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Nature Physics offers news and reviews alongside top-quality research papers in a monthly publication, covering the entire spectrum of physics. Physics addresses the properties and interactions of matter and energy, and plays a key role in the development of a broad range of technologies. To reflect this, Nature Physics covers all areas of pure and applied physics research. The journal focuses on core physics disciplines, but is also open to a broad range of topics whose central theme falls within the bounds of physics.
Updated: 12 hours 36 min ago

Quasi-crystalline order in vibrating granular matter

Fri, 19/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 19 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02364-1

In quasi-crystals, constituents do not form spatially periodic patterns, but their structures still give rise to sharp diffraction patterns. Now, quasi-crystalline patterns are found in a system of spherical macroscopic grains vibrating on a substrate.

Universality class of a spinor Bose–Einstein condensate far from equilibrium

Fri, 19/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 19 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02339-2

The dynamics of isolated quantum many-body systems far from equilibrium is the object of intense research. Magnetization measurements in a spinor atomic gas now offer a way to classify universal dynamics based on symmetry and topology.

Spontaneous self-constraint in active nematic flows

Thu, 18/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 18 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02336-5

Active flows in biological systems swirl. A coupling between active flows, elongated deformations and defect dynamics helps preserve self-organised structures against disordered swirling.

Non-Hermitian topology in a multi-terminal quantum Hall device

Thu, 18/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 18 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02337-4

Non-Hermitian systems can be described in terms of gain and loss with a coupled environment—a hard feature to tune in quantum devices. Now an experiment shows non-Hermitian topology in a quantum Hall ring without relying on gain and loss.

Emergent seesaw oscillations during cellular directional decision-making

Thu, 18/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 18 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02335-6

Cell motion along linear confinements is deterministic. Now a model predicts deterministic oscillations in cellular polarization at a Y junction in a set-up with adhesive patterns.

Flexoelectric polarizing and control of a ferromagnetic metal

Wed, 17/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 17 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02333-8

Electric polarization is well defined for insulators but not for metals. Electric-like polarization is now realized via inhomogeneous lattice strain in metallic SrRuO3, generating a pseudo-electric field. This field affects the material’s electronic bands.

Anomalous localization in a kicked quasicrystal

Wed, 17/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 17 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02329-4

Phases of matter can host different transport behaviours, ranging from diffusion to localization. Anomalous transport has now been observed in an interacting Bose gas in a one-dimensional lattice subject to a pulsed incommensurate potential.

Long-lived valley states in bilayer graphene quantum dots

Wed, 17/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 17 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02334-7

Using the valley degree of freedom in analogy to spin to encode qubits could be advantageous as many of the known decoherence mechanisms do not apply. Now long relaxation times are demonstrated for valley qubits in bilayer graphene quantum dots.

Heavy-tailed neuronal connectivity arises from Hebbian self-organization

Wed, 17/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 17 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02332-9

The strengths of connections in networks of neurons are heavy-tailed, with some neurons connected much more strongly than most. Now a simple network model can explain how this heavy-tailed connectivity emerges across four different species.

Second-scale rotational coherence and dipolar interactions in a gas of ultracold polar molecules

Wed, 17/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 17 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02328-5

Coherence between rotational states of polar molecules has previously been limited by light shifts in optical traps. A magic-wavelength trap is able to maximize the coherence time and enables the observation of tunable dipolar interactions.

Diversity of information pathways drives sparsity in real-world networks

Wed, 17/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 17 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02330-x

Topological features such as modularity and small-worldness are common in real-world networks. The emergence of such features may be driven by a trade-off between information exchange and response diversity that resembles thermodynamic efficiency.

A new way to use old codes

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02369-w

Scalable quantum computers require quantum error-correcting codes that can robustly store information. Exploiting the structure of well-known classical codes may help create more efficient approaches to quantum error correction.

Squeeze it tight

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02355-2

Quantum technologies change our notion of measurement. Chenyu Wang elaborates on how quantum squeezing enhances the precision of gravitational-wave interferometers.

Twenty years of 2D materials

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02381-0

Two-dimensional crystals have revolutionized fundamental research across a staggering range of disciplines. We take stock of the progress gained after twenty years of work.

Never write off writing

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02356-1

Never write off writing

A tiny escape

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02373-0

A tiny escape

Ferroelectric and spontaneous quantum Hall states in intrinsic rhombohedral trilayer graphene

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02327-6

Bilayer graphene is known to host states where interactions dominate the electronic behaviour. Now, transport measurements show that this is also true for trilayer graphene and give evidence for ferroelectric states and states with high Chern number.

Programmable Heisenberg interactions between Floquet qubits

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02326-7

External driving of qubits can exploit their nonlinearity to generate different forms of interqubit interactions, broadening the capabilities of the platform.

Time-Efficient Constant-Space-Overhead Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation

Tue, 16/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02325-8

Large quantum computers will require error correcting codes, but most proposals have prohibitive requirements for overheads in the number of qubits, processing time or both. A way to combine smaller codes now gives a much more efficient protocol.

Parallel quantum control meets optical atomic clocks

Mon, 15/01/2024 - 00:00

Nature Physics, Published online: 15 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02343-6

Optical atomic clocks are extremely accurate sensors despite the poor use of their resources. A parallel quantum control approach might help to optimize the resources of optical atomic clocks, which could lead to an exponential improvement in their performance.

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University of Crete - Department of Physics  - Voutes University Campus - GR-70013 Heraklion, Greece
phone: +30 2810 394300 - email: chair@physics.uoc.gr