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| Open AccessOvercoming power-efficiency tradeoff in a micro heat engine by engineered system-bath interactions
The trade-off between power and efficiency in designing heat engines has remained unsolved for the last two centuries. The authors overcome this trade-off in a colloidal Stirling engine by electrophoretically inducing system-reservoir interactions to enhance heat transfer during an isochoric process.
- Sudeesh Krishnamurthy
- , Rajesh Ganapathy
- & A. K. Sood
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Article
| Open AccessArctic weather variability and connectivity
The authors use a complexity-based approach to analyze Arctic weather variability. They identify a pronounced link between the Arctic’s shrinking sea ice and global weather patterns, underscoring the critical role of the Arctic in shaping global climate.
- Jun Meng
- , Jingfang Fan
- & Jürgen Kurths
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Article
| Open AccessRedundancy and the role of protein copy numbers in the cell polarization machinery of budding yeast
Cell polarization of budding yeast recovers reliably and reproducibly from loss of one of its key components. Here, the authors show how this robustness emerges from redundant self-organization mechanisms coexisting within the underlying protein network.
- Fridtjof Brauns
- , Leila Iñigo de la Cruz
- & Erwin Frey
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Article
| Open AccessA nanoscale view of the origin of boiling and its dynamics
Boiling, despite being a well-known phenomenon still lacks an understanding of its multiscale and non-equilibrium nature. Using the stochastic mesoscale model based on fluctuating hydrodynamics and diffuse interface approach Gallo et al. describe the process of boiling from nucleation to macroscopic bubble dynamics.
- Mirko Gallo
- , Francesco Magaletti
- & Carlo Massimo Casciola
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Article
| Open AccessOvercrowding induces fast colloidal solitons in a slowly rotating potential landscape
Solitons are peculiar waves propagating without changing their shape. Here, the authors show that colloidal particles in a rotating optical landscape create rapidly propagating solitons, formed by particle clusters through many-body interactions.
- Eric Cereceda-López
- , Alexander P. Antonov
- & Pietro Tierno
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Article
| Open AccessRecord ages of non-Markovian scale-invariant random walks
Record ages characterise rare and extreme events in stochastic processes, however, their evaluation is challenging when interaction with environment and memory effects are present in the random walk. The authors determine the statistics of record ages for a broad class of non-Markovian random walks and reveal their general features.
- Léo Régnier
- , Maxim Dolgushev
- & Olivier Bénichou
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Article
| Open AccessHyper-cores promote localization and efficient seeding in higher-order processes
Networks with higher-order interactions provide better description of social and biological systems, however tools to analyze their function still need to be developed. The authors introduce here a decomposition of network in hyper-cores, that gives better understanding of spreading processes and can be applied to fingerprint real-world datasets.
- Marco Mancastroppa
- , Iacopo Iacopini
- & Alain Barrat
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Article
| Open AccessStatistical laws of stick-slip friction at mesoscale
Whether stick-slip instabilities can give rise to avalanches of slip lengths is an outstanding issue in solid friction. Here, the authors demonstrated that there indeed exists a critical regime in which stick-slip friction can be described by a common set of statistical laws of avalanche dynamics.
- Caishan Yan
- , Hsuan-Yi Chen
- & Penger Tong
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Article
| Open AccessMacroscopic waves, biological clocks and morphogenesis driven by light in a giant unicellular green alga
Self-organised waves propagate throughout the alga Caulerpa. Light temporal patterns control the waves and algal morphology, potentially tying light-synchronized self-oscillations to one of the mysteries of single-cell development, morphogenesis.
- Eldad Afik
- , Toni J. B. Liu
- & Elliot M. Meyerowitz
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Article
| Open AccessMinimum entropy production by microswimmers with internal dissipation
What is the physical limit on entropy production in a suspension of active microswimmers? In answer to this question, the authors derive a general theorem that provides an exact lower bound on the total, external and internal dissipation by a microswimmer and apply it to optimize swimmer shapes.
- Abdallah Daddi-Moussa-Ider
- , Ramin Golestanian
- & Andrej Vilfan
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Article
| Open AccessDetermining subunit-subunit interaction from statistics of cryo-EM images: observation of nearest-neighbor coupling in a circadian clock protein complex
Deciphering interactions between subunits in protein complexes is an important problem. By combining cryo-EM imaging and statistical modeling, Han and colleagues reveal a significant cooperativity between subunits in the clock protein hexamer KaiC.
- Xu Han
- , Dongliang Zhang
- & Qi Ouyang
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Article
| Open AccessThermodynamic forces from protein and water govern condensate formation of an intrinsically disordered protein domain
In this work, the authors report atomistic molecular dynamics simulations showing that solvation entropy and protein-protein interactions are the main thermodynamic driving forces for the formation of condensates of the intrinsically disordered domain of the protein FUS.
- Saumyak Mukherjee
- & Lars V. Schäfer
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Article
| Open AccessReviving product states in the disordered Heisenberg chain
Many-body localized systems are believed to reach a stationary state without thermalizing. By using analytical and numerical calculations, the authors construct simple initial states for a typical MBL model, which neither equilibrate nor thermalize, similar to non-ergodic behavior in many-body scarred systems.
- Henrik Wilming
- , Tobias J. Osborne
- & Christoph Karrasch
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Article
| Open AccessDislocation interactions during plastic relaxation of epitaxial colloidal crystals
Mechanical properties of materials are governed by dislocations, yet it remains a challenge to resolve their evolution on the atomic scale. Svetlizky et al. use colloidal crystals to investigate, in three dimensions, how dislocations enable plastic relaxation and the formation of networks.
- Ilya Svetlizky
- , Seongsoo Kim
- & Frans Spaepen
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessReply to: Deep reinforced learning heuristic tested on spin-glass ground states: The larger picture
- Changjun Fan
- , Mutian Shen
- & Yang-Yu Liu
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessDeep reinforced learning heuristic tested on spin-glass ground states: The larger picture
- Stefan Boettcher
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Article
| Open AccessModel-free tracking control of complex dynamical trajectories with machine learning
In nonlinear tracking control, relevant to robotic applications, the knowledge on the system model may be not available and there is current need in model-free approaches to track a desired trajectory, regular or chaotic. The authors introduce here a framework that employs machine learning to control a two-arm robotic manipulator using only partially observed states.
- Zheng-Meng Zhai
- , Mohammadamin Moradi
- & Ying-Cheng Lai
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Article
| Open AccessReal-space observation of ergodicity transitions in artificial spin ice
Artificial spin ice systems have been used to simulate a variety of phenomena including phase transitions. Here, the authors expand the scope of applications to encompass non-ergodic dynamics, by reporting real-space imaging of ergodicity transitions in a vortex-frustrated artificial spin ice.
- Michael Saccone
- , Francesco Caravelli
- & Alan Farhan
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Article
| Open AccessSynchronization of spin-driven limit cycle oscillators optically levitated in vacuum
Researchers investigate synchronized oscillations of two microspheres optically levitated in vacuum, paving the way for numerous future applications, from classical time crystals to robust sensors or the entanglement of macroscopic objects.
- Oto Brzobohatý
- , Martin Duchaň
- & Stephen H. Simpson
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Article
| Open AccessUniversal patterns in egocentric communication networks
Personal communication networks through mobile phones and online platforms can be characterized by patterns of tie strengths. The authors propose a model to explain driving mechanisms of emerging tie strength heterogeneity in social networks, observing similarity of patterns across various datasets.
- Gerardo Iñiguez
- , Sara Heydari
- & Jari Saramäki
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Article
| Open AccessDiscovering conservation laws using optimal transport and manifold learning
Conservation laws are crucial for analyzing and modeling nonlinear dynamical systems; however, identification of conserved quantities is often quite challenging. The authors propose here a geometric approach to discovering conservation laws directly from trajectory data that does not require an explicit dynamical model of the system or detailed time information.
- Peter Y. Lu
- , Rumen Dangovski
- & Marin Soljačić
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Article
| Open AccessEmerging exotic compositional order on approaching low-temperature equilibrium glasses
Understanding glass transition would rely on the knowledge of the structural ordering upon slow cooling in the absence of crystallization or phase separation. The authors identify exotic compositional order, not accompanied by any thermodynamic signature, directly impacts the structural relaxation dynamics.
- Hua Tong
- & Hajime Tanaka
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| Open AccessSelf-organization of primitive metabolic cycles due to non-reciprocal interactions
It is generally accepted that non-equilibrium conditions would have been necessary for the formation of primitive metabolic structures, but the focus has mostly been on externally imposed non-equilibrium conditions. Here, the authors show that catalytically active particles like enzymes participating in a metabolic cycle can spontaneously self-organize into dynamically structured condensates composed of active mixtures, by employing non-reciprocal interactions.
- Vincent Ouazan-Reboul
- , Jaime Agudo-Canalejo
- & Ramin Golestanian
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Article
| Open AccessFinding defects in glasses through machine learning
Rare quantum tunneling two-level systems are known to govern the glass physics at low temperatures, but it remains challenging to detect them in simulations. Ciarella et al. show a machine learning approach to efficiently identify the structural defects, allowing to predict the quantum splitting.
- Simone Ciarella
- , Dmytro Khomenko
- & Francesco Zamponi
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Article
| Open AccessColloidal transport by light induced gradients of active pressure
The mechanical forces exerted by active fluids may provide an effective way of transporting microscopic objects, but the details remain elusive. Using space modulated activity, Pellicciotta et al. generate active pressure gradients capable of transporting passive particles in controlled directions.
- Nicola Pellicciotta
- , Matteo Paoluzzi
- & Roberto Di Leonardo
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Article
| Open AccessTemperature-pressure phase diagram of confined monolayer water/ice at first-principles accuracy with a machine-learning force field
Understanding the phase behaviour of nanoconfined water is of importance in science & engineering. Here the authors use machine-learning force field molecular dynamics to report two new quasi-bilayer ice phases in the phase diagram of monolayer ices.
- Bo Lin
- , Jian Jiang
- & Lei Li
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Article
| Open AccessJamming and unusual charge density fluctuations of strange metals
Recent experiments on the dynamical charge response of strange metals reveal unusual features such as momentum-independent continuum of excitations and unconventional plasmon decay. Here the authors present a phenomenological theory based on the analogy to classical fluids near a jamming-like transition.
- Stephen J. Thornton
- , Danilo B. Liarte
- & Debanjan Chowdhury
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Article
| Open AccessAbsence of localization in interacting spin chains with a discrete symmetry
Many-body localization is an important example of non-ergodic behaviour, however the conditions for its existence and stability are not fully established. Kloss et al establish theoretically and numerically the absence of many-body localization in a broad class of spin models respecting certain symmetries.
- Benedikt Kloss
- , Jad C. Halimeh
- & Yevgeny Bar Lev
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Article
| Open AccessNonequilibrium thermodynamics of the asymmetric Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model
The Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model is a paradigmatic model in the field of complex disordered systems such as spin glasses and neural networks. Here the authors study the stochastic thermodynamics of an asymmetric version of the model by using a path integral method and provide exact solutions for the entropy production.
- Miguel Aguilera
- , Masanao Igarashi
- & Hideaki Shimazaki
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Article
| Open AccessPredicting frictional aging from bulk relaxation measurements
Increase of friction between two solid surfaces in stationary contact over time, known as frictional aging, has been widely observed. Farain and Bonn show that, regardless of surface roughness or degree of compression, the normalized stress relaxation of microcontacts is the same as that of bulk material.
- Kasra Farain
- & Daniel Bonn
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Article
| Open AccessMean-shift exploration in shape assembly of robot swarms
Achieving shape assembly behaviour in robot swarms with adaptability and efficiency is challenging. Here, Sun et. al. propose a strategy based on an adapted mean-shift algorithm, thus realizing complex shape assembly tasks such as shape regeneration, cargo transportation, and environment exploration.
- Guibin Sun
- , Rui Zhou
- & Shiyu Zhao
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Article
| Open AccessWaves traveling over a map of visual space can ignite short-term predictions of sensory input
Waves of neural activity travel across single regions in the visual cortex, but their computational role is unclear. Here, the authors present a neural network model demonstrating that waves traveling over retinotopic maps can enable short-term predictions of future inputs.
- Gabriel B. Benigno
- , Roberto C. Budzinski
- & Lyle Muller
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Article
| Open AccessOperator growth from global out-of-time-order correlators
Out-of-time-ordered correlators of local operators can quantify information scrambling in quantum many-body systems, but they are not easily accessible in experiments. Here the authors show that their global versions can be used for the same purpose and has been measured in nuclear magnetic resonance experiments.
- Tianci Zhou
- & Brian Swingle
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Article
| Open AccessObservation of bulk quadrupole in topological heat transport
Topological transport in thermal diffusion is governed by physical principles that are distinct from those encountered in solid-state or photonic topological systems. Here, the authors demonstrate an experimental strategy for engineering topological thermal phases with bulk, edge and corner modes.
- Guoqiang Xu
- , Xue Zhou
- & Cheng-Wei Qiu
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Article
| Open AccessDistributing task-related neural activity across a cortical network through task-independent connections
Large scale neural recordings show that task-related activity is observed across neural circuits. Here, the authors have identified a network mechanism that promotes distributed activity in the cortex during decision-making via task-independent synapses.
- Christopher M. Kim
- , Arseny Finkelstein
- & Ran Darshan
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Article
| Open AccessUnifying speed limit, thermodynamic uncertainty relation and Heisenberg principle via bulk-boundary correspondence
In classical and quantum thermodynamics, a trade-off between speed, precision and cost is of relevance for problems in open quantum dynamics and various biomolecular processes. By employing bulk-boundary correspondence, the authors uncover connection between thermodynamic uncertainty relations and speed limit relations.
- Yoshihiko Hasegawa
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Article
| Open AccessProbing excitations and cooperatively rearranging regions in deeply supercooled liquids
Experimental data of the transition of a supercooled liquid into glass is compatible with both dynamic and thermodynamic theories. Here the authors use experiments and MD simulations at very low temperatures to show that both theories are connected.
- Levke Ortlieb
- , Trond S. Ingebrigtsen
- & C. Patrick Royall
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Article
| Open AccessBifurcation behaviors shape how continuous physical dynamics solves discrete Ising optimization
Physical and physics-inspired computation is emerging as a new paradigm for tackling hard optimization problems. In this work, the authors establish rigorous mathematical conditions together with new design principles for physical as well as simulated dynamical systems to solve general Ising models.
- Juntao Wang
- , Daniel Ebler
- & Jie Sun
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Article
| Open AccessDiffusion capacity of single and interconnected networks
Understanding of diffusive and spreading processes in networks remains challenging when dynamics of the network is complex. The authors propose a quantity to reflect the potential of a network node to diffuse information, that may serve to develop interventions for improved network efficiency.
- Tiago A. Schieber
- , Laura C. Carpi
- & Martín G. Ravetti
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Article
| Open AccessDynamic self-organisation and pattern formation by magnon-polarons
Increasing the speed of magnetization switching is an obvious pathway to improve spintronic device performance. However, very fast magnetization switching is accompanied by instabilities. Here, Gidding et al study these instabilities using optical pumping, and show that instability generated spin-waves can achieve a high enough amplitude to drive switching of the magnetization, with a distinctive coherent pattern.
- M. Gidding
- , T. Janssen
- & A. Kirilyuk
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Article
| Open AccessSupercritical fluids behave as complex networks
Supercritical fluids have local density inhomogeneities caused by molecular clusters. Authors show that the molecular interactions of supercritical fluids, associated with localized clusters, obey complex network dynamics that can be represented by a hidden-variable network model.
- Filip Simeski
- & Matthias Ihme
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Article
| Open AccessImproving the generalizability of protein-ligand binding predictions with AI-Bind
State-of-the-art machine learning models in drug discovery fail to reliably predict the binding properties of poorly annotated proteins and small molecules. Here, the authors present AI-Bind, a machine learning pipeline to improve generalizability and interpretability of binding predictions.
- Ayan Chatterjee
- , Robin Walters
- & Giulia Menichetti
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Article
| Open AccessHeavy tails and pruning in programmable photonic circuits for universal unitaries
Authors model programmable photonic circuits targeting universal unitaries and verify that a type of unit rotation operator has a heavy-tailed distribution. They suggest hardware pruning for random unitary and present design strategies for high fidelity and energy efficiency in large-scale quantum computations and photonic deep learning accelerators.
- Sunkyu Yu
- & Namkyoo Park
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Article
| Open AccessNanoscale thermodynamics needs the concept of a disjoining chemical potential
Matter behaves differently at the nanoscale. Here, the author introduces the concept of a disjoining chemical potential for nanoscale thermodynamics, showing that thermodynamic functions depend on the environment, and suggests possible experimental verifications.
- W. Dong
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Article
| Open AccessHigher-order interactions shape collective dynamics differently in hypergraphs and simplicial complexes
Complex real-world networks with higher-order interactions can be described and analyzed using two types of representation, simplicial complexes and hypergraphs. The authors show that choice of representation is essential and demonstrate its impact on emerging collective dynamics in the network.
- Yuanzhao Zhang
- , Maxime Lucas
- & Federico Battiston
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Article
| Open AccessAccelerating network layouts using graph neural networks
Visualization of large complex networks is challenging with limitations for the network size and depicting specific structures. The authors propose a Graph Neural Network based algorithm with improved speed and the quality of graph layouts, which allows for fast and informative visualization of large networks.
- Csaba Both
- , Nima Dehmamy
- & Albert-László Barabási
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Article
| Open AccessSpatial immunization to abate disease spreading in transportation hubs
Efficient spatial targeting of interventions could reduce the spread of infections in transportation hubs. Here, the authors assess the optimal locations to target in Heathrow airport using disease transmission models informed by a contact network based on anonymised location data from 200,000 individuals.
- Mattia Mazzoli
- , Riccardo Gallotti
- & José J. Ramasco
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Article
| Open AccessMultistability, intermittency, and hybrid transitions in social contagion models on hypergraphs
Social interactions often occur in groups of individuals, which can be mathematically represented as hypergraphs. In this study, the authors analyze the appearance of multistability, intermittency, and hybrid phase transitions in social contagion models on hypergraphs.
- Guilherme Ferraz de Arruda
- , Giovanni Petri
- & Yamir Moreno
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Article
| Open AccessThe dynamic nature of percolation on networks with triadic interactions
Triadic interactions are higher-order interactions relevant to many real complex systems. The authors develop a percolation theory for networks with triadic interactions and identify basic mechanisms for observing dynamical changes of the giant component such as the ones occurring in neuronal and climate networks.
- Hanlin Sun
- , Filippo Radicchi
- & Ginestra Bianconi