Researchers at MIT have developed the first full map of the quantum landscape that constrains how electrons move inside matter, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The map “offers a new way to understand and design materials, perhaps leading to, for instance, super-efficient wires that conduct electricity with no resistance,” Padavic-Callaghan explains. “A new view of what actually happens inside materials is bound to lead to new ways to improve them.”
Researchers at MIT have found a new “iteration of a foundational quantum experiment,” reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. They “successfully replicated the double-slit experiment on the atomic scale, allowing for an unprecedented level of empirical precision,” writes Lee. “By using supercold atoms as ‘slits’ for light to pass through, the team confirmed that the wave-particle duality of light—with all its paradoxical properties—holds up even on the most fundamental quantum scales.”
Physicists at MIT have provided new insights into the world of quantum mechanics after successfully performing the double-slit experiment with “incredible atomic precision,” reports Mrigakshi Dixit for Interesting Engineering. The researchers “discovered a clear relationship: the more precisely they determined a photon’s path (confirming its particle-like behavior), the more the wave-like interference pattern faded,” explains Dixit. “The researchers observed that the wave interference pattern weakened any time an atom was nudged by a photon passing by. This confirmed that getting information about the photon’s route automatically erased its wave-like properties.”
Writing for Physics Today, Prof. David Kaiser chronicles his academic and professional career studying physics and the history of science. “Efforts to understand quantum entanglement and to test or constrain various alternatives have enabled generations of physicists to explore the fundamental strangeness of quantum theory,” writes Kaiser. "At the same time, as topics like entanglement and Bell’s inequality have wandered into and out of the mainstream, they enable us to chart the changing boundaries in the field of physics and the shifting place that physicists have occupied in our wider cultures.”
MIT researchers have observed “Hofstadter’s butterfly” – the quantum theory that proposes “under the right conditions, tiny electrons in a quantum system could produce an energy spectrum composed of fractals” that would resemble a butterfly, reports Gayoung Lee for Scientific American. The discovery, “emerged from the complex quantum dance of electrons sandwiched between two microscopic layers of graphene,” explains Lee. The results “were unexpected [as] the researchers involved weren’t even trying to hatch Hofstadter’s butterfly from its quantum chrysalis.”
MIT physicists have measured kinetic inductance for two layers of stacked and twisted graphene and found that the superconducting current is much “stiffer,” meaning it resists change more than predicted by any conventional theory of superconductivity, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The findings could do more than “shed light on why graphene superconducts – they could also reveal key properties required for room-temperature superconductors.”
Postdoctoral research Wenxuan Jia PhD '24 and colleagues at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have developed a way to reduce the impact of quantum noise by squeezing the laser light used in the detectors, enabling scientists to double the number of gravitational waves they can find, reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. “We realized that quantum noise will be limiting us a long time ago,” says Jia. “It’s not just a fancy [quantum] thing to demonstrate, it’s something that really affects the actual detector.”
Postdoctoral associate Adam Forrest Kay’s book “Escape From Shadow Physics: The Quest to End the Dark Ages of Quantum Theory,” is reviewed by Andrew Crumey for The Wall Street Journal. “Consistently interesting” and “energetically written,” the book, “eloquently explains the history behind hydrodynamic quantum analogs,” writes Crumey.
Prof. Seth Lloyd and other physicists have begun to show that in the quantum realm, theoretical routes to the past called time loops might be closer to reality, writes New Scientist’s Miriam Frankel. When first publishing his ideas about quantum time loops, Lloyd says he “probably wouldn’t have done it” given all the questions received about time travel, but now testing time loops is experimentally feasible.
Science reporter Jennifer Sills asked scientists to answer the question: “Imagine that you meet all of your research goals. Describe the impact of your research from the perspective of a person, animal, plant, place, object, or entity that has benefited from your success.” Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, a Schmidt Science Fellow in the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, shares his response from a photon’s perspective. “I am a photon,” writes Cao. “I started my journey entangled with my significant other at the beginning of the Universe. In the past, humans couldn’t understand me, but then physicists created a quantum computer. At last, I have been reunited with my life partner!”
MIT scientists have found that the “motions of undulating animals and the states of quantum objects can be described using strikingly similar equations,” writes Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. The similarity “allowed the team to use mathematical tools previously developed by quantum physicists to analyze the animals,” notes Padavic-Callaghan. “For instance, the team quantified how differently a snake-like robot and a C. elegans move and created a diagram that placed them on a spectrum of other undulating creatures.”
MIT scientists have developed a new way of colliding ultracold molecules while controlling the rate at which they react, reports Martijn Boerkamp for Physics World. “Our work is a step to achieve quantum control over molecular collisions and reactions and to map out more broadly the collisional properties of these molecules with the goal of finding a deeper understanding,” explains Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle.
Gizmodo reporter Isaac Schultz writes that researchers from MIT, Caltech and elsewhere have found that “quantum systems can imitate wormholes, theorized shortcuts in spacetime, in that the systems allow the instantaneous transit of information between remote locations.” Grad student Alexander Zlokapa explains that: “We performed a kind of quantum teleportation equivalent to a traversable wormhole in the gravity picture. To do this, we had to simplify the quantum system to the smallest example that preserves gravitational characteristics so we could implement it.”
Physicists from MIT and elsewhere have created a small “wormhole” effect between two quantum systems on the same processor and were able to send a signal through it, reports Charlotte Hu for Popular Science. This new model is a “way to study the fundamental problems of the universe in a laboratory setting,” writes Hu.
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have created a holographic wormhole using Google’s Sycamore quantum computer, reports Sarah Wells for Vice. “The researchers created an entangled state (a quantum mechanical phenomena where distant particles can still communicate with each other) between two halves of a quantum computer and sent a message in between,” writes Wells. “This message was scrambled as it entered the system and, through entanglement, unscrambled on the other side.”