CMP Journal 2026-11-11
Statistics
Nature: 25
Physical Review Letters: 6
Physical Review X: 2
arXiv: 73
Research Square: 2
Nature
Efficient catalyst-controlled C-H arylation of arenes
Original Paper | Homogeneous catalysis | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Minhao Zhang, Elisa González-Fernández, Jyoti Dhankhar, Mingyu Zhang, Marzia Dell’Aera, Somayeh Salarinejad, Soohee Huh, Olivier Blacque, Anthony Linden, Ilija Čorić
Direct arylation of C-H bonds in arenes offers a streamlined alternative to widely used cross-coupling reactions.1 However, native substrates lack the preinstalled functional handles that ordinarily provide both reactivity and control over the site of reaction. Consequently, despite long-standing interest in directly engaging C-H bonds as reactive sites,2-4 the design of general catalysts that deliver high yields across diverse substrate classes while controlling site selectivity remains a challenge.5-12 Here we show that a microenvironment around a prototypical palladium dicarboxylate catalytic site can provide high selectivity for direct arylation of sterically exposed C-H sites, while high efficiency is achieved using an advanced palladium(II) precatalyst and tailored diaryliodonium reagents for selective aryl transfer. The applicability of this system spans from electron-rich to electron-deficient arenes, while electron-neutral benzene, which is often a challenge for C-H arylation, undergoes successive sterically controlled arylations, delivering functionalized polyaryl compounds. In addition to removing the necessity for pre-functionalized substrates, the mild conditions enable direct late-stage C-H arylation and the installation of aryl groups equipped with functionalities that are typically either reactive in traditional cross-coupling catalysis, such as triflates, iodides, and boronate esters, or sensitive to the basic conditions, such as N-hydroxysuccinimide esters. The results emphasize the distinct synthetic value of palladium-catalyzed direct C-H arylation reactions and showcase a catalyst platform that facilitates high yields and control over site-selectivity.
Homogeneous catalysis, Synthetic chemistry methodology
Human replisomes direct a dedicated leading-strand primase for fork restart
Original Paper | Replisome | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Cristian Polo Rivera, Johann J. Roske, Emma L. Hands, Federico Fassetta, Julian E. Sale, Joseph T. P. Yeeles
Disruptions to leading-strand synthesis impair and stall replication forks because DNA synthesis by the leading-strand polymerase, Pol ε, is essential for optimal template unwinding by the replicative CMG (CDC45-MCM-GINS) helicase1,2. Failure to efficiently restart and/or protect stalled replication forks is a major source of genomic instability3,4,5,6. Stalled forks can be restarted by a variety of mechanisms, including repriming downstream of the impediment4. In human cells, the primase-polymerase PRIMPOL promotes fork progression during replication stress7,8,9,10, but how its activity is coordinated by the replisome is unresolved. Here, by reconstituting replication fork stalling and restart with purified human proteins, we show that the CMG helicase directs PRIMPOL for efficient replication fork restart. Unexpectedly, the interaction between PRIMPOL and replication protein A9,11 is not critical for fork restart in this system. We show that PRIMPOL binds directly to CMG, and a cryo-electron microscopy structure illustrates how this targets PRIMPOL specifically for leading-strand priming to minimize the size of post-replicative gaps. Ablating the CMG-PRIMPOL interaction abolishes fork restart in vitro and PRIMPOL-dependent DNA damage tolerance in human cells. Our work establishes PRIMPOL as an integrated component of the human replisome dedicated to leading-strand priming.
Replisome, Stalled forks
Bureaucratic incentives shaped effectiveness of the one-child policy in China
Original Paper | Politics | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Lingsheng Meng, Hanmo Yang, Grant Miller, Hongbin Li
Empirical research so far largely suggests that population policies around the world do not explain a majority of the global fertility decline1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Notably, even China’s total fertility rate declined little after implementation of the one-child policy in 1979 and 1980, but fertility then fell sharply by more than one-third during the early 1990s. Here we show that strengthening bureaucratic incentives under China’s one vote veto policy, which strictly prohibited career advancement for adherence failure, was instrumental in more effective implementation of the one-child policy, and in its delayed impact on fertility. Using provincial variation in implementation timing, we find that the one vote veto explains nearly half of China’s total fertility rate decline during the 1990s, driving fertility below the replacement rate. Increases in use of intrauterine devices (the most prevalent form of modern contraception in China) that were recommended by local officials were particularly salient. Overall, our findings suggest that population policy, when more strictly enforced due to stronger bureaucratic incentives, made a greater contribution to low fertility in China than suggested by past research.
Politics, Economics
Validation of clinical and preclinical obesity across global cohorts
Original Paper | Obesity | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
An Pan
(潘安), Shengping Yang, Rafael Ramos, Xianli Li
(李娴丽), Jinchi Xie
(谢金池), Robert H. Eckel, Geltrude Mingrone, Jordi Blanch, Jingyuan Jiang
(江靖源), Hongmin Liu
(刘红敏), Shuohua Chen
(陈朔华), Tingting Geng
(耿婷婷), Shouling Wu
(吴寿岭), Eric Ravussin, José Manuel Fernández-Real, Francesco Rubino
In 2025, a Lancet Commission proposed distinguishing clinical obesity, defined by adiposity-related organ dysfunction, from preclinical obesity, defined by excess adiposity with preserved function, and recommended using anthropometric measures beyond body mass index (BMI) to confirm obesity status1. Here we report the comparative performance of this framework versus conventional BMI-based classification using prevalence, incidence and mortality data from 844,108 adults across four cohorts in China, the UK, the USA and Spain. Complementing BMI with waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio data showed that BMI alone overestimated obesity in 1.2-3.1% and underestimated it in 5.2-8.6% of participants across cohorts. The combined anthropometric definition increased overall obesity prevalence by 3.3-7.4% relative to BMI-based classification. Clinical obesity accounted for 22.7-31.3% of total obesity, with an overall population prevalence of 5.6-10.9%. A large proportion of individuals (between 77.4% and 91.3%) with preclinical obesity at baseline showed no progression to clinical obesity over 10 years. Increased mortality risk was associated with the combined anthropometric definition of obesity, but not with BMI-only obesity. Clinical obesity was associated with substantially higher all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 1.69, 95% confidence interval 1.64-1.73), whereas preclinical obesity conferred only modest risk (1.19, 1.14-1.24). These findings support the global adoption of the Lancet Commission diagnostic framework to improve obesity care and policy.
Obesity, Body mass index
UNC13A splice correction rescues synaptic dysfunction induced by TDP-43 loss
Original Paper | Synaptic transmission | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Matthew J. Keuss, Peter Harley, Eugeni Ryadnov, Rachel E. Jackson, Moritz Boll, Matteo Zanovello, Oscar G. Wilkins, Simone Barattucci, Dragana Ilic, Rebecca L. Simkin, Max Z. Y. J. Chien, Alexander J. Cammack, Darija Šoltić, Puja R. Mehta, Yan To Ling, Maria Kowald, Ryan D. Morrie, Georgiana Miller, Marcio G. Oliveira, Graham Duddy, Sophie Wood, Joanna E. Parkes, Aparna Sinha, Andrés F. Correa-Sánchez, Adrian M. Isaacs, Peter L. Oliver, Fursham Hamid, Eric M. Green, Elizabeth M. C. Fisher, Benjamin Davies, Giampietro Schiavo, Mala Shah, Noa Lipstein, Juan Burrone, Pietro Fratta
TDP-43 nuclear depletion is a defining pathological feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia that induces widespread cryptic splicing defects in hundreds of transcripts1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Despite this, whether TDP-43 loss affects synaptic function has remained unclear. Here we show that TDP-43 loss induces a predegenerative state in which neurons remain structurally intact but suffer a substantial breakdown in synaptic communication. Genetic correction of a single cryptic splicing event in UNC13A was sufficient to rescue these deficits. We developed splice-switching antisense oligonucleotides that correct UNC13A cryptic splicing in human cortical and spinal motor neurons and in a humanized mouse model. In human neurons this intervention restored spontaneous and evoked synaptic vesicle release, release probability at individual synapses and wider network synchrony. Together, this establishes UNC13A splice correction as a mechanistically defined and genetically validated therapeutic strategy relevant to roughly 97% of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and roughly 50% of patients with frontotemporal dementia with TDP-43 pathology.
Synaptic transmission, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Target validation, Cellular neuroscience
NRF2 is a mechanosensitive checkpoint for NLRP3 inflammasome activation
Original Paper | Immunology | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Daniel Okin, Joon H. Choi, Chun Wang, Anh Cao, Daniel Fisch, Weiyi Ma, Katherine E. Lindblad, Marta Valenti, Tristan Kooistra, Trong Nguyen, Lida P. Hariri, Neha Chaudhary, Yun Chen Tien, Henrique Borges da Silva, Rachel S. Knipe, Gabriel Mbalaviele, Jonathan C. Kagan
Disconnects between in vitro and in vivo results in experimental biology have long been recognized as potential hurdles to understanding health and disease. A prototypical example of such a disconnect is the NLRP3 inflammasome, which mediates inflammation in diverse settings of disease and protective immunity1,2. Activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome in vitro requires two signals: (1) priming by pathogen-associated molecular patterns such as bacterial lipopolysaccharides and (2) activation by molecules that disrupt cellular homeostasis1,3. By contrast, the NLRP3 inflammasome in vivo is activated by lipopolysaccharide alone. The mechanisms that underlie the difference between in vitro and in vivo activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome are undefined. Here we report that extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffness is a determinant of NLRP3 activities and that in vitro systems using physiological ECM stiffness enable one-signal in vivo-like NLRP3 activities to occur in human and mouse phagocytes. Physiological ECM stiffness induced expression of the transcription factor NRF2, which was found to be necessary for one-signal NLRP3 activation. Mechanistically, we identify Panx1 as an NRF2-regulated gene that promotes NLRP3 activity. Macrophages derived from the stiff matrix of the bone–osteoclasts–had reduced NRF2 levels and impaired NLRP3 activity. Moreover, alveolar macrophages from patients with pulmonary fibrosis displayed reduced NRF2 activity. Finally, NRF2 was required for antitumour immunity induced by cancer vaccines consisting of NLRP3 agonistic adjuvants. These findings indicate that NRF2 may be a transcriptional checkpoint that controls NLRP3 inflammasome activity.
Immunology, Innate immunity, Monocytes and macrophages
Non-halogen aqueous electrolytes for four-electron iodine conversion
Original Paper | Batteries | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Ruwei Chen, Haobo Dong, Yuhang Dai, Jingyu Wang, Jie Chen, Jiyang Liu, Jianrui Feng, Yunpeng Zhong, Wei Zong, Wei Zhang, Hang Yang, Zhe Cui, Guanjie He
Accessing reversible four-electron iodine redox chemistry in aqueous metal-iodine batteries offers a promising route towards high-energy aqueous energy storage, but has conventionally relied on highly concentrated, corrosive halogen-containing electrolytes to stabilize reactive hypervalent iodine cations through interhalogen complexation1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we show a kosmotropic anion-polar anion-nucleophilic species (Nuc) electrolyte framework that harnesses anionic chemistry to coordinate the interfacial microenvironment and molecular interactions, enabling reversible four-electron iodine conversion in halogen-free aqueous electrolytes. Polar anions establish a water-deficient, anion-enriched interfacial microenvironment, whereas kosmotropic anions regulate water-Nuc interactions to increase the availability of Nuc for stabilizing hypervalent iodine cations through Nuc-I+-Nuc halogen bonds. This electrolyte framework is validated across diverse Nuc and in both aqueous Zn-I2 and Al-I2 batteries. Moving beyond conventional interhalogen stabilization, these findings establish a distinct electrolyte chemistry framework and represent a mechanistic shift for reversible multi-electron iodine chemistry in aqueous environments.
Batteries, Energy
Bistable regulation of adipocyte heterogeneity governs thermogenesis
Original Paper | Mechanisms of disease | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Anying Song, Yifan Wang, Guan Wang, Marie Bae, Zhichao Wang, Guoming Gao, Zhuyin Wu, Geming Lu, Jieyi Meng, Jiayu Yu, Soojin Park, Adolfo Garcia-Ocaña, Patrick T. Fueger, Loredana Rao, Andrea Frontini, Yong Liu, Lei Jiang, Yi Zhu, Qiong A. Wang
Brown adipocytes (BAs) are thermogenic cells that regulate energy homeostasis, and age-related declines in thermogenesis contribute to cold sensitivity1,2,3,4,5. We previously identified a BA subpopulation with low UCP1 expression (hereafter, BA-L cells) that coexists with the classical, high-UCP1-expressing BAs (hereafter, BA-H cells)6. Here we show that IL-1β secreted by neutrophils and macrophages stabilizes nearby BAs in the BA-L state. Specifically, IL-1β stabilizes hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PD) protein from degradation to ensure the generation of active glucocorticoids, which activate the glucocorticoid receptor (GR, encoded by Nr3c1) and increase the expression of its target gene, regulator of G-protein signalling 2 (Rgs2), thereby suppressing UCP1 expression. Cold exposure reduces IL-1β levels, depending on sympathetic innervation, leading to H6PD degradation and the conversion of BA-L cells to BA-H cells, thereby enhancing UCP1-dependent thermogenesis. Rising environmental temperatures trigger the opposite events. BA-specific inducible deletion of Nr3c1 during cold exposure locks these cells in the BA-H state, leading to persistent thermogenesis and increased energy expenditure days after the mice return to room temperature. Notably, IL-1β is elevated in aged brown adipose tissue, resulting in a locked low BA-H/BA-L ratio and cold intolerance. Suppressing GR in aged mice restores the BA-H/BA-L ratio, resumes thermogenesis and increases energy expenditure. Our findings reveal a spatiotemporal neuronal-immune regulation of BA heterogeneity that governs thermogenesis and offers a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms underlying increased cold sensitivity in older individuals.
Mechanisms of disease, Metabolism, Cell signalling, Ageing
Epigenetic heterogeneity in breast tumours informs diagnosis and prognosis
Original Paper | Breast cancer | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Noa Furth, Christina Riemenschneider, Yishai Arieli, Matan Avni, Michael-Yakov Povolotski, Hadas Yung, Shiri Karagach, Ofir Atrakchi, Nir Erez, Tomer-Meir Salame, Roberta Noberini, Adeline Durand, Grégoire Jouault, Bareket Dassa, Mirie Zerbib, Roni Oren, Ofra Golani, Barak Bar-Zakai, Yael Mavor, Orli Friedman-Eldar, Hadas Kadar-Sfarad, Shani Gilron, Osnat Givon-Madhala, Naama Ronel, Faisal Abu-Rmilah, Itai Moshe, Shahar Ish-Shalom, Ady Yosepovich, Miriam Kaplan, Michal Bakalenik, Maya Dadiani, Rakel Tryggvadottir, Gabriel Shatkin, Mariam Hakobyan, Alexander Kovacsovics, Sebastian D. Mackowiak, Amanda Arnold, Sarah McLaughlin, Ekaterina Andreishcheva, Abhijeet Shinde, Jiaren Zhang, Daniel Jones, Einav Nili Gal-Yam, Tamar Geiger, Tiziana Bonaldi, Andrew P. Feinberg, Alexander Meissner, Celine Vallot, Guy Ron, Efrat Shema
Breast cancer, the most diagnosed cancer among women, is stratified by gene expression patterns into luminal and basal-like subtypes, and the latter is associated with worse prognosis1,2,3. Recent advances in single-cell technologies have underscored the presence of intratumour heterogeneity, which poses substantial challenges in cancer treatment and achieving long-term disease-free survival4,5,6,7. Here we extensively profile epigenetic heterogeneity in a cohort of treatment-naive human luminal tumours, which were obtained directly after surgical resection. By applying a single-cell epigenetic approach based on cytometry by time-of-flight, we identify a recurrent subpopulation of basal-like cells in luminal tumours with a conserved epigenetic signature across patients. These basal-like cells, also identified by deconvolution of whole-genome DNA methylation patterns, are characterized by high expression of aggressive oncogenic traits and downregulation of hormone receptor signalling. Direct comparison of single-cell proteomic and genomic profiling of monomethylation and trimethylation of histone 3 on lysine 4 revealed that these marks are key features associated with loss of luminal identity. Finally, we highlight the potential of concomitant single-molecule profiling of histone modifications on cell-free nucleosomes in blood as an epigenetic liquid biopsy approach for early diagnosis of breast cancer. Moreover, the epigenetic basal signature measured in blood is linked to prognosis, which enables the identification of patients at increased risk for disease relapse.
Breast cancer, DNA methylation, Tumour heterogeneity
A plant RNA-binding protein senses 2’,3’-cNMP produced by insect effectors
Original Paper | Plant immunity | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Xiao-Xiang Guo, Jia-Fa Huang, Jing-Tong Zhao, Yi-Jie Gan, Xiaoxiao Liu, Longxian Chen, Tao Song, Wen-Kai Wu, Yu-Fei Li, Jia-Ling Lin, Jing-Jing Bao, Gui-Bin Nie, Yin Tang, Mei Chen, Jing-Jing Xu, Jun-Ling Dun, Ling-Jian Wang, Jin-Quan Huang, Ying-Bo Mao, Xiaofei Yang, Yiliang Ding, Ertao Wang, Li Wan, Xiao-Ya Chen
RNA-derived 2’,3’-cyclophosphate-terminated nucleotides act as immune signalling molecules in prokaryotes and eukaryotes1,2,3, but how plants perceive them remains unknown. Sucking insects inject digestive enzymes including RNases into the host plant to acquire nutrients. Here we demonstrate that NIB1, a glycine-rich RNA-binding protein in rice, senses 2’,3’-cyclic nucleotide monophosphates (2’,3’-cNMPs; 2’,3’-cAMP and 2’,3’-cGMP) and adenylyl-(3’→5’)-guanosine 2’,3’-cyclic phosphate (ApG>p) produced by a salivary T2 ribonuclease of green stink bug during feeding. Binding of the RNase products promotes formation of nuclear condensates containing NIB1, which recruit the core immune regulator Enhanced Disease Susceptibility 1 (EDS1) and activate defence, potentially contributing to the immune signalling of Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) proteins that also produce the nuclease products. Exogenous application of 2’,3’-cAMP, 2’,3’-cGMP or ApG>p elicits NIB1 and EDS1-mediated immune responses. Our findings unveil a conserved pathway in plants, in which glycine-rich RNA-binding proteins perceive the nuclease-generated second messengers to launch defence and point to a potential link between plant TIR nuclease activity and EDS1 signalling.
Plant immunity, Plant stress responses
Flexible rubber blades for tidal turbines
Original Paper | Mechanical engineering | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Zhehong Zhang, Junchen Tan, Eric-Carin Neba, Sylvain Morival, Kuba Frankowski, Bertrand Daval, Ignazio Maria Viola
The global transition towards sustainable energy systems has identified tidal power as a uniquely predictable and substantial renewable energy resource1. However, the highly unsteady sea environment subjects turbines to severe hydrodynamic loads, greatly increasing capital and maintenance costs2,3. Large-scale state-of-the-art turbines at present rely on complex, expensive active pitch systems to mitigate these fluctuations. Here we present a reliable, passive alternative: flexible rubber blades featuring chordwise trailing-edge deformation. We experimentally demonstrate that these flexible blades achieve an equivalent total energy yield over simulated tidal cycles compared with rigid blades with active pitch control, while mitigating high-frequency fatigue-inducing load fluctuations by up to one-third. This passive load regulation arises from aeroelastic deformation that flattens blade camber under load, enabling structural robustness without added mechanical complexity. These findings suggest that chordwise-flexible blades can enhance the durability and performance of tidal turbines, offering a promising pathway towards more reliable and cost-effective tidal energy generation.
Mechanical engineering, Hydroelectricity, Devices for energy harvesting
Hadean mantle depletion and 3.95-Gyr subduction implied by North China rocks
Original Paper | Precambrian geology | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Hangqiang Xie, Chunyan Dong, Pengchuan Li, Rongfeng Ge, Simon A. Wilde, Shoujie Liu, Dunyi Liu, Yusheng Wan
The scarcity of terrestrial rocks older than 3.9 billion years (Gyr) has hindered our understanding of Earth’s early evolution, fuelling persistent debates on how and when the first continental crust formed and plate tectonics started. At present, the only unequivocally documented >3.9-Gyr-old rocks are from the Acasta Gneiss Complex, Canada1,2,3. Here we report a 3.95-Gyr-old trondhjemitic gneiss from eastern Hebei, North China Craton, in which primary magmatic zircon records elevated δ18O values (average +6.77 ± 0.23‰) and positive εHf(t) values (weighted mean +1.45 ± 0.27). This suggests a low-temperature altered basaltic source that originated from a mantle depleted in the Hadean. In contrast to the low-pressure origin inferred for the roughly 4.0-Gyr-old Idiwhaa unit in Acasta2, the 3.95-Gyr-old trondhjemitic gneiss reported here exhibits geochemical signatures attributed to a high-pressure origin4. Thermodynamic and trace element modelling demonstrate that its parental magma formed by means of low-degree (8-16%) melting of basaltic crust at >1.6 GPa and 740-820 °C, suggesting rapid burial of (near-)surface-altered oceanic crust to mantle depths along a cool thermal gradient. We propose that this rapid burial was most likely achieved through a transient subduction event.
Precambrian geology, Geochemistry
Human land use drives microplastic abundance in terrestrial wildlife
Original Paper | Biodiversity | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Marcia de Almeida Monteiro Melo Ferraz, Arnaud L. J. Desbiez, Mario Henrique Alves, Justin M. Calabrese, Alexandra Tiso Cumerlato, Fernanda Cristina Jacoby, Nicole Grechi, Danilo Kluyber, Erika Y. Lin, Marcella Pecora Milazzotto, Grazielle Soresini, Emília Patrícia Medici, Gabriela Mastromonaco, Michael J. Noonan
Plastic pollution is a defining feature of the Anthropocene1, and microplastics are dispersed by air and water into even remote terrestrial habitats2,3,4,5,6,7, yet the ecological and landscape-level processes that shape microplastic accumulation in terrestrial ecosystems remain poorly understood. Human land-use change is rapidly transforming landscapes worldwide, but the influence of this expanding human footprint on the microplastic burdens in wildlife remains largely unknown. This knowledge gap is particularly pressing in regions that are facing escalating environmental pressures, such as Brazil. Here we pair in vivo microplastic measurements with high-resolution tracking data from lowland tapirs and giant anteaters across Brazil and show that the microplastic burdens carried by free-ranging mammals increase with both the magnitude of their human footprint exposure and their proximity to development and waste management infrastructure. Microplastics were also detected in the blood of individuals occupying seemingly pristine habitats far from development, suggesting that direct exposure to human-modified landscapes is unlikely to be the sole driver of systemic microplastic burdens. In a period of accelerating global land-use change, these findings reveal how individual habitat use and anthropogenic land-use change interact to shape wildlife exposure to microplastics and suggest that managing animals’ proximity to development and waste management infrastructure may reduce the microplastic burdens carried by terrestrial wildlife.
Biodiversity, Conservation biology, Ecological modelling
Transient nuclear softening for zygotic gene activation in mice
Original Paper | Embryogenesis | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Masahito Tanaka, Rin Sakanoue, Yasuki Miyagawa, Kai Otsuka, Yoshiaki Kobayashi, Atsushi Takasu, Ryunosuke Mori, Naoko Watanabe, Akihiro Inoue, Koyo Ikeda, Yu-Chia Chen, Aussie Suzuki, Yasuyuki Ohkawa, So Maezawa, Hiroshi Ochiai, Kei Miyamoto, Yuta Shimamoto
Nuclei in early mammalian embryos undergo epigenetic reprogramming that enables the zygote to develop into a complete organism. Whereas changes in chromatin state during this critical transition period have been extensively studied1,2,3, changes in the nucleus that houses chromatin remain poorly understood. Here, using direct organelle capture and biophysical manipulation methods, we find that nuclei attain profound softness and plasticity during the two-cell embryonic stage in mice, facilitating major zygotic gene activation. The prominent nuclear deformability is attributable to the rapid clearance of lamin B1 from the nuclear envelope by the autophagy factor LC3. Nuclear stiffening by lamin B1 retention or its overloading results in incomplete activation of zygotic genes and impaired development. However, embryos that maintain nuclear deformability escape from this transcriptional interference. High-resolution microscopy and sequential three-dimensional fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses revealed an accumulation of active RNA polymerase II and coordinated positioning of key genomic loci near the deformable nuclear envelope. An engineered molecular tether that stiffens the nuclei restricts these nuclear activities and suppresses expression of key zygotic gene activation genes. Together, our study identifies a distinct physical nuclear state that embryos acquire at the beginning of life that supports the initiation of the zygotic transcription program.
Embryogenesis, Biophysics, Nuclear organization
Suppression of epithelial proliferation and tumorigenesis by IgA
Original Paper | Mucosal immunology | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Gregory P. Donaldson, Gabriella Lima dos Reis, Marwa Saad, Christopher Wichmann, Izabela Mamede, Guo Chen, Caroline E. Harrer, Nicole L. DelGaudio, Dayu Zhang, Begüm Aydin, Tiago B. R. Castro, Sergei I. Grivennikov, Bernardo S. Reis, Elise G. Liu, Stephanie C. Eisenbarth, Kivanç Birsoy, Sohail F. Tavazoie, Beth M. Stadtmueller, Gabriel D. Victora, Daniel Mucida
Immunoglobulin A (IgA) is the most abundant antibody isotype produced by mammals, and has a specialized role in mucosal homeostasis1. IgA is constantly secreted into the intestinal lumen and binds to commensal microorganisms to regulate their colonization and function2,3, with unclear implications for health. IgA deficiency is common in humans, but difficult to study, because of its complex aetiology and comorbidities4,5,6,7,8. Here we use genetically and environmentally controlled mice to show that various models of IgA deficiency result in increased susceptibility to several models of endogenous colorectal cancer. Cellular and molecular analyses revealed that, in the absence of IgA, colonic epithelial cells induce antibacterial factors and accelerate cell cycling in response to the microbiota. Oral treatment with IgA was sufficient to reduce steady-state proliferation and protect mice from tumours; however, this function was due to the structure of the antibody rather than to binding specificity. In a reductionist culture system, IgA directly suppressed epithelial growth. Co-immunoprecipitation mass spectrometry and targeted CRISPR screening identified DMBT1 as an IgA-binding epithelial surface protein that is required for IgA-mediated suppression of proliferation. Together, IgA and DMBT1 tune the normal cycling of absorptive colonocyte progenitors. In IgA-knockout mice, deleting the transmembrane and cytoplasmic signalling portions of DMBT1 was sufficient to reverse both the increased epithelial cell proliferation and the increased tumour susceptibility seen in these mice. These experiments establish a homeostatic function for IgA in tempering physiological epithelial responses to the microbiota to maintain mucosal health.
Mucosal immunology, Microbiome, Colorectal cancer, Antibodies
Evolutionary dynamics in the years preceding acute myeloid leukaemia
Original Paper | Leukaemia | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Caroline J. Watson, Gladys Y. P. Poon, Hamish A. J. MacGregor, Adriana V. A. Fonseca, Sophia Apostolidou, Aristi Damaskou, Christopher Boniface, Samuel Hackett, Aleksandra Gentry-Maharaj, Usha Menon, Jamie R. Blundell
Somatic evolution in ageing tissues underlies many cancers1,2. However, our quantitative understanding of the rules governing this pre-cancerous evolution remains incomplete. Here we exploit a unique collection of serial blood samples3, collected annually for up to a decade and beginning as early as 15 years before diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia, to provide a quantitative description of pre-cancerous evolutionary dynamics. Using deep duplex sequencing and evolutionary theory, we quantify the acquisition ages and fitness effects of the key driver events in acute myeloid leukaemia development. The first driver mutations are typically acquired in the first few decades of life, when the blood remains highly polyclonal. These early slow-growing clones subsequently acquire multiple further driver mutations that confer selective advantages up to 100-fold larger than the early drivers. These faster-growing clones harbouring multiple driver mutations can cause complete somatic sweeps of the blood decades before diagnosis, a feature strongly associated with future acute myeloid leukaemia. Our data show that the clonal dynamics of blood are consistent with a set of remarkably simple evolutionary rules that strike a balance between chance and determinism.
Leukaemia, Cancer genomics, Molecular evolution, Evolutionary theory
Scale-rich network-based metamaterials
Original Paper | Complex networks | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Csaba Both, Andrew Yen-Jong Chen, Ting-Ting Gao, Niek Mooij, Mohammad Charara, Jayna Wadhwa, Carlos M. Portela, Albert-László Barabási
Materials, at their essence, are networks defined by homogeneity: uniform bonds, fixed thicknesses and discrete length scales. Mechanical metamaterials, while representing structurally more diverse microstructures, remain defined by the homogeneity of their unit cells, pore sizes or repeating features1,2. In contrast, as network science has revealed, real-world and biological systems–from the Internet to the brain–derive their function from broad, multiscale variability in connectivity and link length3,4,5,6. Here we introduce scale-rich metamaterials, a design framework that embeds network heterogeneity into mechanical metamaterials, achieving orders-of-magnitude heterogeneity in ligament lengths, thicknesses and connectivity. Governed by only two parameters, scale-rich networks span orders of magnitude in structural features, overcoming previous constraints in metamaterial design. Translating these network models into physically realizable materials, we use simulations and experiments to show that scale-rich metamaterials exhibit properties inaccessible to traditional single-scale systems, including highly tunable elastic anisotropy, delocalized nonlinear deformation with high energy absorption, enhanced energy dissipation under dynamic loading and programmable elastic-wave control. This network-based framework establishes a minimal and universal model for engineering multifunctional materials whose mechanical behaviour emerges directly from scale diversity, and also opens avenues of enquiry for network science itself.
Complex networks, Mechanical properties, Mechanical engineering
The molecular basis of replication fork restart via repriming by PRIMPOL
Original Paper | Single-molecule biophysics | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Jinho Park, Luke D. Lynch, Elena Blanco-Romero, Roberto Masdemont-Maestro, Juan Méndez, Gheorghe Chistol
Eukaryotic genomes are exposed to numerous sources of DNA damage that impede replication. Only a decade ago, repriming by the primase-polymerase PRIMPOL was identified as a pathway that enables cells to tolerate DNA damage1,2,3,4. However, the molecular mechanism that underlies repriming remains poorly understood, and it is unclear how PRIMPOL is precisely targeted to stalled forks, where along single-stranded DNA PRIMPOL binds and how PRIMPOL is regulated to minimize error-prone DNA synthesis. Here, to dissect the molecular basis of repriming, we perform real-time single-molecule imaging in nuclear extracts that recapitulate genome maintenance. We directly visualize how stalled forks restart through repriming. We show that PRIMPOL is recruited to stalled forks through an interaction with the replicative helicase CDC45-MCM2-7-GINS (CMG). This facilitates primer handover from PRIMPOL to the high-fidelity polymerase ε, minimizing mutagenic DNA synthesis. At near-physiological concentrations, PRIMPOL reprimes leading strands in a CMG-dependent manner and polymerase ε extends those primers. This primary mode of repriming does not require DNA damage checkpoint signalling. PRIMPOL overexpression and checkpoint activation promote a secondary mode of repriming, whereby PRIMPOL restarts DNA synthesis far from CMG and polymerase δ extends those primers. Our data reveal a simple yet effective mechanism that directs PRIMPOL’s activity to stalled forks awaiting restart, and suggest a strategy to inhibit the repriming pathway.
Single-molecule biophysics, DNA damage and repair, DNA
Domain-alteration chimeras rewire oncogenic complexes in prostate cancer
Original Paper | Targeted therapies | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Jie Luo, Jianzhang Yang, Jean Ching-Yi Tien, Mi Wang, Sumit Das, Xiaoju Wang, Eleanor Young, Jelena Tošović, Rahul Mannan, Weiguo Xiang, Xia Jiang, Jocelyn Cai, Yihan Liu, Kenneth Gu, Somnath Mahapatra, Shiting Li, Yitong Yin, Sanjana Eyunni, Abigail J. Todd, Shicheng Jin, Xuhong Cao, Fengyun Su, Stephanie J. Miner, Ranga Sudharshan, Arvind Rao, Abhijit Parolia, Yuanyuan Qiao, Shaomeng Wang, Arul M. Chinnaiyan
Transcriptional addiction to the androgen receptor (AR) underlies metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer1, in which AR maintains oncogenic programs through domain-specific interactions with the acetyltransferases p300 and CBP (collectively p300/CBP)2. Here we describe a novel therapeutic modality, domain-alteration chimeras (DALTACs), that rewire endogenous protein complexes by enforcing non-native domain-domain interactions. Our first-in-class AR-p300/CBP DALTAC-1 induces synthetic proximity between the ligand-binding domain of AR and the bromodomain of p300/CBP, misconfiguring their native interface and locking the complex in a non-productive state. DALTAC-1 triggers a ‘super-inhibitory’ effect, suppressing AR-driven transcription and proliferation more potently than combined AR and p300/CBP inhibition. Mechanistically, DALTAC-1 reprograms p300/CBP substrate engagement, abolishing the histone mark H2B N-terminal acetylation and inducing neomorphic acetylation of AR and coactivators, ultimately collapsing the AR neo-enhanceosome. Chromatin profiling revealed redistribution of AR and p300/CBP towards palindromic androgen response elements, accompanied by disruption of cofactor and transcriptional machinery recruitment at oncogenic AR and ERG neo-enhancers. DALTAC-1 exhibits exquisite lineage selectivity, displaying potent activity in AR-p300/CBP dual-dependent cells and sparing AR-negative cells. In multiple in vivo models, DALTAC-1 induces deep and durable tumour regressions. Together, these findings establish DALTACs as a broadly applicable strategy to rewire disease-defining complexes through domain-topology alteration, expanding induced-proximity therapies, and the precise lineage selectivity of DALTAC-1 supports its translational potential in AR-driven prostate cancer.
Targeted therapies, Prostate cancer, Medicinal chemistry, Transcription
Glycosylation and importins liquefy the FG barrier in live nuclear pores
Original Paper | Intrinsically disordered proteins | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Miao Yu
(于淼), Maziar Heidari, Karen Palacio-Rodriguez, Hao Ruan
(阮浩), Sara Mingu, Yu Chen
(陈宇), Xu-Zhuo Gou
(缑绪卓), Pingkai Shen
(沈平恺), Songzi Liu
(刘松子), Si-Yu Chen
(陈思宇), Alam Ahmad Hidayat, Mathis Bode, Mateusz Sikora, Ai-Hui Tang
(唐爱辉), Gerhard Hummer, Edward A. Lemke
The nuclear pore complex (NPC) regulates molecular traffic between nucleus and cytoplasm1,2. Its permeability barrier is formed by intrinsically disordered phenylalanine-glycine-rich nucleoporins (FG-NUPs), whose physical state has long been debated3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Deciphering how FG-NUPs behave inside living cells is crucial for understanding how NPCs achieve both selective and rapid transport. By combining site-specific labelling with time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy, here we show that FG domains exhibit nanosecond-scale, liquid-like segmental motion in live cells, whereas reconstituted FG condensates undergo a liquid-to-solid transition in vitro. Experiments and molecular-dynamics simulations further show that importin-β, a principal nuclear transport receptor, and O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine, a key post-translational modification of FG-NUPs, together stabilize the dynamic FG network. Finely balanced FG-FG and FG-importin-β interactions maintain FG-NUP liquidity and generate a radial organization in which importin-β is enriched near the NPC periphery and extended FG domains remain in the central channel, forming the transport barrier. This organization explains recent MINFLUX observations14 of rim-biased transport trajectories and is supported here by direct MINFLUX imaging of importin-β in mammalian cells. Together, our results reconcile conflicting models of FG-NUP organization4,5,7,9,15 and establish a framework for understanding how cellular context tunes intrinsically disordered proteins in health and disease.
Intrinsically disordered proteins, Biological fluorescence, Computational biophysics, Nucleus, Nuclear transport
Severe drought and warming increase the extinction risk of cacti
Original Paper | Climate-change ecology | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Michiel D. Pillet, Brian S. Maitner, Mónica Arakaki, Diogo S. A. Araujo, Marc A. Baker, Duniel Barrios, Bradley L. Boyle, David D. Breshears, Xiao Feng, Bárbara Goettsch, Pablo C. Guerrero, Tania Hernández-Hernández, Lucas C. Majure, Beatriz M. Meriño, Efthymios I. Nikolopoulos, Raúl Puente-Martínez, Patrick R. Roehrdanz, Josep M. Serra-Diaz, Mark C. Urban, Cory Merow, Brian J. Enquist
Extreme climatic events are increasing in frequency and intensity with climate change1. Their effects on species’ distributions and extinction risk remain poorly understood2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Most species distribution models rely on long-term mean climate, overlooking potentially important nonlinear effects of extremes. Here we integrate new spatial data on severe drought10, including compounding effects of warmer temperatures, with a comprehensive curated dataset of cactus occurrences (648,316 records) and species distribution models to assess how severe drought alters projected suitable climatic area for 993 species of Cactaceae, a highly threatened family11 that is commonly considered drought tolerant. In 91% of cases, models including severe drought were better supported than mean-climate models. Across emissions scenarios (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) SSP1-2.6 to SSP5-8.5) with 100-km dispersal, including severe drought increased the share of species losing suitable climatic area from 58-61% to 69-72%. The proportion of species projected to lose over a quarter of suitable area increased from 26-43% to 55-58%, and the proportion projected to lose over four-fifths increased from 1-15% to 25-35%. With severe drought, restricting dispersal from 100 to 0 km increased the share losing suitable area from 69-72% to 84-85% across SSPs. These declines reduced regional richness, with five bioregions potentially losing over 25% of species. These findings demonstrate that accounting for climatic extremes can alter assessments of biodiversity vulnerability under climate change. Integrating climatic extremes into ecological forecasting will be critical for assessing biodiversity loss and designing effective conservation strategies across taxa and ecosystems.
Climate-change ecology, Conservation biology, Biodiversity, Macroecology
Low-power 2D CFETs using single-crystal high-κ dielectrics
Original Paper | Electronic devices | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Ni Yang, Ji Zhang, Yu-Cheng Lu, Zeheng Wang, Yu-Ming Chang, Fangyuan Zheng, Zi-Liang Yang, Lingqi Li, Ang-Sheng Chou, Zongmeng Yang, Haomin Liu, Lin-Yun Huang, Chenyang Li, Chengdong Yao, Pengfei Yang, Wanying Li, Wanqing Meng, Ming-Yang Li, Chao-Ching Cheng, Dong-Keun Ki, Ya-Ping Chiu, Kah-Wee Ang, Geng-Chiau Liang, Yi Wan, Yee Sin Ang, Iuliana P. Radu, Vita Pi-Ho Hu, Sean Li, Jing-Kai Huang, Lain-Jong Li
Aggressive scaling in silicon electronics–although essential for improving power, performance, area and cost–faces increasing challenges in further reducing power consumption due to electrostatic and leakage constraints1,2. Achieving efficient operation at low supply voltages therefore requires new materials and gate-stack engineering strategies. Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors offer intrinsic advantages because their atomic thickness affords excellent gate control, and their sizable bandgaps suppress off-state current. However, a major obstacle is the imperfect interface between 2D channels and gate dielectrics, which degrades subthreshold swing, hysteresis and bias-temperature instability3. Here we demonstrate that a wafer-scale, transferable, single-crystal anatase titanium dioxide dielectric can be van der Waals integrated with 2D transition metal dichalcogenides. The obtained pristine 2D-dielectric interface enables subthreshold swing close to the thermal limit, record-low hysteresis and well-matched transfer characteristics for both n- and p-type enhancement-mode field-effect transistors. Building on this, we demonstrate complementary field-effect transistors, whose inverters achieve high voltage gain and large noise margins with subpicowatt static power consumption. These results highlight the promise of 2D semiconductors for ultra-low-power operation.
Electronic devices
Independent interferometric observable confirms black hole shadow in M87*
Original Paper | General relativity and gravity | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Samuel Lai, Nithyanandan Thyagarajan, O. Ivy Wong, Foivos Diakogiannis
A new epoch for direct visualization of accretion dynamics near the event horizon of a black hole began when the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration synthesized an Earth-sized aperture with millimetre radio interferometry and published the first reconstructed image1,2,3,4 of a black hole shadow at the core of radio galaxy Messier 87 (M87). The image appeared as a ring-like structure, representing the gravitationally lensed and redshifted emission around the central supermassive black hole, M87*, located at the galactic nucleus. However, application of various data analysis and imaging heuristics resulted in divergent representations of M87* fine-scale features3,5,6,7, with some external analyses even challenging the fundamental ring-like morphology of the source8,9. Such difficulties arise as a consequence of the inherent sparsity of the very long baseline interferometry measurements, making interferometric image reconstruction an inadequately constrained problem. Moreover, the solution is sensitive to instrument calibration, post-processing algorithms and imaging hyperparameters. Here we apply an independent imaging algorithm that we have developed to the M87* dataset that is free from prescriptive morphological priors and founded on observables immune to instrument calibration errors. We reconstruct the black hole shadow image and unequivocally reproduce a ring-like morphology, with an angular diameter of 42.2 ± 1.5 μas corresponding to a black hole mass of 6.5 ± 0.5 billion solar masses assuming nominal scaling parameters, observed at an inclination angle of approximately 20° from the approaching jet.
General relativity and gravity, Compact astrophysical objects
Mitochondrial protein import defects enhance tumour immunogenicity
Original Paper | Stress signalling | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Thomas D. Jackson, Jonathan M. Palozzi, Christopher D. McGann, Tevis Vitale, Ruth Choa, Hieu H. M. Nguyen, Joao A. Paulo, Pedro Latorre-Muro, Jonathan G. Van Vranken, Matthew Ravichandran, Bingsen Zhang, Manisha Yadav, Steven P. Gygi, Pere Puigserver
Tumour cells evade detection and elimination by the immune system through a suite of adaptations1, including the repression of antigen presentation, which is required for the recognition of tumour cells by CD8+ T cells. Mitochondria have emerged as targets for enhancing antitumour immunity; however, the extensive mitochondrial proteome has remained largely unstudied for its ability to modulate immune responses. Here we show that defects in the mitochondrial protein import machinery promote tumour immunogenicity and synergize with immune checkpoint blockade treatment in melanoma models. Mitochondrial protein import perturbation, specifically through depletion of the TIM23 import complex subunit TIMM50, enhances tumour immunogenicity through a pathway involving mitochondrial DNA escape, cGAS-STING pathway activation and interferon-β (IFNβ) secretion. Secreted IFNβ signals through the type I IFN receptor to activate the JAK-STAT pathway, resulting in increased antigen presentation on MHC class I complexes. Mitochondrial DNA escape in Timm50-depleted cells is linked to the formation of mitochondrial-derived vesicles. Depletion of SNX9 and RAB9, involved in mitochondrial-derived vesicle formation2, suppresses mitochondrial DNA-dependent type I IFN production and signalling. By disrupting mitochondrial proteostasis and membrane architecture, defective protein import in Timm50-depleted cells drives the immune phenotype. This study shows that mitochondrial protein import inhibition causes tumour immunogenicity, including sensitization to immune checkpoint blockade, by promoting mitochondrial DNA escape and IFNβ-driven MHC class I antigen presentation.
Stress signalling, Tumour immunology, Interferons, Mitochondria
Metasurface waveguides for all-day augmented reality glasses
Original Paper | Metamaterials | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Jeong-Geun Yun, Hyunjung Kang, Myongjo Choi, Kyookeun Lee, Youngmo Jeong, Jongchul Choi, Sanghyun Yi, Kyusub Kwak, Junsuk Rho
Augmented reality (AR) displays, originating from early optical see-through head-mounted systems1, have evolved towards lightweight glasses that seamlessly integrate digital information with the physical world2,3. However, their widespread adoption requires compact optical systems that enable bright, wide-field and comfortable viewing. Diffractive waveguides (WGs) offer a promising approach towards lightweight AR displays yet face inherent trade-offs among field of view (FoV), optical efficiency and eyebox size owing to limited degrees of freedom in light control. Here we show an all-day-wearable AR glass prototype based on spatially varying, interwoven metasurfaces that provide several grating vectors for multidirectional light control. The resulting dual-layer metasurface-based waveguide (meta-WG) achieves a 30° FoV and an 8 × 8-mm2 two-dimensional (2D) eyebox while maintaining an average luminance efficiency of 1,938 nits lm-1 (up to 4,225 nits lm-1) within a 1.5-mm-thick form factor. The prototype produces bright and stable virtual images under outdoor ambient illumination, demonstrating the compatibility of meta-WGs with practical wearable display requirements. By expanding the degrees of freedom for light routing beyond conventional diffractive WGs, our approach provides a scalable framework for balancing efficiency, viewing range and form factor, bringing high-performance AR glasses closer to practical consumer applications.
Metamaterials, Displays, Surface patterning, Nanophotonics and plasmonics, Photonic devices
Physical Review Letters
Page Curve for Local-Operator Entanglement from Free Probability
Article | Quantum Information, Science, and Technology | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Neil Dowling and Silvia Pappalardi
The local-operator entanglement (LOE) measures the classical simulability of a Heisenberg operator and is conjectured to witness many-body chaos in locally interacting systems. Using tools from free probability, we analytically compute its asymptotic value for Haar random dynamics for all Rényi indi…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 200401 (2026)
Quantum Information, Science, and Technology
Nonequilibrium Equation of State for a Turbulent 2D Bose Gas
Article | Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Yi Jiang, Nikolai Maslov, Andrey Karailiev, Christoph Eigen, Martin Gazo, and Zoran Hadzibabic
Nonequilibrium equations of state can provide an effective thermodynamiclike description of far-from-equilibrium systems. We experimentally construct such an equation for a direct energy cascade in a turbulent two-dimensional Bose gas. Our homogeneous gas is continuously driven on a large length sca…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 203401 (2026)
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Rapid Cavity-Based Midcircuit Measurement and Feedforward in a Neutral Atom Array
Article | Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Tsai-Chen Lee, Jacquelyn Ho, Yue-Hui Lu, Tai Xiang, Nathaniel B. Vilas, Zhenjie Yan, and Dan M. Stamper-Kurn
Measuring part of a quantum system in the midst of its evolution and acting on the result in real time is essential for numerous quantum information protocols. Neutral-atom arrays are a leading platform for quantum information processing, but their midcircuit measurement-and-feedforward cycle times …
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 203601 (2026)
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Emergent-Gravity Hall Effect from Quantum Geometry
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Hiroki Yoshida and Takehito Yokoyama
We theoretically propose a Hall effect driven by effective gravitational fields arising from quantum geometry. We identify four mechanisms for this "emergent-gravity Hall effect": real-space gravity, momentum-space gravity, gravitational anomalous velocity, and gravitational Lorentz force, all of w…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 206302 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Many-Body-Driven Ultrafast Exciton Relaxation Enabled by Phonon-Activated Coulomb Coupling
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Xiang Jiang and Jin Zhao
Coulomb interactions underpin the formation of excitons, yet their role in nonequilibrium exciton relaxation has remained unexplored. Here, using first-principles real-time Bethe-Salpeter formalism combined with nonadiabatic molecular dynamics, we study the ultrafast relaxation of optically bright e…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 206401 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Kovacs Memory Effect in a Thin Granular Layer: Experimental Evidence and Its Physical Origin
Article | Polymers, Chemical Physics, Soft Matter, and Biological Physics | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Francisco Vega Reyes, Álvaro Rodríguez-Rivas, Pablo Maynar, and M. Isabel García de Soria
A memory phenomenon known as the anomalous Kovacs effect has been experimentally observed in a granular system for the first time.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 208201 (2026)
Polymers, Chemical Physics, Soft Matter, and Biological Physics
Physical Review X
Observation of Topological Berry Phases with a Single Phonon in an Ion Microtrap Array
Article | | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Justin F. Niedermeyer, Nathan K. Lysne, Katherine C. McCormick, Jonas Keller, Craig W. Hogle, Matthew G. Blain, Edwin J. Heller, Roman Schmied, Robert Jördens, Susanna L. Todaro, David J. Wineland, Andrew C. Wilson, Daniel H. Slichter, and Dietrich Leibfried
Trapping individual ions in a highly programmable two-dimensional microtrap array and precisely controlling their motion allows for the direct observation of a topological Berry phase.
Phys. Rev. X 16, 041037 (2026)
Spectroscopic Evidence of Luttinger Liquid Behavior in a Single-Layer Nickelate
Article | | 2026-11-10 05:00 EST
Yinqi Hu, Yidian Li, Xian Du, Wenxuan Zhao, Kaiyi Zhai, Senyao Zhang, Jiawei Shao, Mingxin Mao, Houke Chen, Jieyi Liu, Donghui Lu, Makoto Hashimoto, Fangyuan Zhu, Zhengtai Liu, Dawei Shen, Yaobo Huang, Zhongkai Liu, D. Prabhakaran, Yanpeng Qi, Yilin Wang, Yulin Chen, and Lexian Yang
Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on single-layer nickelates reveals Luttinger liquid behaviors induced by a squarelike Fermi surface.
Phys. Rev. X 16, 041038 (2026)
arXiv
Goldstone-Mediated Chiral Superconductivity in Self-Doped Electron Crystals
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Shuchen Zhang, Zhihuan Dong, Zhaoyu Han, Shubhayu Chatterjee
Motivated by the observation of superconductivity in rhombohedral graphene in the proximity of electronic crystalline phases, we study the possibility of pairing mediated by electronic phonons. We focus on the vicinity of the phase boundary between trivial and topological electron crystals, where self-doping generically gives rise to a small Fermi sea of carriers with Dirac dispersion. We compute the Goldstone phonon spectra of the self-doped crystal (SDC) using a self-consistent approach, and subsequently derive the effective electronic-phonon-mediated interaction between itinerant carriers at the Fermi surface. Remarkably, we find that the Coulomb repulsion can be overscreened by the Goldstone phonons, leading to a chiral topological superconductor with an unpaired Majorana edge mode. Our conclusions are robust across the $ \lambda$ -jellium model and a simplified model of rhombohedral graphene, and we propose characteristic non-linear I-V signals as a test of our prediction. More generally, our results outline an intriguing route for unconventional superconductivity where both electronic correlations and topology play key roles.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Borrowed Planckian dissipation in magic-angle twisted graphene
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
In strange metals, the ratio of the coefficients producing signature linear-in-$ T$ resistivity and the logarithmic specific heat is free of the coupling between the electrons and whatever scatters them. In the materials studied so far that coupling is fixed by chemistry. Magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene provides a dial with a displacement field $ D$ that breaks the mirror symmetry separating a light Dirac cone from the flat bands, and the Dirac carriers borrow the Planckian self-energy of the flat band with a weight proportional to $ D^2+D_0^2$ . Resistance curves taken at eight fields are consistent with the field acting on the scattering rate rather than on the number of carriers. The slope in temperature follows $ a(1+D^2/D_0^2)$ without the quartic term that a depleting Dirac pocket adds, and the elastic part varies by less than 5% between 0.20 and 0.30V/nm while the inelastic part grows 2.5-fold up to 0.38V/nm. The thermally averaged Kubo formula favors flat-band weight placed symmetrically about the Fermi level over a single level. Borrowed dissipation keeps the bath exponent and transport prefactor of the flat band’s own electrons but carries exactly twice their entropy per unit of borrowed coupling whenever the bath has dynamics of its own, so the field-differential ratio is $ 2\pi^3/21\zeta(3)\approx2.46$ for a conformal flat band and, in a numerical search, at most 2.73 for monotonic bath spectra without a high-energy rate floor. The discriminating test is the entropy measured in steps of $ D$ .
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
14 pages, 5 figures
Wafer-scale MoS2 and HZO-based Ferroelectric Field Effect Transistors with 4.4 V Memory Window for Back-End Compatible Multibit Memory
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Manisha Rajput, Farhan Ahmed Siddique, Chung-Che Huang, Ioannis Zeimpekis, Sayani Majumdar
Ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) with low-power operation and non-volatile data retention enabled by stable ferroelectric polarization switching, have emerged as promising alternatives to conventional floating-gate transistors for next-generation low-power memory applications. A FeFET with two-dimensional (2D) channel provides the opportunity for better electrostatic gate control and scalability beyond silicon. In this work, we report wafer scale 2D semiconductor-based FeFETs with Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) gate stack showing unusual p-type charge transport and stable multibit memory properties. FeFETs based on 2-3 monolayer Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) channel and a 20 nm HZO back gate oxide layer exhibit a large hysteresis with a memory window spanning 4.4 V under a operating voltage range of +3.8 to -3.8 V, and an ION/IOFF ratio of 10^5. We demonstrate that the polarization charge-induced modification of Schottky barrier width strongly affects the hole transport and memory properties of MoS2-HZO FeFETs. We further demonstrate several advantages and unique features of the FeFETs such as nondestructive data readout, non-volatile data retention under zero gate bias, low operation voltage, high write endurance and ultra-fast switching speed. These 1T memory cells can simplify the dense 3D integrated array architecture and offer additional practical functionalities, such as fast programming and erasing of large data arrays that are absent for many conventional memories. The demonstrated MoS2 and HZO-based FeFET shows great potential for on-chip complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-back-end-of-line (BEOL) compatible circuits for multifunctional devices, especially for 3D monolithically integrated architectures for AI workload.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Universal Fold Caustics in Anharmonic Matter-wave Lenses
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Joachim Guyomard, Julia Pahl, Ernst Rasel, Naceur Gaaloul
Caustics provide a universal connection between classical ray focusing and structured wave patterns. We theoretically investigate this connection in non-linear matter waves focused by a short-duration anharmonic lens acting on a Bose-Einstein condensate. A semi-classical description shows how the leading cubic aberration transforms the harmonic focal point into a fold caustic, whose local wave field is described by an Airy canonical integral. Three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii simulations show that mean-field interactions modify the near-focus density and longitudinal momentum distribution, producing a secondary momentum-space feature absent from the non-interacting evolution. We quantify the information about the effective interaction strength carried by the $ 1D$ distribution using classical Fisher information and maximum-likelihood estimation. We obtain a relative uncertainty of $ 2.7\times10^{-3}$ for a sample of $ 10^5$ detected points along $ z$ . These results establish a framework for studying interaction-driven departures from single-particle caustic universality and promote matter-wave lenses as a sensitive probe of mean-field interactions.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Point defects and primary radiation damage in Co-free Fe-Ni-Cr-Mn high-entropy alloys from molecular dynamics
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Ayobami Daramola, Giovanni Bonny, Gilles Adjanor, Christophe Domain, Ghiath Monnet, Anna Fraczkiewicz, Duc Nguyen-Manh
Co-free Fe-Ni-Cr-Mn high-entropy alloys (HEAs) are candidates for nuclear structural applications. We used molecular dynamics with the EAM-21 potential, stiffened at short range, to study five HEAs that have been irradiated experimentally: Fe37Ni34Cr16Mn13 (ES1), Fe35Ni35Cr15Mn15 (P35), Fe46Ni22Cr15Mn17 (Y3), Fe27Ni28Cr18Mn27 (Kumar) and Fe30Ni30Cr10Mn30 (C30). They were compared with pure Ni, Fe60Ni40, the Fe70Ni10Cr20 model alloy of 316L, and Fe50Ni34Cr16, which is ES1 with Mn replaced by Fe. We calculated stacking fault energies, threshold displacement energies, point-defect formation and migration energies, and 1015 displacement cascades from 5 to 40 keV at 300 and 823 K. The stacking fault energy follows the Ni content: 19-44 mJ/m^2 in the alloys and 113 mJ/m^2 in Ni. Compared with the Mn-free alloys, the HEAs have lower threshold displacement energies (48-56 against 64-74 eV) and lower dumbbell formation energies, and Mn is the element most transported by interstitials. All the concentrated alloys leave about the same number of Frenkel pairs, 56-72 at 40 keV, half the number in Ni. At 40 keV, 54-58% of the interstitials are in clusters in the HEAs, against 67-71% in Fe60Ni40, Fe70Ni10Cr20 and Fe50Ni34Cr16 and 82% in Ni. At the same cluster size, clusters of 4-12 interstitials are faulted about half as often in the HEAs, and this does not follow the stacking fault energy. The surviving interstitials are enriched in Mn in the HEAs and in Ni in the Mn-free alloys, and depleted in Cr. The results support direct loop formation in cascades in Fe60Ni40 and Fe70Ni10Cr20 and less of it in ES1.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Atomic and Molecular Clusters (physics.atm-clus)
Hidden Spin-Supercurrent Counterflow in Conventional Superconductors
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Johanne Bratland Tjernshaugen, Jacob Linder
Resistive spin currents conventionally vary in space through spin relaxation or torque, which removes angular momentum from the transported spin. We here demonstrate a qualitatively different mechanism in a conventional superconductor exposed to a spin-splitting field. Spin injection across a spin-mixing interface activates a spin-supercurrent contribution, allowing the resistive spin current to vary spatially while the total spin current remains conserved. Even without a net spin-bias across the superconductor, finite and oppositely directed resistive and condensate spin currents arise. This produces a hidden spin-supercurrent counterflow with vanishing total spin and charge currents. The mechanism persists away from exact compensation and remains sizable over broad parameter ranges. The counterflow may be accessible through spin-to-charge conversion, either as a modification of the electrical response of spin-Hall injectors or through a local quasiparticle inverse spin-Hall signal. Our results establish condensate-mediated spin-current compensation as a previously overlooked alternative to spin relaxation.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
6+2 pages, 3+2 figures
Planckian Charge Equilibration in Fast Scramblers
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
The Planckian time, $ \tau_{\rm Pl}=\hbar/(k_BT)$ , is conjectured to set a lower limit on thermal relaxation times in strongly interacting quantum matter. Rigorous bounds limit both how rapidly quantum information can scramble and how soon hydrodynamics can emerge, yet the relation between the scrambling and equilibration rates remains unclear. We address this question by studying the relaxation of a charge imbalance between two subsystems of the complex Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model and its Yukawa generalizations, which exhibit maximal scrambling. In the low-temperature conformal regime, we find through a linear response analysis that the slowest decay of this imbalance occurs at rate $ \Gamma=2\pi(2\Delta-d)k_BT/\hbar$ , where $ \Delta$ is the fermion scaling dimension and $ d=0,1$ is the spatial dimension. These results establish Planckian charge equilibration in maximally scrambling systems and show that maximal scrambling alone does not fix its dimensionless prefactor.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
4+10 pages, 2+1 figures
Chiral Superconductivity Indifferent to Parent Topology in the Square-Lattice Hofstadter-Hubbard Model
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Jia-Xin Zhang, Wen O. Wang, Leon Balents, Lucile Savary, D. N. Sheng
We study a $ \pi$ -flux square-lattice $ t$ -$ t’$ Hofstadter-Hubbard model proposed to be realizable in twisted moiré bilayers. By tuning $ U$ and $ t’$ at half filling, ground-state density-matrix renormalization group simulations (DMRG) and a parton analysis identify an integer quantum Hall (IQH) phase, a chiral spin liquid (CSL), and an antiferromagnet (AFM) in the phase diagram, while charge and spin fluctuations from finite-temperature determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) suggest a closing charge gap but an open spin gap at the IQH-CSL boundary, consistent with the topological criticality expected there. This model therefore produces a phase diagram hosting weakly correlated band topology (IQH), intrinsic topological order (CSL), and conventional symmetry breaking (AFM) side by side. Upon doping any of these three parent phases, a single chiral topological superconductor with spin Chern number $ C_s=-2$ occupies nearly the entire phase diagram. DMRG, DQMC, and weak-coupling perturbation theory agree on its pairing symmetry. This shows that doping the topological band of our model robustly induces the same paired state throughout the phase diagram regardless of the character of the underlying correlated half-filled state and its magnetic fluctuations, whether an IQH, a spin liquid or a weakly fluctuating AFM.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
8 pages, 5 figures; Supplemental Material: 29 pages, 21 figures
Quantum Control Geometry as a Metric of Chaos
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Mahmoud Abdelshafy, Joaquin F. Rodriguez-Nieva
Quantum-chaotic systems share the same coarse-grained features characteristic of random matrices, such as Wigner-Dyson level-spacing statistics, yet can exhibit strikingly different eigenstate structure and many-body dynamics, including relaxation, transport, scrambling, and entanglement growth. This raises the fundamental question of whether these finer-grained features probe genuinely distinct aspects of quantum chaos or, instead, reflect different manifestations of a common underlying structure—and whether such structure provides a meaningful basis for regarding one many-body quantum system as “more chaotic” than another. Here, we address this question by introducing a quantum geometric framework that quantifies the susceptibility of many-body eigenstates to physically allowed deformations of the Hamiltonian, as constrained by spatial locality, symmetries, and conservation laws. The resulting geometric susceptibility is quantitative, providing a metric of chaos beyond traditional binary diagnostics; intrinsic, as it depends on the manifold of allowed Hamiltonian deformations rather than on the way the system is probed; and unifying, as it directly connects eigenstate structure with dynamics. For canonical models of quantum chaos, we find that minimal geometric susceptibility, maximal eigenstate randomness, broad spectral response of local operators, and the suppression of nonhydrodynamic slow structure coalesce in the same region of Hamiltonian control space. This suggests that these seemingly distinct signatures of chaos are different manifestations of a common underlying geometric structure. Our framework provides a route toward understanding the limits of relaxation and scrambling under physical constraints; in applications, it offers a means to engineer strongly chaotic regimes in programmable quantum systems with restricted controls.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
18 pages, 9 figures; main text 14 pages, 7 figures
Dynamics of Rényi entanglement entropies and Eigenstate Thermalization
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Riccardo Senese, Pasquale Calabrese
How is entanglement dynamics encoded in the eigenstates of the time-evolution operator? We address this question by focusing on Rényi entropy dynamics in deterministic chaotic Floquet models in arbitrary dimensions. Inspired by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), we employ spectral representations of reduced density matrix moments (purity and its higher-order generalizations) whose decay through spectral dephasing captures nonequilibrium entanglement growth. These representations closely resemble those governing local-observable dynamics, but involve eigenstates in a replicated Hilbert space and observables are replaced by subsystem permutation operators, such as the swap operator for Rényi-2. Focusing on Rényi-2, we combine exact random matrix theory calculations, established ETH results and numerical tests in 1D to formulate ETH-like ansätze for subsystem swap matrix elements in the replicated eigenbasis and their cross-correlations with initial-state overlap statistics. In the thermodynamic limit, purity dynamics is entirely determined by smooth slowly varying functions that emerge from such statistics, paralleling generalized ETH formulations in a single replica. In the limit of large subsystems, these functions exhibit a striking structural simplification: locality of the dynamics together with bulk spectral dephasing reduce their functional dependence to a single fundamental frequency. Our formalism provides a setting where ETH-like statements naturally coexist for both arbitrarily small and large subsystem sizes. We discuss extensions of our results to higher Rényi entropies. Beyond clarifying the spectral foundations of entanglement dynamics, these results lay some of the groundwork for future applications of spectral filter methods to the computation of Rényi evolution in deterministic systems.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
43 + 19 pages, 11 + 8 figures
After equilibration
New Submission | Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Complexity' measures the exploration of state space by the dynamics at a finer level of detail than that required for the equilibration of standard extensive observables , and therefore continues to grow long after these observables have equilibrated. In a recent paper, we proposed that this exploration may be quantified by the large deviations attained over time, or, equivalently, by the time taken for rare’ observables – such as, for example the exponential of the magnetization – to equilibrate.
It turns out that the evolution of complexity can then be naturally mapped onto a standard model of glassy dynamics, the “Trap Model” , which exhibits aging and effective temperatures. Under this mapping, the exploration of increasingly fine details of phase-space corresponds to the discovery
of progressively deeper minima in the glassy model.
Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other)
Mimicking the zero-field Josephson diode effect with remanent magnetization and self-field
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Nathan Satchell, Arjun Sapkota, Pukar Sedai, Kurt Lorenzen, Juan Gomez
A Josephson junction whose critical current is larger in one direction than in the other is a diode. With a magnetized barrier, a junction can be a diode at zero applied field, and this is commonly attributed to an intrinsic Josephson diode effect, in which the magnetic barrier breaks time-reversal symmetry. Here we show that the same signatures arise from two ordinary ingredients: the magnetic field of the bias current in the electrodes and the remanent magnetization of the barrier. In cross-type Nb/Pd$ _{89}$ Ni$ _{11}$ /Nb junctions, the self-field displaces the interference patterns of the two current polarities in opposite directions. An in-plane remanent magnetization translates the pattern and brings the resulting asymmetry to zero field, where the junction mimics a nonvolatile diode with an asymmetry of 10 to 12% and a polarity set by the magnetization direction. Reversing the current or the field cannot distinguish this mimic from an intrinsic effect, but the wiring can: moving the current lead to the other arm of the electrode across the field reverses the self-field diode, in applied field and at zero field alike, whereas an intrinsic diode would be unchanged. This gives a simple dc test for Josephson diodes in the current-perpendicular-to-plane geometry.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
16 pages, 4 figures
Study of the frustrated SU(3) Heisenberg chain with SU(3)-symmetric matrix product states
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
O. R. Hryniv, I. V. Lukin, A. G. Sotnikov
We study the SU(3) Heisenberg chain with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic exchange $ J_1$ and $ J_2$ . Field theory predicts that the trimerized valence-bond solid of this chain has a finite extent in $ \alpha=J_2/J_1$ , followed by a gapless SU(3)$ 1$ phase, but earlier numerical estimates of the upper boundary range from $ \alpha\approx2.1$ (exact diagonalization) to $ \alpha\approx3.8$ (iDMRG). We use the variational uniform matrix product state (VUMPS) algorithm with the full non-Abelian SU(3) symmetry imposed on the virtual bonds, reaching bond dimensions up to $ D\approx8000$ , and locate the phase boundaries by finite-entanglement scaling. Resolving the transfer-matrix spectrum and the entanglement spectrum by SU(3) irreducible representation, we find that the trimerized phase extends to $ \alpha{c2}\gtrsim3.5$ and end below $ \alpha\approx5$ , excluding a boundary near $ \alpha\approx2$ . At larger $ \alpha$ our numerical analysis of the effective central charge is consistent with the predicted massless flow from SU(3)$ _2$ to SU(3)$ _1$ .
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
13 pages, 12 figures
Neutron Scattering studies of the density dependence of One-dimensional Quantum Fluids
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Sutirtha Paul, Rahul Soni, Garfield Warren, Adrian Del Maestro, Paul E. Sokol
In previous work, we demonstrated that $ ^4$ He confined within a templated porous material preplated with a noble gas to enhance dimensional reduction exhibits one-dimensional behavior. Neutron scattering revealed that the excitations in confined $ ^4$ He are qualitatively distinct from those in two- and three-dimensional superfluid helium, aligning with quantum Monte Carlo calculations. These simulations suggest that three solid layers form, with a one-dimensional liquid located at the center of the pore. Here, we present neutron scattering results as the filling fraction of the one-dimensional core is varied. We observe that the one-dimensional liquid always forms with a fixed density, even as the pore filling increases. We posit that this is due to the growth of the one dimensional extent of the liquid as the filling is increased, but its density remains unchanged.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Hybridization-brightened interlayer excitons in multilayer WSe2 controlled by sliding ferroelectricity
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Youngki Yeo, Idan Kizel, Dror Hershkovitz, Omri Meron, Iva Plutnarova, Zdenek Sofer, Watanabe Kenji, Takashi Taniguchi, Elad Katash, Dan Oron, Haim Suchowski, Jing-Yang You, Moshe Ben Shalom
Interlayer excitons (IXs) combine spatially separated electron and hole wavefunctions with electrically tunable dipole moments, but their reduced wavefunction overlap generally limits optical emission, particularly for high-energy states. Here we report a bright, spectrally narrow high-energy interlayer exciton (h-IX) near 2.23 eV in few-layer WSe2 and investigate how its optical activity evolves with layer number and sliding-ferroelectric polarization. In pristine 2H-WSe2, we observe thickness-dependent brightening of high-energy exciton emission. GW-BSE calculations reveal mixed intralayer and interlayer configurations with enhanced optical weight, suggesting that multilayer hybridization contributes to the observed brightening. In parallel-stacked 3L/3L WSe2 containing a sliding-ferroelectric interface, the h-IX exhibits polarization-dependent energies and Stark responses that distinguish Pup and Pdown domains. Electric-field-driven domain-wall motion produces hysteretic transfer of spectral weight between the two h-IX branches, enabling optical tracking of ferroelectric switching. These results establish multilayer hybridization as a route to optically active high-energy interlayer excitons and sliding ferroelectricity as a complementary degree of freedom for controlling their energy, dipole and emission.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Multicomponent Isotope Engineering of Phonon Polaritons in Hexagonal Boron Nitride
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Nihar Ranjan Sahoo, Byung-Il Noh, Brandon Stephanie, Hossein Zandipour, Eli Janzen, James H. Edgar, Siyuan Dai, Thomas G. Folland
Isotopic enrichment provides a non-invasive means of tuning the vibrational and optical properties of van der Waals crystals (vdW) without altering their lattice structure. We investigate two doubly enriched hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) compositions, h10B15N and h11B15N, to determine how isotope substitution on both sublattices modifies mid-infrared hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs). Polarization-resolved room temperature and cryogenic far-field reflectance measurements reveal optical-phonon blue shifts of approximately 35 cm-1 in h10B15N relative h11B15N, translating both Reststrahlen bands (RBs) and their polariton dispersions. For the upper RB, the combined accessible range expands from 1360-1614 cm-1 in natural hBN to 1356-1640 cm-1 across the B- enriched 14N crystals and 1339-1640 cm-1 when the 15N enriched crystals are included. Near-field imaging confirms deeply sub-diffractional propagation and shows that both crystals exhibit lower polariton damping and longer lifetimes than natural hBN, with performance comparable to monoisotopically enriched crystals. Further, we compare the conventional reduced-mass description with a phenomenological two-component inverse-mass model that captures the isotope dependence of the phonon frequencies and LO-TO coupling while resolving the contributions of the individual sublattices. These results establish multicomponent isotope engineering as a materials design strategy for positioning the HPhPs spectral range while preserving low-loss propagation in polar vdW crystals.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Optics (physics.optics)
Optically modulated field-dependent electrical response in a non-collinear antiferromagnet/ferromagnet heterostructure
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Adrielson Dias, André José, José Lucas, Rodrigo Cristian, José Holanda
The interplay among optical, electrical, and magnetic stimuli offers opportunities to control the functional response of spintronic heterostructures. Here, we investigate the field-dependent electrical response of MgO/IrMn$ _3$ /Py/Au under radio-frequency (RF) excitation, white-light illumination, and direct-current (DC) bias. Under a 20 MHz RF signal with a nominal power of 2 W, the measured voltage in the dark remains at several tens of nanovolts. Upon illumination with approximately 1 W of white light, a pronounced field-dependent feature emerges around 315–320 Oe, reaching 0.9–1.0 $ \mu$ V. The illumination-associated differential voltage is approximately 0.95 $ \mu$ V. A DC current of 1 mA produces a response of approximately 1 $ \mu$ V, while the simultaneous application of RF, DC, and optical excitation increases the voltage to approximately 1.8 $ \mu$ V. Magnetic characterization reveals exchange bias with a blocking temperature near 380 K, while electrical resistance measurements show a pronounced dependence on magnetic-field orientation, consistent with the anisotropic response of the heterostructure. These results demonstrate that the field-dependent electrical response can be modulated through combined optical and electrical excitation, involving magneto-optical interactions and spin-dependent transport phenomena, potentially including spin Hall-related contributions and the magnetic spin Hall effect. This work provides insights into coupled optical, electrical, and magnetic-field effects in heterostructures based on non-collinear antiferromagnets and ferromagnetic layers.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Applied Physics (physics.app-ph), Optics (physics.optics)
A Perspective on Topological Charge Density Wave Materials
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Chun-Tung Lien, Nidhish Thiruthukkal Puthenveettil, Alexander A. Balandin, Md Shafayat Hossain
Charge density waves are among the earliest known ordered states in quantum materials, yet they have re-emerged at the center of modern discussions of topology, symmetry breaking, and collective dynamics. In several material classes, charge-density-wave order reshapes electronic bands, boundary states, defect structures, and electromagnetic responses in ways that invite a topological interpretation. Real-space imaging has shown that incommensurate order can form networks of phase defects rather than uniform modulations. Boundary-resolved spectroscopy has revealed in-gap modes whose existence and spatial structure track the charge-density-wave order, although such observations remain confined to a single material family. In Weyl materials, density-wave gaps have been linked to axion-like magnetoelectric response, placing the charge-density-wave phase within a dynamical-field description of the effective action. In kagome metals, charge order is intertwined with Berry curvature, unconventional symmetry breaking, and superconductivity. These developments have led to the term “topological charge density wave,” but the phrase describes several physically distinct phenomena. We distinguish three meanings: (i) topology of the order parameter and its defects, (ii) topology of the charge-density-wave-reconstructed electronic structure and its boundary modes, and (iii) axion-like electromagnetic response generated by density-wave order. The experimental and theoretical support for these three meanings differs substantially. This Perspective traces the development of these ideas, clarifies the evidence behind each class, identifies unresolved questions and points of debate, and outlines experimental criteria for establishing topology in charge-density-wave states.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Perspective article. 36 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, 180 references. Submitted to Applied Physics Reviews
Ultrafast Hole Transport and Electron Localization in Superatomic Re${6}$Se${8}$Cl$_{2}$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Jocelyn L. Mendes-Antaya, Ye-Jin Kim, Jonathan M. Michelsen, Jessica Yu, Shoushou He, Xavier Roy, Hanzhe Liu, Scott K. Cushing
Van der Waals superatomic crystals represent an intriguing class of materials, exhibiting unique ultrafast electronic and structural responses arising from their hierarchical crystal structure. These materials bridge the properties of semiconductors, molecular solids, and nanocrystal arrays, hosting a range of many-body interactions that can be controlled with atomically precise structures. To establish the structure-function correlation, it is necessary to understand element-specific electronic states arising from complex superatomic unit cells. Here, we use transient XUV spectroscopy to individually probe the dynamics of photoexcited electrons and holes in Re$ _{6}$ Se$ _{8}$ Cl$ _{2}$ superatomic crystals. We simultaneously measure photodynamics at the Re O$ _{2}$ and Se M$ _{4,5}$ edges, enabling decomposition of excited-state dynamics into the contributions of electron, hole, band gap, and phonon dynamics occurring around Re and Se atoms. By correlating spectral features at the Re and Se edges, we infer the existence of flat conduction bands and identify hot hole transfer from Re to Se atoms. We observe phonon oscillations driven by hole-mediated displacive excitations. The measurements highlight that the photodynamics are dominated by charge transfer between metallic sites which drives phonon coupling in the nonequilibrium state. This work provides insights into the optoelectronic applications of superatomic crystals for future tuning of emergent material properties.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
21 pages, 9 figures
TASCopilot: A provenance-preserving assistant for triple-axis neutron scattering
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Carina Jacobson, Aditya Purohit, Srikar Kovvali, Lekhnath Poudel, Jeffrey W. Lynn, William D. Ratcliff
Experimental decisions often depend on evidence scattered across papers, instrument logs, data files, and specialist software. A scientific assistant must connect that evidence without turning a plausible interpretation into an unsupported conclusion. TAS Co-pilot addresses this problem for triple-axis spectroscopy (TAS), which uses neutrons to probe material structure and excitations. It preserves provenance: the sources, processing steps, and review decisions behind each result. Independently maintained scientific tools communicate through structured requests and results; validation rules and human review govern how evidence can support a claim. Language models extract information and explain outcomes but do not approve scientific claims or control the instrument. Dependency-aware reduction executes existing scientific routines and reuses unchanged intermediate results. A retrospective SrMn$ _2$ Sb$ _2$ study connects literature on a related material and historical alignment records to modeling of magnetic excitations in 20 measured scans. A live BT-7 study uses a dedicated instrument interface for fine alignment and 40 adaptively selected measurements. Agreement with a conventional measurement of the same crystal at shared conditions supports the acquisition and analysis chain. These cases demonstrate a methodology for maintaining inspectable evidence across literature, numerical analysis, and measurement at a user facility.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
18 pages, 11 figures; supplementary information included as an ancillary file
Geometry-Selective Higher-order topological insulators induced by $d_{xy}$ altermagnet
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Siyuan Cheng, Yuee Xie, Xiaosen Yang, Yuanping Chen
We show that proximity to a $ d_{xy}$ -wave altermagnet provides an effective route to engineering boundary-geometry-dependent higher-order topological phases. The boundary geometry plays a crucial role in determining the topological properties: axis-aligned edge states remain gapless, whereas diagonal edges acquire effective masses with alternating signs, giving rise to four corner modes localized at the mass domain walls. By projecting onto the edge-state subspace, we derive the effective edge Hamiltonians for different boundary geometries. Furthermore, $ \pi$ -flux defects introduced under periodic boundary conditions yield zero-energy bound states localized at the flux cores, providing complementary evidence for nontrivial topology without physical boundaries. The interplay between the Zeeman field and the altermagnetic order drives a topological transition through the closing and reopening of the edge gap, while the bulk gap remains open. These findings highlight the crucial role of boundary geometry in higher-order topology and establish proximity-induced $ d_{xy}$ -wave altermagnetism as a route to engineering higher-order topological phases.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Facilitated Relaxation Overrides Energetic Pathways in a Multiphase Square-Kagome Artificial Spin Ice
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Wen-Cheng Yue, Zixiong Yuan, Peiyuan Huang, Ziao Wang, Hangyu Liu, Tianyu Li, Nuo-Zhou Yang, Jingyue Gao, Chen Ku, Shuo Song, Jiyao Shang, Yang-Yang Lyu, Yihuang Xiong, Xuecou Tu, Liang He, Xun Cao, Ying Dong, Huabing Wang, Peiheng Wu, Cristiano Nisoli, Yong-Lei Wang
Relaxation in interacting many-body systems is typically assumed to follow energy minimization, yet local dynamical rules can determine which microscopic pathways are accessible. In facilitated relaxation, these pathways are enabled or blocked by neighboring configurations. However, isolating such rules in natural materials is difficult because energetics, disorder and dynamics are usually entangled. Here we realize a geometrically tunable square-kagome artificial spin ice-a lithographic nanomagnet array-that provides a clean, designable platform for facilitated relaxation. The array hosts two tunable nearest-neighbor interactions and supports multiple low-energy phases: spin crystal, spin liquid and spin foam. In the spin-foam phase, abundant facilitator configurations allow relaxation to follow Boltzmann statistics. In the spin-crystal phase, by contrast, domain-wall excitations are trapped in non-Boltzmann distributions, although energetically preferred relaxation channels exist. The ordered crystal background lacks the facilitators needed to connect topologically distinct domain-wall classes. These classes are therefore kinetically isolated, as observed in both experiment and Monte Carlo simulation. Our results show that transition-network topology can override energetic relaxation, establishing artificial spin ice as a programmable platform for constrained dynamics and nonergodic relaxation.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
To appear in Physical Review Letters
Magnetization-free quantum anomalous Hall effect in altermagnetic weak topological insulators
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Yanmiao Han, Yu-Hao Wan, Peng-Yi Liu, Rundong Zhao, Qing-Feng Sun
The quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect is usually realized through ferromagnetism or magnetic dop ing, which limits material choices and often results in low mobility, disorder sensitivity, and low operating temperatures. Here, we propose a mechanism to achieve the QAH phase without net magnetization, using altermagnetic exchange on a weak topological insulator (WTI). The altermagnetic order selectively gaps the Dirac cone at the Z point, while hybridization between the top and bottom surfaces of the WTI thin film opens a trivial gap at the point, generating a Chern number C = 1 phase with a single chiral edge channel. We verify the topological transition through both a minimal thin-film model and a slab geometry, and compute the associated Hall response. As altermagnets and layered WTIs already exist experimentally, this mechanism offers a promising and experimentally accessible route to realizing QAH phases without magnetic doping or global magnetization. The results indicate that altermagnetic surface engineering may provide a clean and controllable pathway for realizing dissipationless edge transport in layered quantum materials.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Phys. Rev. B 114, L111411(2026)
A new representation of effective diffusion in fluctuating periodic potentials through stochastic duality
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
We revisit the classical problem of effective diffusion in fluctuating periodic force fields by combining homogenization with stochastic duality. We consider a specific class of fluctuations in which the internal state of the force field is independently redrawn from a fixed distribution at Poisson-distributed times. In the homogenization framework, the effective diffusion coefficient (D_{\rm eff}) is expressed in terms of a corrector function satisfying a backward Kolmogorov equation. For the redraw dynamics considered here, the equation governing the spatial derivative of the corrector can be reinterpreted as the stationary forward equation of a dual system obtained by reversing the force field, (F\to-F). This relation eliminates the corrector and yields a representation of (D_{\rm eff}) entirely in terms of stationary densities and probability currents of the physical and dual systems. We further introduce an auxiliary function (Q(x)) whose spatial variation is determined by the stationary current. When this current vanishes, (Q(x)) becomes independent of position and the effective diffusion coefficient reduces to the local relation ( D_{\rm eff}=L^2Q. ) This result generalizes the classical Lifson–Jackson relation to fluctuating periodic force fields. We verify the theory using analytical calculations, numerical solutions of the stationary equations, and direct simulations of the long-time particle displacement, including a driven system with nonzero stationary current.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Field-induced magnetic quantum phase transitions in a bilayer triangular lattice antiferromagnet K$_2$Co$_2$(HPO$_3$)$_2$(C$_2$O$_4$)(H$_2$O)$_2$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Yiqiu Liu, Chengcheng Yin, Xinyu Shi, Xiaohui Bo, Kefan Du, Zhanlong Wu, Rui Bian, Shuo Li, Jun Luo, Jie Yang, Yanhong Wang, Weiqiang Yu, Rui Zhou, Jinshan Zhang, Yi Cui, Hongcheng Lu
We present a $ ^{31}$ P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study on the spin-$ 1/2$ bilayer triangular-lattice antiferromagnet K$ _2$ Co$ _2$ (HPO$ _3$ )$ _2$ (C$ _2$ O$ _4$ )(H$ _2$ O)$ 2$ . Measurements were performed at temperatures down to 0.06 K and magnetic fields up to 26 T. In the field range of 0.5 T to 4 T, the low-temperature spin-lattice relaxation rate $ 1/T_1$ exhibits a peak, signaling the onset of a magnetically ordered state. Within this ordered phase, $ 1/T_1$ shows gapless behavior, suggesting a spin supersolid phase. This ordering is suppressed around 4 T. Between 6 T and 18 T, clear splittings of the NMR spectra are observed, indicating the emergence of a second ordered magnetic phase. The field derivative of the low-temperature Knight shift $ K{\rm n}$ reveals changes in slope at approximately 10 T, 15.5 T, and 18 T. The first two features correspond to bulk magnetizations of $ 1/3$ and $ 2/3$ of the fully saturated moment, respectively, while the last one marks a quantum phase transition from the second ordered phase to the fully polarized state. These results establish the studied compound as a platform for investigating field-induced quantum phase transitions and emergent phases in frustrated bilayer triangular-lattice antiferromagnets.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Accepted by Chinese Physics B
Pair localization in one-dimensional quasicrystals with spin-dependent hopping
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Carlos Rosas, U. A. Díaz-Reynoso, Francisco Mireles, G. A. Domínguez-Castro
We investigate the quantum localization of two interacting particles moving in a one-dimensional quasicrystal with unequal hopping amplitudes. Using a two-body Green’s function approach, we determine the localization phase diagram of attractively and repulsively bound pairs, showing that increasing the hopping amplitude of one constituent while keeping the other fixed raises the critical quasiperiodic strength, promoting pair delocalization. The localization threshold nevertheless remains bounded above by the Aubry-André critical point of the slower constituent. Effective analytical descriptions capture pair localization in the limits of strong hopping imbalance and strong interactions. The dynamics of an initially on-site pair provides signatures of delocalization induced by unequal hopping amplitudes. In particular, the effective spreading exponent of the root-mean-square width of a pair distribution reveals a progression from localized to subdiffusive and eventually superdiffusive behavior as the hopping ratio increases. Our results establish unequal hopping amplitudes as a means of tuning the transport properties of interacting pairs in quasiperiodic lattices, with direct relevance to ultracold atoms in optical lattices.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
10 pages, 9 figures
Hidden interfacial magnetism in RuO$_2$ heterostructures revealed by a superconducting spin switch
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Tetsuma Mandokoro, Hisakazu Matsuki, Shutaro Karube, Rodrigo de las Heras, Andrei Mazanik, Akihiro Yamada, Fugo Tokoro, Susumu Hirata, Ryusuke Hisatomi, Yoichi Shiota, Vitaly N. Golovach, F. Sebastian Bergeret, Teruo Ono
RuO$ _2$ , once the flagship altermagnetic candidate, is now believed to be nonmagnetic in the bulk, yet weak, static and spatially inhomogeneous magnetism emerges at its surfaces and interfaces. Where this magnetism resides, what stabilises it, and whether it is connected to these states remain open questions. Here we address these questions at the Nb/RuO$ _2$ interface using a superconducting spin switch. A GdN/Nb/RuO$ _2$ trilayer allows interfacial exchange-field alignment to tune the superconducting transition temperature of Nb, probing interfacial magnetism inaccessible to conventional magnetometry. The switch reveals a hidden magnetic subsystem, which we attribute to a thin RuO$ _x$ redox layer formed as Nb scavenges oxygen from RuO$ _2$ . This layer behaves as a weak and magnetically hard ferromagnet with vacancy-induced anisotropy. Furthermore, supercurrent amplifies the switching efficiency, making the probe sensitivity tunable in situ. Superconducting spin switches thus emerge as a quantitative low-temperature probe of hidden magnetism at buried interfaces.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
16 pages, 4 figures in the main text and 27 pages and 11 figures in SI
Topological flat bands from nonlinear periodic motion
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
We use the Lax formulation of classical integrable systems to characterize the topology of nonlinear periodic orbits. For a Hamiltonian system with one degree of freedom, we express the chiral-symmetric Lax operator along a periodic orbit in a frequency basis. Energy conservation makes both bands of the resulting tight-binding model exactly flat. The harmonic oscillator corresponds to a fully dimerized topological Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, while nonlinearity generates long-range hopping through higher harmonics. In the symmetric double well, the winding number changes as intrawell periodic orbits give way to an orbit spanning both wells, and the zero-energy edge mode of the semi-infinite chain disappears. We derive the edge-mode profile and show that its localization length diverges logarithmically as the separatrix is approached. At the separatrix, the period and the hopping decay length diverge while the band gap remains finite; this singular limit of the periodic motion allows the winding number of the infinite frequency chain to change. Canonical quantization of the Lax operator also connects the chiral winding numbers to supersymmetric quantum mechanics: for a bound system on the real line with simple turning points, their sum over all periodic orbits at a common positive energy equals the Witten index. We also apply the construction to periodic nonlinear waves through traveling-wave reductions. The finite-period winding number becomes undefined in their solitary-wave limits.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD), Exactly Solvable and Integrable Systems (nlin.SI)
20 pages, 9 figures, 1 table
How anion composition governs structural frameworks and Li-ion transport in oxychloride solid-state electrolytes
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Jiho Lee, Seungwoo Hwang, Seungwu Han, Jisu Jung, Youngho Kang, Sungwoo Kang
Mixed-anion lithium oxychlorides exhibit high Li conductivity, but the relationship between oxygen content, structural framework, and Li-ion transport remains unclear. Here, crystal structure prediction and molecular dynamics simulations with machine-learning interatomic potentials are used to examine $ \mathrm{Li}yM\mathrm{O}x\mathrm{Cl}{6-2x}$ ($ M$ = Nb and Ta [Group 5] and $ M$ = Ti, Zr, and Hf [Group 4]). Increasing oxygen content changes isolated chloride-rich polyhedra into one-dimensional chains and subsequently more highly connected two- and three-dimensional frameworks. In the Group 5 series, fast Li diffusion occurs over $ x \approx 0.67$ –1.5, where the Li sites form a three-dimensional percolating network. Potential of mean force maps and nudged elastic band calculations reveal that fast Li-ion transport requires a low-dimensional framework supporting long-range migration through undercoordinated Li sites with low barriers, together with similar energies across Li sites. Finally, we perform fine-grid compositional search, which identifies $ \mathrm{LiNbO}{0.67}\mathrm{Cl}{4.67}$ , $ \mathrm{LiTaO}{0.75}\mathrm{Cl}{4.5}$ , $ \mathrm{LiNbO}{1.5}\mathrm{Cl}3$ , and $ \mathrm{LiTaO}{1.5}\mathrm{Cl}_3$ as stable candidates with predicted room-temperature self-diffusivities of up to $ \sim 10^{-6},\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{s}$ . These findings establish how oxygen content controls framework and Li-ion transport, guiding the design of lithium oxyhalide electrolytes.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
The Supplementary Information is provided as an ancillary file (Anc/Supplementary_Information.pdf)
Stochastic evolution of interacting directed strings
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
We study the stochastic dynamics of a system of $ N$ polymer rings on an infinite cylinder with only excluded volume interaction, using simulations and also analytically. The strings can diffuse in the transverse direction by local Rouse-like moves where an up-kink changes to a down -kink, or vice versa. The motion is biased if the rates of flip are not equal. In the initial state, we start with a step initial condition: all the sites with a positive $ y$ coordinate are empty, and the sites with $ y \leq 0$ are occupied with a uniform density. We study the scaling form of the density profile in the hydrodynamic limit. The scaling form is a function of $ y/\sqrt{t}$ in the unbiased case, and a function of $ y/t$ in the biased case. In the unbiased case, in the steady state on a torus, the marginal probability distribution of the positions of the strings on a line with fixed $ x$ -coordinate is exactly same as that in the ground state of quantum-mechanical spin-less fermions on a line. The biased problem is equivalent to a growing surface in $ 2+1$ dimension, which is expected to be in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
10 page, 13 figures
Non-Gaussian limit distributions of giant-component sizes in inhomogeneous networks
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Tomoaki Nogawa, Takehisa Hasegawa
We demonstrate that the size distribution of giant components in percolation and epidemic spreading models on highly inhomogeneous networks often fails to converge to a Gaussian distribution in the thermodynamic limit. Instead, when appropriately scaled, the distribution converges to a non-Gaussian limit distribution (NGLD). This scaling behavior aligns with the generalized central limit theorem (GCLT), which governs sums of random variables following heavy-tailed distributions. For scale-free networks, the scaling exponent is determined solely by the degree exponent of the network, independently of the control parameter. In contrast, on the Farey graph, a deterministic hierarchical small-world network, the scaling exponent varies continuously with the control parameter.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
13 pages, 17 figures
Emergent Quantized Zak Phases without Dimerization in a Multicomponent Fermionic Extended Hubbard Model
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Quantized Zak phases are commonly associated with dimerized systems, such as the noninteracting Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) model. In interacting systems, however, interactions can induce effective dimerization of particle clusters even in the absence of explicit dimerization in the underlying lattice. In this work, we study a one-dimensional multicomponent fermionic extended Hubbard model under a resonance condition between the on-site and nearest-neighbor interactions. We find that quantized Zak phases emerge for odd fermion numbers $ n\geqslant 3$ , protected by the inversion symmetry of the effective Hamiltonian. Furthermore, in the presence of a tilted field, fermion clusters exhibit Bloch oscillations, during which their Zak phases can be extracted from the evolution of a Gaussian wave packet over one Bloch period. Our results reveal an interaction-induced mechanism for realizing quantized Zak phases in multicomponent fermionic systems without explicit lattice dimerization.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Plasmons in bilayer graphene with O-type Kekulé distortion: Electron-hole asymmetry of the effective interlayer tunneling
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Mingyu Wang, Guodong Yu, Shengjun Yuan
The effective interlayer tunneling (EIT) is a key quantity in determining the out-of-phase plasmons of a bilayer structure. Using the tight-binding model and the random phase approximation, we investigate plasmons in bilayer graphene with O-type Kekulé distortion. Both O/O and G/O bilayers exhibit strong electron-hole asymmetry in the EIT. For the O/O bilayer, the gap of the out-of-phase plasmon remains almost constant as the electron concentration varies, whereas it increases rapidly with increasing hole concentration; hole doping can also lead to stronger anomalous dispersion than electron doping. For the G/O bilayer, enhancing the Kekulé distortion $ \Delta_0$ can weaken the EIT, as reflected by the reduced interlayer hybridization caused by the lifted layer degeneracy, especially for the electron-doped case. For the electron-doped G/O bilayer, the EIT is almost turned off when $ \Delta_0=0.3$ from the perspective of the dispersion. Our results imply that switching the doping type between electron and hole can tune the performance of out-of-phase plasmon-based devices by modulating the EIT.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
An infrared divacancy color center in bulk hexagonal diamond for quantum communication
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Xuanxuan Zhang, Chen-Min Dai, Cong Li, Chunlan Ma, Zenghua Cai
Intrinsic color centers are investigated in bulk hexagonal diamond as potential emitters for fiber-based quantum communication. Hybrid density functional theory and constrained-occupation delta SCF calculations identify five carbon-vacancy and divacancy configurations with stable optical excited states. A comparison of their radiative and nonradiative properties within a three-point configuration-coordinate model identifies the positively charged axial divacancy, VVa1+, as the most promising candidate. It exhibits the highest calculated zero-phonon-line (ZPL) emission rate of 43.9 MHz and ZPL quantum efficiency of 11.8% among the five candidates. Its weak structural relaxation yields a Huang-Rhys factor of 0.395, while a multimode photoluminescence calculation gives a Debye-Waller factor of 69.37%, indicating a dominant zero-phonon contribution. The predicted ZPL at 0.603 eV (2057.3 nm) also has the smallest photon-energy separation from the 1310 and 1550 nm telecom targets among the candidates. These results identify VVa1+ as a promising intrinsic color center for fiber-based quantum communication, with quantum frequency upconversion offering a route from its strong infrared ZPL to the telecom O and C bands.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
8 pages,5 figures
Critical geometry of triconnected clusters in percolation
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
We investigate the critical geometry of triconnected clusters in percolation, which remain connected after the removal of any two sites. By combining biconnected-component decomposition with the SPQR decomposition of graphs, we develop an efficient algorithm for identifying triconnected clusters in large systems. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations yield estimates of the fractal dimension $ d_3=1.2308(3)$ , $ 1.083(2)$ , and $ 0.77(2)$ in dimensions $ d=2$ , $ 3$ , and $ 4$ , respectively, revealing a systematic decrease of $ d_3$ with increasing $ d$ . In dimension $ d=6$ , the largest triconnected cluster grows logarithmically with system size, whereas on complete graphs, corresponding to $ d=\infty$ , it approaches a finite size. Both behaviors indicate a vanishing fractal dimension, $ d_3=0$ , for $ d\geq6$ . Furthermore, the singular contribution to the susceptibility-like quantity associated with the second moment of the triconnected-cluster size distribution scales as $ \chi\sim L^{2d_3-d}$ . Consequently, it vanishes for $ d\geq3$ , leaving a finite asymptotic susceptibility, in contrast to the divergent behavior observed in standard percolation.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
Electronic Origin of Contrasting Li and Na Clustering on Graphene
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
The electrochemical performance of anode materials is often defined by the ability of metal ions (e.g., Li and Na) to be effectively stored within the host material over a specific range of chemical potentials. This is particularly true for adsorbed Li and Na atoms on carbon surfaces (e.g., graphite or pore surfaces in hard carbon), where the interplay between ionic and metallic bonding often takes place - while metal atoms act as ionic species, in a finite concentration limit, they tend to form metallic bonding when they approach each other. What makes the case special is that, despite similar chemical identities, Li and Na atoms exhibit distinct tendencies for cluster formation; for example, the formation of Li metallic clusters on a graphene surface is only thermodynamically favorable after reaching a finite metal-ion concentration. Motivated by this, herein, we use first-principles calculations on graphene to examine the electronic origin of Li and Na clustering. Specifically, we demonstrate that the separated adsorbed atoms donate electrons to graphene, shifting the Fermi level to higher energies; however, the formation of metal clusters can result in the formation of lower-energy orbitals that are specifically associated with metal-metal bonding, thus lowering the Fermi level (and hence total energies). Importantly, while the process is somewhat similar for Na and Li atoms, the energy levels of the newly formed metallic states govern the difference in metallic cluster formation between Li and Na.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Floquet first- and higher-order topological superconductors: A review
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Debashish Mondal, Arnob Kumar Ghosh, Arijit Saha, Tanay Nag
The current developments in quantum technologies are deeply rooted in quantum computation, with Majorana fermions and their topological protection expected to play a central role. In this context, topological superconductors (TSCs) provide a promising platform for investigating Majorana modes and their potential applications in topological quantum computation. In dimensions $ d > 1$ , the spatial localization of topological Majorana modes can be controlled in higher-order topological superconductors (HOTSCs), extending beyond the conventional framework of first-order topological superconductors (FOTSCs). In this review, we systematically survey the diverse landscape of topological superconductivity, ranging from FOTSCs to third-order topological superconductors (TOTSCs), in which the spatial dimensionality of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) is progressively reduced. We demonstrate how periodic driving protocols enable Floquet engineering of all these phases, even when the corresponding undriven systems are topologically trivial. Furthermore, we investigate various driving schemes and explore the interplay among spin-orbit coupling, magnetic fields, magnetic impurities, and symmetry-breaking mass terms in realizing Floquet higher-order topological superconducting (FHOTSC) phases, characterized by appropriate topological invariants. We also provide an extensive discussion of topological invariants capable of distinguishing conventional MZMs from anomalous Majorana $ pi$ -modes, which emerge at two distinct quasienergies and have no static counterparts.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
28 pages without references and 16 figures- Invited Topical Review in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 38 433001 (2026)
Elastic Landau states as martensite nuclei in austenite
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Mohd Tahseen, Vivekanand Dabade
In this article, we investigate the geometric closure of austenite–martensite interfaces. Classical compatibility conditions permit stress-free interfaces between the two phases: the condition $ \lambda_2 = 1$ admits planar interfaces, whereas the cofactor conditions additionally admit curved interfaces. However, neither, guarantees the geometric closure of these interfaces. We identify two-parameter families of martensitic deformations that overcome this limitation and enable the formation of closed, stress-free martensite nuclei embedded in an austenite matrix. A main result is the interpretation of the classical deformation modes of simple shear and pure shear as martensitic phase transformations. These correspond to cubic to monoclinic-II and cubic to orthorhombic transformations, respectively. The former naturally satisfies the \emph{extreme compatibility conditions}, which are stronger than the cofactor conditions, and gives rise to \emph{elastic Landau states}, a self-accommodating martensitic nuclei embedded in austenite. We show that these states can be assembled to form arbitrarily shaped, stress-free martensitic islands surrounded by austenite. Such states can arise even in conventional shape memory alloys that do not satisfy supercompatibility, provided hierarchical twinning produces an average deformation that is a simple shear. The theory provides a geometric mechanism for self-accommodation. Its predicted deformation gradients agree with those reconstructed from experimentally observed microstructures. This agreement suggests that these microstructures originate from simple shear.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Structural and electronic properties of (Hf,Zr)O$_2$ phases from first principles
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Sibghatullah Khan, Hannu-Pekka Komsa
(Hf,Zr)O$ _2$ material system is promising for ferroelectric devices, owing to their compatibility with the existing electronics manufacturing processes. Technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulations can be used for the device design and optimization, but the predictive power of TCAD device simulations depends on the quality of the material parameters. These are still surprisingly poorly understood, also for the metastable ferroelectric phase, largely owing to the difficulties in synthesizing phase-pure samples. Here, we carry out high-quality first-principles calculations to extract reliable lattice parameters, dielectric constants, and band gaps for six of the most common phases of HfO$ _2$ , Hf$ _{0.5}$ Zr$ _{0.5}$ O$ _2$ , and ZrO$ _2$ . We compare results from GGA, meta-GGA, and hybrid functionals to shed light on the sensitivity of the results on the level of theory and to connect the results to earlier literature. In the case of band structures, we also consider $ GW$ corrections as well as the effects of temperature-induced band gap renormalization and excitonic effects. Finally, we use these results in TCAD simulations for (Hf,Zr)O$ _2$ FeCAP to demonstrate the effect that non-ferroelectric interlayers could have on the hysteresis curves and band diagrams.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Hierarchical Topological Protection and Subsymmetry-Driven Edge-State Switching
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Shu Long, Rijia Lin, Hui-Qiang Liang, Linhu Li
We reveal a hierarchy of topological protection in which multiple symmetries and their reduced forms provide distinct mechanisms for protecting topological edge states. In Hermitian Hamiltonians obtained by doubling chiral non-Hermitian systems, a structural and an inherited chiral symmetry provide complementary channels of topological protection. By selectively breaking either symmetry, we demonstrate their distinct roles in protecting edge zero modes, establishing different levels of protection under symmetry reduction. Remarkably, even when both full chiral symmetries are broken, fixed subsymmetry constraints allow the protected zero-mode configurations to switch between opposite edges and change in number across the topological phase boundaries of the symmetry-unbroken system. Our results establish a hierarchical framework for topological protection, revealing a route to controlling edge-state configurations via reduced symmetry constraints.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
13 pages, 6 figures. Comments are welcome
Thermodynamic Properties of the S=1/2 Zigzag Spin Ladder
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Nobuya Maeshima, Toshiya Hikihara, Kouichi Okunishi
We investigate finite-temperature properties of the spin-1/2 zigzag Heisenberg ladder with an anisotropic off-diagonal $ \Gamma$ interaction. Thermal states are calculated by an infinite time-evolving block decimation method combined with purification, while exact diagonalization is used to analyze low-lying excitations. The entropy is strongly suppressed at low temperatures inside the gapped phases, whereas it remains enhanced near several ground-state phase boundaries. For the Néel phase at $ J_2/J_1=0$ , the model can be mapped by spin rotations onto the exactly solvable XYZ chain. The thermal gap extracted from the low-temperature specific heat agrees with the exact one-spinon gap, while the finite-size excitation gap obtained by exact diagonalization is consistent with a two-spinon excitation.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
6 pages, 2 figures
Orchestr.AI: A Unified Workflow for Training and Benchmarking of Machine-Learned Interatomic Potentials
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Zain Ul Abideen, Mario Fernández-Pendás, Muhammad Usman, Camilo Rodríguez Quintero, Masuma Suleymanova, Ignacio Arganda-Carreras, Ivan Infante
Machine-learning force fields enable atomistic simulations at near-reference accuracy and substantially reduced computational cost, but their development remains fragmented across software frameworks with incompatible data formats, configuration schemes, dependencies, and execution procedures. this http URL addresses this limitation through a unified workflow that coordinates different MLIP software frameworks, referred to as engines, for data preparation, model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment. A common YAML interface defines each experiment, while engine-specific environment profiles preserve compatible software stacks and avoid dependency conflicts. The platform currently supports five MLIP model architectures, namely SchNet, PaiNN, NequIP, Allegro, and MACE, through their corresponding software implementations, providing automated configuration mapping and standardized dataset handling across these frameworks. Benchmarks on the rMD17 and 3BPA datasets show that this http URL reproduces the expected performance trends while enabling controlled cross-engine comparisons. Repeated executions with fixed configurations and engine profiles produce highly consistent results, demonstrating practical workflow reproducibility. Beyond training, this http URL provides modular architectural interfaces that connect trained models to ASE-based simulations, batch inference, epistemic uncertainty estimation, calibration, and active-learning workflows. The platform therefore provides a reproducible and extensible infrastructure for developing, comparing, and deploying machine-learning interatomic potentials, which we validate here through cross-engine accuracy and repeatability benchmarks.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
26 Pages, 6 Figures, 3 Tables
A phase-field model of viscous surfaces in fluids
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Maximilian Kloppe, Sebastian Aland
Viscous surfaces play a crucial role in biological and industrial multiphase flows, yet their simulation remains challenging due to complex rheology and topological changes. We present a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model for viscous surfaces in incompressible Navier-Stokes fluids, incorporating surface shear and dilatational viscosities via the Boussinesq-Scriven constitutive law. The diffuse-interface formulation is derived from a sharp-interface model and rigorously validated through matched asymptotic analysis, confirming recovery of the correct sharp-interface limit. We develop an unconditionally energy-dissipative time discretization, ensuring numerical stability. The model is validated through a quantitative benchmark against analytical solutions for surface flows on a rigid sphere, and a simulation of vesicle fusion showing preservation of energy dissipation across topological transitions. These results demonstrate that the framework enables robust, physically consistent simulations of complex surface dynamics, including large deformations and topological changes, without explicit surface tracking.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
23 pages, 6 figures
Chiral magnon Kerr interaction from linear and nonlinear Meissner screening in ferromagnet–superconductor bilayers
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Magnon Kerr interaction showing a dependence of magnon dispersion frequency on its population is a useful functionality for nonlinear and quantum magnonics; its strength and sign depend on magnetic anisotropy, bias, and mode geometry. We here propose to use a superconducting gate to tune the Kerr interaction of magnons in ferromagnetic insulators. Even when the superconductor responds linearly, the frequency shift induced by its reflected dipolar field depends on the longitudinal magnetization. The decrease of this magnetization with increasing precession amplitude therefore produces a Kerr contribution. We go beyond this linear Meissner-screening regime by showing that at finite excitation amplitude, the significant Meissner screening currents reduce the superfluid stiffness, thus enhancing the effective magnetic-field penetration and rendering the Meissner backaction amplitude dependent. This superflow-induced pair breaking adds a second Kerr contribution, controlled by the interfacial superflow relative to the nonlinear screening scale. For yttrium iron garnet gated by dirty niobium, we predict a significant renormalization of the Kerr effect by superconductors, with the resulting Kerr contribution strongly chiral in the Damon–Eshbach configuration. By showing that the linear and nonlinear Meissner screening to the Kerr interaction can be distinguished by varying temperature, our work establishes a route to directional control of magnon nonlinear interactions.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Design of Self-Folding Origami Architectures for Biomedical Implants: A Finite Element Simulation Framework
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Suhas Chandrashekar, Thomas Stieglitz, Prasanth Velvaluri
Minimally invasive brain implants require compact deployment geometries and controlled shape transformation for delivery through confined vessels. Origami-inspired structures enable large shape changes from compact to tailored deployed configurations, but implementation at microscale dimensions remains challenging, as conventional designs rely on predefined mountain and valley folds that become increasingly difficult to fabricate and assemble as unit-cell size is reduced to meet clinical requirements. To address this, we propose a self-folding methodology based on thermally induced stresses in thin-film bimetallic composites. Pairing the shape memory alloy Nitinol (NiTi) with molybdenum or stainless steel (SS316L) exploits their differing thermal expansion coefficients to generate localized hinge bending, enabling deterministic, autonomous folding into prescribed mountain and valley configurations. Using finite element simulations, we systematically optimize hinge length, layer thickness, width, and shape, identifying a hinge geometry achieving a ~50% reduction in unit-cell dimensions relative to previously reported designs. Integration into a complete waterbomb origami unit cell confirms that the strip-level folding mechanism scales to produce coordinated, self-folding deformation across the tessellated structure. These results demonstrate the feasibility of stress-induced, self-folding thin-film origami architectures built from clinically established biomaterials, providing a scalable design framework for next-generation, active neurovascular implants with integrated sensing and monitoring functionality.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
20 pages, 7 figures
Rheology of Parametric Odd Materials
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
The design and control of rheological properties in active systems are crucial for developing functional materials with novel properties. While significant attention has been devoted to odd viscosity and odd elasticity, comprehensive odd rheological models remain scarce. Here, we introduce and characterise a platform-agnostic odd viscoelastic material, where complex responses arise from parametric control of internal rotational degrees of freedom and are triggered by coupling between normal and shear stresses. Such control can be achieved through either parametric driving or a parametric nonlinear feedback. We further show that this coupling can induce rotation-driven fluidisation, transitioning the material from an elasticity-dominated to a viscosity-dominated regime. Lastly, we show that the interplay between odd and even sectors enhances the nonlinear material response under large-amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS). The findings outline a route to Floquet-engineered metafluids with programmable, non-reciprocal rheology.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
Frequency Comb as a Probe of Fluctuation Mechanisms in Nanomechanical Systems
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Maria Kallergi, Daniel K.J. Boneß, Maximilian Seitner, Wolfgang Belzig, Mark I. Dykman, Eva M. Weig
Frequency combs are indispensable in metrology. We show that a frequency comb also probes frequency fluctuations of the system. In our nanomechanical resonator, the comb arises from self-sustained vibrations of a resonantly driven nonlinear mode. The comb lineshapes reveal exponentially correlated (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck) frequency noise. Its correlation time agrees with the independently measured relaxation time of the vibrations. The noise leads to anomalous phase diffusion. Its mechanism is generic: like the comb itself, it stems from the strong nonlinearity of the self-sustained vibrations.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
14 pages, 11 figures
Analytic Two-Radius Model for the Zero-Shear and High-Frequency Viscosity of Colloidal Suspensions
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Nearly hard-sphere colloids are stabilized by short-range repulsions that set their effective size and equilibrium microstructure. Their hydrodynamic interactions, in contrast, are set by the no-slip surface. Since these two do not necessarily coincide, there are potentially two effective radii that control their dynamics in different ways. Yet it is commonplace to model and analyze such suspensions with a single effective radius, which merges these different physics. Two-radius models, in which a hard, solvent-permeable shell surrounds a no-slip core, have been proposed to improve the description of these suspensions. Their rheology is known exactly at pair level, but at higher concentrations their zero-shear viscosity has been obtained only with semi-empirical expressions, which do not recover the exact pair result. Here, we close this gap with a theory for the zero-shear and high-frequency viscosity of these two-radius models. By keeping pairs out of near contact, the shell lowers the high-frequency viscosity, as our Stokesian dynamics simulations confirm, and shifts the zero-shear viscosity from hydrodynamic toward thermodynamic stress. We apply our theory to experiments on charge- and sterically stabilized colloids from the literature and find that it accurately describes the measured viscosities. We discuss the benefits of fitting data to a two-radius model compared to a single-radius one. To facilitate this fitting in future work, closed-form expressions are provided that cover the full range of shell thicknesses and volume fractions.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
27 pages, 10 figures
Thermodynamics of words
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Klaus M. Frahm, Dima L. Shepelyansky
We introduce the word thermalization hypothesis according to which in a literary work there are effective interactions between words that drive them to thermalization where their word frequency distribution is the same as for the phenomenon of Rayleigh-Jeans (RJ) thermalization and condensation. In this concept, the different words play a role of classical oscillators (particles) and their word frequencies, or related tokens, are analogous to certain filling factors over energy state levels. The thermalization process is characterized by the conservation of total system energy, or total number of words/tokens, and total probability norm, or total number of different words. We apply this approach to analyze 16 literary works, including Bible, complete works of Shakespeare, and data from American National Corpus. We show that for these cases the effective system energy is very low and thus there is the RJ condensation phenomenon with a big fraction of total probability concentrated at the lowest energy states corresponding to a big fraction of rare words appearing only once or twice in the whole text. Such a RJ condensation is observed for light propagation in multimode optical fibers and other physical systems. We relate the thermalization of words to the recently proposed wealth thermalization for households in world countries. The economy concepts of Lorenz and Pareto curves, and also Zipf curves, are applied to the word frequency distributions of the selected 16 cases and it is shown that the thermalization theory gives a strikingly good description of real data.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Computation and Language (cs.CL), Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph)
30 pages, 6 main figures, 14 appendix figures, journal style file and bbl file for references provided
Evidence of anomalous Hall crystals in moiré rhombohedral graphene
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Hongyuan Li, Zuhan Geng, Annika Weber, Chenxi Xu, Yifan Jiang, Jiabin Xie, Lujin Min, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Yasuda, Xiaomeng Liu, Jie Shan, Kin Fai Mak
An anomalous Hall crystal (AHC) is a quantum state of matter, in which spontaneous electron crystallization leads to a quantized Hall effect without a magnetic field. The state can emerge in materials with strong Coulomb interaction and large Berry curvatures, such as few-layer rhombohedral graphene. Although the idea of AHCs has been invoked to explain some of the observed Chern insulators in moiré rhombohedral graphene (mRG), direct experimental evidence of AHCs has been missing so far. Here, we report experimental evidence of AHCs in hole-doped mRG through combined electrical transport and noise measurements. We identify a series of distinct Chern insulators spanning a broad and continuous range of doping densities incommensurate with the underlying moiré lattice; the states exhibit current-induced broadband noise and memory effects as well as pronounced gate hysteresis. Systematic magnetic field, temperature and gate dependence studies further support the emergence of a spontaneously charge-ordered state that acts as a parental state for the observed Chern insulators. The absence of Chern insulators at nearby integer fillings also distinguishes the observed state from the reported reentrant or extended quantum (anomalous) Hall states. Altogether, our results establish experimental evidence of AHCs in mRG and open the door for further exploration of the collective dynamics in this new state of matter.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Local electronic structure of the Co2+ ions in the disordered perovskite phase of Ba3CoNb2O9: a temperature-dependent X-ray absorption and magnetic circular dichroism study
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
M. M. Ferreira-Carvalho, S. H. Chen, S. Rößler, Fanjun Xu, A. T. M. N. Islam, B. Lake, C. F. Chang, C. Y. Kuo, S. M. Valvidares, P. Gargiani, Z. Hu, A. C. Komarek, M. W. Haverkort, L. H. Tjeng
We performed temperature-dependent X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements on the disordered phase of Ba$ _3$ CoNb$ _2$ O$ 9$ to determine the local electronic structure of the Co$ ^{2+}$ ions. We employed the line-fitting inverse partial fluorescence yield (iPFY) method to obtain reliable spectra from this insulating material. From the comparison between the experimental spectra and full multiplet cluster calculations we were able to constrain the local crystal-field environment and assess the spin-orbit-entangled nature of the Co$ ^{2+}$ ground state. In this chemically disordered system, the Co$ ^{2+}$ ions retain on average an effectively cubic crystal-field environment that supports a $ J\mathrm{eff} = 1/2$ ground state. These results further establish that Ba$ _3$ CoNb$ _2$ O$ 9$ is a promising platform for investigating the effect of disorder on $ J\mathrm{eff} = 1/2$ magnetism.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
And yet it moves - or does it? Spurious drifts at equilibrium
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
When diffusion depends on the state of a system, the drift measured from its trajectories contains a spurious part unrelated to forces. At equilibrium, particles can then appear to sediment, repel each other, even rotate - the same way whether the movie is played forward or backward. Drifts are conditional averages, not currents: they carry meaning only together with a consistently inferred diffusion tensor. Paired with the wrong one, they make passive particles look active. I show how to infer spurious drifts from trajectory moments alone, enabling thermodynamically consistent inference.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
Particle-hole asymmetry and a fluctuating pair-density-wave state in a lightly doped Mott insulator on the square lattice
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Hao-Xin Wang, Zheng-Yuan Yue, Wen-Yuan Liu, Zheng-Cheng Gu
Whether a lightly doped Mott insulator on the square lattice supports robust $ d$ -wave superconductivity remains a central question in strongly correlated physics and in the microscopic theory of cuprate superconductivity. Experiments and numerical studies reveal a pronounced particle-hole asymmetry, pointing to a delicate competition among $ d$ -wave superconductivity, pair-density wave (PDW), stripe, charge-density wave (CDW), and antiferromagnetic correlations. Here we combine large-scale DMRG and finite-size PEPS to study the square-lattice $ t$ -$ J$ model at low doping, $ \delta \leq 0.1$ , while tuning the next-nearest-neighbor hopping $ t’$ from the electron-like ($ t’>0$ ) to the hole-like ($ t’<0$ ) regime. The electron-like side supports robust, nearly uniform $ d$ -wave pairing, whereas decreasing $ t’$ induces a period-two plaquette modulation and ultimately produces, on the hole-like side, a charge-dominated state with a strongly suppressed static pairing amplitude. DMRG calculations on open strips and squares, together with PEPS calculations on open squares up to $ 16\times16$ sites, support this evolution. On squares with $ C_4$ -symmetric Hamiltonians, both methods find that the pair correlations of the hole-like state select the plaquette momenta $ (\pi,0)$ and $ (0,\pi)$ and decay within a few lattice spacings, while the dominant charge-density modulation forms a bidirectional checkerboard whose period extrapolates to about $ 4a_0$ , close to that observed in lightly doped Bi-2201. These observations establish a fluctuating plaquette PDW in the lightly doped hole-like regime, in which local pairs carry finite momentum but lack phase coherence. Our results firmly establish particle-hole asymmetry as a central organizing principle for competing pairing tendencies in the lightly doped $ t$ -$ J$ model.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
36 pages, 35 figures
Memory of Initial States in Long-Time Dynamics Revealed by Non-Gaussianity
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Julia Koczorowska, Lev Vidmar, Patrycja Łydżba
In quantum dynamics of few-body observables in quadratic systems, information about the initial state is retained in long-time averages, as captured by the generalized Gibbs ensemble. Here, we show that this memory extends beyond the averages to temporal fluctuations around them. By generating a manifold of non-Gaussian initial states and quantifying their non-Gaussianity via the corresponding entropy, we find that the magnitude of temporal fluctuations is a smooth function of the initial-state non-Gaussianity. This relation explains the qualitatively different scaling of fluctuations observed after quantum quenches: exponentially small fluctuations for non-Gaussian initial states and polynomially small fluctuations for Gaussian initial states. Therefore, our results identify non-Gaussianity as a key to uncovering initial-state memory beyond long-time averages.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Spin-glass order in a field requires magnetic-field chaos in XY gauge glasses for $d\leq 4$
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Manaka Okuyama, Masayuki Ohzeki, Hidetoshi Nishimori
The XY gauge-glass model is believed to exhibit a spin-glass phase in dimensions $ d\geq 3$ . In this paper, we prove that, in dimensions $ d\leq 4$ and at any finite temperature, a magnetic field applied in a fixed direction, with amplitudes that fluctuate from site to site according to the Rayleigh distribution, must either induce magnetic-field chaos in the spin-glass phase or destroy spin-glass order altogether, whenever a spin-glass phase exists at zero field. In particular, if a spin-glass phase persists under such a field, as predicted by the replica-symmetry-breaking (RSB) picture, it must exhibit magnetic-field chaos. This conclusion follows from our proof that, for any fixed nonzero field strength, the disorder average of the squared overlap between equilibrium spin configurations at zero field and those at nonzero field vanishes in the thermodynamic limit. By gauge transformations, the overlap statistics are identical to the magnetization statistics of an XY gauge glass with correlated bond disorder in a Gaussian random field. Our proof combines this exact identity with quantitative estimates on the suppression of ferromagnetic order by random fields in continuous-spin systems, due to Dario, Harel, and Peled [Commun. Math. Phys. 405, 212 (2024)] and building on the work of Imry and Ma [Phys. Rev. Lett. 35, 1399 (1975)] and of Aizenman and Wehr [Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 2503 (1989); Commun. Math. Phys. 130, 489 (1990)]. We extend these estimates to bond-dependent interactions. Although our result provides a rare rigorous constraint on the nature of spin-glass phases in finite-dimensional systems, it does not determine whether spin-glass order survives in a field, and therefore does not distinguish between the droplet and RSB pictures. The case of a strictly uniform field remains open.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
16 pages, 0 figure
Mechanical pairing and self-assembled chains of non-convex granular rotors
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Thomas Barois, Melanie Labiausse, Jean-Francois Boudet, Juho S. Lintuvuori, Hamid Kellay
We experimentally and numerically demonstrate the self-assembly of granular rotors into chain-like structures. The rotors are non-convex rigid bodies with rotational activity. We first investigate the interaction between two rotors and we establish an attractive interaction controlled by the ratio of the rotational activity to the noise and also dependent of the rotors geometry. We then show that the cohesive state between spinner pairs leads to robust chains that can be either initially set or spontaneously obtained by self-assembly.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
35 pages, 26 figures
Physical Review E (2026)
Cohesive granular piles with controlled volume fraction
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Pierre Jodlowski, Marie-Julie Dalbe, Nicolas Vandenberghe
Experimental procedures involving wet granular media expose the sample to variation of its organization across different measurements, leading to non reproducible results. Rigorous control over the preparation process and a thorough understanding of the microstructure of the granular heap are key parameters to manage results dispersion from one experiment to an other. In this study, we present a protocol to prepare large samples of wet grains in a cylindrical container. Quantitative results are presented showing the effectiveness of the protocol regarding : the accessibility of different granular materials with different volume fraction $ \phi_0$ and the reproducibility of this said density obtained experimentally in the same experimental conditions. In addition, X-ray scans were performed using a micro-CT scanner to dive into the microstructure of the carefully prepared piles. Results show a small variation between the bulk density $ \phi_0$ and the local one $ \phi$ , underlining the homogeneity in the samples. On top of that, several scans made in the same medium at different heights confirm the homogeneity across a given sample.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
End-state-assisted tunneling at a topological insulator STM tip
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Rui Chen, Jie Zhou, Bin Zhou, Dong-Hui Xu
Recent spin-sensitive scanning tunneling experiments with topological-insulator tips motivate a microscopic understanding of how tip geometry controls current delivery. We show that topological end states mediate resonant tunneling through the gap opened by interedge hybridization in a quantum spin Hall tip. An asymmetric termination gives oppositely spin-polarized helical paths unequal effective lengths and resonance widths. Within an independent-path description, their transmitted-current imbalance vanishes at a matched resonance and becomes finite away from it. Coupling these directional channels to a $ d$ -wave altermagnet yields a spin-dependent interference contrast. Hybridized end states along a stepped termination provide multiple tunneling resonances. Our results establish end-state-mediated tunneling as a transport mechanism for STM with strongly confined topological tips.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Universal Multichannel Coherence-Mediated Thermal Transport in Carbon Allotropes: Experimental Evidence and Scaling Laws
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
A. Jeżowski, A. I. Krivchikov, O. A. Korolyuk, V. V. Sagan, Y. V. Horbatenko, S. V. Cherednychenko, A. V. Dolbin, N. A. Vinnikov, O. Bezkrovnyi, D. Szewczyk
Understanding thermal transport in structurally disordered carbon materials remains a fundamental challenge because conventional models based on a single coherence contribution cannot accurately describe heat conduction over a broad temperature range. In this work, the thermal conductivity of graphene oxide (GO), thermally reduced graphene oxide (trGO), GO-hydrated fullerene composites (GO-HyFn), expanded graphite (EG), and EG-multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composites was measured between 4.5 and 300 K. Despite substantial differences in density, porosity, graphitic ordering, and microstructure, all materials exhibit glass-like temperature dependence of thermal conductivity.
The experimental results demonstrate that the conventional two-channel model, comprising a Peierls contribution and a single thermally activated coherence term, systematically fails to reproduce the observed temperature dependence. To resolve this discrepancy, we propose a generalized multichannel phenomenological model in which the coherence contribution consists of up to three Arrhenius-type channels with distinct activation energies. Depending on the structural state, two or three coherence channels are required to accurately describe the thermal conductivity.
A key finding is the reproducible hierarchy of activation energies across diverse carbon allotropes, following approximately (E2 ~ 4E1 and E3 ~ (12-25)E1). While the channel amplitudes increase with material density, the activation energies remain nearly invariant, indicating universal vibrational energy scales. The proposed framework also consistently describes published data for other disordered carbon materials. These results provide experimental evidence for multichannel coherence-mediated heat transport and establish a unified phenomenological bridge between structural hierarchy with thermal transport in disordered carbon solids.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
29 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables; experimental and theoretical analysis of thermal transport in carbon allotropes
Thermodynamic signatures of a nearby quantum critical endpoint in UTe$_2$ under intense magnetic field
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
M. Gen, K. Somesh, A. Miyake, D. Li, Z. Yang, A. Miyata, Y. Kohama, M. Kondo, M. Tokunaga, D. Aoki, W. Knafo
Several unconventional superconducting phases have been discovered in the vicinity of metamagnetism in the heavy-fermion paramagnet UTe$ 2$ under magnetic field. To describe the mechanism of magnetic-field-induced superconductivity, a challenge is to characterize the quantum critical magnetic properties at the metamagnetic transition. In this work, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of UTe$ 2$ under magnetic fields up to 60~T applied in the crystallographic $ \mathbf{b}-\mathbf{c}$ plane. Magnetization and magnetostriction experiments have been performed under magnetic fields tilted by an angle $ \theta\lesssim42^\circ$ from $ \mathbf{b}$ toward $ \mathbf{c}$ . They support that a quantum critical endpoint at the field angle $ \theta{QCEP}\simeq(70\pm10)^\circ$ and magnetic field $ \mu_0H{QCEP}\simeq(75\pm10)$ ~T terminates the metamagnetic transition line. A pseudo-gap in the magnetic susceptibility is related with the metamagnetic transition observed in magnetic fields for $ \theta<\theta_{QCEP}$ . The possible relation between the quantum critical endpoint and the development of magnetic-field-induced superconductivity is discussed.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
6 pages, 4 Figures, Supplemental Material: 4 pages, 3 Figures
Disorder-Induced Logarithmic Spreading and Localization of Quantum Fluctuations
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Ang Yang, Jingxuan Zhang, Lei Ying
Disorder can localize quantum particles, even in the presence of interactions, but its influence on quantum fluctuations beyond mean–field dynamics remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate the propagation of quantum fluctuations in weakly interacting disordered bosonic systems by comparing the Bose–Hubbard model with the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. We find that, in contrast to ballistic spreading in the disorder–free system, quantum fluctuations exhibit logarithmic spreading at intermediate times under both random and quasiperiodic disorder, before eventually saturating. The spreading rate decreases algebraically with increasing disorder strength, and this behavior persists across different particle numbers and extends to two dimensions. Using a time–dependent Bogoliubov–de Gennes framework, we identify the localized mean–field wavefunction as a time–dependent pairing background that generates quantum fluctuations. The exponential suppression of fluctuation–generation rates with distance provides a physical mechanism for the logarithmically advancing fluctuation front. Our results reveal a distinct regime of disorder–controlled quantum–fluctuation dynamics and establish disorder as a means of controlling their spreading.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
15 pages, 16 figures
The Multiscale Principle in phase transition: Geometric structure, thermodynamic entropy, and dynamical instability
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Patricio Venegas-Aravena, Fernando A. Oliveira
Scaling and multi-scaling are two guiding principles for understanding nature or even commerce and industrial outcome. In the realm of critical phenomena, scaling laws describe the behavior of physical quantities near a continuous phase transition. This is a complex phenomena where systems exhibit critical fluctuations and long-range correlations, challenging classical formulations such as the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT). In particular, near critical points, the divergence of the correlation length and the emergence of fractal geometry in spin clusters suggest the need for alternative frameworks. In this work, we explore the connection between critical exponents, fractal dimensions, and the thermodynamic formalism known as the Principium Luxuriae. By linking the thermodynamic fractal dimension D to the correlation length and entropy variations, we reinterpret energy dissipation in terms of multiscale processes. This approach allows us to reproduce effective scaling tendencies associated with the critical behavior of the 2d Ising model and provides new insight into how systems redistribute energy macroscopically during phase transitions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the decrease in D near the critical temperature marks a transition toward macroscopic coherence, where the system begins to dissipate energy across its entire scale. This unified behavior, however, induces a heightened sensitivity to perturbations, where local fluctuations are transmitted globally through the fractal network. This mechanism establishes a direct bridge between geometric structure, thermodynamic entropy, and the onset of dynamical instability (chaos) as the system approaches criticality.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
10 pages, 3 Figures
From Growth to Devices: Oxygen-Controlled Superconductivity in BSCCO Thin Films
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Sohini Guin, Ramesh Kumar Guin, Pankaj Bhardwaj, Laxmipriya Nanda, Rajib Sarkar, Dhavala Suri
Realizing device-compatible high-$ T_c$ superconductors requires simultaneous control of oxygen stoichiometry and tolerance to nanofabrication. Here, we investigate sputtered Bi$ _2$ Sr$ _2$ Ca$ _{n-1}$ Cu$ _n$ O$ _{2n+4+\delta}$ (BSCCO) thin films and establish a direct link between annealing conditions, oxygen incorporation, and superconducting transport. By independently varying the annealing temperature and duration, we identify an optimal annealing condition of $ 860,^{\circ}$ C for 3,h, which yields the highest superconducting transition temperature and the narrowest transition among the investigated samples. X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy reveal a non-monotonic evolution of lattice oxygen, which governs hole doping in the CuO$ _2$ planes and produces the characteristic dome-like dependence of $ T_c$ on doping concentration. We further translate these optimized films into micro-devices to assess fabrication-induced effects, via micro-bridges as well as a planar Josephson junction. We demonstrate devices fabricated via both lift-off and focused ion beam (FIB) patterning methods – proving the fabrication compatibility of these films. Importantly, we demonstrate their air-stability for extended periods of time (2 months). The combined insights offer practical guidelines for integrating cuprate thin films into superconducting electronics and quantum device architectures.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
Banding instabilities in poroelastic media under flow-driven compaction
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
When cross-linked poroelastic media are subjected to a hydrostatic pressure difference, they compact, remaining fully swollen on their uppermost surface and becoming increasingly compressed with depth. A critical unexplored effect of cross-linking and resistance to shear deformation is investigated, which is not seen in classical models of poroelastic media treated as free elastic spheres, and resists the kind of compressive compaction that characterises these systems. Eventually, a steady-state profile dependent on osmotic, shear and transport properties is reached, supporting a uniform interstitial flow wherein the medium acts like a passive filter. In this paper, we show how these steady-state profiles are not necessarily stable, and propose a mechanism for the formation of instabilities, wherein some regions of the medium swell and others compact, forming distinctive horizontal or vertical banding patterns. In the latter case, these bands appear qualitatively to be higher-permeability conduits or channels, similar to wormholes or tunnels seen in granular media. It is possible to quantify the effect of changing the pressure head on the growth rate of instabilities and the separation lengthscale in this channelisation case, and how material properties like shear stiffness and dependence of permeability on porosity affect the dynamics of instability. Critically, it is shown that these instabilities are a fluid-mechanical effect, with an entirely new mechanism based on the porosity–permeability relationship and not on elastic effects. With an understanding of these mechanisms, we can derive insight into channelisation in poroelastic systems in geophysics, human biology and industry.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
Submitted to the Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Edge quantum weight of finite Chern flakes and its topological floor
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
The zero-point energy of a circuit measures the polarization fluctuation of an insulator coupled to it. In a crystal this is the bulk quantum weight $ K_\mathrm{bulk}$ , which the Chern number $ C$ bounds below by $ |C|$ . We show that a finite Chern flake adds an edge term that survives as the flake grows. The low-frequency transitions of its chiral edge carry a dipole weight, the sum of their squared dipole matrix elements, $ K_\mathrm{edge}\geq|C|$ per unit area, a floor that follows from the positive absorption of both circular polarizations by every transition and the known cancellation of circular dichroism between edge and bulk. A weakly coupled circuit slower than the edge modes therefore reads $ K_\mathrm{bulk}+K_\mathrm{edge}$ , averaged over two field directions, while a faster one below the bulk gap approaches $ K_\mathrm{bulk}$ , so which quantum weight is measured depends on whether the flake is made large or the circuit slow first. Exact free-fermion calculations on lattice flakes bear out the floor and this dependence on the circuit frequency. The result holds at weak coupling, which a growing flake at fixed coupling eventually leaves. Above the floor, the edge weight of one channel is a number fixed by the shape of the boundary and the edge velocities, which square and rectangular lattice flakes follow to within 0.003. Each further edge channel adds its own such number, while the circular dichroism of the edge counts only the net chirality.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
39 pages, 13 figures. Data and code: doi:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24112974
Nonreciprocal Josephson Dynamics of a $\mathcal{PT}$-Symmetric Atomtronic SQUID
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Nalinikanta Pradhan, Rina Kanamoto, M. Bhattacharya, Pankaj K. Mishra
We investigate non-Hermitian Josephson dynamics in an atomtronic quantum interference device (AQUID), formed by a ring Bose Einstein condensate with balanced atomic gain and loss regions and two moving optical barriers. The balanced gain and loss profile establishes a parity time symmetric potential while breaking spatial inversion symmetry, providing the essential ingredients for nonreciprocal Josephson transport. The dynamics are monitored nondestructively through the phase quadrature spectrum of an optomechanical cavity driven by Laguerre Gaussian beams coupled to the condensate. We demonstrate that increasing the local gain and loss strength softens the parity time symmetric collective mode towards an exceptional point, as verified by Bogoliubov de Gennes analysis. The associated coherent population exchange produces an additional characteristic splitting in the cavity output spectrum. For linearly translating barriers, non-Hermiticity provides an additional control parameter for tuning the critical current. When the barriers undergo simultaneous translation and rotation, the rotation induced phase modifies the interference between counter propagating currents, offering further control over the nonreciprocal response. Under periodic barrier modulation, we find more pronounced Shapiro steps in the current voltage characteristics due to the intrinsic parity time symmetric collective mode. Finally, we propose an alternative Hermitian realization using a tilted optical lattice, providing an experimentally accessible route to engineering biased transport and population transfer. Our results establish parity time symmetric atomtronic SQUIDs as a versatile platform for controlling nonreciprocal Josephson transport and collective excitations in driven quantum fluids.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph)
18 Pages, 16 figures
Direction-Selective Anomalous Quantum Transport from Saddle-like Topological Surface States Coupled to an Electronic Instability in YbSb$_{2}$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Rudra Dhara, Pritesh Srivastava, Jack Tregidga, Rahul Sharma, Shivani, Shankhadip Bhattacharjee, Danilo Ratkovski, Shikhar Gupta, Kartick Biswas, Shivesh Yadav, Nilesh Kulkarni, Sarthak S. Gandhi, Pavan Nukala, Surajit Saha, John W. Harter, Bahadur Singh, Shouvik Chatterjee
We report direction-selective anomalous quantum transport in epitaxial YbSb$ _{2}$ thin films associated with an interplay between anisotropic topological surface states and an electronic instability. Quantum oscillations reveal a quasi-two-dimensional orbit with a non-trivial Berry phase and Dirac-like dispersion, observable for current along the $ a$ -axis but absent along the orthogonal in-plane $ c$ -axis. Together with first-principles calculations, these observations support its assignment to a saddle-like topological surface state. Its oscillation amplitude exhibits a field-dependent, non-monotonic temperature evolution that departs from conventional Lifshitz-Kosevich behavior. Raman and coherent phonon spectroscopy reveal additional low-temperature modes consistent with a density-wave instability. Their pronounced polarization anisotropy and colossal field-induced Raman enhancement suggest a strongly anisotropic, field-enhanced electronic susceptibility associated with the density-wave modes. Our findings point to dynamical coupling between anisotropic topological surface states and a field-responsive density-wave instability as a route to direction-selective anomalous quantum transport.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
7 pages, 4 figures
From Distribution of Extremes With Degradation to the Stress Redundancy Principle
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Frédéric Paquin-Lefebvre, Élisa Delbreil, David Holcman
How a degradation source affects the statistics of the first among many identical independent stochastic particles to successfully reach a narrow target remains unclear. Here, we investigate the impact of degradation on the distributions of first-passage times and exit locations by exploiting the time-dependent fluxes associated with the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation. We also compute the escape probability by solving a mixed boundary value problem. In the large initial population $ N_0$ limit, we derive an asymptotic formula for the mean first passage time associated with the fastest particle, revealing how the killing field modifies the classical $ 1/\log(N_0)$ scaling. However, when considering the population size at the time of the first exit, we obtain a specific dependency with respect to degradation, a phenomenon that we call the stress redundancy principle. For a degradation field restricted to a narrow subregion, we use an optimal control approach to derive the optimal trajectory where the fastest escape particles will be concentrated: interestingly, we report here that the optimal trajectories avoid the degradation area depending on killing intensity. Finally, we obtain analytical expressions for the distribution of first exit points along a narrow absorbing arc in two-dimensional regular domains. In addition, for a killing subregion tangent to the target boundary, our computations reveal how geometrical parameters influence the exit distribution. In summary, a killing source can significantly affect the statistics of the fastest diffusing particles, relevant for defining cellular and molecular time scales.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Analysis of PDEs (math.AP)
49 pages, 8 figures, 1 table
Good Practices for Measuring the Interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction by Brillouin Light Scattering and Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Marco Madami, Silvia Tacchi, Adriano Di Pietro, Alessandro Magni, Giovanni Gandini, Christian Rinaldi, Giovanni Carlotti, Gianfranco Durin, Johannes Hertel, Maximilian Lederer, Christopher H. Marrows, Vito Puliafito, Michaela Kuepferling
The interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (iDMI) is a key ingredient for stabilizing chiral magnetic states, such as skyrmions and chiral domain walls, which are key building blocks for next-generation spintronic technologies. Despite its importance, the quantitative determination of the iDMI constant, $ D$ , is often plagued by significant discrepancies. This paper establishes a set of good practices for measuring iDMI using two primary techniques: Brillouin Light Scattering (BLS) and the Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE). Through the analysis of Co/Pt-based heterostructures, this work provides a comprehensive roadmap for measurement procedures, data evaluation, and uncertainty analysis. Our analysis highlights the crucial role of magnetic parameters used to extract the iDMI constant and propagation of their uncertainties, and the measurement model for enhancing measurement reliability. The proposed methodology provides a practical framework for improving the consistency and reproducibility of iDMI measurements across different laboratories and experimental techniques.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
20 pages, 7 figures
Tuning and Mapping of Two-Tone Optomechanical Instability up to the Physical Limits
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Marco Dicosta, Alexandre Delattre, Louise Banniard, Laure Mercier de Lépinay, Andrew Fefferman, Eddy Collin
We report on the compete theory describing the two-tone instability proper to optomechanical back-action-evading experiments. We address all possible mistunings (including power imbalance of the two pumps), as well as the device imperfections (finite mechanical quality factor, and sideband resolution). We illustrate the importance of power mistuning and sideband resolution, the latter being particularly relevant in finding the back-action-evading “sweet spot”. The model is compared to experiments performed up to an extremely high cooperativity, of almost a 100. This has been made possible thanks to a fine-tuning procedure, which is presented. The agreement theory-experiment is very good, and the limiting factor is unraveled: cavity frequency noise. Besides, we discover at very high drive powers new self-driven states, which all share the characteristic feature of presenting a mechanical comb spectrum; as if the synchronization of the responses to the two drives (which occurs at lower powers) was destroyed by nonlinear effects. We believe that our work is extremely relevant to the implementation of back-action-evading experiments, as well as other related two-tone schemes.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Dimensional Crossover and Correlated Spin Dynamics in the Chain-Like van der Waals Antiferromagnet AgCrP$_2$S$_6$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
C. S. Saramgi, Y. Shemerliuk, S. Selter, S. Aswartham, B. Buechner, H.-J. Grafe, K. M. Ranjith
We report a comprehensive investigation of the magnetic properties and spin dynamics of the chain-like van der Waals antiferromagnet AgCrP$ _2$ S$ 6$ using magnetization, magnetic susceptibility, and $ ^{31}$ P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The magnetic susceptibility exhibits a broad maximum near 250 K, characteristic of strong short-range antiferromagnetic correlations in a low-dimensional system. A classical Fisher-chain analysis gives an effective intrachain exchange scale $ J/k_B\approx 140$ K, while a quantum $ S=3/2$ nearest-neighbor-chain calculation yields $ J/k_B\approx 114$ K. A constrained AF-FM zig-zag-chain calculation is also compatible with the susceptibility, supporting a dominant quasi one dimensional antiferromagnetic exchange scale of order 100 K.
$ ^{31}$ P NMR measurements provide microscopic insight into both static and dynamic spin correlations. The $ K-\chi$ relation displays two distinct linear regimes separated near $ T^\ast\approx 250$ K, with different slopes indicating a change in the effective transferred hyperfine couplings. Below $ T{N}$ , the relaxation follows $ 1/T_1\propto T^5$ , consistent with magnon-mediated relaxation in the ordered state. The temperature dependence of the internal hyperfine field yields a critical exponent $ \beta\approx 0.36$ , consistent with three-dimensional universality.
Together, these results establish AgCrP$ _2$ S$ _6$ as a quasi-one-dimensional $ S=3/2$ antiferromagnet embedded in a layered van der Waals host, in which local probes directly resolve the crossover from correlated intrachain spin dynamics to anisotropic three-dimensional magnetic order. More broadly, AgCrP$ _2$ S$ _6$ provides a useful van der Waals platform for studying dimensional crossover, correlated spin dynamics, and hyperfine-coupling evolution in low-dimensional antiferromagnets.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
15 pages, 10 figures
The active chiral random walk
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Nir Sherf, Joshua Uhlig, Jan Wójcik, Ralf Metzler, Yael Roichman, Erik Kalz
We introduce a minimal and intuitive lattice model for an active chiral particle which exhibits persistence, reversal, and chirality in its dynamics. It is fully defined by a small set of microscopic parameters that provide transparent control over the resulting dynamics. By coarse-graining, we extract continuum equations and closed-form expressions for the velocity autocorrelation, off-diagonal directional correlation, mean-squared displacement, and long-time diffusion and odd diffusion coefficients. The complex parameter $ \lambda=q_p+\mathrm{i}q_c$ thereby encodes the microscopic information on persistence ($ q_p$ ) and chirality ($ q_c$ ) of the walker. In a weak-turning limit, microscopically realized by infrequent reorientation events, the continuum description can be mapped onto well-established models of active matter. Outside this limit the discrete model exhibits finite-step dynamics, such as anti-persistent motion, that are not captured by a smooth angular-diffusion description. The model therefore provides a compact, exactly solvable, and readily tunable framework in which a small number of transparent microscopic parameters control chiral active transport.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
Mutual Linearity in Nonlinear Population Dynamics
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-11-11 20:00 EST
Mutual Linearity in Nonlinear Population DynamicsMutual linearity, the persistence of affine relations among stationary observables under arbitrarily strong changes of one transition rate, is known for Markov jump processes and chemical reaction networks. We show that generalized Lotka–Volterra dynamics form a new class of mutually linear systems, even though species can go extinct and attractors can be chaotic. Any change to one species’ equation acts on the others as one effective press and keeps all abundances affinely related: piecewise across extinctions, and as time averages on chaotic attractors.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph), Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
Research Square
Metasurface engineering of transient photothermal responses for vibrational imaging at living interfaces
Article | Imaging and sensing | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Siying Peng, Zhibin Hu, Tianrun Zhang, Jiayu Ding, Pengcheng Fu, Ziyang Huang, Bo Chen, Bangjie Song, Minglu Li, Xinyu Deng, Quan Zhou, Delong Zhang
Chemical transformations at biological interfaces are central to cellular function, yet the weak vibrational signals associated with subtle molecular changes limit their spatially resolved observation. Here, we present metasurface-driven mid-infrared photothermal imaging (MetaMIP), which uses resonantly engineered metasurfaces to amplify molecular temperature modulation while retaining rapid thermal recovery. Visible-light detection converts this response into submicrometre maps of individual nanoparticles and biological cells. In living cells, MetaMIP resolves spatially distinct chemical changes during enzymatic lipid conversion across the cell membrane. These results demonstrate the potential of engineered photothermal interfaces for mapping chemical composition and tracking its evolution during reactions.
Research Square:rs-11518551 (2026)
Posted on Research Square and Under Review at Light: Science & Applications
Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical techniques/Imaging and sensing, Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical materials and structures/Metamaterials, Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/Nonlinear optics, Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Other photonics/Biophotonics, Physical sciences/Physics/Optical physics/Nanophotonics and plasmonics
Almost-quantum correlations violate information causality
Article | Quantum information | 2026-11-10 19:00 EST
Anandamay Das Bhowmik, Manik Banik
Information causality (IC), a generalization of the no-signalling principle, states that communicating m classical bits cannot give the receiver access to more than m bits of information about the sender’s independent data. Although IC holds in quantum theory and excludes a broad class of supra-quantum correlations, its validity for the almost-quantum set has remained open. This semidefinite relaxation of the quantum set satisfies nontrivial communication complexity, no advantage for non-local computation, macroscopic locality, local orthogonality, and numerical evidence has suggested that it may also satisfy IC. Here we show that almost-quantum correlations violate IC, and do so without bound. Unlike earlier violations of IC, which rely on biased guesses, ours is driven by zero-error certificates: each is rare but never wrong, carries information linear in its probability, and vouches for many of the sender’s bits at once. Our result establishes a sharp dichotomy: either IC is a valid physical principle that excludes these correlations, or any nonsignalling theory realizing them admits no mutual information obeying consistency, data processing and the chain rule. In the latter case, we discuss why the chain rule is the natural property to relinquish, and how this possibility relates to histories-based formulations and to locality defined relative to the state rather than presupposed in a fixed spacetime.
Research Square:rs-11606954 (2026)
Posted on Research Square and Under Review at Nature Portfolio
Physical sciences/Physics/Quantum physics/Quantum information, Physical sciences/Physics/Quantum physics/Theoretical physics, Physical sciences/Physics/Quantum physics/Quantum mechanics