Communications Physics最新文献

{"title":"Search for thermodynamically stable ambient-pressure superconducting hydrides in the GNoME database.","authors":"Antonio Sanna, Tiago F T Cerqueira, Ekin Dogus Cubuk, Ion Errea, Yue-Wen Fang","doi":"10.1038/s42005-026-02552-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-026-02552-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Hydrides are considered to be one of the most promising families of compounds for achieving high temperature superconductivity. However, there are very few experimental reports of ambient-pressure hydride superconductivity, and the superconducting critical temperatures (<i>T</i> _c) are typically less than 10 K. At the same time several hydrides have been predicted to exhibit superconductivity around 100 K at ambient pressure but in thermodynamically unfavorable phases. In this work we aim at assessing the superconducting properties of thermodynamically stable hydride superconductors at room pressure by investigating the GNoME material database, which has been recently released and includes thousands of hydrides thermodynamically stable at 0K. To scan this large material space we have adopted a multi stage approach which combines machine learning for a fast initial evaluation and cutting edge ab initio methods to obtain a reliable estimation of <i>T</i> _c. Ultimately we have identified 25 cubic hydrides with <i>T</i> _c above 4.2 K and reach a maximum <i>T</i> _c of 17 K. While these critical temperatures are modest in comparison to some recent predictions, the systems where they are found, being stable, are likely to be experimentally accessible and of potential technological relevance.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"94"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12992110/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147480013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Five-stage ordering to a topological-defect-mediated ground state in a buckyball artificial spin ice.","authors":"Gavin M Macauley, Luca Berchialla, Peter M Derlet, Laura J Heyderman","doi":"10.1038/s42005-026-02663-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-026-02663-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Artificial spin ices are arrays of coupled nanomagnets, which exhibit a variety of fascinating collective behaviour including emergent magnetic monopoles and novel phase transitions. However, they have mainly been confined to two dimensions due to the challenges inherent to their fabrication and characterisation in three dimensions. Exploiting the third dimension offers new degrees of freedom that can lead to curvature-induced topological effects. Here, using numerical simulations, we investigate the magnetic behaviour of a finite three-dimensional spin lattice: the buckyball artificial spin ice, where the spins are located on the edges of a regular buckyball. This frustrated system has a non-trivial topology that results in a rich spectrum of thermal magnetic behaviour, beginning with a crossover from a Paramagnetic sector to a Spin-Ice sector, followed by the formation of an imperfect charge crystal, before spin order is established in three separate steps. The ground state configuration is described by a pair of robust topological magnetic defects that arise because of the finite curved nature of the lattice. Our work reveals the complex thermodynamics of the buckyball artificial spin ice and paves the way to designing unusual magnetic textures in other curved three-dimensional nanomagnetic systems, exploiting the interplay between topology and the dipolar interaction.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"288"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13549942/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148910921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Design of transient plasma photonic structure mirrors for high-power lasers using deep kernel Bayesian optimisation.","authors":"Slav Ivanov, Bernhard Ersfeld, Feng Dong, Dino A Jaroszynski","doi":"10.1038/s42005-026-02505-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-026-02505-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ultra-high power lasers are becoming important tools for advancing high-field physics and fusion research. However, their development is constrained by the damage thresholds of conventional optical components; it is challenging to design optical elements capable of withstanding high powers without them becoming impractically large. Here we show that transient plasma photonic structures, formed by the interaction of intercepting laser pulses in gas, can act as compact and robust reflective elements. Because these structures evolve in space and time, and rely on many interdependent parameters, designing optical components using traditional trial-and-error design methods is challenging. We show that machine learning can efficiently explore this complex parameter space to rapidly design robust, high reflectivity plasma mirrors. Moreover, this design process unexpectedly discovers a regime where unchirped laser pulses are compressed. This work demonstrates machine learning as a powerful tool for design, discovery and development of ultra-compact optical components for next-generation lasers.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"34"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12915518/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146225185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neutrino thermalization via randomization on a quantum processor.","authors":"Oriel Kiss, Ivano Tavernelli, Francesco Tacchino, Denis Lacroix, Alessandro Roggero","doi":"10.1038/s42005-026-02697-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-026-02697-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The dynamical evolution of neutrino flavor in supernovae can be modeled by an all-to-all spin Hamiltonian with random couplings. Simulating such two-local Hamiltonian dynamics remains a major challenge, as methods with controllable accuracy require circuit depths that increase at least linearly with system size, thereby exceeding the capabilities of current quantum devices. The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis predicts that these systems should thermalize, a behavior confirmed in small-scale classical simulations. Here we investigate flavor thermalization in much larger systems using random quantum circuits as an empirical tool to emulate the non-local dynamics, and demonstrate that thermal behavior can be reproduced using a depth independent of system size. By simulating systems of over one hundred qubits, we find that the thermalization time grows approximately as the square root of the system size, consistent with predictions from semi-classical methods. Our study also illustrates that near-term quantum devices are useful tools to test and validate empirical classical methods, and highlights an application of random circuits in physics.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"282"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13518235/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148839571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Smile-shaped electron gradient distributions observed during magnetic reconnection at Earth's magnetopause.","authors":"Jason R Shuster, Naoki Bessho, John C Dorelli, Daniel J Gershman, Jason M H Beedle, Harsha Gurram, Jonathan Ng, Li-Jen Chen, Roy B Torbert, James L Burch, Barbara L Giles, Richard E Denton, Paul A Cassak, M Hasan Barbhuiya, Steven J Schwartz, Yi-Hsin Liu, Cecilia Norgren, Daniel E da Silva, Kevin J Genestreti, Steven V Heuer, Matthew R Argall, Hanieh Karimi, Andy T Marshall, Rumi Nakamura, Haoming Liang, Vadim M Uritsky, Arya Afshari, Dominic S Payne","doi":"10.1038/s42005-026-02489-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-026-02489-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The electron diffusion region is central to NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission to understand collisionless magnetic reconnection, the plasma physics phenomenon crucial to triggering the explosive energy release of solar flares, powering auroras generated in planetary magnetospheres, and driving sawtooth crashes in laboratory fusion devices. Inside the diffusion region, electron velocity distributions exhibit highly-structured velocity-space signatures critical for elucidating the kinetic mechanisms fueling reconnection. Recent multi-spacecraft analysis techniques enabled observational study of the spatial gradient in the electron velocity distribution, which has been reported in electron-scale current layers to explain the kinetic origins of electron pressure gradients. However, electron gradient distributions have not yet been investigated inside the reconnection diffusion region. In this work, we discover that electron gradient distributions exhibit a smile-shaped velocity-space structure in the electron diffusion region of asymmetric magnetic reconnection at Earth's magnetopause. Characterizing the nature and prevalence of these smile-shaped electron gradient distributions offers a kinetic perspective into how electrons spatially evolve to provide the net electron pressure divergence that self-consistently supports non-ideal electric fields in the electron diffusion region of magnetopause reconnection. These results are relevant to space, astrophysical, and laboratory plasma communities working to understand the long-standing mystery of collisionless magnetic reconnection.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"56"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12900639/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146200338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Forces and symmetry breaking of a living meso-swimmer.","authors":"R A Lara, N Sharadhi, A A L Huttunen, L Ansas, E J G Rislakki, G M Bessa, M Backholm","doi":"10.1038/s42005-025-02486-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-025-02486-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Swimming is ubiquitous in nature and crucial for the survival of a wide range of organisms. The physics of swimming at the viscosity-dominated microscale and inertia-dominated macroscale is well studied. However, in between lies a complicated mesoscale with swimmers affected by non-linear and time-dependent fluid mechanics. The intricate motility strategies, combined with complex and periodically changing body shapes add extra challenges for accurate meso-swimming modelling. Here, we have further developed the micropipette force sensor to directly probe the swimming forces of the meso-organism <i>Artemia</i>. Through deep neural network-based image analysis, we show how <i>Artemia</i> achieves an increased propulsive force by increasing its level of time-reversal symmetry breaking. We present a universal force-based scaling law for a wide range of micro- to meso-organisms with different body shapes, swimming strategies, and level of inertia at the mesoscale. These results capture fundamental aspects of biological meso-swimming dynamics and provide guidance for future biomimicking meso-robot designs.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"53"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12893912/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146200365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Variational approach to open quantum systems with long-range competing interactions.","authors":"Dawid A Hryniuk, Marzena H Szymańska","doi":"10.1038/s42005-025-02479-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-025-02479-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Competition between short- and long-range interactions underpins many emergent phenomena in nature. Despite rapid progress in their experimental control, computational methods capable of accurately simulating open quantum many-body systems with complex long-ranged interactions at scale remain scarce. Here, we address this limitation by introducing an efficient and scalable approach to dissipative quantum lattices in one and two dimensions, combining matrix product operators and time-dependent variational Monte Carlo. We showcase the versatility, effectiveness, and unique methodological advantages of our algorithm by simulating the non-equilibrium dynamics and steady states of spin- <math> <mfrac><mrow><mn>1</mn></mrow> <mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow> </mfrac> </math> lattices with competing algebraically-decaying interactions for as many as <i>N</i> = 200 sites, revealing the emergence of spatially-modulated magnetic order far from equilibrium. This approach offers promising prospects for advancing our understanding of the complex non-equilibrium properties of a diverse variety of experimentally-realizable quantum systems with long-ranged interactions, including Rydberg atoms, ultracold dipolar molecules, and trapped ions.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"45"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12884967/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146156309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Background-free ¹²C(<i>α</i>, <i>γ</i>) angular distribution measurements with a time projection chamber operating in Gamma beams.","authors":"Kristian C Z Haverson, Robin Smith, Moshe Gai, Deran K Schweitzer, Sarah R Stern, Sean W Finch","doi":"10.1038/s42005-025-02458-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-025-02458-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The carbon oxygen ratio (C/O) at the end of stellar helium burning is a crucial nuclear input to stellar evolution theory. Knowledge of the C/O ratio with sufficient accuracy has eluded measurement over the past five decades. It is determined by the rate of oxygen formation in the fusion of helium with ¹²C, denoted as ¹²C(<i>α</i>, <i>γ</i>)¹⁶O. Even though recent methods employing a time projection chamber can measure the time-reverse photo-dissociation reaction, the results still do not show unambiguous agreement with the predictions of quantum scattering theory. Here, we improve this method using a N₂O gas target. This improvement allows us to eliminate the background caused by ¹²C photo-dissociation events, obtain complete angular distributions (0^∘-180^∘), and measure the cross sections over the 1^- resonance in ¹⁶O at <i>E</i> _cm ~ 2.4 MeV. These measurements resolve the discrepancy that was previously observed between the measured <i>E</i>1-<i>E</i>2 mixing phase angle (<i>ϕ</i> ₁₂) of ¹²C(<i>α</i>, <i>γ</i>)¹⁶O and the predictions of quantum scattering theory. This newfound agreement demonstrates the viability of our method for conducting measurements at lower energies.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"27"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12823443/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146046227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Partial fluidization theory of collective cell migration.","authors":"Igor S Aranson, Lev S Tsimring","doi":"10.1038/s42005-026-02702-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-026-02702-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Collective cell and tissue migration is crucial for various biological processes, including morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. Migrating cell monolayers often exhibit complex viscoelastic responses and coexistence of solid and liquid-like behaviors that are not well understood in the framework of existing theories. Here, we introduce a partial fluidization approach for collective cell migration. We treat the cell monolayer as a single albeit spatially and temporally non-uniform phase bridging two distinct states: a viscous liquid and a soft solid with an elastic response to shear. The continuous transition between these states is controlled by the fluidization order parameter that, in turn, depends on the normalized shear stress. The model successfully captures key experimental observations: solid-like plug flow of cells in a microfluidic channel, spatial coexistence of moving and immobile domains in cell monolayers, and solid body-like rotational flow of cells in a circular chamber. The approach provides insights into the physical mechanisms of cell migration. It can be extended to more realistic situations, such as confluent monolayers on curved, compliant, or degradable surfaces as well as three-dimensional proliferating tissues and chemical signaling.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"281"},"PeriodicalIF":5.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13518239/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148839604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measuring electric-acoustic heterodyning in piezoelectric materials.","authors":"Tomasz Karpisz, Robert L Lirette, Aaron M Hagerstrom, Nathan D Orloff, Angela C Stelson","doi":"10.1038/s42005-025-02457-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s42005-025-02457-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many electrically active devices rely on nonlinear signal mixing (heterodyning) between two electrical signals. Heterodyning between electric and acoustic signals can allow for active control of typically passive components such as transmission lines, acoustic resonators, and electrical resonators built from piezoelectric materials. However, there are few techniques to characterize the nonlinear properties of materials that lead to heterodyning between electric and acoustic signals within the material. Here we demonstrate a proof-of-concept microwave interferometer that uses electromagnetic and acoustic waves to measure second-order mixing from electrical and acoustic signals in a piezoelectric material. The sum and difference frequencies of signal mixing can be detected in the electromagnetic spectrum in our measurement. We show the effect of frequency and power of the fundamental signals on the mixing products. We additionally characterize the heterodyne signal to show that it is electric-acoustic in nature, versus purely electric. Characterizing nonlinear electric-acoustic properties is important to the development of next generation piezoelectric materials models and devices.</p>","PeriodicalId":10540,"journal":{"name":"Communications Physics","volume":"9 1","pages":"26"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12823382/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146050710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}