Physical Review Letters

@physrevlett

The world’s most-cited journal in multidisciplinary physics.

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Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 21d

A new experimental study extends excess entropy scaling laws to spin lattices, finding that the spin relaxation time scales exponentially with the eigen-microstate entropy. The approach could help predict dynamical properties of spin models. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4b7UtBT

A hexagonal array of 331 buckled microbeads on an optical tweezers lattice, where each bead’s brightness — ranging from light gray to dark gray — indicates its spin-up or spin-down state. The background is dark gray.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 22d

A form of Floquet engineering called kinetic driving can reproduce Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) physics, providing a practical and accurate method to simulate the SYK model in cold-atom systems. See how: https://go.aps.org/4b2M6Yl

Graphic with four parts. The top left shows two wavy lines. The top is a shaken lattice and the bottom shows the effective H. Shaking the lattice makes J a time periodic function and produces a static effective model with long-ranged interactions. The top right part shows a schematic representation of the interaction amplitudes of the KDBH model, which has strong links between nearest neighbors. The bottom left part shows a vaguely circular shape made of straight lines to show the Bose-Hubbard model. The bottom right part shows a schematic representation of the SYK model. Every site is connected to every other site by random tunneling. The logarithmic distribution is parabolic.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 22d

A new #OpenAccess Essay presents Federica Coppari’s vision for the future of high-energy-density science. It centers on the remarkable behavior of matter under extreme conditions, like those found deep inside planets, stars, and fusion reactions. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4hoLCQ5

A radial graphic with a central circle bolded with the acronym "HED" (High Energy Density), surrounded by five circular sub-topic nodes: Dynamic Compression (top): Depicted with a pink and yellow plasma explosion. Computer Simulations (top right): Depicted with a hand holding a computer chip. Astrophysics & Planetary Science (bottom right): Depicted with an illustration of the layers of a planet. Complex Material Behavior (bottom left): Depicted with a network of green and blue molecular structures. Static Compression (top Left): Depicted with two diamonds one above the other coming together at their points in the middle with a line through it.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 23d

For the first time, scientists have shown direct evidence of a spontaneous chiral antiferroquadrupolar phase in URhSn without an underlying chiral lattice — suggesting that electronic chirality may not require a chiral crystal structure. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4b5CgVz

Graphic showing the crystal structure of URhSn from different views. The top left part shows the regular crystal structure with some atoms labeled. The top right part shows the crystal structure from the top, along the z axis. The bottom part shows the structure of the chiral antiferroquadrupolar order with the space group P321 (#150).

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 25d

A new theoretical model of chiral active solids, which allows local internal rotations due to active torques, shows how odd elasticity naturally emerges as a nonlinear effect of internal particle rotations. Learn more: https://go.aps.org/4gKfXsk

Illustration of an elastic material composed of rigid rod-like particles (green rectangles). The red and blue arrows show the particles' displacements and internal rotations away from the rest positions and rest orientations of the undeformed state. The pink curved arrow shows the local active torque.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 25d

#OnTheCover: Schematics of quantum interference control processes in a semiconductor, showing carriers injected into the conduction bands and asymmetrically distributed in momentum space. Read the full issue: https://go.aps.org/4yqOK4e

Side-by-side schematic diagrams illustrate quantum interference control in a semiconductor. In both panels, a lower dome-shaped valence band and an upper bowl-shaped conduction band are connected by pairs of vertical arrows representing optical excitation of charge carriers. Orange and green arrows in the left panel and orange and red arrows in the right panel indicate different excitation pathways. Dashed ovals near the conduction band mark regions where carriers are injected, while circular rings in the center plane depict the resulting momentum-space distribution. The left panel shows a more symmetric carrier distribution, whereas the right panel highlights an asymmetric distribution around the ring, illustrating quantum interference that preferentially injects carriers with momentum in one direction.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 26d

541,055. That’s how many times our papers were cited last year, according to the 2026 Journal Citation Report, making Physical Review Letters the most-cited journal in multidisciplinary #physics. See all of our citation metrics: https://go.aps.org/3yqXc6m

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 26d

Using quantum interference, scientists generated an “electron lighthouse” — a current of electrons — in a superconductor that has a narrow angular spread, essentially forming a “beam,” that they could control using the polarization of the incident light: https://go.aps.org/3TFmyKP

Graphic showing the conceptual experimental setup in two parts. The top part shows the setup for 1+2 quantum interference control and the bottom shows the setup for 2+3 quantum interference control. In the bottom right corner, an inset shows an image of the sample with two sets of orthogonal electrodes shown.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 26d

Using sulfur nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, researchers find evidence for the microscopic origin of a Zhang-Rice triplet state in the van der Waals antiferromagnet NiPS₃, showing that nematic fluctuations play an essential role. Read the paper: https://go.aps.org/4vDel7k

Crystal structure diagram viewed along the c-axis. Gray octahedra form a repeating honeycomb-like lattice across the image. Each octahedron contains a blue circle at its center. Small yellow and red circles mark sulfur atoms at the corners and edges. Two sulfur atoms on the right are labeled S(1) in red and S(2) in yellow. White circles occupy spaces between the octahedra, labeled P. Three black arrows point in different inward directions from selected sulfur atoms. Crystallographic axes a, b, and c are shown in the lower-right corner.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 27d

A new study presents one of the first searches for sub-GeV dark matter particles, and achieves a 5-order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity for dark matter-nucleon scattering over previous experiments. Read the paper: https://go.aps.org/4vBgKzv

A graph plotting constraints on the cross-section of the dark matter-nucleon scattering, with mχ on the x-axis and scattering on the y-axis. A series of black solid and dashed lines represent constraints from this work under three different assumptions for the value of ms. A green dashed line plots the recast constraint from a previous experiment. The plot also contains green, red, purple, and yellow color-filled regions at the top, corresponding to the best excluded regions from MDMM, CRDM, and MEDM searches.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 27d

For the first time, physicists have observed time-dependent CP violation in B0→ J/ψρ(770)0 decays and determined the CP-violation parameters for this process. Learn more: https://go.aps.org/3RlzCnQ

Graph showing the weighted CP asymmetry as a function of the transformed decay-time and phase-space variable t′ over one oscillation period. The data forms a wavy line of black dots. A red line shows the fit projection.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 28d

Scientists found a new class of nonlinear odd viscoelastic effects that arise from nontrivial geometric tensors in quantum states. The results uncover the role of multistate geometry in viscoelastic phenomena. Read the paper: https://go.aps.org/44vGQsA

Figure showing the nonlinear viscoelastic effects in two parts. Each has a gray cube with a yellow shape overlaid. The left shows the application of orthogonal normal distortions that couple to stress-momentum currents in yellow. The right shows the application of shear distortions that couple to currents and cause nonlinear viscoelastic current responses without dissipation.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· 29d

Charge density waves usually appear in weakly-correlated, low-dimensional materials. A new paper finds one hiding inside a correlated antiferromagnetic oxide, only revealing itself through strongly nonlinear transport below 20 K. Read the study: https://go.aps.org/3Thgnwl

A schematic phase diagram and crystal structure diagrams of Ba₄Ru₃O₁₀. On the left, a vertical rectangular phase diagram uses red and purple dots and arrows to illustrate three temperature regimes: a disordered state at high temperatures, an antiferromagnetic and density wave phase at 100 Kelvin, and a collective transport regime below 20 Kelvin. On the right, three panels show gray and red ball-and-stick crystal structure diagrams, with red spheres representing oxygen atoms and grey spheres representing ruthenium atoms arranged into trimer units. Two panels show the structure at different orientations.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 13

Particles moving through crowded environments don't just navigate obstacles — they displace them. A "pushy random walk" model shows how these particle-induced rearrangements can fundamentally alter diffusion and transport in dense media in 1D and 2D. 🔗 https://go.aps.org/4fcLTTM

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 10

#OnTheCover: Model of the lunar surface topography and thickness of the crust constructed using data from lunar missions LOLA and GRAIL. 🌕 Read the full issue: https://go.aps.org/3R3CvtA

Circular visualization of the Moon's surface with a jagged outer edge representing changes in topography. Colored bands around the circumference indicate variations in crustal thickness derived from LOLA and GRAIL mission data, transitioning through blues, purples, reds, oranges, and white. The center of the circle is blank, emphasizing the ring-like map of the lunar surface and crust.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 9

A 2D model combines spectral element method and normal mode analysis to predict how the moon’s rugged terrain and uneven crust affect its response to gravitational waves, showing that thicker-crust regions could amplify mid-band signals up to tenfold: https://go.aps.org/3R7EqgG

Two panels stacked vertically show crustal thickness variations on a latitude-longitude map of the lunar model. Crustal thickness varies on a red-blue color scale from 5 to 55 kilometers. The upper plot contains different-sized splotches of red and blue. A wavy black line represents a ground track that passes through Mare Humboldtianum, Mare Imbrium, and the SPA basin. Five yellow triangles mark locations of seismographs. Yellow and green stars mark potential landing sites for Chang’e-7 and the Farside Seismic Suite, respectively. The lower plot shows the model truncated at l = 4 so that the red and blue pattern appears larger and blurrier.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 8

A comprehensive analysis of a semileptonic B decay (to an excited kaon & pair of muons) shows an angular observable continues to be in tension with the standard model. Read the paper: https://go.aps.org/4vntcCW #OpenAccess

A contour plot with a color gradient ranging from purple to yellow representing numeric values. The x-axis is labeled "cos θK" and the y-axis is labeled "φ". Sections are marked with letters "A" and "B". The plot is divided into four quadrants, with "A" in the upper right and lower left, and "B" in the upper left and lower right. There is a color bar on the right indicating the scale of values.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 8

By encapsulating monolayer graphene between two parallel twisted WSe₂ monolayers, this study reports pure valley-Zeeman spin-orbit coupling, a step towards realizing topological and spintronic phases in van der Waals heterostructures. 🔗 https://go.aps.org/4vUw2jP

Close-up views of three graphs. The image on the left shows a portion of a graph of the calculated change in density of states as functions of λ_vZ and ν at λ_R = 0 meV and B = 1 T. In the center is a portion of the graph showing experimentally measured σxx as functions of D and n at B = 1 T, with the line slice of SdH oscillations ∆σ_xx extracted from D = 0.07 V nm⁻¹ . On the right is a portion of the graph showing the calculated change in density of states as functions of ϑspin-orbit coupling = arctan(λ_R/λ_vZ) and ν at λ spin-orbit coupling = 1.6 meV and B = 1 T.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 7

The remnant properties of black hole mergers may be governed by a maximum entropy bound, suggesting that once the black holes become sufficiently close together, the Kerr entropy computation becomes valid: https://t.co/mFiisPjVrY

A graph comparing five colored curves labeled 0PN through 4PN. Each curve rises to a peak, marked with a star, then gradually declines. Dotted vertical lines mark the peak position for each curve. Two dashed vertical reference lines—one green and one black—appear near the center of the graph, where the curves become more closely aligned. The graph shows that the peak values converge as the approximation order increases.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 6

Letters from two groups provide evidence for hierarchical mergers of black holes. Read the papers: https://go.aps.org/4wnTyF, https://go.aps.org/4yd4KXA Read more in Physics Magazine: https://go.aps.org/4ymL7fI

Hundreds of merging black hole binaries (black circles) have been detected via gravitational waves. Different analyses of black hole masses (circle sizes) and spins (dark purple arrows) are converging on a conclusion: A subpopulation of observed mergers are likely hierarchical, meaning that they contain at least one black hole that is the remnant of a previous coalescence. Such hierarchical mergers typically occur in dense astrophysical environments (top left). Image credit: S. J. Miller/Caltech; Background image: G. Chapdelaine/ESA/Hubble and NASA

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 3

#OnTheCover: Far-field lasing pattern from the q = −4 microcavity. The overlaid line segments represent polarization vectors. Read the full issue: https://go.aps.org/4v6m4KO

Heatmap-style scientific image showing a ring-shaped pattern of 10 bright, petal-like regions arranged around a dark central opening. The glowing regions transition from yellow at their brightest points to orange and red at the edges. Short white and blue line segments overlaid on the image indicate local orientations or vector directions across the pattern, illustrating the alignment of the underlying structure. The black background emphasizes the circular symmetry and radiating features.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 2

Why do solutions converge to a wrong answer in many-body systems? This study suggests two reasons — misleading convergence in self-consistent schemes and branching of the Luttinger-Ward functional — and proposes a method to stabilize the solution. More: https://go.aps.org/3R9oHxA

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jul 1

By engineering isotropic interband coupling in a bilayer photonic crystal, researchers numerically demonstrate a topologically protected, continuous ring of unidirectional guided resonances that locks vortex laser emission into a single direction. 📄 https://go.aps.org/3SFY1oD

A schematic of unidirectional vortex beam generation enabled by isotropic interband coupling. On the left is a diagram showing the unidirectional guided resonance ring induced by isotropic coupling, shown as a ring of exceptional points, centered around a bound state in the continuum with a topological charge of +1 at the Γ point. On the right is an illustration of the bilayer hexagonal lattice photonic crystal slab generating unidirectional vortex beams.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 30

An extended version of mean-field theory accurately captures activity patterns seen in networks of biological neurons. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4fd2S9q

Artist's rendering of a network of neurons showing glowing neuron cells interconnected with branching structures illuminated in yellow and orange hues.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 29

Observation and modulation of the quantum Mpemba effect on an all-to-all connected, tunable-coupling superconducting processor: https://go.aps.org/3QurDop

Technical illustration of a quantum hardware device showing two stacked layers. The top layer features a square superconducting circuit outlined in red with evenly spaced connection pads around the edges and a circular opening at the center revealing part of the underlying structure. Below, a blue-tinted chip contains a dense network of conductive traces radiating from a central square component to connection pads around the perimeter. The separated layers emphasize how the upper circuit aligns with and integrates into the lower chip.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 28

By measuring dynamic electron correlation in beryllium using inelastic X-ray scattering, a new study confirms the size of the exchange-correlation hole as about 2 angstroms while at the plasmon excitation energy it extends to up to 5 angstroms. Learn more: https://go.aps.org/43UGsnh

An image with red and blue splotches showing how dynamic correlation among electrons is visualized by inelastic X-ray scattering. The vertical blue stripe indicates the exchange-correlation hole.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 27

A new paper reveals the effects of topological friction in entangled polymer networks, challenging assumptions of the tube model that has long been used to describe the chain dynamics and rheology of these systems. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4xSgfDu

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 27

A new experiment elucidates the ability of some particle–fluid mixtures to behave in ways that depend on their previous flow. Read more: https://go.aps.org/3QHq4Dl

A white bowl filled with scoops of light-colored ice cream, heavily drizzled with a thick, glossy dark chocolate fudge sauce that covers most of the top.

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 26

These patterns form when a two-phase eutectic solid melts. Researchers observed diverse melting patterns depending on the melting velocity and the pre-solidified lamellar microstructure, and determined the physical mechanisms behind these patterns. Read more: https://go.aps.org/4eMHqXJ

Physical Review Letters@physrevlett· Jun 26

#OnTheCover: Hourly skymaps of relative TeV-scale cosmic-ray intensity centered at the zenith, recorded by LHAASO in 2021. Arrows show the direction and magnitude of large-scale anisotropy near the arrival of an interplanetary coronal mass ejection. Read the full issue: go.aps.org/3R2mrYY