Physics
Scientists Discover 'Narwhal' Light Waves That Trap Photons in Subwavelength Spaces
Breakthrough in 'singulonics' uses purely dielectric materials to confine light far beyond conventional limits without energy losses from metals.
The physics desk
Physics Page 15
Physics from the quantum to the cosmos: particle physics, quantum computing, astrophysics, cosmology and the discoveries that change what is possible.
PhysicsPhysicists Solve Mystery of 'Breathing' Ultrafast Lasers Using Unified Theory
New mathematical framework explains how laser pulses rhythmically grow and shrink, uniting two previously separate physical phenomena.
PhysicsScientists Develop Ultra-Sensitive Quantum Sensor Capable of Detecting Dark Matter Particles
Finnish researchers achieve breakthrough detection of energy below one zeptojoule, opening new possibilities for quantum computing and astrophysics research.
PhysicsBlack Holes May Reveal Dark Matter Secrets Through Gravitational Wave Fingerprints
MIT physicists develop new method to detect dark matter interactions hidden within cosmic collisions, with one LIGO signal showing potential evidence.
- Physics
Scientists Discover Revolutionary 'Narwhal' Waves That Trap Light Beyond Known Physical Limits
Physicists at Peking University have uncovered a breakthrough method to confine light in ultra-small spaces using purely dielectric materials, potentially revolutionizing photonic technology.
- Physics
Physicists Finally Solve Mystery of 'Breathing' Ultrafast Lasers Using Unified Mathematical Framework
International research team develops breakthrough model explaining why some laser pulses rhythmically grow and shrink like they're breathing.
PhysicsCanadian Radio Telescope Maps Surprise Magnetic-Field Reversal Cutting Diagonally Through the Milky Way’s Sagittarius Arm, Breaking the Century-Old Smooth-Spiral Galaxy Model
University of Calgary astrophysicist Jo-Anne Brown and the international GMIMS consortium say the discovery, made with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia and published in The Astrophysical Journal, defies every existing dynamo model of galactic magnetism.
PhysicsAfter 10 Years, NIST Physicist Stephan Schlamminger Opens His Sealed Envelope and Finds That His New Big G Measurement Disagrees With the French Result by 2.3 Parts in 10,000, Deepening a 225-Year-Old Mystery
The most precise American measurement of Newton’s universal gravitational constant, published Tuesday in Physical Review Letters at G = 6.67430 × 10⁻¹¹, again fails to bring big G into agreement with other modern experiments and may hint at unknown systematic errors or even new physics.
PhysicsColumbia Climate Scientists Solve a Long-Running Atmospheric Paradox: How Rising Carbon Dioxide Cools the Stratosphere by 2 Degrees Celsius While It Simultaneously Warms the Surface Below
A new Nature Geoscience paper by Sean Cohen, Robert Pincus and Lorenzo Polvani at Lamont-Doherty shows that the same CO2 molecules that trap heat near the ground turn into efficient infrared radiators 11 to 50 kilometers up — and that the cooling itself amplifies the warming we feel.
PhysicsScientists Discover Muon Mystery Was Just a Calculation Error After Decades
Supercomputer calculations reveal the apparent violation of physics was likely due to limitations in earlier theoretical work, confirming the Standard Model remains intact.
- Physics
Gravitational Waves May Carry First Dark Matter Fingerprints From Black Hole Collisions
MIT physicists have developed a new method to search for dark matter signatures in ripples from merging black holes, with one LIGO signal showing promising results.
PhysicsScientists Create 'Impossible' LED From Insulating Nanoparticles
Cambridge researchers use molecular antennas to power materials that normally can't conduct electricity, producing ultra pure near infrared light for medical applications.
PhysicsString Theory Emerges Naturally From Simple Physics Rules
Physicists discover that starting with basic particle collision principles, the mathematics spontaneously produces string theory signatures without assuming strings exist.
- Physics
Scientists Discover Muon "Rule-Breaking" Anomaly Was Actually a Calculation Error
Decades-long mystery that hinted at new physics forces resolved after supercomputer calculations show Standard Model remains intact.
PhysicsOxford Physicists Pull Off the First-Ever 'Quadsqueezing' Quantum Interaction in a Single Trapped Ion, Producing a Fourth-Order Effect 100 Times Faster Than Anything Built Before
By layering two non-commuting forces on a single calcium ion, the team can flip a quantum oscillator between standard squeezing, trisqueezing and quadsqueezing in microseconds, unlocking a new toolkit for quantum sensing, simulation and bosonic error correction.
PhysicsAalto Physicists Link a Self-Oscillating Time Crystal to an External Mechanical Device for the First Time, Opening a Path to Quantum Memory Cells That Never Run Down
Working in superfluid helium-3 at less than a ten-thousandth of a degree above absolute zero, Jere Mäkinen's team coupled an eternally ticking time crystal to a nanowire oscillator, turning a theoretical curiosity into a usable quantum component.
PhysicsCal Poly Physicist and Undergraduate Co-Author Show That Smoothly Flipping a Magnetic Field Can Conjure Exotic Quantum States That Have No Equilibrium Counterpart
Stephen Powell and senior Louis Buchalter's 'Flux-Switching Floquet Engineering' paper in Physical Review B lays out a simple recipe for steering ordinary lattices into topological phases that may underpin future fault-tolerant quantum computers.
- Physics
Scientists Discover 'Rule-Breaking' Muon Anomaly Was Actually a Calculation Error
Decades of speculation about a mysterious fifth force of nature ended when researchers realized the Standard Model of physics was right all along.
PhysicsPhysicists Watch Atoms Spinning in Opposite Directions Inside a Crystal for the First Time, Decoding a Strange '1 + 1 = -1' Rule of Lattice Motion
Researchers at Dresden's HZDR and Berlin's Fritz Haber Institute fired terahertz laser pulses at bismuth selenide and directly observed angular momentum being passed between atomic vibrations — with the direction of rotation flipping mid-transfer, a long-predicted 'Umklapp process.'
PhysicsPenn Engineers Coax Light Itself Into Talking to Light Using Exciton-Polaritons, Switching Signals With Just 4 Femtojoules in Step Toward Optical AI Chips
Bo Zhen's team at the University of Pennsylvania reports in Physical Review Letters that hybrid light-matter quasiparticles trapped in atomically thin semiconductors interact strongly enough to perform all-optical switching, the missing ingredient for photonic processors that could replace electrons in artificial-intelligence accelerators.
PhysicsMagic-Angle Graphene Hides Two Personalities in One Material: New Nature Study Watches Electrons Shift Between Heavy and Light at Different Momenta
Using a custom quantum twisting microscope, Xiao, Inbar, Birkbeck and colleagues directly imaged the flat bands of twisted bilayer graphene with momentum resolution, revealing energy gaps, electronic cascades and a 'Dirac revival' that could finally explain how the material superconducts at temperatures rivaling exotic high-temperature compounds.
- Physics
String Theory Emerges Spontaneously From Simple Physics Rules in Breakthrough Study
Researchers using bootstrap approach discover string theory signatures without assuming strings existed from the start.
PhysicsScientists Crack Sealed Envelope After 10 Years, Gravity Still Defies Precise Measurement
NIST physicist Stephan Schlamminger spent a decade measuring the universal gravitational constant while keeping his own results hidden from himself.
- Physics
Scientists Solve Decades-Old Muon Mystery That Threatened to Upend Physics
Supercomputer calculations reveal that the apparent "rule-breaking" particle behavior was likely a calculation error, keeping the Standard Model intact.
- Physics
Gravitational Waves May Carry First Fingerprints of Dark Matter from Colliding Black Holes
MIT physicists detect potential dark matter signature in LIGO data, offering new way to study the universe's most mysterious substance.
Physics'Schrödinger's Clock': Physicists Lay Out How an Atomic Clock Could Tick Faster and Slower at the Same Time
Stevens Institute theorist Igor Pikovski's proposal with Colorado State and NIST experimentalists pinpoints a measurable quantum signature of relativistic time inside ion clocks already in operation.
PhysicsDelft–Intel Team Teleports Quantum Information Between Silicon Spin Qubits With 99% Two-Qubit Gate Fidelity
The Nature paper demonstrates the first 'shuttling' of paired electron spins across a silicon chip and quantum teleportation across 320 nanometers — a foundational step toward a manufacturable quantum computer.
PhysicsJames Webb and VLT Spot Most Massive Black Hole Pair Ever Found — Two 30-Billion-Solar-Mass Giants Bound for Merger
A starless gulf 3,200 light-years across at the heart of galaxy Abell 402-BCG turns out to be a gravitational scar carved by two ultramassive black holes, together weighing 60 billion suns and headed for an eventual merger LISA may one day hear.
PhysicsEurope's JUPITER Supercomputer Fully Simulates a 50-Qubit Universal Quantum Computer, Smashing World Record
The Jülich team and Nvidia threw 23,000 GH200 Superchips and 2 petabytes of memory at the calculation, pushing the 'quantum simulation horizon' two qubits further — and raising the bar that real quantum hardware will eventually have to clear.
PhysicsSunlight Powers Quantum Ghost Imaging in Breakthrough That Could Work Anywhere
Chinese researchers generate quantum-linked photon pairs using only natural sunlight, achieving 90.7% imaging quality comparable to laboratory lasers.