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Strange winds on seven hot Jupiters reveal strongest signs yet of exoplanet magnetic activity
A team of astronomers has found the strongest evidence yet that some planets outside our solar system may be magnetic. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) and the GeminiNorth telescope, the researchers measured wind speeds on seven very hot, Jupiter-like exoplanets.
The observations reveal that the winds on these planets are most likely governed by magnetic fields, providing the first robust measurement of magnetism on planets outside the solar system.
“This breakthrough opens a completely new window on exoplanet research. It’s the first time we can compare the magnetic environments of other worlds—a key step toward ultimately understanding which planets can stay alive, keep their water, and perhaps even, one day, host life as we know it,” says Julia Seidel, an astronomer at the Laboratoire Lagrange, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, France and lead author of the study published in Nature Astronomy.
World-first spintronic p-bit on silicon chip points toward larger AI-ready p-computers
A Japan–U.S. collaborative research team has demonstrated the world’s first integrated spintronic probabilistic bit, or p-bit, fabricated on a silicon chip using semiconductor manufacturing processes. The team, consisting of researchers from Tohoku University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, experimentally verified the operation of the p-bit, a key building block for probabilistic, or p-, computers. The achievement provides a pathway toward large-scale spintronic p-computers for applications such as AI and machine learning.
Many emerging computational problems require efficient exploration of enormous numbers of possible states. Conventional computers, which process binary information, 0 or 1, sequentially, are not always well suited to such highly parallel tasks. Probabilistic computers instead use probabilistic bits, or p-bits, which fluctuate stochastically between 0 and 1 by using intrinsic physical randomness.
Because p-computers can quickly take many states, they are attracting attention as a next-generation computing platform. Among several candidate technologies, spintronics is considered especially promising because nanoscale magnetic devices can naturally generate probabilistic behavior through magnetic fluctuations.
What Quantum Computers Just Proved About Time Is Terrifying
Time is something we experience every day, yet scientists still struggle to fully understand what it really is. Now, advances in quantum computing are allowing researchers to explore some of the deepest mysteries of physics—and the results are raising extraordinary questions about the nature of time itself.
By simulating complex quantum systems that were previously impossible to study, quantum computers are helping scientists test theories about causality, time reversal, and the strange behavior of particles at the quantum level. Some findings appear to challenge our most basic assumptions about how time works.
Researchers are investigating whether time is truly fundamental to the universe or whether it emerges from deeper physical processes we have yet to understand. These ideas may sound like science fiction, but they are being explored by some of the world’s leading physicists.
The implications are profound. If our understanding of time is incomplete, it could affect everything from cosmology and black holes to the future of computing and our understanding of reality itself.
In this video, we examine the groundbreaking quantum experiments, the theories they are testing, and why some scientists believe these discoveries could transform our view of the universe.
Watch until the end to uncover the most mind-bending implications of this research. Don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE for more cutting-edge science, quantum mysteries, and incredible discoveries. Comment below: What do you think time really is?
Strange-Particle Decay Comes to Light
In 2003, physicists detected a particle known as the Ds(2317) meson, containing one charm quark and one strange antiquark. That discovery garnered significant attention because of a large discrepancy between the particle’s measured mass (2.317 GeV/c2) and its predicted mass (above 2.4 GeV/c2). Now the Belle and Belle II Collaboration has observed a previously unseen light-emitting decay of the particle [1]. The team’s analysis could help researchers solve the mass puzzle and help them investigate the fundamental forces that bind matter.
To explain the mass discrepancy, scientists have proposed several models for the particle’s internal structure. Each model predicts a specific range of possible values for the probability that the particle will decay by emitting a gamma ray divided by the probability that it will instead emit a pion. If the measured value of this ratio turns out to be above 8.1%, it would favor models in which the meson is a compact quark–antiquark state. Meanwhile, a ratio between 0.5% and 4.25% would align more closely with models in which the particle is an extended state that acts as a “molecule” of two mesons.
Using data from Japan’s KEKB and SuperKEKB electron–positron colliders, the Belle and Belle II Collaboration detected the particle’s gamma-emitting decay at a statistical significance above 10 standard deviations. The team measured the photon-to-pion decay ratio to be about 7%, smaller than that predicted by most quark–antiquark models but larger than that predicted by most molecular models. The researchers anticipate that pinning down the meson’s structure could entail measuring the particle’s total decay rate.
Random deformation lets glassy materials store precise mechanical memories, simulations reveal
Amorphous materials such as glass are solids whose internal structure lacks a repeating pattern. Their molecules are arranged in a random and irregular way. Surprisingly, these disordered materials can “remember” past mechanical experiences; that is, the way they respond to a force can depend on how they have responded to external forces before.
Roni Chatterjee and Smarajit Karmakar at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, in collaboration with Damien Vandembroucq (CNRS, ESPCI Paris, France) and Muhittin Mungan (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany) now report crucial insights into memory formation in amorphous solids. Their study reveals that amorphous materials can encode memories even when the applied deformations are completely random rather than perfectly periodic, challenging the conventional understanding of memory formation in disordered solids. The findings of this study have been published in the New Journal of Physics.
Researchers usually study this kind of memory under strictly controlled laboratory conditions. They repeatedly deform a material in a regular, predictable way, gently shearing it back and forth over many cycles. Over time, the material “learns” this pattern and settles into a state that reflects its past training. This has been the standard way to understand memory in such systems.
Physicists identify upper limit to resistivity in a pure metal
Experimental atomic physicists have discovered there is a maximum amount of electrical resistance, or resistivity, that can result from collisions between electrons.
A team from the University of Toronto, L’École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania studied ultracold potassium atoms cooled to near absolute zero. They found that when increasing the rate at which atoms collide, the resulting resistance eventually stops increasing, offering new insights into what causes resistivity at the microscopic level.
“Electron-on-electron collisions are known to increase resistivity in some pure materials,” explains Professor Joseph Thywissen in the Department of Physics and the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto, senior author of a study published in Physical Review Letters. “The energy produced by electrical resistance shows up as heat. Transmission lines, for instance, lose up to 8% of generated electrical power. Resistivity is also interesting to study because it can be a signature of new physics in materials.”
Young disk around WRAY 15–1880 may contain a primitive planetary system
Italian astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to perform polarimetric observations of the star WRAY 15–1880 and its young circumstellar disk. Results of the new observations, presented June 10 on the arXiv preprint server, suggest that this disk may host a primitive planetary system.
Circumstellar disks are accretion disks orbiting stars, composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids or collision fragments. Around the youngest stars, they are the reservoirs of material out of which planets may form.
At a distance of some 492 light-years from Earth, WRAY 15–1880 (also known as RX J1842.9–3532) is a solar-type classical T Tau star in the CrA-North subregion of the Corona Australis (CrA) complex. It has a mass of around 1.24 solar masses and is estimated to be 2.8 million years old.
Intermolecular collisions may explain why organic radical fluids become unusually magnetic
Certain substances can become magnetic when exposed to an external magnetic field. Magnetic susceptibility measures how easily a material can be magnetized. Materials known as organic radicals have been noted to possess anomalously large magnetic susceptibility. However, researchers have been unable to explain this phenomenon using conventional theories.
Now, researchers at the University of Osaka have developed a theoretical framework to explain this anomalous magnetic susceptibility. This discovery was recently published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
Rare B meson decays tighten search for hidden particles and dark matter links
A University of Melbourne researcher has placed the strongest constraints yet on certain rare decays of subatomic particles, narrowing the window for where new “hidden” particles could be lurking.
In research published in Physical Review Letters, Dr. Daniel Marcantonio analyzed data from the Belle experiment to search for “feebly interacting particles” (FIPs)—a broad class of hypothetical particles that interact extremely rarely with ordinary matter.
FIPs are predicted by many theories that extend our current understanding of particle physics, and some could serve as candidates for dark matter or as messengers between ordinary matter and a hypothetical “dark sector.”