Researchers at Peking University in China have successfully observed the elusive 02+ state of 8 He, revealing a novel cluster structure with two strongly correlated neutron pairs. This finding provides insights into exotic nuclear structures and their potential implications for understanding neutron stars. The findings are published in Physical Review Letters.
The conventional nuclear model in physics posits a single-particle picture where nucleons, protons, and neutrons move independently within a nucleus, forming a well-defined shell structure. Governed by a mean potential created by nuclear forces, nucleons fill distinct energy levels or shells, leading to increased stability associated with magic numbers.
This model, rooted in quantum mechanics, successfully explains nuclear structure and stability but encounters limitations when addressing exotic nuclei, particularly those that are neutron-rich and unstable.
In 2015, the LIGO/Virgo experiment, a large-scale research effort based at two observatories in the United States, led to the first direct observation of gravitational waves. This important milestone has since prompted physicists worldwide to devise new theoretical descriptions for the dynamics of blackholes, building on the data collected by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration.
Researchers at Uppsala University, University of Oxford, and Université de Mons recently set out to explain the dynamics of Kerr black holes, theoretically predicted black holes that rotate at a constant rate, using theory of massive high-spin particles. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, specifically proposes that the dynamics of these rotating black holes is constrained by the principle of gauge symmetry, which suggests that some changes of parameters of a physical system would have no measurable effect.
“We pursued a connection between rotating Kerr black holes and massive higher-spin particles,” Henrik Johansson, co-author of the paper, told Phys.org. “In other words, we modeled the black hole as a spinning fundamental particle, similar to how the electron is treated in quantum electrodynamics.”
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Two protons next to each other in an atomic nucleus are repelling each other electromagnetically with enough force to lift a medium-sized labradoodle off the ground. Release this energy and you have, well, you have a nuclear explosion. Just as well there’s an even stronger force than the electromagnetism holding our nuclei together. But it’s not the strong force, as you might have imagined. At least not directly. Nuclei are held together by a quirk of nature, without which we would have no complex atoms, no chemistry, and certainly no labradoodles.
Neutron-star cores contain matter at the highest densities reached in our present-day universe, with as much as two solar masses of matter compressed inside a sphere of 25 km in diameter. These astrophysical objects can indeed be thought of as giant atomic nuclei, with gravity compressing their cores to densities exceeding those of individual protons and neutrons many-fold.
These densities make neutron stars interesting astrophysical objects from the point of view of particle and nuclear physics. A longstanding open problem is whether the immense central pressure of neutron stars can compress protons and neutrons into a new phase of matter, known as cold quark matter. In this exotic state of matter, individual protons and neutrons no longer exist.
“Their constituent quarks and gluons are instead liberated from their typical color confinement and are allowed to move almost freely,” explains Aleksi Vuorinen, professor of theoretical particle physics at the University of Helsinki.
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Chapters: 0:00 — Weirdness of quantum mechanics. 1:51 — Intuitive understanding of entanglement. 4:46 — How do we know that superposition is real? 5:40 — The EPR Paradox. 6:50 — Spooky action and hidden variables. 7:51 — Bell’s Inequality. 9:07 — How are objects entangled? 10:03 — Is spooky action at a distance true? 10:40 — What is quantum entanglement really? 11:31 — How do two particles become one? 13:03 — What is non locality? 14:05 — Can we use entanglement for communication? 15:08 — Advantages of quantum entanglement. 15:49 — How to learn quantum computing.
Summary: Albert Einstein described Entanglement as “spooky action at a distance,” where doing something to one of a But it’s not spooky action at a distance, at all. So what is entanglement?
Electrons have a quantum property called spin that makes them act like little magnets. We’ll always measure it pointing in one direction or the opposite: up or down, say. If we entangle two electrons so that their spins are always pointing in opposite directions, the two spins are said to be correlated. If we entangle the two electrons in this way – and fire them in opposite directions, we don’t know which one of the pair is up and which one is down until we make a measurement. If we find that electron 1 is spin up. We know the spin of electron 2 must be down.
Why isn’t this like a pair of gloves? The handedness of the gloves is there from the start. It never changes. With entangled particles that’s not the case. They are in a superposition. Prior to measurement, there is no definite answer.
How do we know superposition is real? The double slit experiment is good evidence. Entangled particles are stranger, because a measurement on one particle determines the outcome for both of them.
The CMS experiment has presented its first search for new physics using data from Run 3 of the Large Hadron Collider. The new study looks at the possibility of “dark photon” production in the decay of Higgs bosons in the detector.
Dark photons are exotic long-lived particles: “Long-lived” because they have an average lifetime of more than a tenth of a billionth of a second—a very long lifetime in terms of particles produced in the LHC—and “exotic” because they are not part of the standard model of particle physics.
The standard model is the leading theory of the fundamental building blocks of the universe, but many physics questions remain unanswered, and so searches for phenomena beyond the standard model continue. CMS’s new result defines more constrained limits on the parameters of the decay of Higgs bosons to dark photons, further narrowing down the area in which physicists can search for them.
Kmele steps inside Fermilab, America’s premiere particle accelerator facility, to find out how the smallest particles in the universe can teach us about its biggest mysteries.\ \ This video is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.\ \
Watch the full podcast now ► • Dispatches from The Well \ \ According to Fermilab’s Bonnie Flemming, the pursuit of scientific understanding is “daunting in an inspiring way.” What makes it daunting? The seemingly infinite number of questions, with their potentially inaccessible answers.\ \ In this episode of Dispatches from The Well, host Kmele Foster tours the grounds of America’s legendary particle accelerator to discover how exploring the mysteries at the heart of particle physics help us better understand some of the most profound mysteries of our universe.\ \ Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/dispatc…\ \ 00:00:00 — The Miracle of Birth\ 00:04:48 — Exploring the Universe’s Mysteries\ 00:09:20 — Building Blocks of Matter and the Standard Model\ 00:13:35 — The Evolving Body of Knowledge\ 00:17:39 — Understanding the Early Universe\ 00:22:05 — Reflections on Particle Physics\ 00:25:34 — The Extraordinary Effort to Understand the Small\ 00:29:59 — From Paleontology to Astrophysics\ 00:33:40 — The Importance of the Scientific Method and Being Critical\ \ \ About Kmele Foster:\ \ Kmele Foster is a media entrepreneur, commentator, and regular contributor to various national publications. He is the co-founder and co-host of The Fifth Column, a popular media criticism podcast.\ \ He is the head of content at Founders Fund, a San Francisco based venture capital firm investing in companies building revolutionary technologies, and a partner at Freethink, a digital media company focused on the people and ideas changing our world.\ \ Kmele also serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).\ \ \ Read more from The Well: \ Actually, neuroscience suggests “the self” is real\ ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/actuall…\ Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can illuminate the debate over generative AI\ ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/mary-sh…\ Few of us desire true equality. It’s time to own up to it\ ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/few-des…\ \ \ About The Well\ Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.\ \ Together, let’s learn from them.\ \
A team led by researchers at Osaka University and University of California, San Diego has conducted simulations of creating matter solely from collisions of light particles. Their method circumvents what would otherwise be the intensity limitations of modern lasers and can be readily implemented by using presently available technology. This work might help experimentally test long-standing theories such as the Standard Model of particle physics, and possibly the need to revise them.
One of the most striking predictions of quantum physics is that matter can be generated solely from light (i.e., photons), and in fact, the astronomical bodies known as pulsars achieve this feat. Directly generating matter in this manner has not been achieved in a laboratory, but it would enable further testing of the theories of basic quantum physics and the fundamental composition of the universe.
In a study published in Physical Review Letters, a team led by researchers at Osaka University has simulated conditions that enable photon–photon collisions, solely by using lasers. The simplicity of the setup and ease of implementation at presently available laser intensities make it a promising candidate for near-future experimental implementation.
Harvard’s breakthrough in quantum computing features a new logical quantum processor with 48 logical qubits, enabling large-scale algorithm execution on an error-corrected system. This development, led by Mikhail Lukin, represents a major advance towards practical, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
In quantum computing, a quantum bit or “qubit” is one unit of information, just like a binary bit in classical computing. For more than two decades, physicists and engineers have shown the world that quantum computing is, in principle, possible by manipulating quantum particles – be they atoms, ions or photons – to create physical qubits.
But successfully exploiting the weirdness of quantum mechanics for computation is more complicated than simply amassing a large-enough number of physical qubits, which are inherently unstable and prone to collapse out of their quantum states.
