Volume 136, Issue 17

1 May 2026

Browse Issues:

On the Cover

Snapshot of a simulation of AlN along a cut of the bulk sample. Up(down)-polarized Al atoms are shown in blue (red), while N atoms are omitted for clarity. Selected for an Editors’ Suggestion.

From the article:

Ferroelectric Fractals: Switching Mechanism of Wurtzite AlN
Drew Behrendt, Atanu Samanta, and Andrew M. Rappe
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176101 (2026)

EDITORIALS, ESSAYS, and ANNOUNCEMENTS

Essay: Topological Phases and Exceptional Points in Non-Hermitian Systems

Peng Xue

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 170001 (2026) - Published 27 April, 2026

In this forward-looking PRL Essay, Peng Xue examines emerging non-Hermitian phenomena that challenge established paradigms in condensed matter and quantum physics, exploring the interface between non-Hermitian physics and topology with an emphasis on both fundamental physics advances and potential technological applications.

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Environment-Imposed Selection Rules for Nuclear-Spin Conversion of $H_{2}$ in Molecular Crystals

Nathan McLane, LeAnh Duckett, and Leah G. Dodson

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 178002 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

The transitions of hydrogen molecules embedded in a crystal depend on the surroundings—a behavior that could be used to tailor molecular quantum dynamics.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Violation of the Third Law of Black Hole Mechanics in Vacuum Gravity

John R. V. Crump, Maxime Gadioux, Harvey S. Reall, and Jorge E. Santos

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171405 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

The violation of the third law of black hole mechanics in higher dimensional vacuum gravity is numerically demonstrated.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Final SeaQuest Results on the Flavor Asymmetry of the Proton Light-Quark Sea with Proton-Induced Drell-Yan Process

C. H. Leung et al. (FNAL E906/SeaQuest Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171901 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

Final measurements from the SeaQuest collaboration with improved statistics finds clear signatures of more anti- $d$ quarks compared to anti- $u$ quarks within a proton, including at larger $x > 0.25$ in agreement with theoretical models.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Extraction of the Collins-Soper Kernel from a Joint Analysis of Experimental and Lattice Data

Artur Avkhadiev, Valerio Bertone, Chiara Bissolotti, Matteo Cerutti, Yang Fu, Simone Rodini, Phiala Shanahan, Michael Wagman, and Yong Zhao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171902 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Lattice QCD data when included along with the analysis of experimental data provides more accurate determinations of transverse-momentum dependent parton distribution related quantities.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Gradient Flow for Parton Distribution Functions: First Application to the Pion

Anthony Francis, Patrick Fritzsch, Robert V. Harlander, Rohith Karur, Jangho Kim, Jonas T. Kohnen, Giovanni Pederiva, Dimitra A. Pefkou, Antonio Rago, Andrea Shindler, André Walker-Loud, and Savvas Zafeiropoulos

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171903 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

A gradient-flow-based lattice QCD method overcomes the long standing hinderance in computing higher Mellin moments of parton distribution functions due to power-divergent operator mixings.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Ferroelectric Fractals: Switching Mechanism of Wurtzite AlN

Drew Behrendt, Atanu Samanta, and Andrew M. Rappe

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176101 (2026) - Published 27 April, 2026

Multiscale modeling shows that ferroelectric switching in wurtzite ferroelectric aluminum nitride proceeds via 1D single columns of atoms propagating from a slow-moving 2D fractal-like domain wall.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Superconductivity of Incoherent Electrons near the Relativistic Mott Transition in Twisted Dirac Materials

Veronika C. Stangier, Mathias S. Scheurer, Daniel E. Sheehy, and Jörg Schmalian

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176501 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

Superconductivity emerges in an unexpected way in twisted two-dimensional materials like graphene, even when there are essentially no mobile charge carriers at zero temperature.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Identifying Instabilities with Quantum Geometry in Flat-Band Systems

Jia-Xin Zhang, Wen O. Wang, Leon Balents, and Lucile Savary

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176504 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

Despite the absence of a well-defined Fermi surface in flat-band systems, a nesting structure related to a geometric quantity constructed from the order parameter and the projection operator onto flat-band states replaces Fermi-surface nesting and determines the most favorable ordering across an arbitrary number of flat bands.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Topological Robustness of Anyon Tunneling at $ν = 1 / 3$

Adithya Suresh, Ramon Guerrero-Suarez, Tanmay Maiti, Shuang Liang, Geoffrey Gardner, Claudio Chamon, and Michael Manfra

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176602 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

In a chiral Luttinger liquid the scaling exponent for the 1/3 edge mode is insensitive to perturbations within the incompressible fractional quantum Hall effect state and establishes the bulk-boundary correspondence for topologically ordered states.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Microwave Imaging of Edge Conductivity in Graphene at Charge Neutrality and Quantum Hall States

Hongtao Yan, Chun-Chih Tseng, Anzhuoer Li, Manish Kumar, Kaile Wang, Shizai Chu, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Allan H. MacDonald, Matthew Yankowitz, and Keji Lai

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176603 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

The contrasting edge evolution between $ν = 0$ , consistent with a canted antiferromagnetic phase, and $| ν | \geq 1$ chiral edge channels reveals the microscopic distinction between trivial and topological states.

LETTERS

Quantum Information, Science, and Technology

Disorder-Free Localization and Fragmentation in a Non-Abelian Lattice Gauge Theory

Giovanni Cataldi, Giuseppe Calajó, Pietro Silvi, Simone Montangero, and Jad C. Halimeh

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 170401 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

Time Crystal from Self-Amplification of Spontaneous Analog Hawking Radiation

Juan Ramón Muñoz de Nova and Fernando Sols

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 170402 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Chaotic Fluctuations in a Universal Set of Transmon Qubit Gates

Daniel Basilewitsch, Simon-Dominik Börner, Christoph Berke, Alexander Altland, Simon Trebst, and Christiane P. Koch

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 170601 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Nonlinear-Enhanced Wideband Sensing via Subharmonic Excitation of a Quantum Harmonic Oscillator

Hao Wu, Clayton Z. C. Ho, Grant D. Mitts, Joshua A. Rabinowitz, and Eric R. Hudson

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 170801 (2026) - Published 27 April, 2026

High-Performance Fully Passive Discrete-State Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution with Local Local Oscillator

Yu Zhang, Xuyang Wang, Chenyang Li, Jie Yun, Weilin Liu, Qiang Zeng, Zhiliang Yuan, Zhenguo Lu, and Yongmin Li

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 170802 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation

Stripped-Envelope Supernovae for QCD Axion Detection

Francisco R. Candón, Damiano F. G. Fiorillo, Ángel Gil Muyor, Hans-Thomas Janka, Georg G. Raffelt, and Edoardo Vitagliano

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171001 (2026) - Published 27 April, 2026

Quantum-Enhanced Dark Matter Search Using Cat States

Pan Zheng, Yanyan Cai, Bin Xu, Shengcheng Wen, Libo Zhang, Zhongchu Ni, Jiasheng Mai, Yanjie Zeng, Lin Lin, Ling Hu, Xiaowei Deng, Song Liu, Jing Shu, Yuan Xu, and Dapeng Yu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171002 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Weakly Turbulent Saturation of the Nonlinear Scalar Ergoregion Instability

Nils Siemonsen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171401 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

Effective Field Theory Constraints on Primordial Black Holes from the High-Redshift Lyman- $α$ Forest

Mikhail M. Ivanov and Sokratis Trifinopoulos

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171402 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Regular Vaidya Solutions of Effective Gravitational Theories

Valentin Boyanov and Raúl Carballo-Rubio

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171403 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Curvature Perturbations from First-Order Phase Transitions: Implications to Black Holes and Gravitational Waves

Gabriele Franciolini, Yann Gouttenoire, and Ryusuke Jinno

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171404 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Violation of the Third Law of Black Hole Mechanics in Vacuum Gravity

John R. V. Crump, Maxime Gadioux, Harvey S. Reall, and Jorge E. Santos

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171405 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

The violation of the third law of black hole mechanics in higher dimensional vacuum gravity is numerically demonstrated.

Particles and Fields

Intrinsically Quantum Effects of Axion Dark Matter Are Undetectable

Yunjia Bao, Dhong Yeon Cheong, Nicholas L. Rodd, Joey Takach, Lian-Tao Wang, and Kevin Zhou

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171601 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

First Evidence of the $B_{s}^{0} \to K^{-} π^{+} γ$ Decay

R. Aaij et al. (LHCb Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171801 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Final SeaQuest Results on the Flavor Asymmetry of the Proton Light-Quark Sea with Proton-Induced Drell-Yan Process

C. H. Leung et al. (FNAL E906/SeaQuest Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171901 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Extraction of the Collins-Soper Kernel from a Joint Analysis of Experimental and Lattice Data

Artur Avkhadiev, Valerio Bertone, Chiara Bissolotti, Matteo Cerutti, Yang Fu, Simone Rodini, Phiala Shanahan, Michael Wagman, and Yong Zhao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171902 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Lattice QCD data when included along with the analysis of experimental data provides more accurate determinations of transverse-momentum dependent parton distribution related quantities.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Gradient Flow for Parton Distribution Functions: First Application to the Pion

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171903 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

A gradient-flow-based lattice QCD method overcomes the long standing hinderance in computing higher Mellin moments of parton distribution functions due to power-divergent operator mixings.

Observation of $\bar{Λ} p \to K^{+} π^{+} π^{-} π^{0}$ and $\bar{Λ} p \to K^{+} π^{+} π^{-} 2 π^{0}$

M. Ablikim et al. (BESIII Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 171904 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Nuclear Physics

Clustered Nature of Hot and Dense Nuclear Matter: Signatures from Heavy-Ion Collisions

Rui Wang, Zhen Zhang, Yu-Gang Ma, Lie-Wen Chen, Che Ming Ko, and Kai-Jia Sun

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 172301 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Dipole Strength Distribution of ${}^{8}{He}$ and Decay Characteristics

C. Lehr et al.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 172501 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Neural Quantum States for Light Nuclei with Chiral Two- and Three-Body Interactions

Pengsheng Wen, Alexandros Gezerlis, and Jeremy W. Holt

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 172502 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Three-Body Barrier Dynamics of Double-Alpha Decay in Heavy Nuclei

Shulin Tang, Tao Wan, Yibin Qian, Chong Qi, Ramon A. Wyss, Roberto J. Liotta, Dong Bai, Bo Zhou, and Zhongzhou Ren

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 172503 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

Irreversible Thermalization vs Reversible Dynamics Mediated by Anomalous Correlators: Wave Turbulence Theory and Experiments in Optical Fibers

T. Torres, J. Garnier, L. Zanaglia, M. Ferraro, C. Michel, V. Doya, J. Fatome, B. Kibler, S. Wabnitz, A. Picozzi, and G. Millot

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 173801 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Condensed Matter and Materials

Spectroscopic Evidence of Disorder-Induced Quantum Phase Transitions in Monolayer Fe(Te,Se) Superconductor

Guanyang He, Ziqiao Wang, Longxin Pan, Yuxuan Lei, Fa Wang, Yi Liu, Nandini Trivedi, and Jian Wang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176001 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Ferroelectric Fractals: Switching Mechanism of Wurtzite AlN

Drew Behrendt, Atanu Samanta, and Andrew M. Rappe

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176101 (2026) - Published 27 April, 2026

Multiscale modeling shows that ferroelectric switching in wurtzite ferroelectric aluminum nitride proceeds via 1D single columns of atoms propagating from a slow-moving 2D fractal-like domain wall.

Strain-Controlled Atomic Reconstruction and Quasi-1D Excitons in Moiré Heterostructures

Shen Zhao, Zhijie Li, Zakhar A. Iakovlev, Peirui Ji, Tao Jiang, Fanrong Lin, Xin Huang, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Mikhail M. Glazov, Anvar S. Baimuratov, and Alexander Högele

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176201 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

Coherent Subgap Transport in Spin-Split Josephson Junctions

David Caldevilla-Asenjo, Gorm Ole Steffensen, Sara Catalano, Alberto Hijano, Maxim Ilyn, Celia Rogero, Ramon Aguado, F. Sebastian Bergeret, and Alfredo Levy Yeyati

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176301 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

Magnetism Induced by Periodically Driven Nonmagnetic Impurities on Surfaces with Spin-Orbit Coupling

Malen Etxeberria-Etxaniz, Andrés Arnau, and Asier Eiguren

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176401 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Superconductivity of Incoherent Electrons near the Relativistic Mott Transition in Twisted Dirac Materials

Veronika C. Stangier, Mathias S. Scheurer, Daniel E. Sheehy, and Jörg Schmalian

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176501 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

Superconductivity emerges in an unexpected way in twisted two-dimensional materials like graphene, even when there are essentially no mobile charge carriers at zero temperature.

Symmetry-Enforced Fermi Surfaces

Minho Luke Kim, Salvatore D. Pace, and Shu-Heng Shao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176502 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Fokker-Planck Equation Governing the Distribution of Walkers in Auxiliary-Field Quantum Monte Carlo

Alfred Li, Ankit Mahajan, and Sandeep Sharma

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176503 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Identifying Instabilities with Quantum Geometry in Flat-Band Systems

Jia-Xin Zhang, Wen O. Wang, Leon Balents, and Lucile Savary

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176504 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026

Magnetic-Field-Driven Insulator-Superconductor Transition in Rhombohedral Graphene

Jian Xie, Zihao Huo, Zhimou Chen, Zaizhe Zhang, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Xi Lin, and Xiaobo Lu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176505 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Emergent Topology from Landau Level Mixing in Quantum Hall-Superconductor Nanostructures

Yuriko Baba, Alfredo Levy Yeyati, and Pablo Burset

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176601 (2026) - Published 27 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Topological Robustness of Anyon Tunneling at $ν = 1 / 3$

Adithya Suresh, Ramon Guerrero-Suarez, Tanmay Maiti, Shuang Liang, Geoffrey Gardner, Claudio Chamon, and Michael Manfra

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176602 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Microwave Imaging of Edge Conductivity in Graphene at Charge Neutrality and Quantum Hall States

Hongtao Yan, Chun-Chih Tseng, Anzhuoer Li, Manish Kumar, Kaile Wang, Shizai Chu, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Allan H. MacDonald, Matthew Yankowitz, and Keji Lai

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176603 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Spin Waves Excited by Hard X-Ray Transient Gratings

Peter R. Miedaner et al.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176701 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Multiferroic-like Quasiparticles in Ferroelectrics

Ping Tang and Gerrit E. W. Bauer

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176702 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Transverse Thermophotovoltaics from Nonreciprocal Plasmon Drag in Metal

Dingwei He and Gaomin Tang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176901 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

Hyperbolic Shear Plasmon Polaritons in a Twisted Anisotropic 2D Material

Yueheng Du, Haotian Sun, and Mingwen Zhao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 176902 (2026) - Published 1 May, 2026

Statistical Physics; Classical, Nonlinear, and Complex Systems

Critical Dynamics of the Anderson Transition on Small-World Graphs

Weitao Chen, Ignacio García-Mata, John Martin, Jiangbin Gong, Bertrand Georgeot, and Gabriel Lemarié

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 177101 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Adaptive Ising Machine Based on Phase Locking of an Auto-Oscillator to a Biharmonic External Driving with Noise

Eleonora Raimondo, Andrea Grimaldi, Vasyl Tyberkevych, Riccardo Tomasello, Anna Giordano, Mario Carpentieri, Andrei Slavin, Massimo Chiappini, and Giovanni Finocchio

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 177201 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Polymers, Chemical Physics, Soft Matter, and Biological Physics

Spatiotemporal Organization of Chemical Oscillators via Phase Separation

Jonathan Bauermann, Giacomo Bartolucci, and Artemy Kolchinsky

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 178001 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Environment-Imposed Selection Rules for Nuclear-Spin Conversion of $H_{2}$ in Molecular Crystals

Nathan McLane, LeAnh Duckett, and Leah G. Dodson

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 178002 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

The transitions of hydrogen molecules embedded in a crystal depend on the surroundings—a behavior that could be used to tailor molecular quantum dynamics.

Liquidlike Dynamics in Ordered Soft-Particle Systems

José Ruiz-Franco and Alberto Fernandez-Nieves

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 178201 (2026) - Published 28 April, 2026

Snap-Through Time of Arches Is Controlled by Slenderness and Imperfections

William T. Simpkins, Matthew G. Hennessy, and Matteo Taffetani

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 178202 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

ERRATA

Erratum: Candidate Toroidal Electric Dipole Mode in the Spherical Nucleus ${}^{58}{Ni}$ [Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 232502 (2024)]

P. von Neumann-Cosel, V. O. Nesterenko, I. Brandherm, P. I. Vishnevskiy, P.-G. Reinhard, J. Kvasil, H. Matsubara, A. Repko, A. Richter, M. Scheck, and A. Tamii

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 179901 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Erratum: Understanding Large-Scale Dynamos in Unstratified Rotating Shear Flows [Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 075201 (2026)]

Tushar Mondal, Pallavi Bhat, Fatima Ebrahimi, and Eric G. Blackman

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 179902 (2026) - Published 29 April, 2026

Erratum: Discovery of New Isotope ${}^{241}U$ and Systematic High-Precision Atomic Mass Measurements of Neutron-Rich Pa-Pu Nuclei Produced via Multinucleon Transfer Reactions [Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 132502 (2023)]

T. Niwase, Y. X. Watanabe, Y. Hirayama, M. Mukai, P. Schury, A. N. Andreyev, T. Hashimoto, S. Iimura, H. Ishiyama, Y. Ito, S. C. Jeong, D. Kaji, S. Kimura, H. Miyatake, K. Morimoto, J.-Y. Moon, M. Oyaizu, M. Rosenbusch, A. Taniguchi, and M. Wada

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 179903 (2026) - Published 30 April, 2026