Sars-Cov2 world pandemic recurrent waves controlled by variants evolution and vaccination campaign.

While understanding the time evolution of Covid-19 pandemic is needed to plan economics and tune sanitary policies, a quantitative information of the recurrent epidemic waves is elusive. This work describes a statistical physics study of the subsequent waves in the epidemic spreading of Covid-19 and disclose the frequency components of the epidemic waves pattern over two years in United States, United Kingdom and Japan. These countries have been taken as representative cases of different containment policies such as "Mitigation" (USA and UK) and "Zero Covid" (Japan) policies.

Nanoscale inhomogeneity of charge density waves dynamics in LaSrNiO.

While stripe phases with broken rotational symmetry of charge density are known to emerge in doped strongly correlated perovskites, the dynamics and heterogeneity of spatial ordering remain elusive. Here we shed light on the temperature dependent lattice motion and the spatial nanoscale phase separation of charge density wave order in the archetypal striped phase in LaSrNiO (LSNO) perovskite using X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) joint with scanning micro X-ray diffraction (SµXRD). While it is known that the CDW in 1/8 doped cuprates shows a remarkable stability we report the CDW motion dynamics by XPCS in nickelates with an anomalous quantum glass regime at low temperature, T < 65 K, and the expected thermal melting at higher temperature 65 < T < 120 K.

Periodic recurrent waves of Covid-19 epidemics and vaccination campaign.

While understanding of periodic recurrent waves of Covid-19 pidemics would aid to combat the pandemics, quantitative analysis of data over a two years period from the outbreak, is lacking. The complexity of Covid-19 recurrent waves is related with the concurrent role of i) the containment measures enforced to mitigate the epidemics spreading ii) the rate of viral gene mutations, and iii) the variable immune response of the host implemented by vaccination. This work focuses on the effect of massive vaccination and gene variants on the recurrent waves in a representative case of countries enforcing mitigation and vaccination strategy.

Metastable states in plateaus and multi-wave epidemic dynamics of Covid-19 spreading in Italy.

The control of Covid 19 epidemics by public health policy in Italy during the first and the second epidemic waves has been driven by using reproductive number R(t) to identify the supercritical (percolative), the subcritical (arrested), separated by the critical regime. Here we show that to quantify the Covid-19 spreading rate with containment measures there is a need of a 3D expanded parameter space phase diagram built by the combination of R(t) and doubling time T(t). In this space we identify the Covid-19 dynamics in Italy and its administrative Regions.

Epidemic spreading in an expanded parameter space: the supercritical scaling laws and subcritical metastable phases.

While the mathematical laws of uncontrolled epidemic spreading are well known, the statistical physics of coronavirus epidemics with containment measures is currently lacking. The modelling of available data of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 over 230 days, in different countries representative of different containment policies is relevant to quantify the efficiency of these policies to face the containment of any successive wave. At this aim we have built a 3D phase diagram tracking the simultaneous evolution and the interplay of the doubling time,, and the reproductive number,measured using the methodological definition used by the Robert Koch Institute.

Efficiency of COVID-19 mobile contact tracing containment by measuring time-dependent doubling time.

The COVID-19 epidemic of the novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2) has spread around the world. While different containment policies using non-pharmaceutical interventions have been applied, their efficiencies are not known quantitatively. We show that the doubling time T (t) with the success s factor, the characteristic time of the exponential growth of T (t) in the arrested regime, is a reliable tool for early predictions of epidemic spread time evolution and provides a quantitative measure of the success of different containment measures.

Myelin basic protein dynamics from out-of-equilibrium functional state to degraded state in myelin.

Living matter is a quasi-stationary out-of-equilibrium system; in this physical condition, structural fluctuations at nano- and meso-scales are needed to understand the physics behind its biological functionality. Myelin has a simple ultrastructure whose fluctuations show correlated disorder in its functional out-of-equilibrium state. However, there is no information on the relationship between this correlated disorder and the dynamics of the intrinsically disordered Myelin Basic Protein (MBP) which is expected to influence the membrane structure and overall functionality.

Is There Any Hidden Symmetry in the Stripe Structure of Perovskite High-Temperature Superconductors?

Local and fast structural probes using synchrotron radiation have shown nanoscale striped puddles and nanoscale phase separation in doped perovskites. It is known that the striped phases in doped perovskites are due to competing interactions involving charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom. In this work, we show that two different stripes can be represented as a superposition of a pair of stripes, U(θ ) or D(θ ), characterized by perovskite tilts where one of the pair is rotated in relation to the other partner by an angle Δθ = π/2.

Nanoscale Correlated Disorder in Out-of-Equilibrium Myelin Ultrastructure.

Ultrastructural fluctuations at nanoscale are fundamental to assess properties and functionalities of advanced out-of-equilibrium materials. We have taken myelin as a model of supramolecular assembly in out-of-equilibrium living matter. Myelin sheath is a simple stable multilamellar structure of high relevance and impact in biomedicine.

Breakdown of the Migdal approximation at Lifshitz transitions with giant zero-point motion in the H3S superconductor.

While 203 K high temperature superconductivity in H3S has been interpreted by BCS theory in the dirty limit here we focus on the effects of hydrogen zero-point-motion and the multiband electronic structure relevant for multigap superconductivity near Lifshitz transitions. We describe how the topology of the Fermi surfaces evolves with pressure giving different Lifshitz-transitions. A neck-disrupting Lifshitz-transition (type 2) occurs where the van Hove singularity, vHs, crosses the chemical potential at 210 GPa and new small 2D Fermi surface portions appear with slow Fermi velocity where the Migdal-approximation becomes questionable.

Changes of statistical structural fluctuations unveils an early compacted degraded stage of PNS myelin.

Degradation of the myelin sheath is a common pathology underlying demyelinating neurological diseases from Multiple Sclerosis to Leukodistrophies. Although large malformations of myelin ultrastructure in the advanced stages of Wallerian degradation is known, its subtle structural variations at early stages of demyelination remains poorly characterized. This is partly due to the lack of suitable and non-invasive experimental probes possessing sufficient resolution to detect the degradation.

Controlling photoinduced electron transfer via defects self-organization for novel functional macromolecular systems.

The electrons transfer (ET) from an atom or a molecule, donor (D), to another, acceptor (A) is the basis of many fundamental chemical and physical processes. The ET mechanism is controlled by spatial arrangements of donor and acceptors: it's the particular spatial arrangement and thus the particular distance and the orientation between the electron donors and acceptors that controls the efficiency in charge separation processes in nature. Here, we stress the importance of this concept reviewing how spatial distribution of atomic and molecular self-assembly can determine the quality and physical features of ET process from biology to material science.

Multiscale distribution of oxygen puddles in 1/8 doped YBa2Cu3O6.67.

Despite intensive research a physical explanation of high Tc superconductors remains elusive. One reason for this is that these materials have generally a very complex structure making useless theoretical models for a homogeneous system. Little is known on the control of the critical temperature by the space disposition of defects because of lack of suitable experimental probes.

Temperature and solvent dependence of the dynamical landscape of tau protein conformations.

We report the variation with temperature of the ensemble distribution of conformations spanned by the tau protein in its dynamical states measured by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) using synchrotron radiation. The SAXS data show a clear temperature variation of the distribution of occupied protein conformations from 293 to 318 K. More conformations with a smaller radius of gyration are occupied at higher temperature.

Optimum inhomogeneity of local lattice distortions in La2CuO(4+y).

Electronic functionalities in materials from silicon to transition metal oxides are, to a large extent, controlled by defects and their relative arrangement. Outstanding examples are the oxides of copper, where defect order is correlated with their high superconducting transition temperatures. The oxygen defect order can be highly inhomogeneous, even in optimal superconducting samples, which raises the question of the nature of the sample regions where the order does not exist but which nonetheless form the "glue" binding the ordered regions together.

Continuous thermal collapse of the intrinsically disordered protein tau is driven by its entropic flexible domain.

The tau protein belongs to the category of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDP), which in their native state lack a folded structure and fluctuate between many conformations. In its physiological state, tau helps nucleating and stabilizing the microtubules' (MTs) surfaces in the axons of the neurons. Tau is mainly composed by two domains: (i) the binding domain that tightly bounds the MT surfaces and (ii) the projection domain that exerts a long-range entropic repulsive force and thus provides the proper spacing between adjacent MTs.

Far from equilibrium percolation, stochastic and shape resonances in the physics of life.

Key physical concepts, relevant for the cross-fertilization between condensed matter physics and the physics of life seen as a collective phenomenon in a system out-of-equilibrium, are discussed. The onset of life can be driven by: (a) the critical fluctuations at the protonic percolation threshold in membrane transport; (b) the stochastic resonance in biological systems, a mechanism that can exploit external and self-generated noise in order to gain efficiency in signal processing; and (c) the shape resonance (or Fano resonance or Feshbach resonance) in the association and dissociation processes of bio-molecules (a quantum mechanism that could play a key role to establish a macroscopic quantum coherence in the cell).

Evolution and control of oxygen order in a cuprate superconductor.

The disposition of defects in metal oxides is a key attribute exploited for applications from fuel cells and catalysts to superconducting devices and memristors. The most typical defects are mobile excess oxygens and oxygen vacancies, which can be manipulated by a variety of thermal protocols as well as optical and d.c.

The Physics of Life and Quantum Complex Matter: A Case of Cross-Fertilization.

Progress in the science of complexity, from the Big Bang to the coming of humankind, from chemistry and biology to geosciences and medicine, and from materials engineering to energy sciences, is leading to a shift of paradigm in the physical sciences. The focus is on the understanding of the non-equilibrium process in fine tuned systems. Quantum complex materials such as high temperature superconductors and living matter are both non-equilibrium and fine tuned systems.

Scale-free structural organization of oxygen interstitials in La(2)CuO(4+y).

It is well known that the microstructures of the transition-metal oxides, including the high-transition-temperature (high-T(c)) copper oxide superconductors, are complex. This is particularly so when there are oxygen interstitials or vacancies, which influence the bulk properties. For example, the oxygen interstitials in the spacer layers separating the superconducting CuO(2) planes undergo ordering phenomena in Sr(2)O(1+y)CuO(2) (ref.

A possible mechanism for evading temperature quantum decoherence in living matter by feshbach resonance.

A new possible scenario for the origin of the molecular collective behaviour associated with the emergence of living matter is presented. We propose that the transition from a non-living to a living cell could be mapped to a quantum transition to a coherent entanglement of condensates, like in a multigap BCS superconductor. Here the decoherence-evading qualities at high temperature are based on the Feshbach resonance that has been recently proposed as the driving mechanism for high T(c) superconductors.