Thermal exploration in engine design.

A negative-temperature heat engine is achieved with photons.

Small-world complex network generation on a digital quantum processor.

Quantum cellular automata (QCA) evolve qubits in a quantum circuit depending only on the states of their neighborhoods and model how rich physical complexity can emerge from a simple set of underlying dynamical rules. The inability of classical computers to simulate large quantum systems hinders the elucidation of quantum cellular automata, but quantum computers offer an ideal simulation platform. Here, we experimentally realize QCA on a digital quantum processor, simulating a one-dimensional Goldilocks rule on chains of up to 23 superconducting qubits.

Fractional Integrable Nonlinear Soliton Equations.

Nonlinear integrable equations serve as a foundation for nonlinear dynamics, and fractional equations are well known in anomalous diffusion. We connect these two fields by presenting the discovery of a new class of integrable fractional nonlinear evolution equations describing dispersive transport in fractional media. These equations can be constructed from nonlinear integrable equations using a widely generalizable mathematical process utilizing completeness relations, dispersion relations, and inverse scattering transform techniques.

Spontaneous Exact Spin-Wave Fractals in Magnonic Crystals.

Exact fractals of nonlinear waves that rely on strong dispersion and nonlinearity and arise spontaneously out of magnetic media were observed for the first time. The experiments make use of a microwave to excite a spin wave in a quasi-one-dimensional magnonic crystal. When the power of the input microwave (P_{in}) is low, the output signal has a power-frequency spectrum that consists of a single peak.

Absence of Landau damping in driven three-component Bose-Einstein condensate in optical lattices.

We explore the quantum many-body physics of a three-component Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice driven by laser fields in V and Λ configurations. We obtain exact analytical expressions for the energy spectrum and amplitudes of elementary excitations, and discover symmetries among them. We demonstrate that the applied laser fields induce a gap in the otherwise gapless Bogoliubov spectrum.

Many-Body Quantum Chaos and Entanglement in a Quantum Ratchet.

We uncover signatures of quantum chaos in the many-body dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate-based quantum ratchet in a toroidal trap. We propose measures including entanglement, condensate depletion, and spreading over a fixed basis in many-body Hilbert space, which quantitatively identify the region in which quantum chaotic many-body dynamics occurs, where random matrix theory is limited or inaccessible. With these tools, we show that many-body quantum chaos is neither highly entangled nor delocalized in the Hilbert space, contrary to conventionally expected signatures of quantum chaos.

Quantifying Complexity in Quantum Phase Transitions via Mutual Information Complex Networks.

We quantify the emergent complexity of quantum states near quantum critical points on regular 1D lattices, via complex network measures based on quantum mutual information as the adjacency matrix, in direct analogy to quantifying the complexity of electroencephalogram or functional magnetic resonance imaging measurements of the brain. Using matrix product state methods, we show that network density, clustering, disparity, and Pearson's correlation obtain the critical point for both quantum Ising and Bose-Hubbard models to a high degree of accuracy in finite-size scaling for three classes of quantum phase transitions, Z_{2}, mean field superfluid to Mott insulator, and a Berzinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless crossover.

Entangled Dynamics in Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling of Bose-Einstein Condensates.

Tunneling of a quasibound state is a nonsmooth process in the entangled many-body case. Using time-evolving block decimation, we show that repulsive (attractive) interactions speed up (slow down) tunneling. While the escape time scales exponentially with small interactions, the maximization time of the von Neumann entanglement entropy between the remaining quasibound and escaped atoms scales quadratically.

Interaction-Assisted Quantum Tunneling of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Out of a Single Trapping Well.

We experimentally study tunneling of Bose-condensed ^{87}Rb atoms prepared in a quasibound state and observe a nonexponential decay caused by interatomic interactions. A combination of a magnetic quadrupole trap and a thin 1.3  μm barrier created using a blue-detuned sheet of light is used to tailor traps with controllable depth and tunneling rate.

Chaotic spin-wave solitons in magnetic film feedback rings.

Chaotic spin-wave solitons in magnetic film active feedback rings were observed for the first time. At some ring gain level, one observes the self-generation of a single spin-wave soliton pulse in the ring. When the pulse circulates in the ring, its amplitude varies chaotically with time.

Defect engineering: Graphene gets designer defects.

An extended one-dimensional defect that has the potential to act as a conducting wire has been embedded in another perfect graphene sheet.

Formation of random dark envelope solitons from incoherent waves.

This Letter reports experimental results on random temporal dark solitons. One excites an incoherent large-amplitude propagating spin-wave packet in a ferromagnetic film strip with a repulsive, instantaneous nonlinearity. One then observes the random formation of dark solitons from this wave packet.

Topological winding and unwinding in metastable Bose-Einstein condensates.

Topological winding and unwinding in a quasi-one-dimensional metastable Bose-Einstein condensate are shown to be manipulated by changing the strength of interaction or the frequency of rotation. Exact diagonalization analysis reveals that quasidegenerate states emerge spontaneously near the transition point, allowing a smooth crossover between topologically distinct states. On a mean-field level, the transition is accompanied by formation of gray solitons, or density notches, which serve as an experimental signature of this phenomenon.

Observation of spin-wave soliton fractals in magnetic film active feedback rings.

The manifestation of fractals in soliton dynamics has been observed for the first time. The experiment utilized self-generated spin-wave envelope solitons in a magnetic film based active feedback ring. At high ring gain, the soliton that circulates in the ring breathes in a fractal pattern.