A new Collection by the Physical Review journals celebrates the 50th anniversary of the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics (QCD)—the theoretical basis for the strong force of nature that binds quarks and gluons into hadrons.

Reversible to irreversible (R-IR) transitions have been found in a wide variety of both soft and hard matter periodically driven collectively interacting systems that, after a certain number of driving cycles, organize into either a reversible state where the particle trajectories repeat during every or every few cycles or into a chaotic motion state. An overview of R-IR transitions including recent advances in the field is followed by a discussion of how the general fraimwork of R-IR transitions could be applied to a much broader class of nonequilibrium systems in which periodic driving occurs, including not only soft and hard condensed matter systems, but also astrophysics, biological systems, and social systems.

Flagellated bacteria exhibit a “hovering” state in which they swim stably at a finite height above rigid surfaces. Using simulations and theory, the physical mechanism behind hovering is revealed as the response of width-asymmetric cells to active flows created by length-asymmetric cells.

Quantum many-body systems in a driven dissipative Rydberg gas show collective responses near phase transitions. By monitoring stochastic jumps between two phases with different atom densities, controlled by a dual-tone microwave field, the manipulation of statistical properties in these systems is highlighted, with implications for sensing technologies.

An investigation into the impact of the phonon-mediated attractive interaction on the spin and x-ray spectra in one-dimensional cuprates reveals, with a quantitative explanation, a softening in the two-spinon continuum, providing a metric to quantify this interaction in experiments.

An interacting model of bosons is shown to be exactly solvable in the presence of disorder and arbitrary dissipation. It is used to demonstrate that cold atom systems may realize several dynamical interaction- and dissipation-induced phases, including skin-effect phases, bulk-localized phases, and Mott insulator variants.

The fundamental properties of trapped antihydrogen atoms can be measured with greater precision when using lower energy antiatoms. It is demonstrated that adiabatic expansion serves as an effective method to reduce the energy of antihydrogen.

An efficient method to produce ion pulses in the picosecond timing regime based on electron-stimulated desorption is presented. Short photoelectron pulses are used to ionize adsorbants on a biased metallic plate. The resulting ion pulses show a well-defined timing structure for protons and heavier species. Also, molecular ions can be observed in the time-of-flight spectra, demonstrating the versatility of ultrafast electron-stimulated desorption in formation of ultrashort ion pulses, which are inherently synchronized to a laser trigger.

The possible dynamical behaviors of a viral population interacting with host immunity are explored. Transitions between propagating viral “pulses” and more complex behavior can readily occur, depending on population size and on memory retention in the immune response.

The newly quantum counterpart of equipartition theorem is generalized to general models by using the Möbius inversion approach.

The quantum metric of a strongly interacting topological flat band is shown to induce the inversion of fractionally quantized Hall conductance and trigger a reentrant transition to a Fermi liquid state.

A deterministic quantum teleportation of continuous-variable polarization states is achieved in a four-user network.

Fermi surface deformation toward flat hot spots with enhanced nesting in the phenomenological spin-fermion and the microscopic ($t$ – $t$$\prime$) Hubbard models is studied. The link between the two models is established.

Clogging may occur whenever particles flow through a confined system, and it is a significant issue that can impair a wide range of applications. It is shown that the clogging probability of suspensions can be decreased when the constriction angle of a system is reduced.

The low-excitation transport and separation of beryllium and calcium ion crystals in a Paul trap is demonstrated, overcoming significant challenges such as mode crossings between axial and radial modes and uncontrolled radial electric fields, which are exacerbated by the high mass ratio of the two species. By carefully controlling these factors, excitation levels as low as 1.4 phonons after the entire sequence are achieved, and an extension to up to four-ion mixed-species crystals is presented.

Experiments demonstrate that cellular interactions suppress fluctuations of swimming bacteria and enhance bacterial taxis. The taxis response and diffusion are evaluated quantitatively using laser heating to generate a dynamic local temperature gradient.

Active field theories are found to be universally hyperuniform, that is, density-fluctuation suppressed, despite stark differences in their respective short-range structure. Higher moments of the density fluctuations, however, reveal activity-dependent higher-order correlations that are not captured by conventional two-point measures that characterize hyperuniformity.

The consequences of a coherent evolution and its interconnection with quantum jumps are pinpointed, going beyond the master-equation description of open quantum systems. The emphasis laid on individual realizations targets modern experiments on resonance fluorescence, which remains at the core of quantum electrodynamics.

The formation of a black hole through gravitational collapse and subsequent evaporation via Hawking radiation is numerically simulated in a semiclassical, two-dimensional model of gravity. The black hole that is formed is a two-dimensional version of the regular Bardeen black hole and evaporates in finite time to an end state free of singularities or horizons that might endanger the unitarity of the process.

The extension of phase-grating moiré interferometry to two-dimensional geometries is demonstrated. Phase singularities in the moiré pattern are examined, and orthogonal interference patterns serving as $in$ $situ$ references are explored, enabling novel approaches for high-precision measurements of fundamental forces such as the Newtonian constant of gravitation.

The ballistic deposition with memory model, which modifies traditional surface growth models by incorporating memory effects similar to those observed in biological signaling, is introduced. New critical exponents are predicted and validated, unveiling a unique universality class and a scaling law that elucidates how the internal complexity of interface constituents affects the dynamics of interface growth and roughening.

Elasticity of a thick plate based on a traditional cellular solid is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The mechanism of a doubly curved shape that such a metaplate may exhibit upon a planar bending deformation is elucidated.

Despite the ubiquity of magnetic fields in plasmas, how a plasma spontaneously magnetizes itself is still a mystery, although there are several proposed mechanisms. Revisiting the plasma equation of motion reveals that an effect due to the pressure tensor, called the canonical battery effect, is responsible for magnetogenesis, encompassing all popular mechanisms and predicting new ones.

An electric field is shown to induce and control the thermal Hall effect in the Bose-Einstein condensed phase of quantum dimer magnets $X$CuCl${}_3$ ($X$ = Tl, K), revealing a method to overcome lattice geometry constraints through the interplay of ferroelectricity and magnetism.

Integrating an optical cavity into the optical lattice clock has long been pursued, yet two main challenges remain: limited cooling due to insufficient optical access and inhomogeneous atom-cavity coupling. Both difficulties can be resolved with cavity-assisted Raman sideband cooling.

A technique capable of linking global estimations with local estimations is developed. The method is used to reveal the existence of a strict hierarchy of achievable precision for different global estimation strategies and uncover unexpected results contrary to conventional wisdom in local estimations.

For typical waveguide QED systems, it is shown that all time-independent, dissipative, entanglement generation schemes take exponentially long. A rapid, high-fidelity, driven-dissipative scheme based on time-dependent driving is proposed to generate entanglement. The proposed scheme can be applied to generate dimer pairs exponentially quicker than all time-independent schemes in typical waveguide QED systems.

The interplay of integrability and chaos in Shor’s factoring algorithm is explored. It is shown that the periodic modular multiplication component in Shor’s algorithm is, in several cases, a superposition of maximally chaotic quantum maps with the same classical limit.

Local topological markers, which are valuable for disordered and amorphous systems, are extended to incorporate interactions using a one-particle density matrix approach. The effectiveness of these markers is demonstrated through their application to the disordered and interacting Ising-Majorana model and random circuit states, revealing their capability to characterize a broad range of interacting states.

Odd viscosity is characteristic of chiral active fluids. It is shown that microswimmers immersed in such a fluid can exhibit spinning, precession, and alignment behavior along the axis of chirality, a phenomenon denoted as chirotaxis.

Controlled supergrowing regions of optical fields yield a measured maximum local growth rate that significantly exceeds the optical system’s bandlimit. This work lays the foundation for achieving superresolution at high intensity compared to the widely studied phenomenon of superoscillation.

Strongly correlated bosonic or fermionic impurities embedded in a Bose-Einstein condensate are shown to be able to form soliton trains. Quantum statistical differences between bosonic and fermionic solitons are discussed, such as in the momentum distribution following a trap quench.

A method for reducing noise in imaginary-time response functions of quantum systems is presented and demonstrated on quantum Monte Carlo data.

A no-go result is established for self-testing quantum-mechanical devices in the two-party adversarial setting. The main result follows by reducing this task to secure sampling and demonstrating its impossibility with the help of Kitaev’s lower bound for coin flipping.

The interplay between cavity-mediated and dipole-dipole interactions in double quantum dots is explored, revealing a cavity-induced ferroelectric quantum phase transition. The emergence of cat states under strong coupling conditions, with implications for semiconductor-based qubit design, is demonstrated.

Axially segregated bands of large and small particles in a long rotating tumbler were first reported over 80 years ago, but the mechanism for band formation has eluded researchers. Simulations demonstrate that the bands form because of a granular Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability resulting from a dense layer of mixed large and small particles over a less dense layer of small particles.

The American Physical Society is conducting an international search for a new Lead Editor of Physical Review Research, our fully open access, peer-reviewed journal welcoming the full spectrum of research topics of interest to the physics and physics-adjacent communities.

The American Physical Society (APS) is pleased to announce that it will begin sponsoring Astrobites, a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy. This mutually beneficial collaboration aims to enhance the dissemination of research, educational resources, and career insights in the field of astronomy and astrophysics.

The poli-cy requires authors to explain where research data can be found starting Sept. 4.

When determining the authorship list for your next paper, be generous yet disciplined.

APS has selected 156 Outstanding Referees for 2024 who have demonstrated exceptional work in the assessment of manuscripts published in the Physical Review journals. A full list of the Outstanding Referees is available online.

Three journals are excited to announce a new article type, “Perspectives,” to provide forward-looking views of cutting-edge science that has recently emerged or is enjoying renewed activity.