https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Physicists have long been drawn to the nonlinear Hall effect: a subtle variant of the classical Hall effect, in which an electric voltage appears perpendicular to a current flowing through a material. Unlike its classical counterpart, the nonlinear version can arise even without breaking time-reversal symmetry, and its magnitude is tied to deep geometric properties of electron wave functions. So far, however, the behavior of the effect when a magnetic field is applied has remained poorly understood. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quantum-hall-effect-gains-graphene.html Condensed Matter Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news700903892 Two independent research teams have each demonstrated collisional quantum gates using fermionic atoms: a long-sought milestone in quantum computing where logic operations are performed through the direct physical overlap of atoms, rather than forcing them into fragile, highly excited states. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sought-quantum-milestone-fermionic-atom.html Quantum Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:30:01 EDT news695898347 Researchers at ETH Zurich have realized particularly stable quantum logical operations with qubits made of neutral atoms. Since these operations, called quantum gates, are based on geometric phases, they are extremely robust against experimental noise and can be used in quantum computers in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-robust-noise-geometric-phase-swap.html Quantum Physics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:20:05 EDT news694872394 When mobile charge carriers, also known as itinerant electrons, interact with the strong exchange magnetic fields associated with the intrinsic angular momentum of localized electrons, this can give rise to the so-called Kondo effect. A Kondo insulator is a state of matter with an energy gap opened by the Kondo effect that forbids electrical conduction at low temperatures. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-2d-topological-kondo-insulator-moir.html Nanophysics Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:20:05 EDT news692014646 Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its center but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence, astronomers say. They believe this invisible substance—which makes up most of the universe's mass—can explain both the violent dance of stars just light-hours (often used to measure distances within our own solar system) away from the galactic center and the gentle, large-scale rotation of the entire matter in the outskirts of the Milky Way. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-dark-black-hole-power-milky.html Astronomy Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:23:12 EST news689512921 A collaboration between Stuart Parkin's group at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle (Saale) and Claudia Felser's group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden has realized a fundamentally new way to control quantum particles in solids. Writing in Nature, the researchers report the experimental demonstration of a chiral fermionic valve—a device that spatially separates quantum particles of opposite chirality using quantum geometry alone, without magnetic fields or magnetic materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-valve-quantum-chiral-fermions-geometry.html Condensed Matter Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:51:17 EST news687451861 Step inside the strange world of a superfluid, a liquid that can flow endlessly without friction, defying the common-sense rules we experience every day, where water pours, syrup sticks and coffee swirls and slows under the effect of viscosity. In these extraordinary fluids, motion often organizes itself into quantized vortices: tiny, long-lived whirlpools that act as the fundamental building blocks of superfluid flow. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-journey-center-quantized-vortex-microscopic.html Soft Matter Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:30:31 EST news685722601 A joint research team from Japan has observed "heavy fermions," electrons with dramatically enhanced mass, exhibiting quantum entanglement governed by the Planckian time—the fundamental unit of time in quantum mechanics. This discovery opens up exciting possibilities for harnessing this phenomenon in solid-state materials to develop a new type of quantum computer. The findings are published in npj Quantum Materials. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-heavy-fermions-entangled-discovery-planckian.html Condensed Matter Tue, 05 Aug 2025 10:25:03 EDT news673608301 In physics, there are two great pillars of thought that don't quite fit together. The Standard Model of particle physics describes all known fundamental particles and three forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Meanwhile, Einstein's general relativity describes gravity and the fabric of spacetime. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-large-hadron-collider-snap-theory.html Quantum Physics Fri, 11 Jul 2025 04:25:28 EDT news671426717 Angular momentum is a fundamental quantity in physics that describes the rotational motion of objects. In quantum physics, it encompasses both the intrinsic spin of particles and their orbital motion around a point. These properties are essential for understanding a wide range of systems, from atoms and molecules to complex materials and high-energy particle interactions. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-strong-magnetic-fields-flip-angular.html Condensed Matter Wed, 02 Jul 2025 10:08:03 EDT news670669681 Quantum critical points are thresholds that mark the transition of materials between different electronic phases at absolute zero temperatures, around which they often exhibit exotic physical properties. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-mechanism-underpinning-intrinsic-strange-metal.html Condensed Matter Sun, 30 Mar 2025 09:40:02 EDT news662373115 An international team of researchers led by the Strong Correlation Quantum Transport Laboratory of the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) has demonstrated, in a world's first, an ideal Weyl semimetal, marking a breakthrough in a decade-old problem of quantum materials. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-semimetallic-weyl-quantum-crystal.html Condensed Matter Fri, 24 Jan 2025 12:56:19 EST news656945774 A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has achieved a groundbreaking quantum simulation of the non-Hermitian skin effect in two dimensions using ultracold fermions, marking a significant advance in quantum physics research. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-physicists-simulation-hermitian-skin-effect.html Condensed Matter Wed, 08 Jan 2025 14:49:38 EST news655570171 A new study by Rice University physicist Qimiao Si unravels the enigmatic behaviors of quantum critical metals—materials that defy conventional physics at low temperatures. Published in Nature Physics Dec. 9, the research examines quantum critical points (QCPs), where materials teeter on the edge between two distinct phases, such as magnetism and nonmagnetism. The findings illuminate the peculiarities of these metals and provide a deeper understanding of high-temperature superconductors, which conduct electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-reveals-quasiparticle-loss-extreme-quantum.html Superconductivity Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:39:03 EST news652977541 A 3D quantum spin liquid has been discovered in the vicinity of a member of the langbeinite family. The material's specific crystalline structure and the resulting magnetic interactions induce an unusual behavior that can be traced back to an island of liquidity. An international team has made this discovery with experiments at the ISIS neutron source and theoretical modeling on a nickel-langbeinite sample. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-langbeinites-talents-3d-quantum-liquids.html Soft Matter Fri, 23 Aug 2024 12:01:04 EDT news643633262 A new study by scientists from Japan explores the propagation of quantum information within interacting boson systems like Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), revealing the potential for accelerated transmission unlike previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-scientists-propagation-interacting-bosonic.html Condensed Matter Sun, 07 Apr 2024 07:30:01 EDT news631501622 Over the past 20 years, many physicists have studied ultra-cold fermionic systems contained in magnetic or optical traps. When an external magnetic field is applied to a two-species fermionic system, the particles can pair together to form composite "bosonic molecules" with a full-integer spin. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-exploring-exotic-behaviors-population-imbalanced.html Condensed Matter Tue, 12 Mar 2024 12:52:02 EDT news629466721 In Nature Physics, the LSU Quantum Photonics Group offers fresh insights into the fundamental traits of surface plasmons, challenging the existing understanding. Based on experimental and theoretical investigations conducted in Associate Professor Omar Magaña-Loaiza's laboratory, these novel findings mark a significant advancement in quantum plasmonics, possibly the most noteworthy in the past decade. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-multiparticle-nanostructures-quantum-technologies.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 04 Mar 2024 12:00:01 EST news628775481 An international research team from Innsbruck and Geneva has developed a new thermometry method to measure temperatures for low-dimensional quantum gases. With this method it was found that compressing a gas may lead to cooling. The results on this counterintuitive phenomenon have just been published in Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-thermometry-method-reveals-compressing-gas.html Quantum Physics Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:01:04 EST news627217262 In physics, scientists have been fascinated by the mysterious behavior of superconductors—materials that can conduct electricity with zero resistance when cooled to extremely low temperatures. Within these superconducting systems, electrons team up in "Cooper pairs" because they're attracted to each other due to vibrations in the material called phonons. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-simulation-distinct-phases-superconducting-dynamics.html Superconductivity Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:00:01 EST news625134274 MIT scientists and colleagues have created a simple superconducting device that could transfer current through electronic devices much more efficiently than is possible today. As a result, the new diode, a kind of switch, could dramatically cut the amount of energy used in high-power computing systems, a major problem that is estimated to become much worse. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-team-simple-superconducting-device-energy.html Condensed Matter Fri, 28 Jul 2023 09:14:57 EDT news609754492 When your laptop or smartphone heats up, it's due to energy that's lost in translation. The same goes for power lines that transmit electricity between cities. In fact, around 10 percent of the generated energy is lost in the transmission of electricity. That's because the electrons that carry electric charge do so as free agents, bumping and grazing against other electrons as they move collectively through power cords and transmission lines. All this jostling generates friction, and, ultimately, heat. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-physicists-generate-snapshots-fermion-pairs.html General Physics Thu, 06 Jul 2023 14:00:01 EDT news607870293 Spin is the intrinsic magnetic moment of a particle—an electron, for example. It is a fundamental magnitude, like mass and charge. Simply put, it is as if the particle had a magnet inside it that enabled it to interact, even while at rest, not only with the spins of other particles but also with external magnetic fields. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-liquid-realistic.html Quantum Physics Tue, 11 Oct 2022 11:10:23 EDT news584705420 Topological materials that possess certain atomic-level symmetries, including topological insulators and topological semi-metals, have elicited fascination among many condensed matter scientists because of their complex electronic properties. Now, researchers in Japan have demonstrated that a normal semiconductor can be transformed into a topological semi-metal by light irradiation. Further, they showed how spin-dependent responses could appear when illuminated with circularly-polarized laser light. Published in Physical Review B, this work explores the possibility of creating topological semi-metals and manifesting new physical properties by light control, which may open up a rich physical frontier for topological properties. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-theoretical-description-light-induced-topological-states.html Condensed Matter Mon, 12 Sep 2022 08:27:03 EDT news582190021 Japanese and U.S. physicists have used atoms about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space to open a portal to an unexplored realm of quantum magnetism. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-sun-billion-colder-deep-space.html General Physics Thu, 01 Sep 2022 11:00:06 EDT news581247044 In recent years, physicists have carried out extensive studies focusing on quantum technology and quantum many-body systems. Two out-of-equilibrium dynamical processes that have attracted particular attention in this field are quantum thermalization and information scrambling. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-thermalization-scrambling-superconducting-quantum-processor.html Superconductivity Thu, 19 May 2022 11:30:01 EDT news572176314 In the world of fundamental particles, you are either a fermion or a boson but a new study from the University of Cambridge shows, for the first time, that one can behave as the other as they move from one place to another. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-mutating-quantum-particles-motion.html Quantum Physics Tue, 08 Feb 2022 11:34:46 EST news563542481 Supersymmetry is symmetry of nature that is often hypothesized to exist among elementary particles. In a new paper that appeared in Physical Review Letters this week, physicists from the University of Amsterdam and QuSoft propose a setup where supersymmetry can also be observed between lumps of energy in a material—so-called kinks and skinks. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-kinks-skinks-supersymmetry.html Quantum Physics Mon, 07 Feb 2022 07:39:02 EST news563441937 Nearly a century after Italian physicist Ettore Majorana laid the groundwork for the discovery that electrons could be divided into halves, researchers predict that split photons may also exist, according to a study from Dartmouth and SUNY Polytechnic Institute researchers. https://phys.org/news/2021-12-discovery-photon.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:37:33 EST news558614250 In physics, "universality" refers to properties of systems that are independent of their details. Establishing the universality of quantum dynamics is one of the key interests of theoretical physicists. Now, researchers from Japan have identified such a universality in disordered quantum systems, characterized by a one-parameter scaling for surface roughness and entanglement entropy (a measure of quantum entanglement). https://phys.org/news/2021-10-dynamical-scaling-entanglement-entropy-surface.html Quantum Physics Tue, 26 Oct 2021 10:13:55 EDT news554462033