All articles tagged with #nature physics
A Duke-led team used a trapped-ion quantum simulator to model 'string breaking,' a process where energy creates new particle pairs. Published in Nature Physics, the study reveals that new charges form at the edges of the string before spreading inward, differing from traditional theories. This work joins similar experiments by Google and QuEra, marking a key step in using quantum hardware to simulate high-energy physics.
A Chicago physicist, Dirk Morr of UIC, proposed two decades ago that superconductors could act as tiny lenses to project high‑resolution quantum images from electron waves. After years of experimental hurdles, a 2023 Hamburg study placed a rectangular corral of silver atoms on a superconducting surface with an iron atom inside and observed a quantum image that closely matches Morr’s predictions, aided by a theoretical multilayer model. Published in Nature Physics, the work confirms Morr’s idea and demonstrates a way to image atoms with minimal perturbation.
Researchers used unsupervised deep learning to analyze massive molecular‑dynamics simulations and found AI-identified coordinates that show water switching between high‑density and low‑density structures. They uncovered two switching routes: a dominant semi‑loop path with a single energy barrier, and a near-boundary full‑loop path with three barriers. Published in Nature Physics, the work strengthens the long‑standing two‑state theory and could help explain water’s anomalies and inform fields like biology, drug development, and energy, though experimental confirmation remains needed.
AI-assisted analysis of massive molecular-dynamics simulations provides evidence for water’s long-sought two-liquid picture—the coexistence and interconversion of high-density and low-density local structures—with two distinct energy-barrier pathways that depend on temperature, strengthening the two-state hypothesis and potentially explaining water’s anomalous behavior and its role in biological systems.