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Everyone knows that finding the right sauce recipe can make or break a barbecue, but now astronomers are using BBQSORS (pronounced "barbecue sauce") as part of the recipe to explain quasars, some of the brightest objects in the universe. These results were made possible by data from a new instrument on the Subaru Telescope.

Ultrafast lasers emit pulses lasting only a few hundred femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). These flashes of light power applications from precision micromachining to eye surgery to optical frequency combs, the Nobel Prize-winning technology behind today's most precise optical atomic clocks. Yet despite more than two decades of effort, ultrafast lasers have largely remained bulky, expensive systems confined to optical tables.

In holographic theories, physicists may have traced the pliability of space-time to its quantum roots: a measure of quantumness known as “magic.” The post Entanglement Builds Space-Time. Now “Magic” Gives It Gravity. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

One of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded this early in the Pacific season did more than unleash flooding and extreme winds—it sent enormous ripples all the way into the upper atmosphere. As Super Typhoon Sinlaku rapidly exploded into a category 5-equivalent storm, satellites captured rare gravity waves spreading outward like rings on a pond, visible high above Earth through a faint glow in the atmosphere.

An international team of astronomers have employed one of the Large-Sized Telescopes (LSTs) at the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) to observe a distant blazar known as OP 313. Results of the observational campaign, published May 26 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the behavior and nature of this object.

Colorado-headquartered Xcimer Energy has announced the start of operations for Phoenix, what the company calls the largest privately owned laser system in the world. Phoenix, named after the legendary bird from Greek and Egyptian mythology, is the company’s prototype for commercializing laser fusion. The post Xcimer Energy Starts Operations of Prototype for Laser Fusion Architecture appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Galactic collisions are events of breathtaking proportions. The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers plunge into a chaotic orbital dance that eventually coalesce into a single remnant. On their way to that point, they could eventually get "kicked" out of the center of their galaxy—and finding these "recoiling" black holes has been a challenge of cosmology for decades. A new paper, made available on the arXiv preprint server by an international team, used a novel idea to track down these fast-moving behemoths.

Matin Durrani reports from a meeting of the London Quantum Cluster The post Quantum influencers gather to celebrate London’s role in quantum tech appeared first on Physics World.

Black holes, regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, have been widely studied over the past decades, due to their unique and intriguing properties. Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that black holes obey a set of rules, known as the laws of black hole mechanics. These rules somewhat resemble the laws of thermodynamics, which delineate how energy, heat, and entropy behave in our universe.

By extending attosecond interferometry into the quantum domain, researchers have revealed how ultrafast laser–matter interactions encode detailed quantum optical information The post Attosecond interferometry meets quantum optics appeared first on Physics World.

Author(s): Alexander Glaser, Robert J. Goldston, and Patrick HuberResearch and development of fusion energy has recently gained a strong impetus from private investment. While less of a proliferation risk than conventional fission systems, modified fusion systems could produce material usable in nuclear weapons. This paper examines an innovative use of antineutrino detectors to find misuse of fusion systems. Since antineutrinos are so penetrating, this technique carries near-zero interference with fusion energy system operation. [Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 064004] Published Tue Jun 02, 2026

Ever since the JWST revealed a population of SMBH in the early universe that were overmassive, scientists have been working hard to explain them. These black holes existed when the universe was only about 2 billion years old, during Cosmic Noon, and according to our models of black hole growth, there simply wasn't enough time for them to grow so massive.

The physics of neutron stars are almost too fantastic to believe: something the weight of two suns compacted to a sphere the size of a city. Each teaspoon of its material would weigh billions of tons. If you've done any reading on the topic, you've heard these facts before. But despite the intense interest these extreme objects hold, we are still actively learning lots about them.

When rockets fire into space, the insides of their engines become an extreme environment where temperatures soar and tiny particles are thrown around at hypersonic speeds. These particles behave in ways that break long-held assumptions, according to new research that could help improve the durability, safety and performance of future space and defense technologies.

Researchers have discovered that atoms can be mixed, separated, and recombined within the same experiment, providing a pathway to a record-breaking catalyst for green hydrogen production. In their study, the team created nanoscale particles containing only a few dozen platinum and nickel atoms and observed unusual dynamic behavior in direct space and in real time. As the two metals separate from one another while maintaining an interface, they become highly active for electrochemical water splitting, leading to efficient hydrogen evolution.

From sizzling bacon in the kitchen to wildfire smoke in the sky, cooking and pollution release microscopic particles that affect humans' health, the air they breathe, and even weather and climate. New research from Virginia Tech is poised to upend how scientists think about the structure of these tiny airborne droplets and what that means for predictions around air quality, pollution spread, and climate models.

Researchers have captured the first atomic structures of human SMUG1, an enzyme that helps cells repair damaged DNA. The findings provide new insight into how cells recognize and remove harmful DNA bases, and may support future efforts to develop drugs that target this DNA repair pathway.

Galactic collisions are events of breathtaking proportions. The Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) at their centers plunge into a chaotic orbital dance that eventually coalesce into a single remnant. On their way to that point, they could eventually get “kicked” out of the center of their galaxy - and finding these “recoiling” black holes has been a challenge of cosmology for decades. A new paper, available on arXiv by an international team, used a novel idea to track down these fast-moving behemoths.

Microsoft’s announcement of a new quantum computing breakthrough with its Majorana 2 chip continues a trend of bold claims followed by scant evidence

Swapping materials in its Majorana 2 chip boosted the effectiveness of quantum bits that rely on the math of topology to reduce errors, Microsoft says.

One must act fast to truly understand the fundamental properties of a molecule or material, including how it interacts with light or electromagnetic forces. Accordingly, ultrafast lasers that generate femtosecond-duration coherent light pulses have provided researchers with a powerful tool for probing molecular and even atomic-scale phenomena. The insights enabled by these light sources span various fields of physics, chemistry, and biology. Courtesy of EKSPLA. A femtosecond is startlingly brief: just one-quadrillionth of a second. But some particles remain indistinguishable blurs at the femtosecond scale and require even faster analysis — 1000× faster, for some particles. “Femtochemistry looks at the motion of...

By definition, elementary particles can't be broken into smaller pieces. But in a new theoretical study published in Physical Review Letters, Johannes Skaar and colleagues have revealed what would happen if you tried anyway for a single photon. The answer is deeply strange: attempting to cut a photon in two wouldn't produce two smaller photons, but instead conjure an infinite number of them out of thin air.

Another U.S.-based energy company said its technology has achieved key performance metrics that advance its goal of commercial fusion by the mid 2030s. California-headquartered Pacific Fusion on June 2 said its core pulsed power technology is on track to achieve net facility gain by 2030. That’s the state where the “entire fusion machine produces more […] The post Pacific Fusion Touts Funding, Technical Achievements on Way to Fusion Power appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Astronomers monitoring a nearby active galaxy for six years have watched its supermassive black hole dramatically wake up, brightening by a factor of 10 across ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. The paper outlining the study was posted to the preprint server arXiv on May 18.

Scientists have created a tiny chip that can generate, steer, and read light-based information all in one device, marking a major leap toward ultra-fast, energy-efficient computing. The breakthrough uses atomically thin materials and nanoscale structures to control a unique quantum property of light called the “valley” degree of freedom, allowing information to be encoded in new ways.

The JWST found an abundance of overmassive black holes at high redshifts, pushing the limits of black hole (BH) science in the early Universe. Results have claimed that these BHs are significantly more massive than expected from the BH mass-host galaxy stellar mass relation derived from the local Universe. But new research shows they were just outliers in the normal range of masses that don't require any special causes.

Quantum entanglement is a state in which particles are entwined with each other. In this entwined state, the properties of one particle influence the other, even when they aren't physically close to each other. This phenomenon has often been observed in small quantum systems with only a few particles in them, where researchers can use it to store and process quantum information. Rice University professor Qimiao Si is interested in understanding and applying quantum entanglement to macroscopic systems with vast numbers of particles.

Conspiracy theories, print media, and James (sorry, Jimmy) Bond collide in an all-too-brief extension of Mulder and Scully's world.

New research from a team of scientists led by Cornell is transforming how researchers understand one of the atmosphere's most abundant and least understood constituents: mineral dust.

The physics of neutron stars are almost too fantastic to believe. Something the weight of two Suns compacted to a sphere the size of a city. Each teaspoon of its material would weigh billions of tons. If you’ve done any reading on the topic, you’ve heard these facts before. But despite the intense interest these extreme objects hold, we are still actively learning lots about them. One of the most pertinent outstanding questions is where is the line between becoming a neutron star and becoming a black hole when a star dies. A new paper by researchers at the HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary describes what they believe to be a definitive answer to that question - between 2.2 and 2.3 solar masses.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

It’s 2165, and methane is in high demand, especially after the Titan Treaty of 2145 made it illegal to harvest methane from Saturn’s moon, Titan. But the advent of interstellar travel has made exoplanetary exploration far easier, enabling corporations to identify and harvest methane from exoplanets. However, it’s far cheaper and easier to harvest methane from exoplanets with reasonable (also called temperate) temperatures, because it means higher quantities of methane. The Exoplanet Exploration Corporation decides to send its first ship to one such exoplanet loaded with methane that could bring their quarterly financial statements back into the green.

For nearly thirty years, dark energy has been cosmology's great get out of jail free card, the invisible, mysterious force we invented to explain why the universe is expanding faster than it should be. Now a team of mathematicians says we may never have needed it at all. And the implications are stranger than you might think.

Every galaxy we know of spins. It's one of those rules of the universe so fundamental that astronomers barely think about it anymore. So when the James Webb Space Telescope pointed at one of the most massive galaxies in the early universe and found…well nothing. No spin, just stillness. They had to look twice.

Supermassive black holes are the largest known black holes in the universe, sitting at the center of most large galaxies. They are sometimes described as cosmic monsters because they feed on surrounding gas and dust when they are active, as well as destroy anything that gets too close. But their reputation could be due for a rethink, as a new paper published on the arXiv preprint server suggests they may also be the birthplace of millions of planets.

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.