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Researchers have developed a compact quantum detector that makes terahertz radiation much easier to detect. A specially designed metasurface funnels incoming energy into tiny active regions, greatly strengthening the electrical signal produced. The approach boosted efficiency by roughly 20 times compared to earlier designs and could pave the way for more practical THz devices in healthcare, communications, and scientific research.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered a stellar bar in GN20, a massive galaxy seen just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The new paper was submitted to the preprint server arXiv on May 14.

‘Penguin’ decays from CERN’s latest Large Hadron Collider experiment hint at weird new physics

Nonlinear interactions between light and matter are at the heart of some of the most powerful tools in modern optics, but pushing these processes to their limits has long been hampered by a fundamental constraint: the stronger you make the laser, the more likely it is to destroy whatever it illuminates.

May 30, 2026: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend

By stacking custom-designed silver nanoparticles like nanoscale LEGO bricks, scientists stabilized a mysterious crystal phase that had never been observed before. The material not only solves a longstanding puzzle in materials science but also exhibits promising quantum properties at room temperature.

Particles of light cannot be divided into smaller particles, but if you try to snip off the end of one, instead of shortening it multiplies

Electrons can arrange into crystalline patterns that accumulate defects as they melt; controlling the degree of melting may

A new room-temperature quantum device uses twisted light to entangle photons and electrons, overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in quantum technology. The breakthrough could pave the way for smaller, cheaper quantum systems with applications ranging from secure communications to future AI and computing platforms.

From satellite imagery to clandestine price reports, a new study draws on North Korea to explore economic activity in opaque regimes and information-scarce regions. North Korea is the blackest of economic black holes. Even a basic question like "is the economy shrinking or expanding?" can be difficult to answer. The country does not publish reliable statistics. It sharply restricts outside access and treats trade data as a state secret.

Understanding the dynamics of how water moves is deceptively simple in concept and endlessly complex in practice. Real-world marine environments are anything but controlled: weather, seasons, and geography change constantly. Yet understanding water movement is a critical aspect in areas of study like marine biology, coastal and environmental science, and even policy around how we recover from natural disasters.

For nearly a century, there were two known kinds of magnets. Ferromagnets are the classic magnets that attract metal and keep pictures stuck to the refrigerator. Antiferromagnets hide their magnetism at the atomic scale but are increasingly prized for their technological potential. A third category discovered within the last decade may combine the best qualities of both. Dubbed altermagnets, they could someday help create faster, more energy-efficient electronics.

A new study published in Physical Review Letters by the IceCube Collaboration reports evidence that the energy spectrum of astrophysical neutrinos is not a simple straight line.

Stories of NASA and Apollo have passed into folklore, but the equivalent stories from the other side of the Iron Curtain have often been shrouded in secrecy.

University of Calgary researchers are a part of a group who just got one step closer to solving a mystery of the universe. Dr. Timothy Friesen, Ph.D., an associate professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science, and his team led a new measurement comparing the spectrum of hydrogen to its antimatter counterpart—antihydrogen.

New class of biocompatible quantum nanosensor unveiled in Japan The post Molecular spin sensor takes the temperature of cancer cells appeared first on Physics World.

Which comes first, the galaxy or the black hole? We don't know, but scientists have long thought it could be the galaxy: Large stars within an existing galaxy consume their fuel and collapse to form black holes, which can gobble up surrounding material and merge over time to form more massive entities.

A decades-old mystery about Saturn has finally been solved thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. Scientists discovered that Saturn’s changing “rotation rate” was never caused by the planet speeding up or slowing down, but by powerful winds high in its atmosphere. Webb’s unprecedented observations revealed that Saturn’s northern lights actively heat the atmosphere, creating winds that generate electrical currents, which then power the aurora all over again in a self-sustaining cycle.

Do we need quantum computers to fully understand complex chemical reactions? A new result, decades in the making, shows the surprising power of ordinary “classical” machines. The post Key Chemistry Question Answered, No Quantum Computer Required first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Quantum Backrooms is a horror game in which the player explores eerie rooms. The twist is that the rooms have been generated by a quantum computer

Have you been keeping up to date with physics news? Try our short quiz to find out The post Quiz of the week: CERN may have made a quark–gluon plasma by colliding which nuclei? appeared first on Physics World.

Astronomers may have uncovered a hidden supermassive black hole inside the famous Antennae galaxies NGC 4038/4039, a pair of colliding galaxies best known for their spectacular bursts of star formation. The paper outlining the findings was posted to the arXiv preprint server on May 21.

Topological phases are unusual states of matter that give rise to properties protected by a material's overall structure (i.e., "topology"), as opposed to microscopic details. These phases are of great interest for the development of quantum technologies, as they can yield desirable electronic properties that are robust against defects and disturbances.

A research group led by Assistant Professor Takafumi Tomita and Professor Kenji Ohmori at the Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, has developed a new microscopy technique called the Atom Camera, which uses a single ultracold atom at near absolute zero temperature trapped in an optical tweezer as a camera to visualize the intensity and polarization distributions of light at the nanometer (one-millionth of a millimeter) scale.

How a decade of geopolitical pressure, a looming cryptographic threat, and a landmark federal investment set the stage

An extremely fast microscopy method to research the interaction of light and matter makes it possible to study optical processes on very short timescales. To this end, a German–Italian research team is combining holographic imaging with ultrafast spectroscopy in an innovative way. In this manner, even extremely short-lived electronic and magnetic phenomena—which play a major role in the development and application of novel energy materials—can be observed.

Chemical bonding is one of the central organizing principles of the microscopic world. It determines how atoms combine and thereby governs a wide range of physical and chemical properties of quantum systems across many length scales, ranging from small molecules and biomolecules to macroscopically large solid materials.

There's a planet out there called LHS 3844 b, orbiting a star about 48 light-years away. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found it in 2018 when the planet transited across the face of its star. The James Webb Space Telescope zxeroed in on the planet and found it to be a barren, rocky place with no atmosphere.

After traveling hundreds of miles above Earth and spending months aboard the International Space Station, a University of Delaware experiment has returned to campus, bringing new data on how turbulence behaves in microgravity.

A research team from Tohoku University, Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd., and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has invented a new way to efficiently guide spin waves around sharp corners with minimal loss—representing an exciting discovery for energy-efficient computing. Using a two-dimensional magnonic crystal—a copper (Cu) film with a hexagonal array of tiny holes placed on a magnetic garnet film—the team showed through calculations that spin waves travel along a Z-shaped path more than 5,000 times more efficiently than in conventional waveguides.

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside are making breakthroughs in understanding how quantum wave functions move across ultra-thin materials—research that could eventually improve solar energy technologies and help lay the groundwork for new forms of quantum computing.

What exactly is quantum technology? And how will it affect our lives today—and in the coming decades? Experts explain.

Observations of "Little Red Dot" ancient galaxies by the James Webb Space Telescope could answer the question: which comes first, the black hole or its galaxy? The shocking answer could represent a complete paradigm shift.

Mathematicians are challenging the idea that dark energy is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. In a new paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, mathematicians from the University of California, Davis, provide mathematical proof that instabilities inherent in the Einstein-Euler equations imply that the current model of the expanding universe is not viable.

In a grandfather clock, a pendulum swings back and forth and this periodic motion is maintained using the energy stored in its suspended weights. This is done with the help of the escapement mechanism, which converts the gravitational energy of the weights into impulses that drive the pendulum, which then moves the clock's gears, which move its hands.

Honeycombs are famous for their elegant design, but now they may have found a new application: quantum computing. To collect knowledge from subatomic particles, quantum computers require carefully designed materials capable of performing necessary, complex functions. However, the metals used, such as ruthenium and iridium, are often rare and expensive, limiting the potential to build new technology.

New Jersey-based Thea Energy, one of several U.S. companies working to commercialize fusion energy, said the company has raised $100 million in Series B funding. Thea is advancing stellarator technology to provide baseload fusion power. The company, which has several investors, is moving toward beginning construction of its Helios power plant (Figure 1) by the […] The post Thea Energy Raises $100 Million in New Funding to Advance Fusion Technology appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The most energetic "ghost particle" neutrino ever detected may have been blasted at Earth by blazars, suggesting that these events and their black hole engines are powerful cosmic particle accelerators.

Quantum mechanics is a physics framework that describes how matter and energy behave at an extremely small scale, specifically at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. An effect predicted by the laws of quantum mechanics is superposition, which entails that particles can exist in multiple states or positions simultaneously, which remain indefinite until they are measured or observed.

Massive amounts of dust swirl around active nuclei at the centres of galaxies, and these discs could give rise to vast numbers of rocky planets, some even the size of stars

A record-setting collection of precisely measured gravitational waves reveals new information about how black holes behave and evolve

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside are making breakthroughs in understanding how quantum wave functions move across

Author(s): Marric StephensA deceptively simple question spurred an exploration of physicists’ views on whether their theories describe reality. [Physics 19, 70] Published Wed May 27, 2026

The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) detector network has a new trick up its sleeve to improve the instruments’ sensitivity to gravitational waves: it’s called Astrophysical Calibration and it plays a role similar to auto-tune in music production.

Physicists have thought for decades that microscopic black holes can theoretically emerge not from exploding stars but from delicate "critical states" in which space and time organise themselves into a crystal like structure. Now, for the first time, researchers from TU Wien and Goethe University Frankfurt have derived an exact mathematical formula describing this bizarre phenomenon using a surprising trick involving infinitely many dimensions!

Researchers at TU/e have demonstrated that energy transfer without loss via light or heat can occur over much greater distances than previously thought possible thanks to vibrations in microscopic gold rods. They succeeded in making energy jump from one particle to another over a distance of several millimeters without "spilling" energy along the way.

Astrophysicists think that black hole masses are hierarchical. The largest are supermassive black holes (SMBH) like the one at the center of the Milky Way and other galaxies. Stellar mass black holes are born of collapsing stars, and are smaller. The smallest of all are the theoretical primordial black holes, which only formed in the weird physics of the early universe.

Generating and confirming the randomness of qubits could lead to breakthroughs in computer data encryption

Quantum computers have the potential to transform science, accelerating breakthroughs in drug development, cosmology, materials science, nuclear physics, and more.

Astronomers weighed a black hole in a "little red dot" discovered by the James Webb telescope. They found it to be so overmassive that it may have formed before its host galaxy had a chance to develop.

A new statistical model reveals more details about the ringdown period of merging black holes.

Ultra-fast data transfer and superconductivity: Quantum materials offer significant technological prospects—if we can understand them at the atomic scale. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the University of Salerno, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, and the National Research Council of Italy, has succeeded in observing the "quantum metric" in a topological insulator—a unique geometric property of these materials, which conduct electricity only on their surface.

Researchers have designed a quantum version of a pendulum clock. It could shed light on timekeeping in the quantum realm

A growing number of quantum engineers worldwide have been trying to realize large-scale quantum networks, which consist of several connected quantum computers or devices that share information with each other. The successful realization of these networks could potentially pave the way for the realization of new high-speed and secure communication systems, or even of a quantum version of the internet.

Advances in quantum technology might allow astronomers to circumvent age-old issues that limit the size of optical observatories

Big G is the oldest fundamental constant in physics and remains the least clearly defined. One scientist has spent a decade attempting to crack the mystery of the gravitational constant, and it all came down to the opening of a single envelope.

After three months, the government is letting people connect with the world again. But not everyone has access, and those who do wonder how long it will last.

Entanglement is a defining feature of quantum physics, but not all entangled states are equal. What techniques can be used to generate maximally entangled states? The post Pushing many-body entanglement to its absolute limit appeared first on Physics World.

Scientists working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider may be seeing the strongest hints yet of physics beyond the Standard Model — the decades-old theory that explains the fundamental particles and forces of the universe. By studying incredibly rare particle transformations called “penguin decays,” researchers found behavior that doesn’t fully match theoretical predictions, raising the possibility that unknown particles or forces are influencing the results.

This review examines how nanotechnology, topological materials, Majorana fermions, Weyl semimetals, and quantum simulation are converging to shape the Second Quantum Revolution. It highlights possible routes toward fault-tolerant quantum computing, nanoscale medicine, low-power electronics, energy technologies, and environmental applications, while noting that many advances remain developmental.

When a humpback whale became entangled in a craypot line off Kaikōura last week, witnesses described it thrashing in distress for ten minutes before eventually freeing itself.

In the heirarchy of black holes, intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) lie in between stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes. But the problem is that we've never found one. There have been hints, but nothing conclusive. Could gravitational microlensing of Fast Radio Bursts help find them?

In a study published in ACS Nano, researchers from National Taiwan University report a new expansion microscopy strategy termed high-fold homogeneous expansion microscopy (hiHomoExM), capable of achieving approximately 8–9× isotropic expansion in a single expansion step while preserving delicate ultrastructural organization.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow's Institute for Gravitational Research are celebrating the publication of a vast new treasure trove of gravitational wave detections, hailed as a milestone marking the coming of age of gravitational astronomy.

Two recent papers suggest that quantum computers may crack modern cryptography sooner than expected The post New findings shorten the road to cryptographically relevant quantum computers appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered a path to design superionic polymer

Artist Ashley Zelinskie and DJ illich Mujica get psychedelic in New York City.

In today's scientific and industrial fields, high-dimensional data in which numerous variables are observed simultaneously, such as genomic, climate, financial, and sensor data, are rapidly increasing. In such data, it is important to learn the dependent structures connecting the variables and to identify a "dependence map" that reveals hidden information in massive data sets.

New details of how DNA protects itself from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation show a hidden network of ultrafast molecular reactions that help prevent damage before it can trigger mutations that might lead to cancer, according to a study led by the University of Surrey.

In the race to develop safer, faster-charging solid-state batteries and more efficient thermoelectric conversion technologies, engineers and scientists have long faced a fundamental challenge: how to ensure ions move through hard, solid materials as quickly as they do in liquids?

Lattice QCD puts new physics to rest The post Muon g−2 calculation sets precision record and backs the Standard Model appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers from Monash University have developed a breakthrough nanoscale circuit that can generate, direct, and read light-based information, all on a single chip.

The thinking around exoplanet habitability is mostly concerned with a planet's distance from its star. Too close, and any surface water is boiled away into space. Too far, and surface water is frozen. Both are severe limits on the prospects for life. Habitability depends on an exoplanet being in the Goldilocks Zone, a distance range around a star where liquid water can persist.

Flashes of femtosecond laser light, lasting just a few trillionths of a second, have made it possible to observe new magnetic structures for the first time. By using light as a remote control, researchers were able to switch magnetism into previously unseen three-dimensional states at the nanoscale.

A new Physical Review Letters study places constraints on the ER = EPR conjecture, showing that under the authors' assumptions, the conjecture would imply possible alterations to the hyperfine structure and effective charge of the hydrogen atom—effects that have never been observed.

New research led by a graduating Ph.D. student in The University of New Mexico Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has shown that randomization can improve quantum computer performance in the presence of noise.

For two decades, physicists have predicted the existence of a remarkable family of exotic molecules: giant atoms bound to ordinary atoms, with an electron so distant from its nucleus that it sculpts the pair into bizarre and diverse shapes. Reported in Physical Review Letters, the final member of this "quantum zoo" has been spotted. Led by Herwig Ott at RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau in Germany, a team of physicists has created and detected the "butterfly" molecule, completing a 20-year hunt for the elusive structure.

A rewrite of quantum mechanics that includes the force of gravity could finally achieve one of physicists’ biggest goals and reveal the ultimate fuzziness of time

When a singer belts out a tune while a guitar player strums along, sound waves travel through the air, driving collective oscillations of the molecules within. Meanwhile, at the quantum level, something similar is going on. Atoms inside materials, everything from our bodies to metals and more, naturally jiggle around, creating tiny vibrational waves that ripple across the material. These vibrations are known as phonons: the quantum version of sound waves.

When running an AI model through a quantum computer, scientists have increased accuracy by only adding a relatively small number of parameters.

Three mathematicians have laid out proof that solves a long-standing problem in mathematics. Even the mathematician—an Abel prize winner—that first posed the problem didn't believe it would ever be solved. The solution provides insight into high-dimensional random structures that could potentially impact data science, machine learning and optimization.

A mysterious particle from deep space has scientists buzzing after the most energetic neutrino ever detected slammed through the Mediterranean Sea. Now, researchers think they may have identified the cosmic “culprits” behind it: blazars — supermassive black holes blasting jets of matter straight toward Earth.

At the center of most large galaxies sits a supermassive black hole (SMBH). When these black holes are actively consuming material, they become incredibly luminous quasars. But some quasars appear wrapped in thick clouds of dust, making them hard to detect. In a new study, astronomers have revealed 77 new, hidden, "heavily reddened" quasars (HRQs).

Tungsten’s superior performance in extreme environments makes it a leading candidate for plasma-facing components (PFCs) in fusion reactors,

Scientists have directly watched angular momentum move through a crystal for the very first time — and discovered a bizarre twist along the way. Using ultra-powerful terahertz laser pulses, researchers triggered tiny atomic rotations inside a quantum material and found that the direction of rotation can unexpectedly flip as momentum is transferred. The strange reversal happens because of the crystal’s underlying symmetry, creating an almost impossible-sounding effect where two rotations combine into one spinning the opposite way.

In less than a millionth of a second after a nuclear detonation or a severe nuclear reactor accident, an enormous burst of energy heats the surrounding air and materials. Everything in the vicinity is vaporized into a hot, glowing cloud of gas and plasma. As that nuclear fireball expands, it mixes with air, begins to cool and condenses into tiny solid particles—creating nuclear fallout.

Being able to see light and detect radiation is of utmost importance at any frequency. While this challenge has been solved in the visible range, radiation detectors in the far-infrared and terahertz regimes are either not sensitive, slow, or require bulky and expensive, often cryogenically cooled devices, which hinders practical applications.