Lifeboat Foundation

The concept of short-range order (SRO)—the arrangement of atoms over small distances—in metallic alloys has been underexplored in materials science and engineering. But the past decade has seen renewed interest in quantifying it, since decoding SRO is a crucial step toward developing tailored high-performing alloys, such as stronger or heat-resistant materials.

Understanding how atoms arrange themselves is no easy task and must be verified using intensive lab experiments or computer simulations based on imperfect models. These hurdles have made it difficult to fully explore SRO in metallic alloys.

But Killian Sheriff and Yifan Cao, graduate students in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), are using machine learning to quantify, atom by atom, the complex chemical arrangements that make up SRO. Under the supervision of Assistant Professor Rodrigo Freitas, and with the help of Assistant Professor Tess Smidt in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, their work was recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Infleqtion, the world’s leading quantum information company, announced the installation of a cutting-edge neutral atom quantum computer at the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC).

PRESS RELEASE — Infleqtion, the world’s leading quantum information company, is proud to announce the installation of a cutting-edge neutral atom quantum computer at the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC). This marks a significant milestone as Infleqtion becomes the first company to deploy hardware at the NQCC under their quantum computing testbed programme. The news comes on the heels of Infleqtion’s rapid advancement in quantum gate fidelity.

Tim Ballance, President of Infleqtion UK, said, “Our recent installation is part of Infleqtion’s dedication to leading facility logistics in partnership with our colleagues at the NQCC. Together, we are establishing crucial infrastructure components such as network infrastructure, safety protocols, and security measures. Infleqtion has completed our second milestone, which includes the installation and in-situ characterisation of primary lasers, optical, vacuum, and electronic subsystems necessary for the quantum computer to function. This accomplishment demonstrates our advanced technology and expertise in the field.”

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A team of engineers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology has found that ferrofluidic drops in a tank of water can be forced to rise in desired ways using light. The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

Prior research has shown that ferrofluid droplets can be manipulated in water using a magnet. In this new study, the research team has shown that they can be manipulated by a light source as well.

Ferrofluid droplets are made by immersing magnetic particles in a drop of oil. Prior research has shown that they can be made to travel across a flat surface by dragging a magnet beneath them. If the droplets are heated, bubbles held inside of them expand, making the bubble bigger and more buoyant.

Researchers at TMOS, the ARC Center of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, have taken an important first step in the development of metasurface-enabled tractor beams—rays of light that can pull particles toward it, a concept that fictional tractor beams featured in science fiction are based on.

The world around us is made up of particles invisible to the naked eye, but physicists continue to gain insights into this mysterious realm. Findings published in Physical Review C by Osaka Metropolitan University researchers show that the nuclear structure of an atom likely changes depending on the distance the protons and neutrons are from the center of the nucleus.

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In 2023, a team of researchers proposed that our universe experienced not one, but TWO Big Bangs about a month apart from one another. The first for the stuff described by our Standard Model of Particle Physics. And the second for that ever elusive Dark Matter and all the particles associated with it.

Continue reading “The Universe’s Second, Bigger Bang” »

Experiments on a bed of plastic beads reveal a temperature-dependent stiffening over time, which appears to be related to molecular-scale deformations.

Inside a geological fault, small rocks and pebble-sized grains can become increasingly lodged together over time so that the push—or stress—needed to get the granular material flowing grows with time. This frictional “aging” can be attributed to several effects, but researchers have now isolated a thermal effect that appears to be related to molecular-level deformations [1]. The team performed experiments on a bed of tiny beads, or grains, slowly rotating them in a start–stop manner that revealed the signatures of grain aging. The temperature dependence of the effect suggested that the behavior arises from a thermally driven interlocking between irregularities on the grain surfaces. The results could provide new insights into the stick–slip behavior recorded in geological faults.

Granular materials—those made of small particles, like sand or soil—have unique properties. For example, in the polymer industry, the force required to begin stirring granular ingredients on Mondays is greater than on other days because the grains have been left immobile over the weekend. This aging effect, in which the force required to break the network of frictional contacts depends on the time that the particles have been resting, also plays a role in the occurrence of earthquakes and landslides. “The longer you wait, the stronger the granular network becomes,” says Kasra Farain from the University of Amsterdam.

An international team of physicists, centered at Trinity, has proven new theorems in quantum mechanics that describe the “energy landscapes” of collections of quantum particles.

This high-mobility film shows unprecedented potential.