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Category: particle physics – Page 5

Quantum systems never quite forget where they came from

Even the most chaotic quantum systems keep a permanent mark of their own past—a “quantum birthmark”—that never fades. Researchers from Tampere University, Harvard University and TU Dresden discovered the feature in their recent study. Their findings shed new light on the elusive relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. Looking ahead, these quantum birthmarks, along with related phenomena known as “scars,” could eventually be harnessed to power next-generation nanoelectronics.

Stir a drop of milk into a cup of tea and it is gone for good. The swirl blurs, spreads and evens out, and no amount of staring at the cup will tell you where the drop first landed. Physicists refer to this kind of unpredictable, memory-erasing behavior simply as chaos, and it underpins much of how we explain the everyday world: heat spreading through a room, smoke filling the air, a pinball rattling away from wherever it was launched.

The new study shows that the quantum realm—the world of atoms and electrons—does not play by that rule. There, the earliest moments leave a signature that never washes out. The study “Quantum Birthmarks: Ergodicity Breaking Beyond Scarring” was published in Physical Review X on Sept. 10, 2026.

First Evidence for Quantum Gravity?

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In October 2022, a detector in Russia caught a single photon with an energy far beyond anything our particle colliders can produce. According to physics as we know it, it should never have made it to Earth. Now a team of physicists says it might be the first evidence for quantum gravity. Let’s take a look.

Paper: https://doi.org/10.1103/zjh2-mc47

#sciencenews #physics #quantumphysics #space.

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Elusive ‘Geoneutrinos’ Are Building a New Map of Earth’s Volatile Interior

Scientists are using ultra-sensitive underground particle detectors around the world to track geoneutrinos—subatomic particles generated deep within the planet by the radioactive decay of elements like uranium and thorium. By detecting these “ghostly” particles, researchers are beginning to map and understand the radioactive heat engine driving Earth’s plate tectonics, mantle convection, and magnetic field.

* Deep Underground Observatories: To catch geoneutrinos, detectors must be shielded from background cosmic rays.

Experiments like SNO+ (located 2 km underground in Sudbury, Canada) and the JUNO experiment in China utilize thousands of tons of ultrapure liquid and light sensors buried deep in rock mines to capture the faint flashes of light produced when neutrinos hit the detectors.

* Probing Earth’s Hidden Heat: A significant portion of the heat driving Earth’s interior processes comes from radioactive decay within the crust and mantle. Because neutrinos pass through solid rock unhindered, geoneutrinos provide a direct line of sight into inaccessible regions thousands of kilometers below the surface.

* Building a Global Map: A growing network of underground detectors is gathering substantial new measurement data, helping geoscientists test and refine models of Earth’s mantle composition, thermal budget, and volatile internal dynamics.

1. What are Geoneutrinos?

Neutrinos are extremely lightweight, subatomic particles that rarely interact with ordinary matter. Geoneutrinos are specifically the electron antineutrinos produced when radioactive isotopes—primarily uranium, thorium, and potassium—decay deep within Earth’s crust and mantle.

Continue reading “Elusive ‘Geoneutrinos’ Are Building a New Map of Earth’s Volatile Interior” | >

Patterned plate uses surface vibrations to move and spin objects without complex electronics

Chinese researchers have developed a way to manipulate objects on solid surfaces using specially structured vibrations, allowing particles and other small objects to be confined, moved in circular paths or rotated without the complex electronic control systems normally required to generate such motion.

The approach builds the instructions for creating these vibration patterns directly into the structure of a thin plate. It works across multiple size scales, from submillimeter particles to lightweight centimeter-scale structures. The study was published in Advanced Science on Sept. 19.

Structured wave fields offer a promising means of manipulating objects on solid surfaces, with potential applications in micromechanics, microrobotics and intelligent manufacturing. One particularly useful type is a vortex wave, in which the wave forms a swirling pattern around a central point. These waves have helical phase profiles and carry orbital angular momentum (OAM), which can be transferred to objects to induce rotational and orbital motion.

Ultrafast X-rays reveal how the light-responsive molecular switch azobenzene changes shape

Azobenzene is one of the best-known molecules that can be switched between two forms by light. However, the question of how the molecule moves in the first few picoseconds (trillionths of a second) after it absorbs light has remained unresolved for nearly 50 years.

A research team led by Hyotcherl Ihee, professor in the Department of Chemistry at KAIST and director of the Center for Advanced Reaction Dynamics (CARD) at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), has identified the process by which the light-responsive molecule azobenzene changes its structure.

The team has shown that, during the initial stage of the reaction, the molecule changes shape through a coordinated motion of the two nitrogen atoms at its center, while its two benzene rings stay nearly in place. The finding is expected to provide useful information for designing materials and molecular-scale machines that operate with light.

Mirror-image crystals reverse the direction of light-driven currents

The circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE), a phenomenon that generates helicity-dependent photocurrents in noncentrosymmetric materials, can originate purely from a crystal’s internal structure without a contribution from the surface, a study from Science Tokyo reveals.

Researchers demonstrated this effect in 2D organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites using circularly polarized light at normal incidence, which helped distinguish the bulk response from surface contributions. The finding establishes a strategy for regulating spin-polarized photocurrents and advancing opto-spintronic technologies.

The findings are published in Nano Letters.

Protons ride moving waves to reach record energy with long-pulse lasers

Imagine a proton catching a wave and surfing it to gain speed. While the imagery may seem wild, the premise of laser-driven ion acceleration has promise as an alternative to conventional accelerators. However, the ultrathin targets used to drive this increase in ion energy are vulnerable to the weak prepulse that precedes the main high-intensity laser pulse, meaning an adaptation in the process is necessary.

Nevertheless, researchers from the University of Osaka have now used lasers to create a moving electric field that accelerates protons to very high energies. This adapted approach could ultimately contribute to the development of next-generation particle accelerators, with fewer concerns about target vulnerabilities. The findings have been published in Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics.

Physicists who uncovered the first particle accelerator were honored with a Nobel Prize 75 years ago

While scientists are known for their dedication to their research, crawling on the floor to avoid electrocution for the sake of a measurement seems a little excessive. But this is what British physicist John Cockcroft and Irish physicist Ernest T.S. Walton had to do in the early 1930s while studying the structure of atomic nuclei. Luckily, their efforts led to their receiving the Nobel Prize in 1951.

In the early 1930s, scientists were just beginning to discover the extraordinary world hidden inside the atom, which is made up of a dense center, called the nucleus, with electrons orbiting around it.

Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford had already shown that radioactive materials sometimes emitted particles, naturally changing the makeup of their atomic nuclei. When energetic particles collided with atomic nuclei, they could trigger a reaction that rearranged the protons and neutrons in the nucleus—sometimes transforming one element into another. But scientists could only study this phenomenon using particles from radioactive decays, which provided limited energy and intensity.