{"id":235290,"date":"2026-04-15T22:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T03:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/scientists-capture-superconductivitys-dancing-pairs-for-first-time-revealing-missing-pieces-in-a-decades-old-theory"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T03:19:13","slug":"scientists-capture-superconductivitys-dancing-pairs-for-first-time-revealing-missing-pieces-in-a-decades-old-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/scientists-capture-superconductivitys-dancing-pairs-for-first-time-revealing-missing-pieces-in-a-decades-old-theory","title":{"rendered":"Scientists capture superconductivity\u2019s \u2018dancing pairs\u2019 for first time, revealing missing pieces in a decades-old theory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-capture-superconductivitys-dancing-pairs-for-first-time-revealing-missing-pieces-in-a-decades-old-theory.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time, scientists have directly imaged the quantum process underlying superconductivity, a phenomenon in which paired electrons cause electric current to flow without resistance at sufficiently low temperatures. The results weren\u2019t quite what they expected.<\/p>\n<p>In the study, <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1103\/2t2k-3ftx\" target=\"_blank\">published April 15 in <i>Physical Review Letters<\/i><\/a>, the scientists directly imaged individual atoms pairing up in a special gas cooled nearly to absolute zero\u2014the unreachable limit to how cold things can get. The type of gas, called a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2022-04-lab-superfluid-circuit-fermions-electron.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">Fermi gas<\/a>, allows scientists to substitute electrons with atoms and probe the physics of superconductors in a controlled way.<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, the scientists found that after pairing up, the atoms moved in a synchronized dance, with their positions dependent on those of other pairs\u2014a phenomenon not predicted by the 70-year-old, Nobel-prize-winning theory of superconductivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, scientists have directly imaged the quantum process underlying superconductivity, a phenomenon in which paired electrons cause electric current to flow without resistance at sufficiently low temperatures. The results weren\u2019t quite what they expected. In the study, published April 15 in Physical Review Letters, the scientists directly imaged individual atoms pairing up [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235290","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}