Physics

Feb 17th, 2025 - As the world moves toward sustainability, the demand for efficient alternatives across industries continues to grow. Ammonia, a key chemical used in fertilizers, explosives, and various other products, is primarily synthesized through the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. This process requires extremely high temperatures and pressures, contributing to global carbon dioxide emissions. Conventional catalysts, such as iron and ruthenium, rely on these harsh conditions to drive the reaction. ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2025 - In April 1982, Prof. Dan Shechtman of the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology made the discovery that would later earn him the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: the quasiperiodic crystal. According to diffraction measurements made with an electron microscope, the new material appeared "disorganized" at smaller scales, yet with a distinct order and symmetry apparent at a larger scale. This form of matter was considered impossible, and it took many years to convince the scientific ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2025 - Protons and neutrons stay together in the nucleus and make a stable atomic center, thanks to powerful interactions. For decades, the two-nucleon force was seen as the main player that both attracts these particles and keeps them from smashing too close together. In a recent paper, researchers have shed light on an overlooked ingredient known as the three-nucleon force . The research was led by Professor Tokuro Fukui of Kyushu University 's Faculty of Arts and Science in Japan. The team ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2025 - Quantum computers promise calculations at speeds that can make standard devices look sluggish. Many experiments have centered on ions, neutral atoms, or superconducting circuits because these particles are easier to keep steady. Molecules, on the other hand, have been considered too unwieldy for such fine-tuned quantum operations. They are packed with vibrations, rotations, and other complex motions that can easily interfere with fragile quantum states . However, Dr. Kang-Kuen Ni from Harvard ... [Read More]

Jan 14th, 2025 - Quantum computing promises to solve complex problems exponentially faster than a classical computer, by using the principles of quantum mechanics to encode and manipulate information in quantum bits (qubits). Qubits are the building blocks of a quantum computer. One challenge to scaling, however, is that qubits are highly sensitive to background noise and control imperfections, which introduce errors into the quantum operations and ultimately limit the complexity and duration of a quantum ... [Read More]

Jan 14th, 2025 - Physicists have brought the well-known thought experiment of Schrödinger's cat to life in a breakthrough that could help weed out errors in future quantum computers . The team from Australia has demonstrated that an atom of antimony can be used to store data for use in quantum computations in such a way that it is better protected from errors than in a standard quantum bit, "or qubit," of data. The impressive step brings us one step closer to realizing error detection and correction in ... [Read More]

Jan 13th, 2025 - By & Theoretical physicists have proposed the existence of a new type of particle that doesn't fit into the conventional classifications of fermions and bosons. Their 'paraparticle', described in Nature on January 8, is not the first to be suggested, but the detailed mathematical model characterizing it could lead to experiments in which it is created using a quantum computer. The research also suggests that undiscovered elementary paraparticles might exist in nature. In a separate development ... [Read More]

Jan 9th, 2025 - For more than a century, scientists have been fascinated by the possibility that hidden, minuscule spatial dimensions could be influencing the physics of our familiar three-dimensional world. Despite decades of experimental searches, however, there has yet to be concrete evidence of these extra dimensions. Now, a recent study proposes a way to advance this search: using the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to probe these hidden dimensions through neutrino behavior. Neutrinos ... [Read More]

Jan 3rd, 2025 - Researchers demonstrate quantum teleportation over internet traffic, paving the way for secure applications. Engineers at Northwestern University have achieved quantum teleportation using fiber optic cables already carrying internet traffic. This milestone could simplify the path to secure quantum networks by leveraging existing infrastructure. "This is incredibly exciting because nobody thought it was possible," said Prem Kumar, the study's lead author and professor of electrical and computer ... [Read More]

Dec 29th, 2024 - The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once—an insight with potentially major ramifications. The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine . Imagine standing on a railway platform watching a trolley go past. A girl on the trolley drops a bright red ball. To her, the ball falls straight down. But from the platform, you see the ball traverse an arc before hitting the trolley floor. The two of you ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2024 - One mile beneath a mountain in Italy, scientists at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory fill a particle detector with liquid xenon, hoping to observe evidence of dark matter . The idea is that, free from cosmic rays that interfere with these sorts of experiments aboveground, the lab will eventually detect invisible particles that do not interact with light by mapping how those particles collide with the xenon in the experiment — almost like a group of pool balls that shoots out in all ... [Read More]

Dec 19th, 2024 - The world's most massive science experiment has done it again, detecting hints of the heaviest antimatter particle ever found. This means the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, has given scientists a glimpse into conditions that existed when the universe was less than a second old. The antimatter particle is the partner of a massive matter particle called hyperhelium-4, and its discovery could help scientists tackle the mystery of why regular matter ... [Read More]

Dec 16th, 2024 - The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, in collaboration with the Australian National University, Canberra has demonstrated a novel way of steering a beam of relativistic electron pulses produced by an ultrahigh intensity, femtosecond laser. Their study is published in the journal Laser and Photonics Reviews . Beams of high energy electrons are crucial for fundamental science and myriad applications and technologies, such as imaging, semiconductor lithography, material science and ... [Read More]

Dec 16th, 2024 - From nearly indestructible metals, like tungsten , to delicate clouds in the sky, atoms make up everything around us. But do these atoms ever touch each other? As with most topics in atomic physics, the answer is more complicated than you might expect. Before we can answer this question, it's important to define what we mean by "touch," said Christopher Baird , an associate professor of physics at West Texas A&M University. "On the human scale, what we usually mean when we say that two objects ... [Read More]

Dec 13th, 2024 - A new study in demonstrates the levitation of a microparticle using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), having potential implications from biology to quantum computing. NMR is a spectroscopic technique commonly used to analyze various materials based on how the atomic nuclei respond to external magnetic fields. This provides information about the internal structure, dynamics, and environment of the material. One of the main challenges with NMR is using it on small objects to control the quantum ... [Read More]

Dec 9th, 2024 - Nuclear theorists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have successfully employed a new theoretical approach to calculate the Collins-Soper kernel, a quantity that describes how the distribution of quarks' transverse momentum inside a proton changes with the collision energy. The research is published in the journal Physical Review D . The new calculation precisely matches model-based reconstructions from particle collision data. It is particularly effective for ... [Read More]