The rapid emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections has intensified the demand for advanced antimicrobial drug delivery strategies capable of improving therapeutic efficacy while overcoming the limitations of conventional antibiotics. Bacteriophage therapy has re-emerged as a promising antibacterial approach because of its high specificity and potent activity against antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Nevertheless, the clinical translation of free bacteriophages remains restricted by multiple biological barriers, including rapid immune clearance, limited retention at infection sites, enzymatic degradation, poor stability, and inadequate penetration into bacterial biofilms. Hydrogel-based drug delivery systems have emerged as versatile biomaterial platforms that effectively address these challenges by protecting bacteriophages from environmental degradation, enabling localized administration, prolonging residence time, and providing sustained and controlled phage release. This review critically discusses the major biological barriers limiting successful bacteriophage therapy and highlights recent advances in hydrogel engineering strategies designed to improve phage encapsulation, stability, release behavior, and antibacterial efficacy. Furthermore, the physicochemical characteristics of hydrogels that influence phage delivery, including biocompatibility, porosity, swelling behavior, degradability, tissue adhesiveness, and mechanical properties, are examined in relation to their effects on phage retention and release. Recent applications of hydrogel-assisted bacteriophage delivery in chronic wound infections, biofilm-associated infections, surgical site infections, and other MDR bacterial diseases are summarized, with particular emphasis on localized antimicrobial therapy. Finally, current challenges related to formulation design, large-scale manufacturing, regulatory approval, and clinical translation are discussed, together with future perspectives for developing clinically applicable hydrogel-based phage delivery systems. Collectively, this review evaluates the current evidence supporting hydrogel-mediated bacteriophage delivery and identifies key considerations for the development and clinical translation of effective localized phage delivery systems against multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.

We investigated the K[over ¯]-nucleus interaction through the simultaneous measurement of the inclusive ^{12}C(K^{-},p) and exclusive K^{-} escape ^{12}C(K^{-},pK_{esc}^{-}) reactions at 1.8  GeV/c at J-PARC. The present measurement explicitly focuses on the K^{-} escape process for the first time, successfully accomplishing a direct experimental determination of the imaginary part of the K^{-} optical potential. The differential cross section for the K^{-} escape reaction was determined to be 436±6(stat.)±44(syst.)  μb/sr. A simultaneous likelihood fit yielded real and imaginary potential strengths of V_{0}=-72_{-5}^{+3}(stat.)_{-8}^{+0}(syst.)  MeV and W_{0}=-100_{-1}^{+7}(stat.)_{-16}^{+0}(syst.)  MeV at the nuclear center, respectively. The derived W_{0} is significantly stronger than that predicted by theoretical models based on one-nucleon processes, ssuggesting possible contributions from processes involving multiple nucleons.

Layered van der Waals (vdW) magnetic semiconductors open a new avenue for exploring intertwined excitonic and magnetic phenomena. Here, we investigate this interplay in the vdW antiferromagnet MnPS_{3}, uncovering an exceptionally long exciton lifetime (∼100  μs) below the Néel temperature (T_{N}). We demonstrate that the exciton lifetime is primarily governed by phonon-assisted nonradiative recombination and thus exhibits a strong temperature dependence. In contrast, the exciton radiative recombination shows a distinct temperature dependence that is sensitive to magnetic order. Below T_{N}, the temperature dependence of the radiative recombination rate is consistent with a magnon-assisted emission pathway, while above T_{N} it reflects the combined effects of short-range spin correlations and phonons. These findings not only establish MnPS_{3} as a compelling candidate for excitonic devices due to its long lifetime and correlation with magnetic orders but also provide crucial insights into the interplay between excitons, spins, and lattices in vdW magnetic semiconductors.

This Letter presents a combination of searches for Higgs boson pair (HH) production performed by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations using proton-proton collision datasets recorded at sqrt[s]=13  TeV during the Large Hadron Collider Run 2, corresponding to integrated luminosities ranging between 126 and 140  fb^{-1}. The upper limit at the 95% confidence level on the total HH signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured cross section to the standard model (SM) prediction, corresponds to 2.5, with an expected value of 1.7 (2.8) assuming the absence (presence) of the SM HH signal. The strength of the HH signal is measured to be 0.8_{-0.7}^{+0.9} relative to the SM prediction. The observed significance is found to be 1.1 standard deviations whereas 1.3 are expected for the SM HH signal. Constraints are set on the Higgs boson trilinear self-coupling and on the couplings of two Higgs bosons to two vector bosons, both normalized to the SM predictions and denoted as κ_{λ} and κ_{2V}, respectively. The observed individual constraints at the 95% confidence level are -0.71<κ_{λ}<6.1 and 0.73<κ_{2V}<1.3, while the expected constraints assuming the presence of the SM HH signal are -1.3<κ_{λ}<6.7 and 0.66<κ_{2V}<1.4.

The color-octet (CO) mechanism is a cornerstone of nonrelativistic QCD, yet knowledge of its long-distance matrix elements remains limited, preventing stringent tests of the theory. We demonstrate that the Artru-Collins asymmetry in hadronic decays of the P-wave bottomonium state χ_{b2} provides a direct probe of CO dynamics. At leading order, the asymmetry arises exclusively from the CO decay channel, whereas the color-singlet (CS) contribution affects only the unpolarized rate, so that a nonzero signal constitutes unambiguous evidence of the CO mechanism. This observable provides a novel way to extract the ratio ρ_{8} between CO and CS matrix elements. Focusing on e^{+}e^{-}→ϒ(2S)→γχ_{b2} at Belle, we show that the asymmetric beam configuration preserves the asymmetry in the laboratory frame and avoids the strong suppression present in the center-of-mass frame. With the Belle II dataset, ρ_{8} could be determined with sufficient precision to address the long-standing discrepancy between the lattice calculations and phenomenological determinations.

Based on e^{+}e^{-} annihilation data collected with the BESIII detector at center-of-mass energies from 4.600 to 4.699 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.5  fb^{-1}, we present the first measurement of the longitudinal polarization of Λ hyperon produced in the inclusive decay Λ_{c}^{+}→ΛX, where X denotes any allowed final states. The polarizations are determined to be P_{Λ}=-0.393±0.055_{stat}±0.020_{syst} and P_{Λ[over ¯]}=0.288±0.056_{stat}±0.017_{syst}. A search for CP violation is performed using an asymmetry constructed from the Λ polarization and the Λ→pπ^{-} decay asymmetry parameter, and A_{CP}^{pol}=0.15±0.12_{stat}±0.03_{syst} was obtained. Furthermore, an updated measurement of the absolute branching fraction is reported as B(Λ_{c}^{+}→ΛX)=(38.07±0.38_{stat}±0.49_{syst})%, representing a fourfold precision improvement over the previous BESIII measurement. A search for CP violation in the decay rate yields A_{CP}^{dir}=(1.5±1.0_{stat}±1.0_{syst})%. No evidence for CP violation is observed in this inclusive charm baryon decay. The subscripts 'stat' and 'syst' denote statistical and systematic uncertainties, respectively.

Dispersion engineering via geometric confinement is essential to integrated nonlinear photonics. However, prevailing methodologies rely on semiempirical Sellmeier models that assume idealized material purity, neglecting the pronounced dispersion shifts induced by residual impurities like hydrogen-related bonds. Here, we demonstrate that these residual bonds fundamentally alter the dispersion landscape spanning from the ultraviolet (UV) to the midinfrared (MIR) spectra. Specifically, they introduce MIR vibrational absorption while simultaneously modifying UV electronic transitions, shifting the band gap and UV pole. We show that the spectral tension between these UV and MIR modifications dictates the group velocity dispersion from the visible to the near-infrared via the Kramers-Kronig causality. We experimentally validate this phenomenon through systematic characterization of broadband loss and dispersion in ultralow-loss silicon nitride photonic integrated circuits. By rigorously incorporating these effects, we bridge the gap between empirical fitting and predictive physical modeling. Our Letter resolves long-standing discrepancies in dispersion engineering, providing precision control essential for next-generation integrated photonics.

Event-by-event transverse momentum correlations are sensitive to the equation of state of strongly interacting matter and are expected to exhibit anomalous fluctuations in the vicinity of the QCD critical point. We report the first measurements of two-particle transverse momentum (p_{T}) correlations for mid-rapidity charged particles in fixed-target Au+Au collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energies sqrt[s_{NN}]=3.0-7.7  GeV, measured by the STAR experiment during the Beam Energy Scan (BES) Phase II program. The dependence of the scaled correlator on the number of participating nucleons (N_{part}) is studied to test expectations from an independent-source scenario, where the correlations are expected to scale as 1/sqrt[N_{part}]. We observe a clear breakdown of the expected scaling behavior in central collisions and identify a statistically significant nonmonotonic dependence of the p_{T} correlations on collision energy, with a significance of approximately 5σ. In contrast, transport-model calculations and data from mid-central collisions yield significances of only 2σ and 1.4σ, respectively-insufficient to support a claim of nonmonotonicity. These observations provide new constraints on the equation of state at high baryon density and may be sensitive to the presence of a QCD critical point.

We present a search of data from the first part of the fourth observing run of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA for three kinds of dark matter-dilatons (spin-0), dark photons (spin-1), and tensor bosons (spin-2)-using three independent methods, each extended to search for all three candidates. Each dark matter candidate could interact with different standard-model particles in the instruments, causing unique differential strains on the interferometers. While we do not find any evidence for a signal, we place the most stringent upper limits to date on the couplings of each dark matter model to the interferometers. For scalars with masses between [4×10^{-14},1.5×10^{-13}]  eV that couple to photons or electrons, our constraints on the scalar-to-electron or photon coupling improve upon those from the third observing run by 1 order of magnitude, with the tightest limit of ∼10^{-20}  GeV^{-1} at a mass of ∼2×10^{-13}  eV. For vectors with masses between [7×10^{-13},8.47×10^{-12}]  eV that couple to baryons, our constraints on the dark-photon or baryon coupling supersede those from MICROSCOPE and Eöt-Wash by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude, reaching a minimum of ∼5×10^{-24} at a mass of ∼10^{-12}  eV. For tensors with masses of [4×10^{-14},8.47×10^{-12}]  eV (the full mass range analyzed) that couple via a Yukawa interaction, our constraints, which are the first obtained from gravitational-wave interferometers, surpass those from fifth-force experiments by 4 to 5 orders of magnitude, achieving a limit as low as ∼8×10^{-9} at ∼2×10^{-13}  eV. Our results show that each method has substantially different sensitivity to each dark matter candidate, highlighting the importance of a multimethod approach to search for new physics. Moreover, they demonstrate that gravitational-wave interferometers can simultaneously probe multiple ultralight dark matter models and place unprecedented constraints on tensor fields arising in a broad range of modified-gravity theories.