The American Physical Society’s Board of Directors has appointed Randall Kamien as Editor in Chief effective January 1, 2023.

Ultrastrong electromagnetic fields occur not only in astrophysical settings but also in dense lepton bunches, special crystals, and at the focus of high peak power lasers. For fields of sufficient magnitude including quantum electrodynamics effects becomes essential. Electron-positron pair creation and interaction of these pairs with the fields results in fascinating phenomena. In this review these particle dynamics are analyzed and shown to exhibit complex behavior including chaotic motion with strange attractors and limit cycles, as well as cascades where the vacuum “explodes” and acts back on the strong fields. An overview of planned experiments points to new discoveries which will challenge long-held theoretical expectations.

APS is pleased to announce the launch of the newest Physical Review title, PRX Life. PRX Life will offer scientists from a broad range of disciplines—including physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, and medicine—a high impact, fully open access journal dedicated to publishing outstanding research at all scales of biological organization.

A series of demonstrations by Micius—a low-orbit satellite with quantum capabilities—lays the groundwork for a satellite-based quantum communication network.

Viewpoint on:
Chao-Yang Lu, Yuan Cao, Cheng-Zhi Peng, and Jian-Wei Pan
Rev. Mod. Phys. 94, 035001 (2022)

The 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics was shared by Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez. This paper is the text of the address given in conjunction with the award.

Olga Dudko is a theoretical physicist who studies the phenomena of the living world. Her research is driven by the notion that deep, physics-based conceptual approaches can encompass the complexity of living systems.

While the first law of thermodynamics is a well-established principle underlying all models of Earth’s climate system, applications of the second law in climate science are active areas of research. This review summarizes how the relationships between Earth’s entropy export and internal entropy production provide insights into Earth’s climate. These applications include heat-engine analogs for atmospheric convection, tropical cyclones, and large-scale atmospheric heat transport. Open issues addressed include the ongoing debate on whether the climate system maximizes entropy production.

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Thomas Powers is a theoretical physicist working in soft matter physics and fluid mechanics. His current interests include colloids, liquid crystals, membranes, and active matter, as well as the hydrodynamics of swimming microorganisms.

RMP Associate Editor Pierre Ramond has won the 2020 Dirac Medal. See the full announcement from ICTP.

Lead Editor, Randall D. Kamien and new Colloquium Editor, Dietrich Belitz, discuss the role of Colloquia in Reviews of Modern Physics.

The 2019 APS Medal for Excellence in Physics was given to Bertrand I. Halperin. This contribution was invited in conjunction with this award. This article is an extended version of a talk given at the March 2019 meeting of the American Physical Society, summarizing the author’s work in areas linked to topological aspects of classical and quantum physics. Read Article