Physics
Scientists Store Massive Data Using Light in Three Dimensions
New holographic technique combines amplitude, phase, and polarization to dramatically increase storage capacity while AI reconstructs information.
The physics desk
Physics Page 26
Physics from the quantum to the cosmos: particle physics, quantum computing, astrophysics, cosmology and the discoveries that change what is possible.
PhysicsResearchers Discover Exotic Floquet States in Magnetic Vortices Using Minimal Energy
Dresden team finds gentle magnetic wave stimulation can trigger previously unseen oscillation patterns in tiny magnetic structures, challenging fundamental physics assumptions.
- Physics
Scientists Discover How Universe's Explosive Birth May Emerge From Quantum Gravity
University of Waterloo researchers propose that Big Bang inflation arises naturally from deeper quantum gravity framework, offering testable predictions for future experiments.
- Physics
Scientists Store Massive Data Using Light in 3D Space, Breaking Efficiency Barriers
New holographic storage technique combines amplitude, phase, and polarization to dramatically increase data capacity and speed.
PhysicsSolar Cells Achieve 'Impossible' 130% Efficiency Through Energy Multiplication Breakthrough
Researchers use singlet fission and spin-flip metal complexes to capture more energy carriers than photons absorbed, surpassing traditional limits.
- Physics
For the First Time, Physicists Make Light Mimic the Nobel Prize Quantum Hall Effect
Photons drifting sideways in quantized steps through engineered optical resonator arrays have reproduced one of physics' most celebrated phenomena, opening new pathways in topological photonics and quantum computing.
PhysicsPhysicists Shatter 33-Year Superconductivity Record With 151 Kelvin Breakthrough at Ambient Pressure
A University of Houston team used a 'pressure quenching' technique on mercury-based copper oxide to exceed the previous record set in 1993, pushing toward the holy grail of room-temperature superconductivity.
PhysicsOur Nearest Galactic Neighbor Was Shattered by a Billion-Year-Old Collision, Astronomers Find
The Small Magellanic Cloud — long used as a stand-in for early-universe galaxies — passed directly through the disk of the Large Magellanic Cloud hundreds of millions of years ago, permanently disrupting its structure in ways that invalidate decades of cosmological assumptions.
- Physics
Scientists Store Massive Data Using Light in 3D Space, Achieving 130% Efficiency Breakthrough
Researchers developed a holographic storage technique that encodes information throughout a material using amplitude, phase, and polarization, with AI models reconstructing the data from light patterns.
PhysicsQuantum Computing Breakthrough Claims Challenged in Replication Studies
Researchers found alternative explanations for signals once hailed as major advances in topological quantum computing, highlighting issues with scientific publishing of replication work.
PhysicsCERN Announces Discovery of Rare 'Doubly Charmed' Subatomic Particle With 7-Sigma Certainty
The LHCb collaboration at CERN's Large Hadron Collider has confirmed the existence of the Ξcc⁺ baryon — a particle made of two charm quarks and one down quark — in the 80th hadron discovery in LHC history.
PhysicsFor the First Time in History, Scientists Transported Antimatter Outside a Laboratory
A CERN team trapped 92 antiprotons in a magnetic trap and drove them around the CERN campus in a truck for 30 minutes — a feat once thought impossible — marking a turning point in the quest to understand why matter dominates our universe.
- Physics
Scientists Read Majorana Qubits for the First Time, Opening Path to Inherently Error-Resistant Quantum Computers
Researchers at CSIC Madrid and Delft University used quantum capacitance measurements to read information stored in topological Majorana states with millisecond coherence times — independently validating the approach Microsoft has bet its quantum program on.
PhysicsAstronomers Release Largest Gravitational Wave Catalog Ever: 218 Detections Including the Heaviest Black Hole Binary in History
The GWTC-4 catalog, led by MIT, adds 128 new events from LIGO's fourth observing run — including a 260-solar-mass merger, the fastest-spinning binary on record, and a new measurement of the universe's expansion rate.
PhysicsScientists Finally Solve Water's 134-Year-Old Mystery: X-Ray Lasers Reveal the Hidden Critical Point That Explains Why Ice Floats
Stockholm University researchers used ultra-fast X-ray pulses to experimentally confirm the liquid-liquid critical point in supercooled water at –63°C, settling a debate dating to 1892 and illuminating why water's strange properties make life on Earth possible.
- Physics
Scientists Achieve Revolutionary 3D Light Storage With 130% Efficiency Breakthrough
Holographic data storage technique uses light's amplitude, phase, and polarization to dramatically increase storage density while an AI model reconstructs the information.
PhysicsPhysicists Achieve First Reliable Readout of Majorana Qubit With Millisecond Coherence, Opening Path to Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing
A QuTech team at Delft University published the measurement technique topological quantum computing has been missing — quantum capacitance spectroscopy that reads Majorana zero modes without destroying them, with coherence stable for over one millisecond.
- Physics
Astronomers Solve 50-Year Mystery Behind Gamma Cassiopeiae's Extreme X-Rays
Japan's XRISM telescope reveals hidden white dwarf companion pulling material and generating temperatures above 100 million degrees.
PhysicsCERN Transports Antimatter by Road for the First Time, Carrying 92 Antiprotons 5km in a Penning Trap
Scientists at the BASE experiment loaded antiprotons into a portable cryogenic trap and drove them across the CERN campus on March 24, completing a milestone that opens the door to conducting antimatter experiments far from any particle accelerator.
- Physics
Physicists Finally Observe Migdal Effect After 87 Years, Opening New Path to Detect Light Dark Matter
A Chinese research team bombarded 800,000 candidate events with neutrons and identified six unmistakable two-track signals of the quantum process predicted by Soviet physicist Arkady Migdal in 1939 — a five-sigma confirmation.
- Physics
Scientists Discover Hidden Quantum Oscillation States Inside Magnetic Vortices — a 'Rich Spectrum of Signals Never Seen Before'
Experiments using terahertz spectroscopy on skyrmions — nanoscale magnetic whirlpools viewed as candidates for next-generation data storage — revealed multiple internal oscillation modes that existing theoretical models had not predicted.
PhysicsNYU Physicists Build Time Crystal Using Sound Waves That Appears to Break Newton's Third Law — And You Can Watch It With Your Eyes
Professor David Grier's team levitated tiny styrofoam beads in standing acoustic waves, producing a macroscopic time crystal through nonreciprocal particle interactions that carry momentum away via sound, defying the equal-and-opposite-reaction principle.
PhysicsScientists Make Light Drift in Quantized Steps — A Nobel-Level Quantum Effect Achieved in Photons for the First Time
An international team achieved what once seemed impossible: photons drifting sideways in perfectly defined, quantized steps just like electrons in the quantum Hall effect — a potential new gold standard for precision measurement.
PhysicsFermilab and MIT Crack a Key Barrier to Scalable Quantum Computing With a Chip That Works Inside an Ion Trap
A DOE-funded collaboration successfully integrated cryogenic control electronics directly into an ion-trap quantum system, offering the first viable path to building quantum computers with tens of thousands of qubits.
- Physics
Scientists Discover Bizarre Oscillation States in Magnetic Vortices Using Minimal Energy
Researchers found that gentle magnetic wave stimulation can generate exotic Floquet states in tiny magnetic structures, challenging existing physics assumptions.
PhysicsAstronomers Solve 50-Year Mystery of Crab Pulsar's Strange 'Zebra Stripes'
New research reveals that a cosmic tug-of-war between gravity and plasma creates interference patterns that form the striking radio wave stripes.
PhysicsIceCube Pins High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos to Supermassive Black Holes in X-Ray Bright Galaxies — Opening New Window on Universe's Most Violent Engines
Cross-referencing a decade of Antarctic neutrino data with X-ray telescope observations, scientists have found the strongest statistical evidence yet that X-ray luminous active galactic nuclei are a primary source of cosmic neutrinos.
- Physics
Astronomers Solve 50-Year Mystery of Naked-Eye Star's Extreme X-Rays Using Japanese Space Telescope
XRISM space observatory reveals hidden white dwarf companion pulling material from Gamma Cassiopeiae, finally explaining the star's puzzling high-energy emissions that have baffled scientists since 1976.
PhysicsCERN Discovers Doubly Charmed Baryon That Eluded Physicists for 24 Years, the LHC's 80th Hadron
The LHCb experiment confirmed the Xi-cc-plus particle — made of two charm quarks and one down quark — at 7-sigma confidence, closing a mystery that began with ambiguous Fermilab hints in 2002.
PhysicsMIT Scientists Turn LHC Near-Misses Into a Microscope for the Strong Nuclear Force
A new technique using grazing-angle particle interactions allows physicists to directly measure how gluons behave under extreme nuclear density — the particles that literally hold the universe together.
