近日，以色列理工学院Kaminer, I.团队报道了光学相位奇点系综中的超光速相关。相关论文于2026年3月25日发表在《自然》杂志上。

相位奇点（即携带量子化拓扑荷的点）是超流体、超导体、声场和光场等各类波动系统中普遍存在的特征。这些奇点的集合体展现出类似液体中粒子的距离相关性，而这类相关性因其在奇异材料物相中的作用已被广泛研究。相比之下，支配系统演化的相空间全关联仍未被探索，且在实验上难以触及。

研究组通过直接测量光学奇点集合体的超快动力学，捕获了其完整的相空间关联，并呈现了联合距离-速度分布。观测结果表明，粒子-奇点类比存在失效：在湮灭前的瞬间，相位奇点会加速趋向于形式上的发散速度，这一点通过超过光速的速度测量值得以证实。这种表观的超光速速度在该所用材料平台（六方氮化硼薄膜）中双曲声子极化激元的慢群速度作用下，反而被反常放大。

研究组通过结合超快电子显微术在硬件与算法上的进展，实现了空间分辨率与时间分辨率分别比极化激元波长和振荡周期低一个数量级的测量，从而展示了上述现象。该研究深化了对相位奇点及其普适性的理解，使得能够在以前无法达到的时间尺度上探测拓扑缺陷动力学。

附：英文原文

Title: Superluminal correlations in ensembles of optical phase singularities

Author: Bucher, T., Gorlach, A., Niedermayr, A., Yan, Q., Nahari, H., Wang, K., Ruimy, R., Adiv, Y., Yannai, M., Abudi, T. L., Janzen, E., Spaegele, C., Roques-Carmes, C., Edgar, J. H., Koppens, F. H. L., Vanacore, G. M., H. Sheinfux, H., Tsesses, S., Kaminer, I.

Issue&Volume: 2026-03-25

Abstract: Phase singularities—points carrying quantized topological charge—are universal features found across diverse wave systems from superfluids and superconductors to acoustic and optical fields1,2,3,4. Ensembles of these singularities exhibit distance correlations resembling particles in liquids5,6,7,8, extensively studied for their role in exotic material phases9,10,11. By contrast, the full correlations in phase space that govern the system evolution have remained unexplored and experimentally inaccessible. Here we directly measure the ultrafast dynamics of optical singularity ensembles, capturing their full phase-space correlations, presenting the joint distance–velocity distribution. Our observations show a breakdown of the particle-singularity analogy12: phase singularities accelerate towards formally divergent velocities in the moment before annihilation7,13,14, indicated by measurements of velocities exceeding the speed of light. These apparent superluminal velocities are paradoxically amplified by the slow group velocity of hyperbolic phonon polaritons in our material platform, hexagonal boron nitride membranes15,16,17,18,19. We demonstrate these phenomena using combined hardware and algorithmic advances in ultrafast electron microscopy18,20,21,22,23,24,25, achieving spatial and temporal resolutions, each an order of magnitude below the polaritonic wavelength and cycle period. Our findings deepen our understanding of phase singularities and their universality, enabling to probe topological defect dynamics at previously unattainable timescales.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10209-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10209-z