In a groundbreaking experiment, UNSW researchers successfully applied the Schrödinger’s cat concept using an antimony atom to enhance quantum computations.
This method significantly improves the reliability of quantum data processing and error correction, potentially accelerating the advent of practical quantum computing.
Understanding quantum mechanics through schrödinger’s cat.
A recently-discovered class of magnets called altermagnets has been imaged in detail for the first time thanks to a technique developed by physicists at the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy in the UK. The team exploited the unique properties of altermagnetism to map the magnetic domains in the altermagnet manganese telluride (MnTe) down to the nanoscale level, raising hopes that its unusual magnetic ordering could be controlled and exploited in technological applications.
In most magnetically-ordered materials, the spins of atoms (that is, their magnetic moments) have two options: they can line up parallel with each other, or antiparallel, alternating up and down. These arrangements arise from the exchange interaction between atoms, and lead to ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, respectively.
Altermagnets, which were discovered in 2024, are different. While their neighbouring spins are antiparallel, like an antiferromagnet, the atoms hosting these spins are rotated relative to their neighbours. This means that they combine some properties from both types of conventional magnetism. For example, the up, down, up ordering of their spins leads to a net magnetization of zero because – as in antiferromagnets – the spins essentially cancel each other out. However, their spin splitting is non-relativistic, as in ferromagnets.
Scientists have come a step closer to understanding how collisionless shock waves—found throughout the universe—are able to accelerate particles to extreme speeds.
These shock waves are one of nature’s most powerful particle accelerators and have long intrigued scientists for the role they play in producing cosmic rays — high-energy particles that travel across vast distances in space.
The research, published in Nature Communications, combines satellite observations from NASA’s MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) and THEMIS/ARTEMIS missions with recent theoretical advancements, offering a comprehensive new model to explain the acceleration of electrons in collisionless shock environments.
The mechanisms resulting in particle acceleration to relativistic energies in space plasmas are an open question. Here, the authors show a reinforced shock acceleration model which enables electrons to efficiently achieve relativistic energies and reveal a low electron injection threshold.
A team of researchers has made a remarkable breakthrough in spintronic technology, achieving a one-directional flow of spin-polarized current in a single-atom layer of thallium-lead alloys.
This advancement not only challenges traditional views of material interaction with light but also heralds the development of ultra-fine, environmentally friendly data storage for the future.
Groundbreaking Discovery in Spintronic Technology.
Protons and other subatomic particles that are subject to the strong nuclear force have a complex structure that involves even more fundamental constituents called quarks and gluons. These quarks and gluons bind under the influence of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). QCD is the theory of strong interaction of quarks and the role of color symmetry.
However, the mechanisms that lead to quarks and gluons combining to form the particles we see in nature are very mysterious and poorly understood. For example, virtual quarks and gluons constantly appear and disappear within our current picture of the dynamics in the proton. So, which quarks and gluons are actually “in” a proton is a difficult question to answer.
Much of the experimental work related to extracting the quark and gluon structure of protons occurs at existing particle accelerators like the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and in the future at the Electron Ion Collider.
The amorphous state of matter is the most abundant form of visible matter in the universe, and includes all structurally disordered systems, such as biological cells or essential materials like glass and polymers.
An amorphous material is a solid whose molecules and atoms form disordered structures, meaning that they do not occupy regular, well-defined positions in space.
This is the opposite of what happens in crystals, whose ordered structure facilitates their mathematical description, as well as the identification of those “defects,” which practically control the physical properties of crystals, such as their plastic yielding and melting, or the way an electric current propagates through them.
Stanford researchers have introduced a software tool that accelerates and enhances the analysis of single atom catalysts, offering profound implications for the development of more efficient catalysts.
Catalysts play an essential role in everyday life, from helping bread rise to converting raw materials into fuels more efficiently. Now, researchers at SLAC have developed a faster method to advance the discovery of an exciting new type of catalyst known as single atom catalysts.
The role of catalysts in modern chemistry.
Are there particles that can move faster than light? Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb explores this question and the mysterious role of tachyons.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have demonstrated that the direction of the spin-polarized current can be restricted to only one direction in a single-atom layer of a thallium-lead alloy when irradiated at room temperature. The discovery defies conventions: single-atom layers have been thought to be almost completely transparent, in other words, negligibly absorbing or interacting with light.
The one-directional flow of the current observed in this study makes possible functionality beyond ordinary diodes, paving the way for more environmentally friendly data storage, such as ultra-fine two-dimensional spintronic devices, in the future. The findings are published in the journal ACS Nano.
Diodes are fundamental building blocks of modern electronics by restricting the flow of currents to only one direction. However, the thinner the device, the more complicated it becomes to design and manufacture these functional components. Thus, demonstrating phenomena that might make such developmental feats possible is critical. Spintronics is an area of study in which researchers manipulate the intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of electrons, for example, by applying light.