of the reactor-relevant quasicontinuous exhaust regime on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak reveal that a quasicoherent mode drives mesoscopic oscillations of the pedestal boundary across the magnetic separatrix and ejects ballistic filaments (blobs), reproducing both the mean profiles and turbulent fluctuations observed experimentally. This behavior arises from a synergistic interplay between kinetic ballooning modes and resistive X-point modes straddling the separatrix. These first-principles results place extrapolations to future fusion reactors on a firm physical footing.

The quantum theory of the electromagnetic field enables the description of multiphoton states exhibiting nonclassical statistical properties, often reflected in non-Gaussian phase-space distributions. While non-Gaussianity alone does not fully characterize quantum states, several classifications have been proposed to hierarchize non-Gaussian states according to physically or informationally relevant resources. Here, we provide a physical interpretation of non-Gaussianity and connect it to a computational perspective by showing how a prominent classification—the stellar rank—emerges as a limiting case of the roots of polynomials that univocally represent bosonic states defined with a quantized phase reference, namely the Majorana polynomials. A direct consequence of our results is a revised interpretation of both the stellar rank and non-Gaussianity itself: when superselection rules are properly taken into account, quadrature non-Gaussianity—and nonzero stellar rank—act as witnesses of particle entanglement, rather than being linked with photon addition to Gaussian states as previously assumed. In addition, we show that, because the stellar rank depends on a specific choice of coherent states, its relation to computational resources and potential quantum advantage is inherently basis dependent, being naturally tied to quadrature eigenstates as the computational basis. Motivated by this observation, we generalize the notion of stellar rank to arbitrary computational bases, thereby establishing it as a genuine witness of bosonic resources that may enable quantum advantage.

We report a Si-CMOS-compatible photodiode for room temperature short-wavelength infrared detection. The architecture integrates Te-hyperdoped silicon with light-trapping structures to achieve a breakthrough in sub-band-gap efficiency. Specifically, by combining surface texturing and a back reflector, we boost absorptance to $\approx 85\%$, enabling the observation of transport dynamics at room temperature that were previously obscured in planar devices. We report a peak external quantum efficiency of 2.3% at $1.27\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{m}$, exceeding commercial Si-PIN performance by 3 orders of magnitude. The physical origin of this enhancement is attributed to bias-assisted tunneling between the Te impurity band and the Si valence band, evidenced by a distinct spectral shoulder at 0.4–0.6 eV. Our results, supported by a specific detectivity of $4\times {10}^{10}{\mathrm{cmHz}}^{1/2}{\mathrm{W}}^{-1}$ and $32\mathrm{\mu }\mathrm{s}$ response times, establish hyperdoped silicon as a viable platform for high-performance, room temperature SWIR photonics.

Ensembles of atoms interacting via their Rydberg levels, known as “superatoms” for their ability to encode qubits and to emit single photons, attract increasing attention as building blocks for quantum network nodes. Assessing their performance requires an accurate, physically informative, and numerically scalable description of interactions in a large and disordered ensemble. We derive such a description from first principles and successfully test it against brute-force numerics and experimental data. This model proves essential to make quantitative predictions about gate fidelities or photon emission efficiencies and to guide experiments toward large-scale superatom-based systems.

The quantum Hall effect and topological insulators have sparked significant interest in the investigation of topological photonics, mechanics, and acoustics with the objective of realizing robust topological one-way states. However, diffusion, such as heat transport, neither responds to magnetic fields nor possesses intrinsic spin, and is therefore devoid of propagation characteristics typical of wave dynamic fields. Accordingly, the identification of Chern or topological insulators within a diffusive context has long been considered challenging, if not impossible. Here, we propose a thermal analog of the Haldane model that supports one-way transport of heat. We endow the temperature field with a degree of freedom corresponding to the wave function’s phase, and demonstrate that complex couplings can be effectively synthesized by tailoring intralayer and interlayer hopping. Furthermore, we have fabricated the thermal Haldane lattice by incorporating actively controlled, programmable thermal sources, and experimentally observed the evidence of thermal chiral edge states. This Letter may offer insights into the flexible and robust manipulation of heat and mass transfer.

Topological insulators, including the first-order and higher-order topological insulators, drive transformative advances in condensed-matter physics and material sciences. Although nonzero first-order topological indices (e.g., Chern and spin-Chern numbers) fundamentally render the conventional higher-order topological indices ill-defined, first-order topological systems can still support higher-order topological corner states as Jackiw-Rebbi-type modes from edge band topologies. Here, by contrast, we experimentally implement a distinct relative-polarization mechanism and realize higher-order topological corner states embedded in first-order topological bands using an acoustic spin-Chern insulator. The higher-order topology in our system originates from the quantized differences in spin-resolved bulk polarizations at domain walls, notwithstanding the ill definition of the polarizations themselves in the crystal bulk due to the nonzero spin-Chern numbers. As a result, topological corner states emerge, coexisting with helical edge states within the same bulk band gap. Our Letter evidences a polarization-difference-induced higher-order topology embedded in first-order topological bands and may facilitate the development of topological devices in acoustics.

Altermagnets break a combination of time-reversal and rotational symmetries without generating a net magnetization. As such, the order parameter of $d$-wave altermagnets has the same symmetry as magnetic multipoles and couples to the product of a magnetic field and uniaxial strain. We combine elastocaloric experiments, free-energy modeling, and first-principles calculations on ${\mathrm{MnF}}_2$ to establish a thermodynamic probe of the predicted finite-temperature altermagnetic critical point. These results pave the way to explore altermagnetic quantum criticality in $d$-wave materials and beyond.

The synthetic frequency dimension, which realizes fictitious spatial dimensions from the spectral degree of freedom, has emerged as a promising platform for engineering artificial gauge fields in studying quantum simulations and topological physics with photons. A current central task for frequency-domain photons is the creation and manipulation of nontrivial non-Abelian field strength tensors and to observe their governing dynamics. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a minimal scheme for creating non-Abelian electric fields in a photonic frequency chain using a polarization-multiplexed, time-modulated ring resonator. By engineering spin-orbit coupling via modulation phase offset, polarization rotation, and polarization retardation, we achieve programmable control over synthetic Floquet bands and their quasimomentum spin-resolved textures. Leveraging self-heterodyne coherent detection, we demonstrate Zitterbewegung—a trembling motion of photons—induced by non-Abelian electric fields on the frequency chain. We further observe the interference between Zitterbewegung and Bloch oscillations arising from the coexistence of non-Abelian and Abelian electric fields. Our Letter bridges synthetic dimensions with non-Abelian gauge theory for versatile photonic emulation of relativistic quantum mechanics and spinor dynamics and can be instrumental in applications like frequency-domain optical computation and multimodal frequency comb control.

In this Letter, we consider constraints on the low-energy spectrum of scalar amplitudes with higher-spin exchanges. Assuming unitarity, crossing symmetry, and superconvergent high energy behavior, we demonstrate that the spectrum that maximizes the leading higher spin couplings of the second and third resonances is consistently given by a linear trajectory. We work strictly in ten dimensions although we expect analysis in other dimensions to be similar. For gravitational theories, the optimal spectrum is the linear trajectory defined by the mass and spin of the graviton and the lightest spin-4 resonance.

The Nernst effect in superconductors is typically linked to fluctuating Cooper pairs above $T_c$ or vortex motion below $T_c$. We show instead that Berry curvature of Bogoliubov quasiparticles can generate an intrinsic Nernst response in a clean, vortex-free superconducting state. Focusing on two-dimensional systems with Ising spin-orbit coupling, relevant to transition-metal dichalcogenides, we identify two regimes: an intervalley $s$-wave paired state where a weak magnetic field activates the effect, and an intravalley chiral $p$-wave paired state that exhibits a spontaneous charge or spin Nernst response without a field. We propose an experimental setup that circumvents screening and provide estimates of the signal magnitude. Our results establish the Nernst effect as a direct probe of Berry curvature and pairing symmetry in two-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled superconductors.