{"id":237032,"date":"2026-05-13T02:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/atoms-vibrate-on-circular-paths-with-an-unexpected-twist"},"modified":"2026-05-13T02:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:25:06","slug":"atoms-vibrate-on-circular-paths-with-an-unexpected-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/atoms-vibrate-on-circular-paths-with-an-unexpected-twist","title":{"rendered":"Atoms vibrate on circular paths\u2014with an unexpected twist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/atoms-vibrate-on-circular-paths-with-an-unexpected-twist.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international team of researchers, including scientists from HZDR and Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, for the first time directly observed how angular momentum is transferred and conserved within a crystal lattice. Using intense terahertz laser pulses, the researchers were able to selectively control these processes, which unveiled a surprising effect: During the angular momentum transfer, the direction of rotation reverses\u2014caused by the rotational symmetry of the material.<\/p>\n<p>The results, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-026-03274-8\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Physics<\/i>, provide new insights into the foundation of magnetism and open up possibilities for tailored control of quantum materials.<\/p>\n<p>Conserved quantities such as energy, momentum, and angular momentum determine the fundamental laws of nature. In a closed system, these quantities are always conserved: they cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or transferred. While angular momentum is familiar in everyday life through rotating carousels or riding a bicycle, it plays a central role at the quantum level\u2014for example, as the fundamental origin of magnetism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international team of researchers, including scientists from HZDR and Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, for the first time directly observed how angular momentum is transferred and conserved within a crystal lattice. Using intense terahertz laser pulses, the researchers were able to selectively control these processes, which unveiled a surprising effect: During [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237032","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\/237032","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=237032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}