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Abstract Crystalline materials with broken inversion symmetry can exhibit a spontaneous electric polarization, which originates from a microscopic electric dipole moment. Long-range polar or anti-polar order of such permanent dipoles gives rise to ferroelectricity or antiferroelectricity, respectively. However, the recently discovered antiferroelectrics of fluorite structure (HfO₂and ZrO₂) are different: A non-polar phase transforms into a polar phase by spontaneous inversion symmetry breaking upon the application of an electric field. Here, we show that this structural transition in antiferroelectric ZrO₂gives rise to a negative capacitance, which is promising for overcoming the fundamental limits of energy efficiency in electronics. Our findings provide insight into the thermodynamically forbidden region of the antiferroelectric transition in ZrO₂and extend the concept of negative capacitance beyond ferroelectricity. This shows that negative capacitance is a more general phenomenon than previously thought and can be expected in a much broader range of materials exhibiting structural phase transitions. 

We have measured new observables based on the final state kinematic imbalances in the mesonless production of νμ + A → μ− + p + X in the MINERνA tracker. Components of the muon-proton momentum imbalances parallel (δpTy) and perpendicular (δpTx) to the momentum transfer in the transverse plane are found to be sensitive to the nuclear effects such as Fermi motion, binding energy, and non-quasielastic (QE) contributions. The QE peak location in δpTy is particularly sensitive to the binding energy. Differential cross sections are compared to predictions from different neutrino interaction models. The Fermi gas models presented in this study cannot simultaneously describe features such as QE peak location, width, and the non-QE events contributing to the signal process. Correcting the genie’s binding energy implementation according to theory causes better agreement with data. Hints of proton left-right asymmetry are observed in δpTx. Better modeling of the binding energy can reduce the bias in neutrino energy reconstruction, and these observables can be applied in current and future experiments to better constrain nuclear effects.