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The superconducting quantum refrigerator is similar to a conventional refrigerator, in that it moves a material between hot and cold reservoirs. However, instead of a refrigerant that changes from a liquid state to a gas, the electrons in a metal change from the paired superconducting state to an unpaired normal state. Image credit: Michael Osadciw, University of Rochester illustration.

Physicists Developing Superconducting Quantum Refrigerator

Jun 11, 2019 by News Staff

A research team led by University of Rochester physicists has conceived an idea for a superconducting quantum refrigerator, which would cool atoms to nearly...

Minev et al figured out how to catch and save Schrödinger’s famous cat, the symbol of quantum superposition and unpredictability. Image credit: Kat Stockton.

Physicists Find Way to ‘Catch and Save’ Schrödinger’s Cat

Jun 3, 2019 by News Staff

Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment envisioned by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, is a paradox that applies the concept of superposition...

A small disk of americium-241 under the microscope. Image credit: Bionerd / CC BY 3.0.

Researchers Generate Electricity from Americium

May 28, 2019 by News Staff

Researchers in the United Kingdom have extracted americium from a plutonium stockpile and used the heat generated from this radioactive element to generate...

An electron is trapped in a quantum dot, which is formed in a 2D gas in a semiconductor wafer. However, the electron moves within the space and, with different probabilities corresponding to a wave function, remains in certain locations within its confinement (red ellipses). Using the gold gates applied electric fields, the geometry of this wave function can be changed. Image credit: University of Basel.

Physicists Determine Geometry of Electrons in Quantum Dots

May 24, 2019 by News Staff

A team of physicists at the University of Basel has experimentally mapped out the shape and orientation of electrons trapped in quantum dots. An electron...

$Gravitational waves observed by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) twin detectors were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. Image credit: T. Pyle / LIGO.$

Gravitational Waves Leave Observable Aftereffects in Universe

May 10, 2019 by News Staff

Gravitational waves are ‘ripples’ in space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe. Albert Einstein predicted...

The first artist’s illustration shows a key part of the process that created this new black hole, as the two neutron stars spin around each other while merging. The purple material depicts debris from the merger. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M.Weiss.

LIGO and Virgo Observatories Detect Two New Gravitational Waves

May 8, 2019 by News Staff

On April 25 and 26, 2019, NSF’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the European-based Virgo detector registered two new gravitational...

Macleod et al analyzed the properties of vacuum Cherenkov radiation in strong laser pulses and the magnetic field around a pulsar. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

High-Velocity Charged Particles Emit Cherenkov Radiation in Quantum Vacuum

May 6, 2019 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Physical Review Letters, charged particles traveling through empty space can emit Cherenkov radiation...

An artist’s illustration showing the patterns of signals generated by primordial standard clocks in the Big Bounce theory of the primordial Universe. Image credit: Zhong-Zhi Xianyu, Xingang Chen & Avi Loeb / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

What Was Universe Like before Big Bang?

Apr 30, 2019 by News Staff

Professor Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues have proposed a new test for inflation, the theory that our Universe...

One photodetector array of the XENON1T detector seen through the other. Image credit: XENON Collaboration.

Dark-Matter Detector Measures Half-Life of Xenon-124 that’s Longer than Universe’s Age

Apr 26, 2019 by News Staff

The half-life of a process is the time after which half of the radioactive nuclei present in a sample have decayed away. Using the XENON1T dark-matter...

Several tens of thousands of particles spontaneously organize in a self-determined crystalline structure while sharing the same macroscopic wavefunction -- hallmarks of supersolidity. Image credit: University of Innsbruck.

Physicists Turn Quantum Gas into Supersolid

Apr 24, 2019 by News Staff

Predicted five decades ago, supersolidity is an exotic phase of matter where superfluidity and crystalline order coexist. By combining theory and experiments,...

Development of a ‘bubble’ of lighter sand (blue) forming in heavier sand (white). Image credit: Alex Penn / ETH Zurich.

Scientists Observe Gravitational Instability in Which ‘Bubbles’ of Lighter Sand Form and Rise through Heavier Sand

Apr 23, 2019 by News Staff

Gravitational (Rayleigh-Taylor, or R-T) instabilities are produced by the interactions of two fluids of different densities that do not mix — oil...

Digital art by Les Bossinas, Cortez III Service Corp., 1998.

Traversable Wormholes Can Exist, But They Are Not Very Useful for Space Travel, Physicists Say

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

Harvard University physicist Daniel Jafferis and colleagues have shown that wormholes — theoretical portals through space-time that could create...

Potassium pearls under paraffin oil. Image credit: Images of Elements / CC BY 3.0.

Physicists Confirm Existence of Chain-Melted State of Matter

Apr 10, 2019 by News Staff

Until now, atoms in physical matter were understood to exist typically in one of three states — solid, liquid or gas. An international team of physicists...

Physicists Create ‘Featherweight’ Oxygen

Apr 2, 2019 by News Staff

A team of nuclear physicists from the Washington University, St. Louis, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University and the University of Connecticut...

CERN Physicists Discover New Pentaquark Particle

Mar 28, 2019 by News Staff

Physicists from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration announced this week the discovery of a new pentaquark particle, Pc(4312)+, decaying...

A 3D image of a supercrystal from phase-field simulations. Image credit: L-Q Chen Group, Penn State.

Physicists Create Stable ‘Supercrystals’

Mar 26, 2019 by News Staff

Stimulation with ultrafast light pulses can realize and manipulate states of matter with emergent structural, electronic and magnetic phenomena. According...

Physicists Observe Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry in Charm Particle Decays

Mar 22, 2019 by News Staff

Physicists from the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at CERN have observed, for the first time, the matter-antimatter asymmetry known...

Satya Sainadh et al put an upper limit of 1.8 attoseconds on any tunneling delay, in agreement with theoretical findings and ruling out the interpretation of all commonly used ‘tunneling times’ as time spent by an electron under the potential barrier. Image credit: Griffith University.

Quantum Tunneling is Near Instantaneous, Experiments Show

Mar 21, 2019 by News Staff

Tunneling, a key feature of quantum mechanics, is when a particle that encounters a seemingly insurmountable barrier passes through it, ending up on the...

One of the first heavy-ion collisions with stable beams recorded by LHCb. Image credit: CERN.

New Charmonium Particle Discovered

Mar 11, 2019 by News Staff

Physicists from the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at CERN have discovered a previously unknown particle that consists of a charm quark...