Stabilized by quantum fluctuations, dipolar Bose–Einstein condensates can form self-bound liquid-like droplets. However in the Bogoliubov theory, there are imaginary phonon energies in the long-wavelength limit, implying dynamical instability of this system. A similar instability appears in the Bogoliubov theory of a binary quantum droplet, and is removed due to higher-order quantum fluctuations as shown recently [Gu Q and Yin L 2020 Phys. Rev. B 102 220503(R)]. We study the excitation energy of a dipolar quantum droplet in the Beliaev formalism, and find that quantum fluctuations significantly enhance the phonon stability. We adopt a self-consistent approach without the problem of complex excitation energy in the Bogoliubov theory, and obtain a stable anisotropic sound velocity which is consistent with the superfluid hydrodynamic theory, but slightly different from the result of the extended Gross–Pitaevskii equation due to quantum depletion. A modified Gross–Pitaevskii equation in agreement with the Beliaev theory is proposed, which takes the effect of quantum fluctuations into account more completely.

A time-of-flight polarized neutron imaging setup was realized by integrating an in situ pumped polarized $^3$He spin filter and energy dispersive neutron camera on the neutron technique development beamline (BL-20) of the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). Test experiments were performed with a solenoid with aluminum wire as a sample. These demonstrated that polarized radiography with a field of view in diameter 2.0 cm at different wavelengths can be obtained. The wavelength-dependent polarization was used to distinguish the neutron polarization behavior for different positions inside and outside the solenoid. The results of this work show the possibility of applying the technique at CSNS and marks a milestone for future polarized neutron imaging developments.

Ultracold atoms trapped in optical superlattices provide a simple platform for realizing the seminal Aubry–André–Harper (AAH) model. However, this model ignores the periodic modulations on the nearest-neighbor hoppings. We establish a generalized AAH model by which an optical superlattice system can be approximately described when $V_1\gg V_2$, with periodic modulations on both on-site energies and nearest-neighbor hoppings. This model supports much richer topological properties absent in the standard AAH model. Specifically, by calculating the Chern numbers and topological edge states, we show that the generalized AAH model possesses multifarious topological phases and topological phase transitions, unlike the standard AAH model supporting only a single topological phase. Our findings can uncover more opportunities for using optical superlattices to study topological and localization physics.

We report the nontrivial topological states in an intrinsic type-II superconductor BaSn$_{\boldsymbol{5}}$ ($T_{\rm{c}} \sim 4.4$ K) probed by measuring the magnetization, specific heat, de Haas–van Alphen (dHvA) effect, and by performing first-principles calculations. The first-principles calculations reveal a topological nodal ring structure centered at the $H$ point in the $k_{\rm{z}} = \pi$ plane of the Brillouin zone, which could be gapped by spin-orbit coupling (SOC), yielding relatively small gaps below and above the Fermi level of about 0.04 eV and 0.14 eV, respectively. The SOC also results in a pair of Dirac points along the $\varGamma$–$A$ direction, located at $\sim $0.2 eV above the Fermi level. The analysis of the dHvA quantum oscillations supports the calculations by revealing a nontrivial Berry phase originating from the hole and electron pockets related to the bands forming the Dirac cones. Thus, our study provides an excellent avenue for investigating the interplay between superconductivity and nontrivial topological states.

We report the discovery of superconductivity on the border of antiferromagnetic order in a quasi-one-dimensional material RbMn$_{6}$Bi$_{5}$ via measurements of resistivity and magnetic susceptibility under high pressures. Its phase diagram of temperature versus pressure resembles those of many magnetism-mediated superconducting systems. With increasing pressure, its antiferromagnetic ordering transition with $T_{\rm N} = 83$ K at ambient pressure is first enhanced moderately and then suppressed completely at a critical pressure of $P_{\rm c} \approx 13$ GPa, around which bulk superconductivity emerges and exhibits a dome-like $T_{\rm c}(P)$ with a maximal $T_{\rm c}^{\rm onset} \approx 9.5$ K at about 15 GPa. In addition, the superconducting state around $P_{\rm c}$ is characterized by a large upper critical field $\mu_{0}H_{\rm c2}(0)$ exceeding the Pauli paramagnetic limit, implying a possible unconventional paring mechanism. The present study, together with our recent work on KMn$_{6}$Bi$_{5}$ (the maximum $T_{\rm c}^{\rm onset} \approx 9.3$ K), makes $A$Mn$_{6}$Bi$_{5}$ ($A$ = alkali metal) a new family of Mn-based superconductors with relatively high $T_{\rm c}$.

Recent experiments have found that in contrast to the nonsuperconducting bulk $R$NiO$_2$ ($R$ = Nd, La, and Pr), the strontium-doped $R_{1-x}$Sr$_x$NiO$_2$ thin films show superconductivity with the critical temperature $T_{\rm c}$ of 9–15 K at $x=0.2$, whose origin of superconductivity deserves further investigation. Based on first-principles calculations, we study the electronic structure, lattice dynamics, and electron–phonon coupling (EPC) of the undoped and doped $R$NiO$_2$ ($R$ = Nd, La, and Pr) at the experimental doping level. Our results show that the EPC-derived $T_{\rm c}$'s are all about 0 K in the undoped and doped $R$NiO$_2$. The electron–phonon coupling strength is too small to account for the observed superconductivity. We hence propose that the electron–phonon interaction can not be the exclusive origin of the superconductivity in $R$NiO$_2$ ($R$ = Nd, La, and Pr).

We propose an extended BCS–Hubbard model and investigate its ground state phase diagram in an external magnetic field. By mapping the model onto a model of spinless fermions coupled with conserving $Z_2$ variables which are mimicked by pseudospins, the model is shown to be exactly solvable along the symmetric lines for an arbitrary on-site Hubbard interaction on the bipartite lattice. In the zero field limit, the ground states exhibit an antiferromagnetic order of pseudospins. In the large field limit, on the other hand, the pseudospins are fully polarized ordered. With the increase of the applied field, a first-order phase transition occurs between these kinds of phases when the on-site Coulomb interaction is less than a critical value $U_{\rm c}$. Above this critical $U_{\rm c}$, a novel intermediate phase emerges between the fully polarized and antiferromagnetic phases. The ground states in this phase are macroscopically degenerate, like in a spin ice, and the corresponding entropy scales linearly with the lattice size at zero temperature.

We performed high-pressure transport studies on the flat-band Kagome compounds, Pd$_3$P$_2$(S$_{1-x}$Se$_x$)$_8$ ($x=0$, 0.25), with a diamond anvil cell. For both compounds, the resistivity exhibits an insulating behavior with pressure up to 17 GPa. With pressure above 20 GPa, a metallic behavior is observed at high temperatures in Pd$_3$P$_2$S$_8$, and superconductivity emerges at low temperatures. The onset temperature of superconducting transition $T_{\rm C}$ rises monotonically from 2 K to 4.8 K and does not saturate with pressure up to 43 GPa. For the Se-doped compound Pd$_3$P$_2$(S$_{0.75}$Se$_{0.25}$)$_8$, the $T_{\rm C}$ is about 1.5 K higher than that of the undoped one over the whole pressure range, and reaches 6.4 K at 43 GPa. The upper critical field with field applied along the $c$ axis at typical pressures is about 50$\%$ of the Pauli limit, suggesting a 3D superconductivity. The Hall coefficient in the metallic phase is low and exhibits a peaked behavior at about 30 K, which suggests either a multi-band electronic structure or an electron correlation effect in the system.

Numerous investigations have been conducted to explore the structural phase transition in antiferromagnetic 3$d$ transition metal monoxides accompanied by appearance of magnetic phase transition. However, how the spins induce distortion in the high symmetric structure has not yet been fully understood. In this study, the monoxide NiO is used as an example to investigate what lowers the structural symmetry. By comparing two different magnetic structures, our results reveal that the spin–lattice coupling is responsible for such a structural distortion. Then, a spin–lattice model, including the strain component, is constructed to simulate the transition procedure. Moreover, the results from the first-principles calculations are used to compare with our model results. Both first-principles calculations and model simulations clarify the structural phase transition caused by a unique magnetic arrangement.

In the context of tensor network states, we for the first time reformulate the corner transfer matrix renormalization group (CTMRG) method into a variational bilevel optimization algorithm. The solution of the optimization problem corresponds to the fixed-point environment pursued in the conventional CTMRG method, from which the partition function of a classical statistical model, represented by an infinite tensor network, can be efficiently evaluated. The validity of this variational idea is demonstrated by the high-precision calculation of the residual entropy of the dimer model, and is further verified by investigating several typical phase transitions in classical spin models, where the obtained critical points and critical exponents all agree with the best known results in literature. Its extension to three-dimensional tensor networks or quantum lattice models is straightforward, as also discussed briefly.

Antiferromagnetic materials are exciting quantum materials with rich physics and great potential for applications. On the other hand, an accurate and efficient theoretical method is highly demanded for determining critical transition temperatures, Néel temperatures, of antiferromagnetic materials. The powerful graph neural networks (GNNs) that succeed in predicting material properties lose their advantage in predicting magnetic properties due to the small dataset of magnetic materials, while conventional machine learning models heavily depend on the quality of material descriptors. We propose a new strategy to extract high-level material representations by utilizing self-supervised training of GNNs on large-scale unlabeled datasets. According to the dimensional reduction analysis, we find that the learned knowledge about elements and magnetism transfers to the generated atomic vector representations. Compared with popular manually constructed descriptors and crystal graph convolutional neural networks, self-supervised material representations can help us to obtain a more accurate and efficient model for Néel temperatures, and the trained model can successfully predict high Néel temperature antiferromagnetic materials. Our self-supervised GNN may serve as a universal pre-training framework for various material properties.

The human brain that relies on neural networks communicated by spikes is featured with ultralow energy consumption, which is more robust and adaptive than any digital system. Inspired by the spiking framework of the brain, spike-based neuromorphic systems have recently inspired intensive attention. Therefore, neuromorphic devices with spike-based synaptic functions are considered as the first step toward this aim. Photoelectric neuromorphic devices are promising candidates for spike-based synaptic devices with low latency, broad bandwidth, and superior parallelism. Here, the indium-gallium-zinc-oxide-based photoelectric neuromorphic transistors are fabricated for Morse coding based on spike processing, 405-nm light spikes are used as synaptic inputs, and some essential synaptic plasticity, including excitatory postsynaptic current, short-term plasticity, and high-pass filtering, can be mimicked. More interestingly, Morse codes encoded by light spikes are decoded using our devices and translated into amplitudes. Furthermore, such devices are compatible with standard integrated processes suitable for large-scale integrated neuromorphic systems.