Simultaneous knowledge of position and momentum is traditionally forbidden in quantum mechanics. New experiments demonstrate a way around this in a quantum oscillator, a key requirement for certain proposals for quantum computing.

New experiments show how an unconventional form of superconductivity can be induced in an ultrathin lead film by engineering the interface between the film and its substrate.

A new approach to detecting single microwave photons offers nondestructive detection and a high detection fidelity, paving the way to novel applications in remote entanglement and quantum computation.

New x-ray spectra of the electronic structure of the transition metal oxide Ti${}_2$O${}_3$ reveal unprecedented electronic molecular detail about the transition from insulator to metal as temperature increases.

New experiments present experimental evidence for the dynamical quantum Zeno effect, in which a stabilizing friction leads to a continuous phase change among degenerate states in a quantum superposition.

New simulations explain how mixing of actin, the most abundant protein in cells of higher organisms, with molecular motors, such as myosins, and cross-linking proteins causes cells to contract. While acto-myosin contractility is well understood for muscle cells, these new results encompass nonmuscle cells as well, providing key insights into a range of biological processes.

A new theoretical framework connects the exponential growth of a cell population to the stochastic replication of individual cells within the population.

A new formulation of Kirchoff’s law—which relates thermal emission and absorption—extends its applicability to bodies not in thermal equilibrium, paving the way for novel radiation sources.

Field tests of a silicon photonics quantum-key-distribution encoder demonstrate a scalable, affordable, high-speed solution to securing long-distance communication networks against intrusions from quantum computers.

A proposed architecture for quantum simulators offers a way to verifiably demonstrate the speedup of quantum computing protocols compared to classical devices using present experimental setups.

A new theoretical analysis derives a precise fundamental lower limit to the work cost for processing information in any type of system, thereby cornering a new microscopic formulation of thermodynamics and shedding light on how far the second law can be applied.

Two new methods for detecting quantum entanglement—a critical ingredient for useful quantum technologies—successfully do so in a system of 20 qubits, the largest fully controllable entangled system to date.

Thermalization and information scrambling can provide insight into fields as diverse as many-body quantum physics, quantum field theory, and holography. A new theoretical analysis of one-dimensional spin chains reveals details about how information moves and entanglement grows in such systems.

A new analysis obtains hydrodynamic descriptions for the spreading of quantum information through many body-systems and for the “quantum butterfly effect.”

A new analysis of wind tunnel experiments shows how a class of statistical models known as percolation models can characterize the onset of turbulent flow over an airfoil with a precision higher than ever before.

A new experiment demonstrates a quantum stationary light pulse—a nonclassical approach to stopping light—in a cold atomic ensemble, which could pave the way toward novel quantum materials, optics, and devices.

New theoretical work shows how to implement nonunitary transformations on photons using simple optical building blocks, a key element for sophisticated quantum information networks and novel optical technologies.

A new analysis puts quantum nonlocality and contextuality—key resources for quantum computing—on equal theoretical footing as violations of classical causality.

A new analysis technique would allow the gravitational-wave “background” from distant black hole mergers to be detected in days instead of years.

Calculations of the current density within collective charge oscillations called plasmons reveal a complicated structure that could affect how plasmons reflect off a boundary.

The rapid expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate can mimic the expansion of the Universe.

Contrary to claims that a fundamental limit of precision in quantum metrology can be broken in certain circumstances, a new analysis shows that this is not the case once one takes into account the time needed to perform the needed operations.

A mathematical analysis explores the statistics of shared components in complex systems and demonstrates what can be learned about the system based on those statistics, a result that impacts a wide range of contexts from LEGO sets to genomic analysis.

Salinity gradients could be a clean source of energy, but models used to analyze capacitors that harness this energy fail when used on nanoporous carbon, a promising design material. A new analysis shows that molecular simulations can provide reasonable predictions of performance under realistic conditions.

Numerical simulations describe cell dynamics in the early stages of tumor development and find surprising connections to soft glassy materials, providing insight that aids in understanding not just tumor growth but a host of abiotic systems evolving far from equilibrium.

New calculations show that a single stationary state of an isolated quantum system encodes physical properties of the entire system at all temperatures, which provides new, fundamental insight into the quantum nature of thermalization.

A quantum simulation of the quantum Rabi model (a simple, fundamental model of light-matter interactions) in a single trapped ion enables a detailed exploration of the model, including phenomena not previously accessible to experiments.

A single laser ion trap confines six ions without additional confinement fields, paving the way for studies of the dynamics within Coulomb crystals that are masked by traditional trapping techniques.

Analysis of the dynamics of a virus injecting its host with DNA reveals new insight into the underlying physical mechanisms responsible for viral infection in bacteria.

Experiments involving a magnetic quantum Newton’s cradle provide insights into how interacting quantum particles achieve thermal equilibrium.

Numerical simulations reveal possible recurrent transitions between “fluid” and “solid” states in soft glasses at the yield-stress threshold and suggest how to observe this behavior in experiments, thus revealing the nonstationary nature of yielding for nonhomogeneous stress.

New experiments investigate the interaction between light and rubidium atoms in a slot waveguide, which could pave the way for more efficient coupling between light and atoms in on-chip atomic vapor cell applications.

For quantum technologies to reach their full potential, there needs to be a way to benchmark quantum-based memory devices. A new proposal lays out a way to compare and test quantum memories.

Perovskite compounds show promise for charge generation in solar cells because of their high density of excitons when exposed to light. New experiments reveal the origin of this behavior, which could point the way to more efficient optoelectronic devices.

A new data-validated mathematical framework describes how variability in cell-cycle durations is influenced by periodic forcing such as a circadian clock. The results show how to identify couplings between cells and external influences without knowledge of the underlying biological details.

The frequency stability of superradiant light emitted from an optical clock transition in cold strontium atoms surpasses that of active microwave atomic clocks, paving the way for a next generation of high-precision optical frequency references to be used outside the laboratory environment.

New experiments investigate the response of active fluids—liquids that flow under their own power—to external fields, finding bistable behavior and the emergence of autonomous behaviors not dictated by driving forces.

A new theoretical analysis of copper-oxide compounds reveals how displacements of the apical oxygen atom trigger a transition from insulator to metal, shedding light on what determines the critical temperature in copper-based high-temperature superconductors.

A new method for measuring the charge density in a narrow beam of relativistic electrons promises a minimally invasive technique for characterizing and controlling beams in next-generation particle accelerators.

Numerical simulations reveal that glass-forming ability in some liquids is determined by how different the liquid structure is from a crystalline structure, a finding that could pave the way for a general physical understanding of the emergence of glassy behavior.

New experiments show previously unseen correlations among the speckle patterns of light transmitted through and reflected off a nonhomogenous medium, showing that information about one path of light can be deduced by measuring the other.

A new experiment reveals differences between the electric and magnetic components of the transverse spin density in tightly confined beams of light, providing a new route to controlling spin in optical information applications.

Proposed improvements to coupled-cluster theory—a method for describing many-body systems—could allow researchers to calculate properties of solids and surfaces with increased computational efficiency.

A new approach to calculating atomic-level forces in fusion-energy simulations breaks through computational bottlenecks seen in other approaches and reveals new behavior arising at the ablator-fuel interface.

New experiments directly measure the rarely observed roughening of grain boundaries in a thin-film colloidal crystal and offer new insights into how polycrystals behave at high temperatures.

A new approach to reading spin-based qubits achieves readout fidelities higher than 99.86%, the lowest error rate to date. The technique combines speed and accuracy and could be used in many types of spin-based quantum computers.

A new analysis quantifies computational limitations on stabilizer codes (codes that correct errors in quantum information) for practical operations and provides insight into how to design stabilizer codes for useful and interesting applications.

Recent experiments on the normal state of high-temperature superconductors have found a surprising link between the existence of a pseudogap and changes in the topology of the Fermi surface. A new theoretical and computational analysis explores this connection.

A new theoretical model for the “strange metal” state of high-temperature superconductors reproduces unexplained dependencies of resistance on both temperature and applied magnetic field.

A new machine-learning algorithm demonstrates the performance of a quantum Boltzmann machine, a quantum extension of a popular classical neural network, paving the way for quantum approaches to machine learning.

A new study demonstrates how functional theory can be used to compute the spectral properties of semiconductors and insulators, offering an approach that is much more efficient than established, but expensive, perturbation theory.

A proposed device could detect quantum interference patterns in objects containing roughly one million atoms, increasing by nearly 3 orders of magnitude the size of objects for which researchers could observe quantum superpositions.

New simulations and mathematical analysis reveal how boundary conditions can lead to novel phases of matter in a thin film of spin ice.

A type of quantum bit known as the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill qubit could be a key ingredient for practical, fault-tolerant quantum computers, but it has stringent requirements that are beyond current capabilities. New calculations propose a way to reduce these requirements to be achievable in near-term setups.

A new analysis shows that the topological material ZrTe${}_5$ is a semiconductor with a unique electronic structure that exhibits very different behavior for electrons and holes, providing a long-sought explanation for its mysterious resistivity peak.

New experiments reveal that a spin-lattice coupling in the compound NaFeAs might be responsible for the electronic nematic state, where electrons share properties of some liquid crystals, seen in materials such as iron-based superconductors.

A new theoretical analysis shows that the unique radial scaling law of the Efimov effect—in which three bosons form a sequence of uniquely related bound trios—survives in the presence of one-dimensional spin-orbit coupling even though multiple length scales exist in the system.

A linear array of quantum dots could provide a way to build a practical and reliable logical qubit—a simple quantum processor that uses active error correction—out of proven components in the near future.

A novel approach to quantum sensor control demonstrates experimentally verified improvements in sensitivity over other approaches when tasked to detect and characterize weak, time-varying magnetic fields in a noisy environment.

New protocols for verifying quantum states offer a robust and versatile way to check on the accuracy of quantum computing products in the presence of any type of noise and for a variety of quantum states.

A new technique for time-stamping bunches of electrons with terahertz pulses allows the electron arrival time to be recorded with 1.5-fs accuracy, paving the way for greatly improved time resolution in apparatuses that probe ultrafast, atomic-scale processes.

A new theory explains observed connections between the thermal phase in many-body quantum systems and random matrix theory, paving the way to a deeper understanding of this phase.

Lead- and tin-vacancy centers in diamond could work as a solid-state source of single photons with addressable spins at more practical temperatures than other approaches, an essential step for practical quantum communication networks.

The second law of thermodynamics can be described using the Clausius inequality, the main link between classical and quantum thermodynamics. A new thermodynamic framework addresses long-standing limitations of this inequality and reveals new bounds relevant to quantum technology experiments.

New calculations reveal a multitude of Berry phases related to the polarization of a material, an important insight for advancing the theoretical understanding of topological insulators.

A new experimental platform allows for studying the dynamical encircling of exceptional points, where the trajectory can be tuned in situ. Experiments reveal nonchiral dynamics when the starting point of the loop is in the parity-time-broken phase.

New experiments demonstrate the ability to control electron spins via electric fields in a class of materials based on germanium telluride, paving the way for programmable spintronics applications.

New experiments and calculations determine, for the first time, the full “hole $g$ tensor,” a parameter that determines the spin behavior of valence-band holes and a key ingredient to developing novel spin-based technologies such as quantum information protocols.

New experiments explore quantum dynamics in a synthetic 2D magnet, an essential step for testing theoretical tools for calculating properties of nonequilibrium quantum systems against real world data.

New experiments show the progressive build up of correlations in an array of 36 spins, revealing fundamental limits that constrain how quickly spin-based quantum simulators can be tuned.

A theoretical breakthrough extends Alan Turing’s foundational theory on embryonic development and paves the way for engineering self-organized synthetic systems.

A new tool for characterizing entanglement in many-body quantum systems offers a step toward creating true large-scale entanglement among many particles, which itself will be essential for practical quantum computing devices.

New experiments demonstrate on-demand interference between stationary modes stored in separated superconducting microwave cavities, enabling future studies of complex quantum interference phenomena critical to fundamental science and quantum information applications.

A new mathematical analysis provides a complete classification of topological orders for three-dimensional materials in which all pointlike excitations behave like bosons.

A new model predicts how each stitch in a knitted fabric will respond to a stretching force.

Magnetic resonance imaging is a powerful diagnostic tool used in modern medicine. A new type of patient-administered contrast agent based on quadrupole relaxation enhancement could provide a new and flexible way to improve tissue contrast.

New research combining experiments and analytical approaches from quantum mechanics shows that cardiac arrhythmias may originate in sharp corners of damaged heart tissue. This suggests that some arrhythmias might be prevented by making such corners electrically inactive in patients who are at risk.

A new technique for encoding information in a single photon reduces the amount of loss and packs more information into a single photon compared to other methods, and it does so with fewer components.