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Category: particle physics – Page 31

Parallel atom-photon entanglement paves way for future quantum networking

A new platform developed by Illinois Grainger engineers demonstrates the utility of a ytterbium-171 atom array in quantum networking. Their work represents a key step toward long-distance quantum communication.

Researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have introduced a scalable platform for quantum networking with a ytterbium-171 array.

Their work, published in Nature Physics, represents a major step toward larger quantum networks and has promising implications for modular quantum computation.

Extreme pressure pushes honeycomb crystal toward quantum spin liquid, hinting at new qubit designs

The future of computing lies in the surprising world of quantum physics, where the rules are much different from the ones that power today’s devices. Quantum computers promise to tackle problems too complex for even the fastest supercomputers running on silicon chips. To make this vision real, scientists around the world are searching for new quantum materials with unusual, almost otherworldly properties.

One of the more intriguing candidates is called a quantum spin liquid—a state of matter where electron spins never settle down, even at the coldest temperatures in the universe. To date, however, preparing such a quantum state in a lab has proven stubbornly elusive. In a collaborative project with multiple institutions, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory now report coming tantalizingly closer.

As explained by Argonne Senior Physicist and Group Leader Daniel Haskel, in these materials, it’s not atoms that stay fluid as in an ordinary liquid, but the tiny magnetic orientations—or spins—of electrons. Each spin wants to “get along” with its neighbors by aligning in a way that keeps everyone content. But when the spins are pushed closer together under pressure, satisfying every neighbor becomes impossible.

Nanoscale slots enable room-temperature hybrid states of matter in perovskite

Atoms in crystalline solids sometimes vibrate in unison, giving rise to emergent phenomena known as phonons. Because these collective vibrations set the pace for how heat and energy move through materials, they play a central role in devices that capture or emit light, like solar cells and LEDs.

Collective Bloch oscillations observed in 1D Bose gas system

Bloch oscillations are periodic oscillations of quantum particles in a repeating energy “landscape” (e.g., a crystal lattice) that are subjected to a constant force. These particle motions have been the focus of numerous physics studies, as they are intriguing quantum effects that are not predicted by classical mechanics theories.

Probing Bloch oscillations experimentally could thus yield new insight into the fundamental properties of quantum matter. So far, they have been primarily studied in individual particles or two-particle systems, as opposed to quantum many-body systems comprised of several particles.

Researchers at CNRS-ENS-PSL University and Sorbonne University report the observation of collective Bloch oscillations in a one-dimensional (1D) Bose gas, a quantum fluid comprised of bosons, which are particles that can occupy the same quantum state.

Core electron bonding may not always require extreme pressure, study finds

You probably learned in high school chemistry class that core electrons don’t participate in chemical bonding.

They’re thought to be too deep inside an atom and close to the nucleus to meaningfully interact with the of other atoms, leaving the outer valence electrons to get all the glory in textbooks.

The actual science is more complicated, as some elements’ core electrons are theorized to activate when squeezed hard enough, like at the pressure levels found deep inside Earth.

Criticality in Nature’s Strongest Force

Experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider give the first hints of a critical point in the hot quark–gluon “soup” that is thought to have pervaded the infant Universe.

The strongest force of nature—the one holding nuclear matter together—is described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The fundamental particles of QCD are quarks and gluons, which are normally bound within composite particles called hadrons—the most well-known of which are protons and neutrons. Only at extreme temperatures around 1012 K (a million times hotter than the core of the Sun) can quarks and gluons become deconfined, leading to a new phase of matter called the quark–gluon plasma. At vanishing densities, the transition between confined hadrons and the quark–gluon plasma is known to be ill-defined—happening across a wide range of temperatures rather than at a specific temperature. But theory predicts that at large densities and moderately high temperatures, a critical point exists, where the “fuzziness” disappears and a clear distinction can be made between the gas-like hadrons and the liquid-like quark–gluon mix [1–3].

World’s most sensitive detector tightens the net on elusive dark matter

Determining the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), have narrowed down the possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).

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