JPS Hot Topics

Where did heavy elements (e.g., gold, platinum, and rare earths) originate? Of roughly 7,000 atomic nuclei predicted by theoretical models, only approximately 3,300 have been observed. Each newly discovered isotope adds a piece to the “nuclear chart”—a vast map of every possible combination of protons and neutrons. Filling in this chart is essential for understanding […]

Crystals that lack mirror and inversion symmetries are known as chiral crystals; that is, their atomic structures cannot be superimposed onto their mirror images. The collective vibrations of the atoms in a crystal are quantized as bosonic quasiparticles called phonons. Each phonon carries an energy ℏω, where ℏ is the reduced Planck constant, and ωis […]

This study focuses on one of the most intriguing electrical phenomena in modern physics: the topological Hall effect (THE). In the ordinary Hall Effect, a magnetic field simply pushes the flowing electrons sideways; however, the deflection is caused by a hidden internal force. This effect occurs when electrons encounter a complex swirling magnetic texture—often a tiny, […]

The human heart functions as a highly efficient fluid pump, maintaining circulation through organized blood-flow patterns. Characteristic vortex-like structures arise within the left ventricle—the main pumping chamber of the heart—facilitating smooth blood filling and ejection. In patients with cardiovascular diseases, the vortex-like structures are disturbed, reflecting impaired cardiac function. However, conventional diagnostic tools, such as […]

Solitons, originally defined as a special class of exact solutions in classical integrable systems, are now broadly employed across many areas of physics to describe spatially localized excited states that arise from the interplay between nonlinearity and dispersion, including in non-integrable systems. In condensed matter physics, representative examples include soliton lattices in chiral magnets, spinor […]

This research developed a strategy for fabricating ultrathin electrolyte layers of samarium-doped cerium oxide (SDC), which is known for its exceptional oxide-ion conductivity. The key innovation is the precise control of the structure of the material during the sputter deposition of the films. The SDC thin film with a thickness of 20 nm, fabricated on […]

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is a powerful experimental technique that can measure the energy-momentum relation of electron removal excitation from interacting electrons in a solid. This relation is often referred to as band dispersion, and it is split into spin-up and spin-down branches in ferromagnets and ferrimagnets with net magnetization. Such band splitting in a collinear […]

Consider the problem of understanding the behavior of a system of interest and predicting its future behavior. In many cases, we assume that the underlying mechanisms are complex or unknown, and difficult to deductively understand from first principles. In such situations, statistical learning provides a basic framework for addressing this problem by fitting a postulated […]

In solids, electrons carry both charge and spin. The arrangement of these spins in a material largely determines its magnetic properties, such as whether it is ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, or something more exotic. Because the full many-electron problem is extremely complex, physicists often use spin models that focus only on the spin degrees-of-freedom. A representative example […]

 The magnetic-field-induced transition in a spin S = 1/2 one-dimensional (1D) magnet with Ising anisotropy under a transverse field is a prototypical example of a quantum phase transition driven by quantum fluctuations near absolute zero. Because the Zeeman term associated with a transverse magnetic field applied perpendicular to the Ising axis does not commute with […]