In recent years, physicists have been trying to better understand the behavior of individual quantum particles as they move in space. Yet directly imaging these particles with high precision has so far proved challenging, due to the limitations of existing microscopy methods.

Researchers at CNRS and École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, have now developed a new protocol to directly image the evolution of a single-atom wave packet, a delocalized quantum state that determines the probability that an associated atom will be found in a specific location. This imaging technique, introduced in Physical Review Letters, could open exciting possibilities for the precise study of complex quantum systems in continuous space.

“Our group is interested in the study of ultracold atoms, the coldest systems in the universe, just a few billionths of degrees above absolute zero, where matter displays fascinating behaviors,” Tarik Yefsah, senior author of the paper, told Phys.org. “One of these behaviors is the so-called superfluidity, a remarkable state of matter, where particles flow without friction.

Quantum Internet Alliance (QIA) researchers at TU Delft, QuTech, University of Innsbruck, INRIA and CNRS recently announced the creation of the first operating system designed for quantum networks: QNodeOS. The research, published in Nature, marks a major step forward in transforming quantum networking from a theoretical concept to a practical technology that could revolutionize the future of the internet.

“The goal of our research is to bring quantum network technology to all. With QNodeOS we’re taking a big step forward. We’re making it possible—for the first time—to program and execute applications on a quantum network easily,” says Prof. Dr. Stephanie Wehner, Professor of Quantum Computer Science at TU Delft’s quantum technology research institute QuTech, who led the study. “Our work also creates a framework opening entirely new areas of quantum computer science research.”

Simulations of quantum many-body systems are an important goal for nuclear and high-energy physics. Many-body problems involve systems that consist of many microscopic particles interacting at the level of quantum mechanics. They are much more difficult to describe than simple systems with just two particles. This means that even the most powerful conventional computers cannot simulate these problems.

Quantum computing has the potential to address this challenge using an approach called analog quantum simulation. To succeed, these simulations need theoretical approximations of how quantum computers represent many-body systems. In research on this topic, nuclear physicists at the University of Washington developed a new framework to systematically analyze the interplay of these approximations. They showed that the impact of such approximations can be minimized by tuning simulation parameters.

The study is published in the journal Physical Review A.

Japanese scientists have created diamond quantum sensors that can monitor EV batteries with great precision to help improve efficiency.

Quantum systems don’t just transition between phases—they do so in ways that defy classical intuition.

A new experiment has directly observed these “dissipative phase transitions” (DPTs), revealing how quantum states shift under carefully controlled conditions. This breakthrough could unlock powerful new techniques for stabilizing quantum computers and sensors, making them more resilient and precise than ever before.

Quantum phase transitions: a new frontier.

Superconductivity, which entails an electrical resistance of zero at very low temperatures, is a highly desirable and thus widely studied quantum phenomenon. Typically, this state is known to arise following the formation of bound electron pairs known as Cooper pairs, yet identifying the factors contributing to its emergence in quantum materials has so far proved more challenging.

Researchers at Princeton University, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Beijing Institute of Technology and the University of Zurich recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding the superconductivity observed in CsV₃Sb₅, a superconductor with a Kagome lattice (i.e., in which atoms form a hexagonal pattern that resembles that of Kagome woven baskets).

Their paper, published in Nature Physics, identifies two distinct superconducting regimes in this material, which were found to be linked to different transport and thermodynamic properties.

Based on a material view and reductionism, science has achieved great success. These cognitive paradigms treat the external as an objective existence and ignore internal consciousness. However, this cognitive paradigm, which we take for granted, has also led to some dilemmas related to consciousness in biology and physics. Together, these phenomena reveal the interaction and inseparable side of matter and consciousness (or body and mind) rather than the absolute opposition. However, a material view that describes matter and consciousness in opposition cannot explain the underlying principle, which causes a gap in interpretation. For example, consciousness is believed to be the key to influencing wave function collapse (reality), but there is a lack of a scientific model to study how this happens. In this study, we reveal that the theory of scientific cognition exhibits a paradigm shift in terms of perception. This tendency implies that reconciling the relationship between matter and consciousness requires an abstract theoretical model that is not based on physical forms. We propose that the holistic cognitive paradigm offers a potential solution to reconcile the dilemmas and can be scientifically proven. In contrast to the material view, the holistic cognitive paradigm is based on the objective contradictory nature of perception rather than the external physical characteristics. This cognitive paradigm relies on perception and experience (not observation) and summarizes all existence into two abstract contradictory perceptual states (Yin-Yang). Matter and consciousness can be seen as two different states of perception, unified in perception rather than in opposition. This abstract perspective offers a distinction from the material view, which is also the key to falsification, and the occurrence of an event is inseparable from the irrational state of the observer’s conscious perception. Alternatively, from the material view, the event is random and has nothing to do with perception. We hope that this study can provide some new enlightenment for the scientific coordination of the opposing relationship between matter and consciousness.

Keywords: contradiction; free energy principle; hard problem of consciousness; holistic philosophy; perception; quantum mechanics; reductionism.

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face_with_colon_three A gasoline free future could be used for flying vehicles like cars, spaceships, homes, citywide generators, and really shows a kinda Star Trek and alien like future utopian world free of cancerous gases. It could make the world really clean and it would be perfect for spaceships.

This study reports the creation of a model thermodynamic engine that is fuelled by the energy difference resulting from changing the statistics of a quantum gas from bosonic to fermionic.

InnovativeTsinghua researchers proposed a reconfigurable quantum entanglement distribution network using siliconphotonics, reducing the required wavelength channels to O(N) and improving the scalability, reconfigurability, and performance of quantum technology.

More: bit.ly/3W9PvNx

Meet the area of science that even Albert Einstein himself called “spooky”: quantum entanglement!

Classical physics is the force governing an extremely predictable world, where an apple set on a table stays there until something causes it to move again.

In the quantum world, not only can the apple end up on Mars, but, hypothetically, it could exist both on the table and on Mars at the same time. It could even be inextricably tied to another apple in some other part of the universe through entanglement. Thus, “reality” as we know it is much more uncertain, with the possibility for many solutions or outcomes to exist, rather than just one.

Quantum entanglement remains a spooky part of our world. Check out the resources below to learn more about how NASA scientists are working to unravel the mysteries of our quantum universe.