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Novel measurement confirms a 50-year-old prediction: Dark points are faster than light

A research group from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology reports in Nature an unprecedented achievement in electron microscopy: the direct measurement of “dark points” within light waves. By doing so, the researchers were able to confirm a prediction from the 1970s that the speed of these points exceeds the speed of light.

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Tiny LED design could power next-generation technology

From 3D movie screens to augmented-reality devices, many modern technologies rely on our ability to manipulate light. Doing so in a cost-effective and efficient way, however, is often a formidable task. In an article published in Optics Letters, researchers from the University of Osaka announced a new light-emitting diode (LED) design that may help shrink […]

Unlocking scalable entanglement will enable next-generation quantum computing

Quantum computing promises to transform our world in rapid, radical and revolutionary ways: solving in seconds problems that would take classical computers years, accelerating the discovery of new medicines, creating sustainable materials, optimizing complex systems, and strengthening cybersecurity. It does so using qubits, the quantum counterparts of classical bits, which can occupy multiple states simultaneously […]

Quantum computer accurately simulates real magnetic materials, reproducing national laboratory data

Studying and designing novel materials is a central application of quantum mechanics. Chemists, materials scientists, and physicists focus on subtle interactions in quantum materials and to uncover them they rely on sophisticated computational and experimental techniques. Computer simulations that connect microscopic quantum interactions to measurable material properties complement experimental data to connect structure to function—but […]

Experimental evidence shows how photons spread across multiple paths in an interferometer

The nature of quantum particles has long puzzled scientists. While single-particle interference suggests that a photon can behave like a spread-out wave, a whole photon is only ever detected in one specific place. Traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics often address this by suggesting the particle is in a superposition of being here and there at […]

‘Near-misses’ in particle accelerators can illuminate new physics, study finds

Particle accelerators reveal the heart of nuclear matter by smashing together atoms at close to the speed of light. The high-energy collisions produce a shower of subatomic fragments that scientists can then study to reconstruct the core building blocks of matter.

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X-ray lasers enable the discovery of a critical point in water

Using X-ray lasers, researchers at Stockholm University have been able to determine the existence of a critical point in supercooled water at around -63 °C and 1,000 atmospheres. Ordinary water at higher temperatures and lower pressures is strongly affected by the presence of this critical point, causing the origin of its strange properties. The findings […]

Independent measurement strengthens the case for toponium

A new independent measurement by the CMS experiment at the LHC is consistent with the existence of the most massive composite particle ever observed, the momentary union of a top quark and its antiquark

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Quantum experiment shows events may have no fixed order

For the first time, a team of physicists in Austria has carried out an experiment that appears to verify the principle of indefinite causal order: an idea that suggests that timelines of events can exist in multiple orders at the same time. Led by Carla Richter at the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, […]

Dual-rail superconducting qubits generate high-fidelity logical entanglement, study finds

Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could outperform classical computers on some advanced tasks. These systems rely on qubits, the fundamental units of quantum information, that become linked via an effect known as quantum entanglement and share a unified quantum state.

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‘Cool’ detectors cut neutrino mass upper limit by an order of magnitude

Their mass is extremely low, but how light are neutrinos really? A collaboration comprising German and international research groups has optimized its experiments to determine the mass of these “ghost particles.” In doing so, they succeeded in further adjusting downward the upper limit on the neutrino mass scale that had previously been determined in similar […]

Topological solitons power a chip-scale frequency comb source

Caltech scientists have developed a new way to produce optical frequency combs—important tools in devices that keep time and measure distances very precisely—at the chip scale, an advance that should make it easier to incorporate such combs in optical devices and more practical to use them outside the laboratory.

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Making quantum vibrations nonlinear to enable phonon-phonon interactions

Phonons are the quantum units of mechanical vibration. They describe how motion propagates through a solid at the smallest possible scales, in much the same way that electrons describe electric currents. Because phonons can be exceptionally stable and sensitive, they are used in quantum science and technology.

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Finding order in disorder: New mechanism amplifies transverse electron transport

For decades, it has been widely believed that electrons move most efficiently in materials that are clean and highly ordered. Much like water flowing more easily through a smooth pipe, conventional wisdom has held that electrical transport improves as a material’s internal structure becomes more perfectly arranged. However, a recent study shows that the opposite […]

Dancing to invisible choreography, quantum computers can balance the noise

Large-scale quantum computers are waiting in the wings. One of the main reasons we don’t have them yet is because quantum hardware is so noisy. This isn’t the type of noise you’d want to shush in a crowded theater. When it comes to computers, noise means errors that crop up when conditions aren’t perfect.

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