Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Phase transitions and critical phenomena are the changes of a system from one regime or state to another exhibiting very different properties, and the unusual effects that occur on the boundary between them. A change in the state of matter, such as from a solid to a liquid, is a classic example.
Here the authors identify a generic coupling in phase-separated liquids between motility and phase equilibria perturbations: phase-separated droplets swim to their dissolution. This suggests alternative transport mechanism for biomolecular condensates.
The symmetry of the superconducting order parameter in UTe2 is still debated. Now ultrasound experiments suggest that the order parameter can only have one component.
Some magnetic phase transitions can be understood as Bose–Einstein condensation of magnons. Close to a quantum critical point, YbCl3 now provides a realization of a Bose–Einstein condensate that is dominated by two-dimensional physical behaviour.
The frameworks to simulate pathogen, malware and failure spreading are computationally demanding, and they are subject to large statistical uncertainty. The authors develop efficient inference and control algorithms based on dynamic message passing to study a two-layer spreading process, where the spreading infection triggers cascading failures and leads to secondary disasters.
Finding an optimal shape for transport networks, represented as multilayer structures, is a challenging problem. The authors propose analytical and computational frameworks to analyze sharp transitions from symmetric to asymmetric shapes in optimal networks, that can be applied for planning and development of improved multimodal transportation systems within a city.
Electrocaloric effects have not hitherto been experimentally studied at a phase transition created by strain. It is now shown that the continuous transition created by epitaxial strain in strontium titanate films greatly enhances electrocaloric effects over a wide range of temperatures, including room temperature.
Ageing is a non-linear, irreversible process that defines many properties of glassy materials. Now, it is shown that the so-called material-time formalism can describe ageing in terms of equilibrium-like properties.
The integration of theory and experiment makes possible tracking the slow evolution of a photodoped Mott insulator to a distinct non-equilibrium metallic phase under the influence of electron-lattice coupling.
Quasicrystals are ordered but not periodic, which makes them fascinating objects at the interface between order and disorder. Experiments with ultracold atoms zoom in on this interface by driving a quasicrystal and exploring its fractal properties.