A joint research team from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), the Quantum Science Center of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Tsinghua University has unveiled a historic leap in superconductivity research.

The recipients of the 11th Chinese Chemical Society-Royal Society of Chemistry Young Chemist Award were recently announced by the Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), with Liu Leo LIU, Associate Professor of the Department of Chemistry at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), being recognized with this honor.

Symmetry has become a central dogma in modern science, guiding its development in many aspects. Symmetry breaking, especially spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB), by which a symmetric state spontaneously ends up in an asymmetric or lower-symmetry state without explicitly introducing symmetry-breaking terms, has played an indispensable role in the developments of many branches of modern physics, such as high energy and condensed matter physics.

Magnons are the elementary excitations of typical magnetically ordered systems, and their interactions often lead to a plethora of emergent phenomena. In his seminal work, physicist Hans Bethe pointed out the possibility of forming two-magnon bound states in a spin chain. Later, this concept was generalized to higher dimensions by Wotis and Hanus. As an analogue of Cooper pairs in superconductors, it has been predicted theoretically that the BEC of two-magnon bound states corresponds to a quantum phase transition into a new state of matter, often termed as the spin nematic (SN) state. The SN state is a type of “hidden order” that breaks the spin rotational symmetry while having zero dipolar magnetic moments.

The atomic nucleus, as a quantum many-body system, has always been a central topic in nuclear physics due to its complex structure. The strong interactions between nucleons not only form traditional structures such as spherical and deformed nuclei but also give rise to more exotic forms, such as neutron halo nuclei and cluster structures. The emergence of these exotic structures often accompanies the breaking of local symmetry, which may trigger collective excitation phenomena like dipole resonance, serving as a unique probe for exploring the internal dynamics of atomic nuclei.

Since the dawn of human language, information spreading has been a ubiquitous part of human social activities. Virtually all collective human behaviors are closely tied to information dissemination. Understanding the fundamental laws of how humans spread information is crucial for comprehending both individual nature and the emergence of collective social behaviors. However, data related to information spreading behaviors are often difficult to obtain, leaving the basic principles of information dissemination unclear. In many studies, researchers have had to assume multiple spreading models.