Volume 113, Issue 9

29 August 2014

Browse Issues:

On the Cover

Optical detection of contact points (bright spots) for the propagation of acoustic waves within a monolayer of compressed translucent disks in four different crystal structures.

From the article:

Revealing the Structure of a Granular Medium through Ballistic Sound Propagation
S. Lherminier, R. Planet, G. Simon, L. Vanel, and O. Ramos
Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 098001 (2014)

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Proposal for the Creation and Optical Detection of Spin Cat States in Bose-Einstein Condensates

Hon Wai Lau, Zachary Dutton, Tian Wang, and Christoph Simon

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090401 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

An experimental scheme is put forward that would allow macroscopic quantum superposition states to be created from hundreds of atoms in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Constraining the Equation of State of Neutron Stars from Binary Mergers

Kentaro Takami, Luciano Rezzolla, and Luca Baiotti

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091104 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

The spectrum of gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers can be used to discern information on the stars’ equation of state.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Matrix Product States for Gauge Field Theories

Boye Buyens, Jutho Haegeman, Karel Van Acoleyen, Henri Verschelde, and Frank Verstraete

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091601 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

The authors demonstrate that matrix product states, a construction used in condensed matter physics to describe the quantum state of many particles, can be used for real-time simulations of a gauge theory.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Generation of Macroscopic Singlet States in a Cold Atomic Ensemble

N. Behbood, F. Martin Ciurana, G. Colangelo, M. Napolitano, Géza Tóth, R. J. Sewell, and M. W. Mitchell

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093601 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

A spin entangled system of more than a million laser cooled atoms has been created using spin measurements along three orthogonal axes – the first measurement-induced spin squeezing to a singlet state.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Laboratory Study of Magnetic Reconnection with a Density Asymmetry across the Current Sheet

Jongsoo Yoo, Masaaki Yamada, Hantao Ji, Jonathan Jara-Almonte, Clayton E. Myers, and Li-Jen Chen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095002 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Magnetic reconnection - where magnetic energy is converted into kinetic energy and particle acceleration - is studied with a density asymmetry in a laboratory plasma for the first time.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Room-Temperature High-Frequency Transport of Dirac Fermions in Epitaxially Grown ${Sb}_{2} {Te}_{3}$ - and ${Bi}_{2} {Te}_{3}$ -Based Topological Insulators

P. Olbrich, L. E. Golub, T. Herrmann, S. N. Danilov, H. Plank, V. V. Bel’kov, G. Mussler, Ch. Weyrich, C. M. Schneider, J. Kampmeier, D. Grützmacher, L. Plucinski, M. Eschbach, and S. D. Ganichev

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096601 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Terahertz radiation induces a dc electric current in 3D topological insulators, due to the asymmetric scattering of fermions by the field. The current is generated only in the surface electrons, allowing surface and bulk electron transport to be independently studied.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Mechanisms of Elastic Enhancement and Hindrance for Finite-Length Undulatory Swimmers in Viscoelastic Fluids

Becca Thomases and Robert D. Guy

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 098102 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Both swimmer elasticity and stroke asymmetry can lead to faster swimming in low Reynolds number swimmers. A substantial boost is seen if these two effects work in tandem.

LETTERS

General Physics: Statistical and Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Information, etc.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Proposal for the Creation and Optical Detection of Spin Cat States in Bose-Einstein Condensates

Hon Wai Lau, Zachary Dutton, Tian Wang, and Christoph Simon

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090401 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

An experimental scheme is put forward that would allow macroscopic quantum superposition states to be created from hundreds of atoms in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates.

Compressive Direct Measurement of the Quantum Wave Function

Mohammad Mirhosseini, Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, Seyed Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Robert W. Boyd

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090402 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

How Difficult Is It to Prove the Quantumness of Macroscropic States?

Pavel Sekatski, Nicolas Gisin, and Nicolas Sangouard

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090403 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Applying the Simplest Kochen-Specker Set for Quantum Information Processing

Gustavo Cañas, Mauricio Arias, Sebastián Etcheverry, Esteban S. Gómez, Adán Cabello, Guilherme B. Xavier, and Gustavo Lima

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090404 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Dynamic Ultraslow Optical-Matter Wave Analog of an Event Horizon

C. J. Zhu, L. Deng, E. W. Hagley, and Mo-Lin Ge

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090405 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Variational Approach to Enhanced Sampling and Free Energy Calculations

Omar Valsson and Michele Parrinello

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 090601 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Gravitation and Astrophysics

No-Go Theorems for Unitary and Interacting Partially Massless Spin-Two Fields

Euihun Joung, Wenliang Li, and Massimo Taronna

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091101 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Chiral Mass-Gap in Curved Space

Antonino Flachi and Kenji Fukushima

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091102 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Flavor Composition of the High-Energy Neutrino Events in IceCube

Olga Mena, Sergio Palomares-Ruiz, and Aaron C. Vincent

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091103 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Constraining the Equation of State of Neutron Stars from Binary Mergers

Kentaro Takami, Luciano Rezzolla, and Luca Baiotti

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091104 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

The spectrum of gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers can be used to discern information on the stars’ equation of state.

Elementary Particles and Fields

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Matrix Product States for Gauge Field Theories

Boye Buyens, Jutho Haegeman, Karel Van Acoleyen, Henri Verschelde, and Frank Verstraete

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091601 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Metal-Insulator Transition by Holographic Charge Density Waves

Yi Ling, Chao Niu, Jian-Pin Wu, Zhuo-Yu Xian, and Hongbao Zhang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091602 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Hagedorn Instability in Dimensionally Reduced Large- $N$ Gauge Theories as Gregory-Laflamme and Rayleigh-Plateau Instabilities

Takehiro Azuma, Takeshi Morita, and Shingo Takeuchi

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091603 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Electroweak Symmetry Breaking via QCD

Jisuke Kubo, Kher Sham Lim, and Manfred Lindner

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091604 (2014) - Published 29 August, 2014

Neutrino Trident Production: A Powerful Probe of New Physics with Neutrino Beams

Wolfgang Altmannshofer, Stefania Gori, Maxim Pospelov, and Itay Yavin

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 091801 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Model Independent Determination of the Gluon Condensate in Four Dimensional SU(3) Gauge Theory

Gunnar S. Bali, Clemens Bauer, and Antonio Pineda

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 092001 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Nuclear Physics

Beam Energy Dependence of Moments of the Net-Charge Multiplicity Distributions in $Au + Au$ Collisions at RHIC

L. Adamczyk et al. (STAR Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 092301 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

Hindered Gamow-Teller Decay to the Odd-Odd $N = Z$ ${}^{62}{Ga}$ : Absence of Proton-Neutron $T = 0$ Condensate in $A = 62$

E. Grodner et al.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 092501 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Generation of Macroscopic Singlet States in a Cold Atomic Ensemble

N. Behbood, F. Martin Ciurana, G. Colangelo, M. Napolitano, Géza Tóth, R. J. Sewell, and M. W. Mitchell

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093601 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Dynamical Casimir Effect Entangles Artificial Atoms

S. Felicetti, M. Sanz, L. Lamata, G. Romero, G. Johansson, P. Delsing, and E. Solano

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093602 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Near-Unity Coupling Efficiency of a Quantum Emitter to a Photonic Crystal Waveguide

M. Arcari, I. Söllner, A. Javadi, S. Lindskov Hansen, S. Mahmoodian, J. Liu, H. Thyrrestrup, E. H. Lee, J. D. Song, S. Stobbe, and P. Lodahl

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093603 (2014) - Published 29 August, 2014

Nonlinear Dynamics, Fluid Dynamics, Classical Optics, etc.

Manifestation of $P T$ Symmetry Breaking in Polarization Space with Terahertz Metasurfaces

Mark Lawrence, Ningning Xu, Xueqian Zhang, Longqing Cong, Jiaguang Han, Weili Zhang, and Shuang Zhang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093901 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Quantum-Memory Effects in the Emission of Quantum-Dot Microcavities

C. Berger, U. Huttner, M. Mootz, M. Kira, S. W. Koch, J.-S. Tempel, M. Aßmann, M. Bayer, A. M. Mintairov, and J. L. Merz

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093902 (2014) - Published 29 August, 2014

Direct Numerical Investigation of Turbulence of Capillary Waves

Yulin Pan and Dick K. P. Yue

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 094501 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Plasma and Beam Physics

Microbunching Instability in Relativistic Electron Bunches: Direct Observations of the Microstructures Using Ultrafast YBCO Detectors

E. Roussel, C. Evain, C. Szwaj, S. Bielawski, J. Raasch, P. Thoma, A. Scheuring, M. Hofherr, K. Ilin, S. Wünsch, M. Siegel, M. Hosaka, N. Yamamoto, Y. Takashima, H. Zen, T. Konomi, M. Adachi, S. Kimura, and M. Katoh

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 094801 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Analogous Saturation Mechanisms of the Ion and Electron Temperature Gradient Drift Wave Turbulence

V. Sokolov and A. K. Sen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095001 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Laboratory Study of Magnetic Reconnection with a Density Asymmetry across the Current Sheet

Jongsoo Yoo, Masaaki Yamada, Hantao Ji, Jonathan Jara-Almonte, Clayton E. Myers, and Li-Jen Chen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095002 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Magnetic reconnection - where magnetic energy is converted into kinetic energy and particle acceleration - is studied with a density asymmetry in a laboratory plasma for the first time.

Condensed Matter: Structure, etc.

Observation of a Disordered Bosonic Insulator from Weak to Strong Interactions

Chiara D’Errico, Eleonora Lucioni, Luca Tanzi, Lorenzo Gori, Guillaume Roux, Ian P. McCulloch, Thierry Giamarchi, Massimo Inguscio, and Giovanni Modugno

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095301 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Atomistic Explanation of Shear-Induced Amorphous Band Formation in Boron Carbide

Qi An, William A. Goddard, III, and Tao Cheng

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095501 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Islands of Stability in Motif Distributions of Random Networks

M. V. Tamm, A. B. Shkarin, V. A. Avetisov, O. V. Valba, and S. K. Nechaev

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095701 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

Coarsening Dynamics of Binary Bose Condensates

Johannes Hofmann, Stefan S. Natu, and S. Das Sarma

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095702 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Information-Theoretic Measurements of Coupling between Structure and Dynamics in Glass Formers

Robert L. Jack, Andrew J. Dunleavy, and C. Patrick Royall

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 095703 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Conventional Transmission Electron Microscopy Imaging beyond the Diffraction and Information Limits

Andreas Rosenauer, Florian F. Krause, Knut Müller, Marco Schowalter, and Thorsten Mehrtens

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096101 (2014) - Published 29 August, 2014

Condensed Matter: Electronic Properties, etc.

Bulk Signatures of Pressure-Induced Band Inversion and Topological Phase Transitions in ${Pb}_{1 - x} {Sn}_{x} Se$

Xiaoxiang Xi, Xu-Gang He, Fen Guan, Zhenxian Liu, R. D. Zhong, J. A. Schneeloch, T. S. Liu, G. D. Gu, X. Du, Z. Chen, X. G. Hong, Wei Ku, and G. L. Carr

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096401 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Kinetic Formulation of the Kohn-Sham Equations for ab initio Electronic Structure Calculations

M. Mendoza, S. Succi, and H. J. Herrmann

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096402 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Excitation-Photon-Energy Selectivity of Photoconversions in Halogen-Bridged Pd-Chain Compounds: Mott Insulator to Metal or Charge-Density-Wave State

H. Matsuzaki, M. Iwata, T. Miyamoto, T. Terashige, K. Iwano, S. Takaishi, M. Takamura, S. Kumagai, M. Yamashita, R. Takahashi, Y. Wakabayashi, and H. Okamoto

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096403 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Room-Temperature High-Frequency Transport of Dirac Fermions in Epitaxially Grown ${Sb}_{2} {Te}_{3}$ - and ${Bi}_{2} {Te}_{3}$ -Based Topological Insulators

P. Olbrich, L. E. Golub, T. Herrmann, S. N. Danilov, H. Plank, V. V. Bel’kov, G. Mussler, Ch. Weyrich, C. M. Schneider, J. Kampmeier, D. Grützmacher, L. Plucinski, M. Eschbach, and S. D. Ganichev

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096601 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Metal-Insulator Transition in Graphene on Boron Nitride

M. Titov and M. I. Katsnelson

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 096801 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Possible Topological Superconducting Phases of ${MoS}_{2}$

Noah F. Q. Yuan, Kin Fai Mak, and K. T. Law

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 097001 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

Role of Entropy in Domain Wall Motion in Thermal Gradients

F. Schlickeiser, U. Ritzmann, D. Hinzke, and U. Nowak

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 097201 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Antiferromagnonic Spin Transport from $Y_{3} {Fe}_{5} O_{12}$ into NiO

Hailong Wang, Chunhui Du, P. Chris Hammel, and Fengyuan Yang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 097202 (2014) - Published 29 August, 2014

Temperature-Dependent Mollow Triplet Spectra from a Single Quantum Dot: Rabi Frequency Renormalization and Sideband Linewidth Insensitivity

Yu-Jia Wei, Yu He, Yu-Ming He, Chao-Yang Lu, Jian-Wei Pan, Christian Schneider, Martin Kamp, Sven Höfling, Dara P. S. McCutcheon, and Ahsan Nazir

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 097401 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Enhanced Charging Kinetics of Porous Electrodes: Surface Conduction as a Short-Circuit Mechanism

Mohammad Mirzadeh, Frederic Gibou, and Todd M. Squires

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 097701 (2014) - Published 25 August, 2014

Soft Matter, Biological, and Interdisciplinary Physics

Revealing the Structure of a Granular Medium through Ballistic Sound Propagation

S. Lherminier, R. Planet, G. Simon, L. Vanel, and O. Ramos

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 098001 (2014) - Published 28 August, 2014

Inherent Variability in the Kinetics of Autocatalytic Protein Self-Assembly

Juraj Szavits-Nossan, Kym Eden, Ryan J. Morris, Cait E. MacPhee, Martin R. Evans, and Rosalind J. Allen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 098101 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Mechanisms of Elastic Enhancement and Hindrance for Finite-Length Undulatory Swimmers in Viscoelastic Fluids

Becca Thomases and Robert D. Guy

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 098102 (2014) - Published 27 August, 2014

Both swimmer elasticity and stroke asymmetry can lead to faster swimming in low Reynolds number swimmers. A substantial boost is seen if these two effects work in tandem.

COMMENTS

Comment on “Three-Dimensional Anderson Localization in Variable Scale Disorder”

Cord A. Müller and Boris Shapiro

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 099601 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014

McGehee et al. Reply

W. R. McGehee, S. S. Kondov, W. Xu, J. J. Zirbel, and B. DeMarco

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 099602 (2014) - Published 26 August, 2014