Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have linked supermassive black hole mergers with dark matter interactions, potentially solving a longstanding astronomical problem and offering new insights into dark matter’s nature and its role in the cosmos.

Researchers have found a link between some of the largest and smallest objects in the cosmos: supermassive black holes and dark matter particles.

Continue reading “Dark Matter Was the Key: Astrophysicists Solve Longstanding ‘Final Parsec Problem’” »

The tin-vacancy center in diamond has properties that could be useful for quantum networks.

In a new study, researchers show how this defect’s electron spin can be controlled — and coherence prolonged — using a superconducting microwave waveguide.

Even the most pristine diamonds can host defects arising from missing atoms (vacancies) or naturally occurring impurities. These defects possess atomlike properties such as charge and spin, which can be accessed optically or magnetically. Over the past few decades, researchers have studied various defects to understand and harness these properties. One in particular—the tin-vacancy center, in which a tin atom resides on an interstitial site with two neighboring vacancies—exhibits exceptionally useful optical and spin properties, making it highly relevant in the field of quantum communication. Here, we explore how the spin properties behave under different magnetic field directions.

Continue reading “Microwave Control of the Tin-Vacancy Spin Qubit in Diamond with a Superconducting Waveguide” »

A team led by Stevens professor Igor Pikovski has just outlined how to detect single gravitons, thought to be the quantum building blocks of gravity—and making that experiment real should be possible with quantum technology, they suggest, in the near future.

In recent years, advances in photonics and materials science have led to remarkable developments in sensor technology, pushing the boundaries of what can be detected and measured. Among these innovations, non-Hermitian physics has emerged as a crucial area of research, offering new ways to manipulate light and enhance sensor sensitivity.

J.J. Thomson won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1906 showing that the electron is a particle: ironically, his son, G.P. Thomson, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1937 showing that it is not (or rather that the electron can also behave as a wave)

A tale of two Thomsons.

Simulating particles is a relatively simple task when those particles are spherical. In the real world, however, most particles are not perfect spheres, but take on irregular and varying shapes and sizes. Simulating these particles becomes a much more challenging and time-consuming task.

Nothing in science can be achieved or understood without measurement. Today, thanks to advances in quantum sensing, scientists can measure things that were once impossible to even imagine: vibrations of atoms, properties of individual photons, fluctuations associated with gravitational waves.

A groundbreaking study explores anomalies in particle physics experiments, suggesting the existence of new bosons.

Like a supersonic jet being blasted with high-speed winds, Earth is constantly being bombarded by a stream of charged particles from the sun known as solar wind.

Just like wind around a jet or water around a boat, these solar wind streams curve around Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere, forming on the sunward side of the magnetosphere a front called a bow shock and stretching it into a wind sock shape with a long tail on the nightside.

Dramatic changes to the solar wind alter the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere. An example of such changes provides a glimpse into the behavior of other bodies in space, such as Jupiter’s moons and extrasolar planets.