Microwave Signature of Topological Andreev level Crossings in a Bismuth-based Josephson Junction.

Demonstrating the topological protection of Andreev states in Josephson junctions is an experimental challenge. In particular the telltale 4π periodicity expected for the current phase relation has remained elusive, because of fast parity breaking processes. It was predicted that low temperature ac susceptibility measurements could reveal the topological protection of quantum spin Hall edge states by probing their low energy Andreev spectrum at finite frequency.

Ballistic edge states in Bismuth nanowires revealed by SQUID interferometry.

The protection against backscattering provided by topology is a striking property. In two-dimensional insulators, a consequence of this topological protection is the ballistic nature of the one-dimensional helical edge states. One demonstration of ballisticity is the quantized Hall conductance.

Possible anisotropic s--f hybridization in a cubic heavy-fermion compound: CeIn1Sn2.

Polarized neutron scattering measurements on a single crystal of composition CeIn1Sn2 show a broad, single-ion, spectral response centered on a characteristic energy of approximately 9+/-1 meV at the zone boundary point (0 0 1.5). The zone center spectral response is closely similar in form but has a slightly reduced amplitude, smaller by some 20%.

Magnetic form factor of alpha-Ce: towards understanding the magnetism of cerium.

A favored interpretation of the gamma <--> alpha phase transition in cerium postulates the transformation of the localized 4f state in gamma-Ce to a weakly correlated itinerant 4f band in alpha-Ce. However, results of high-energy neutron inelastic scattering measurements, presented here, show clearly that the magnetic susceptibility response from alpha-Ce follows the Ce3+ form factor despite the large, 30-fold, increase in its spectral width relative to that in gamma-Ce. This observation provides, for the first time, indisputable evidence for the localized character of the 4f state in the alpha phase.