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Category: particle physics – Page 2

Graphene reveals electrons that behave like frictionless fluid and break textbook rules

For several decades, a central puzzle in quantum physics has remained unsolved: Could electrons behave like a perfect, frictionless fluid with electrical properties described by a universal quantum number?

This unique property of electrons has been extremely difficult to detect in any material so far because of the presence of atomic defects, impurities, and imperfections in the material.

Researchers at the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), along with collaborators from the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, have now finally detected this quantum fluid of electrons in graphene—a material consisting of a single sheet of pure carbon atoms.

Microscale mixing without turbulence: Scientists discover limits to information erasure in viscous fluids

In turbulent fluids, mixing of the components happens easily. However, in more viscous fluids such as those enclosed within cellular compartments, the intermixing of particles and molecules is much more challenging. As time also plays a role in such systems, the slow mixing by molecular movement is typically not sufficient and efficient stirring strategies are thus required to maintain functionality.

In the department of Living Matter Physics at MPI-DS, scientists investigated the universal physical principles underlying such mixing dynamics. They identified that allow for the optimal mixing of the system when energetic costs or are limiting factors. The paper is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

“We found that the most effective stirring share a universal structure and are symmetric in time,” says Luca Cocconi, first author of the study. “These optimal protocols reveal a fundamental limit on how efficiently information—for example about the identity and position of particles—can be erased in such systems.”

For the first time, scientists observed the ‘hidden swirls’ that affect the flow of sand, rocks and snow

What looks like ordinary sand, rocks or snow flowing in one direction can actually hide swirling currents that move in multiple directions beneath the surface.

When grains move in a landslide, most follow the steepest downhill path. This is the “primary flow,” where particles largely follow the herd. But some grains move sideways or swirl in hidden patterns, forming “secondary flows” that subtly influence how far and fast the material travels.

Understanding how grains move beneath the surface could help explain the physics of avalanches and landslides, and even improve how we handle everyday materials like wheat in silos or powders in pharmaceuticals.

Using exoplanets to study dark matter

More than 5,000 planets have been discovered beyond our solar system, allowing scientists to explore planetary evolution and consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Now, a UC Riverside study published in Physical Review D suggests that exoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, could also serve as tools to investigate dark matter.

The researchers examined how dark matter, which makes up 85% of the universe’s matter, might affect Jupiter-sized exoplanets over long periods of time. Their theoretical calculations suggest dark matter particles could gradually collect in the cores of these planets. Although dark matter has never been detected in laboratories, physicists are confident it exists.

“If the dark matter particles are heavy enough and don’t annihilate, they may eventually collapse into a tiny black hole,” said paper first author Mehrdad Phoroutan-Mehr, a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who works with Hai-Bo Yu, a professor of physics and astronomy. “This black hole could then grow and consume the entire planet, turning it into a black hole with the same mass as the original planet. This outcome is only possible under the superheavy non-annihilating dark matter model.”

Revolutionary Model Reveals How Real Universe Structure Affects Cosmic Evolution

For nearly a century, cosmologists have relied on a simplified model of the universe that treats matter as uniform particles that don’t interact with each other. While this approach helped scientists understand the Big Bang and the expansion of space, it ignores a fundamental reality, that our universe is anything but uniform. Stars cluster into galaxies, matter collapses into black holes, and vast empty voids stretch across space, all constantly interacting through gravity and other forces.

MARATHON experiment offers most precise measurement of nucleon structure yet

Nucleons, which include protons and neutrons, are the composite particles that make up atomic nuclei. While these particles have been widely studied in the past, their internal structure has not yet been fully elucidated.

These particles are known to consist of three smaller building blocks known as quarks, held together by strong nuclear force carriers called gluons. While a proton is made of two “up” quarks and one “down” quark, a neutron is made of one “up” quark and two “down” quarks.

Inside nucleons, however, one can also find many quark-antiquark pairs that continuously appear and disappear. The distribution of momentum and spin across all the different building blocks of nucleons has not yet been uncovered.

Interface-controlled antiferromagnetic tunnel junctions offer new path for next-gen spintronics

A research team led by Prof. Shao Dingfu at the Institute of Solid State Physics, the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has unveiled a new mechanism for achieving strong spin polarization using antiferromagnetic metal interfaces.

Their findings, published in Newton recently, propose a third prototype of antiferromagnetic tunnel junction (AFMTJ), paving the way for faster and denser spintronic devices.

As electronics demand smaller size, higher speed, and lower energy use, spintronics—using both electron charge and spin—offers a strong alternative to traditional devices. Magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), a key spintronics technology, are already used in but face limits due to slow response speeds and unwanted magnetic fields from their ferromagnetic parts.

Toward new physics: First-ever double crystal channeling observed

Might two bent crystals pave the way to finding new physics? The Standard Model of particle physics describes our world at its smallest scales exceptionally well. However, it leaves some important questions unanswered, such as the imbalance between matter and antimatter, the existence of dark matter and other mysteries.

One method to find “new physics” beyond the Standard Model is to measure the properties of different particles as precisely as possible and then compare measurement with theory. If the two don’t agree, it might hint at new physics and let us slowly piece together a fuller picture of our universe—like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

An example of particles that physicists wish to study more closely are “charm baryons” such as the “Lambda-c-plus” (Λc+) which is a heavier “cousin” of the proton, consisting of three quarks: one up, one down and one charm. These particles decay after less than a trillionth of a second (10-13 s), which makes any measurement of their properties a race against time. Some of their properties have not yet been measured to high precision, leaving room for new physics to hide.

Antiferromagnets outperform ferromagnets in ultrafast, energy-efficient memory operations

Advances in spintronics have led to the practical use of magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM), a non-volatile memory technology that supports energy-efficient semiconductor integrated circuits.

Recently, antiferromagnets— with no net magnetization—have attracted growing attention as promising complements to conventional ferromagnets. While their properties have been extensively studied, clear demonstrations of their technological advantages have remained elusive.

Now, researchers from Tohoku University, the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) have provided the first compelling evidence of the unique benefits of antiferromagnets.

“Heavy” Electrons Hold the Key to a New Type of Quantum Computer

Discovery of Planckian time limit offers new opportunities for quantum technologies. A collaborative team of researchers in Japan has identified “heavy fermions”—electrons with greatly increased effective mass—that display quantum entanglement controlled by Planckian time, the fundamental unit of

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