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Category: particle physics – Page 3

Nano-switch achieves first directed, gated flow of excitons

A new nanostructure acts like a wire and switch that can, for the first time, control and direct the flow of quantum quasiparticles called excitons at room temperature.

The transistor-like switch developed by University of Michigan engineers could speed up or even enable circuits that run on excitons instead of electricity—paving the way for a new class of devices.

Because they have no , excitons have the potential to move without the losses that come with moving electrically charged particles like electrons. These losses drive cell phones and computers to generate heat during use.

MIT Physicists Propose First-Ever “Neutrino Laser”

Super-cooling radioactive atoms could create a laser-like neutrino beam, potentially opening a new avenue for studying these elusive particles and even enabling novel forms of communication. Every instant, torrents of neutrinos pass through our bodies and the objects around us without leaving a t

An exploding black hole could reveal the foundations of the universe

Physicists have long believed that black holes explode at the end of their lives, and that such explosions happen—at most—only once every 100,000 years. But new research published in Physical Review Letters by physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has found a more than 90% probability that one of these black-hole explosions might be seen within the decade, and that, if we are prepared, our current fleet of space and earthbound telescopes could witness the event.

Such an would be strong evidence of a theorized but never observed kind of black hole, called a “primordial black hole,” that could have formed less than a second after the Big Bang occurred, 13.8 billion years ago.

Furthermore, the explosion would give us a definitive catalog of all the in existence, including the ones we have observed, such as electrons, quarks and Higgs bosons, the ones that we have only hypothesized, like dark matter particles, as well as everything else that is, so far, entirely unknown to science. This catalog would finally answer one of humankind’s oldest questions: from where did everything in existence come?

In quantum sensing, what beats beating noise? Meeting noise halfway

Noise is annoying, whether you’re trying to sleep or exploit the laws of quantum physics. Although noise from environmental disturbances will always be with us, a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have found a new way of dealing with it at the microscopic scales where quantum physics reigns. Addressing this noise could make possible the best sensors ever made, with applications ranging from health care to mineral exploration.

By taking advantage of quantum phenomena known as superposition and entanglement, researchers can measure subtle changes in the environment useful for everything from geology to GPS. But to do this, they must be able to see through the caused by environmental sources such as stray magnetic fields to detect, for example, an important signal from the brain.

New findings, detailed today in Physical Review Letters, would enable interlinked groups of quantum objects such as atoms to better sense the environment in the presence of noise. A horde of unlinked quantum objects can already outperform a conventional sensor. Linking them through the process of quantum entanglement can make them perform better still. However, entangling the group can make it vulnerable to environmental noise that causes errors, making the group lose its additional sensing advantage.

Advanced X-ray technique enables first direct observation of magnon spin currents

Spintronics is an emerging field that leverages the spin, or the intrinsic angular momentum, of electrons. By harnessing this quantum-relativistic property, researchers aim to develop devices that store and transmit information faster, more efficiently, and at higher data densities, potentially making devices much smaller than what is possible today. These advances could drive next-generation memory, sensors, and even quantum technologies.

A key step toward this future is the control of “spin currents,” the flow of angular momentum through a material without an accompanying electrical charge current. However, spin currents have proven notoriously difficult to measure directly—until now.

In a new study, a research team led by scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory—used a technique called resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) to detect a current formed by the flow of magnons, quantized spin-wave excitations in a material’s magnetic structure.

Dark Matter “Wind” May Finally Be Detectable With New Superconducting Tech

Physicists have created a novel detector capable of probing dark matter particles at unprecedentedly low masses. About 80 percent of the universe’s mass is believed to be dark matter, yet the makeup and organization of its particles remain largely unknown, leaving physicists with fundamental ques

An American Collider Is Finally Ready to Recreate Matter from the Beginning of Time

Today, the absolute heart of particle physics is located in Geneva, Switzerland at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. This instrument’s unmatched size, power, and precision make it the ultimate tool for exploring high-energy particle physics. However, one tool can’t do everything, and even immensely useful ones like the LHC sometimes need a helping hand.

That’s where Brookhaven National Laboratory’s (BNL) Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) comes in. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy approved an upgrade to the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment (PHENIX)—an instrument originally designed to explore the components of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) that formed one millionth of a second after the Big Bang. According to Edward O’Brien (a physicist from BNL), the idea behind this super PHENIX, or sPHENIX, was to “provide physics results which focused on jets and heavy flavor [of quarks] that complemented and overlapped with the Heavy Ion physics results being generated by the experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.”

Superradiance Discovery Extends Quantum Entanglement Range 17-Fold

When the light field becomes more uniform, all the atoms find themselves optically close to each other, even if they are spatially distant. In other words, the “ambient” near-zero refractive index relaxes the strict distance between the atoms’ positions, an essential condition for the entanglement of quantum particles. Quantum entanglement corresponds to correlations between particles, essential for the development of information and quantum computers.

From electrodynamics to quantum computing

This is where the promising contribution of a team of researchers from UNamur, Harvard and Michigan Technological University (MTU) comes in, supported by Dr. Larissa Vertchenko, from Danish quantum technology company Sparrow Quantum. Adrien Debacq, FNRS aspirant researcher at the Namur Institute of Structured Matter (NISM) and co-author of the paper, assisted by Harvard PhD student Olivia Mello and Dr Larissa Vertchenko, have together theoretically developed a photonic chip capable of radically improving the range of entanglement between transmitters, up to 17 times greater than in a vacuum.

Envisioning a Neutrino Laser

A Bose-Einstein condensate of radioactive atoms could turn into a source of intense, coherent, and directional neutrino beams, according to a theoretical proposal.

Neutrinos are the most abundant massive particles in the Universe, yet they are the ones about which we know the least. What makes these elusive particles hard to study is their feeble interaction with matter—trillions of neutrinos pass through our bodies every second without leaving a trace. However, neutrinos may hold deep secrets about the Universe—understanding their properties could hint at new particles and forces beyond the standard model of particle physics or shed light on why matter came to dominate over antimatter. Despite these tantalizing prospects, some of the most basic questions about neutrinos remain unanswered. To address such questions experimentally, Benjamin Jones of the University of Texas at Arlington and Joseph Formaggio of MIT suggest that a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of radioactive atoms could offer a platform for building a “neutrino laser” [1].

Physicists demonstrate controlled expansion of quantum wavepacket in a levitated nanoparticle

Quantum mechanics theory predicts that, in addition to exhibiting particle-like behavior, particles of all sizes can also have wave-like properties. These properties can be represented using the wave function, a mathematical description of quantum systems that delineates a particle’s movements and the probability that it is in a specific position.

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