All articles tagged with #quantum physics
Monash University researchers propose a new quantum state—stable Bose-Fermi droplets formed by a mixture of bosons and fermions balanced by attractive forces and fermionic pressure. The work provides a theoretical ansatz and an experimental roadmap to realize these droplets in ultracold systems, with potential implications for ultra-precise sensors and future quantum technologies.
Physicists built a 24,000-atom isolated quantum system that behaves like a tiny universe, showing time can emerge from internal entropy changes rather than an external clock—the enigmatic "entropic time"—and maintain standard quantum dynamics, offering a controlled testbed for quantum cosmology and gravity research.
NASA has upgraded its Cold Atom Lab on the International Space Station to further study Bose-Einstein condensates in microgravity, enabling larger quantum states to be probed for longer times and advancing quantum technologies by leveraging ultracold atoms to measure time, gravity, and motion with unparalleled precision.
Researchers using ultracold potassium atoms in an optical lattice demonstrated that resistivity caused by particle collisions increases but saturates at a finite ceiling, revealing a microscopic limit to resistivity that could extend to metals. The quantum enhancement of collision chances—atoms acting as larger effective particles—drives the initial rise, but as interactions strengthen the system reaches a plateau, offering experimental insight into resistivity in quantum materials and informing studies of strongly correlated systems. The work, led by Joseph H. Thywissen and collaborators across the University of Toronto, ENS Paris-Saclay, and Lehigh University, was published in Physical Review Letters.
Physicists developed a method to create and control quantum superpositions in the motion of a trapped strontium ion, turning the ion's internal spin into a tool to sculpt cat-like quantum states with distinctive interference patterns, expanding the Schrödinger cat family and offering new capabilities for quantum computing, simulations, and sensing.
Oxford physicists demonstrated a new family of Schrödinger-cat–like quantum states built from highly nonclassical components in a single trapped ion, enabling programmable control over the state's shape and revealing genuine quantum interference through Wigner negativity; the approach could boost oscillator-based quantum computing and deepen insights into the quantum-classical boundary.
A new physics study suggests that, within general relativity, closed timelike curves (CTCs) and post-selected CTCs could, in principle, allow messages to travel back in time. The idea echoes Interstellar’s plot and remains theoretical, with researchers planning photon-based experiments to test the concept while avoiding paradoxes through post-selection.
Physicists report that photons passing through a cloud of atoms can appear to exit before entering, i.e., negative transit time. In a Physical Review Letters study, the researchers monitored the atoms’ excited state during the photon’s passage with a second readout beam and used weak measurements, requiring about 1 million trials across seven parameter sets to obtain a clear signal. The result, which aligns with standard quantum mechanics, shows transmitted photons can have negative time while scattered photons carry positive time, keeping the beam’s average time nonnegative. The next step is to test time effects for photons that don’t pass through the cloud.
A Frontiers in Psychology review argues that while quantum theories of consciousness are becoming more experimentally grounded, none yet explains subjective experience; even with Orch OR, Posner-molecule, and macroscopic MRI approaches showing intriguing signs, the field has not produced a complete account and is moving toward stricter, testable predictions.
Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral says the observer effect arises from interactions that force quantum systems into definite states, not consciousness; each interaction spawns branching realities, so infinite versions of 'you' exist across parallel universes, with the observed version just one path among many.
Nadia Blackshaw argues against the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics and proposes a Many Minds view in which there is a single physical reality but quantum descriptions depend on each conscious observer's perspective; Schrödinger’s cat is alive from one perspective and dead from another, addressing the measurement problem and urging physics to take conscious perspectives seriously rather than adopting a view from nowhere.
Oxford physicists demonstrated the first-ever quadsqueezing, a fourth-order quantum squeezing, by using two non-commuting forces on a single trapped ion to generate higher-order interactions; alongside standard squeezing and trisqueezing, quadsqueezing was produced more than 100 times faster than conventional methods, enabling new quantum-control capabilities with potential applications in quantum simulation, sensing, and computing, as reported in Nature Physics (May 1, 2026).
A cryogenic device generates tunable, predictable phonons (quantized sound) by driving electrons through a 2D crystal, offering a new route for quantum communications—particularly where light struggles, like the deep ocean—though it requires ultracold temperatures to work.
Oxford researchers demonstrate quadsqueezing, a rare fourth‑order quantum interaction, by applying non‑commutativity to a single trapped ion, achieving the effect 100× faster than expected. The approach reshapes quantum harmonic oscillators and overcomes prior speed limits, opening new possibilities for ultra‑sensitive sensors and advanced quantum computing, with the findings published in Nature Physics by Dr. Oana Băzăvan and colleagues.
Physicists in China simulated false vacuum decay in a tabletop setup using a ring of Rydberg atoms and site-selective lasers to engineer a landscape with false and true vacuum states; stronger symmetry-breaking lasers drive faster decay and a bubble of true vacuum forms, marking a lab-based stepping stone toward studying quantum tunneling processes that could, in theory, trigger a universe-scale phase transition.