Physicists at Auburn University have used flashes of laser light to bring order to tiny electrically charged “islands” inside a crystal. The discovery helps answer a decades-old question about how the material organizes itself and shows how light could be used to control its behavior—a step toward exploring new technologies for processing and storing information. […]

Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes gravity as the bending of spacetime, a mathematical model that combines three-dimensional space and time into a single, four-dimensional continuum. The theory also predicts that a rotating object, such as Earth, slightly drags the surrounding spacetime as it rotates, a phenomenon known as frame-dragging.

Go to Source

[…]

A research team led by Haruki Watanabe, a professor in the Department of Physics and the Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with professor Yukitoshi Motome and graduate student Sena Watanabe from the University of Tokyo, has developed a unified theory that […]

A major software advance could aid the creation of bigger, more reliable quantum computers, a study suggests. Researchers have developed an algorithm that enables off-the-shelf computers to run quantum simulations previously only possible using the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

Go to Source

Quantum information systems could one day shape everyday life through faster computing, sharper sensing and more secure communication. A new result from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U. of I.) marks an important step toward enabling magnetic spins—a quantum property of matter that can be […]

Like the folds in crumpled sheets or the footprints on recently trodden sand, certain materials mark their histories. Now, Yale researchers show that networks of flowing water and other fluids can store their own memories—similar to how a computer chip does—an innovation that could steer robots and provide insight into some simple organisms. The results […]

Understanding and controlling phase transitions are fundamental to physics and central to many technological revolutions. There is currently strong interest in materials with coupled structural and electronic phase transitions, where controlling the transition plasticity naturally yields built-in memory—a key step in emulating neurons and synapses for “neuromorphic” or brain-like computing technologies.

Go to Source

[…]

Researchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the University of Regensburg have developed a method for determining, using light, a quantum property of electrons that has hitherto been difficult to access. The focus is on what is known as Berry curvature—a quantity that describes certain geometric properties of the quantum mechanical states of electrons. The […]