Volume 136, Issue 4

30 January 2026

Browse Issues:

On the Cover

Thermopower measurements of fractional quantum Hall states as a function of filling factor and magnetic field. Selected for an Editors' Suggestion.

From the article:

Thermopower Probe of Fractional Quantum Hall States in Monolayer Graphene
Nishat Sultana, Robert W. Rienstra, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Joseph A. Stroscio, D. E. Feldman, and Fereshte Ghahari
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046502 (2026)

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114

A. G. Abac et al. (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, The Virgo Collaboration, and The KAGRA Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041403 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

An analysis of a record-breaking gravitational-wave detection tests whether general relativity holds under extreme conditions.

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Revisiting the Phase Diagram of Methane

Mengnan Wang, Miriam Peña-Alvarez, Ross T. Howie, and Eugene Gregoryanz

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046101 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

A systematic exploration of the phase diagram of methane resolves inconsistencies of earlier studies, with potential ramifications for our understanding of planetary interiors.

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Breaking the Intrinsic Absorption Limit for Arbitrarily Thin Conductive Films at Grazing Incidence

Yuxuan Liu, Ren-Hao Fan, Dong-Xiang Qi, Ruwen Peng, Yun Lai, Mu Wang, and Jie Luo

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046902 (2026) - Published 28 January, 2026

Light grazing an ultrathin conductive film can be absorbed much more strongly than previously thought.

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

Geomagnetic Constraints on Millicharged Dark Matter

Ariel Arza, Yuanlin Gong, Jing Shu, Lei Wu, Qiang Yuan, and Bin Zhu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041001 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Dark matter having a small electric charge would presumably generate a magnetic-field variation on Earth’s surface, but observations find no such signal.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Provable and Verifiable Quantum Advantage in Sample Complexity

Marcello Benedetti, Harry Buhrman, and Jordi Weggemans

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040601 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

In a sample-to-sample setting, quantum computation achieves the largest possible separation over classical computation.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Gravitational Wave Memory from Binary Neutron Star Mergers

Jamie Bamber, Antonios Tsokaros, Milton Ruiz, Stuart L. Shapiro, Marc Favata, Matthew Karlson, and Fabrizio Venturi Piñas

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041401 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

The full displacement memory signal from binary neutron star mergers, including both the contribution from the gravitational waves themselves and from the electromagnetic, neutrino and baryonic ejecta is quantified using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

High-Power Picosecond Pulsed Kerr Soliton Microcombs

Liu Yang, Keisuke Ogawa, Ryomei Takabayashi, Yuta Mototani, Tatsuki Murakami, Hajime Kumazaki, Yongyong Zhuang, Xiaoyong Wei, and Shun Fujii

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043802 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Strong mode interactions in ultrahigh-Q crystalline microresonators produce a high-power, high-efficiency dissipative Kerr soliton regime revealing new nonlinear dynamics where localized mode crossings act as effective higher-order dispersion.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Thermopower Probe of Fractional Quantum Hall States in Monolayer Graphene

Nishat Sultana, Robert W. Rienstra, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Joseph A. Stroscio, D. E. Feldman, and Fereshte Ghahari

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046502 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Thermopower is more sensitive than resistivity in detecting certain fractional quantum Hall states in monolayer graphene.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Excitonic Instability Revealed by the Elastocaloric Effect in ${Ta}_{2} {NiSe}_{5}$

Elliott Rosenberg, Joss Ayres-Sims, Andrew Millis, David Cobden, and Jiun-Haw Chu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046503 (2026) - Published 28 January, 2026

Elastocaloric effect measurements on Ta $_{2}$ NiSe $_{5}$ show that its phase transition at ~324 K is driven by a nonacoustic instability, rather than by an acoustic shear mode, strengthening the case that the transition is largely excitonic in nature.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Real-Space Switching of Local Moments Driven by Quantum Geometry in Correlated Graphene Heterostructures

Niklas Witt, Siheon Ryee, Lennart Klebl, Jennifer Cano, Giorgio Sangiovanni, and Tim O. Wehling

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046505 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

Hybridization-induced topological transition between Mott states leads to flat bands, providing an alternative to twisted bilayer graphene.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of Cavity Vacuum and Emergent Gyrotropic Effects in Embedded Moiré Superlattices

Zuzhang Lin, Hsun-Chi Chan, Wenqi Yang, Yixin Sha, Cong Xiao, Shuang Zhang, and Wang Yao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046903 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

All-to-one coupling between electrons in moiré superlattice to a deep-subwavelength cavity uncovers an unprecedented dual spontaneous parity symmetry breaking simultaneously in the cavity vacuum and the electronic ground state.

LETTERS

Quantum Information, Science, and Technology

Decoherence Cancellation through Noise Interference

Giuseppe D’Auria, Giovanna Morigi, Fabio Anselmi, and Fabio Benatti

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040201 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Downloading Many-Qubit Entanglement from Continuous-Variable Cluster States

Zhihua Han and Hoi-Kwan Lau

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040202 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Uniqueness of Purifications Is Equivalent to Haag Duality

Lauritz van Luijk, Alexander Stottmeister, and Henrik Wilming

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040203 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

Transient and Steady-State Chaos in Dissipative Quantum Systems

Debabrata Mondal, Lea F. Santos, and S. Sinha

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040401 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

Duality Viewpoint of Noninvertible Symmetry-Protected Topological Phases

Weiguang Cao, Masahito Yamazaki, and Linhao Li

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040402 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Provable and Verifiable Quantum Advantage in Sample Complexity

Marcello Benedetti, Harry Buhrman, and Jordi Weggemans

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040601 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

In a sample-to-sample setting, quantum computation achieves the largest possible separation over classical computation.

Edge of Many-Body Quantum Chaos in Quantum Reservoir Computing

Kaito Kobayashi and Yukitoshi Motome

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040602 (2026) - Published 28 January, 2026

Mechanical Squeezed-Fock Qubit: Towards Quantum Weak-Force Sensing

Yi-Fan Qiao, Jun-Hong An, and Peng-Bo Li

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 040801 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

Geomagnetic Constraints on Millicharged Dark Matter

Ariel Arza, Yuanlin Gong, Jing Shu, Lei Wu, Qiang Yuan, and Bin Zhu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041001 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Dark matter having a small electric charge would presumably generate a magnetic-field variation on Earth’s surface, but observations find no such signal.

Could a Primordial Black Hole Explosion Explain the Extremely High-Energy KM3NeT Neutrino Event?

Lua F. T. Airoldi, Gustavo F. S. Alves, Yuber F. Perez-Gonzalez, Gabriel M. Salla, and Renata Zukanovich Funchal

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041002 (2026) - Published 28 January, 2026

$n π$ Phase Ambiguity of Cosmic Birefringence

Fumihiro Naokawa, Toshiya Namikawa, Kai Murai, Ippei Obata, and Kohei Kamada

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041003 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Universal Profile for Cosmic Birefringence Tomography with Radio Galaxies

Fumihiro Naokawa

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041004 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Gravitational Waves from a Dilaton-Induced, First-Order QCD Phase Transition

Aleksandr Chatrchyan, M. C. David Marsh, and Charalampos Nikolis

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041005 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

Constraints on a Dark Matter Subhalo Near the Sun from Pulsar Timing

Sukanya Chakrabarti, Philip Chang, Stefano Profumo, and Peter Craig

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041201 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Gravitational Wave Memory from Binary Neutron Star Mergers

Jamie Bamber, Antonios Tsokaros, Milton Ruiz, Stuart L. Shapiro, Marc Favata, Matthew Karlson, and Fabrizio Venturi Piñas

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041401 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Thermodynamic Supercriticality and Complex Phase Diagram for the AdS Black Hole

Zhen-Ming Xu and Robert B. Mann

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041402 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114

A. G. Abac et al. (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, The Virgo Collaboration, and The KAGRA Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041403 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

An analysis of a record-breaking gravitational-wave detection tests whether general relativity holds under extreme conditions.

Particles and Fields

Lattice Evidence that Scalar Glueballs Are Small

Ryan Abbott, Daniel C. Hackett, Dimitra A. Pefkou, Fernando Romero-López, and Phiala E. Shanahan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041901 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Prediction for Maximum Supercooling in $SU (N)$ Confinement Transition

Prateek Agrawal, Gaurang Ramakant Kane, Vazha Loladze, and John March-Russell

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 041902 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

Probing Instantaneous Single-Molecule Chirality in the Planar Ground State of Formic Acid

D. Tsitsonis, M. Kircher, N. M. Novikovskiy, F. Trinter, J. B. Williams, K. Fehre, L. Kaiser, S. Eckart, O. Kreuz, A. Senftleben, Ph. V. Demekhin, R. Berger, T. Jahnke, M. S. Schöffler, and R. Dörner

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043001 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

Nondestructive Optomechanical Detection Scheme for Bose-Einstein Condensates

Cisco Gooding, Cameron R. D. Bunney, Samin Tajik, Sebastian Erne, Steffen Biermann, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Jorma Louko, William G. Unruh, and Silke Weinfurtner

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043401 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Universal Bound States with Bose-Fermi Duality in Microwave-Shielded Ultracold Molecules

Tingting Shi, Haitian Wang, and Xiaoling Cui

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043402 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Destructive Interference Mediated Topological Transitions in Bilayer Metasurfaces

Bo Wang, Ruhao Pan, Lechen Yang, Xu Ji, Haifang Yang, and Junjie Li

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043801 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

High-Power Picosecond Pulsed Kerr Soliton Microcombs

Liu Yang, Keisuke Ogawa, Ryomei Takabayashi, Yuta Mototani, Tatsuki Murakami, Hajime Kumazaki, Yongyong Zhuang, Xiaoyong Wei, and Shun Fujii

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043802 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Topological Vortex and Antivortex Transport in a Three-Dimensional Photonic Disclination Metamaterial

Yingfeng Qi, Siqi Xu, Bei Yan, Zebin Zhu, Yan Meng, Xiaoyuan Jiao, Linyun Yang, Zhenxiao Zhu, Ziyao Wang, and Zhen Gao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043803 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Programmable Lattices for Non-Abelian Topological Photonics and Braiding

Gyunghun Kim, Jensen Li, Xianji Piao, Namkyoo Park, and Sunkyu Yu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 043804 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

Plasma and Solar Physics, Accelerators and Beams

Enhancements in Laser-Direct-Drive Nuclear Performance with Target Radius

C. A. Thomas et al.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 045101 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Condensed Matter and Materials

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Revisiting the Phase Diagram of Methane

Mengnan Wang, Miriam Peña-Alvarez, Ross T. Howie, and Eugene Gregoryanz

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046101 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

A systematic exploration of the phase diagram of methane resolves inconsistencies of earlier studies, with potential ramifications for our understanding of planetary interiors.

Universal Relations between Thermoelectrics and Noise in Mesoscopic Transport across a Tunnel Junction

Andrei I. Pavlov and Mikhail N. Kiselev

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046301 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Quantized Conductance in a CVD-Grown Nanoribbon with Hidden Rashba Effect

Jianfei Xiao, Yiwen Ma, Congwei Tan, Kui Zhao, Yunteng Shi, Bingbing Tong, Peiling Li, Ziwei Dou, Xiaohui Song, Guangtong Liu, Jie Shen, Zhaozheng Lyu, Li Lu, Hailin Peng, and Fanming Qu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046302 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Detecting the Emergent Continuous Symmetry of Criticality via a Subsystem’s Entanglement Spectrum

Bin-Bin Mao, Zhe Wang, Bin-Bin Chen, and Zheng Yan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046401 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Bipartite Entanglement and Surface Criticality: The Extra Contribution of the Nonordinary Edge in Entanglement

Yanzhang Zhu, Zenan Liu, Zhe Wang, Yan-Cheng Wang, and Zheng Yan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046501 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Thermopower Probe of Fractional Quantum Hall States in Monolayer Graphene

Nishat Sultana, Robert W. Rienstra, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Joseph A. Stroscio, D. E. Feldman, and Fereshte Ghahari

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046502 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Thermopower is more sensitive than resistivity in detecting certain fractional quantum Hall states in monolayer graphene.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Excitonic Instability Revealed by the Elastocaloric Effect in ${Ta}_{2} {NiSe}_{5}$

Elliott Rosenberg, Joss Ayres-Sims, Andrew Millis, David Cobden, and Jiun-Haw Chu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046503 (2026) - Published 28 January, 2026

Higher-Form Anomalies on Lattices

Yitao Feng, Ryohei Kobayashi, Yu-An Chen, and Shinsei Ryu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046504 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Real-Space Switching of Local Moments Driven by Quantum Geometry in Correlated Graphene Heterostructures

Niklas Witt, Siheon Ryee, Lennart Klebl, Jennifer Cano, Giorgio Sangiovanni, and Tim O. Wehling

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046505 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

Hybridization-induced topological transition between Mott states leads to flat bands, providing an alternative to twisted bilayer graphene.

Wave-Function-Free Approach for Predicting Nonlinear Responses in Weyl Semimetals

Mohammad Yahyavi, Ilya Belopolski, Yuanjun Jin, Yilin Zhao, Jinyang Ni, Naizhou Wang, Yi-Chun Hung, Zi-Jia Cheng, Tyler A. Cochran, Tay-Rong Chang, Wei-bo Gao, Su-Yang Xu, Jia-Xin Yin, Qiong Ma, Md Shafayat Hossain, Arun Bansil, Naoto Nagaosa, and Guoqing Chang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046601 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Ferroelectrics Drive Topological Magnon Transitions and Valley Transport

Yingxi Bai, Bo Yuan, Zhiqi Chen, Ying Dai, Baibiao Huang, Xiaotian Wang, and Chengwang Niu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046602 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Dirac Charge in Antiferromagnetic Topological Semimetals

Kohei Hattori, Hikaru Watanabe, and Ryotaro Arita

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046603 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

Magnon Torques Mediated by Orbital Hybridization at the Light Metal-Antiferromagnetic Insulator Interface

Yuchen Pu, Guoyi Shi, Hua Bai, Xinhou Chen, Chenhui Zhang, Zhaohui Li, Mehrdad Elyasi, and Hyunsoo Yang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046701 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Decoupling the Compositional Fluctuation Theory and Polar Nanoregions in Relaxor Ferroelectric Films

Feng-Hui Gong, Yu-Ting Chen, Kang-Ming Luo, Hua-Long Ge, Tao Wang, Yun-Long Tang, Jia-Qi Liu, Yu-Jia Wang, Yin-Lian Zhu, and Xiu-Liang Ma

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046801 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

Symmetry Analysis of Magnetoelectric Coupling Effect in All Point Groups

Xinhai Tu, Di Wang, Hanjing Zhou, Songsong Yan, Huimei Liu, Hongjun Xiang, and Xiangang Wan

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046802 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

Quantum-Metric-Based Optical Selection Rules

Yongpan Li and Cheng-Cheng Liu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046901 (2026) - Published 26 January, 2026

FEATURED IN PHYSICS

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Breaking the Intrinsic Absorption Limit for Arbitrarily Thin Conductive Films at Grazing Incidence

Yuxuan Liu, Ren-Hao Fan, Dong-Xiang Qi, Ruwen Peng, Yun Lai, Mu Wang, and Jie Luo

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046902 (2026) - Published 28 January, 2026

Light grazing an ultrathin conductive film can be absorbed much more strongly than previously thought.

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of Cavity Vacuum and Emergent Gyrotropic Effects in Embedded Moiré Superlattices

Zuzhang Lin, Hsun-Chi Chan, Wenqi Yang, Yixin Sha, Cong Xiao, Shuang Zhang, and Wang Yao

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046903 (2026) - Published 29 January, 2026

Hybrid Acousto-Optical Spin Control in Quantum Dots

Mateusz Kuniej, Paweł Machnikowski, and Michał Gawełczyk

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 046904 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026

Statistical Physics; Classical, Nonlinear, and Complex Systems

Harnessing Higher-Dimensional Fluctuations in an Information Engine

Antonio Patrón Castro, John Bechhoefer, and David A. Sivak

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 047101 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Polymers, Chemical Physics, Soft Matter, and Biological Physics

Bulk-Water Behavior of Water Clusters Studied by Isotope Effects

Klavs Hansen, Kaveh Najafian, Bertil Dynefors, Mauritz J. Ryding, Einar Uggerud, Siegfried Kollotzek, Johannes Reichegger, Olga V. Lushchikova, and Paul Scheier

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 048001 (2026) - Published 27 January, 2026

Ultrafast Transient Cyclization of Doubly Charged Acetonitrile

Sergio Díaz-Tendero, Noah Frese, Debadarshini Mishra, Aaron C. LaForge, Nora Berrah, and Fernando Martín

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 048002 (2026) - Published 30 January, 2026