The subatomic world is a realm where matter behaves in ways that defy our everyday intuition, and this category explores the fundamental building blocks of our universe. From the intricate dance of quarks inside a proton to the strange properties of electrons, these studies reveal the deep rules that govern everything from the smallest particles to the largest stars.

At Gist.Science, we track every new preprint in this field as it appears on arXiv, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve. For each discovery, we provide both a clear, plain-language explanation of the core ideas and a detailed technical summary for those who want to dive deeper into the mathematics and methodology.

Below are the latest papers in Atom-Ph, offering fresh insights into the structure and behavior of the atomic scale.

⚛️ quantum physics

Geometric mechanisms enabling spin- and enantio-sensitive observables in one photon ionization of chiral molecules

This study revisits Cherepkov's theory of spin-resolved photoionization in chiral molecules to demonstrate that the ten independent parameters governing spin- and enantio-sensitive observables can be reduced to moments of three fundamental geometric pseudovectors arising solely from electric dipole interactions.

Philip Caesar M. Flores, Stefanos Carlström, Serguei Patchkovskii, Misha Ivanov, Andres F. Ordonez, Olga Smirnova2026-03-03
🔬 atomic physics

Graph Coloring via Quantum Optimization on a Rydberg-Qudit Atom Array

This paper introduces a novel approach for solving vertex graph coloring problems using coherent annealing on Rydberg-qudit atom arrays, where distinct same-parity Rydberg levels encode colors, demonstrating robust optimization for chromatic numbers up to three while analyzing and mitigating interaction-induced errors to enable future scaling for real-world integer optimization.

Toonyawat Angkhanawin, Aydin Deger, Jonathan D. Pritchard, C. Stuart Adams2026-03-02
🔬 atomic physics

Spin-current correlations in photoionization of chiral molecules

This paper demonstrates that chiral molecules support time-even spin-momentum correlations in photoionization that are revealed only through conditioned measurements, arguing that such correlations constitute the fundamental origin of chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) phenomena and identifying the specific molecular pseudovectors governing these spin-conditioned photoelectron currents.

Philip Caesar M. Flores, Stefanos Carlström, Serguei Patchkovskii, Misha Ivanov, Andres F. Ordonez, Olga Smirnova2026-03-02
🔬 atomic physics

Subcycle phase matching effects in short attosecond pulse trains

This study demonstrates that subcycle phase matching effects, revealed through two-color laser-assisted photoionization of HHG-generated attosecond pulse trains, cause unexpected spectral redistributions dependent on the carrier-to-envelope phase that cannot be explained by single-atom responses alone.

N. Ouahioune, R. Martín-Hernández, D. Hoff, P. K. Maroju, C. Guo, R. Weissenbilder, S. Mikaelsson, A. L'Huillier, M Lucc (…)2026-03-02
🔬 atomic physics

Fast momentum-selective transport of Bose-Einstein condensates via controlled non-adiabatic dynamics in optical lattices

This paper presents a numerical study demonstrating that controlled non-adiabatic dynamics, specifically synchronized with intra-site breathing oscillations, enable fast momentum-selective transport of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices with high fidelity and narrow momentum distributions, offering a significant speedup over traditional adiabatic protocols for quantum sensing applications.

Raja Chamakhi, Dana Codruta Marinica, Naceur Gaaloul, Eric Charron, Mourad Telmini2026-03-02
🔬 atomic physics

Fidelity Relations in an Array of Neutral Atom Qubits -- Experimental Validation of Control Noise

This study experimentally validates theoretical models linking control signal amplitude noise to qubit state fidelity in a 10x10 neutral atom array, demonstrating strong agreement between measured results and stochastic Schrödinger equation predictions to aid noise identification and optimal control in NISQ-era systems.

Deon Janse van Rensburg, Robert de Keijzer, Rogier Venderbosch, Yuri van der Werf, Jesus del Pozo Mellado, Rianne Lous (…)2026-02-27
🔬 atomic physics

Controlled symmetry breaking of the Fermi surface in ultracold polar molecules

This paper reports the first observation of interaction-induced, continuously tunable Fermi surface deformations in a deeply degenerate gas of microwave-shielded 23Na40K^{23}\text{Na}^{40}\text{K} polar molecules, demonstrating a highly controllable platform for exploring strongly correlated dipolar quantum matter.

Shrestha Biswas, Sebastian Eppelt, Weikun Tian, Wei Zhang, Fulin Deng, Christine Frank, Tao Shi, Immanuel Bloch, Xin-Yu (…)2026-02-27
🔬 atomic physics

Dimer-projection contact and the clock shift of a unitary Fermi gas

This paper introduces a rapid spectroscopic technique based on dimer-projection to measure contact parameters in a unitary Fermi gas on microsecond timescales, revealing that this feature dominates the clock shift and highlighting the significance of multichannel effects beyond universal predictions.

Kevin G. S. Xie, Colin J. Dale, Kiera Pond Grehan, Maggie Fen Wang, Tilman Enss, Paul S. Julienne, Zhenhua Yu, Joseph H. (…)2026-02-26