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Category: particle physics – Page 43

Superionic materials are a class of materials that simultaneously present properties that are characteristic of solids and liquids. Essentially, a set of ions in these materials exhibits liquid-like mobility, even if the materials’ underlying atomic structure maintains a solid-like order.

Due to their unique ionic conductivity patterns, superionic materials could be promising for developing . These are batteries that contain electrolytes based on solid materials instead of liquid electrolytes.

While various past studies have explored the potential of superionic materials as solid-state electrolytes, the physics underpinning their rapid ionic diffusion is not yet fully understood. Specifically, it is unclear whether this property results from liquid-like motion in the material or from the conventional lattice phonons (i.e., atom vibrations) in the material.

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What if time didn’t just move forward? Scientists have uncovered something astonishing in a recent quantum physics experiment — the existence of ‘negative time.’ This mind-bending discovery defies conventional logic, suggesting that particles may not follow the rules we thought were unbreakable.

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Researchers from Kyushu University, Japan have revealed how a special type of force within an atom’s nucleus, known as the three-nucleon force, impacts nuclear stability. The study, published in Physics Letters B, provides insight into why certain nuclei are more stable than others and may help explain astrophysical processes, such as the formation of heavy elements within stars.

All matter is made of atoms, the building blocks of the universe. Most of an atom’s mass is packed into its tiny , which contains protons and neutrons (known collectively as nucleons). Understanding how these nucleons interact to keep the nucleus stable and in a low energy state has been a central question in for over a century.

The most powerful nuclear force is the two– force, which attracts two nucleons at long range to pull them together and repels at short range to stop the nucleons from getting too close.

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A Franco-German research team, including members from the University of Freiburg, shows that supramolecular chemistry enables efficient spin communication through hydrogen bonds. The work is published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Qubits are the basic building blocks of information processing in quantum technology. An important research question is what material they will actually consist of in technical applications. Molecular spin qubits are considered promising qubit candidates for molecular spintronics, in particular for quantum sensing. The materials studied here can be stimulated by light; this creates a second spin center and, subsequently, a light-induced quartet state.

Until now, research has assumed that the interaction between two spin centers can only be strong enough for successful quartet formation if the centers are covalently linked. Due to the high effort required to synthesize covalently bonded networks of such systems, their use in application-related developments in the field of quantum technology is severely limited.

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Scientists at the PHENIX experiment at RHIC have uncovered compelling evidence that even collisions involving small nuclei with large ones can produce tiny droplets of quark-gluon plasma.

Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, along with solid, liquid, and gas. It is an ionized gas consisting of positive ions and free electrons. It was first described by chemist Irving Langmuir in the 1920s.

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In a ground-breaking theoretical study, two physicists have identified a new class of quasiparticle called the paraparticle. Their calculations suggest that paraparticles exhibit quantum properties that are fundamentally different from those of familiar bosons and fermions, such as photons and electrons respectively.

Using advanced mathematical techniques, Kaden Hazzard at Rice University in the US and his former graduate student Zhiyuan Wang, now at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, have meticulously analysed the mathematical properties of paraparticles and proposed a real physical system that could exhibit paraparticle behaviour.

“Our main finding is that it is possible for particles to have exchange statistics different from those of fermions or bosons, while still satisfying the important physical principles of locality and causality,” Hazzard explains.

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Interactions between atoms and light rule the behavior of our physical world, but at the same time, can be extremely complex. Understanding and harnessing them is one of the major challenges for the development of quantum technologies.

To understand light-mediated interactions between atoms, it is common to isolate only two atomic levels, a ground level and an excited level, and view the atoms as tiny antennas with two poles that talk to each other. So, when an atom in a crystal lattice array is prepared in the , it relaxes back to the after some time by emitting a photon.

The emitted photon does not necessarily escape from the array, but instead, it can become absorbed by another ground-state atom, which then gets excited. Such an exchange of excitations, also referred to as dipole-dipole interaction, is key for making atoms interact, even when they cannot bump into each other.

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A research team has discovered that achiral hard banana-shaped particles can spontaneously form exotic structures like skyrmions and blue phase III phases. Skyrmions are tiny vortex-like structures found in various condensed-matter systems, such as helical ferromagnets and liquid crystals. Blue phase III is an amorphous phase of liquid crystals that possesses strong optical activity. Achiral particles are particles that can be superimposed on their mirror image. The team’s findings have potential applications in photonics and memory devices.

Their work was published in Nature Communications on August 8, 2024.

Skyrmions typically arise from chiral interactions, that is, a molecular interaction that occurs between molecules that both possess chirality. Molecules with chirality cannot be superimposed on their mirror images. British physicist Tony Skyrme introduced skyrmions in 1961.

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A collaborative team of researchers from GSI/FAIR, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz has advanced our understanding of the “island of stability” in superheavy nuclides. They achieved this by precisely measuring the superheavy rutherfordium-252 nucleus, now identified as the shortest-lived superheavy nucleus on record. Their findings were published in Physical Review Letters

<em> Physical Review Letters (PRL)</em> is a prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Physical Society. Launched in 1958, it is renowned for its swift publication of short reports on significant fundamental research in all fields of physics. PRL serves as a venue for researchers to quickly share groundbreaking and innovative findings that can potentially shift or enhance understanding in areas such as particle physics, quantum mechanics, relativity, and condensed matter physics. The journal is highly regarded in the scientific community for its rigorous peer review process and its focus on high-impact papers that often provide foundational insights within the field of physics.

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