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Scientists have achieved a world first by loading a complete genome onto a quantum computer – a major

Even on a campus like the University of Washington’s — home to particle accelerators, wave tanks and countless

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonA tunable quantum device can model the energy profiles of chemical reactions and improve physicists’ understanding of reaction dynamics. [Physics 19, s48] Published Thu Apr 16, 2026

Author(s): Sophia ChenResearchers exploit quantum entanglement to measure the interference of light signals from two distant detectors, opening a path toward quantum-enhanced astronomy. [Physics 19, 56] Published Thu Apr 16, 2026

The launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021 pushed the horizon of seeing the early universe, unveiling cosmic events just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Among the most striking discoveries are supermassive black holes—some reaching 100 million times the mass of our sun.

Serendipity and the Ig Nobel Prize — Tonight I, the American founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, was having dinner with two Dutch Ig Nobel Prize winners in an Italian Restaurant in the city of Essen, Germany (where we and another Ig winner are doing a show tomorrow). The people at the next table, French […]

The time had come to open the envelope, but Stephan Schlamminger, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), wasn't sure he wanted to know the secret number that lay inside. For the past 10 years, Schlamminger had spent most of his working hours trying to measure a single quantity, known as the universal gravitational constant, which determines the strength of gravity everywhere in the universe. The secret number would allow Schlamminger to unscramble his data and get his answer.

A new Bar-Ilan University study points to a major advance in quantum information processing, demonstrating a way to send, manipulate, and measure quantum information across many frequency channels simultaneously, rather than one at a time. The study was recently published in the journal Science Advances.

By directing pulses of laser light at atoms, researchers can study how radioactive elements decay in a matter of seconds. The method is described in a new thesis from the University of Gothenburg, which shows that the atomic nuclei of the elements neptunium and fermium are shaped like rugby balls.

NPL, the UK's National Metrology Institute (NMI), plays a central role in providing accurate and trusted measurement across emerging technology. Within its Institute for Quantum Standards and Technology (IQST), the team is developing methods to characterize and calibrate quantum devices, particularly quantum computing.

In a galaxy 500 million light-years away, two supermassive black holes could merge, spreading gravitational waves across the universe.

Thin films might not come up in conversation every day, but they are all around us. Take the metallic plastic films of chip bags, for example, or the anti-reflective coatings on eyeglasses. Even the coatings on pills that make them easier to swallow are thin films. Depositing extremely thin layers of materials in a consistent and uniform way is also crucial to the production of semiconductors, which are the foundation of modern electronics.

According to our current understanding of the universe, quarks are fundamental, point-like particles: basic building blocks that are not made up of smaller particles. A recent paper from the CMS Collaboration describes how it probed quarks to the scale of 10-20 meters to test this premise.

A Hungarian refugee who came to the U.S. with nothing but a diploma made a breakthrough discovery in the burgeoning field of neurochemistry

A neglected force produced by neutrinos and other particles helps atomic physics measurements align with predictions of the standard model.

The spin-off company ParityQC has implemented the largest quantum Fourier transform ever reported using an IBM quantum computer, thereby setting a new milestone on the path toward the industrial application of quantum computers. The quantum Fourier transform is a cornerstone algorithm with applications in cryptography, financial modeling, and materials science.

After a 10-year effort, physicists got a value for “Big G” that does not settle the debate over one of nature’s hardest numbers to nail down.

A first-of-its-kind observation shows how jets from voracious black holes can shape the growth of galaxies

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that a laser-plasma accelerator can reliably drive a free-electron laser for more than eight hours. Published in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams, the result was achieved by a team led by Finn Kohrell at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in collaboration with Texas-based company Tau Systems—and could soon make the technology vastly more accessible for a broad range of applications in industry and research.

Every single tiny point on the map is a galaxy.

Architectures could support quantum-chemistry simulations The post Collisional quantum gates created using fermionic atoms appeared first on Physics World.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have discovered a close pair of quasars, which is a result of a distant massive galaxy merger. The detection of the quasar pair was detailed in a research paper published April 7 on the arXiv pre-print server.

Join the audience for a live webinar on 13 May 2026 sponsored by IOP Publishing's journal, Nano Futures The post Atomic-scale devices and quantum platforms appeared first on Physics World.

New Curtin University-led research has used a radio telescope that spans Earth to snap images that measure the immense power of jets from black holes, confirming scientists' theories of how black holes help shape the structure of the universe.

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Astronomers have accurately measured the "dancing" energy jets of the first confirmed black hole, Cygnus X-1, more than 60 years after it was first spotted.

Stephen Hawking's theory of black hole evaporation clashes with the laws of quantum mechanics. A new paper finds a way around this paradox, provided that the universe has seven dimensions.

Author(s): Danat Issa, Beverly Lowell, Jonatan Jacquemin-Ide, Matthew Liska, and Alexander TchekhovskoyLaunching jets from collapsar black holes requires strong magnetic field and rapid rotation. However, strong fields can spin down the collapsar black holes before the jet can be launched. In this work, the authors study the effect of neutrino cooling on this jet launching process. They show that neutrino cooled disks can continue to feed angular momentum to the black hole without the opposing spin-down effect that comes from general mass accretion. Thus, the spin of the black hole remains sufficient high to launch a jet from a collapsar environment to produce a long gamma-ray burst. [Phys. Rev. D 113, 083020] Published Wed Apr 15, 2026

Author(s): Daniel G. Boettger, Shane R. Keating, Michael L. Banner, Russel P. Morison, and Xavier BarthélémyWe examine an ensemble of numerically simulated breaking surface gravity waves and show that the inception of breaking can be characterized by the maximum local interface angle. In our simulations that include surface tension effects, we find that breaking inception occurs when the local interface angle exceeds 60°; a value twice that reported in previous studies without surface tension. We explore this result in the context of the commonly utilized kinematic inception parameter and show that these two indicators of breaking inception are related through the relative flux of energy into the wave crest. [Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 044803] Published Wed Apr 15, 2026

Author(s): Konrad ViebahnSnapshot measurements of cold-atom gases reveal hidden spin correlations that could force an update of some superconductivity theories. [Physics 19, 54] Published Wed Apr 15, 2026

Quantum technologies like quantum computers are built from quantum materials. These types of materials exhibit quantum properties when exposed to the right conditions. Curiously, engineers can also trigger quantum behavior by manipulating a material's structure; for example, by stacking layers of graphene on top of each other and twisting them to create a moiré pattern, which suddenly turns them into a superconductor.

Gravity, as most people understand it, is the familiar force that pulls a falling apple toward Earth. But for astronomers and theoretical physicists, it is also a vexing invisible architect that guides the shape and evolution of the largest cosmic structures across the universe.

It's obvious that Earth is a planet. It's obvious that the Sun is a star. But for substellar objects like brown dwarfs, it's not so clear. Researchers are using the JWST to find a stronger dividing line between star and planet that depends on how they formed.

How do organic solar cells work on the inside? The answer lies in structures far too small to see—and difficult to access even with advanced techniques. So far, researchers have relied mainly on X-ray methods to understand how molecules are arranged within these materials and how this order can be optimized for high efficiency. While powerful, X-rays provide only a spatially averaged picture. Electrons, in contrast, offer a local view at the nanoscale, revealing both structure and chemical composition.

A growing mystery in astronomy is the presence of gargantuan black holes—some weighing as much as a billion suns—existing less than a billion years after the Big Bang. According to the standard theory of black hole formation, these black holes simply should not have had enough time to grow so large. A study led by University of California, Riverside graduate student Yash Aggarwal shows that dark matter decays could be the key to understanding the origin of these cosmic behemoths. Published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, the research shows that the energy released from dark matter decay could alter the chemistry of early galaxies enough to cause some of them to directly collapse into black holes rather than forming stars.

A pair of dwarf galaxies in the giant Virgo Cluster show what can happen when these stellar cities interact. Scientists at the University of Michigan focused the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) onto the galaxies NGC 4486B and UCD736 and found each of them sporting "overmassive" black holes at or near their hearts. Those supermassive black holes comprise a large fraction of each galaxy's mass.

Researchers from the Department of Energy's Quantum Science Center (QSC) headquartered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have achieved a significant milestone by demonstrating the first digital quantum simulations of how spin currents change over time in a 1-D model of a quantum spin material. The results, now published in Physical Review Letters, establish a new, programmable way to use quantum computers to study the transport of spin—a fundamental quantum variable—in materials.

Tungsten's superior performance in extreme environments makes it a leading candidate for plasma-facing components (PFCs) in fusion reactors, but the ultra-high heat can damage its microscopic structure and lead to component failure. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) can capture and quantify these microstructure changes, but assembling a sufficiently large dataset of SEM imagery is expensive and logistically challenging.

Researchers at The University of Osaka, in collaboration with ULVAC, Inc. and Ritsumeikan University, have developed a new LED structure that generates circularly polarized light from a single chip. By combining a semipolar InGaN light-emitting structure with a stripe-shaped silicon nitride metasurface, the team created a compact light source that reduces energy-conversion loss and operates at room temperature.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have investigated the giant exoplanet 29 Cygni b — work that could clarify the line between planets and stars.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has finished the most detailed survey of the universe to date, and the resulting map will help researchers understand an apparent weakening of dark energy

Want to make the most of the long spring and summer days? Take to the air with 25% off this Potensic Atom 2 drone, complete with three batteries for an hour-and-a-half of flight time.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has completed its five-year mission to build the most comprehensive 3D map of the universe to date — but its exploration of the universe continues.

Using observations gathered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers have revealed that one supermassive black hole in the early universe must have formed before a galaxy developed around it. Publishing their results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team led by Roberto Maiolino at the University of Cambridge hope their results could lead to a better understanding of the origins of these immense objects.

A special class of sensors leverages quantum properties to measure tiny signals at levels that would be impossible using classical sensors alone. Such quantum sensors are currently being used to study the inner workings of cells and the outer depths of our universe.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and elsewhere have observed a giant exoplanet known as HATS-75 b. Results of the new observations, published April 8 on the arXiv pre-print server, yield important information on the atmosphere of this planet.

The electrons that power our society flow left and right through the circuitry in our electronics, back and

New research from the Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Institut de Physique de Nice, shows how Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) become turbulent when driven out-of-equilibrium at small scales The post What happens when a Bose–Einstein condensate becomes turbulent? appeared first on Physics World.

Quantum computing advances are improving stability and error correction, bringing practical machines closer and raising future impacts for security and science.

In 1937, Ettore Majorana asked a question nobody else was even thinking about: does a particle have to have a distinct antiparticle? For neutrinos — which carry no charge — the answer might be no. They might be their own antiparticles. Deep underground right now, experiments are watching atoms decay, waiting for the signal that would prove it. So far: nothing. But the case is not closed.

Author(s): Charles DayA free-falling video camera enabled researchers to observe a falling cloud of particles and infer the particles’ charges. [Physics 19, s47] Published Tue Apr 14, 2026

Author(s): Michael SchirberA wire-sharing protocol can minimize the number of wires in a quantum processor without significantly reducing speed, a new theoretical study shows. [Physics 19, 55] Published Tue Apr 14, 2026

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) rank among the most powerful explosions in the universe, releasing immense energy in intense flashes of gamma rays. The most distant GRBs originate from the era when the first stars and galaxies formed. Detecting them allows astronomers to probe the early universe and understand how the first heavy elements formed and how the earliest stellar populations lived and died. Missions like HiZ-GUNDAM, a satellite planned for launch in the 2030s by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), aim to detect these distant explosions in real time.

Alena Tensor is a relatively new mathematical approach that allows for arbitrary curving and straightening of analyzed spacetimes. As it turns out, generalizing this model to all known fields and fully describing matter, spontaneously gives rise to the phenomena known from research on dark matter and dark energy.

The University of Wyoming's Lauren Kim has solved a persistent problem in the cutting-edge field of high-entropy alloys, a class of materials with great potential in modern engineering, electronics and energy applications—such as jet engines, nuclear reactors, chemical processing systems, batteries and supercapacitors—along with cryogenics systems.

A major obstacle in the development of powerful quantum computers is the growing number of cables required to control a computer as the number of qubits increases. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now demonstrated that several qubits can share the same cable—without significantly increasing computation time. Their study is the most comprehensive of its kind and could become an important piece of the puzzle in developing quantum computers. These computers have the potential to revolutionize such areas as drug development and logistics.

The use of artificial intelligence has enabled researchers at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) to gain a greater understanding of two-dimensional (2D) materials that can be useful for energy storage, water purification, and advanced electronics.

They are the most abundant particles in the universe, yet we barely know they exist. Neutrinos stream through everything, through walls, through planets and even through you…. in their billions every second, leaving no trace. We've known for decades that they have mass, but pinning down exactly how much has defeated physicists for years. Now, the most sensitive experiment ever built has pushed our knowledge to a new frontier, and what it found raises a profound question about why these ghostly particles are so extraordinarily light.

Beginning in the 1950s, silicon transformed the electronics industry by enabling smaller and faster devices that could be reliably manufactured at scale. More than six decades later, silicon-based semiconductors remain at the heart of many modern technologies, including so-called "classical" computers.

Supermassive black holes are among the most enigmatic objects in the universe. They typically weigh millions or even billions of times the mass of the sun and sit at the centers of most large galaxies. At the heart of the Milky Way lies Sagittarius A*, our galaxy's supermassive black hole, with a mass of about four million suns. But these black holes do not emit light, so astronomers can only detect them indirectly through their effects on nearby stars and gas.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Inertia Enterprises Inc., a commercial fusion energy startup, have entered into a strategic partnership to advance fusion laser technology, as well as inertial fusion target manufacturing and designs. The collaboration, which comes on the heels of Inertia's $450 million fundraising round, is among the largest private sector-led partnerships in the history of the U.S. national lab system. The collaboration expands on Inertia’s R&D capabilities and strong capital position while accelerating its path to commercializing fusion energy. To date, LLNL is home to the only facility in the world to successfully demonstrate fusion energy gain. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory...

In quantum physics, objects can exist in multiple states at the same time—a phenomenon known as quantum superposition, where a particle does not have a single definite value of position or momentum until it is measured. A major open question is whether gravity, one of the fundamental forces, also follows the quantum rule. One way to examine this is through gravity-induced entanglement, in which two objects that interact only via gravity become quantum mechanically linked.

Most clocks, from wristwatches to the systems that run GPS and the internet, work by tracking regular, repeating motions.

The day when a quantum computer manages to break common encryption, or Q-Day, is fast approaching, and the world is not close to being ready

When laser flashes hit matter, electrons are knocked off their orbits around the atomic nuclei. This can generate extremely hot plasmas composed of charged particles—ions and electrons. Researchers at HZDR have now observed this ionization process in more detail than ever before. To do so, they combined two state-of-the-art lasers: the X-ray free-electron laser and the high-intensity optical laser ReLaX at the HED-HiBEF experiment station at the European XFEL in Schenefeld, near Hamburg. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, deliver fundamental insights into the interaction of high-energy lasers and matter under extreme conditions.

For the last 80 years, the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), which describes all electromagnetic interactions, has been a cornerstone of the standard model, withstanding the scrutiny of countless experiments and agreeing with observations down to the smallest known precisions. Yet, some high-intensity scales of QED remain unexplored, prompting some to wonder if quantum computers could deal with these scales' inherent complexity.

New research suggests that relic black holes from before the big bang may still shape galaxies today. These black holes could explain dark matter, one of the biggest unsolved questions in cosmology.

When looking to the future of information technology, researchers have pinpointed a once-theoretical particle-like structure: the skyrmion. Magnetic skyrmions are very stable structures found on micromagnetic materials that have a vortex-like spin. Because they can be moved with minimal electrical current, these structures could help develop memory to power the next generation of computing without consuming a lot of power.

"The discovery of this exceptional object has allowed us to accurately study the nature of the stars at the center of an elliptical galaxy in a remote era of the universe, when the galaxy was still young."

Quantum systems can secretly “remember” their past—even when they appear not to. Scientists found that whether a system shows memory depends on how you look at it: through its evolving state or its measurable properties. Each perspective uncovers different kinds of memory, meaning a system can seem memoryless and memory-filled at the same time. This discovery could change how researchers design and control quantum technologies.

Adelaide University researchers have successfully tested a new type of portable atomic clock at sea for the first time, using technology that could help power the next generation of navigation, communications and scientific systems. The research team, from the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), developed the highly precise device and trialed it aboard a vessel provided by the Royal Australian Navy in July 2024. They have reported their findings in a new paper published in the journal Optica.

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Explore the significance of World Quantum Day and how quantum technology is shaping industries, policy-making, and public understanding.

Discover how World Quantum Day on April 14 celebrates quantum science's impact on technology and daily life, from quantum computing breakthroughs to global events.

For the first time, researchers measured singularities in combined light and sound waves moving faster than the speed of light. The findings have implications in fluid dynamics, optics and many other fields.

Quantum computers of the future may be closer to reality thanks to new research from Caltech and Oratomic,

Standard fiber optic networks rely on well-established splicing techniques to join glass strands and keep data moving. Conventional

Researchers at ETH Zurich have realised particularly stable quantum logical operations with qubits made of neutral atoms. Since

Neutrinos have mass — yet they never flip between left- and right-handed states the way every other massive particle does. The most logical fix is Paul Dirac's: invisible right-handed neutrinos that interact with nothing whatsoever. The math works. It even produces a beautiful explanation for why neutrino masses are so absurdly tiny. But it requires believing in particles that are permanently, in-principle undetectable.

A key factor for the performance of sensors is the speed at which the system returns to its initial state after a disturbance or measurement, similar to the taring of a balance. In the quantum sensor under investigation, this corresponds to the transition of electrons from an energetically excited state to the ground state. However, the electrons remain in a kind of metastable intermediate state for a short time. A team of physicists from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) has now directly measured this waiting time in a two-dimensional material: It lasts exactly 24 billionths of a second.

Quantum computers stand to revolutionize research by helping investigators solve certain problems exponentially faster than with conventional computers. Current quantum computers encounter a challenge where they lose stored information in a process known as quantum scrambling. However, scientists at the University of California, Irvine have discovered a method to enable computers to preserve the data that would otherwise be lost during the scrambling process. The research is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

How can a drug be released or activated exactly where and when it is needed in the body? For many treatments, particularly in cancer therapy, the active compound should ideally act only at a specific site. Yet in practice, drugs are distributed throughout the entire body: the disease is local, but the therapy is systemic, with little spatial or temporal control.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from Loughborough University, has developed a method to dramatically speed up the discovery and design of advanced materials. The study, published in Physical Review Letters, shows how the new approach can map complex phase diagrams in as little as a day—rather than weeks or months—and pinpoint where important structures, including crystals and quasicrystals, are likely to form.

A small comet has been spotted slowing down and then speeding up again – but in the opposite direction, which we have never seen before

For the first time, scientists have observed quantum entanglement in the momentum of massive particles. The result, decades in the making, could help physicists probe the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity.

Physicists in China have simulated the effect of "false vacuum decay": a phenomenon believed to play out constantly in the seemingly empty expanses of space, and which one theory even suggests could bring an abrupt end to the entire universe. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, Yu-Xin Chao and colleagues at Tsinghua University, Beijing, mimicked the effect using a simple tabletop experiment.

Concept from theoretical physics could reduce qubit requirements The post Gauge theory could give quantum error correction a boost appeared first on Physics World.

Light, as we usually conceive of it, is defined by the astonishing velocity at which it moves from one point to another. For example, in just one second, light can travel most of the distance between Earth and the moon. This property is what makes light useful for communication, which we expect to happen at lightning speed in the modern age.

In the pursuit of powerful and stable quantum computers, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed the theory for an entirely new quantum system – based on the novel concept of ‘giant superatoms’. This breakthrough enables quantum information to be protected, controlled, and distributed in new ways and could be a key step towards building quantum computers at scale.

The maths problems that secure your online bank transactions and emails may soon be undermined by quantum technology. It’s imperative we act now, before it’s too late

Tiny particles bubbling up from the tops of melting sea ice into the Arctic sky may be a key, understudied element of cloud formation in that climate-sensitive region.

Muhammad Sabieh Anwar describes a new way to engage students in quantum physics The post How pictures can help school students learn quantum physics appeared first on Physics World.

A colossal “cosmic volcano” has erupted in deep space, as a supermassive black hole in galaxy J1007+3540 roars back to life after nearly 100 million years of silence. Astronomers captured stunning radio images showing fresh jets blasting outward while crashing into the intense pressure of a surrounding galaxy cluster, creating a chaotic, distorted structure stretching nearly a million light-years.

The lasers utilize individual particles of vibration or sound to measure quantum mechanics and gravity. When lasers were

The weak nuclear force is the eccentric cousin of the four forces — the one that only shakes hands with left-handed particles. That bizarre preference turns out to be absolutely critical for stars, nuclear fusion, and the existence of most matter. And neutrinos love it. There's just one problem: neutrinos appear to only exist in one handedness, which makes no sense at all.

By analyzing the data from various space observatories, Chinese astronomers have inspected a nearby quasar designated SDSS J000532.84+200717.4. Results of the new study, published April 1 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the X-ray variability of this object.