News & Comment

Over the past decade machine learning has made significant advances in approximating density functionals, but whether this signals the end of human-designed functionals remains to be seen.

Giulia Menichetti describes a deep learning pipeline designed to provide reliable binding predictions for poorly annotated proteins and ligands.

The development of time-resolved, multiscale and multi-modal X-ray imaging techniques at advanced light sources raises challenges on the data processing end — but image processing methods from other research areas will help.

Topological defects play an important role in biology, as shown by a growing body of evidence. Aleksandra Ardaševa and Amin Doostmohammadi survey the new research directions that are opening.

Wendong Wang introduces a new assembly method of ultraclean van der Waals heterostructures that completely avoids the use of polymers.

The neutron and the positron were both discovered in 1932. This month we look back at these discoveries and find that we have more in common with early 20th century physicists that one might suspect.

Sebastiaan Huber describes AiiDA, an open source system to manage complex workflows and heterogeneous data.

Sujung Kim describes how to use the time-resolved magneto-optic Kerr effect to probe magnon–phonon interactions.

40 years ago, the first atomic-resolution images using scanning tunnelling microscopy were seen.

Machine learning methods have proved powerful in particle physics, but without interpretability there is no guarantee the outcome of a learning algorithm is correct or robust. Christophe Grojean, Ayan Paul, Zhuoni Qian and Inga Strümke give an overview of how to introduce interpretability to methods commonly used in particle physics.

45 years after being coined, the quantum Zeno effect still holds surprises.

The first confirmed discovery of a planet outside our Solar System was announced 30 years ago. Since then, technical developments have enabled detection of thousands of exoplanets.

Breakfast is serious business — and involves a lot of physics. This month, we share with you our favourite breakfast-related physics papers.

Gregory White discusses process tensor tomography, a method to characterize non-Markovian dynamics, which can find applications in quantum technologies and the study of open quantum systems.

L. A. P. Ardila highlights the importance of quantum Monte Carlo methods for the study of polarons in ultracold quantum gases.

Hillel Sanhedrai explains how it can be possible to revive a failed network functionality by controlling the activity of just a single node.

A paper in Physical Review X reports on the role of spatial coherence in branched flow patterns in light.

Wigner crystals — ordered arrays of electrons — have been recently found in various 2D materials, but the first studies of these crystals in 2D electron systems (2DESs) date back from the 1980s. Mansour Shayegan gives a brief history of Wigner crystals and highlights future prospects.

A paper in Science Advances uses a laboratory setup to simulate galaxy cluster cores and explain the suppression of heat conduction from the plasma core.

Two recent studies report more stringent constraints on dark matter from experiments with atoms and ions that make use of techniques and devices developed for quantum technologies.