High Energy Physics and Computational Science

Experiments challenge the assumption that crystals form more easily when some of the constituent particles are fixed in place. A popular way to grow thin crystalline films is through physical vapor deposition, a process in which gaseous particles settle onto a surface and gradually arrange themselves into an ordered structure. Naively, one might expect this crystallization to be assisted by anchoring some of the same particles to the surface to serve as starting locations for crystal growth. But that is not the case according to new experimental work by Chandan Mishra at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and his colleagues. The team’s counterintuitive findings could inspire improved strategies for material design . Mishra and his colleagues pinned a few micrometer-sized beads of silica to a glass surface in a random, sparsely distributed pattern. They then suspended thousands of other silica beads in a liquid that they placed on the surface. These mobile beads descended o...

A new model of quark–gluon plasma finds that the strong force was more potent in the early Universe than previously thought. Soon after the big bang, the Universe was filled with a hot primordial particle soup, with freely streaming quarks and gluons among the ingredients. As the Universe cooled, the strong force steadily strengthened until, at a temperature in energy units of about 0.15 giga-electron-volts (GeV), or 2 × 1013 K, it could bind the quarks and gluons into protons, neutrons, and other hadrons. Now a new computation by researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy has traced this thermal history of quarks and gluons back even further to evaluate how important the strong force was before the hadrons emerged. The researchers used a computational technique called lattice quantum chromodynamics . The method discretizes continuous space-time into the largest and finest grid of points that can fit within a supercom...

The graphene multilayer’s kinetic inductance is both high and tunable, making it a promising material for quantum technologies . Graphene-based superconductors are a class of materials with many superconducting phases, all of which are tunable by an electric field. One of the hallmarks of superconductivity is kinetic inductance, which quantifies the material’s tendency to oppose a change in current and which arises from the inertia of charge carriers. Rounak Jha at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and his colleagues now report the measurement of tunable kinetic inductance in so-called magic-angle twisted trilayer graphene. Furthermore, they find that this kinetic inductance can be unusually large, making trilayer graphene a promising prospect for superconducting quantum computers and quantum sensors. The researchers built a superconducting quantum interference device consisting of a loop of superconducting molybdenum-rhenium interrupted by two “weak links” of twisted trilayer ...

Recent advancements in quantum materials research have revealed a novel method for identifying topological invariants. These invariants are properties of topological spaces that remain unchanged through continuous transformations. Topological materials are crucial for the development of technologies such as quantum computing and energy-efficient systems. However, their unique properties have historically been difficult to detect. About Topological Invariants Topological invariants are fundamental characteristics that define the shape of materials at the quantum level. They are not influenced by external appearances but are intrinsic to the material’s structure . A common analogy is the comparison between a donut and a coffee cup. Both have one hole and are thus topologically equivalent. In contrast, a wada and an idli are not equivalent due to differing hole counts. Significance of Topological Materials Topological materials, including topological insulators and superconductors , exh...

A new study challenges past theories, suggesting the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 may have dark matter, just spread out more evenly across the galaxy. Ordinary, or baryonic, matter including everything we can see, such as Earth, the Sun, stars, and galaxies makes up less than 5 per cent of the universe's total mass-energy content. The remaining 25 per cent is dark matter, while roughly 70 per cent is dark energy a force that counteracts gravity. Both are invisible and not yet fully understood. Dark matter is believed to dominate the universe. This invisible substance is said to make up most of its mass and interacts only through gravity not through light or physical contact. It's called 'dark' because it emits no light or energy, yet its gravitational pull is crucial. Dark matter plays a crucial role in galaxy formation and evolution. A galaxy can be assumed as a merry-go-round where the lights and horses are the stars. If it spins too fast, everything should fly...

ZEUS will open new frontiers in imaging, cancer therapy, and astrophysics The ZEUS laser facility at the University of Michigan has vaulted the United States to the forefront of high-intensity laser science . In its first official experiment, ZEUS achieved a peak power of 2 petawatts  twice the output of any other laser in the country. Although this burst, more than 100 times the world's total electricity output, lasts only 25 quintillionths of a second, it represents a major milestone in American research capabilities. "This milestone marks the beginning of experiments that move into unexplored territory for American high field science," said Karl Krushelnick, director of the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science , which houses ZEUS. The university describes the facility, constructed for $16 million, as a "bargain" given its scale and potential. Supported by the US National Science Foundation, ZEUS operates as a user facility, welcoming research te...

Magnets and superconductors go together like oil and water or so scientists have thought. But a new finding by MIT physicists is challenging this century-old assumption. In a paper appearing in the journal Nature, the physicists report that they have discovered a "chiral superconductor" a material that conducts electricity without resistance, and also, paradoxically, is intrinsically magnetic. What's more, they observed this exotic superconductivity in a surprisingly ordinary material: graphite, the primary material in pencil lead. Graphite is made from many layers of graphene atomically thin, lattice-like sheets of carbon atoms that are stacked together and can easily flake off when pressure is applied, as when pressing down to write on a piece of paper. A single flake of graphite can contain several million sheets of graphene, which are normally stacked such that every other layer aligns. But every so often, graphite contains tiny pockets where graphene is stacked in a...

It appears that we live on the knife-edge, where only the narrowest combination of values for the fundamental constants allow life, and especially conscious life, to arise. The fundamental constants of nature seem perfectly tuned to allow life to exist. If they were even a little bit different, we simply wouldn't be here. Given this grave existential fact, we are forced to ask a question: Why? Our laws of physics contain several parameters with values that we cannot predict from theory alone. These are known as the fundamental constants. We can only go out and measure their values and then insert those values into our equations to make physics work. All told, there are about two dozen such numbers. They express such basic facts as the speed of light, the strength of the four fundamental forces, and the masses of elementary particles . What's especially unnerving about these numbers is how carefully crafted they appear to be. If any were different, even by a tiny amount, our un...

The CMS collaboration presents a new search for the decay of a Higgs boson into charm quarks, bringing physicists closer to unravelling how this unique particle endows matter with mass The Higgs Bason  discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012, plays a central role in the Standard Model of particle physics, endowing elementary particles such as quarks with mass through its interactions. The Higgs boson’s interaction with the heaviest “third-generation” quarks – top and bottom quarks – has been observed and found to be in line with the Standard Model. But probing its interactions with lighter “second-generation” quarks, such as the charm quark, and the lightest “first-generation” quarks – the up and down quarks that make up the building blocks of atomic nuclei – remains a formidable challenge, leaving unanswered the question of whether or not the Higgs boson is responsible for generating the masses of the quarks that make up ordinary matter. Researchers study ...

Quantum scientists have cracked a longstanding problem by devising a method to speed up measurements without losing accuracy, a key hurdle for quantum technology. By cleverly adding extra qubits, they traded “space” for time, gathering more information faster without destabilizing the fragile quantum systems. This innovative approach, involving top researchers from several major universities, could soon become a standard tool as the race to quantum supremacy heats up. New Breakthrough in Quantum Measurements Researchers have discovered a new method to speed up quantum measurements — a key step toward advancing the next generation of quantum technologies. F ast and accurate quantum measurements are essential for future quantum devices. However, quantum systems are extremely fragile; even small disturbances during measurement can cause significant errors. Until now, scientists faced a fundamental trade-off: they could either improve the accuracy of quantum measurements or make them fa...

Black holes are objects that are so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull. Created from the spectacular death of massive stars or lurking as supermassive monsters at galactic centres, they warp spacetime around them, creating a boundary called the event horizon—the point of no return. Despite their name suggesting emptiness, black holes are anything but, containing matter compressed to incredible densities while violently transforming their surroundings. They are surrounded by superheated accretion disks. blast powerful jets of radiation across thousands of light-years and distort time itself as predicted by Einstein's relativity. Supermassive black holes and their host galaxies have evolved together despite their enormous differences in size and mass. It is thought that powerful gas winds expelled at extreme speeds from regions surrounding black holes hold the key to understanding this connection. These high-velocity outflows appear to regulate both the...

High-energy particles or gamma rays are usually needed to kick an atomic nucleus up to a higher-energy state. But last year, scientists excited thorium-229 nuclei with just laser light. Laser-excited nuclei could be useful for making precise timekeepers and sensitive quantum sensors. And now, Wolfram Ratzinger at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and his colleagues have shown how these nuclei also provide a way to detect certain speculative particles that may constitute dark matter [ 1 ]. Several models of dark matter involve axions or other extremely light bosons . Thanks to their lightness, these particles would have to be abundant—so much so that they would collectively behave like a classical field, oscillating at a frequency proportional to their mass. The particles’ interactions with the building blocks of nuclei—quarks and gluons—would cause various nuclear properties to oscillate at that same frequency. Among those properties is the energy of the photon emitted by an...

An international team of scientists has identified an unexpected region of heavy, neutron-deficient isotopes in the nuclear chart where nuclear fission is predominantly governed by an asymmetric mode . The experiment was conducted by the R3B-SOFIA collaboration at GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, within the FAIR Phase 0 program. The research team investigated the fission properties of 100 different neutron-deficient exotic isotopes, ranging from iridium (atomic number Z = 77) to thorium (Z = 90). These isotopes with a low number of neutrons relative to the number of protons were produced via the fragmentation of a relativistic primary beam of uranium-238 at 87.6% of the speed of light , and subsequently separated and identified individually using the GSI/FAIR Fragment Separator FRS. In the GSI/FAIR experimental setup R3B (Reactions with Relativistic Radioactive Beams), extended by a set of specialized systems developed for the unique pattern of fissio...

The universe, with its vast, awe-inspiring expanse, is home to phenomena that ca ptivate and challenge our understanding. From exploding stars to enigmatic black holes, it seems like a place of constant chaos. However, scientists reassure us that this cosmic ballet is underpinned by stability. This stability, known as the vacuum state, supports consistent physical laws. Yet, beneath this apparent calm lies a potential crisis: the threat of false vacuum decay. This concept suggests a universe teetering on the brink of a dramatic transformation, driven by quantum fields. Understanding Quantum Fields and Their Role in the Universe To comprehend the potential instability of the universe, one must first grasp the concept of quantum fields. Picture the electromagnetic field, a familiar example, responsible for phenomena like magnetic interactions and electricity. These fields, though invisible, permeate everything, shaping the universe in ways we might not even realize. They are the bac...

An experiment has measured gold formation from lead nuclei during near-miss collisions in the Large Hadron Collider. These high-speed interactions trigger electromagnetic processes that occasionally eject three protons, yielding gold atoms. Billions are made, but only for a split second. Lead to Gold: A Modern Alchemical Feat at CERN In a newly published study in Physical Review Journals, scientists from CERN’s ALICE experiment have observed something extraordinary: the transformation of lead into gold inside the powerful Large Hadron Collider (LHC). For centuries, alchemists dreamed of turning lead into gold. Known as chrysopoeia, this ancient quest was based on the idea that both metals were heavy and shared similar properties. Of course, we now know that lead and gold are completely different elements, and no chemical process can turn one into the other. A New Kind of Alchemy—Powered by Physics In the 20th century, nuclear physics revealed that atoms could change from one element ...