Using advanced computational modeling, a research team led by the University of Oxford, working in partnership with the Instituto Superior Técnico at the University of Lisbon, has achieved the first-ever real-time, three-dimensional simulations of how intense laser beams alter the “quantum vacuum”—a state once assumed to be empty, but which quantum physics predicts is full of virtual electron-positron pairs.

Excitingly, these simulations recreate a bizarre phenomenon predicted by quantum physics, known as “vacuum four-wave mixing.” This states that the combined electromagnetic field of three focused laser pulses can polarize the virtual electron-positron pairs of a vacuum, causing photons to bounce off each other like billiard balls—generating a fourth laser beam in a “light from darkness” process. These events could act as a probe of new physics at extremely high intensities.

“This is not just an academic curiosity—it is a major step toward experimental confirmation of quantum effects that until now have been mostly theoretical,” said study co-author Professor Peter Norreys, Department of Physics, University of Oxford.

A new framework for studying chiral materials puts the emphasis on electron chirality rather than on the asymmetry of the atomic structure.

Chirality is a fundamental feature of nature, manifesting across scales—from elementary particles and molecules to biological organisms and galaxy formation. An object is considered chiral if it cannot be superimposed on its mirror image. In condensed-matter physics, chirality is primarily viewed as a structural asymmetry in the spatial arrangement of atoms within a crystal lattice [1]. A perhaps less familiar fact is that chirality is also a fundamental quantum property of individual electron states [2]. Now, Tatsuya Miki from Saitama University in Japan and colleagues introduce electron chirality as a framework to quantify symmetry breaking in solids, focusing on chiral and related axial materials [3]. The researchers propose a way of measuring electron chirality with photoemission spectroscopy.

A project led by the University of Melbourne’s Dr. Manjith Bose and Professor Jeff McCallum, who are also members of the ARC Center of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, has identified a promising class of superconductors that may potentially avoid the need for high levels of cryogenic cooling. These advanced materials can be manufactured, be integrable and be compatible using standard silicon and superconducting electronics approaches.

To optimize the growth of these silicide superconductors, Dr. Bose and Prof. McCallum are making extensive use of high–temperature neutron reflectometry on the Spatz reflectometer at ANSTO’s Australian Center for Neutron Scattering.

Neutrons are an ideal tool for exploring extreme sample environments, such as the high pressure, temperatures or fields that are present when manufacturing circuit elements. This is because neutrons can penetrate through most common metals, allowing one to see reflective thin films deep inside furnaces, magnets and cryo-chambers.

The extraction of work (i.e., usable energy) from quantum processes is a key focus of quantum thermodynamics research, which explores the application of thermodynamics laws to quantum systems. Meanwhile, other quantum physics research has been investigating the non-Markovian dynamics of open quantum systems, which entail the influence of past states on the systems’ future evolution.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham and University of São Paulo have introduced a general and rigorous framework that bridges quantum thermodynamics and non-Markovian dynamics, showing that the latter could serve as a resource that can be exploited to enhance the extraction of work from quantum processes.

Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could open new possibilities for the future development of quantum technologies.

An international research collaboration featuring scientists from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has discovered a fundamental universal principle that governs how microscopic whirlpools interact, collide and transform within quantum fluids, which also has implications for understanding fluids that behave according to classical physics.

The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed new insights into vortex dynamics within superfluid helium, a remarkable liquid that exhibits zero-resistance flow at temperatures approaching absolute zero. The research demonstrates that when these quantum vortices intersect and reconnect, they separate faster than their initial approach velocity, creating bursts of energy that characterize turbulence in both quantum and classical fluids.

“Superfluids offer a uniquely clear perspective on turbulence,” said FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Professor Wei Guo, a study co-author. “We’re beginning to understand the universal physics that connects quantum and classical worlds, and that’s an exciting frontier for both science and technology.”

An international team led by Innsbruck quantum physicist Peter Zoller, together with the US company QuEra Computing, has directly observed a gauge field theory similar to models from particle physics in a two-dimensional analog quantum simulator for the first time. The study, published in Nature, opens up new possibilities for research into fundamental physical phenomena.

String breaking occurs when the string between two strongly bound particles, such as a quark-antiquark pair, breaks and new particles are created. This concept is central to understanding the strong interactions that occur in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory that describes the binding of quarks in protons and neutrons.

String breaking is extremely difficult to observe experimentally, as it only occurs in nature under extreme conditions. The recent work by scientists from the Universities of Innsbruck and Harvard, the ÖAW-Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) and the quantum computer company QuEra shows for the first time how this phenomenon can be reproduced in an analog quantum simulator.

The entry of quantum computers into society is currently hindered by their sensitivity to disturbances in the environment. Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and Aalto University and the University of Helsinki in Finland, now present a new type of exotic quantum material, and a method that uses magnetism to create stability.

This breakthrough can make quantum computers significantly more resilient—paving the way for them to be robust enough to tackle quantum calculations in practice.

The paper, “Topological Zero Modes and Correlation Pumping in an Engineered Kondo Lattice,” is published in Physical Review Letters.

A team at EPFL and the University of Arizona has discovered that making molecules bigger and more flexible can actually extend the life of quantum charge flow, a finding that could help shape the future of quantum technologies and chemical control. Their study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the emerging field of attochemistry, scientists use laser pulses to trigger and steer electron motion inside molecules. This degree of precision could one day let us design chemicals on demand. Attochemistry could also enable real-time control over how chemical bonds break or form, lead to the creation of highly targeted drugs, develop new materials with tailor-made properties, and improve technologies like solar energy harvesting and quantum computing.

But the big roadblock is decoherence: Electrons lose their quantum “sync” within a few femtoseconds (a millionth of a billionth of a second), especially when the molecule is large and floppy. Researchers have tried different methods to sustain coherence—using heavy atoms, freezing temperatures etc. Because quantum coherence vanishes at macroscopic scales, most approaches to sustaining coherence operate on the same assumption: larger and more flexible molecules were assumed to lose coherence more rapidly. What if that assumption is wrong?

Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, have created a novel pathway into the study of the elusive quantum states in superconducting vortices. The existence of these was flaunted in the 1960s, but has remained very difficult to verify directly because those states are squeezed into energy scales smaller than one can typically resolve in experiments.

The result was made possible by a combination of ingenuity and the expanding research in designer materials created in the labs at the Niels Bohr Institute. It is now published in Physical Review Letters.

Alena Tensor is a recently discovered class of energy-momentum tensors that proposes a general equivalence of the curved path and geodesic for analyzed spacetimes which allows the analysis of physical systems in curvilinear, classical and quantum descriptions. In this paper it is shown that Alena Tensor is related to the Killing tensor K and describes the class of GR solutions G + Λ g = 2 Λ K. In this picture, it is not matter that imposes curvature, but rather the geometric symmetries, encoded in the Killing tensor, determine the way spacetime curves and how matter can be distributed in it. It was also shown, that Alena Tensor gives decomposition of energy-momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field using two null-vectors and in natural way forces the Higgs field to appear, indicating the reason for the symmetry breaking.