Lifeboat Foundation

For nearly 50 years, physicists have dreamed of the secrets they could unlock by raising the energy state of an atom’s nucleus using a laser. The achievement would allow today’s atomic clocks to be replaced with a nuclear clock that would be the most accurate clock to ever exist, allowing advances like deep space navigation and communication. It would also allow scientists to measure precisely whether the fundamental constants of nature are, in fact, really constant or merely appear to be because we have not yet measured them precisely enough.

Now, an effort led by Eric Hudson, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, has accomplished the seemingly impossible. By embedding a thorium atom within a highly transparent crystal and bombarding it with lasers, Hudson’s group has succeeded in getting the nucleus of the thorium atom to absorb and emit photons like electrons in an atom do. The astonishing feat is described in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

This means that measurements of time, gravity and other fields that are currently performed using atomic electrons can be made with orders of magnitude higher accuracy. The reason is that atomic electrons are influenced by many factors in their environment, which affects how they absorb and emit photons and limits their accuracy. Neutrons and protons, on the other hand, are bound and highly concentrated within the nucleus and experience less environmental disturbance.

The quest to understand the enigma of photosynthesis, how water is involved, and its critical role on Earth has taken a significant leap forward.

A recent breakthrough in visual technology has resulted in the capture of high-resolution images beyond any achieved before, shedding never-before-seen light on this essential life process.

Our story begins within the walls of a renowned institution, Umeå University, where diligent researchers embarked on a fascinating journey to understand the positions of hydrogen atoms and water molecules in photosynthesis.

A pair of astrophysicists with Princeton University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory found possible evidence of dark matter particles colliding. In their study, published in Physical Review Letters, Carlos Blanco and Rebecca Leane conducted measurements of Jupiter’s equatorial region at night to minimize auroral influences.

Since it was first proposed back in the 1930s, dark matter has been at the forefront of physics research, though it has yet to be directly detected. Still, most in the field believe it makes up roughly 70% to 80% of all matter in the universe. It is believed to exist because it is the only explanation for odd gravitational effects observed in galaxy motion and the movement of stars.

Researchers posit that it might be possible to detect dark matter indirectly by identifying the heat or light emitted when particles of dark matter collide and destroy each other. In this new study, the researchers found what they believe may be such an instance—light in Jupiter’s dark-side outer atmosphere.

In humankind’s ever-ticking pursuit of perfection, scientists have developed an atomic clock that is more precise and accurate than any clock previously created. The new clock was built by researchers at JILA, a joint institution of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Enabling pinpoint navigation in the vast expanse of space as well as searches for new particles, this clock is the latest to transcend mere timekeeping. With their increased precision, these next-generation timekeepers could reveal hidden underground mineral deposits and test fundamental theories such as general relativity with unprecedented rigor.

For atomic-clock architects, it’s not just about building a better clock; it’s about unraveling the secrets of the universe and paving the way for technologies that will shape our world for generations to come.

The propagation of charged particles in a medium at a speed exceeding the phase speed of light in the medium (this speed also called superluminal) leads to the generation of radiation. The diagram of generated radiation during this process has a conical structure. This effect, called the Cherenkov effect, has many fundamental and applied applications, and its explanation was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958.

The oblique incidence of light on the interface between two media is a similar phenomenon; in this case, a wave of secondary radiation sources is formed along the interface, which propagates at a speed exceeding the phase speed of light.

The refraction and reflection of light from an interface is the result of the addition of the amplitudes of waves from all sources formed during light incidence. If one considers the interface with photo emissive material—the cathode, on which light is incident obliquely and causes of electron emission—then an electron density wave will form along the cathode surface at superluminal speed.

The international NOvA collaboration presented new results at the Neutrino 2024 conference in Milan, Italy, on June 17. The collaboration doubled their neutrino data since their previous release four years ago, including adding a new low-energy sample of electron neutrinos.

The new results are consistent with previous NOvA results, but with improved precision. The data favor the “normal” ordering of neutrino masses more strongly than before, but ambiguity remains around the neutrino’s oscillation properties.

The latest NOvA data provide a very precise measurement of the bigger splitting between the squared neutrino masses and slightly favor the normal mass ordering. That precision on the mass splitting means that, when coupled with data from other experiments performed at nuclear reactors, the data favor the normal ordering at almost 7:1 odds.

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The development of alternative platforms for computing has been a longstanding goal for physics, and represents a particularly pressing concern as conventional transistors approach the limit of miniaturization. A potential alternative paradigm is that of reservoir computing, which leverages unknown, but highly nonlinear transformations of input-data to perform computations. This has the advantage that many physical systems exhibit precisely the type of nonlinear input-output relationships necessary for them to function as reservoirs. Consequently, the quantum effects which obstruct the further development of silicon electronics become an advantage for a reservoir computer. Here we demonstrate that even the most basic constituents of matter–atoms–can act as a reservoir for computing where all input-output processing is optical, thanks to the phenomenon of High Harmonic Generation.

Scientists have produced a rare form of quantum matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) using molecules instead of atoms.

Made from chilled sodium-cesium molecules, these BECs are as chilly as five nanoKelvin, or about −459.66 °F, and stay stable for a remarkable two seconds.

“These molecular BECs open up an new research arenas, from understanding truly fundamental physics to advancing powerful quantum simulations,” noted Columbia University physicist Sebastian Will. “We’ve reached an exciting milestone, but it’s just the kick-off.”

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A two-bit magnetic memory is demonstrated, based on the magnetic states of individual holmium atoms, which are read and written in a scanning tunnelling microscope set-up and are stable over many hours.