Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have pioneered a new material based on ruthenium that demonstrates complex, disordered magnetic properties akin to those predicted for quantum spin liquids, an elusive state of matter.

This breakthrough in the study indicates significant potential for the development of quantum materials that transcend classical physical laws, providing new insights and applications in the quantum realm.

Novel Quantum Materials

The observation of a previously unseen photon delay in the production of quantum light has implications for the development of quantum technologies.

The multiverse offers no escape from our reality—which might be a very good thing.

By George Musser

As memes go, it wasn’t particularly viral. But for a couple of hours on the morning of November 6, the term “darkest timeline” trended in Google searches, and several physicists posted musings on social media about whether we were actually in it. All the probabilities expressed in opinion polls and prediction markets had collapsed into a single definite outcome, and history went from “what might be” to “that just happened.” The two sides in this hyperpolarized U.S. presidential election had agreed on practically nothing—save for their shared belief that its outcome would be a fateful choice between two diverging trajectories for our world.

A team of physicists at ETH Zürich has built the first-ever working mechanical qubit. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their novel idea for creating such a qubit and how well it has worked during testing.

A new route to materials with complex disordered magnetic properties at the quantum level has been produced by scientists for the first time. The material, based on a framework of ruthenium, fulfills the requirements of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid state—an elusive phenomenon that scientists have been trying to understand for decades.

What if our universe is not the only one? What if it is just a tiny bubble inside a much larger and more complex reality? This is the idea behind the bubble universe theory, which suggests that our universe is one of many possible universes that exist inside a black hole.

What is a bubble universe?

A bubble universe is a hypothetical region of space that has different physical laws and constants than the rest of the multiverse. The multiverse is the collection of all possible universes that exist or could exist. A bubble universe could form when a quantum fluctuation creates a tiny pocket of space with different properties than its surroundings. This pocket could then expand and inflate into a large and isolated universe, like a bubble in a glass of water.

Physicists have learned a lot about the makeup of the universe over the past century and have developed many theories to explain how everything works. Two of the biggest are Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes the visible or classical world, and quantum theory, which describes the quantum world.

But one thing physicists do not understand completely is gravity. They also do not know if it fits into general relativity or quantum physics. Figuring out what gravity is would go a long way toward the development of a grand unified theory of physics, which would tie the two fields together—one of the biggest goals in the physics world.

In this new research, the team has developed an idea for a so-called table-top experiment that could be used to show whether gravity is changed when measured—if so, that would give strong evidence that it is a quantum property.

A group of South Korean researchers has successfully developed an integrated quantum circuit chip using photons (light particles). It is a system capable of controlling eight photons using a photonic integrated-circuit chip. With this system, they can explore various quantum phenomena, such as multipartite entanglement resulting from the interaction of the photons.

Photons, however, are volatile. Therefore, feasible alternatives are being sought for certain applications, such as quantum memory or quantum repeater schemes. One such alternative is the acoustic domain, where quanta are stored in acoustic or sound waves.

Scientists at the MPL have now indicated a particularly efficient way in which photons can be entangled with acoustic phonons: While the two quanta travel along the same photonic structures, the phonons move at a much slower speed. The underlying effect is the optical nonlinear effect known as Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering. It is responsible for coupling quanta at fundamentally different energy scales.

In their study, the scientists showed that the proposed entangling scheme can operate at temperatures in the tens of Kelvin. This is much higher than those required by standard approaches, which often employ expensive equipment such as dilution fridges. The possibility of implementing this concept in optical fibers or photonic integrated chips makes this mechanism of particular interest for use in modern quantum technologies.