Electric dipole (E1) and spin-magnetic dipole (spin-M1) responses of nuclei have been studied by proton inelastic scattering experiments at forward angles, including zero degrees, at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) by employing a proton beam 295 or 392 MeV and the high-resolution magnetic spectrometer Grand Raiden. The E1 response of nuclei is the most fundamental nuclear response to the external field and is relevant to photo-nuclear reactions. After introducing the rel

Atsushi Tamii & Nobuyuki Kobayashi

A molecular rotor is a molecule/molecular system that performs rotary motions under an external stimulus. Molecular rotors are promising for applications in medicine, optical usage, information science, etc. A molecular rotor is also a crucial component in constructing more sophisticated functional molecular machines. Anchoring molecular rotors on surfaces is regarded as a feasible way of building functional molecular rotor systems. Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a powerful too

Tianyi Yang & Ruiqin Zhang

We study the hadronic coupling constants in the two-body strong decays of the fully-charm tetraquark states with the \(J^{PC}=0^{++}\), \(1^{+-}\), and \(2^{++}\) via the QCD sum rules based on rigorous quark-hadron duality. Then we obtain the hadronic coupling constants and partial decay widths therefore total decay widths, which support assigning the X(6552) as the first radial excitation of the scalar tetraquark state. And other predictions can be used to diagnose exotic states in t

Zhi-Gang Wang & Xiao-Song Yang

Gravitational waves induced by large primordial curvature fluctuations may result in a sizable stochastic gravitational wave background. Interestingly, curvature fluctuations are gradually generated by initial isocurvature fluctuations, which in turn induce gravitational waves. Initial isocurvature fluctuations commonly appear in multi-field models of inflation as well as in the formation of scattered compact objects in the very early universe, such as primordial black holes and solito

Guillem Domènech

The real atomic scale details of molecular junctions would be of much complexity and can yield a plethora of “counterintuitive” results. Here, we provide an overview of four unconventional intentional or unintentional transport phenomena in molecular junctions, in particular, unconventional tunneling length-dependent transport behavior, deviation from Kirchhoff’s superposition law, dual roles of imperfect engineering, and masked quantum interference. These abnormal phenomena are not en

Jinlong Ren, Tianchen Li, Zhuang Li, Decheng Kong, Guangcun Shan & KunPeng Dou

Flat bands arise in periodic media when symmetries or fine-tuning result in perfect wavepacket localisation. Flat band localisation is fragile and exhibits remarkably sharp sensitivity to perturbations including interactions and disorder, leading to a variety of interesting quantum and classical phenomena. Originally a theoretical curiosity, advances in fabrication methods have allowed flat band physics to be observed down to the nanoscale. This article briefly reviews progress in the

Daniel Leykam

In this paper, molecular dynamics simulations have been employed to investigate the phonon thermal transport in bilayer polycrystalline graphene nanoribbon (pGNR/pGNR), compared with bilayer graphene nanoribbon (GNR/GNR) and pGNR/GNR heterostructure. The interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) of bilayer structures was also calculated using the heat dissipation method. The effects of interlayer interaction, grain size, and vacancy defects on ITR and in-plane phonon thermal conductivity of

Zi-Qiang Yang, Muhammad Asif Shakoori & Hai-Peng Li

A growing cohort of experimental linear photonic networks implementing Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) have now claimed quantum advantage. However, many open questions remain on how to effectively verify these experimental results, as scalable methods are needed that fully capture the rich array of quantum correlations generated by these photonic quantum computers. In this paper, we briefly review recent theoretical methods to simulate experimental GBS networks. We focus mostly on method

Alexander S. Dellios, Margaret D. Reid & Peter D. Drummond

Controllably fabricating low-dimensional systems and unraveling their exotic states at the atomic scale is a pivotal step for the construction of quantum functional materials with emergent states. Here, by utilizing the elaborated molecular beam epitaxy growth, we obtain various FexSey phases beyond the single-layer FeSe/SrTiO3 films. A synthetic strategy of lowering substrate temperature with superfluous Se annealing is implemented to achieve various stoichiometric FeSe-derived phases

Yao Zhang, Zhi-Mo Zhang, Jin-Hua Nie, Wenhao Zhang & Ying-Shuang Fu

In this article we outline the historical development and key results obtained to date for free parafermionic spin chains. The concept of free parafermions provides a natural N-state generalization of free fermions, which have long underpinned the exact solution and application of widely studied quantum spin chains and their classical counterparts. In particular, we discuss the Baxter-Fendley free parafermionic Z(N) spin chain, which is a relatively simple non-Hermitian generalization

Murray T. Batchelor, Robert A. Henry & Xilin Lu