Lifeboat Foundation

The question of where the boundary between classical and quantum physics lies is one of the longest-standing pursuits of modern scientific research, and in new research published today, scientists demonstrate a novel platform that could help us find an answer.

The laws of quantum physics govern the behavior of particles at miniscule scales, leading to phenomena such as quantum entanglement, where the properties of entangled particles become inextricably linked in ways that cannot be explained by classical physics.

Research in quantum physics helps us to fill gaps in our knowledge of physics and can give us a more complete picture of reality, but the tiny scales at which quantum systems operate can make them difficult to observe and study.

The entropy production rate is determined from the variances of the position and forces applied to a system of particles.

Gravitationally speaking, the universe is a noisy place. A hodgepodge of gravitational waves from unknown sources streams unpredictably around space, including possibly from the early universe.

Scientists have been looking for signs of these early cosmological gravitational waves, and a team of physicists have now shown that such waves should have a distinct signature due to the behavior of quarks and gluons as the universe cools. Such a finding would have a decisive impact on which models best describe the universe almost immediately after the Big Bang. The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Scientists first found direct evidence for gravitational waves in 2015 at the LIGO gravitational wave interferometers in the US. These are singular (albeit tiny amplitude) waves from a particular source, such as the merger of two black holes, which wash past Earth. Such waves cause the 4-km perpendicular arms of the interferometers to change length by miniscule (but different) amounts, the difference detected by changes in the resulting interference pattern as laser beams travel back and forth in the detector’s arms.

To study tiny “ghost particles” known as neutrinos, scientists with Fermilab’s DUNE project will beam them from Illinois to caverns in South Dakota.

Enormous star-forming region in the Milky Way could produce supercharged particles.

Scientists are a step closer to unraveling the mysterious forces of the universe after working out how to measure gravity on a microscopic level.

Experts have never fully understood how the force that was discovered by Isaac Newton works in the tiny quantum world. Even Einstein was baffled by quantum gravity and, in his theory of general relativity, said there is no realistic experiment that could show a quantum version of gravity.

But now physicists at the University of Southampton, working with scientists in Europe, have successfully detected a weak gravitational pull on a tiny particle using a new technique.

Researchers have characterized the thermodynamic properties of a model that uses cold atoms to simulate condensed-matter phenomena.

Scientists achieve breakthrough in quantum optics with photon detector-based method, paving the way for improved quantum computing.

Scientists at Paderborn University have used a new method to determine the characteristics of optical, i.e. light-based, quantum states. For the first time, they are using certain photon detectors — devices that can detect individual light particles — for so-called homodyne detection. The ability to characterize optical quantum states makes the method an essential tool for quantum information processing. Precise knowledge of the characteristics is important for use in quantum computers, for example. The results have now been published in the specialist journal Optica Quantum.

Advancements in Homodyne Detection.

We now have a standard model of cosmology, the current version of the Big Bang theory. Although it has proved very successful, its consequences are staggering. We know only 5% of the content of the universe, which is normal matter. The remaining 95% is made up of two exotic entities that have never been produced in the laboratory and whose physical nature is still unknown.

These are dark matter, which accounts for 25% of the content of the cosmos, and dark energy, which contributes 70%. In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy is the energy of empty space, and its density remains constant throughout the evolution of the universe.

According to this theory, sound waves propagated in the very early universe. In those early stages, the universe had an enormous temperature and density. The pressure in this initial gas tried to push the particles that formed it apart, while gravity tried to pull them together, and the competition between the two forces created sound waves that propagated from the beginning of the universe until about 400,000 years after the Big Bang.