CMP Journal 2026-03-11
Statistics
Nature: 21
Nature Materials: 1
Physical Review Letters: 6
Physical Review X: 1
Review of Modern Physics: 1
arXiv: 78
Nature
The dynamic basis of G-protein recognition and activation by a GPCR
Original Paper | Cryoelectron microscopy | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Kazuhiro Kobayashi, Kouki Kawakami, Toshiki E. Matsui, Shun Yokoi, Masahiro Fukuda, Tomohiro J. Narita, Hiroki Arai, Mai Tambo, Takashi Sumikama, Manae Tatsumi, Keitaro Yamashita, Junki Koyanagi, Mai Kugawa, Hisako Ikeda, Ayumi Sumino, Ayori Mitsutake, Brian K. Kobilka, Asuka Inoue, Hideaki E. Kato
G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signalling occurs through heterotrimeric G proteins, whose selective activation leads to distinct cellular outcomes1. Although more than 200 GPCR-G protein complex structures have been determined2, these static snapshots provide limited insight into the dynamics of G-protein association and dissociation. Here we present cryo-electron microscopy structures of human neurotensin receptor type 1 (NTSR1) with minimally modified Go and Gq, showing how the receptor’s intracellular surface dynamically rearranges to accommodate each G-protein subtype. Furthermore, time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy analyses of NTSR1-Gi visualized G-protein dissociation processes on GDP/GTP binding. Characterization of more than 20 intermediates, complemented by mutational and computational analyses, identifies four key mechanistic features. First, GDP/GTP induces Gi release from both canonical and non-canonical active conformations with distinct kinetics. Second, NTSR1 uses common intracellular rearrangements to recognize different G-protein subtypes and to promote activation of a single subtype. Third, separation from Gβγ involves stepwise remodelling of the Gα switches I-III. Finally, Gi dissociates from the receptor through a pathway that is distinct from that of Gs, and the canonical and non-canonical NTSR1-Gi complexes further diverge in their dissociation trajectories. These findings provide a comprehensive framework for understanding GPCR signalling dynamics and guiding signal-targeted therapeutic development.
Cryoelectron microscopy, G protein-coupled receptors
A large-scale coherent 4D imaging sensor
Original Paper | Electrical and electronic engineering | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Francesca Fabiana Settembrini, Arif Can Gungor, Andres Forrer, Steven A. Fortune, Alessandro Dell’Aquila, Preethi Padmanabhan, Ion E. Opris, Moise Sotto, Nikola Dordevic, Yevgeny Perelman, Thomas Christen, Mi Wang, Remus Nicolaescu
Detailed and accurate 3D mapping of dynamic environments is essential for machines to interface with their surroundings1,2,3 and for human-machine interaction4,5. Although considerable effort has been made to create the equivalent of the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor for the 3D world, scalable, high-performance, reliable solutions have proven elusive6,7,8,9,10,11. Focal plane array (FPA) sensors using frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) have shown potential to meet all of these requirements and also provide direct measurement of radial velocity as a fourth dimension. Previous demonstrations12,13, although promising, have not achieved the simultaneous scale and performance required by commercial applications. Here we present a large-scale, coherent LiDAR FPA enabled by comprehensive chip-scale optoelectronic integration. A 4D imaging camera is built around the FPA and used to acquire point clouds. At the core is a 352 × 176-pixel 2D FMCW LiDAR FPA comprising more than 0.6 million photonic components, all integrated on-chip together with their associated electronics. This represents a five times increase in pixel count with respect to previous demonstrations12. The pixel architecture combines the outbound and inbound optical paths within the pixel in a monostatic configuration, together with coherent detectors and electronics. Frequency-modulated light is directed sequentially to groups of pixels by in-plane thermo-optic switches with integrated electronics for driving and calibration. An integrated serial digital interface controls both optical switching and readout synchronously. Point clouds of objects ranging from 4 to 65 m with per-pixel integration time compatible with frame rates from 3 to 15 frames per second (fps) are shown. This result demonstrates the capabilities of FMCW LiDAR FPA sensors as enablers of ubiquitous, low-cost, compact coherent 4D imaging cameras.
Electrical and electronic engineering, Imaging and sensing, Integrated optics, Silicon photonics
Capturing dynamic phage-pathogen coevolution by clinical surveillance
Original Paper | Bacterial infection | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Yamini Mathur, Caroline M. Boyd, Jeannette E. Farnham, Md Mamun Monir, Mohammad Tarequl Islam, Marzia Sultana, Tahmeed Ahmed, Munirul Alam, Kimberley D. Seed
Bacteria harness diverse defence systems that protect against phage predation1, many of which are encoded on horizontally transmitted mobile genetic elements2. In turn, phages evolve counter-defences3, driving a dynamic arms race that remains underexplored in human disease contexts. For the diarrhoeal pathogen Vibrio cholerae, a higher burden of its lytic phage ICP1 in patient stool correlates with reduced disease severity4. However, direct molecular evidence of lytic phages driving selection of epidemic V. cholerae has not been demonstrated. Here, through clinical surveillance in cholera-endemic Bangladesh, we capture the acquisition of a parasitic anti-phage mobile genetic element, PLE11, that initiated a selective sweep coinciding with the largest cholera outbreak in recent records. PLE11 showed potent anti-phage activity against cocirculating ICP1, explaining its rapid and dominating emergence. We identify PLE11-encoded Rta as the defence responsible and provide evidence that Rta restricts phage tail assembly. Using experimental evolution, we predict phage counteradaptations against PLE11 and document the eventual emergence and selection of clinical ICP1 that achieve a convergent evolutionary outcome. Finally, we discover how PLEs balance their dependence on ICP1 tail proteins for horizontal transmission with the restriction of phage tail assembly by Rta: PLEs construct chimeric tails composed of both mobile genetic element-encoded and phage-encoded proteins to ensure their transmission. Collectively, our findings reveal the molecular basis of the natural selection of a globally important pathogen and its virus in a clinically relevant context.
Bacterial infection, Bacteriophages, Coevolution
Multidimensional profiling of heterogeneity in supratentorial ependymomas
Original Paper | CNS cancer | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Daeun Jeong, Sara G. Danielli, Kendra K. Maaß, David R. Ghasemi, Svenja K. Tetzlaff, Ekin Reyhan, Li Jiang, Shashank Katiyar, Julia K. Sundheimer, Costanza Lo Cascio, Sina Neyazi, Carlos Alberto Oliveira de Biagi-Junior, Elsa Couvillon, Sophia Castellani, Maria Pazyra-Murphy, Matthew Mullally, Marc Philipp Dehler, Bernhard Englinger, Andrezza Nascimento, Gustavo Alencastro Veiga Cruzeiro, Joana G. Marques, Rebecca D. Haase, Cuong M. Nguyen, Alicia-Christina Baumgartner, Jacob S. Rozowsky, Olivia A. Hack, McKenzie L. Shaw, Daniela Lotsch-Gojo, Katharina Bruckner, Andrey Korshunov, Stefan M. Pfister, Marcel Kool, Tomasz J. Nowakowski, Johannes Gojo, Lissa Baird, Sanda Alexandrescu, Kristian W. Pajtler, Varun Venkataramani, Mariella G. Filbin
Supratentorial ependymomas are aggressive childhood brain cancers that retain features of neurodevelopmental cell types1 and segregate into molecularly and clinically distinct subgroups2,3, suggesting different developmental roots. The developmental signatures, as well as microenvironmental factors, underlying aberrant cellular transformation and behaviour across each supratentorial ependymoma subgroup are unclear. Here we integrated single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, as well as in vitro and in vivo live-cell imaging, to define supratentorial ependymoma cell states, spatial organization and dynamic behaviour within the neural microenvironment. We find that individual tumour subgroups have two distinct progenitor-like cell states–neuroepithelial-like and embryonic-like–that are reminiscent of early human brain development and diverge in the extent of their neuronal or ependymal differentiation. We further identify several modes of spatial organization of these tumours, including a high-order architecture that is influenced by mesenchymal and hypoxia signatures, and local neighbourhood structures. Finally, we identify a role for brain-resident cells in shifting supratentorial ependymoma cellular heterogeneity towards neuronal-like cells that co-opt immature neuronal morphology and migratory mechanisms, and a subset of neuroepithelial-like cells that are both proliferative and highly migratory. Collectively, these findings provide a multidimensional framework to integrate transcriptional and phenotypic characterization of tumour heterogeneity in supratentorial ependymoma and its potential clinical implications.
CNS cancer, Paediatric cancer
Structures of Marburgvirus glycoprotein and its complex with NPC1 receptor
Original Paper | Cryoelectron microscopy | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Gang Ye, Fan Bu, Hailey Turner-Hubbard, Morgan Herbst, Lanying Du, Ge Yang, Bin Liu, Fang Li
Marburgviruses (MBVs) cause severe haemorrhagic fever with higher fatality rates than Ebola virus (EBOV)1,2,3,4. Here we show that the MBV glycoprotein (GP) mediates viral entry more efficiently than EBOV GP. Using cryo-EM, we determined structures of MBV GP in three states: (1) unbound; (2) bound to its endosomal receptor NPC1; and (3) complexed with a neutralizing nanobody. The glycan cap shields the receptor-binding site from NPC1 but only partially from the nanobody, enabling limited immune evasion. After glycan cap cleavage, NPC1 binds to MBV GP in a distinct orientation compared with EBOV GP, providing an additional anchor and enhancing receptor affinity. NPC1 engagement also induces substantial conformational changes in MBV GP, probably facilitating membrane fusion. Furthermore, MBV GP is susceptible to the neutralizing nanobody, which mimics NPC1 at the receptor-binding site. Together, our findings reveal MBV GP as a highly efficient entry mediator and suggest structural mechanisms that may contribute to its enhanced entry efficiency.
Cryoelectron microscopy, Marburg virus
Multimodal electron microscopy of halide perovskite interfacial dynamics
Original Paper | Characterization and analytical techniques | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Xinjuan Li, Qichun Gu, Wei Huang, Simon M. Fairclough, Richard H. Friend, Samuel D. Stranks, Tianjun Liu, Caterina Ducati
Halide perovskite light-emitting diodes promise high-efficiency1,2,3, low-cost optoelectronics, yet their operational instability remains a critical barrier to practical deployment. Here we develop a multimodal in situ electron microscopy approach that integrates four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and atomic-resolution imaging to directly visualize structural and chemical evolution in a working halide perovskite light-emitting diode with nanometre precision. Our in situ biasing measurements uncover nanoscale structural and chemical transformations initiated at transport layer interfaces, including the formation of metallic lead and lead-rich secondary phases, as well as strain-driven grain fragmentation. On biasing, we observe the partial transformation of the metallic Al contact to insulating AlCl3. Crucially, whereas the bulk of the perovskite emitter remains relatively intact, our experiment shows that degradation is localized at interfaces. By comparing in situ and ex situ measurements, these results establish a mechanistic link between interfacial strain, ionic transport and electrochemical reactions in working devices, and provide a broadly applicable framework for nanoscale degradation analysis in complex multilayered optoelectronic systems using multimodal in situ biasing microscopy.
Characterization and analytical techniques, Electronic devices, Organic-inorganic nanostructures
Lense-Thirring precessing magnetar engine drives a superluminous supernova
Original Paper | Astrophysical disks | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Joseph R. Farah, Logan J. Prust, D. Andrew Howell, Yuan Qi Ni, Curtis McCully, Moira Andrews, Harsh Kumar, Daichi Hiramatsu, Sebastian Gomez, Kathryn Wynn, Alexei V. Filippenko, K. Azalee Bostroem, Edo Berger, Peter Blanchard
Type I superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I) are at least an order of magnitude brighter than standard SNe, with the power source for their luminosity still unknown1,2,3. The central engines of SLSNe-I are suggested to be magnetars4,5 but most of the SLSNe-I light curves have several bumps that are unexplained by the standard magnetar model6,7,8. Existing explanations for the bumps either modulate the engine luminosity or invoke interactions with circumstellar material (CSM). Surveys of the limited sample of SLSN-I light curves find no compelling evidence favouring either scenario7,9, leaving both the nature of the light-curve fluctuations and the applicability of the magnetar model unresolved. Here we report high-cadence multiband observations of a SLSN-I with clear ‘chirped’ (that is, decreasing period) light-curve bumps that can be directly linked to the properties of the magnetar central engine. Our observations are consistent with a magnetar centrally located within the expanding supernova ejecta, surrounded by an infalling accretion disk undergoing Lense-Thirring precession. Our analysis demonstrates that the light curve and bump frequency independently and self-consistently constrain the magnetar spin period to P = 4.2 ± 0.2 ms and the magnetic-field strength to B = (1.6 ± 0.1) × 1014 G. These results provide the first observational evidence of the Lense-Thirring effect in the environment of a magnetar and confirm the magnetar spin-down model as an explanation for the extreme luminosity observed in SLSNe-I. We anticipate that this discovery will create avenues for testing general relativity in a new regime–the violent centres of young SNe.
Astrophysical disks, General relativity and gravity, High-energy astrophysics, Stars
Facile induction of immune tolerance by an interleukin-2-TGFβ surrogate agonist
Original Paper | Autoimmunity | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Qinli Sun, Alison K. Barrett, Masato Ogishi, Huiyun Lyu, Hua Jiang, Honghui Liu, Yang Zhao, Grayson E. Rodriguez, Pingdong Tao, Matthias Obenaus, Karsten D. Householder, Qizhi Tang, Tobias V. Lanz, K. Christopher Garcia
CD4+ regulatory T cells (Treg cells) are essential for immune tolerance1. Peripherally induced Treg cells (pTreg cells) complement thymic Treg cells by broadening Treg cell reactivity in response to a changing antigenic landscape2. Although both TGFβ and IL-2 synergistically promote functional pTreg cell development in vitro3,4,5,6, their combined roles in inducing pTreg cell generation in vivo have not been exploited for tolerizing immunotherapy. Here we designed an IL-2-TGFβ ‘surrogate’ co-agonist by creating a single-chain fusion protein between IL-2 and a low-affinity TGFβ mimic agonist derived from a helminth parasite7. This IL-2-TGFβ surrogate functions as an AND-gated co-agonist and enabled simultaneous cis-activation of IL-2-STAT5 and TGFβ-SMAD2/3 signalling specifically in T cells that express IL-2 receptors. The IL-2-TGFβ surrogate agonist robustly induced antigen-specific, functional and stable pTreg cells in vivo within peripheral lymphoid organs in mice immunized with ovalbumin (OVA) and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)35-55. The induced pTreg cells display an effector-like, actively expanding state with high RORγt expression, enabling efficient migration and suppression of intestinal inflammation. Treatment with this agonist effectively quelled immune activation in mouse models of allergen-induced allergic inflammation and self-antigen-driven autoimmune neuroinflammation, suggesting a strategy for the induction of antigen-specific pTreg cells in vivo to establish immune tolerance in inflammatory, allergic and autoimmune diseases.
Autoimmunity, Drug development, Interleukins, Transforming growth factor beta
Snapshots of the dynamic basis of NTSR1 G protein subtype promiscuity
Original Paper | Cryoelectron microscopy | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Alina A. Vo, Arnab Modak, Sumin Lu, Scott C. Blanchard, Nevin A. Lambert, Michael J. Robertson
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are capable of signalling through four families of G protein α subunits. Although hundreds of nucleotide-free GPCR-G protein complex structures have been solved, the mechanism of G protein subtype selectivity remains poorly understood, with recent studies suggesting a role for dynamic nucleotide-bound intermediate states1,2. Here we use time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy to visualize the GTP-induced activation of Gαi1βγ and Gα11βγ heterotrimers bound to the neurotensin receptor 1 (NTSR1), which has been demonstrated to be highly promiscuous in G protein coupling and to possess unusual conformations in the nucleotide-free complex. We resolve ensembles of states along the G protein activation pathway, with differences in the structures and their relative populations between Gαi1 and Gα11. Structural analysis reveals a key role for several motifs, including intracellular loop 2 (ICL2) and ICL3, in stabilizing the observed intermediate states. Our results are supported by molecular dynamics simulations and kinetic bioluminescence resonance energy transfer experiments, which reveal that the stability of these intermediate states and the signalling of various G proteins are correlated with ICL2 and ICL3 sequences. Single-molecule fluorescence assays of GTP-induced NTSR1-G protein complex dissociation reveal that NTSR1 is liberated significantly faster from Gα11, consistent with the relative lack of stable Gα11-GTP intermediate states compared with Gαi1. These findings highlight that transient intermediate-state complexes along the G protein activation pathway have an important role in G protein selection that cannot be explained by nucleotide-free states alone.
Cryoelectron microscopy, G protein-coupled receptors, Receptor pharmacology
Intestinal interoceptive dysfunction drives age-associated cognitive decline
Original Paper | Ageing | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Timothy O. Cox, Ashwarya S. Devason, Alan de Araujo, Sydney Mason, Madhav Subramanian, Andrea F. M. Salvador, Hélène C. Descamps, Junwon Kim, Yixuan Zhu, Lev Litichevskiy, Sunhee Jung, Won-Suk Song, Adrián Cortés-Martín, Nathan T. Henderson, Kuei-Pin Huang, Thao Nguyen, Wisath Sae-Lee, Iboro C. Umana, Maria Sacta, Ryan J. Rahman, Stephen Wisser, J. Andrew D. Nelson, Ilona Golynker, Alana M. McSween, Eric F. Hohmann, Shaan Patel, Anna L. Bub, Clara Soekler, Niklas Blank, Kevt’her Hoxha, Lavinia Boccia, Andrea C. Wong, Klaas Bahnsen, Jihee Kim, Natalie Biderman, Dina Abbasian, Clarissa Shoffler, Christopher Petucci, Fiona E. McAllister, Amber L. Alhadeff, Marc V. Fuccillo, Colin Hill, Cholsoon Jang, J. Nicholas Betley, Guillaume de Lartigue, Virginia Y.-M. Lee, Maayan Levy, Christoph A. Thaiss
Ageing is accompanied by declining memory function, with extremely heterogeneous manifestation in the human population1. Brain-extrinsic factors influencing cognitive decline, such as gastrointestinal signals, have emerged as attractive targets for peripheral interventions2,3,4,5,6, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unclear. Here, by charting a high-resolution map of microbiome ageing and its functional consequences throughout the lifespan of mice, we identify a mechanism by which inhibition of gut-brain signalling during ageing results in impaired neuronal activation in the hippocampus and loss of memory encoding. Specifically, accumulation of gut bacteria that produce medium-chain fatty acids, such as Parabacteroides goldsteinii, can drive peripheral myeloid cell inflammation through GPR84 signalling. As a result, the function of vagal afferent neurons is impaired, the interoceptive signal received by the brain is weakened and hippocampal function declines. We leverage this pathway to define interventions that enhance memory in aged mice, such as phage targeting of Parabacteroides, GPR84 inhibition and restoration of vagal activity. These findings indicate a key role for interoceptive dysfunction in brain ageing and suggest that interoceptomimetics that stimulate gut-brain communication may counteract age-associated cognitive decline.
Ageing, Microbiome
Assembly of helper NLR resistosome clusters upon activation of a coiled-coil NLR
Original Paper | Plant immunity | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Dongdong Ge, Fausto Andres Ortiz-Morea, Yingpeng Xie, In-Cheol Yeo, Qiaochu Shen, Yulu Zhou, Guangchao Liu, Liang Kong, Libo Shan, Ping He
Plant nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) immune receptors detect pathogen effectors and activate immunity1. Coiled-coil NLRs (CNLs) form resistosomes as Ca2+-permeable channels in the plasma membrane (PM)<a data-test=”citation-ref” data-track=”click” data-track-action=”reference anchor” data-track-label=”link” href=”https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10215-1#ref-CR2“ id=”ref-link-section-d187469513e480” title=”Jacob, P. et al. Plant “helper” immune receptors are Ca2+-permeable nonselective cation channels. Science 373, 420-425 (2021).”>2,3,4. However, the mechanism by which resistosomes activate cell death remains unclear. Here we report that the CNL SUPPRESSOR OF mkk1 mkk2 2 (SUMM2), unlike canonical CNLs that use a MADA motif to penetrate the PM5, tethers to the PM through N-myristoylation, a common feature among many CNLs. PM targeting via N-myristoylation is essential for SUMM2-induced cell death. Upon activation, SUMM2 promotes the association of the lipase-like proteins ENHANCED DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY 1 (EDS1) and PHYTOALEXIN DEFICIENT 4 (PAD4) with the helper NLR-ACTIVATED DISEASE RESISTANCE 1-LIKE 1 (ADR1-L1). Furthermore, active SUMM2 induces the clustering of multiple ADR1-L1 resistosomes into a ring-like assembly colocalized with the EDS1-PAD4 complex, and the EDS1-PAD4-ADR1 module is essential for SUMM2-activated cell death. Together, these findings reveal that N-myristoylation-mediated PM targeting of SUMM2 promotes the assembly of higher-order EDS1-PAD4-ADR1-L1 resistosome clusters for cell death initiation.
Plant immunity, Plant signalling
A sorghum pangenome reference improves global crop trait discovery
Original Paper | Agricultural genetics | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Geoffrey P. Morris, Avril M. Harder, Adam L. Healey, Chloee M. McLaughlin, Joanna L. Rifkin, Clara Cruet-Burgos, Jerry W. Jenkins, Shengqiang Shu, John J. Spiekerman, Carl J. VanGessel, Erica Agnew, Alain Audebert, Kerrie Barry, Ivan Baxter, Gregory Beurier, Lori Beth Boston, Richard E. Boyles, Siobhan M. Brady, Victoria Bunting, Jacqueline M. Chaparro, Chaney Courtney, Joseph Sékou B. Dembele, Santosh Deshpande, Cyril Diatta, Nathaniel Eck, Andrea L. Eveland, Jacques M. Faye, Dave Flowers, Daniel Fonceka, Boubacar Gano, Marie de Gracia Coquerel, David Goodstein, Jane Grimwood, Matthew E. Hudson, Jana Kholova, Katherine Johnson, Kristen K. Johnson, Dorota Kawa, Mamoutou Kouressy, Stephen Kresovich, Scott Lee, Peggy G. Lemaux, Robert Lowery, Delphine Luquet, Fanna Maina, Sujan Mamidi, John K. McKay, Todd P. Michael, Taye T. Mindaye, John Mullet, Philip Ozersky, Christopher Plott, Jessica E. Prenni, Gael Pressoir, Jean-François Rami, Trevor W. Rife, Jocelyn Saxton, Bassirou Sine, Avinash Sreedasyam, Jayson Talag, Niaba Teme, Mitchell R. Tuinstra, Vincent Vadez, John P. Vogel, Rachel Walstead, Jianan Wang, Jenell Webber, Melissa Williams, Yuxing Xu, Todd C. Mockler, Jesse R. Lasky, Brian R. Rice, Jeremy Schmutz, Nadia Shakoor, John T. Lovell
Although the green revolution adapted a handful of crops to homogeneous and high-input industrialized agriculture, much of the global population still relies on the local production of variable crop cultivars by low-input smallholder farms. This diversity of unhomogenized crops1, like that of the grain and bioenergy crop sorghum2,3,4,5, offers raw materials for genetic gain and cultivar improvement. However, breeding efforts can be constrained by highly specialized traits and breeding targets6. Here, to bridge this diversity, we constructed a 33-member pangenome reference and a diversity panel across 1,984 cultivars and landraces. We leveraged these resources to explore the complex interplay among historical contingency, ongoing adaptation and previously uncharacterized structural diversity. Specifically, our analyses conclusively demonstrated multiple nested and deeply diverged structural variants in the domestication gene SHATTERING1, which distinguish the previously established multicentric origin of sorghum. We then applied landscape genomics to reveal how gene flow and secondary contact created the complex genetic mosaic in contemporary breeding networks. As proof of concept for pangenome-accelerated trait discovery, we connected biosynthetic gene cluster structural variation to phenotypic leaf concentration of the cyanogenic glucoside dhurrin. Combined, these approaches will accelerate breeding and trait discovery and provide a framework for similar applications in other crops.
Agricultural genetics, Biofuels, Evolutionary genetics, Genome informatics, Plant breeding
B cell imprinting in children impairs antibodies to the haemagglutinin stalk
Original Paper | Antibodies | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Jiayi Sun, Gyunghee Jo, Chloe A. Troxell, Yanbin Fu, Robert Hoezl, Huibin Lv, Hassanein H. Abozeid, Qi Wen Teo, Tossapol Pholcharee, Joshua J. C. McGrath, Siriruk Changrob, Sean A. Nelson, Atsuhiro Yasuhara, Min Huang, Nai-Ying Zheng, Jordan C. Chervin, Lei Li, Monica L. Fernández-Quintero, Johannes R. Loeffler, Alesandra J. Rodriguez, Jiachen Huang, Olivia M. Swanson, Angel Balmaseda, Guillermina Kuan, Lora Campredon, E. Kaitlynn Allen, Gabriele Neumann, Nicholas C. Wu, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, Florian Krammer, Asuncion Mejias, Octavio Ramilo, Paul G. Thomas, Aubree Gordon, Andrew B. Ward, Julianna Han, Patrick C. Wilson
Immune imprinting1 or original antigenic sin2 is a phenomenon whereby the immune system preferentially recalls its initial response to a related, often evolving pathogen after subsequent exposure. Despite its important implications for vaccine development, the causes of imprinting remain unclear. Here, to understand the basis and impact of imprinting by influenza A viruses, we characterized the B cell responses of young children after consecutive first infections with divergent H1N1 and H3N2 strains of influenza. Children had a primary but otherwise similar B cell response to that of adults. Adult B cells commonly cross-reacted with past strains using more stereotyped and mutated immunoglobulin genes, indicating substantial homosubtypic imprinting. In children, after consecutive heterosubtypic primary infections, up to 6% of memory B cells are H1/H3 cross-reactive and bind to the highly conserved central stalk epitope–a lead target for broadly protective vaccine candidates. Over 90% of these B cells had a higher affinity for the imprinting H3N2 strain, resulting in reduced breadth and neutralization potency against H1N1 strains. Mechanistically, the imprinting H3 strains and affected H1 strains shared a residue change in the stalk epitope (D46N) that was central to the nearly universal shift in reactivity, despite differing by only a single atomic group. In conclusion, imprinting by influenza viruses can cause a deleterious shift of nearly the entire memory recall response against key, conserved epitopes.
Antibodies, Immunological memory, Inactivated vaccines, Influenza virus
Nanophotonic waveguide chip-to-world beam scanning
Original Paper | Displays | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Matt Saha, Y. Henry Wen, Andrew S. Greenspon, Matthew Zimmermann, Kevin J. Palm, Alex Witte, Yin Min Goh, Chao Li, Jonathan Bumstead, Kevin Schädler, Ryan Fortin, Mark Dong, Andrew J. Leenheer, Genevieve Clark, Gerald Gilbert, Matt Eichenfield, Dirk Englund
A seamless chip-to-world photonic interface enables broad advancements in optical ranging, display, communication, computation and quantum information science. The ideal solution enables two-dimensional scanning of a diffraction-limited beam from anywhere on a photonic integrated circuit to a large number of resolvable spots. Current beam-scanning technologies are limited by a fundamental trade-off: photonic-integrated-circuits with diffractive optics offer scalability but have poor mode quality1,2, whereas inertially limited micromechanical scanners provide high-quality beams but lack scalable integration3,4. Here we report a photonic ski-jump–a nanoscale waveguide monolithically integrated on a piezoelectric cantilever–to overcome these limitations. It passively curls ~90° out-of-plane within a less-than-0.1 mm2 footprint, emits a submicrometre, broadband diffraction-limited beam, and exhibits kilohertz-rate mechanical resonances with quality factors of over 10,000. Fabricated in a volume complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) foundry, our device enables scalable two-dimensional beam scanning. Driven on-resonance at CMOS-level voltages, it achieves a footprint-adjusted spot rate of 68.6 mega spots s-1 mm-², exceeding state-of-the-art micro-electro-mechanical systems mirrors by more than 50-fold, which is sufficient for one million pixels at 100 Hz from an approximately 1.5 mm diameter footprint. We demonstrate full-colour image and video projection, and single-photon initialization and readout from silicon vacancy centres in diamond. Finally, by demonstrating uniformity across a 64 ski-jump array, we establish a pathway to achieving greater than one gigaspot resolution at kilohertz rates within a sub-5-cm-diameter footprint, creating a seamless optical pipeline between integrated photonic processors and the free-space world.
Displays, Lithography, NEMS, Optoelectronic devices and components, Quantum information
A big-push community intervention reduced rates of child marriage by 80%
Original Paper | Developing world | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Isabelle Cohen, Maryam Abubakar, Daniel Perlman
Globally, as many as 12 million girls marry before the age of 18 every year; in northern Nigeria, 80% of girls marry before 18 (refs. 1,2). Although such marriages may be deemed the best available option by many girls and parents, numerous studies suggest that, when delayed marriage is made possible, it benefits educational attainment, improves health by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, and leads to many other benefits to girls’ lives3,4,5,6,7,8. Despite this, little is known about what reduces child marriage, and successful interventions tend to have an impact of just a few percentage points. We use a paired cluster-randomized trial in 18 communities to rigorously evaluate a locally tailored big-push intervention called Pathways to Choice in northern Nigeria. We show that Pathways decreases rates of marriage among adolescent girls from 86% in the control group to only 21% in the treatment group–just over an 80% decrease. Although a key part of Pathways’ effect is a significant increase in girls re-enrolling in school, education alone cannot explain its effects on child marriage. We argue that Pathways’ whole-community focus reduces the likelihood of social backlash and contributes meaningfully to its success. Our results demonstrate that a big push can significantly alter entrenched, normative behaviour around child marriage, and that bundled interventions may be greater than the sum of their parts.
Developing world, Economics
Immune evasive DNA donors and recombinases license kilobase-scale writing
Original Paper | DNA recombination | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Connor J. Tou, Keqiang Xie, Joana Ferreira da Silva, Pazhanichamy Kalailingam, Eliz Amar-Lewis, David Rufino-Ramos, William Sawyer, Madeline L. Eller, Jakob Starzyk, Ishita Majumdar, Jiao Wang, Danna Lee, Shaobo Yang, Ronald J. Meis, Gary A. Dahl, Jiahe Li, Richard Shan, Natalie Artzi, Patricia L. Musolino, Hao Wu, Benjamin P. Kleinstiver
Genome-editing technologies that use recombinases to insert kilobase-scale DNA sequences into mammalian genomes canonically require large double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) donors1,2. However, dsDNA molecules evoke problematic and toxic innate immune responses, limiting integration efficiencies and generally constraining applicability to ex vivo or immune-deficient contexts. By harnessing mechanisms of integrative prokaryotic viruses and mobile genetic elements, here we demonstrate that recombinases are compatible with immune evasive circular single-stranded DNA molecules optimally bearing a partial-duplex region that reconstitutes the recombinase recognition sequence. This approach, which we term integration through nucleus-synthesized template addition of large lengths (INSTALL), is compatible with diverse protein and RNA-guided recombinases for high-fidelity kilobase-scale human genome writing. INSTALL minimizes innate immune responses in primary human cells and in mice, improving recombinase-mediated integration efficiencies and supporting systemic in vivo non-viral DNA delivery by substantially increasing tolerability and broadening the dosing range compared with lipid nanoparticle-delivered dsDNA molecules. Together, INSTALL overcomes fundamental challenges for DNA delivery and integration methods by synergizing immune-stealth nucleic acids with recombinases to enable kilobase-scale integration strategies without viral vectors.
DNA recombination, Genetic engineering, Immune evasion
Natural maternal immunity protects neonates from Escherichia coli sepsis
Original Paper | Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Raymond E. Diep, Ujjwal Adhikari, Kubra Gokce Tezel, Giang Pham, Allison R. Burrell, Mary A. Staat, Nguyen Thi Khanh Nhu, Minh-Duy Phan, Kate M. Peters, Mark A. Schembri, Scott H. Saunders, David B. Haslam, John J. Erickson, Susana Chavez-Bueno, Sing Sing Way
Escherichia coli is a leading cause of neonatal sepsis, with infection occurring in approximately one in every 1,000 live births1,2. However, with E. coli colonization beginning soon after birth3,4,5 and defects in neonatal host defence maturation6,7,8,9, an alternative consideration is why infection does not occur even more frequently. Here we show that newborn babies with E. coli sepsis have selectively reduced vertically transferred natural antibodies that recognize E. coli, mechanistically explaining their susceptibility to infection. Complementary preclinical studies show that preconceptual intestinal colonization with probiotic E. coli Nissle 1917 (EcN)10 primes anti-E. coli immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies with broad cross-reactivity to clinical isolates responsible for neonatal sepsis that override the inherent susceptibility of neonatal mice. Outer membrane protein A (OmpA) is a target of maternal IgG and is also essential for EcN colonization-induced serological immunogenicity. Upon vertical transfer to neonates, colonization-primed anti-E. coli IgG uniquely protects against infection via opsonization, requiring both complement and IgG Fc receptors. Compared with specimens from sex and gestational age-matched healthy control babies without infection, dried blood spot specimens collected one day after birth from 100 babies with E. coli sepsis show consistently reduced IgG titres to pooled E. coli clinical isolates and OmpA, along with impaired IgG-dependent antibacterial opsonization. Together, these results demonstrate that natural infection susceptibility of neonates is efficiently rescued by anti-E. coli IgG and identify defects in pathogen-targeted vertically transferred immunity as a primary risk factor for severe invasive infection in newborn babies.
Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary, Science, multidisciplinary
Ageing promotes metastasis via activation of the integrated stress response
Original Paper | Ageing | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Angana A. H. Patel, Jozefina J. Dzanan, Kevin X. Ali, Ella A. Eklund, Samantha W. Alvarez, Dorota Raj, Martin Dankis, Ilayda Altinönder, Maria Schwarz, Kristell Le Gal, Emre Bedel, Ahmed Ezat El Zowalaty, Emma Jonasson, Heba Albatrok, Nadia Gul, Jozef P. Bossowski, Ray Pillai, Patrick Micke, Johan Botling, Levent M. Akyürek, Davide Angeletti, Sama I. Sayin, Anetta Härtlova, Thales Papagiannakopoulos, Roger Olofsson Bagge, Anders Ståhlberg, Andreas Hallqvist, Clotilde Wiel, Volkan I. Sayin
Lung cancer predominantly affects older individuals, yet how physiological ageing influences tumour evolution remains poorly understood1. Here we show that ageing reprograms the evolutionary trajectory of KRAS-driven lung adenocarcinoma, limiting primary tumour growth while promoting metastatic dissemination through epigenetic activation of the integrated stress response (ISR). The ISR effector ATF4 drives epithelial and metabolic plasticity, conferring metastatic competence. Mechanistically, aged tumour cells show increased sensitivity to the PERK-eIF2α arm of the unfolded protein response, sustaining persistent ATF4 signalling. Targeting ISR-ATF4 genetically or pharmacologically abolishes these adaptations and limits dissemination, whereas ATF4 overexpression alone is sufficient to induce metastasis. The ageing-ATF4 axis imposes a dependency on glutamine metabolism, revealing a therapeutically actionable vulnerability. Clinical analyses confirm that ATF4 is enriched in aged tumours and correlates with poor survival and advanced-stage disease. Collectively, these results define epigenetic ISR-ATF4 activation as a causal driver of lineage plasticity and metastasis in aged tumours, revealing a therapeutic opportunity in older patients with lung adenocarcinoma, the most common yet understudied subset of lung cancer.
Ageing, Cancer metabolism, Mechanisms of disease, Metastasis, Non-small-cell lung cancer
Risk-adaptive therapy guided by dynamic ctDNA in nasopharyngeal carcinoma
Original Paper | Cancer therapy | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Jiawei Lv, Dan-Xue Zheng, Jin-Hui Liang, Ning Zhang, Zu-Lu Ye, Xu-Dong Xu, Melvin. L. K. Chua, Lu-Lu Zhang, Zi-Ming Du, Zi-Chen Zhang, Wen-Fei Li, Ling-Long Tang, Lei Chen, Yan-Ping Mao, Rui Guo, Yu-Pei Chen, Li Lin, Yuan Zhang, Xu Liu, Cheng Xu, Zhi-Xuan Li, Ling-Xin Xu, Pan-Yang Yang, Kun Chen, Deng Bin, Tian-Sheng Gao, Jian-Ye Yan, Lu-Si Chen, Shao Hui Huang, Hong-Yun Zhao, Shu-Bin Hong, Yu-Sheng Jie, Hui-Ling Huang, Xu-Hua Tang, Jing-Ping Yun, Li-Zhi Liu, Li Tian, Hao-Jiang Li, Ji-Bin Li, Guan-Qun Zhou, Jun Ma, Ying Sun
Despite promising data showing that circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) dynamics during treatment can inform real-time tumour response and recurrence risk1, how best to translate these insights into actionable clinical decision-making remains unclear. Here we report results from the EP-STAR trial–a multi-centre, ctDNA-driven, risk-adapted, non-randomized phase II study (NCT04072107; ClinicalTrials.gov) testing whether a risk-adaptive treatment (RAT) strategy guided by on-treatment ctDNA dynamics can meaningfully improve survival, using nasopharyngeal carcinoma as a model. Eligible patients were enrolled and began treatment with standard-of-care gemcitabine-cisplatin neoadjuvant chemotherapy (GP-NAC; the P in this abbreviation stands for platinum)2, followed by RAT or standard-of-care chemoradiotherapy guided by ctDNA clearance trajectory during GP-NAC. Protocol-eligible patients who did not receive RAT, drawn from a prospectively registered ctDNA biomarker cohort (NCT03855020)3, served as a non-randomized, contemporaneous no-RAT external cohort. The primary end-point was failure-free survival (FFS) in the RAT group. After a median follow-up of 47.3 months, the 3-year FFS was 89.1% (83.2-95.0%) in the RAT group (n = 110). Patients who received RAT showed significantly improved FFS (P = 0.003, log-rank test) compared with the no-RAT external cohort (hazard ratio = 0.41 [0.23-0.75]; P = 0.004, Cox regression model). The RAT strategy was well-tolerated with no treatment-related deaths. Collectively, these data show that a ctDNA-driven RAT paradigm could be a promising strategy to improve survival, challenging the conventional fixed-course, static treatment approach.
Cancer therapy, Head and neck cancer, Medical research
Gene conversion empowers natural selection in a clonal fish species
Original Paper | DNA recombination | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Edward S. Ricemeyer, Nathan K. Schaefer, Kang Du, Irene da Cruz, Susanne Kneitz, Rafael D. Acemel, Darío G. Lupiáñez, Rachel A. Carroll, Rosie Drinkwater, Manfred Schartl, Wesley C. Warren
Sexual reproduction is ancient and ubiquitous despite its obvious disadvantages1. Theory predicts that the reassortment of alleles that results from sex is necessary for natural selection to act effectively on individual loci; therefore, a purely clonal organism should rapidly accumulate deleterious mutations and go extinct2,3,4. Nevertheless, many asexual species have existed for longer than theory predicts is possible5,6,7, such as the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa), a clonally reproducing fish arising from a single hybridization event more than 100,000 years ago8,9,10. Here we show that although the Amazon molly has accumulated mutations faster than its sexual progenitor species, this has not led to functional mutational decay, defying theoretical expectations. Instead, gene conversion facilitates both adaptive and purifying selection by generating new clonal lineages in which previous mutations are either reverted or fixed, and by resolving hybrid incompatibilities between the ancestral haplotypes. The transition to clonality altered chromatin structure, but the asexual haplotypes of the Amazon molly nonetheless maintain the divergent mutational landscapes of their progenitor species. Together, these results provide new insights into long-standing questions about the trade-offs involved in asexual reproduction.
DNA recombination, Evolutionary genetics, Molecular evolution, Mutation, Population genetics
A mechanism to initiate emergency type 2 myelopoiesis
Original Paper | Differentiation | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Alexandre Fagnan, Cristina Di Genua, Yiran Meng, Roy Drissen, Zishan Zhang, Bowen Zhang, Padraic G. Fallon, Vassilis Pachnis, Erika J. Mancini, Fränze Progatzky, Claus Nerlov
Immune responses to parasite infection involve the increased production of basophils and eosinophils. These two myeloid cell types have key roles in type 2 anti-parasite immunity1 and rely on GATA family transcription factors for their specification2,3. The first committed step in basophil and eosinophil production is generation of basophil-eosinophil-mast cell progenitors (BEMPs) from oligopotent erythroid-primed multipotent progenitors (EMPPs). However, it is not well established how immune responses act on progenitors to initiate type 2 myelopoiesis. Here we show that infection with the helminth Heligmosomoides polygyrus increases EMPP commitment to myeloid fate at the expense of erythropoiesis. Upon infection with H. polygyrus, the IL-33 alarmin accumulated in the bone marrow, causing EMPPs to upregulate the GATA co-factor LMO4 and preferentially differentiate into myeloid cells. LMO4 was sufficient to instruct myeloid fate in EMPPs by interacting with GATA2, displacing the FOG1 co-factor and redistributing GATA binding from megakaryocyte-erythroid-specific to basophil, eosinophil and mast cell (BEM)-specific chromatin. Accordingly, mice carrying a GATA2 mutation that selectively impairs the LMO4-GATA2 interaction were deficient in GATA factor allocation to BEM chromatin, myeloid lineage commitment, basophil and eosinophil production, and parasite control. This identifies LMO4 as an IL-33-regulated master regulator of type 2 myelopoiesis, and transcription factor reallocation as a mechanism of lineage commitment.
Differentiation, Epigenetics, Granulocytes, Myelopoiesis
Nature Materials
Prediction of rheological properties via structure elucidation of solvated hydrogels
Original Paper | Characterization and analytical techniques | 2026-03-10 20:00 EDT
Nathan D. Rosenmann, Lauren M. Irie, Joanna Korpanty, Eric W. Roth, Reiner Bleher, Nehal Nupnar, Kathleen Wood, Yu Chen, Brent S. Sumerlin, Steven J. Weigand, Michael J. A. Hore, Jitendra P. Mata, Nathan C. Gianneschi
Hydrogels are prevalent materials with applications ranging from drug delivery systems, contact lenses and tissue engineering scaffolds. However, they require considerable perturbation to observe their nanoscale, solution-phase structures necessary for predicting bulk properties. Although studies suggest that methylcellulose, a quintessential hydrogel material, can be described by a semiflexible biopolymer network model, there remain demonstrable inconsistencies in the predicted concentration dependence of rheological properties and in the observation of higher-order features. Here we image solvated hydrogels with high spatiotemporal resolution via liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy to avoid desolvation and shear artefacts. Corroborated by scattering and scanning electron microscopy, we observe that methylcellulose hydrogels form a network with high persistence length and micrometre-scale fibril bundles arranged in hierarchical assemblies, providing a more accurate prediction of bulk rheology. In addition, network structures are observed for hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and hydroxypropyl cellulose. These observations across multiple-length scales lead to a clearer understanding of how nanoscale structure impacts microscale structure and macroscopic behaviour, aiding the development of more accurate structure-property relationships for hydrogel materials.
Characterization and analytical techniques, Gels and hydrogels, Materials science
Physical Review Letters
Modeling the Cosmological Lyman-$α$ Forest at the Field Level
Article | Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Roger de Belsunce, Mikhail M. Ivanov, James M. Sullivan, Kazuyuki Akitsu, and Shi-Fan Chen
A new mathematical framework based on perturbation theory could yield new insights into cosmic structure and fundamental physics.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 101001 (2026)
Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation
Megahertz Gravitational Waves from Neutron Star Mergers
Article | Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Diego Blas, Jorge Casalderrey-Solana, David Mateos, and Mikel Sanchez-Garitaonandia
Neutron star mergers provide a unique laboratory for the study of strong-field gravity coupled to quantum chromodynamics in extreme conditions. The frequencies and amplitudes of the resulting gravitational waves encode invaluable information about the merger. Simulations to date have shown that thes…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 101401 (2026)
Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation
Torsional Carroll Gravity
Article | Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Patrick Concha, Nelson Merino, Lucrezia Ravera, and Evelyn Rodríguez
The ultrarelativistic (Carrollian) regime of gravity has recently emerged as a fertile framework for exploring holography, non-Lorentzian symmetries, and geometric limit of general relativity. In this Letter, we establish the presence of a nonvanishing torsion within three-dimensional Carrollian gra…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 101402 (2026)
Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation
Anyon Superconductivity and Plateau Transitions in Doped Fractional Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulators
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Pavel A. Nosov, Zhaoyu Han, and Eslam Khalaf
A unified theory explains the recent discovery of superconductivity and reentrant integer quantum anomalous Hall states in twisted MoTe in terms of the disorder-broadened Landau-Hofstadter bands of doped anyons.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 106501 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Dimensionality-Dependent Exciton Dispersion in a Single-Band Mott Insulator
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Zhibin Su, Junjian Mi, Shaohua Yan, Jiade Li, Siwei Xue, Zhiyu Tao, Enling Wang, Xiongfei Shi, Hechang Lei, Zhuan Xu, Jiandong Guo, and Xuetao Zhu
High-resolution electron scattering confirms the dimensional transition of exciton dispersion from parabolic (3D) to massless linear (2D) behavior near the Brillouin zone center.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 106502 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Condensed Spin Excitation of Quantized Dirac Fermions in the Quasi-Two-Dimensional Semimetal ${\mathrm{BaMnBi}}_{2}$
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Masashi Kumazaki, Azimjon Temurjonov, Takaaki Jinno, Yukihiro Watanabe, Taku Matsuhita, Yoshiaki Kobayashi, and Yasuhiro Shimizu
Dirac semimetals provide a new platform for the quantum Hall effect at low magnetic fields. In the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling, a spin-split Landau level is expected to enhance the bulk quasiparticle excitation. Here we report NMR spectroscopy that site selectively probes dynamic spin sus…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 106601 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Physical Review X
Dimensionality Tuning of Heavy-Fermion States in Ultrathin ${\mathrm{CeSi}}_{2}$ Films
Article | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Yi Wu, Weifan Zhu, Teng Hua, Yuan Fang, Yanan Zhang, Jiawen Zhang, Yanen Huang, Hao Zheng, Shanyin Fu, Xinying Zheng, Zhengtai Liu, Mao Ye, Ye Chen, Tulai Sun, Michael Smidman, Johann Kroha, Chao Cao, Huiqiu Yuan, Frank Steglich, Hai-Qing Lin, and Yang Liu
Thickness-dependent studies of CeSi films reveal that the transition from three to two dimensions suppresses crystal electric field excitations and reduces the effective Kondo energy in heavy-fermion systems.
Phys. Rev. X 16, 011053 (2026)
Review of Modern Physics
Colloquium: Multimessenger astronomy with continuous gravitational waves and future detectors
Article | 2026-03-10 06:00 EDT
Benjamin J. Owen
The search for continuous gravitational waves from rotating neutron stars represents a key frontier of gravitational-wave astrophysics, with strong connections to electromagnetic astronomy, nuclear astrophysics, and condensed matter physics. This Colloquium discusses the detection prospects for these long-lived yet elusive signals in the upcoming generation of gravitational-wave detectors, emphasizing the importance of simultaneous electromagnetic observations. It also surveys the potential implications of such multimessenger observations for our understanding of the physical and astrophysical processes taking place in the extremely dense environments of their sources.
Rev. Mod. Phys. 98, 011002 (2026)
arXiv
Thermal Hall conductivity from semiclassical spin dynamics simulations: implementation and applications to chiral ferromagnets and Kitaev magnets
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Ignacio Salgado-Linares, Alexander Mook, Léo Mangeolle, Johannes Knolle
We investigate thermal Hall transport in magnetic systems, using semiclassical spin dynamics simulations. Building on a linear response framework, we discuss the intricacies of computing the thermal Hall conductivity from real-time energy current correlations and the energy magnetization. We then apply this methodology to two models: a square-lattice chiral magnet with in-plane Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, and the antiferromagnetic Kitaev model in a field. Our results demonstrate the efficiency of semiclassical spin dynamics to study thermal Hall transport capturing quantitative effects beyond the simple intrinsic non-interacting approximation. They can serve as a benchmark for comparison with experiments in regimes where non-linearities from magnon-magnon interactions and strong thermal fluctuations play a crucial role.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
16 pages, 10 figures
Pfaffian-based topological invariants for one dimensional semiconductor-superconductor heterostructures
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Binayyak B. Roy, William B. Cason, Nimish Sharma, Sumanta Tewari
We review the Pfaffian-based $ \mathbb{Z}_2$ topological invariants in one dimensional semiconductor-superconductor (SM-SC) nanowire heterostructures and clarify their validity in finite and disordered systems. For the clean nanowire, the product of the Pfaffians of the Hamiltonian at particle-hole symmetric momenta $ k=0,\pi$ changes sign at the topological phase transition defined by the bulk gap closing, leading to the definition of $ \mathbb{Z}_2$ Kitaev invariant also known as Majorana number. We show that this momentum-space invariant is equivalent to a real space construction based on twisted boundary conditions, in which the sign of the product of the Pfaffians of the Hamiltonian under periodic and anti-periodic boundary conditions defines the $ \mathbb{Z}_2$ index. By introducing a superlattice description of periodically repeated disorder, we demonstrate that the real space Pfaffian invariant defined as the sign of the Pfaffians of the Hamiltonian with periodic and anti-periodic boundary conditions, remains a well defined invariant even in the absence of microscopic translational symmetry. Within this framework, it is also equivalent to the recently defined periodic disorder invariant (PDI), which constitutes an integer valued ($ \mathbb{Z}$ ) topological invariant in the presence of chiral symmetry. Finally, we prove that the sign of the Pfaffian of a quadratic Hamiltonian equals the fermion parity of its ground state, establishing a direct physical interpretation of the invariant, in terms of sign of the product of the ground state fermion parity with periodic and anti-periodic boundary conditions. Numerical results confirm the correspondence between sign of the Pfaffian reversals, flux-induced level crossings, and ground-state parity switching in clean and disordered nanowires.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Interplay of local and global quantum geometry in the stability of flat-band superfluids
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Kukka-Emilia Huhtinen, Matteo Dürrnagel, Valerio Peri, Sebastian D. Huber
Quantum geometry strongly impacts physical properties in flat-band systems. We consider its role in bosonic condensation and superfluidity on flat bands, and show that the superfluid weight has an important contribution proportional to the condensate quantum metric. Based on this result, we uncover conditions under which flat-band superfluidity is unlikely. For instance, we find that stable flat-band superfluidity in a two-dimensional system requires at least three bands within Bogoliubov theory. Because the quantum geometry at the condensation momentum plays a disproportionately large role, a large integrated quantum metric is not sufficient for flat-band superfluidity, but how the quantum metric is distributed in the Brillouin zone is crucial.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas)
13 pages, 2 figures
Quantum Simulation of Massive Relativistic Fields in 2 + 1 Dimensions
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Yansheng Zhang, Feiyang Wang, Paul H. C. Wong, Alexander C. Jenkins, Konstantinos Konstantinou, Nishant Dogra, Joseph H. Thywissen, Christoph Eigen, Zoran Hadzibabic
Quantum field theories provide fundamental models of complex interacting systems, from high-energy physics and cosmology to condensed matter. However, solving these models in non-perturbative and dynamical regimes is often extremely challenging, particularly in more than one spatial dimension. Analog simulation using tunable synthetic quantum systems can both verify existing theoretical predictions and lead to new physical insights. Here, we realize quantum simulation of massive relativistic fields in $ 2+1$ dimensions (two spatial dimensions and time), using two coherently coupled spin components in a uniform two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate. Specifically, we encode the paradigmatic sine-Gordon model in the field describing the relative phase, $ \phi$ , of the two components. We show that, in the perturbative regime, collective field excitations exhibit a relativistic dispersion with a tuneable mass gap. We also observe explicitly non-perturbative phenomena, including the existence of topological domain walls across which $ \phi$ rapidly winds by $ 2\pi$ . Our work opens possibilities for studies of cosmologically relevant phenomena including preheating, dynamics of topological defects, and relativistic false-vacuum decay.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th), Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
7 pages, 5 figures
Weyl-Transition-Driven Giant Reversible Orbital Hall Conductivity
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Bo Zhao, Hao Wang, Wei Ren, Hongbin Zhang
Orbital Hall conductivity (OHC) is a central ingredient of orbitronics, yet how to control it microscopically remains largely unexplored. Here we identify a general mechanism in which tilted Weyl crossings formed by orbitally distinct bands generate a strongly asymmetric orbital Berry curvature (OBC) distribution, whose imbalance survives Brillouin-zone integration and yields a sizable OHC already at zeroth order. Using first-principles calculations, we show that monolayer PtBi2 realizes this mechanism and hosts a giant OHC dominated by a type-II Weyl point. A small biaxial tensile strain drives a type-II $ \rightarrow$ type-I $ \rightarrow$ type-II Weyl transition, leading to a reversible sign change of the OHC through the evolution of the OBC imbalance. This process is governed by the chiral orbital texture of the crossing bands and is further assisted by a strain-induced first-order structural phase transition through bonding reconstruction and polarization change. Our results establish Weyl engineering of orbital quantum geometry as a powerful route to generating and reversibly controlling OHC in polar multi-orbital materials.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Ground-State Structure Search of Defective High-Entropy Alloys Using Machine-Learning Potentials and Monte Carlo Sampling
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Resolving the atomic-scale structure of defective high-entropy alloys (HEAs) containing interstitial species remains a major computational challenge due to the vast configurational space and the limitations of existing methods. Here we introduce PAIPAI (Package for Alloy Interstitial Predictions using Artificial Intelligence), a Monte Carlo framework coupled with machine-learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) that searches for ground-state atomic configurations in HEAs with defects and interstitials. PAIPAI employs a dual-worker architecture-fast workers for rapid configurational screening and slow workers for high-accuracy refinement-coordinated through a shared waiting pool, enabling efficient parallel sampling. We demonstrate PAIPAI through three case studies: (i) surface segregation in a Ti-V-Cr-Re slab; (ii) interstitial oxygen and boron aggregation in bulk BCC Nb-Ti-Ta-Hf; and (iii) coupled metallic and interstitial segregation at grain boundaries in Nb-Ti-Ta-Hf. In all cases, Monte Carlo-optimized structures are significantly lower in energy than any configuration obtained by random sampling, and MLIP energy rankings are validated against density functional theory calculations. PAIPAI provides a general and efficient framework for predicting atomic ordering, segregation, and interstitial behavior in complex, defective HEA systems.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
13 Pages, 6 Figures
Uncovering the properties of homo-epitaxial GaN devices through cross-sectional infrared nanoscopy
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Hossein Zandipour, Felix Kaps, Robin Buschbeck, Maximilian Obst, Aditha Senarath, Richarda Niemann, Niclas S. Mueller, Gonzalo Alvarez-Perez, Katja Diaz-Granados, Ryan A Kowalski, Jakob Wetzel, Raghunandan Balasubramanyam Iyer, Matthew Wortel, J. Michael Klopf, Travis Anderson, Alan Jacobs, Mona Ebrish, Lukas M. Eng, Alexander Paarman, Susanne C. Kehr, Joshua D. Caldwell, Thomas G. Folland
Validating material performance in electrical devices is crucial to product development. For Gallium Nitride (GaN) devices, evaluating material factors such as defects, dopant concentration, and overall production quality is essential to ensure their performance in advanced electronic and optoelectronic applications. This work demonstrates that scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) can meet the demanding performance requirements for characterizing homoepitaxial GaN devices. Specifically, we show that combining s-SNOM results in the mid-IR and terahertz (THz) spectral ranges can disentangle carrier and lattice changes in a GaN p-i-n diode, which is not possible using one spectral range alone. We observe strong, resonant near-field signals near the LO phonon mode of GaN that correlate well with point-dipole models. This data shows great sensitivity to the local carrier density, with changes on the order of 1018 cm-3 easily resolved experimentally. Further, we demonstrate high sensitivity to sub-surface defects, which remain a significant challenge for other non-destructive techniques. To validate the power of s-SNOM imaging, our results are compared to traditional metrologies, including micro-Raman mapping and Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM). Our results show that s-SNOM shows superior resolution and sensitivity to perturbations, highlighting the power of this technique in semiconductor device characterization.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Aligning van der Waals heterostructures using electron backscatter diffraction
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
R. Bangari, M. Mosayebi, J. Buchner, J.D. Caldwell, N. Bassim, T. G. Folland
Precise and accurate determination of crystallographic orientation is crucial for engineering van der Waals heterostructures, where the twist angle between layers controls emergent electronic and optical properties. While Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) has been extensively used for bulk materials, its application to van der Waals materials remains largely unexplored. In this work, we demonstrate EBSD as a robust and versatile tool for determining crystallographic orientations of van der Waals materials with high precision. We show quantitative agreement between EBSD-determined orientations and facet orientations in orthorhombic {\alpha}-MoO3 flakes on silicon substrates. We use Grain Reference Orientation Distribution (GROD) and Kernel Average Misorientation (KAM) across the flakes to demonstrate precision better than 0.2°. We extend this technique to other low-symmetry materials, specifically, monoclinic {\alpha}-As2Te3, monoclinic GaTe and triclinic ReSe2, demonstrating broad applicability across van der Waals materials with different crystal structures. Finally, as a proof-of-concept application, we leverage EBSD-determined orientations to engineer twisted {\alpha}-MoO3 heterostructure with precisely controlled twist angle, enabling observation of recently reported canalized phonon polaritons. Our results establish EBSD as a powerful characterization method for van der Waals materials, enabling precise orientation control essential for twistronics and twist-optics.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
14 pages, 4 figures
Machine-learning assistant DFT study of half-metallic full-Heusler alloy N2CaNa: structural, electronic, mechanical, and thermodynamics properties
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
E. B. Ettah, M.E. Ishaje, K. A. Minakova, V.A. Sirenko, I. S. Bondar
We studied the structural, electronic, mechanical, and thermodynamic properties of N2CaNa full Heusler alloys using density functional theory (DFT). Results for the structural analysis establishes structural stability with a minimum formation energy of 29.90eV. The compounds is brittle and mechanically stable, having checked out with the Pugh criteria. B/G ratio for N2CaNa is 4.766 as computed in Tab.2, hence the material is ductile. N2CaNa alloy is ductile in nature. Debye model correctly predicts the low temperature dependence of heat capacity, which is proportional to the debye T3 law. Just like the Einstein model, it also recovers the Dulong-Petit law at high temperatures, suggests thermodynamic stability of the compounds at moderate temperatures. The results demonstrate potential for applications in spintronics, structural engineering, and other fields requiring materials with tailored properties.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
15 pages, 5 figures
Fiz. Nizk. Temp. 50, 928 (2024) [Low Temp. Phys. 50, 834 (2024)]
From Word2Vec to Transformers: Text-Derived Composition Embeddings for Filtering Combinatorial Electrocatalysts
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Compositionally complex solid solution electrocatalysts span vast composition spaces, and even one materials system can contain more candidate compositions than can be measured exhaustively. Here we evaluate a label-free screening strategy that represents each composition using embeddings derived from scientific texts and prioritizes candidates based on similarity to two property concepts. We compare a corpus-trained Word2Vec baseline with transformer-based embeddings, where compositions are encoded either by linear element-wise mixing or by short composition prompts. Similarities to `concept directions’, the terms conductivity and dielectric, define a 2-dimensional descriptor space, and a symmetric Pareto-front selection is used to filter candidate subsets without using electrochemical labels. Performance is assessed on 15 materials libraries including noble metal alloys and multicomponent oxides. In this setting, the lightweight Word2Vec baseline, which uses a simple linear combination of element embeddings, often achieves the highest number of reductions of possible candidate compositions while staying close to the best measured performance.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Computation and Language (cs.CL)
15 pages, 3 figures
Intrinsic magnetization of the superconducting condensate in Fe(Te,Se)
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Mohammad Javadi Balakan, Shiva Heidari, Genda Gu, Qiang Li, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Ji Ung Lee
A spin-polarized superconducting condensate generates a net magnetization with measurable signatures. We present evidence for an intrinsic magnetic field in mesoscopic Fe(Te,Se) rings. The intrinsic field, encoded in the phase of superconducting quantum oscillations, scales linearly with the DC bias current, and its orientation exhibits an anomalous dependence on polarity and magnitude of the applied current. The magnetoresistance displays a dual flux-quantization effect with respect to the external magnetic field and the DC current. A minimal model incorporating Rashba coupling with an effective anisotropic out-of-plane interaction accounts for the experimental observations. These results provide evidence for spin-polarized superconductivity at the device scale and open new opportunities for superconducting spintronic and quantum information platforms.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
When velocity autocorrelations mirror force autocorrelations: Exact noise-cancellation in interacting Brownian systems
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Anton Lüders, Suvendu Mandal, Thomas Franosch
Resolving the mean-squared displacement (MSD) and velocity autocorrelation function (VACF) of interacting Brownian particles remains a central challenge in simulations of soft-matter systems, especially at low densities where particle-particle interactions are sparse and signals are dominated by thermal noise. A recently proposed noise-cancellation (NC) algorithm [Mandal et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 168001 (2019)] addresses this by decomposing particle trajectories into two components: free Brownian motion and interaction-induced displacements. The NC approximation enhances signal clarity by neglecting cross-correlations between the total particle displacements and the extracted interaction-induced contributions of the trajectories - an assumption that has so far lacked rigorous theoretical justification. In this work, we establish an exact theoretical relation between the VACF, the force autocorrelation function (FACF) characterizing the interaction-induced contributions, and these cross-correlations, which is valid for Brownian systems. We show that in thermal equilibrium, the cross-correlations vanish for Brownian systems because the VACF is strictly proportional to the negative FACF, which establishes the NC algorithm as an exact method. In contrast, for Brownian nonequilibrium systems, the cross-correlations remain finite, providing a direct fingerprint of nonequilibrium physics in such systems and a criterion to distinguish equilibrium from nonequilibrium states. Here, suitable corrections must be applied for the NC method to remain accurate. Our results expand the scope of the NC algorithm to a broad range of soft-matter systems in and out of equilibrium, where it has the potential to strongly enhance the resolution of VACF data obtained through simulations in future studies.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
Phys. Rev. E 113, 035305 (2026)
Proximate Spin Liquid Ground State Arising from Competing Stripy and 120$^{\circ}$ Spin Correlations in the Triangular Quantum Antiferromagnet ErMgGaO$_4$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
S.H.-Y. Huang, S. Petit, Bo Yuan, Z. W. Cronkwright, C. Pinvidic, Y. Wang, E. M. Smith, S. Bhattacharya, C. Yang, J.-M. Zanotti, Q. Berrod, M. B. Stone, A. I. Kolesnikov, R.J. Cava, E. Kermarrec, B. D. Gaulin
ErMgGaO$ _4$ is a quantum antiferromagnet wherein the pseudospin-1/2 degrees of freedom of Er$ ^{3+}$ decorate two-dimensional triangular planes separated by disordered non-magnetic bilayers of Mg$ ^{2+}$ and Ga$ ^{3+}$ . Unlike its sister compound, YbMgGaO$ _4$ , our powder ErMgGaO$ _4$ sample shows a clear spin glass transition near $ T_g \sim 2.5$ K, about 1/6 of its Curie-Weiss temperature. We have carried out new inelastic neutron scattering measurements on these powder ErMgGaO$ _4$ samples. At high energies, we observed crystalline electric field (CEF) transitions within the $ J=15/2$ multiplet of Er$ ^{3+}$ , but with the first excited CEF level sufficiently low in energy ($ \sim$ 3meV) so as to allow the possibility that virtual CEF transitions influence the exchange couplings. At E=0, we observe diffuse elastic scattering which is analysed using Warren lineshapes appropriate for two dimensional correlations. This reveals dominant 2D stripy correlations below $ T_g$ , coexisting with 2D 120$ ^\circ$ -type correlations that persist above $ T_g$ . At low temperatures, the low energy inelastic component of the scattering shows a continuum with bandwidth of $ \sim$ 0.8meV. This dynamic magnetic spectral weight can be modeled at all $ Q$ , energies, and temperatures as the sum of high energy and low energy damped harmonic oscillators (DHO), with the high energy DHO defining the bandwidth of $ \sim$ 0.8meV. We use linear spin wave theory to model this inelastic scattering and to estimate its spin Hamiltonian parameters in terms of a $ J_1-J_2-\Delta$ model on the triangular lattice. This gives a good description of the low lying spectral weight for ErMgGaO4, and allows us to place it on the theoretical $ J_1-J_2-\Delta$ phase diagram with $ \frac{J_1}{J_2}=0.13 \pm 0.03$ and $ \Delta=0.4 \pm 0.1$ , which is close to the expected quantum phase boundary between the spin liquid and the stripy ordered phases.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
20 pages, 19 figures, abstract slightly modified to meet Arxiv character requirement; see PDF for full abstract
Competing Hydrogenation Pathways to Metastable CaH$_6$ Revealed by Machine-Learning-Potential Molecular Dynamics
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Ryuhei Sato, Peter I. C. Cooke, Maélie Caussé, Hung Ba Tran, Seong Hoon Jang, Di Zhang, Hao Li, Shin-ichi Orimo, Yasushi Shibuta, Chris J. Pickard
The synthesis of the high-$ T_c$ superhydride CaH$ _6$ has stimulated significant interest in understanding synthesis pathways for metastable hydrides. However, the microscopic mechanisms governing such hydrogenation reactions remain poorly understood. Here, we show that machine-learning potential molecular dynamics (MLP-MD) simulations can reproduce and distinguish competing reaction pathways leading to metastable and stable hydrides. By simulating hydrogenation reactions at CaH$ _2$ /H$ _2$ and CaH$ _4$ /H$ _2$ interfaces, we identify two distinct pathways that produce clathrate-type CaH$ _6$ and A15-type CaH$ _{5.75}$ , respectively. CaH$ _{5.75}$ lies on the convex hull but requires extensive Ca sublattice rearrangement and therefore forms only at elevated temperatures. In contrast, CaH$ _6$ becomes kinetically accessible when CaH$ _2$ is used as the precursor. The crystallographic compatibility between the Ca sublattice of CaH$ _2$ and the bcc framework of CaH$ _6$ enables a martensitic-like topotactic transformation that bypasses the reconstructive pathway leading to CaH$ _{5.75}$ . These results reveal how precursor structure and thermodynamic stability compete to determine superhydride formation pathways and demonstrate that machine-learning molecular dynamics can directly capture the kinetic selection of metastable phases in reactive materials systems.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
5 figures with supporting information
Ionic-instability induced color tuning in lead-based, mixed-halide perovskites
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Anthony Ruth, Halyna Okrepka, Michele Vergari, Charlie Desnoyers, Minh Nguyen, Luca Gavioli, Prashant V. Kamat, Masaru Kuno
Contrary to conventional wisdom, intermediate photoluminescence energies can be stabilized in mixed-halide lead perovskites during photosegregation. These intermediate energies reside between those of the parent, mixed-halide alloy and fully photosegregated specimens. This demonstrates rudimentary color tuning and has practical implications for potential uses of mixed-halide perovskites in lighting applications. More fundamentally, such color tuning begs the question of how intermediate photosegregation energies arise and how they are kinetically stabilized. What follows is a study of the kinetics of terminal photosegregation energies under pulsed laser excitation. Through concerted continuous wave and pulsed laser photosegregation measurements, we develop a kinetic rationalization for how photosegregations repetition rate or duty cycle and peak fluence dependencies lead to intermediate, terminal photoluminescence energies. The developed model, in turn, explains prior observations of pulsed illumination photosegregation and offers potential insights into other, yet to be explained, phenomena such as spectral blueshifting under high intensity, pulsed illumination.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
13 pages, 5 figures
3D Mapping of Intragranular Residual Strain and Microstructure in Recrystallized Iron Using Dark-Field X-ray Microscopy
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Virginia Sanna, Yubin Zhang, Wolfgang Ludwig, Aditya Shukla, Abderrahmane Benhadjira, Marilyn Sarkis, Can Yildirim
Grain growth is a key process in the thermomechanical treatment of metals. Recently, the presence of local residual stresses within fully recrystallized grains has attracted increasing interest in connection with shear-coupled grain boundary migration mechanisms. In this work, we provide the first direct experimental measurements of residual elastic strain variations in fully recrystallized commercial-purity iron, on the order of $ 10^{-4}$ . Using dark-field X-ray microscopy (DFXM), we performed non-destructive three-dimensional measurements of strain and orientation variations within individual grains. Our results reveal heterogeneous strain distributions across all measured grains. In one case, we observed several isolated dislocations accommodating two second-phase particles, exhibiting a localized strain signature with no detectable long-range effect. The formation mechanisms of intragranular residual strains and their potential influence on grain boundary migration during subsequent grain growth are discussed. This work highlights the importance of accounting for such residual elastic strains in future grain growth models.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Applied Physics (physics.app-ph)
Rényi exponent landscape of multipartite entanglement in free-fermion systems
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
We show that the Rényi tripartite information $ I_3^{(\alpha)}$ of free fermions exhibits a qualitatively $ \alpha$ -dependent scaling at small Fermi momentum, in sharp contrast to bipartite entropy where only the prefactor changes. In the rank-1 regime ($ z = k_F w \ll 1$ ), $ I_3^{(\alpha)}$ receives contributions from two competing channels – a fractional-moment channel $ \sim z^\alpha$ (active for non-integer $ \alpha$ ) and a polynomial channel $ \sim z^m$ from the first nonvanishing inclusion-exclusion moment $ \sigma_m$ – yielding the scaling exponent $ \beta_m(\alpha) = \min(\alpha, m)$ for $ m$ -partite information of $ m$ adjacent strips. Integer Rényi indices $ \alpha = 2, 3, \ldots$ are anomalous: the fractional channel closes and the exponent jumps to $ m$ or higher. A direct consequence is a replica obstruction: $ I_m^{(n)}/I_m^{(1)} \sim z^{m-1} \to 0$ for all integer $ n \geq 2$ , so the leading von Neumann signal cannot be reconstructed from integer Rényi data at the level of leading scaling – a situation with no bipartite analog. Conversely, negativity-based measures ($ \alpha = 1/2$ ) give a $ 20\times$ enhanced signal compared to von Neumann. We derive the underlying product formula for the coefficient $ c(w_A, w_B, w_D)$ , prove an $ m$ -partite generating function for the inclusion-exclusion moments, and verify all results numerically to high precision.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table
Predictive first-principles simulations for co-designing next-generation energy-efficient AI systems
New Submission | Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Denis Mamaluy, Md Rahatul Islam Udoy, Juan P. Mendez, Ben Feinberg, Wei Pan, Ahmedullah Aziz
In modern generative-AI workloads, matrix-vector/matrix-matrix multiplications (\emph{MatMul}) dominate the compute and energy cost. Achieving dramatic reductions in energy per token therefore requires a novel, specialized hardware that is co-designed across materials, devices, interconnects, circuits, and architectures rather than optimized at any single layer in isolation. In this \emph{Perspectives} article, we argue that \emph{predictive} (first-principles, fitting-parameter-free) device and interconnect simulations can close the loop between nanoscale physics and workload-level metrics, enabling the identification of device/interconnect operating regimes that plausibly support \emph{orders-of-magnitude} improvements in energy efficiency of AI accelerators.
Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other)
Dynamics of viscous liquids and the Random Barrier Model
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Thomas B. Schrøder, Jeppe C. Dyre, Camille Scalliet
This paper combines the particle-swap Monte Carlo algorithm with long GPU molecular dynamics simulations to analyze the dynamics of a ternary Lennard-Jones glass-forming liquid in the extremely viscous regime. The focus is on the inherent dynamics, obtained by quenching configurations along the configuration-space trajectory into their inherent state. We compare how two functional forms, the von Schweidler law and the random barrier model (RBM) prediction in the extreme disorder limit, fit data for the inherent mean-squared displacement as a function of time. We find that the RBM, which has no dimensionless free parameters, generally fits the data better than the von Schweidler law, despite the latters one dimensionless free parameter. In particular, this implies that the RBM predicts the value of the diffusion coefficient from short-time simulation data more accurately than does the von Schweidler expression. It remains an open question why the RBM reproduces well the inherent data despite this models (unrealistic) assumption of identical energy minima.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
11 Pages, 11 figures
Field-Programmable Topological Torons in Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Adithya Pradeep, Urban Mur, Ji Qin, Jonghyeon Ka, Waqas Kamal, Tianxin Wang, Junseok Ma, Jianming Wang, Steve J. Elston, Stephen M. Morris
Torons are three-dimensional double-twist solitons in chiral nematic liquid crystals that form localised director configurations protected by topology and bounded by closed defect loops. They behave as particle-like entities while retaining a fully reconfigurable optical response. Here it is shown experimentally that individual torons can be created, steered and parked on demand using tailored alternating-current electric fields in planar cells, enabling deterministic control of both position and trajectory. By tuning the ratio of cell thickness to cholesteric pitch and systematically adjusting waveform parameters, including amplitude, modulation frequency, duty-cycle asymmetry and small DC offsets, robust toron nucleation is achieved and programmable translation is realised along arbitrary in-plane directions with submicrometre placement accuracy. Directional transport is controlled within a defined frequency and temperature window and can be reversed by changing modulation conditions even at zero offset. A dedicated graphical interface enables real-time switching between waveform presets so that torons follow scripted paths and draw user-defined shapes. Quantitative Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor simulations reproduce toron nucleation and the ensuing translational dynamics, supporting an interpretation in which waveform-controlled director reorientation, reorientation-driven flow and rectified polarity-sensitive coupling jointly bias the drift. Finally, three proof-of-concept functions are demonstrated: a software-defined liquid-crystal racetrack memory analogue with optical readout, deterministic path writing for reconfigurable patterning, and toron-mediated pick-and-place transport of microparticles for micromanipulation.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
24 pages, 4 figures
Universal Family-Vicsek scaling in quantum gases far from equilibrium
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Kiryang Kwon, Kazuya Fujimoto, Junhyeok Hur, Byungjin Lee, Samgyu Hwang, Sumin Kim, Ryusuke Hamazaki, Yuki Kawaguchi, Jae-yoon Choi
Fluctuations in the growing surfaces of classical systems can exhibit universal scaling behavior, known as Family-Vicsek (FV) scaling. Although this phenomenon was originally discovered in classical stochastic models, recent theoretical studies have demonstrated the presence of FV scaling in quantum many-body systems as well. Here, we observe the universal FV scaling in a one-dimensional Bose gas in an optical lattice. By monitoring the fluctuations of particle number in half of the system, which corresponds to the surface roughness, we extract all scaling exponents and demonstrate that the entire relaxation-from the growth of quantum fluctuations to their saturation-is captured by a single universal scaling function. Our results demonstrate that universal scaling laws of classical surface growth extend to quantum many-body systems, establishing a unified framework for nonequilibrium universality across classical and quantum systems.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
9 pages, 5 figures, and supplemental materials
Spectral Indicators of Piezomagnetically Induced Symmetry Breaking in Altermagnets
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
N. Sasabe, H. Koizumi, Y. Ishii, Y. Yamasaki
Recent developments in the multipole reformulation of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) have provided a unified framework to describe magnetic and orbital responses in terms of ferroic multipole order parameters. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) is known to probe spin, orbital, and anisotropic magnetic dipole (AMD) moments. Its applications to altermagnets and noncollinear antiferromagnets have revealed that the XMCD response is often governed by the ferroic states of the AMD in the photo-excited states rather than by conventional magnetic dipoles in the ground states. In this work, we extend the multipole-based analysis to X-ray magnetic linear dichroism (XMLD) and demonstrate that XMLD in altermagnets can be understood as a manifestation of piezomagnetic effects: linear couplings between magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments. Using symmetry analysis combined with exact diagonalization calculations of $ L_{2,3}$ -edge XAS, we systematically investigate representative altermagnets, including $ \alpha$ -MnTe, MnF$ _2$ , and CrSb. We show that the ferroic ordering of higher-rank magnetic multipoles, particularly spinful magnetic octupoles, gives rise to characteristic field-odd XMLD signals that directly reflect the underlying piezomagnetic response tensors allowed by magnetic point-group symmetry. Furthermore, we discuss XMCD signals induced by piezomagnetic effects, in which strain generates magnetic dipole moments. Our results establish XMLD and XMCD as element-specific probes of magnetoelastic multipole order in altermagnets and provide a general symmetry-based pathway to identify hidden ferroic multipoles and strain-controllable spin phenomena beyond conventional ferromagnetism.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Impact of spin–orbit coupling on orbital diamagnetism in a narrow-gap semiconductor $\mathrm{Pb}_{1-x}\mathrm{Sn}_x\mathrm{Te}$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
We study the influence of spin–orbit coupling (SOC) on orbital magnetism in $ \mathrm{Pb}_{1-x}\mathrm{Sn}_x\mathrm{Te}$ , a narrow-gap semiconductor. Using the $ \pi$ -matrix method, we calculate material-specific Landau levels and evaluate the magnetization, fully including interband effects. The system exhibits diamagnetism for both $ x = 0$ and $ x = 0.35$ , with the latter showing a stronger response due to its smaller gap. The magnitude of diamagnetism increases monotonically with SOC strength, particularly in strong magnetic fields. To clarify the underlying mechanism, we introduce the free–Zeeman–Dirac (fZD) model and fit its parameters to the calculated Landau levels. The analysis reveals that SOC enhances the Dirac-type interband contribution relative to the Zeeman term, leading to increased diamagnetism. These results demonstrate that SOC can play a key role in orbital magnetism through interband effects.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
10 pages, 7 figurres
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 38 015804 (2026)
Canonical Criterion for Third-Order Transitions
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Fangfang Wang, Wei Liu, Kai Qi, Zidong Cui, Ying Tang, Zengru Di
Microcanonical inflection-point analysis (MIPA) identifies third-order transitions from derivatives of the microcanonical entropy, but whether such transitions admit a direct canonical formulation has remained unclear. Here we establish a fluctuation-based canonical framework for third-order transitions through a cumulant-ratio criterion whose signed extrema define their canonical counterparts and, in the single-saddle regime, are asymptotically linked to microcanonical classification. Because the criterion depends only on energy cumulants, it avoids explicit density-of-states reconstruction and remains operational in nonequilibrium steady states. Physically, it reveals dependent and independent third-order transitions as fluctuation reorganizations around low-order transitions, namely disordered-side precursors and ordered-side restructuring. Benchmarks on Onsager’s two-dimensional Ising solution, finite size Potts models, and a driven nonreciprocal Ising model show that the framework is theoretically grounded and broadly applicable.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
5 pages, 3 figures
Ultralight High-Entropy Nanowire Scaffolds for Extreme-Temperature Functionality
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Cameron S. Jorgensen, Corisa Kons, William Stallions, Austin C. Houston, Gerd Duscher, Dustin A. Gilbert
High-entropy alloys (HEAs) combine compositional disorder with exceptional functional tunability, yet their inherently high-density limits use in lightweight systems. Here, we introduce entropy-architected nanowire metamaterials, a class of materials that couple configurational entropy with structural porosity to achieve metal-like functionality at ultralow density. FeCoNiCrCu HEA nanowires were electrodeposited into porous templates and freeze-cast into three-dimensional bird`s-nest scaffolds with densities below 1 $ %$ of the bulk metal. The resulting architectures retain a disordered face-centered-cubic phase, exhibit Curie temperatures exceeding 1000 K, and deliver thermal diffusivity ($ \approx0.211$ mm$ ^2$ s$ ^{-1}$ ) comparable to titanium alloys. Structural and spectroscopic analyses reveal nanoscale Cu segregation that enhances magnetic ordering and thermal stability. These findings demonstrate that configurational entropy and architectural hierarchy can be co-engineered to yield lightweight, high-temperature functional materials for extreme-environment applications.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Applied Physics (physics.app-ph)
Material-Property-Field-based Deep Neural Network in Hopfield Framework
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Yanxiao Hu, Ye Sheng, Caichao Ye, Wenxing Qian, Xiaoxin Xu, Yabei Wu, Jiong Yang, William A. Goddard III, Wenqing Zhang
The current Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) lack the necessary physical priors and a clear formulation specifically designed for material systems. making them non-analytical and non-interpretable ‘black boxes’. In this work, we integrate Material Property Fields (MPF) with the Hopfield network architecture and propose an analytical DNN framework named mPFDNN. MPF provides a unified framework that represents physical properties of materials as an analytical field built upon pairwise interactions, rigorously respecting fundamental symmetries, while also enabling a physically legitimate decomposition of property distributions at the atomic level. Although the Hopfield model was initially developed for Ising-like systems, we prove that its dynamical evolution strategy for DNN design is equally well suited to MPF. By mathematically reformatting interatomic nonlinear interactions as ‘hidden neurons’, the MPF can be naturally evolved into a deep yet analytically tractable DNN architecture that approximates a fully connected interaction landscape. This framework also unifies nonlinear DNNs and linear approaches within a single cohesive model. Extensive validation across diverse systems (inorganic crystals, organic molecules, and aqueous solutions) and multiple properties (diffusion coefficients, adsorption energy, etc.) confirm that mPFDNN not only achieves accurate predictions but also provides a principled and universal framework for structure-property mapping for physical, chemical and materials science.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Optically driven thermodynamic transition from free- to locked-epitaxy
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Renhong Liang, Mao Ye, Yiran Ying, Longlong Shu, Renkui Zheng, Haitao Huang, Jianhua Hao, Shuk-Yin Tong, Shanming Ke
Controlling crystallographic orientation in quasi-van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy remains a fundamental challenge, especially for material systems located near the boundary between weakly and strongly coupled growth regimes. In such marginal systems, epitaxial selection is governed by a delicate thermodynamic competition between surface-energy penalties and interfacial interaction gains, giving rise to two archetypal limits: vdW-dominated free-epitaxy and strong interfacial coupling dominated locked-epitaxy. However, dynamically driving transitions between these regimes has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate that external light irradiation can deterministically induce such a transition. Using the thermodynamically frustrated Fe4N/mica interface as a model system, we show that photo-excited carriers act as a chemical potentiator, significantly enhancing the interfacial chemical affinity. Within a quantitative thermodynamic description, this optical modulation increases the locking criterion (I_lock)-defined as the ratio of interfacial energy gain to surface-energy cost-beyond its critical threshold. As a result, the system switches from vdW-dominated free-epitaxy with (001) orientation to chemically locked-epitaxy with (111) orientation. Our findings establish light as a non-invasive and switchable control knob to dynamically reconfigure the interfacial energy landscape in quasi-vdW epitaxy, enabling programmable access to distinct epitaxial states beyond intrinsic material limitations.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
20 pages, 4 figures
Ab initio simulation of the first-order proton-ordering transition in water ice
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Qi Zhang, Sicong Wan, Lei Wang
Proton ordering in water ice is a paradigmatic order-disorder transition in a locally constrained system. The ice rules require exactly two hydrogens close to each oxygen, restricting the disorder to an exponentially large yet strongly correlated manifold of hydrogen-bond configurations. Within this constrained space, meV-scale energy differences drive the transition from disordered ice Ih to ordered ice XI, while distinct configurations are separated by eV-scale barriers. These barriers hinder equilibration in experiments, and efficient sampling of this space with the required energy accuracy has remained a long-standing challenge in simulation. We address this by combining a machine learning interatomic potential with loop updates that preserve the ice rules and continuous updates of atomic coordinates, enabling equilibrium sampling with ab initio accuracy and capturing configurational entropic effects. In systems of up to 360 water molecules, with over 10^6 samples retained per temperature point, the simulations reveal clear first-order transition signatures at 83 K: a negative Binder cumulant, a bimodal potential energy distribution, and a sharp step in the lattice aspect ratio. Nuclear quantum effects are estimated to lower the transition temperature by approximately 20 K, bringing the prediction closer to the experimental value of 72 K.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
8+9 pages, 3+6 figures
Structural and electronic signatures of strain-tunable marginally twisted bilayer graphene
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Pei Ouyang, Jiawei Yu, Qian Li, Guihao Jia, Yuyang Wang, Kebin Xiao, Hongyun Zhang, Zhiqiang Hu, Pierre A. Pantaleón, Zhen Zhan, Shuyun Zhou, Francisco Guinea, Qi-Kun Xue, Wei Li
Marginally twisted bilayer graphene having small twist angles is predicted to exhibit unique structural and electronic properties, though experimental characterization remains limited. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we investigate such systems with twist angles of 0.06^{\circ}-0.35^{\circ}. AA-stacked regions reveal a pronounced tunneling spectral peak signifying highly localized electronic states. Conversely, AB domains display uniform multiple spectral peaks, indicative of strong lattice reconstruction and enhanced electronic homogeneity. We identify two distinct strain-induced domain walls: one exhibits a sharp -120 meV spectral peak (shear type), while the other shows distinct spectral characteristics (mixed shear-tensile type). Tight-binding calculations verify strain-driven transformations of both domain wall types and confirm direct observation of strain-mediated domain wall transitions. These results elucidate the electronic structure of marginally twisted bilayer graphene and establish strain as a control parameter for domain wall states.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
11 pages, 4 figures
Natl. Sci. Rev. 13, nwaf568 (2026)
Hopfield model for patterns with internal structure
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
The spherical version of the Hopfield model for pattern recognition is considered in the static limit. Structures inside the patterns are modeled by Gaussian random variables that reward correlation between pairs of spins in a given pattern. The free energy is derived analytically with the replica method. The overlap distribution obeys a self-consistent equation. Coming from high temperatures, a spin glass phase is entered, in which patterns and correlations appear at lower temperatures. For small enough loading capacity, also a glass phase with patterns and correlations appears.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
26 pages latex
The European Physical Journal Special Topics, 1-18 (2025)
Orbital-Zeeman cross correlation in $p$- and $d$-wave altermagnets
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Tomonari Mizoguchi, Soshun Ozaki
Altermagnets are a novel class of magnets that exhibit a large spin splitting but the total magnetic moment is vanishing. This unconventional spin splitting gives rise to various characteristic phenomena, such as spin current generation. In this paper, we study the orbital-Zeeman (OZ) cross term in altermagnets. Specifically, we consider the Rashba metal and the surface Dirac cones of three-dimensional topological insulators (TIs) in the presence of the altermagnetic order parameters. For the Rashba metals, the $ p$ -wave order parameter exerts only a limited influence on the OZ term, whereas the $ d$ -wave one causes the sign change of it when the order parameter becomes sufficiently large. For the TI surface, the $ p$ -wave order parameter retains the step-function-type dependence of the OZ term as a function of the chemical potential ($ \mu$ ) associated with the jump at $ \mu=0$ , observed in the TI surface without magnetism, but its magnitude is reduced. For the $ d$ -wave case, the magnitude of jump at $ \mu =0$ is preserved but the OZ term decreases as increasing $ |\mu|$ .
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
10 pages, 5 figures
Breathing and Fission of Magnetic Multi-Solitons
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
G. Brochier, Y. Li, S. Wattellier, S. Philips, F. Rabec, S. Nascimbene, J. Dalibard, J. Beugnon
We report the deterministic experimental realization and controlled fission of magnetic multi-soliton states in a uniform quasi-one-dimensional immiscible two-component Bose gas. We explore the Manakov regime, where the spin dynamics is well described by the easy-axis Landau-Lifshitz equation (LLE). The gauge equivalence between the easy-axis LLE and the attractive nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) enables the direct construction of magnetic multi-solitons from the well-known NLSE solutions. We observe the two- and three- soliton states, which exhibit robust breathing in quantitative agreement with integrable theory. By introducing a weak, localized perturbation, we controllably break integrability and induce the splitting of a two-soliton into its fundamental constituents. This process reveals the composite structure of multi-soliton states and realizes an experimental analog of the inverse scattering transform.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS)
Interplay of Rashba spin-orbit coupling and Coulomb interaction in topological spin-triplet excitonic condensates
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Quoc-Huy Ninh, Huu-Nha Nguyen, Van-Nham Phan
The cooperative effect of Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and Coulomb attraction in stabilizing topological spin-triplet excitonic condensates (ECs) in two-dimensional electron-hole systems in external magnetic field is investigated by using an unrestricted Hartree-Fock approach combined with the random-phase approximation. At weak electron-hole Coulomb interaction, the intraband Rashba SOC induces spin-momentum locking and topological semimetal behavior, while stronger interaction stabilizes spin-triplet ECs. Increasing the valence-band SOC drives a transition from a topologically trivial EC with coexisting spin-up and spin-down components to a topological spin-up EC only with quantized Chern number $ C=2$ . The dynamical excitonic susceptibility reveals a soft spin-up triplet mode acting as the precursor of the condensate. These results establish a microscopic mechanism for Rashba SOC-induced topological ECs and suggest realistic situations for their realization in noncentrosymmetric Janus transition-metal dichalcogenides and twisted van der Waals heterostructures.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
13 pages, 8 figures
Phys. Rev. B 113, 115109 (2026)
Effect of Cylindrical Confinement on the Collapse Dynamics of a Polymer
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Structure and dynamics of a polymer under confinement gets significantly altered due to the imposed geometric restrictions. Using molecular dynamics simulations, here, we explore the effect of cylindrical confinement on the kinetics of collapse of a homopolymer, when the solvent condition is abruptly changed from good to poor. The observed phenomenology for a range of the cylinder radius $ R$ , reveals two distinct stages of the collapse. The first stage is highlighted by the formation and growth of local connected clusters resembling a pearl necklace, eventually ending with a single sausage-like cluster. In the second stage, the sausage-like intermediate approaches a spherical globule via surface-energy minimization. These two stages are disentangled using a shape parameter of the individual pearls or clusters, allowing us to also extract the respective relaxation times, and thereby their scaling behaviors with respect to the length of the polymer. We find that the pearl-necklace relaxation time $ \tau_p$ is independent of $ R$ . On the other hand, the sausage-relaxation time $ \tau_s$ varies inversely up to a certain $ R$ , beyond which it also saturates. From the Arrhenius plots of the temperature dependence of $ \tau_p$ and $ \tau_s$ , we extract the activation energies $ E_{\rm a}$ of the two stages. While the estimated $ E_{\rm a}$ for the pearl-necklace stage is independent of $ R$ , for the sausage relaxation it is significantly higher in the strongly confined case than in the weakly one. Surprisingly, at a fixed temperature, the growth of the average cluster size obeys a universal power law irrespective of $ R$ . However, for a fixed $ R$ , the behavior is rather non-universal with respect to temperature. We propose viable scenarios for experimental realization of polymer collapse inside cylindrical nanochannels.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
11 pages, 9 figures
Dreaming improves memorization in a Hopfield model with bounded synaptic strength
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Enzo Marinari, Saverio Rossi, Francesco Zamponi
The Hopfield model provides a paradigmatic framework for associative memory. Its classical implementation, based on the Hebbian learning rule, suffers from catastrophic forgetting: when one attempts storing too many patterns, the network fails to retrieve any of them. Yet, the Hebbian rule does not take into account that synaptic strength is bounded. Introducing this biologically plausible modification, known as “clipping”, eliminates catastrophic forgetting; the model is now able to retrieve the most recently seen memories, eliminating older ones. Yet, its memorization capacity is much reduced with respect to the unclipped case. Here, we investigate the effects of adding a “dreaming” phase on the capacity of a clipped Hopfield model. Following a proposal by Hopfield, Feinstein and Palmer, we assume that during the dreaming phase, the model generates random patterns that are then “unlearned”. We show that while clipping still removes catastrophic forgetting, alternating learning and dreaming phases improves the memorization capacity and makes the search for optimal performance more realistic from an evolutionary perspective.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)
Temporal Berry Phase and the Emergence of Bose-Glass-Analog Phase in a Clean U(1) Superfluid
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Ryuichi Shindou, Pengwei Zhao, Xiaonuo Fang
A U(1) nonlinear sigma model (NLSM) with a one-dimensional temporal Berry phase term describes the critical theory of phase-fluctuation-driven superfluid (SF) transitions. We clarify that the temporal Berry phase leads to space-time anisotropic interference in vortex proliferation, resulting in a quasi-disordered phase characterized by short-range spatial order but persistent temporal phase coherence. This phase shares the essential SF phase correlation properties of the Bose Glass phase known from disordered boson systems, suggesting a unified topological origin for the emergence of the glassy phase in phase-fluctuation-driven superfluid transitions.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
5 pages, 3 figures with supplemental materials
Quantum spin ladder with ferromagnetic rungs in Bi$_2$CuO$_3$(SO$_4$)
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Rodolfo A. Rangel Hernandez, Kirill Yu. Povarov, Sergei Zvyagin, Oleg I. Siidra, Alexander A. Tsirlin, Victoria A. Ginga
We introduce Bi$ _2$ CuO$ _3$ (SO$ _4$ ) as a rare example of a spin-ladder magnet with ferromagnetic interactions on the rungs. Its magnetic response is studied through measurements of heat capacity, temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility, and field-dependent magnetization, as well as electron spin resonance spectroscopy. These experiments are complemented by density-functional-theory calculations combined with the construction of maximally localized Wannier functions and an analysis of the relevant superexchange pathways. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations are employed to model thermodynamic properties and to quantitatively determine the magnetic exchange parameters. Our combined approach identifies Bi$ _2$ CuO$ _3$ (SO$ _4$ ) as a two-leg spin-ladder system with ferromagnetic rungs ($ J’$ $ \approx -208$ K) and antiferromagnetic legs ($ J$ $ \approx 258$ K). These interactions of similar magnitude arise from remarkably different superexchange pathways, with the Cu–Cu distance along the leg being almost twice as long than the respective distance along the rung. The antiferromagnetic leg coupling represents the strongest oxygen-mediated long-range superexchange in a Cu$ ^{2+}$ compound reported to date and sets the benchmark for the role of complex superexchange pathways in quantum magnets.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
11 pages, 6 figures
Phase diagram and Ashkin-Teller universality in the classical square-lattice Heisenberg-compass model
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
We determine the finite-temperature phase diagram and critical behavior of the classical square-lattice Heisenberg-compass model using large-scale Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling. Six symmetry distinct ordered phases are identified. The four phases that simultaneously break the spin-lattice $ C_4$ and in-plane spin-inversion symmetries undergo continuous transitions in the Ashkin-Teller universality class, with the associated critical lines terminating at four-state Potts points, beyond which the transitions become first order. In contrast, the two $ z$ -polarized phases display conventional two-dimensional Ising criticality. Our results reveal how the interplay between Heisenberg exchange and compass anisotropy organizes these distinct critical regimes, thereby completing the characterization of the model’s thermal phase transitions.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
8 pages, 9 figures
Phys. Rev. B 113,115114 (2026)
Impact of magnetic fields on polaron dynamics in low-dimensional systems
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Larissa Brizhik, B.M.A.G. Piette
We study the impact of an external magnetic field on the long-range electron transport in quasi-one-dimensional materials, such as polypeptides, (semi-) conducting polymers and macromolecules, taking into account the electron-lattice interaction. At relatively strong electron-lattice interaction extra electrons get self-trapped in the deformation potential well and form stable bound states, called large polarons which in the continuum approximation are known as solitons. Here we do not use the continuum approximation but solve the system of discrete nonlinear equations numerically. We show that the impact of a magnetic field on polaron dynamics depends not only on the field strength, but also on the parameter values of the system which define the properties of solitons such as their energy, amplitude and width of localisation. We also study the impact of a magnetic field on a polaron created by a donor complex on a chain.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS), Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
23 pages, 14 figures
Critical point of the transition between $s_\pm$ and $s_{++}$ states of a two-band superconductor with nonmagnetic impurities
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
V. A. Shestakov, M. M. Korshunov
Behavior of the Grand thermodynamic potential along with its derivatives, entropy and specific heat, is considered within a two-band model of an unconventional $ s_\pm$ superconductor with nonmagnetic impurities. The transition $ s_\pm \to s_{++}$ is shown to be a smooth crossover at high temperatures, while it becomes the first order phase transition at low temperatures. Thus, on a phase diagram temperature'-impurity scattering rate’ there appears to be a critical end point. Temperature at which the behavior of the transition is changed is maximal in the Born limit and tends to zero away from the limit, which points out to the possible realization of a quantum phase transition.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
7 pages, 4 figures
DFT calculations of magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy with fixed spin moment
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Justyn Snarski-Adamski (1), Joanna Marciniak (1 and 2), Wojciech Marciniak (1, 2 and 3), Justyna Rychły-Gruszecka (1), Mirosław Werwiński (1) ((1) Institute of Molecular Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland, (2) Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, (3) Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland)
The development of new-generation permanent magnets is based on experimental efforts and innovative theoretical tools for modeling magnetic properties. Magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE) - one of the main intrinsic properties of permanent magnets - can be calculated using density functional theory (DFT). However, MAEs determined with different exchange-correlation potentials can vary widely. We show how these seemingly contradictory results can be reconciled using the fully relativistic fixed spin moment (FR-FSM) method. This is because the equilibrium pairs [MAE, $ m_s$ ] calculated with different exchange-correlation potentials overlap with the MAE($ m_s$ ) curve determined from the FR-FSM method ($ m_s$ denotes the spin magnetic moment). The FR-FSM method also enables the hypothetical maximum MAE value for a given material to be estimated. In the case of magnetic alloys, MAE(FSM) analysis allows the optimal alloying additions to be determined in order to improve the MAE value. Concluding, the framework we describe for MAE versus FSM calculations can be a useful tool in the design of new permanent magnets.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Applied Physics (physics.app-ph), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
6 pages, 3 figures
Bulk magnetic properties of distorted square lattice compounds M’-LnTaO4 (Ln = Tb, Dy, Ho, Er)
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Nicola D. Kelly, Ivan da Silva, Siân E. Dutton
We report bulk magnetic properties of the monoclinic lanthanide tantalates, M’-LnTaO4 (Ln = Tb, Dy, Ho, Er), where the magnetic Ln3+ ions are arranged on a distorted 2D square lattice. The heavier analogue M’-YbTaO4 has been investigated as a spin-orbit-coupled, quasi-two-dimensional frustrated magnet, and the properties of the other M’-LnTaO4 are expected to vary depending on the electronic configuration of the Ln ion, namely Kramers vs non-Kramers behaviour and different crystal electric field parameters. In this work, powder neutron diffraction is used to confirm the crystal structure for Ln = Tb, Ho, Er, and to determine the magnetic structure of M’-TbTaO4, which displays long-range antiferromagnetic (AFM) order below T_N = 2.1 K. The Tb3+ moments are aligned primarily along the c-axis with AFM nearest-neighbour interactions. Susceptibility data suggest that M’-DyTaO4 may display short-range ordering around 2.7 K, while M’-HoTaO4 and M’-ErTaO4 show AFM correlations but do not order above 1.8 K. Measurements of the magnetic specific heat provide evidence for a Kramers doublet ground state in M’-ErTaO4, similar to its heavier analogue M’-YbTaO4.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
37 pages including Supplemental Material (as appendices)
Nonthermal Dynamics and Scar-Like Spectral Structures in a High-Spin Fermi Gas
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
We investigate nonequilibrium dynamics and weak ergodicity breaking in a harmonically trapped spin-$ 3/2$ Fermi gas by using the time-dependent Hartree-Fock equation. The Shannon entropy remains bounded and oscillatory throughout the evolution, indicating restricted and nonuniform exploration of Hilbert space rather than immediate thermalization. The fidelity exhibits pronounced, nearly periodic revivals whose period is largely insensitive to particle number and interaction strength, while the revival amplitude gradually decreases with increasing system size and interaction strength. The Fourier spectrum of the fidelity reveals a set of sharp and approximately equally spaced peaks. By projecting the time-evolved state onto the instantaneous eigenbasis of the self-consistent mean-field Hamiltonian, we identify a sparse and spectrally stable manifold that forms a quasi-regular energy ladder, with spacing comparable to the dominant quasienergy interval extracted from the fidelity spectrum. These results indicate that the long-lived coherent oscillations originate from collective phase interference associated with a quasi-regular spectral structure embedded in the many-body continuum, rather than from a conventional eigenstate-dominated scar mechanism.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
8 pages, 6 figures
Magneto-optical Response of 5-SL MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ in Spin-Flip States
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Shahid Sattar, Roman Stepanov, A. H. MacDonald, C. M. Canali
Magneto-optical effects like Kerr and Faraday rotations provide a direct probe of topological order in thin films of the magnetic topological insulator MnBi$ _2$ Te$ _4$ (MBT). Motivated by recent experimental studies of spin-flip/flop transitions in MBT thin films, we investigate the interplay between interlayer spin configurations, topological order, and magneto-optical response in five septuple-layer (5-SL) MBT using first-principles calculations and a simplified coupled-Dirac-cone model. Our results reveal that, despite possessing a non-zero out-of-plane magnetization, 5-SL MBT thin films can be either $ {\cal C}=+1$ topological insulators or $ {\cal C}=0$ topologically trivial insulators depending on the relative spin orientations of the top and bottom SLs. We evaluate the Faraday and Kerr rotation angles using tight-binding models derived from \textit{ab-initio} calculations and by comparing our results with those of a simplified coupled Dirac-cone model clarify the macroscopic mechanisms underlying the magneto-optical response of spin-flip states. These theoretical findings highlight the tunability of topological and magneto-optical properties in MBT thin films and provide microscopic insight into the emergence of complex topological order in layered antiferromagnetic materials.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
10 pages, 7 figures, Supplementary Information
Comprehensive structural and optical analysis of differently oriented Yb-implanted $β$-Ga$_2$O$_3$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Joanna Matulewicz, Renata Ratajczak, Mahwish Sarwar, Ewa Grzanka, Vitalii Ivanov, Damian Kalita, Cyprian Mieszczynski, Przemyslaw Jozwik, Slawomir Prucnal, Ulrich Kentsch, Rene Heller, Elzbieta Guziewicz
This study presents investigations of Yb-doped $ \beta$ -Ga$ _2$ O$ _3$ , an ultrawide bandgap semiconductor with potential use in future power and optoelectronic devices operating in high-radiation environments. The research has focused on the problem of structural damage caused by the implantation of Yb-ions into three differently oriented crystals and the optical response of created systems. The (001), (010), and (-201)-oriented $ \beta$ -Ga$ _2$ O$ _3$ crystals were implanted with three different fluences of 150 keV Yb ions and examined using a variety of experimental techniques: high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD), Rutherford backscattering spectrometry in channeling mode (RBS/c), Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies, to provide comprehensive information about studied systems. Furthermore, the RBS/c studies were supported by Monte Carlo simulations. The results show distinctions between differently oriented crystals. In particular, (010)-oriented crystals are characterized by the lowest concentration of extended defects and the presence of compressive stress. In contrast, samples with the other two orientations exhibit tensile stress and significantly higher levels of extended defects. Interestingly, the PL spectra of (010)-oriented $ \beta$ -Ga$ _2$ O$ _3$ show the lowest emission from Yb$ ^{3+}$ ions, suggesting that specific types of extended defects, whose formation is more favorable in the other two orientations than in (010), enhance Yb$ ^{3+}$ luminescence instead of suppressing it.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Phys. Status Solidi RRL (2025) 2500060
On the origin of diverse interlayer charge redistribution in transition-metal dichalcogenides
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Yu-Meng Gao, Nie-Wei Wang, Shi-Xuan Yuan, Wen-Xin Xia, Jiang-Long Wang, Xing-Qiang Shi
The interlayer quasi-chemical-bonding (QCB) interactions of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials promote the research field of interlayer-engineering and cause interlayer charge density redistributions (ICDRs). The ICDRs have been reported experimentally and theoretically, which show different redistributions, e.g., accumulation, depletion, or a more complicated behavior. The underlying mechanism for the different ICDRs remain to be elucidated. In the current work, via a systematic theoretical study of the ICDRs of transition metal dichalcogenides with different number of d-electrons filling (d^0 TiS2, d^1 NbS2, and d^2 MoS2) in T and H phases, we reveal three mechanisms based on the coexistence of different types of interlayer QCB interactions. Mechanism (1) is from a competition between two types of interlayer interactions: namely, the interlayer interaction between fully occupied energy levels (in short: o-o interaction) depletes electrons in the overlap region while that between occupied and empty levels (o-e interaction) promotes electron accumulation; and the competition between them leads to that the d^0 TiS2 tends to electron accumulation in T phase than in H phase. Mechanism (2), the interlayer interaction between half-filled levels (h-h interaction) promotes the electron accumulation of d^1 NbS2. Mechanism (3), the interlayer interaction of multiple filled-levels of d^2 MoS2 (namely, the multi-level o-o interaction) leads to a more complicated ICDR. The current study provides a unified understanding to the different ICDRs of van der Waals materials and paves the way for further exploration of their electronic properties and applications.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Analytic treatment of a polaron in a nonparabolic conduction band
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
S. N. Klimin (1), J. Tempere (1, 5), M. Houtput (1), I. Zappacosta (1), S. Ragni (2, 4), T. Hahn (3), L. Celiberti (4), C. Franchini (4, 6), A. S. Mishchenko (2, 7) ((1) TQC, Departement Fysica, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerpen, Belgium, (2) Department for Research of Materials under Extreme Conditions, Institute of Physics, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, (3) Center for Computational Quantum Physics, Flatiron Institute, 162 5th Avenue, New York, New York 10010, USA, (4) Faculty of Physics, Computational Materials Physics, University of Vienna, Kolingasse 14-16, Vienna A-1090, Austria, (5) Lyman Laboratory of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA, (6) Department of Physics and Astronomy “Augusto Righi”, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Bologna, 40127 Italy, (7) RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan)
We develop and compare several analytical approximations for the polaron problem in finite-width, non-parabolic conduction bands. The main focus of the work is an extension of the Feynman variational method to a tight-binding lattice, where the effective-mass approximation is no longer applicable. The resulting variational formulation is not restricted to a specific phonon dispersion or electron-phonon interaction and provides a uniform description across weak-, intermediate-, and strong-coupling regimes. We revisit and generalize other analytical approaches traditionally formulated for continuum polarons, including canonical transformations and self-consistent Wigner-Brillouin-type approximations. For lattice polarons, these methods exhibit qualitative features absent in the continuum case, such as a nontrivial connection between weak- and strong-coupling limits. We show that an improved Wigner-Brillouin scheme yields a momentum-dependent polaron self-energy free of resonances and in good agreement with numerically exact results over the whole range of momenta within the Brillouin zone. All methods are applied to the Holstein model and are benchmarked against numerically exact calculations, including Diagrammatic Monte Carlo (both our calculations and preceding works), exact diagonalization, and density-matrix renormalization-group results. The analytical approaches are extended to polarons with Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling, providing a stringent test of their applicability in systems with nontrivial band structure. Our results demonstrate that the modified Feynman variational method yields ground-state energies and dispersions with accuracy comparable to, and in many cases exceeding, that of other established analytical approaches. The developed framework offers a versatile and reliable analytical description of lattice polarons beyond the continuum approximation.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
41 pages, 9 figures
Nonlinear Hall Effect in Metal-Organic Frameworks
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Sarbajit Mazumdar, Jagadish N S, Awadhesh Narayan, Giorgio Sangiovanni, Ronny Thomale, Arka Bandyopadhyay
We propose metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as a versatile platform for realizing the nonlinear Hall effect. We develop an analytical down-folding scheme that maps a broad class of MOFs onto a universal effective low-energy model. As representative examples, we analyze two $ C_3$ -symmetric frameworks: Cu-dicyanoanthracene and triphenyl-metal monolayer, demonstrating how their low-energy bands can be efficiently captured by a star-lattice geometry. First-principles calculations corroborate this mapping and show that both Fermi levels lie close to symmetry-protected Dirac points. Spin-orbit coupling or inversion-symmetry breaking gaps these Dirac cones, generating Berry-curvature hotspots near the Fermi level. Supported with symmetry-based indicators, these MOFs thus suggest themselves for strain and substrate engineering as well as doping to achieve a finite nonlinear Hall response. We formulate a synthesis-oriented strategy that implements the Dirac gap directly within the framework architecture without externally applied strain. Our results establish MOFs as a broadly designable platform for engineering Berry-curvature physics and nonlinear Hall transport.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
10 pages, 7 figures
Tunable shear thickening in active non-Brownian suspensions
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Bhanu Prasad Bhowmik, Christopher Ness
We study tunable shear thickening in active suspensions of non-Brownian, repulsive, frictional grains using particle-based simulation, finding that activity augments the rheology beyond the friction-mediated shear thickening paradigm. Specifically, increasing particle self-propulsion drives a viscosity-reducing `dethickening’ of the system at large stress, where the material would otherwise be in a thickened, highly viscous state. Self-propulsion introduces additional isotropic dynamics to the particles, which compete with the flow-driven formation of frictional contacts. The degree of dethickening can thus be tuned by varying a suitably-defined dimensionless active stress that quantifies this competition. Recognising the parallels between self-propulsion and other contemporary routes to dethickening, we demonstrate that our data obey a recently proposed scaling framework, supporting a universal description of the tunable rheology of dense suspensions.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
Pressure-Stabilized MnSb$_2$ with Complex Incommensurate Magnetic Order
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Mingyu Xu, Matt Boswell, Qing-Ping Din, Peng Cheng, Aashish Sapkota, Qiang Zhang, Danielle Yahne, Sergey. L. Bud’ko, Yuji Furukawa, Paul. C. Canfield, Raquel A. Ribeiro, Weiwei Xie
Marcasite-type compounds have been proposed as promising hosts of exotic magnetic quantum states, yet experimental realizations in stoichiometric, disorder-free systems remain limited. Here, we report the high-pressure stabilization and magnetic characterization of MnSb$ _2$ , a marcasite-type compound that is thermodynamically metastable under ambient pressure. Single crystals were synthesized using a cubic multi-anvil press, and powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction confirm the orthorhombic $ Pnnm$ structure. These crystals are stable at ambient pressure for a long time up to between 450-500 K. Heat-capacity measurements reveal phase transitions at approximately 220 K and 118 K. Neutron diffraction uncovers an unconventional magnetic ground state below 220 K. Magnetic powder neutron diffraction refinements reveal possible multiple magnetic configurations that provide comparably acceptable fits to the experimental data. While most solutions are consistent with a spin-density-wave (SDW) description, helical models systematically yield inferior agreement factors. Across a broad range of models, the Mn ordered moment reaches a maximum value of approximately 2 $ \mu_B$ and remains predominantly collinear, with minimal canting along the $ c$ -axis. At 200 K, the magnetic propagation vector is $ q$ = (0, 0.3975, 0.3783); upon cooling, the $ b$ component increases toward 0.5, reflecting a temperature-dependent evolution of the modulation. The need for modification of the magnetic model between high and low temperatures further highlights the complex and strongly temperature-dependent nature of the magnetic order in this system. These results establish MnSb$ _2$ as a pressure-stabilized marcasite magnet with a highly tunable, complex magnetic ground state and a compelling stoichiometric platform for exploring unconventional magnetic behavior, including potential altermagnetism.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
34 pages,5+7figures
Three-stage melting of a macroscopic continuous spacetime crystal
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Guoqing Liu, Jimin Bai, Matteo Baggioli, Jie Zhang
A spacetime crystal is a phase of matter that spontaneously develops periodic order in both space and time. Spacetime crystals have been experimentally observed in microscopic quantum many-body systems and, very recently, in a mesoscopic nematic liquid crystal. However, the melting process of a spacetime crystal and its underlying physical mechanisms have not yet been experimentally reported. Here, we present a direct observation of a classical continuous spacetime crystal melting in a table-top experiment with macroscopic active granular disks in 2+1 spacetime dimensions. The spacetime crystal is characterized by the spontaneous formation of a coherent, rigid-body rotation of a 2D triangular lattice that persists for almost a day and remains remarkably robust to noise. By tuning the disk packing fraction, we observe a complex three-stage melting process involving a spatially hexatic phase and multiple coexistence regions. Importantly, we show that spatial and temporal crystalline orders melt separately through distinct mechanisms: spatial order is destroyed by the proliferation of topological defects, while temporal order is lost through the decay of directional persistence caused by the progressive weakening of many-body interactions. Our results demonstrate that the spontaneous breaking of spatial and temporal translational symmetries can be decoupled, leading to the emergence of exotic out-of-equilibrium classical phases of matter.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
v1: comments are welcome!
Pressure-Induced Structural and Magnetic Evolution in Layered Antiferromagnet YbMn$_2$Sb$_2$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Mingyu Xu, Matt Boswell, Aya Rutherford, Cheng Peng, Ying Zhou, Shuyang Wang, Zhaorong Yang, Antonio M. dos Santos, Haidong Zhou, Weiwei Xie
Electronic states under pressure exhibit unconventional spin and charge dynamics that provide a powerful route to uncover exotic phases in quantum materials. Here, we present the structural, magnetic, and electronic evolution of YbMn$ _2$ Sb$ _2$ under pressure. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction reveals a pressure-induced structural transition from the space group trigonal $ P\bar{3}m1$ to the monoclinic $ P2_1$ /$ m$ phase near 3.5 GPa, which remains stable up to 10 GPa. Magnetization measurements display an anomalously weak net magnetic moment and the absence of Curie-Weiss behavior up to 400 K, suggesting the formation of short-range Mn moment pairs that cancel macroscopically and subsequently evolve into long-range order upon cooling. Temperature-dependent resistivity shows semiconducting behavior with a transition at ~119 K at ambient pressure, while pressure induces a dramatic suppression of resistance and the emergence of metallic-like temperature dependence, stabilized beyond 5 GPa. This pressure-driven semiconductor-metal transition is consistent with our density functional theory calculations, confirming the closing of the band gap under compression. Neutron diffraction under pressure identifies an incommensurate magnetic structure with antiparallel correlations between paired spins. Together, these results demonstrate how pressure-driven structural tuning and competing exchange interactions stabilize unconventional magnetic states in this low-dimensional magnetic semiconductor.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
36 pages 10+6 figures
Advanced Electronic Materials, 2026
Evidence of universal spectral collapse at a marginal dynamical regime
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Udomsilp Pinsook, Pakin Tasee, Jakkapat Seeyangnok
Incoherent electronic states in strongly correlated materials are commonly attributed to disorder or material specific mechanisms. Here we show that incoherent spectra instead arise from self-generated dynamical disorder associated with competing fluctuations. In this regime, electron dynamics coupled to time-dependent scattering naturally produce a spectral function of the form rho (z) = exp(-z^2/4) Dnu (z), where z is a scaled energy and Dnu denotes the parabolic cylinder function. This form reflects a marginal dynamical regime characterized by non-Markovian temporal correlations. Applying this scaling function to angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) energy distribution curves from the cuprates Nd2-xCexCuO4 and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta, the Kagome metal CsCr3Sb5, and the double-layer nickelate La3Ni2O7, we find that incoherent spectra are quantitatively described by rho (z), differing only in non-universal amplitude and energy scales. After rescaling, the datasets collapse onto a single universal curve characterized by a fixed parabolic-cylinder order nu = -1/2. The observed spectral collapse indicates a fixed-point-like regime in which microscopic details such as lattice geometry, band structure, and chemical composition become irrelevant at low energies. These results establish a unified and quantitative framework for continuum-dominated ARPES spectra across diverse strongly correlated materials.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
12 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables
Application of dual-tree complex wavelet transform for spectra background reduction
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Kazimierz Skrobas, Kamila Stefanska-Skrobas, Cyprian Mieszczynski, Renata Ratajczak
This paper presents a method for background removal in experimental data processing using the Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DTCWT). The technique is based on discrete wavelet theory (DWT) and addresses limitations of commonly used numerical approaches, such as fitting or filtering methods. Compared with Fourier-transform-based techniques, DTCWT provides improved performance for signal extraction.
The proposed method is universal and enables analysis of arbitrary data ranges without restrictions on their position in time. It satisfies key requirements of signal analysis, including signal preservation and reduction of processing bias. An algorithm for background reduction is implemented to extract and enhance meaningful spectral information.
The approach is demonstrated on two different types of spectra: X-ray powder diffraction and photoluminescence measured for the $ Ga_{2}O_{3}$ crystal. Practical aspects of DWT-based processing are also discussed, including the selection of wavelet families and decomposition levels. The method is available as a software package for spectral background reduction.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
Physica Status Solidi (RRL) 20, 2 (2025) e202500063
Gate-tunable anisotropic Josephson diode effect in topological Dirac semimetal Cd$_3$As$_2$ nanowires
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Yan-Liang Hou, An-Qi Wang, Na Li, Chun-Guang Chu, Alexander Brinkman, Zhi-Min Liao, Chuan Li
The intrinsic Josephson diode effect (JDE) has recently attracted considerable attention due to its sensitivity to broken symmetries in Josephson junctions, offering a powerful probe for uncovering hidden symmetry-breaking mechanisms in materials. The presence of higher-harmonic components in the current-phase relation, together with spin-orbital coupling, makes topological materials ideal platforms to explore this effect. In this work, we present a systematic study of the JDE in type-I topological Dirac semimetal Cd$ _3$ As$ _2$ nanowire-based Josephson junctions. We observe a pronounced gate-tunable and highly anisotropic diode response under different magnetic-field orientations. By developing a comprehensive phenomenological model, we capture the angular dependence of the diode effect and, through temperature-dependent measurements, disentangle the respective contributions from bulk and topological surface states. Notably, anomalies in the temperature dependence of the diode efficiency reveal the coexistence of multiple transport channels, highlighting the Josephson diode effect as a sensitive probe of hidden topological superconducting states.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Asymmetric simple exclusion process with tree-like network branches
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
The asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) is a fundamental stochastic model describing asymmetric many-particle diffusion with hard-core interactions on a one-dimensional lattice, and has been widely applied in the study of nonequilibrium transport phenomena. Motivated by the modeling of proton transport along oxygen networks in proton-conducting solid oxides, we extend the ASEP to a model defined on a one-dimensional backbone lattice with tree-like network branches. We derive the exact stationary distribution of this network ASEP and investigate its transport properties. By considering two representative network geometries for which physical quantities can be expressed in terms of certain hypergeometric series, we elucidate how the network geometry influences transport properties.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
9 pages, 3figures
Entanglement Measure Response to Modular Flow and Chiral Topological Phases
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Recent years have witnessed significant progress in the entanglement-based characterization of quantum phases of matter. The primary objects of interest are the reduced density matrix and its associated entanglement Hamiltonian. As intrinsic properties of a quantum state, these quantities theoretically determine all experimentally accessible local observables. In this work, we investigate the response of two entanglement measures to the real-time dynamics driven by the entanglement Hamiltonian–a process known as modular flow. We demonstrate that our results can be unified into a single generating function, $ \langle\rho_{AB}^\alpha \mathrm{e}^{\lambda {Q}{AB}}\mathrm{e}^{\mu{Q}{BC}}\rho_{BC}^\beta\rangle$ . This function is of independent interest as it represents a generalization of the recently proposed Rényi modular commutator. In appropriate limits, this function yields the response of Rényi entropy and its charged version, which we find to be uniquely determined by chiral topological invariants, specifically the chiral central charge and the Hall conductance. Our analytical findings are validated through two independent approaches: (i) free fermion systems using the real-space Chern number formula, and (ii) an effective field theory treatment that regularizes the entanglement cut via chiral conformal field theory. Both methods yield consistent results.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
9 pages, 5 figures
Microscopic origin of $p$-wave magnetism
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Johannes Mitscherling, Jan Priessnitz, Clara K. Geschner, Libor Šmejkal
$ P$ -, $ f$ -, or $ h$ -wave antialtermagnets yield large non-relativistic spin splitting with out-of-plane spin polarization in momentum space perpendicular to the coplanar non-collinear local magnetic moments. We provide a microscopic explanation of this unconventional spin polarization by linking it to a previously overlooked site-compensated spin density that orders antiparallel when projected onto opposite momenta. We verify this result both by model derivation of the out-of-plane momentum-space spin polarization being proportional to the direct-space cross product of the coplanar non-collinear spin order, as well as by ab initio calculations in the material candidate CeNiAsO. By providing a general classification and analytic expression for the spin polarization of all spinful two-site tight-binding Hamiltonians, we reveal the momentum-resolved spin polarization as a probe of the Bloch-state geometry arising from spin-site coupling. Furthermore, our approach allows for geometric distinction between ferro-, alter-, and antialtermagnets. Our results provide a quantitative guidance for quantized out-of-plane momentum-space spin polarization and large spin splitting, and construction principles for antialtermagnets.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
AI-driven Inverse Design of Complex Oxide Thin Films for Semiconductor Devices
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Bonwook Gu, Trinh Ngoc Le, Wonjoong Kim, Zunair Masroor, Han-Bo-Ram Lee
Bridging generative foundation models with non-equilibrium thin-film synthesis remains a central challenge, limiting the practical impact of AI-driven materials discovery on semiconductor dielectrics. Here, we introduce IDEAL (Inverse Design for Experimental Atomic Layers), an inverse-design platform that links generative diffusion models, machine learning interatomic potentials, and graph neural network property predictors with atomic layer deposition (ALD). We demonstrate IDEAL using the Hf-Zr-O system as a stringent benchmark for semiconductor-relevant complex oxides. The platform statistically enumerates thermodynamically plausible structures and constructs a composition-structure-property map. Crucially, it identifies a narrow composition window where low-energy tetragonal and orthorhombic phases cluster, revealing trade-offs between band gap and dielectric response. Experimental validation using atomic layer modulation (ALM) corroborates these predictions, demonstrating predictive guidance under realistic, non-equilibrium thin-film growth. By experimentally closing the loop, IDEAL provides a transferable and generalizable route to the precision synthesis of next-generation semiconductor dielectrics.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
25 pages, 7 figures
Reproducible nucleation and control of stable quantum vortex rings in Bose-Einstein condensates
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Giorgia Iori, Klejdja Xhani, Woo Jin Kwon, Davide Emilio Galli, Luca Galantucci
We propose and numerically validate an experimentally feasible on-demand protocol for the nucleation and manipulation of stable quantum vortex rings in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates. The method relies on sweeping a laser-sheet barrier that locally constricts the superflow and triggers vortex-ring formation. By tuning the barrier height and width, and by scanning the barrier velocity, we identify the onset of periodic generation of vortex rings above the critical velocity and achieve direct, deterministic control over the ring nucleation position, radius, and hence propagation speed. After its formation, ad-hoc optical potentials are applied to reshape the vortex ring, creating clean Kelvin-wave excitations. Our results provide a foundation for systematic studies of three-dimensional vortices in atomic superfluids and open the door to tailored vortex dynamics and interactions, enabling controlled access to quantum turbulence.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
15 pages, 12 figures
Resolving Transient Electron-Phonon Coupling with Time-Resolved Spontaneous Raman Spectroscopy
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Guy Reuveni, Maya Levy Greenberg, Matan Menahem, Olle Hellman, Omer Yaffe
Understanding the interaction of charge carriers with lattice vibrations in the quasi-equilibrium regime is crucial for semiconductor functionality. However, the structural signatures of these interactions are often too subtle for conventional ultrafast techniques to detect. We developed a time-resolved spontaneous Raman technique based on time-correlated single-photon counting to track the spectral response following photoexcitation, providing sub-wavenumber spectral resolution and a few-hundred-picosecond temporal resolution. Unlike traditional pump-probe schemes, our method utilizes a modulated continuous-wave probe to maintain high spectral resolution, enabling detection of low-frequency Raman shifts down to 10 cm$ ^{-1}$ . Applied to lightly boron-doped silicon, we resolve intra-valence band and inter-valence band electronic transitions. A coupled-mode analysis of transient phonon asymmetry, resulting from interference with the inter-valence band transitions, reveals electron-phonon coupling parameters that directly relate to carrier recombination. By capturing these subtle dynamical shifts, we demonstrate that this platform offers a powerful probe for investigating electron-phonon interactions in long-lived excited states.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Optics (physics.optics)
20 pages, 11 figures
Capillary filling of star polymer melts in nanopores
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Jianwei Zhang, Jinyu Lei, Pu Feng, George Floudas, Guangzhao Zhang, Jiajia Zhou
Topology of polymer profoundly influences on its behavior. However, its effect on imbibition dynamics remains poorly understood. In the present work, capillary filling (during imbibition and following full imbibition) of star polymer melts was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations with a coarse-grained model. The reversal of imbibition dynamics observed for linear-chain systems was also present for star polymers. Star polymers with short arms penetrate slower than the prediction of the Lucas-Washburn equation, while systems with long arms penetrate faster. The radius of gyration increases during confined flow, indicating the orientation and disentanglement of arms. In addition, the higher the functionality of the star polymer, the more entanglement points are retained. Besides, a stiff region near the core segments of the stars is observed, which increases in size with functionality. The proportion of different configurations of the arms (e.g. loops, trains, tails) changes dramatically with the arm length and degree of confinement, but is only influenced by the functionality when the arms are short. Following full imbibition, the different decay rates of the self-correlation function of the core-to-end vector illustrate that arms take a longer time to reach the equilibrium state as the functionality, arm length, and degree of confinement increases, in agreement with recent experimental findings. Furthermore, the star topology induces a stronger effect of adsorption and friction, which becomes more pronounced with increasing functionality.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
45 pages, 18 figures, SI included
J. Chem. Phys. 160, 054903 (2024)
A new approach for measurement of Cr4+ concentration in Cr4+:YAG transparent materials: some conceptual difficulties and possible solutions
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
M. Chaika, R. Lisiecki, K. Lesniewska-Matys, O. Vovk
In the present work we provide an analysis of the accuracy of the calculation of Cr4+ concentration in Cr4+:YAG using absorption spectroscopy. We propose a new approach based on the convenient optical spectroscopy to estimate the Cr4+ concentration in Cr:YAG using survey absorption spectra. The Smakula Dexter formula is usually used for this purpose. However, the uncertainties in the values of oscillator strengths for Cr4+ absorption bands and, moreover, in the deconvolution of Cr4+ absorption spectra make it difficult to calculate the Cr4+ concentrations with high accuracy.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Optical Materials 126 (2022): 112126
Efficient method for calculation of low-temperature phase boundaries
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Lucas Svensson, Babak Sadigh, Christine Wu, Paul Erhart
Understanding phase stability and phase transformations is central to predicting material behavior under varying thermodynamic conditions. One of the earliest and most influential applications of density functional theory in materials science has been the prediction of pressure-induced phase transitions at 0 K. Extending these calculations to finite temperatures, however, requires accounting for thermal, quantum, and anharmonic contributions to the free energy, often at significant computational cost. In this work, we present a general and efficient framework for calculating low-temperature phase boundaries by combining the Clausius-Clapeyron equation with the quasi-harmonic approximation. This methodology requires a minimal number of calculations, while naturally incorporating internal degrees of freedom and allowing for the inclusion of quantum and low-order anharmonic effects. We illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of the approach by constructing the phase diagram of silica in the pressure range from -2 to 12 GPa and temperatures up to 1750 K. To this end, we employ both density functional theory and a machine-learned interatomic potential, enabling well-converged free energy estimates and a rigorous comparison between first-principles and data-driven models.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
7 pages, 4 figures
Introduction to Spectroscopy of Cr4+:YAG Transparent Ceramics
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
This paper focuses on the spectroscopic properties of Cr4+:YAG transparent ceramic. Absorption, excitation, and emission spectra were measured over a temperature range from 5K to 300K. Low-temperature absorption spectra reveal sharp and narrow lines corresponding to partially allowed transitions from the ground state to the crystal field splitting components of the 4T2 energy level. The shape of the excitation spectra was found to be independent of the monitored emission wavelength, indicating that Cr4+ emission originates from the lowest excited state. Low temperature emission spectra exhibit a sharp and narrow ZPL, accompanied by the vibronic sidebands extending up to ~2000 cm-1. Both absorption and emission spectra of the lowest excited state at low temperature consist of a doublet, with a splitting of 28 cm-1. The temperature dependence of the spectroscopic parameters of this doublet is reported. Based on the obtained results, possible explanations of its origin are proposed.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 109(2), e70553 (2026)
Magnetic field tuning of modulated magnetic orders in CrOCl at the two-dimensional limit
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
T. Riccardi, A. Pawbake, S. Badola, F. Petot, B. Grémaud, A. Saul, K. Singh, N.R. Nair, R.S. Chemban, Z. Sofer, J. Coraux, C. Faugeras
Chromium oxychloride is a van der Waals magnet with intrinsic competing exchange interactions, including a strong antiferromagnetic one, source of a very rich magnetic phase diagram, with ferrimagnetic, antiferromagnetic, and canted states, up to high magnetic fields. We investigate the sequence of these magnetic phases in thin layers of CrOCl using magneto-Raman scattering spectroscopy. We identify phases whose magnetic order is commensurate with the atomic lattice, and find signatures of strong magneto-striction, presumably of exchange origin. The coupling of the spin and atomic degrees of freedom in the crystal is observed down to the single-layer limit – phonon modes significantly soften or stiffen, in a complex way due to the competition of interactions. The existence domains of the different phases change with the number of layers.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
24 pages, 6 figures
Disorder-Assisted Adiabaticity in Correlated Many-Particle Systems
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Shang-Jie Liou, Herbert F. Fotso
We investigate how disorder affects adiabaticity in an interacting quantum system by assessing its effect on the state of the system after an interaction modulation, or interaction ``pulse” ,whereby the interaction is changed from zero to a maximum value and then back to zero following a given time profile. We find that, independently of the disorder strength and pulse shapes (rectangular, triangular, and Gaussian), the pulse duration is negatively correlated with the change in total energy in the system. That is, the longer duration reduces the change in total energy for each protocol. Most importantly, across different considered pulse shapes, we find a robust negative correlation between the disorder strength and the change in total energy across the interaction pulse. Namely, increasing the disorder strength systematically suppresses the residual energy added to the system after the interaction pulse, indicating a more adiabatic response. These two effects, disorder-induced and duration-induced adiabaticity, are consistently observed across all three pulse shapes. Among the protocols, the triangular pulse yields the smallest change in total energy in the system over comparable conditions, demonstrating the most adiabatic response. In addition to the energy analysis, we also examine how disorder modifies the effective temperature change across the interaction pulse, to further establish a quantitative relation between disorder and the thermal response. Altogether, our results identify disorder as a key factor in both the energy and the temperature variation over the time-modulation of the interaction.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
15 pages, 12 figures
Diffusive flux into a stochastically gated tube
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Diffusion-influenced reactions in the presence of gates which randomly open and close have been studied for decades in a variety of biophysical and biochemical scenarios. The diffusive flux from a large bulk reservoir to the end of a narrow tube with a stochastically gated entrance has been previously estimated. In this paper, we extend this gated flux estimate to be valid if (i) the tube is not necessarily narrow and/or (ii) the diffusivity differs in the tube versus the bulk. Extension (i) is challenging because it entails a nontrivial three-dimensional geometry. Extension (ii) is challenging because it introduces multiplicative noise. We derive an explicit flux estimate formula and prove that it is exact in certain parameter regimes. We further use stochastic simulations to show that the estimate remains accurate across a very broad range of parameters. Our results differ from prior work on extensions (i) and (ii).
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Analysis of PDEs (math.AP), Probability (math.PR)
13 pages, 5 figures
Materials Acceleration Platform for Electrochemistry (MAP-E): a Platform for Autonomous Electrochemistry
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Daniel Persaud, Mike Werezak, Mark Xu, Melyne Zhou, Frank Benkel, Xin Pang, Vahid Attari, Brian DeCost, Ashley Dale, Nicholas Senior, Gabriel Birsan, Jason Hattrick-Simpers
Corrosion testing is slow, labor-intensive, and sensitive to operator technique, limiting the generation of large, high-quality datasets for data-driven materials discovery. We introduce the Materials Acceleration Platform for Electrochemistry (MAP-E), an autonomous, high-throughput system capable of performing parallel electrochemical experiments. MAP-E integrates robotic liquid handling, sample transfer, and multi-channel potentiostatic control and extract corrosion metrics without human intervention. Validation against an ASTM G61-analog benchmark demonstrates reproducibility, with a standard deviation of 76 mV in pitting potential across 32 automated measurements. The platform was then employed to autonomously construct pH-chloride stability diagrams for 304 stainless steel using an uncertainty-driven sampling strategy on a Gaussian Process surrogate model. This approach reduces operator involvement and accelerates the exploration of environmental spaces. MAP-E establishes a framework for autonomous electrochemical experimentation, enabling generation of corrosion datasets that inform materials discovery, alloy design, and durability assessment in service environments.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
22 pages, 6 figures
Higher-harmonic acoustic driving of quantum-dot optical transitions beyond Rabi-frequency resonance
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Mateusz Kuniej, Paweł Machnikowski, Michał Gawełczyk
Acoustic control and coupling of quantum systems via phonons can enable miniaturized quantum technology devices for on-chip integration. Optically active quantum dots (QDs) are essential for such platforms, yet they have long lacked direct acoustic transitions between charge states. The recently proposed hybrid acousto-optical swing-up scheme introduces such high-fidelity transitions but has been proposed for sub-THz phonon frequencies, limiting practical implementations. Here, we overcome this limitation by exploiting higher-harmonic-assisted processes arising from strain-induced modulation of the optical transition energy. This parametric modulation of the optically dressed splitting produces multi-phonon-like resonances when a harmonic of the mechanical modulation matches the generalized Rabi frequency. We predict faithful state preparation with an acoustic frequency that is only a fraction of this splitting, specifically 42 GHz for a 0.341 THz splitting, thereby bridging control at accessible acoustic frequencies with the THz energy scales. In doing so, we establish control principles that separate optical energy delivery from coherent acoustic control. We complement numerical simulations with an effective model and a geometric interpretation. Evaluation of phonon-induced decoherence within a non-Markovian framework indicates high state-preparation fidelities, comparable to one-phonon and all-optical schemes. Potential applications extend beyond QD charge state preparation. Since the same interaction structure arises for a quantized acoustic field, our results provide a foundation for multi-phonon processes in QDs coupled to phononic resonators, including QD-phonon entanglement, state transfer, and the optical preparation of nonclassical multi-phonon states in quantized acoustic modes, all essential for future on-chip quantum technologies.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
7 pages, 5 figures + supplement: 2 pages
Non-equilibrium generalized Langevin equation for multi-dimensional observables
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Benjamin J. A. Héry (1), Lucas Tepper (1), Andrea Guljas (1), Artem Pavlov (2), Beate Koksch (2), Cecilia Clementi (1), Roland R. Netz (1) ((1) Department of Physics of Freie Universität Berlin, (2) Institut für Chemie und Biochemie of Freie Universität Berlin)
The Mori-Zwanzig formalism is a powerful theoretical framework for deriving equations of motion for coarse-grained observables in the form of generalized Langevin equations (GLEs) involving evolution and projection operators. Using a time-dependent many-body Hamiltonian and a multi-dimensional Mori projection operator, we derive a non-equilibrium Mori GLE for a multi-dimensional observable of interest $ \vec{A}$ that consists of a Markovian force, a running integral over time of a non-Markovian friction force, and an orthogonal force that is often interpreted as a random force. We study the structure of the derived GLE in three limiting cases: when the components of $ \vec{A}$ are uncorrelated, when the Hamiltonian is time-independent and thus the system is at equilibrium, and when both conditions are simultaneously satisfied. We highlight the presence of a contribution to the Markovian force that takes the form of an instantaneous friction force which only vanishes when the components of $ \vec{A}$ are uncorrelated. Our non-Markovian framework is an important step towards the systematic modeling of the coupled kinetics of coarse-grained reaction coordinates in biological complex systems, exemplified for the coupled intra- and inter-protein folding during fibril formation of the human islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP).
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
23 pages, 1 figure, submitted to CAMCoS (Communications in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science)
A systematic study of single molecule metallocenes with 4d and 3d transition metal atoms
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Daniela Herrera-Molina, Kushantha P. K. Withanage, Jesus N. Pedroza-Montero, Pardeep Kaur, Mark. R. Pederson, M. F. Islam
The realization of spin based devices is one of the most aspiring goals of spintronics research. Single molecule magnets are an important class of nanoscale magnetic systems with potential to realize different spintronic devices where each molecule can be used as a fundamental building block for devices. In this work, we have systematically investigated metallocenes, a class of single molecule magnets, with 4d and 3d transition metal elements for their electronic and magnetic anisotropic properties, using first-principles density functional theory. Among the seven 4d elements studied in this work, the largest anisotropy of about 20 Kelvin is obtained for Mo and Rh with uniaxial anisotropy. We found that the anisotropy does not increase with an increasing number of $ d$ electrons; rather, it depends strongly on the orbital ordering of the $ d$ states of the transition metal. Our calculations also show that the anisotropy of Mo-metallocene increases for cationic charge states to 60 Kelvin but with an easy-plane anisotropy. For 3d elements, the anisotropy of the molecules is calculated to be less than 10 Kelvin. We also have studied the role of ligands on the structural stability of these molecules and have provided a clear guideline to construct an appropriate model of molecules for theoretical studies.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
10 pages, 6 figures
Direct Laser Writing of Ferromagnetic Nickel Utilizing the Principle of Sensitized Triplet-Triplet Annihilation Upconversion
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Kristin E. J. Kühl (1), Katharina Rediger (2), Nikhita Khera (1), Ephraim Spindler (1), Gereon Niedner-Schatteburg (2), Elke Neu (1), Mathias Weiler (1), Georg von Freymann (1 and 3) ((1) Department of Physics and Research Center OPTIMAS, RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany, (2) Department of Chemistry, RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany, (3) Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM, Kaiserslautern, Germany)
Direct laser writing of ferromagnetic microstructures is of great interest for sensing and data storage in compact three-dimensional architectures. However, reliable direct laser writing of metallic and even more so ferromagnetic materials remains a major challenge. Here, we present a novel photoresist suitable to direct laser write ferromagnetic nickel based on sensitized triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion. By combining an in-situ photochemical deoxygenation process with a sensitized triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion process as well as a photoreduction of Ni2+ ions, the deposition of metallic nickel is enabled under ambient conditions. Using this approach, nickel structures are fabricated as a proof of concept. Scanning electron microscopy and EDX analysis confirm the spatially confined deposition of nickel, while magnetic characterization by vibrating sample magnetometry and scanning NV magnetometry demonstrate the ferromagnetic nature of the printed structures. This work presents a major step forward in extending the possibilities of direct laser writing to metallic and ferromagnetic materials.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Optics (physics.optics)
Critical behavior of the thermal phase transition of U(1) lattice gauge systems
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Greta Sophie Reese, Ludwig Mathey
We model the phase transition of a superconductor as a U(1) lattice gauge system, and determine its critical behavior. For this, we perform Monte Carlo simulations, treating the order parameter field and the gauge field on equal footing, without additional approximations. As the defining correlation function, we determine the order parameter correlation function including a gauge string, thus achieving a gauge-invariant characterization of the long-range behavior explicitly. We obtain a critical exponent $ \beta$ that is consistent with the exponent of the U(1) transition of neutral bosons, i.e. of Bose-Einstein condensation. We determine the critical behavior of the heat capacity, which displays a temperature depends consistent with an XY transition. These results clarify the universality class of the phase transition of this system.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
12 pages, 11 figures including the appendices
Three phases of odd robotic active matter
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Fan Bo, Shiqi Liu, Zenghong He, Wyatt Joyce, Gregor Leech, Kiet Tran, Keilan Ramirez, Nicholas Boechler, Nicholas Gravish, Hongbo Zhao, Tzer Han Tan
Nonreciprocal interactions in active matter are known to generate exotic mechanical behaviors such as odd elasticity and odd viscosity. However, these phenomena have largely been studied in isolation, raising a fundamental question: Is there a single system that embodies these distinct regimes of odd matter and can transition between phases, establishing a unified phase diagram for nonreciprocal active matter? To address this, we introduce a tunable robotic active matter platform, the Magnetomechanically Augmented Spinning roBotic (MASBot) collective, in which particle-level control of chirality, activity, and pairwise interactions enables access to distinct phases of odd matter. By continuously increasing repulsive forces relative to attractive and transverse forces, we experimentally map a transition from an odd elastic crystal to an odd viscous liquid, and then to a chiral active gas. We find that this latter phase forms a non-space-filling, nonreciprocal active gas stabilized by long-range hydrodynamic attractive forces, whose statistical signatures are consistent with those of a two-dimensional self-gravitating point vortex gas. Within these phases, adjusting spinning frequency and introducing spatially patterned activity allows us to fine-tune odd mechanical responses and tailor power spectra. Further polar and rotational symmetry breaking at the particle scale leads to novel emergent states such as phase separation and collective translation. Together, our system provides a fundamental experimental testbed for nonequilibrium physics and establishes a blueprint for treating robotic swarms as programmable states of matter, enabling functions that range from resilient structures to adaptive swarm reconfiguration.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Synthetic design of force-responsive hydrogels with ring-forming catch bonds
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
Wout Laeremans, Wouter G. Ellenbroek
Catch bonds are interactions whose lifetimes increase under mechanical load, a counterintuitive behaviour that underlies diverse biological processes. Translating this mechanism to synthetic materials offers the potential to create systems that are compliant at low stress but stiffen under applied force, with applications ranging from impact-responsive materials to dynamic tissue scaffolds. However, engineering materials with tunable, force-dependent interactions remains challenging, and existing conceptual designs are limited. Here, we present a minimal synthetic framework for catch bond behaviour in dynamic hydrogels, based on reversible ring-forming polymers. Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, we show that hydrogels with such a chemistry undergo fewer bond-breaking reactions as the stress increases and can even display a non-monotonic dependence of the strain rate on the applied stress. Our results highlight the potential of reversible ring formation as a versatile platform for designing mechanically adaptive materials with tunable durability and responsiveness.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
11 pages, 11 figures
Nanoscale imaging of spin textures with locally varying altermagnetic response in $α$-Fe$_2$O$_3$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
R. Yamamoto, S. Mayr, A. Hariki, S. Finizio, K. Sakurai, E. Weschke, K. Litzius, M. T. Birch, L. A. Turnbull, E. Zhakina, M. Di Pietro Martínez, J. Reuteler, F. Schulz, M. Weigand, J. Raabe, G. Schütz, S. S. P. K. Arekapudi, O. Hellwig, W. H. Campos, L. Šmejkal, J. Kuneš, C. Donnelly, S. Wintz
Altermagnetism is a recently identified magnetic state in which time-reversal symmetry is broken despite a collinear compensated spin structure. The response of altermagnets is determined not only by their $ d$ -, $ g$ -, or $ i$ -wave spin order, but also the orientation of their Néel vector $ \mathbf{L}$ . Therefore, accessing a response that fundamentally depends on the orientation of $ \mathbf{L}$ , such as the anomalous Hall effect, remains experimentally challenging in particular at the nanoscale. Here, we harness nano-spectroscopic X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) to investigate nanoscale modulated altermagnetic responses in $ \alpha$ -Fe$ _2$ O$ _3$ (Hematite). By performing spectroscopy across the temperature-induced $ \mathbf{L}$ -reorientation Morin transition, we observe the on-and-off switching of XMCD, in agreement with our theoretical calculations. Although the bulk XMCD vanishes below the Morin temperature, we confirm the reorientation of $ \mathbf{L}$ by harnessing polarization-independent X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Moreover, we observe a finite XMCD signal in nanoscale domain walls with locally modulated Néel vectors, while the surrounding domains exhibit no XMCD. At room temperature, we instead identify altermagnetic meron spin textures that exhibit XMCD in their planar regions but no XMCD in their nanoscopic cores. Our results establish a pathway to harness complex spin textures with nanoscale functionalities in a broader class of altermagnets with various $ \mathbf{L}$ -orientations and using light, earth-abundant elements.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Stability of flat-band Bose-Einstein condensation from the geometry of compact localized states
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-03-11 20:00 EDT
We consider Bose-Einstein condensation in flat-band models from a real-space perspective. Using a basis of compact localized states, we reformulate the minimization of the mean-field energy as a Euclidian geometry problem. Within Bogoliubov theory, we show that flat-band models where the solutions to this problem are frameworks consisting of triangles with nonzero area are promising for condensation, whereas for instance square frameworks indicate condensation in a single mode is impossible. When restricting the analysis to Bloch states, this approach can be related to a necessary condition for a non-vanishing quantum distance. This work provides a new perspective on how condensation in flat bands is destabilized, and offers principles for the construction of models where flat-band Bose-Einstein condensation is possible.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas)
Main text: 8 pages, 2 figures. Supplementary material: 10 pages, 9 figures