High Energy Physics and Computational Science

In a fascinating dive into the strange world of quantum physics, scientists have shown that light can interact with itself in bizarre ways creating ghost-like virtual particles that pop in and out of existence. This “light-on-light scattering” isn’t just a theoretical curiosity; it could hold the key to solving long-standing mysteries in particle physics . Quantum Light: Why Lasers Don’t Clash Like Lightsabers Under normal conditions, light waves can pass through one another without any interference. Based on the principles of electrodynamics, two beams of light can occupy the same space without affecting each other. They simply merge and continue on their paths. This means that the dramatic laser duels seen in science fiction would be much less exciting in real life. However, quantum physics introduces a twist. It predicts a phenomenon known as “light-on-light scattering.” This effect cannot be detected with typical laser systems, but it has been observed in high-energy environments l...

Turns out, entanglement isn’t a one-way ticket. A new framework lets scientists reverse entanglement transformations perfectly. For more than a century, the laws of thermodynamics have helped us understand how energy moves, how engines work, and why time seems to flow in one direction. Now, researchers have made a similarly powerful discovery, but in the strange world of quantum physics . Scientists have shown for the first time that entanglement, the mysterious link between quantum particles, can be reversibly manipulated just like heat or energy in a perfect thermodynamic cycle. The researchers support their findings using a novel concept called an entanglement battery, which allows entanglement to flow in and out of quantum systems without being lost, much like a regular battery stores and supplies energy. This achievement resolves a long-standing puzzle in quantum information science and could significantly impact the design of future quantum computers, secure communication system...

Researchers use cryptography to gain insights into the mechanisms behind quantum speed-ups. Quantum computing is widely regarded by experts as the next major leap in computer technology. Unlike traditional computers, which process information in binary (0s and 1s), quantum computers make use of unique principles from quantum physics. These include phenomena like superposition and interference, which could enable quantum machines to tackle certain problems far more efficiently than even the most advanced classical systems. When a quantum computer successfully handles a task that would be practically impossible for current computers, this achievement is referred to as quantum advantage. However, this advantage does not apply to all types of problems, which has led scientists to explore the precise conditions under which it can actually be achieved. While earlier research has outlined several conditions that might allow for quantum advantage, it has remained unclear whether those condit...

A star narrowly escapes the deadly grip of a supermassive black hole, defying the odds. In a remarkable twist of fate, a star has defied the odds by escaping the destructive grasp of a supermassive black hole, only to return for a second encounter. This rare event, captured by astronomers, challenges long-standing theories about how black holes interact with stars. A Star That Defied The Odds The cosmic drama began when a distant supermassive black hole tried to devour a star from a galaxy millions of light-years away. Instead of succumbing to the black hole’s gravitational forces , the star managed to escape, sparking interest among researchers. The first clue came in the form of a flare, a sudden burst of light signaling the star’s first brush with destruction. Astronomers were surprised when, about 700 days later, a second flare appeared, nearly identical to the first. The phenomenon was officially named AT 2022dbl, and the team behind the discovery was quick to dismiss the possib...

What do you know about gravity? Let’s remember that gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, and it has always been one of the most mysterious. Newton’s physics gave us the first concrete explanation of how it works, and Einstein’s theory of general relativity deepened it, explaining how mass curves spacetime. Gravity, then, seemed to have a simple explanation: a force that pulls everything toward the center, keeping the universe in equilibrium. However, this understanding began to be challenged with the emergence of quantum mechanics, which deals with the behavior of subatomic particles. The point is that, while quantum mechanics works flawlessly on tiny scales, and relativity wonderfully describes behavior on large scales, the two models simply don’t fit when applied to extreme situations, such as the interior of black holes or the early universe. Turning point: when Space-Time started to “shake” And here is the discovery: the theory of floating spacetime suggests th...

Lightning might not strike twice, but black holes apparently do. An international group of researchers led by Tel Aviv University astronomers observed a flare caused when a star falls onto a black hole and is destroyed. Surprisingly, this flare occurred about two years after a nearly identical flare named AT 2022dbl, from the exact same location. This is the first confirmed case of a star that survived an encounter with a supermassive black hole and came back for more. This discovery upends conventional wisdom about such tidal disruption events and suggests that these spectacular flares may be just the opening act in a longer, more complex story. The researchers explain that at the center of every large galaxy lies a black hole that is millions to billions of times the mass of the sun. Such a supermassive black hole also exists in our own Milky Way, and its discovery was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics. But beyond knowing they're there, it's not well understood how su...

In 2012, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek asked whether the symmetry that arranges atoms in an ordinary crystal might also break in time, producing a structure that beats forever at its own pace. More than a decade later, researchers at Tsinghua University, working with theorists from Vienna University of Technology, have watched rubidium vapor settle into just such a rhythm and report their findings. Prof Thomas Pohl of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at TU Wien, a co‑author of the new paper, says the result brings Wilczek’s vision “very close to reality.” How a time crystals differ A time crystal repeats itself in time rather than in space, breaking the uniformity of the clock the way a snowflake breaks the uniformity of a lake. The persistence of this rhythm, called spontaneous symmetry breaking, means the pattern survives even when no one is forcing it. Laboratory evidence has grown fast, from early ion‑trap demonstrations of discrete time crystals in 2017 to optical‑cavity work ...

Electrons can travel through silicon as waves, paving the way for smaller and more advanced devices. Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, have discovered a method to control how electricity moves through crystalline silicon, a key material in today’s electronic technologies . By tapping into the quantum behavior of electrons, the breakthrough could enable the development of smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient devices. At extremely small scales, electrons act more like waves than solid particles. The researchers demonstrated that by carefully adjusting the symmetrical arrangement of atoms in silicon molecules, they could induce or prevent a process called destructive interference. This phenomenon can effectively switch electrical conductivity “on” or “off,” functioning like a nanoscale electronic switch. Wave interference as a quantum switch “We found that when tiny silicon structures are shaped with high symmetry, they can cancel out electron flow like noise-c...

For over a century, physicists have wrestled with a contradiction at the heart of modern science. While quantum mechanics governs the microscopic world with uncertainty and superposition, gravity has stubbornly remained a force described by classical physics . The dream of uniting these two frameworks often called quantum gravity has hovered as one of science’s ultimate goals. What’s at stake is more than theory. Without evidence that gravitational attraction behaves quantum, the disconnect limits how far we can push technology and hinders our understanding of the universe’s earliest moments. Gravity’s impact on the universe Black holes, the Big Bang, and even spacetime itself remain partly out of reach as long as gravity resists quantization. The pressure to close this gap is mounting, and researchers are chasing ways to probe the force that holds the cosmos together. Now, for the first time, physicists have designed an experiment that could expose gravity’s quantum side not by peerin...

A cosmic void could be distorting how we see the universe expand. Sound from the Big Bang may hold the clues. According to astronomers, Earth and the entire Milky Way galaxy might be located within a vast, low-density region of space essentially a cosmic void that causes the universe to expand more rapidly in our area compared to surrounding regions. This hypothesis offers a possible explanation for the persistent discrepancy known as the ‘Hubble tension’ and could contribute to determining the universe’s actual age, currently estimated at approximately 13.8 billion years. Presented at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) in Durham, recent findings suggest that primordial sound waves referred to as “essentially the sound of the Big Bang” lend support to this concept. Edwin Hubble introduced the Hubble constant in 1929 as a way to describe how quickly the universe is expanding. Scientists calculate it by measuring the distance to celestial bodies and thei...

Two black holes have collided in a merger that could revolutionize our understanding of black hole growth. Named GW 231123 after the date it was recorded on 23 November 2023, it's the most massive black hole collision we've seen yet, resulting in an object heavier than 225 Suns. Previously, the most massive black hole collision produced an object 142 times the mass of the Sun. What makes this so incredible is that each of the black holes involved in the collision is heavier than the upper mass limit for black holes formed from a single stellar core – suggesting both may have been involved in previous collisions. "This is the most massive black hole binary we've observed through gravitational waves , and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation," says astronomer and physicist Mark Hannam of Cardiff University in the UK. "Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models. One possibility is that th...

Dark matter is one of nature's most confounding mysteries. It keeps particle physicists up at night and cosmologists glued to their supercomputer simulations. We know it's real because its mass prevents galaxies from falling apart. But we don't know what it is. Dark matter doesn't like other matter and may prefer its own company. While it doesn't seem to interact with regular baryonic matter , it could possibly react with itself and self-annihilate. It needs a tightly-packed environment to do that, and that may lead to a way astrophysicists can finally detect it. New theoretical research outlines how this could happen and states that sub-stellar objects, basically brown dwarfs, could host the process. The research is titled "Dark dwarfs: dark matter-powered sub-stellar objects awaiting discovery at the galactic center," and it's published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics . The lead author is Djuna Croon, a theoretical physicist and...

"We showed that a void model is about one hundred million times more likely than a void-free model." Earth, its cosmic home the Milky Way, and even the very local region of universe around us could be situated within a void of low density compared to the rest of the universe. If so, that would solve one of the most frustrating and lingering problems in cosmology, the so-called " Hubble tension ." New research suggests that "baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs)" from the initial moments of the universe, think of them as "the sound of the Big Bang," seem to support the concept of the local void or "Hubble Bubble." The Hubble tension arises from the fact that when measured using different techniques the speed at which the universe is expanding (known as the Hubble constant) has different values. One technique measures the Hubble constant using astronomical observations in the local universe, while the other gives its value as an average ac...

Astronomers have discovered a Great Wall in the universe that is so huge that it defies logic and cosmological principles. The Great Wall of Hercules-Corona Borealis is a galaxy cluster that runs for approximately 10 billion light-years. Scientists have established that based on the universe's age, no cosmic structure can exceed 1.2 billion light-years. But the existence of this wall proves that matter is not evenly distributed in the universe. The Great Wall of Hercules-Corona Borealis has only now revealed how monstrous it is. This has become possible by the use of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which are like beacons in space which throw light on galaxies that are too distant to be observed directly. Space beacons light up cosmic giants GBBs occur when a black hole forms, wither because of the collapse of a massive star or the collision of two neutron stars. They are the brightest explosions in the universe and emit particle jets that travel at nearly the speed of light. They come i...