We introduce a systematic method for extracting multivariable universal scaling functions and critical exponents from data. We exemplify our insights by analyzing simulations of avalanches in an interface using simulations from a driven quenched Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (qKPZ) equation. We fully characterize the spatial structure of these avalanches-we report universal scaling functions for size, height, and width distributions, and also local front heights.

A striking feature of bilayer graphene is the induction of a significant band gap in the electronic states by the application of a perpendicular electric field. Thicker graphene layers are also highly attractive materials. The ability to produce a band gap in these systems is of great fundamental and practical interest. Both experimental and theoretical investigations of graphene trilayers with the typical ABA layer stacking have, however, revealed the lack of any appreciable induced gap.

Aristotle contended that (regular) tetrahedra tile space, an opinion that remained widespread until it was observed that non-overlapping tetrahedra cannot subtend a solid angle of 4π around a point if this point lies on a tetrahedron edge. From this 15th century argument, we can deduce that tetrahedra do not tile space but, more than 500 years later, we are unaware of any known non-trivial upper bound to the packing density of tetrahedra. In this article, we calculate such a bound.

Motivated by the recent prediction that uniaxially compressed aerogel can stabilize the anisotropic A phase over the isotropic B phase, we measure the pressure dependent superfluid fraction of He3 entrained in 10% axially compressed, 98% porous aerogel. We observe that a broad region of the temperature-pressure phase diagram is occupied by the metastable A phase. The reappearance of the A phase on warming from the B phase, before superfluidity is extinguished at Tc, is in contrast to its absence in uncompressed aerogel.

In the Caenorhabditis elegans zygote, a conserved network of partitioning-defective (PAR) polarity proteins segregates into an anterior and a posterior domain, facilitated by flows of the cortical actomyosin meshwork. The physical mechanisms by which stable asymmetric PAR distributions arise from transient cortical flows remain unclear. We present evidence that PAR polarity arises from coupling of advective transport by the flowing cell cortex to a multistable PAR reaction-diffusion system.

We find the conditions under which the normal state of a spin-1 Bose gas is unstable toward condensation, ferromagnetism, liquid crystalline-like nematicity, and Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-like pairing. When the spin-dependent interactions are much weaker than the density-density interaction there is direct transition from a featureless normal state to a fully ordered Bose-Einstein condensate with either ferromagnetic or nematic order.

Next generation light sources are revolutionizing x-ray science by delivering ultra-intense, hard x-ray pulses many orders of magnitude brighter and shorter in duration than previously achievable. Maximizing the scientific potential of these light sources requires the development of suitable detectors. Experiments such as coherent x-ray imaging of single particles require detectors that can record extremely high instantaneous flux rates produced by femtosecond x-ray pulses (i.e.

We present a phenomenological theory of the interplay between nematic order and superconductivity in the vicinity of a vortex induced by an applied magnetic field. Nematic order can be strongly enhanced in the vortex core. As a result, the vortex cores become elliptical in shape. For the case where there is weak bulk nematic order at zero magnetic field, the field-induced eccentricity of the vortex core has a slow power-law decay away from the core. Conversely, if the nematic order is field induced, then the eccentricity is confined to the vortex core.

Replacing a magnetic atom by a spinless atom in a heavy-fermion compound generates a quantum state often referred to as a "Kondo-hole". No experimental imaging has been achieved of the atomic- scale electronic structure of a Kondo-hole, or of their destructive impact [Lawrence JM, et al. (1996) Phys Rev B 53:12559-12562] [Bauer ED, et al. (2011) Proc Natl Acad Sci. 108:6857-6861] on the hybridization process between conduction and localized electrons which generates the heavy-fermion state.

Synthetic efforts have identified a growing number of classes of organic macro-molecular impurities. Inclusion of an organic phase is believed to play a key role in enhancing the mechanical properties of the crystals, which are believed to share structural features with biogenic minerals and to have both increased hardness and fracture toughness relative to their pure, geological counterparts.