Search

In order to study the dynamics of solitons in microresonators, which underlie nonlinear phenomena like Kerr comb generation, both high temporal resolution and long record times are needed. Here, the authors develop a coherent sampling method to directly image the temporal behavior of solitons.

Coherent quantum control of a single ¹²³Sb nucleus using electric fields produced within a silicon nanoelectronic device is demonstrated experimentally, validating a concept predicted theoretically in 1961.

Chip-based architectures for mid-infrared gas sensing could enable many applications. In this direction, the authors demonstrate a microcomb-based dual-comb spectroscopy sensor with GHz resolution in the mid-IR band, with stability completely determined by a single high-Q microresonator.

Using CMOS-ready ultra-high-Q microresonators, a highly coherent electrically pumped integrated laser with frequency noise of 0.2 Hz² Hz⁻¹, corresponding to a short-term linewidth of 1.2 Hz, is demonstrated. The device configuration is also found to relieve the dispersion requirements for microcomb generation that have limited certain nonlinear platforms.

A quantum spin liquid is a hypothetical system of spins (such as those carried by electrons), the orientations of which continue to fluctuate even at absolute zero. Theoretical and experimental evidence for the existence of such states at the microscopic level is elusive, but these authors have modelled correlated electrons arranged on a honeycomb lattice (such as in graphene), and identified the conditions under which a microscopic quantum spin liquid would be realized in two dimensions.

Spatial working memory is known to involve the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, but the specificities of the connection have been unclear; now, a direct path between these two areas is defined that is necessary for the encoding of spatial cues in mice, but is not required for the maintenance or retrieval of these cues.

Observation of ²⁸O and ²⁷O through their decay into ²⁴O and four and three neutrons, respectively, is reported, with the ²⁸O nucleus being of particular interest owing to proton and neutron magic numbers and its extremely asymmetric neutron-to-proton ratio.

Two classification algorithms that use the quantum state space to produce feature maps are demonstrated on a superconducting processor, enabling the solution of problems when the feature space is large and the kernel functions are computationally expensive to estimate.

Controlling p-wave interactions between fermions would enable studies of interesting quantum phenomena. Towards this end, Juliá-Díaz et al. propose a combination of strongly confined nanoplasmonic traps and laser-induced gauge fields that could produce the necessary coupling of atomic states.

JWST and Keck II spectral observations of Saturn’s moon Titan reveal methyl (CH₃) as well as non-local thermodynamic equilibrium emission bands of CO and CO₂. Imaging shows clouds in Titan’s northern hemisphere at several epochs, with some appearing to evolve in altitude.

Neurons form synapses onto glioma cells, and depolarization of glioma membranes promotes glioma growth in vivo, whereas blocking electrochemical signalling blocks tumour growth.

Quantum information is often thought of in terms of manipulating discrete qubits. But continuous variables can also carry data. A method for storing continuous-variable states of light for up to a millisecond in room-temperature memories is now demonstrated.

Designing high radiation efficiency antennas for portable transmitters in low frequency communication systems remains a challenge. Here, the authors report on using piezoelectricity to more efficiently radiate while achieving a bandwidth eighty three times higher than the passive Bode-Fano limit.

Deep sleep is hypothesized to restore the brain's capacity to learn. Here the authors provide causal evidence by specifically perturbing slow wave activity over the motor cortex during NREM sleep in humans and demonstrate a reduction in neurophysiological markers of plasticity and capacity for motor learning.

It is now possible to predict what a chemical smells like based on its chemical structure, however to date, this has only been done for a small number of odor descriptors. Here, using natural-language semantic representations, the authors demonstrate prediction of a much wider range of descriptors.

During volcanic eruptions, solidifying magma ascends through the volcanic conduit, often accompanied by repetitive, drum-beat seismicity. Laboratory experiments on magma samples from Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat, and Mount St Helens Volcano, USA, show that viscous melt formed at the surface between the rising magma and conduit walls can temporarily halt magma ascent, accentuating the cyclical seismicity.

Poulter et al. report on vector trace cells (VTCs) in the hippocampal subiculum. VTCs support vector coding for previously encountered, now absent, objects and boundaries, potentially facilitating navigation to remembered goals.

This work examines imaginarity as a resource in quantum information theory. The authors extend the resource theory of imaginarity to distributed scenarios, discuss the operational meaning and its role in channel discrimination.

While continuous-variable QKD presents many experimental advantages, a full security proof that addresses the most general attacks and digitized signals in the finite-size regime has so far been lacking. Here, the authors fill this gap in the case of a protocol with a binary phase modulation.

The room-temperature magnetism of colloidal doped semiconductor nanocrystals can be manipulated reversibly by controlling their electric charge state, making such materials attractive for potential spintronics applications.

α-RuCl₃ has recently attracted great interest as a possible experimental realization of the Kitaev model. Neutron scattering measurements of a single crystal of this material reveal signatures of Majorana excitations, consistent with Kitaev’s predictions.

Intracranial recordings from epileptic patients during a number of different behavioural tasks reveal, in impressive spatiotemporal detail, that the human brain links perception and action through persistent neural activity in the prefrontal cortex and functionally linked brain regions.

Simulations of interacting particles in classical systems generally involve the Metropolis algorithm. A quantum version of this approach has been hindered by the lack of a means to simulate the equilibrium and static properties of quantum systems. This study overcomes this problem. Its quantum version of the Metropolis algorithm could find widespread application in many body quantum physics, such as computing the binding energies of complex molecules or determining hadron masses in gauge theories.

A programmable quantum simulator with 256 qubits is created using neutral atoms in two-dimensional optical tweezer arrays, demonstrating a quantum phase transition and revealing new quantum phases of matter.

Superconducting quantum circuits are used to directly observe and characterize topological phase transitions; this approach promises to be a powerful and general platform for characterizing topological phenomena in quantum systems.

Biomedical measurements usually generate high-dimensional data where individual samples are classified in several categories. Vogelstein et al. propose a supervised dimensionality reduction method which estimates the low-dimensional data projection for classification and prediction in big datasets.

Experience constantly shapes perception, but the neural mechanisms of this rapid plasticity are unclear. Here, Holdgraf et al. record neural activity in the human auditory cortex and show that listening to normal speech elicits rapid plasticity that increases the neural gain for features of sound that are key for speech intelligibility.

The correlations exhibited by multipartite quantum systems composed of more than two entangled subsystems are more difficult to describe than those of bipartite quantum systems. Fritzet al.propose a principle of 'local orthogonality' as a key element to describing multipartite quantum correlations.

As a blueprint for high-precision quantum simulation, an 18-qubit algorithm that consists of more than 1,400 two-qubit gates is demonstrated, and reconstructs the energy eigenvalues of the simulated one-dimensional wire to a precision of 1 per cent.

The state of a superconducting circuit qubit governs the photonic heat flow through an integrated assembly, constituting a quantum heat valve that provides a testbed for exploring quantum thermodynamics in a circuit quantum electrodynamics setting.

Despite their versatility, superconducting qubits such as transmons still have limited coherence times compared to resonators. Here, the authors show how to use a single transmon to implement universal one-qubit and two-qubit operations among nine qubits encoded in superconducting resonators’ eigenmodes.

Performing radio-frequency arbitrary waveform generation in the optical domain offers advantages over electronic-based methods but suffers from lack of integration and slow speed. Here, Wang et al. propose a fast-reconfigurable, radio-frequency arbitrary waveform generator fully integrated in a silicon chip.

Up to three distinct frequency combs are simultaneously generated from an optical microresonator and a continuous-wave laser, enabling the deployment of dual- and triple-comb-based methods to applications unachievable by current technologies.

In open quantum systems the correlations between the system and its environment play an important role. A trapped-ion experiment demonstrates that these correlations can be detected without accessing or knowing anything about the environment or its interactions.