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Massive black hole mystery unlocked by researchers

It’s one of astronomy’s great mysteries: how did black holes get so big, so massive, so quickly. An answer to this cosmic conundrum has now been provided by researchers at Ireland’s Maynooth University (MU) and reported today in Nature Astronomy.

“We found that the chaotic conditions that existed in the early universe triggered early, smaller black holes to grow into the super-massive black holes we see later following a feeding frenzy which devoured material all around them,” says Daxal Mehta, a Ph.D. candidate in Maynooth University’s Department of Physics, who led the research.

“We revealed, using state-of-the-art computer simulations, that the first generation of black holes—those born just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang—grew incredibly fast, into tens of thousands of times the size of our sun.”

New heat-shrinking method integrates electronic circuits on irregular shapes

Most electronics are built on flat, stiff boards, which makes it incredibly difficult to fit them onto curved and irregular shapes we find in the real world, such as human limbs or curved aircraft wings. While flexible electronics have made some progress, they are often not durable enough or are too complex to manufacture for everyday use.

Analog hardware may solve Internet of Things’ speed bumps and bottlenecks

The ubiquity of smart devices—not just phones and watches, but lights, refrigerators, doorbells and more, all constantly recording and transmitting data—is creating massive volumes of digital information that drain energy and slow data transmission speeds. With the rising use of artificial intelligence in industries ranging from health care and finance to transportation and manufacturing, addressing the issue is becoming more pressing.

A research team led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst aims to address the problem with new technology that uses old-school analog computing: an electrical component known as a memristor.

“Certainly, our society is more and more connected, and the number of those devices is increasing exponentially,” says Qiangfei Xia, the Dev and Linda Gupta professor in the Riccio College of Engineering at UMass Amherst. “If everyone is collecting and processing data the old way, the amount of data is going to be exploding. We cannot handle that anymore.”

To explain or not? Online dating experiment shows need for AI transparency depends on user expectation

Artificial intelligence (AI) is said to be a “black box,” with its logic obscured from human understanding—but how much does the average user actually care to know how AI works?

It depends on the extent to which a system meets users’ expectations, according to a new study by a team that includes Penn State researchers. Using a fabricated algorithm-driven dating website, the team found that whether the system met, exceeded or fell short of user expectations directly corresponded to how much the user trusted the AI and wanted to know about how it worked.

The findings are published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

New insight into light-matter thermalization could advance neutral-atom quantum computing

Light and matter can remain at separate temperatures even while interacting with each other for long periods, according to new research that could help scale up an emerging quantum computing approach in which photons and atoms play a central role.

In a theoretical study published in Physical Review Letters, a University at Buffalo-led team reports that interacting photons and atoms don’t always rapidly reach thermal equilibrium as expected.

Thermal equilibrium is the process by which interacting particles exchange energy before settling at the same temperature, and it typically happens quickly when trapped light repeatedly interacts with matter. Under the right circumstances, however, physicists found that photons and atoms can instead settle at different—and in some cases opposite—temperatures for extended periods.

Using magnetic frustration to probe new quantum possibilities

Research in the lab of UC Santa Barbara materials professor Stephen Wilson is focused on understanding the fundamental physics behind unusual states of matter and developing materials that can host the kinds of properties needed for quantum functionalities.

In a paper published in Nature Materials, Wilson’s lab group has reported on an innovative way to use a phenomenon referred to as frustration of long-range order in a material system to engineer unconventional magnetic states with potential relevance for quantum technologies.

At the same time, Wilson emphasized, “This is fundamental science aimed at addressing a basic question. It’s meant to probe what physics may be possible for future devices.”

Innovative optical atomic clock could combine single-ion accuracy with multi-ion stability

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more accurate clocks: optical atomic clocks. In a few years’ time, they could change the definition of the base unit second in the International System of Units (SI). It is still completely open, which of the various optical clocks will serve as the basis for this.

The large number of optical clocks that the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), as a leading institute in this field, has realized could be joined by another type: an optical multi-ion clock with ytterbium-173 ions. It could combine the high accuracy of individual ions with the improved stability of several ions. This is the result of a cooperation between PTB and the Thai metrology institute NIMT.

The team led by Tanja Mehlstäubler reports on this in the current issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. The results are also interesting for quantum computing and, with a new look inside the atom, for fundamental research.

Nature-inspired ‘POMbranes’ could transform water recycling in textile and pharma industries

Scientists have collaborated to develop a new class of highly precise filtration membranes. The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could significantly reduce energy consumption and enable large-scale water reuse in industry. The team includes researchers from the CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences.

Everyday industrial processes, like purifying medicines, cleaning textile dyes, and processing food, rely on “separations.” Currently, these processes are incredibly energy-hungry, accounting for nearly 40% to 50% of all global industrial energy use. Most factories still use old-fashioned methods like distillation and evaporation to separate ingredients, which are expensive and leave a heavy carbon footprint.

Although membrane-based technologies are considered cleaner, most polymer membranes currently used in industry have irregularly sized pores that tend to degrade over time, limiting their effectiveness. Thus, they lack the precision and long-term stability needed for demanding industrial applications.

Brain navigation study reveals function of an unconventional electrical-signaling mode in neurons

Navigating the world is no mean feat, especially when the world pushes back. For instance, airflow hitting a fly on its right side can, after a turn, become a headwind. To stay on course, the fly’s brain must interpret sensations that constantly shift with each turn of its body.

Indeed, transforming changing sensory inputs into a more stable, map-like understanding of the world is intimately connected to an animal’s ability to survive and navigate within its environment. How do flies make it look so easy?

Now, a study published in Cell shows that the fly brain uses a surprisingly economical strategy. Earlier work had demonstrated that flies calculate their direction of travel by combining four neural signals, each encoding motion along a different axis. The new research finds that when it comes to wind direction, the brain doesn’t need four neuronal populations, but only two. This is because each population can handle two opposite directions in the wind system.

New cryogenic vacuum chamber cuts noise for quantum ion trapping

Even very slight environmental noise, such as microscopic vibrations or magnetic field fluctuations a hundred times smaller than Earth’s magnetic field, can be catastrophic for quantum computing experiments with trapped ions.

To address that challenge, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed an improved cryogenic vacuum chamber that helps reduce some common noise sources by isolating ions from vibrations and shielding them from magnetic field fluctuations. The new chamber also incorporates an improved imaging system and a radio frequency (RF) coil that can be used to drive ion transitions from within the chamber.

“There’s a lot of excitement around quantum computing today, and trapped ions are just one of the research platforms available, each with their own benefits and drawbacks,” explained Darian Hartsell, a GTRI research scientist who leads the project. “We are trying to mitigate multiple sources of noise in this chamber and make other improvements with one robust new design.”

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