Physics News
Here's our list of interesting physics news, hand-picked from different sources by our team. Explore and research, and maybe you'll be the one to take physics forward by leaps and bounds!
Quanta Magazine
Quantum field theory
So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems.
Quanta Magazine
Quantum gravity
For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity - and space-time - are fundamentally classical?
Caltech
Astrophysics
Scientists are reporting the first evidence that our Earth and the universe around us are awash in a background of spacetime undulations called gravitational waves. The waves oscillate very slowly over years and even decades and are thought to originate primarily from pairs of supermassive black holes leisurely spiraling together before they merge.
Quanta Magazine
Theoretical physics
The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information.
Quanta Magazine
Particle physics
Long-anticipated announcement by Fermilab’s Muon g-2 team appears to solidify a tantalizing conflict between nature and theory. But a separate calculation, published at the same time, has clouded the picture.
Quanta Magazine
Cosmology
Two physicists have calculated that the universe has a higher entropy — and is therefore more likely — than alternative possible universes. The calculation is “an answer to a question that is yet to be fully understood.”
Quanta Magazine
Gravity
Celia Escamilla-Rivera is combining large data sets with supercomputers to test general relativity against its little-known competitors.
Quanta Magazine
Black hole information paradox
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information, which seems impossible by definition. The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago.
Physics World
Quantum mechanics
Researchers at the University of Oxford and the University of Nottingham, UK, have now shed light on what the Gibbs paradox may look like in the quantum realm. By leveraging quantum effects, they show that more work can be extracted from a system than would be possible classically. Their result lays the theoretical groundwork for an experimental demonstration in the future, and could have applications in the burgeoning effort to manipulate large quantum systems.
Nature
Particle physics
Over a century after its discovery, the proton still keeps physicists busy understanding its basic properties, but a new generation of experiments may help finally nail down its radius, stability and the origin of its spin.
Quanta Magazine
Condensed matter physics
A new atomic-scale experiment all but settles the origin of the strong form of superconductivity seen in cuprate crystals, confirming a 35-year-old theory.
Phys.org
String theory
A recent paper on the string theoretical effects outside the black hole photon sphere has been selected for the "Editors' Suggestion" of the journal Physical Review D. The paper was published on March 24, 2021.
Quanta Magazine
Quantum field theory
In three towering papers, a team of mathematicians has worked out the details of Liouville quantum field theory, a two-dimensional model of quantum gravity.
Science Daily
Nuclear physics
The long-theorized neutron-clustering effect in nuclear reactors has been demonstrated, which could improve reactor safety and create more accurate simulations, according to a new study.
Quanta Magazine
Neural networks
Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.
Science Daily
Particle physics
A 2017 report of the discovery of a particular kind of Majorana fermion - the chiral Majorana fermion, referred to as the 'angel particle' - is likely a false alarm, according to new research.
Phys.org
Quantum mechanics
Magnetizing a material without applying an external magnetic field is proposed by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil, in an article published in the journal Scientific Reports, where they detail the experimental approach used to achieve this goal.
Quanta Magazine
Nonlinear dynamics
Two teams found different ways for quantum computers to process nonlinear systems by first disguising them as linear ones.
Quanta Magazine
Astrophysics
A recent gamma-ray burst known as the BOAT — “brightest of all time” — appears to have produced a high-energy particle that shouldn’t exist. For some, dark matter provides the explanation.
Quanta Magazine
Quantum gravity
The past and the future are tightly linked in conventional quantum mechanics. Perhaps too tightly. A tweak to the theory could let quantum possibilities increase as space expands.
Quanta Magazine
Astrobiology
For Lisa Kaltenegger and her generation of exoplanet astronomers, decades of planning have set the stage for an epochal detection.
Quanta Magazine
Complexity
If we want to understand complex constructions, such as ourselves, assembly theory says we must account for the entire history of how such entities came to be.