Physics

Scientists Develop Small Lens for Trapping Atoms

Graphical illustration of light focusing using a planar glass surface studded with millions of nanopillars (referred to as a metalens) forming an optical tweezer. (A) Device cross section depicts plane waves of light that come to a focus through secondary wavelets generated by nanopillars of varying size. (B) The same metalens is used to...

How Imaginary Numbers Describe the Fundamental Shape of Nature

Several science students may imagine a ball rolling down a hill or a car skidding due to friction as prototypical examples of the systems physicists care about. However, much of modern physics consists of looking for objects and essentially invisible sensations: the small electrons of quantum physics and the particles concealed within odd steels...

A Strange Brand-New Phase Of Matter Developed In Quantum Computers Acts Like It Has Two-Time Dimensions

The Penrose tiling pattern is a type of quasicrystal, which means that it has an ordered yet never-repeating structure. The pattern, composed of two shapes, is a 2D projection of a 5D square lattice. Credit: NoneBy shining a laser pulse series inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have...

A Quantum Double-slit Experiment Run with Molecules for the First time

Richard Feynman once stated that the double-slit experiment reveals the central challenges of quantum mechanics, putting us ''up against the and peculiarities of nature and paradoxes and mysteries''.Nandini Mukherjee, Richard Zare, and their co-workers at Stanford University, United States, have currently revealed that when helium (He) atoms collide with deuterium molecules (D2) in a quantum...

Physicists Mesmerized by Deepening the Mystery of Muon Particle Magnetism

Fermilab’s Muon g − 2 experiment uses this circular electromagnet to store muons, so that their magnetic moment can be measured with unprecedented precision.Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory/SPLTheoretical predictions move closer to experimental outcomes, but questions stay concerning possible gaps in the standard model of particle physics.The muon's mysteries still leave physicists mesmerized. Last year, an experiment...

Quantum Sensor Can Identify Electromagnetic Signs of Any Frequency

MIT researchers have developed a method to enable quantum sensors to detect any arbitrary frequency, with no loss of their ability to measure nanometer-scale features. Quantum sensors detect the most minute variations in magnetic or electrical fields, but until now they have only been capable of detecting a few specific frequencies, limiting their usefulness....

Scientists Invent “Profound” Quantum Sensor That Can Peer Into the Earth

"This Is An 'Edison Moment' In Sensing That Will Improve Society."Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public DomainGravitationalA significant breakthrough in quantum sensing technology is being explained as an "Edison moment" that could, scientists expect, have embracing implications.New research in Nature explains one of the first practical applications of quantum sensing, a largely theoretical technology that weds quantum...

Physicists Announce First Results From Daya Bay’s Final Dataset

Bird's: eyesight of the underground Daya Bay far detector hall throughout the installation. The four antineutrino detectors are immersed in a large pool filled with ultra-pure water. Credit: Roy Kaltschmidt, BerkeleyThe Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment has created the most precise measurement yet of theta13, an essential parameter for comprehending how neutrinos transform their "taste."BEIJING;...

Studying the Magnetic Properties of Helium-3

Fig. 1: Schematic view of the 3He+ ion’s external and internal magnetic interactions. Background: microwave radiation. Credit: MPIIn joint experimental-theoretical research published in Nature, physicists at the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), together with collaborators from RIKEN, Japan, investigated the magnetic properties of the isotope helium-3. For the first time, the electronic and...

DeepMind Has Taught an AI to Control Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion. Credit: The Conversation.The reinforcement learning algorithm, which controls the scorching plasma within a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor, was developed by an AI company backed by Google.The interior of a tokamak– the doughnut-shaped vessel created to include a nuclear fusion reaction– presents a unique type of chaos. Hydrogen atoms are shattered together at...