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Category: particle physics – Page 26

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QHT Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.09356.pdf.
Non-technical Explanation: https://jespergrimstrup.org/research/.… 0:00 — Does reductionism end? 2:24 — Why there probably is a final theory 7:00 — Quantum Holonomy theory 12:53 — Surprising implications of QHT Does a final theory exist that can end our reductionist probing into ever shorter distances? Or is there no end to reductionism? There should be an end point because as the object of our measurement gets small enough, the high energies needed to measure it will create a black hole. And no information can get out of a black hole. So there is a limit to measurable reality. We have united seemingly dissimilar forces in the past. For example, the unification of electricity and magnetism, and weak and electromagnetic forces. To continue this reductionism, we want a theory that unifies all known forces. Today we have two overarching theories for forces: Einstein’s Theory of General relativity for gravity, and The standard model for the electromagnetic, weak and strong force. The problem is that the standard model is a quantum field theory, but general relativity is a classical field theory. The two are not compatible. Past attempts for a theory of everything include string theory and loop quantum gravity. But string theory does not produce any falsifiable results. Its mathematics is too flexible. Loop quantum gravity only addresses gravity and not the other forces. Quantum Holonomy Theory or QHT was pioneered by two Danish scientists, physicist Jesper Grimstrup and mathematician Johannes Aastrup. It begins by asking question, how can a theory be immune to further scientific reductions, so that reductionism ends? The presumptive idea is that the simplest way to describe the universe is objects moving around in three dimensional space. The theory is based on the mathematics of empty 3-dimensional space, just space, not even time. So the starting point of QHT is the mathematics of moving stuff around. There are an infinite many ways you can move an arbitrary object between points in space. Any one of these combination of movements from point A to point B, is called a recipe. A recipe for a combination of movements in physics is called a gauge field. A gauge field is the recipe of how to move one particle from point A to point B. Gauge fields are what makes up the forces in the standard model. Since they are recipes of moving things around in space, they represent how things interact with each other, or how forces work. The sum of all mathematical recipes is called the “Configuration space” of these recipes. The key insight in QHT is that the this space has a geometry and stores a lot of information. Geometry means that two different recipes for moving stuff around can be said have a relationship between each other. This is complicated but can be proven mathematically. Grimstrup and Aastrup found is that this geometry results in mathematics that looks almost identical to the mathematics that we already know from quantum field theory – this includes the mathematics of the Standard model. From the geometry you can obtain a a Bott-Dirac operator. The square of this operator gives us the Hamiltonian for both matter particles and force carrying particles. The Hamiltonian represents the formula for all the energy in a system. #QHT #Theoryofeverything Once you have a description of the energies of all the matter and forces in the universe, that’s all you need to need to understand how matter interacts in the universe, and is essentially everything we would need to describe the universe, once all the math is worked out. By simply considering the movements of objects in empty space, all this rich mathematics that appears to resemble the known mathematics of the universe comes out. If QHT is correct, then here are the implications: 1) The universe is quantum because the only way you can describe things moving in empty space is via quantization. 2) Gravity is not quantized, so there is no theory of quantum gravity. 3) No singularities can exist 4) There is no infinite curvature of space-time inside black holes 5) The universe could not have come from nothing, but from a prior universe — a Big Bounce! Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=17…
0:00 — Does reductionism end?
2:24 — Why there probably is a final theory.
7:00 — Quantum Holonomy theory.
12:53 — Surprising implications of QHT
Does a final theory exist that can end our reductionist probing into ever shorter distances? Or is there no end to reductionism? There should be an end point because as the object of our measurement gets small enough, the high energies needed to measure it will create a black hole. And no information can get out of a black hole. So there is a limit to measurable reality.

We have united seemingly dissimilar forces in the past. For example, the unification of electricity and magnetism, and weak and electromagnetic forces. To continue this reductionism, we want a theory that unifies all known forces. Today we have two overarching theories for forces: Einstein’s Theory of General relativity for gravity, and The standard model for the electromagnetic, weak and strong force.

The problem is that the standard model is a quantum field theory, but general relativity is a classical field theory. The two are not compatible.
Past attempts for a theory of everything include string theory and loop quantum gravity. But string theory does not produce any falsifiable results. Its mathematics is too flexible. Loop quantum gravity only addresses gravity and not the other forces.

Quantum Holonomy Theory or QHT was pioneered by two Danish scientists, physicist Jesper Grimstrup and mathematician Johannes Aastrup. It begins by asking question, how can a theory be immune to further scientific reductions, so that reductionism ends?

Continue reading “Does reductionism End? Quantum Holonomy theory says YES” | >

For the first time, scientists have ‘photographed’ a rare plasma instability, where high-energy electron beams form into spaghetti-like filaments.

A new study, published in Physical Review Letters, outlines how a high-intensity infrared laser was used to generate filamentation instability—a phenomenon that affects applications in -based particle accelerators and fusion energy methods.

Plasma is a super-hot mixture of charged particles, such as ions and electrons, which can conduct electricity and are influenced by magnetic fields. Instabilities in plasmas can occur because the flow of particles in one direction or within a specific region can be different from the rest, causing some particles to group up into thin spaghetti-like filaments.

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All particles belong to two large groups: fermions like protons and electrons make everything we consider “matter”, while bosons like photons and gluons transmit the fundamental forces. And that about covers the universe: matter moving through space and time under the action of forces. But what if we could create particles in between these two possibilities. Physics says these neither matter nor force anyons can exist, and they may have some pretty incredible uses. They’re called anyons.

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Continue reading “Can a Particle Be Neither Matter Nor Force?” | >

The speed of light is often regarded as the ultimate cosmic speed limit, but researchers have now managed to slow it down dramatically—to just 61 kilometers per hour. This was achieved by using a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a peculiar quantum state of matter that allows light to be slowed or even stopped entirely. This discovery, which builds on decades of research, has implications for quantum physics, computing, and information storage.

The Quantum Jelly Effect In everyday conditions, light moves at 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum, and its speed decreases slightly when passing through materials like glass or water. However, these reductions are relatively small. In contrast, when light travels through a Bose-Einstein condensate, it can be slowed to a near standstill.

A Bose-Einstein condensate is an exotic state of matter, first predicted by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose, that occurs when a gas is cooled to temperatures just above absolute zero. Under these conditions, the atoms behave as a single quantum entity, exhibiting superfluidity and interacting with light in ways not seen in ordinary materials.

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For over a century, physicists have grappled with one of the most profound questions in science: How do the rules of quantum mechanics, which govern the smallest particles, fit with the laws of general relativity, which describe the universe on the largest scales?

The optical lattice clock, one of the most precise timekeeping devices, is becoming a powerful tool used to tackle this great challenge. Within an optical lattice clock, atoms are trapped in a “lattice” potential formed by laser beams and are manipulated with precise control of quantum coherence and interactions governed by .

Simultaneously, according to Einstein’s laws of general relativity, time moves slower in stronger gravitational fields. This effect, known as gravitational redshift, leads to a tiny shift of atoms’ internal energy levels depending on their position in gravitational fields, causing their “ticking”—the oscillations that define time in optical lattice clocks—to change.

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Many physicists and engineers have recently been trying to demonstrate the potential of quantum computers for tackling some problems that are particularly demanding and are difficult to solve for classical computers. A task that has been found to be challenging for both quantum and classical computers is finding the ground state (i.e., lowest possible energy state) of systems with multiple interacting quantum particles, called quantum many-body systems.

When one of these systems is placed in a thermal bath (i.e., an environment with a fixed temperature that interacts with the systems), it is known to cool down without always reaching its . In some instances, a can get trapped at a so-called local minimum; a state in which its energy is lower than other neighboring states but not at the lowest possible level.

Researchers at California Institute of Technology and the AWS Center for Quantum Computing recently showed that while finding the local minimum for a system is difficult for classical computers, it could be far easier for quantum computers.

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A collaborative research team has introduced a nitrogen-centric framework that explains the light-absorbing effects of atmospheric organic aerosols. Published in Science, this study reveals that nitrogen-containing compounds play a dominant role in the absorption of sunlight by atmospheric organic aerosols worldwide. This discovery signifies a major step towards improving climate models and developing more targeted strategies to mitigate the climate impact of airborne particles.

Atmospheric organic aerosols influence climate by absorbing and scattering sunlight, particularly within the near-ultraviolet to visible range. Due to their complex composition and continuous chemical transformation in the atmosphere, accurately assessing their climate effects has remained a challenge.

The study was jointly led by Prof. Fu Tzung-May, Professor of the School of Environmental Science and Engineering at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) and National Center for Applied Mathematics Shenzhen (NCAMS), and Prof. Yu Jianzhen, Chair Professor of the Department of Chemistry and the Division of Environment and Sustainability at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

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Scientists at Yokohama National University, in collaboration with RIKEN and other institutions in Japan and Korea, have made an important discovery about how electrons move and behave in molecules. This discovery could potentially lead to advances in electronics, energy transfer, and chemical reactions.

Published in the Science, their study reveals a new way to control the distribution of electrons in molecules using very fast phase-controlled pulses of light in the .

Atoms and molecules contain negatively charged electrons that usually stay in specific energy levels, like layers, around the positively charged nucleus. The way these electrons are arranged in the molecule is key to how the molecule behaves.

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A small international team of nanotechnologists, engineers and physicists has developed a way to force laser light into becoming a supersolid. Their paper is published in the journal Nature. The editors at Nature have published a Research Briefing in the same issue summarizing the work.

Supersolids are entities that exist only in the quantum world, and, up until now, they have all been made using . Prior research has shown that they have zero viscosity and are formed in crystal-like structures similar to the way atoms are arranged in salt crystals.

Because of their nature, supersolids have been created in extremely cold environments where the can be seen. Notably, one of the team members on this new effort was part of the team that demonstrated more than a decade ago that light could become a fluid under the right set of circumstances.

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