Lifeboat Foundation

“We can rewind to a previous scene or skip several scenes ahead.”

An worldwide team of scientists claims to have found a means to speed up, slow down, and even reverse the clock of a given system by taking use of the peculiar qualities of the quantum universe, as reported by Spanish newspaper El País.

The scientists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna presented their findings in six separate papers. The basic principles of physics do not transfer intuitively onto the subatomic world, which is made up of quantum particles known as qubits, which can exist in several states at the same time, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement.

A discovery that uncovered the surprising way atoms arrange themselves and find their preferred neighbors in multi-principal element alloys (MPEA) could enable engineers to “tune” these unique and useful materials for enhanced performance in specific applications ranging from advanced power plants to aerospace technologies, according to the researchers who made the finding.

Lithium (Li) secondary batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles, store energy by converting electrical energy to chemical energy and generating electricity to release chemical energy to electrical energy through the movement of Li-ions between a cathode and an anode. These secondary batteries mainly use nickel (Ni) cathode materials due to their high lithium-ion storage capacity. Traditional nickel-based materials have a polycrystalline morphology composed of many tiny crystals which can undergo structural degradation during charging and discharging, significantly reducing their lifespan.

One approach to addressing this issue is to produce the cathode material in a “single-crystal” form. Creating nickel-based cathode materials as single large particles, or “single crystals,” can enhance their structural and chemical stability and durability. It is known that single-crystal materials are synthesized at high temperatures and become rigid. However, the exact process of hardening during synthesis and the specific conditions under which this occurs remain unclear.

To improve the durability of nickel cathode materials for electric vehicles, the researchers focused on identifying a specific temperature, referred to as the “critical temperature,” at which high-quality single-crystal materials are synthesized. They investigated various synthesis temperatures to determine the optimal conditions for forming single crystals in synthesis of a nickel-based cathode material (N884). The team systematically observed the impact of temperature on the material’s capacity and long-term performance.

An answer to a decades-old question in the theory of quantum entanglement raises more questions about this quirky phenomenon.

Physicists have a long list of open problems they consider important for advancing the field of quantum information. Problem 5 asks whether a system can exist in its maximally entangled state in a realistic scenario, in which noise is present. Now Julio de Vicente at Carlos III University of Madrid has answered this fundamental quantum question with a definitive “no” [1]. De Vicente says that he hopes his work will “open a new research avenue within entanglement theory.”

From quantum sensors to quantum computers, many technologies require quantum mechanically entangled particles to operate. The properties of such particles are correlated in a way that would not be possible in classical physics. Ideally, for technology applications, these particles should be in the so-called maximally entangled state, one in which all possible measures of entanglement are maximized. Scientists predict that particles can exist in this state in the absence of experimental, environmental, and statistical noise. But it was unclear whether the particles could also exist in a maximally entangled state in real-world scenarios, where noise is unavoidable.

A new manipulation technique could enable the realization of more versatile quantum simulators.

The Born rule, formulated almost a century ago, says that measuring a system yields an outcome whose probability is determined by the wave-function amplitude. As if by magic, preparing a quantum system in the same way and performing the same measurement can produce different results. For a long time, the Born rule’s probabilistic nature was more of a theoretical concept. But with the advent of quantum simulators, it has become an experimental reality. So-called snapshots—different measurement outcomes of the same quantum many-body state—are routinely measured. In the case of cold atoms in optical lattices, such snapshots are images that show with single-site resolution whether an atom is present or not. Now Alexander Impertro of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and his collaborators have devised a way to take snapshots not just of atoms’ whereabouts but also of properties analogous to currents and local kinetic energy in crystals [1].

Imagine the possibility of sending messages that are completely impervious to even the most powerful computers. This is the incredible promise of quantum communication, which harnesses the unique properties of light particles known as photons.

Contrary to widespread belief, our Moon does have an atmosphere, albeit extremely thin and officially known as an “exosphere”. But what are the processes responsible for forming and maintaining this exosphere, which have eluded scientists for some time? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how a phenomenon known as “impact vaporization” from the surface being hit my objects ranging from micrometeoroids to massive meteorites during its recent and ancient history, respectively. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of planetary bodies throughout the solar system and the processes that maintain them today.

For the study, the team analyzed 10 Apollo lunar samples (one volcanic and nine lunar regolith aka “lunar soil”) collected by astronauts over five landing sites with the goal of ascertaining how much space weathering they’ve endured over the Moon’s long history. This is because when an impact occurs, this causes the specific atoms to vaporize and kick up portions of this material into space while other portions remain trapped by lunar gravity, although now orbiting the Moon. In the end, the researchers discovered that impact vaporization is the main process responsible for the lunar exosphere over the several billion-year history of the Moon.

“We give a definitive answer that meteorite impact vaporization is the dominant process that creates the lunar atmosphere,” said Dr. Nicole Nie, who is an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and lead author of the study. “The moon is close to 4.5 billion years old, and through that time the surface has been continuously bombarded by meteorites. We show that eventually, a thin atmosphere reaches a steady state because it’s being continuously replenished by small impacts all over the moon.”

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chinese-American physicist Tsung-Dao Lee, who in 1957 became the second-youngest scientist to receive a Nobel Prize, died Sunday at his home in San Francisco at age 97, according to a Chinese university and a research center.

Lee, whose work advanced the understanding of particle physics, was one of the great masters in the field, according to a joint obituary released Monday by the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Beijing-based China Center for Advanced Science and Technology.

Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 1962, was also a professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York.

Researchers at the University of Cologne have achieved a significant breakthrough in quantum materials, potentially setting the stage for advancements in topological superconductivity and robust quantum computing / publication in Nature Physics.

A team of experimental physicists led by the University of Cologne have shown that it is possible to create superconducting effects in special materials known for their unique edge-only electrical properties. This discovery provides a new way to explore advanced quantum states that could be crucial for developing stable and efficient quantum computers. Their study, titled ‘Induced superconducting correlations in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator’, has been published in Nature Physics.

Superconductivity is a phenomenon where electricity flows without resistance in certain materials. The quantum anomalous Hall effect is another phenomenon that also causes zero resistance, but with a twist: it is confined to the edges rather than spreading throughout. Theory predicts that a combination of superconductivity and the quantum anomalous Hall effect will give rise to topologically-protected particles called Majorana fermions that will potentially revolutionize future technologies such as quantum computers. Such a combination can be achieved by inducing superconductivity in the edge of a quantum anomalous Hall insulator that is already resistance-free. The resultant chiral Majorana edge state, which is a special type of Majorana fermions, is a key to realizing ‘flying qubits’ (or quantum bits) that are topologically protected.