Physics News and Discussions

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Video game-inspired algorithm rapidly detects high-energy particle collisions for future fusion reactors

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-video-gam ... -high.html

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Ferromagnetism achieved in pure vanadium oxide by tuning oxidation states
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-ferromagn ... uning.html
by Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology

A research team has succeeded in inducing ferromagnetism, a key property of conventional magnets, in pure vanadium oxide, a compound not previously recognized for such magnetic behavior. Through a series of experiments, the team verified that by precisely adjusting the oxidation state of vanadium ions, they could induce the element to behave magnetically.

The research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. The team was led by Professor Chun-Yeol You from the Department of Physics and Chemistry at DGIST.

Vanadium oxide (VO) is widely known for its metal-insulator transition (MIT), a phenomenon in which its electrical conductivity dramatically changes depending on temperature. While its electronic properties have been extensively studied, its magnetic properties—especially the possibility of ferromagnetism—remain largely unexplored. VO typically exhibits antiferromagnetic or paramagnetic behavior, which limits its application as a magnetic material.

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New Scientist- A new version of the periodic table could change how we measure time

https://archive.ph/lu0KS

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Single-photon technology powers 11-mile quantum communications network between two campuses
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-photon-te ... antum.html
by Luke Auburn, University of Rochester

Researchers at the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology recently connected their campuses with an experimental quantum communications network using two optical fibers. In a new paper published in Optica Quantum, scientists describe the Rochester Quantum Network (RoQNET), which uses single photons to transmit information about 11 miles along fiber-optic lines at room temperature using optical wavelengths.

Quantum communications networks have the potential to massively improve the security with which information is transmitted, making messages impossible to clone or intercept without detection. Quantum communication works with quantum bits, or qubits, that can be physically created using atoms, superconductors, and even in defects in materials like diamond. However, photons—individual particles of light—are the best type of qubit for long distance quantum communications.

Photons are appealing for quantum communication in part because they could theoretically be transmitted over existing fiber-optic telecommunications lines that already crisscross the globe. In the future, many types of qubits will likely be utilized because qubit sources, like quantum dots or trapped ions, each have their own advantages for specific applications in quantum computing or different types of quantum sensing.

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Results of the first search for dark photons using a MADMAX prototype
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-results-d ... otype.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Phys.org

While many research groups worldwide have been searching for dark matter over the past decades, detecting it has so far proved very challenging, thus very little is known about its possible composition and physical properties. Two promising dark matter candidates (i.e., hypothetical particles that dark matter could be made of) are axions and dark photons.

The MAgnetized Disk and Mirror Axion eXperiment (MADMAX) is a large research effort aimed at detecting axions or dark photons using a sophisticated instrument comprised of a stack of sapphire disks and a reflective mirror. In a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, the MADMAX collaboration published the results of the first search for dark photons performed using a prototype of their detector.

"The primary goal of MADMAX is to detect dark matter in the form of axions or dark photons," Jacob Mathias Egge, first author of the paper, told Phys.org. "These two hypothetical particles are popular candidates for what dark matter might consist of. In our recent paper, we describe the results of a search for dark photons using a small-scale prototype."

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Lead becomes gold for split second during LHC experiments
By Abhimanyu Ghoshal
May 12, 2025

Several centuries ago, a branch of alchemy called chrysopoeia is said to have explored the possibilities of transforming widely available base metals into precious metals. Early practitioners never managed to pull it off, but it appears that in studying the conditions that emerged just after the Big Bang using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), scientists have turned lead into gold – for just fractions of a second.

Before you get too excited and start looking into investing in the LHC as a new asset class, it wasn't a whole lot of gold. In fact, it was "trillions of times less than would be required to make a piece of jewelry." But you can still marvel at the fact that one element transformed into another with distinctly different properties, through a new mechanism.

https://newatlas.com/physics/lead-gold-lhc-alice-cern/

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Physicists capture 'second sound' for the first time — after nearly 100 years of searching

Scientists have captured direct images of heat behaving like sound — an elusive phenomenon called 'second sound' — for the very first time.

Imaged within an exotic superfluid state of cold lithium-6 atoms by a new heat-mapping technique, the phenomenon shows heat moving as a wave, bouncing like sound around its container.

Understanding the way that second sound moves could help scientists predict how heat flows inside ultradense neutron stars and high-temperature superconductors — one of the "holy grails" of physics whose development would enable near-lossless energy transmission. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science.

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New measurement of the mass of the Z boson from the Large Hadron Collider
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-mass-boso ... lider.html
by Ana Lopes, CERN

The LHCb experiment has taken a leap in precision physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In a new paper submitted to Physical Review Letters and currently available on the arXiv preprint server, the LHCb collaboration reports the first dedicated measurement of the Z boson mass at the LHC, using data from high-energy collisions between protons recorded in 2016 during the collider's second run.

The Z boson is a massive, electrically neutral particle that mediates the weak nuclear force—one of nature's fundamental forces. With a mass of about 91 billion electronvolts (GeV), it ranks among the heaviest known elementary particles.

Discovered at CERN more than 40 years ago, alongside the W boson, the Z boson played a central role in confirming the Standard Model of particle physics—a breakthrough that led to the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics. Measuring its mass precisely remains essential for testing the Standard Model and searching for signs of new physics.

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New theory proposes time has three dimensions, with space as a secondary effect
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-theory-di ... ffect.html
by Rod Boyce, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Time, not space plus time, might be the single fundamental property in which all physical phenomena occur, according to a new theory by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist.

The theory also argues that time comes in three dimensions rather than just the single one we experience as continual forward progression. Space emerges as a secondary manifestation.

"These three time dimensions are the primary fabric of everything, like the canvas of a painting," said associate research professor Gunther Kletetschka at the UAF Geophysical Institute. "Space still exists with its three dimensions, but it's more like the paint on the canvas rather than the canvas itself."

Those thoughts are a marked difference from generally accepted physics, which holds that a single dimension of time plus the three dimensions of space constitute reality. This is known as spacetime, the concept developed more than a century ago that views time and space as one entity.

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Study tightens King plot-based constraints on hypothetical fifth force
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-tightens- ... aints.html
by Ingrid Fadelli, Phys.org

While the Standard Model (SM) describes all known fundamental particles and many of the interactions between them, it fails to explain dark matter, dark energy and the apparent asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe. Over the past decades, physicists have thus introduced various frameworks and methods to study physics beyond the SM, one of which is known as the King plot.

The King plot is a graphical technique used to analyze isotope shifts, variations in the energy levels of different isotopes (e.g., atoms of the same element that contain a different number of neutrons). This graphical tool has proved promising for separating effects explained by the SM from signals linked to new physics.

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Sensitive yet tough photonic devices are now a reality
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-sensitive ... ality.html
by University of California - San Diego

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have achieved a long-sought milestone in photonics: creating tiny optical devices that are both highly sensitive and durable—two qualities that have long been considered fundamentally incompatible.

This rare coexistence of sensitivity and durability could lead to a new generation of photonic devices that are not only precise and powerful but also much easier and cheaper to produce at scale. This could open the door to advanced sensors and technologies ranging from highly sensitive medical diagnostics and environmental sensors to more secure communication systems, all built into tiny, chip-scale devices.

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