Nature Physics

Nature Physics, Published online: 06 April 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0885-x

At a long distance

Nature Physics, Published online: 06 April 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0864-2

Astrophysical neutrinos could originate from blazars, but their modelling is challenging. Instead, the source of cosmic neutrinos could be a special yet unidentified class in which jets burrow through stellar material and produce neutrinos.

Nature Physics, Published online: 06 April 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0869-x

Mathematical art

Nature Physics, Published online: 06 April 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0876-y

The impending update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is an apt moment to chart the future of the field — a future that should be supported and ensured.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0861-5

An ultra-cold atomic gas is used to image a phase transition in an iron pnictide with micrometre resolution.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0826-8

A trapped quantum gas and optical microscopy are simultaneously employed to measure the nematicity of an iron-based superconductor. This demonstrates the potential of quantum gases to be used for scanning microscopy of quantum materials.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0845-5

A kind of quantum metasurface made of an atom array is proposed, providing the possibility to control both spatiotemporal and quantum properties of transmitted and reflected light.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0871-3

Single rare-earth ions are hard to observe and even harder to use as qubits. However, with the help of coupling to an optical cavity and clever engineering of selection rules, a big step has been taken to establish their new role in the quantum world.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0843-7

A general mechanism through which elastic filaments suspended in a strong compressional flow buckle and spontaneously acquire a chiral helicoidal shape is uncovered and elucidated theoretically.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0846-4

The quark–gluon plasma, in which quarks and gluons are deconfined, is a transient state created in collisions of heavy nuclei. By defining an effective temperature, this temperature and the system’s entropy density and speed of sound are determined.

Nature Physics, Published online: 30 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0825-9

Placing two Bernal-stacked graphene bilayers on top of each other with a small twist angle gives correlated states. As the band structure can be tuned by an electric field, this platform is a more varied setting to study correlated electrons.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0854-4

Determining the properties that emerge from the equations that govern turbulent flow is a fundamental challenge in non-equilibrium physics. A hydrodynamic theory for two-dimensional active nematic fluids at vanishing Reynolds number is now put forward, revealing a universal scaling behaviour for this class of systems.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0819-7

Spin ice is known as the magnetic analogue of ordinary ice, where the behaviour of its spins closely mirrors that of protons in water ice. It now has a sibling based on higher-order magnetic octupoles.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0839-3

Two-dimensional density patterns with two-, four- and six-fold symmetries emerge in homogeneous Bose–Einstein condensates when the atomic interactions are modulated at multiple frequencies causing the coherent mixing of excitations.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0827-7

A detailed neutron-scattering study reveals a quantum spin liquid behaviour in Ce2Sn2O7 originating from its higher-order magnetic multipolar moments acting on the geometrically frustrated pyrochlore lattice.

Nature Physics, Published online: 23 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0841-9

Activity in certain living systems can lead to swirling flows akin to turbulence. Here, the authors connect the dynamics of topological defects in starfish oocyte membranes to vortex dynamics in 2D Bose–Einstein condensates.

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0833-9

Laboratory experiments reproduce the three-dimensional pancake-like shape of Jupiter’s vortices. The thickness of the Great Red Spot is predicted, awaiting comparison with NASA’s Juno mission.

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0832-x

Experiments on the deformation and bursting of elastic capsules impacting rigid walls are reported, revealing an analogy to the impact of liquid drops. The developed model for macroscopic objects could potentially be expanded to microscopic scales.

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0816-x

One way of producing Majorana fermions for topological quantum computing is to induce superconductivity in other topological states. Here, the proximity effect does this for the quantum spin Hall effect state in a 2D material.

Nature Physics, Published online: 16 March 2020; doi:10.1038/s41567-020-0836-6

Measurements of non-Hermitian photon dynamics show boundary-localized bulk eigenstates given by the non-Hermitian skin effect. A fundamental revision of the bulk–boundary correspondence in open systems is required to understand the underlying physics.