Clay weekly context brief for the Condensed Matter category (ISO week 2026-W36).

Clay tracks publications from the Condensed Matter feed list. Below are recent items from this category, each with its source and a short description of what the publication covers when one is available in the source feed.

Recent publications:
1. Chiral enhancement of two-magnon bound states in an $S=1/2$ triangular-lattice magnet
   Source: cond-mat.str-el (Strongly Correlated Electrons)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.01062
   We study one- and two-magnon excitations above the fully polarized state of the spin-$1/2$ triangular-lattice $J_1$-$J_2$-$J_3$ Heisenberg model with a uniform scalar-chirality interaction.
2. Long-lived memory in sliding spin chains
   Source: cond-mat.soft (Soft Condensed Matter)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.14383
   We study a system of two ferromagnetic one-dimensional Ising chains coupled to a thermal bath, which are driven out of equilibrium by being moved past one another at a constant speed.
3. Anomalous hydrodynamic fluctuations in the quantum XXZ spin chain
   Source: cond-mat.quant-gas (Quantum Gases)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.24242
   The quantum XXZ spin-1/2 chain features non-Gaussian spin current fluctuations in the regime of easy-axis anisotropy.
4. Topological Signatures of Hardness and Structural Order in Network-Forming Materials
   Source: cond-mat.mtrl-sci (Materials Science)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28365
   Understanding how the topology of network forming materials influences their physical properties remains a longstanding challenge.
5. How Long-Range Tails Reshape Non-Hermitian Spectra
   Source: cond-mat.mes-hall (Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28577
   Exponentially decaying long-range hoppings are ubiquitous in realistic tight-binding models and are often truncated to obtain a finite-range description.
6. Nanoscale linear response of strongly disordered stable solids
   Source: cond-mat.dis-nn (Disordered Systems and Neural Networks)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.23768
   Strongly disordered solids exhibit distinctive properties at the nanoscale, where conventional continuum theory breaks down.
7. The bixbyite framework as a platform for frustrated noncollinear magnetism: resolving the magnetic ground state of $\beta$-Fe$_2$O$_3$
   Source: cond-mat.str-el (Strongly Correlated Electrons)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.17842
   Magnetic behavior across Fe$_2$O$_3$ polymorphs varies widely despite identical chemistry, highlighting crystal architecture as a key determinant of exchange topology, magnetic anisotropy, and ultimately magnetic order.
8. Dynamical and conformational behavior of a polymer in a crowded solution
   Source: cond-mat.soft (Soft Condensed Matter)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.25242
   We investigate the structure and dynamics of a polymer in a fluid containing mobile spherical colloidal crowders of radius $R$.
9. Adiabatic hydrodynamization and quasinormal modes of nonthermal attractors
   Source: cond-mat.quant-gas (Quantum Gases)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15016
   Nonthermal attractors govern the emergent self-similar dynamics of far-from-equilibrium quantum systems, from ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions to cold-atom experiments.
10. Work Function and High-Coverage Adsorption Energy as Hydrogen-Evolution Descriptors on Ag-Au-Pd-Pt Alloys
   Source: cond-mat.mtrl-sci (Materials Science)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28347
   Hydrogen-evolution activity is commonly rationalized through hydrogen adsorption energies and the Sabatier principle, yet this descriptor picture becomes ambiguous on multimetallic surfaces, where each composition exposes a distribution of local adsorption environments.
11. Fabrication-free assessment of microwave losses in germanium-based dielectrics and superconductors
   Source: cond-mat.mes-hall (Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28463
   We present a flip-chip-based sensing scheme to measure effective microwave losses associated with target materials for quantum technologies, without requiring any device fabrication on the material under test.
12. Compact Variational Neural Networks for Spectral Inference from a Single Nonlinear 2D Perovskite Photodetector
   Source: cond-mat.dis-nn (Disordered Systems and Neural Networks)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27977
   Spectroscopy conventionally separates optical frequencies before detection, imposing persistent constraints on footprint, complexity and scalability.
13. Exact spectrum and anomalous relaxation in the open disorder-free Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev system
   Source: cond-mat.str-el (Strongly Correlated Electrons)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08079
   We study a disorder-free variant of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model with dissipation within the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad formalism.
14. Revisiting Safe Temperature for Environmental Accelerated Aging of Additively Manufactured Polymers
   Source: cond-mat.soft (Soft Condensed Matter)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.12288
   Accelerated aging is widely used to study the long-term behavior of materials within laboratory time scales, particularly for materials exposed to solvent environments over extended periods.
15. Superconductivity in the repulsive Hubbard model on different geometries induced by density-assisted hopping
   Source: cond-mat.quant-gas (Quantum Gases)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09363
   We study the effect of density-assisted hopping on different dimerized lattice geometries, such as bilayers and ladder structures.
16. Phenomenological Growth Regimes in Liquid-Precursor CVD of MoS$_2$ on Functional Substrates
   Source: cond-mat.mtrl-sci (Materials Science)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28269
   The integration of two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) onto functional substrates remains constrained by stochastic vapor-phase growth dynamics.
17. Self-partitioned Interfacial Time Crystals
   Source: cond-mat.mes-hall (Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28126
   Nonequilibrium many-body systems can spontaneously break symmetry in time, as in time crystals, or in space, through self-organized domains and interfaces.
18. Efficient perturbations for basin hopping in amorphous glasses
   Source: cond-mat.dis-nn (Disordered Systems and Neural Networks)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27680
   Efficient exploration of the complex potential-energy landscapes of amorphous materials is central to computational structure discovery and refinement.
19. Fractionalization, emergent SU($N$) symmetries, and fragmentation in layered quantum spin-orbital models
   Source: cond-mat.str-el (Strongly Correlated Electrons)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.22908
   We propose a family of layered quantum spin-orbital models as a platform to study fractionalization, unconventional forms of symmetry-breaking order, and their possible coexistence.
20. A pushing-pulling captive bubble method for repeatable measurement of dynamic contact angles underwater
   Source: cond-mat.soft (Soft Condensed Matter)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.23907
   Accurate measurement of dynamic contact angles in aqueous environments is essential for evaluating surface wettability.
21. Finite-temperature spin diffusion in the two-dimensional XY model
   Source: cond-mat.quant-gas (Quantum Gases)
   Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20124
   We present a combined theory-experiment study to quantify spin diffusion in the square lattice quantum spin-1/2 XY model at finite temperature.

Sources in this brief: cond-mat.dis-nn (Disordered Systems and Neural Networks); cond-mat.mes-hall (Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics); cond-mat.mtrl-sci (Materials Science); cond-mat.quant-gas (Quantum Gases); cond-mat.soft (Soft Condensed Matter); cond-mat.str-el (Strongly Correlated Electrons).
Selected 21 of 88 available items for this weekly brief.