{"id":219730,"date":"2025-08-09T05:27:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T10:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/quantum-starry-night-physicists-capture-elusive-instability-and-exotic-vortices"},"modified":"2025-08-09T05:27:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T10:27:32","slug":"quantum-starry-night-physicists-capture-elusive-instability-and-exotic-vortices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/quantum-starry-night-physicists-capture-elusive-instability-and-exotic-vortices","title":{"rendered":"Quantum \u2018Starry Night\u2019: Physicists capture elusive instability and exotic vortices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/quantum-starry-night-physicists-capture-elusive-instability-and-exotic-vortices2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Van Gogh\u2019s \u201cThe Starry Night\u201d has stirred the souls of art lovers for over a century. Now, its swirling skies may also speak to physicists, as it echoes the patterns of quantum turbulence.<\/p>\n<p>Physicists at Osaka Metropolitan University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have for the first time successfully observed the quantum Kelvin\u2013Helmholtz instability (KHI)\u2014a phenomenon predicted decades ago but never before seen in quantum fluids. The instability produces exotic vortex patterns known as eccentric fractional skyrmions, whose crescent-shaped structures bear a resemblance to the moon in Van Gogh\u2019s masterpiece.<\/p>\n<p>KHI is a classic phenomenon in <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/fluid+dynamics\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">fluid dynamics<\/a>, where waves and vortices form at the boundary between two fluids moving at different speeds\u2014as seen in wind-whipped ocean waves, swirling clouds, or Van Gogh\u2019s skies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Van Gogh\u2019s \u201cThe Starry Night\u201d has stirred the souls of art lovers for over a century. Now, its swirling skies may also speak to physicists, as it echoes the patterns of quantum turbulence. Physicists at Osaka Metropolitan University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have for the first time successfully observed the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1617,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quantum-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}