Charge order in kagome superconductors
Why does charge order break symmetry differently across the AV3Sb5 kagome superconductor family?
Physics
Non-Abelian anyons in the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state
Do the excitations of the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state exhibit non-Abelian exchange statistics?
Many-body localization in two dimensions
Can an isolated two-dimensional disordered interacting system avoid thermalization indefinitely?
Kitaev spin liquid in α-RuCl3
Is the field-induced state of α-RuCl3 a Kitaev spin liquid with fractional excitations?
Granular layering at large particle-size ratios
Why do flowing mixtures with very different grain sizes form repeated layers?
Earthquake nucleation
How does slow fault slip develop into the unstable rupture of a natural earthquake?
Deep-focus earthquake mechanism
How do earthquakes occur hundreds of kilometres down, where ordinary brittle failure is suppressed?
Early geodynamo energy budget
What supplied the energy to sustain Earth’s magnetic dynamo before the solid inner core grew?
Deep mantle water cycle
How much water do subducting rocks carry deep into the mantle, and how is it exchanged?
Lightning initiation
How does fast electrical breakdown become a lightning leader in natural thunderstorm fields?
Low-cloud climate feedback
How will low clouds change under sustained warming, and how will that change affect Earth’s energy balance?
Hot Jupiter radius inflation
Some giant planets close to their stars are larger than ordinary cooling models predict. What keeps them inflated?
Multiple populations in globular clusters
Stars within one globular cluster can have different light-element abundances. Their common origin is still debated.
Pulsar radio emission
A pulsar’s rotating beam is familiar. The plasma process that makes its exceptionally bright radio waves is less certain.
Stellar angular momentum transport
A star’s core and outer layers exchange rotational motion. Which internal processes set that exchange as stars evolve?
Age of Saturn’s rings
Saturn’s icy rings look relatively clean. Does that reveal when they formed, or how they lose and retain pollution?
Venus’s ultraviolet absorber
An unidentified absorber darkens Venus’s clouds in near-ultraviolet light. Which chemicals produce it and keep it present?
Ganymede’s dynamo
Ganymede generates its own magnetic field. What keeps the conducting material inside it moving?
Pulsar glitches
Some pulsars suddenly spin faster. What triggers the rapid transfer of rotational motion that produces a large glitch?
Turbulence intermittency
Turbulent motion concentrates into rare, intense bursts. Can the fluid equations predict how those bursts scale?
EMC effect
Quark distributions change when protons and neutrons are bound in nuclei. What physical mechanism causes those changes?
Proton spin
A proton’s total spin is known. How is it shared among quark spin, gluon spin and their orbital motion?
Hadronic vacuum polarization
Different methods still disagree on parts of the hadronic contribution to the muon’s magnetic moment. Which data or corrections explain the differences?
Luminous fast blue optical transients
Cow-like transients brighten and fade rapidly while emitting powerful X-rays and radio waves. Which stellar events produce them?