Category: Physics

This image illustrates atoms held in an optical trap aboard China's space station, where they were cooled to 10 picokelvin (10 pK)—the lowest temperature reached in space. Credit: Xiaoji Zhou, Peking University

Scientists cool atoms to a record 9.7 picokelvin aboard China’s space station

Establishment of Altermagnetic Crystal and Magnetic Structure in Co1/4TaSe2. Credit: Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-76784-x

Spin-split bands in Co₁/₄TaSe₂ separate along one momentum direction, merge along another and reverse their spin character across a single pocket

Researchers have observed string-breaking dynamics on a quantum simulator that could help probe questions related to the Big Bang. This is an artistic rendering of string-breaking. Credit: Emily Edwards, Duke University

Charge pairs first formed at the edges of a quantum string, then spread inward as its tension increased

Credit: Pixabay

For the first time, researchers see a quantum jump in sound as it happens

Event display of the final products from a simulated microscopic black hole evaporation at the LHC. Credit: Progress in High Energy Physics PHEP (2026). DOI: 10.31526/phep.2026.21

Microscopic black holes at the LHC remain elusive—but their possible mass is now constrained to 9–11.4 TeV

a, A collimated μ+ beam traverses an entrance detector and several thin foils before stopping in a thin horizontal layer of superfluid helium (He II). The He II target chamber is mounted to the mixing chamber plate of a dilution refrigerator and surrounded by three layers of thermal shields. b, Principle of Mu stopping and formation in He II at a temperature of T ≈ 200 mK. Incoming μ+ with momentum pμ come to rest in an average 35-μm depth (coloured gradient in the background shows the simulated stopping distribution) and capture an electron from the ionization trail. The formed Mu diffuses ballistically to the surface over a time τdiff and is emitted perpendicularly with a velocity v defined by the chemical potential. c, Schematic of the positron-tracking system used to localize Mu and μ+ decays within the target chamber. Detector segments (blue boxes) are labelled using their relative position to the He II target as left (L), right (R), close (C) and far (F) detectors. Shaded areas indicate the acceptance regions of selected detector coincidences: red areas denote coincidences of Layers 1 and 4 on the left side (LC1 ∧ LF1, LC4 ∧ LF4), whereas blue denotes a coincidence (RC1 ∧ RF4) monitoring the target liquid. Credit: Nature Physics (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-026-03433-x

Superfluid helium produces a tightly directed muonium beam at 2,180 meters per second

Single-period Floquet control with quantum lattice gates. Credit: Physical Review Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1103/tnb8-3m8m

Quantum states that once took thousands of cycles can now be prepared in a single Floquet period

Artist’s impression of a beam of ultra-high-energy photons emitted by GRB 221009A travelling through quantum spacetime. Credits: INAF / Giorgio Galanti / AI-generated

300-TeV photon from a distant gamma-ray burst should have been absorbed before reaching Earth

The atom chip used in the experiment (fabricated at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev). In the experiment the chip was upside-down and the atoms manipulated just under it. Credit: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The quantum phase of freely falling atoms matches Einstein’s prediction

Experimental setup validates the predictions of Feynman's line integral for the first time. Credit: Yong-Li Wen et al.

Single photons followed 1,419,857 possible paths, and their combined behavior matched Feynman’s prediction

An electron microscope capable of performing quantum computing operations using built-in ion traps. Credit: TU Wien

Quantum computers could help electron microscopes get more information from fewer electrons

Why the "rainbow" comparison? Like a rainbow, a microcomb is made up of many different frequencies of light. In a rainbow, these frequencies blend together. In a microcomb, the frequencies are separated and precisely spaced—like the teeth of a comb. The light produced by the microcomb in this study is invisible to the human eye. Illustration generated using artificial intelligence. Credit: Loughborough University

The light spectrum from a rice-grain-sized chip can produce several millimeter-wave frequencies at once

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. Credit: CERN

The neon-to-oxygen flow ratio rises sharply where nuclear structure matters most

Credit: iStock

Could quantum uncertainty in the universe’s size and expansion rate mimic dark energy?

Blueprint of the original Cavendish experiment on concentric conducting shells. Credit: Berlin et al

Millicharged particles could slip through a Faraday cage and leave an electric signal behind

A collision cascade in tungsten, showing atoms that are being displaced from their lattice positions at a time 200 femtoseconds after a single-atom 2 MeV recoil. Credit: Byggmästar et al

Tungsten may suffer more radiation damage than expected at extreme energies

A conceptual illustration showing the direct correspondence between the elusive non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function and dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPT) engineered within a quantum many-body system. Credit: Shijie Wei/BAQIS.

Quantum Coherence Vanished and Reappeared at the Exact Moments Predicted by the Riemann Zeta Function’s Mysterious Zeros

IBM and researchers from the University of Chicago announced a demonstration in quantum computing that meets the fundamental criteria for “quantum advantage”—the point where quantum computers can be confirmed to have outperformed classical computers. Credit: IBM

Discarding More Than 99.94% of Quantum Computations Let a 97-Qubit Processor Certify a Classically Hard Result

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. Credit: CERN

Oxygen and Neon Collisions at the Large Hadron Collider Reveal Stronger Evidence for Primordial Quark–Gluon Plasma Beyond Heavy-Ion Experiments

Probing emergent partons in quantum Hall liquids through inelastic light scattering. Credit: Prof. Lingjie Du's research group at Nanjing University.

Physicists Detect Rare ‘Chiral Gravitons’ in Quantum Hall States, Validating Parton Theory

Scanning electron microscope image of one of EeroQ's microwave resonator devices for coupling to the charge qubit state of an electron on helium. Credit: EeroQ Corporation.

Scientists Demonstrate Strong Coupling Between a Single Electron on Superfluid Helium and a Microwave Photon, Advancing a Long-Standing Quantum Computing Concept

Artist's rendering of an extremely short electron wave packet (blue) at the boundary between space and time. Credit: Brad Baxley (parttowhole.com)

Scientists Capture Electrons in Attoseconds and Discover a New Quantum Space-Time Limit That Reveals a 500-Attosecond Response Delay

A small causal diamond used as a tiny local laboratory for deriving gravity from thermal physics. Heat flows in and out across the light-like boundaries of the diamond, allowing the authors to ask what kind of gravitational theory emerges from a more general thermodynamic process that might happen inside the diamond. Credit: Isichei and Magueijo / Physical Review Letters.

Scientists Propose a Radical New Theory of Gravity That Could Explain the Universe’s Accelerating Expansion Without Dark Energy

An illustration of the first magneto-optical trap of the metal hydride molecule CaH. Following the trapping of the molecule, near-threshold dissociation could enable optical trapping of hydrogen atoms for precision spectroscopy in the near term. Credit: Zelevinsky Lab at Columbia University.

Calcium Monohydride Molecules Cooled Below 1 Millikelvin in a 3D Laser Trap, Opening a New Path Toward Ultracold Hydrogen for Precision Physics

Electrically controlled dyad lasing supermode. Credit: Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-71733-0

Researchers Create Room-Temperature Laser Network That Synchronizes Into One Powerful Light Source

Credit: Nottingham Trent University

Scientists Create Programmable Virtual Metasurfaces That Can Do What Traditional Optics Cannot

The two-dimensional distributions show a comparison of the IPDs between the pion and proton [88] at x=0.3 and 0.5. Credit: Journal of High Energy Physics (2025). DOI: 10.1007/jhep02(2025)056

Scientists Create the Sharpest-Ever 3D Map of a Pion and Reveal How Quarks Build Matter

Credit: ChatGPT

Scientists Asked What Happens If You Cut a Photon in Half and the Answer Was Infinite Photons

new theory challenges - Physicists Say Some Black Holes Might Never Reach a Singularity

Physicists Say Some Black Holes Might Never Reach a Singularity

In this illustration, light is coupled into a nanoscale cavity and interacts with an atomically thin material, creating exciton-polaritons. These hybrid particles combine light's speed with matter's ability to interact, enabling optical signal switching. Credit: Zhi Wang

Scientists Create Ultra-Low-Energy Light Switch That Could Transform Photonic AI Chips