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Astronomers using JWST have discovered that massive early galaxies contain far more small, faint stars than expected. That hidden population could make some of these galaxies three to four times more massive than previous estimates. The finding makes it even harder to explain how enormous, mature galaxies formed so soon after the Big Bang. It could also suggest that planets around low-mass stars were more common in the early universe than scientists realized.

Author(s): Michael SchirberNew estimates suggest that some crypto-security systems may soon become vulnerable to quantum-powered break-ins. [Physics 19, 117] Published Fri Aug 21, 2026

Long polymer chains are everywhere: in synthetic materials, soft matter, biological systems such as chromosomes, and mathematical models of filaments and knots. When many such chains are densely packed, they form what physicists call a polymer melt. In this crowded environment, each chain is constrained by the others around it. These entanglements are central to the behavior of polymeric materials, but they also make the systems extremely difficult to simulate. As chain length increases, the time needed to obtain a new independent configuration grows very rapidly. For very large systems, conventional simulations can therefore become computationally prohibitive.

The NASA astronauts who flew around the moon on the Artemis II mission will receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor next Friday (Aug. 28).

Quasiparticles arise from the complex interaction of many particles in solids; for example, we describe lattice vibrations in crystals as phonons. Fractons are exotic quasiparticles that occur at the vertices of magnetic domain walls between different spin orders. What makes them special is that they are virtually immobile and can only be displaced by other fractons. In theory, this limited mobility could be exploited to robustly store quantum information.

Many people are aware that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN smashes tiny subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light to test foundational laws of physics and discover new fundamental particles, but some experiments also help scientists better visualize the actual structure of atoms we are already familiar with, like oxygen and neon.

At the center of most galaxies lies a supermassive black hole, with a mass millions to billions of times that of our sun and some of the most extreme gravity in the universe.

In early 2025, special signals wended their way through a fiber-optic highway strung above the streets and sidewalks

Quantum dots are semiconductor crystals only a few nanometers in size. Their ability to produce bright, precisely tunable colors has made them promising materials for light-emitting diodes, displays, solar cells and other optoelectronic technologies. Yet heat remains a major obstacle to their practical use.

Loughborough University physicists and an international team have demonstrated that a grain-of-rice-sized microchip can be used to produce a spectrum of precisely spaced frequencies of light, which is then converted into multiple high-frequency electromagnetic signals known as millimeter waves.

Classical computation is more accurate that quantum annealer for some Ising spin glasses The post No quantum advantage (yet) in the world of tensor networks appeared first on Physics World.

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Two very different types of quantum particles may be able to form stable droplets that hold themselves together, challenging decades of conventional thinking. The prediction could soon be tested experimentally and may reveal an unexpectedly rich world of new quantum phases.

For decades, scientists have puzzled over why certain atomic nuclei unexpectedly produce large numbers of low-energy gamma rays. A new experiment traced the effect to magnetic changes inside the nucleus, where protons and neutrons effectively flip their tiny internal magnets. The discovery could sharpen models of everything from nuclear reactions on Earth to the creation of heavy elements in stars and neutron star mergers.

Scientists watched a light-triggered hidden state form inside a material in only 30 femtoseconds, revealing a step that had never been seen before. The material first entered a fleeting electronic state in which its bonds reorganized in a repeating pattern, followed by tiny atomic shifts. This ultrafast pathway could offer a new way to control electronic properties with light and help inspire faster, more responsive technologies.

New research suggests that if dark matter is composed of "dark photons," it would not have heated the early cosmos like scientists thought.

Less than a year after earning his doctoral degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Rice University, Thiago

Altermagnetism is a new, third type of magnetism of great interest for spin transport applications like computer memory.

Author(s): Sophia ChenResearchers have demonstrated the quantum teleportation of a 100-pixel image by a method that could help to scale up quantum networks. [Physics 19, s110] Published Thu Aug 20, 2026

Is the universe as stable as we think it is? That's one of the big questions that particle physicists worldwide are preparing to answer with the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC—the world's most powerful particle accelerator—when its upgrade is completed in about four years. In the meantime, researchers, including a cohort at the University of Michigan, are working to sharpen their analytical tools and techniques to make the most of the LHC's current and future data.

Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, headquartered at Florida State University, have designed a new quantum computing architecture that uses magnetic levitation to smooth over design flaws in the intricate components necessary to run a quantum computer.

Researchers from the University of Osaka have developed a new class of chiral semiconducting polymers that can generate highly spin-polarized electrical currents. The team's unique molecular design allows the polymers to self-assemble into helical structures that efficiently filter electron spins, offering a promising platform for future spintronic devices and clean-energy technologies.

What happened in the first moments of the universe—before the building blocks of life and the world we know today came into existence? Physicists at the CERN research facility in Switzerland are trying to answer this question by recreating some of the extreme conditions that prevailed in the universe during its earliest history. Now, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, together with colleagues from the international ALICE collaboration, have come one step closer to understanding those conditions.

The James Webb Space Telescope has identified the most promising candidate yet for a black hole star, lurking 660 million years after the Big Bang. The hypothetical entity, which shines 100 billion times brighter than a typical star, could shed light on the origins of the mysterious "little red dots."

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James Webb Space Telescope is finding that between the brightest stars, the cosmic skyscrapers, there are much fainter stars, meaning early galaxies are more massive than we believed.

Our podcast guest makes science videos for young people The post The Quantum Kid : childhood curiosity makes physics more accessible appeared first on Physics World.

For close to a century, physicists have pursued a way to unite gravity with quantum mechanics. Known as quantum gravity, this goal has remained frustratingly out of reach so far. Similarly elusive is the force of dark energy, which is believed to be driving the universe's accelerating expansion.

The nanostructures can be incorporated into wearable eyeglasses The post Upconverting colloidal quantum dots bring ‘colour vision’ to the infrared appeared first on Physics World.

Innocentive is delighted to announce that the Global Prize for Innovation in Water (GPIW) has launched a new edition for

Researchers at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have discovered that fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) significantly impairs plants' ability to use water efficiently and absorb carbon dioxide.

MIT physicists found that two electronic phases inside the same quantum material emerge through surprisingly different mechanisms—one smoothly and the other in expanding pockets resembling growing ice crystals. The discovery could help explain how exotic properties such as superconductivity and magnetism develop and coexist.

A mysterious background of extremely low-frequency gravitational waves detected by networks of pulsars may carry information about events that began more than 13 billion years ago—including the formation of some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe.

When different materials transition from one phase to another, such as water coming to a boil or a magnet losing its ability to attract metals, something remarkable can happen: They begin to behave identically, following the same mathematical rules. "Physicists call this trait universality—the messy, microscopic details wash out and only a few essential features survive," explains Jason Alicea, William K. Davis Professor of Theoretical Physics. The math underlying these universal traits is commonly described by a theoretical framework called conformal field theory.

Quantum computers hold great promise for applications from drug discovery to cybersecurity. Yet figuring out what would give quantum computers their edge over everyday "classical" computers is a subtle problem. A new theoretical study led by researchers at the Cavendish Laboratory shows that quantum computers are harder to make powerful than previously assumed while offering the clearest picture yet of what actually makes them work.

Are loot boxes gambling? There is no single European answer. A loot box can contain a random digital

Astronomers have discovered another S star, the population of stars that orbits the Milky Way's SMBH. This one is the fastest of them all, and also comes closest to the SMBH. It will let astronomers test relativity, especially the Lense-Thirring effect.

The star S301 swoops so close to our galaxy's supermassive black hole that it could, for the first time ever, reveal that dark behemoth's rotation

IBM's new modular cryogenic system links quantum chips to overcome major infrastructure hurdles and pave the way for a powerful system by 2029.

By remotely accessing an IBM quantum computer through the Quantum Computer User Program (QCUP) — a quantum computing access program

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When the JWST peered into the ancient Universe, it found surprisingly massive galaxies. These galaxies were so massive they challenged our understanding of how quickly galaxies can assemble. But new research says that multitudes of low-mass stars are hiding in these galaxies, and they're actually even more massive than we thought. When will it end?

A star is whipping around the Milky Way's central black hole incredibly fast, setting a record for the tightest orbit ever observed

Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbiting the black hole at its center. The star, named S301, was detected with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO's VLTI) and reaches speeds of 25,000 km/s (15,500 miles per second) as it travels around the four-million-solar-mass black hole. It comes closer to it than any other star observed before, so close that it feels the effects of the black hole's rotation.

Quantum batteries, devices that store energy by exploiting quantum mechanical phenomena, could, in principle, be charged faster and more efficiently than classical ones. Despite their potential, connecting these batteries to chargers is known to create quantum correlations that can trap some energy inside the combined battery-charger system. This can reduce useful work, or the energy available to complete a task that can be extracted from the battery alone.

No one yet knows which technology will power the quantum computers of the future, but the race to create them has already produced some of science’s most intricate machinery. The post Building a Quantum Computer, One Fragile Qubit at a Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Despite science's best efforts to classify the vast menagerie of subatomic particles discovered over the past few decades, some exotic varieties defy explanation. Now, nuclear physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have found evidence of two unexpected structures that could help better sort the zoo of exotic particles.

Standing on the sandy, windswept shores of Provincetown, Massachusetts, people may find themselves squinting at the horizon, waiting for a whale to make its grand entrance with a spectacular breach.

In the coming years, increasingly larger and more powerful quantum systems are expected to tackle problems that are difficult or impossible to solve using conventional computers. However, the more powerful quantum simulations become, the more difficult it is to independently verify their results. Where classical simulation is still feasible, results can be cross-checked directly; beyond that regime, other methods are needed.

A tiny machine made from just an atom and particles of light may sound impossibly simple, but it raises a surprisingly difficult question: what counts as heat, and what energy can still do useful work? University of Basel researchers have developed a theoretical framework that brings quantum physics and thermodynamics into better agreement for these microscopic “light engines.”

Silver nanoparticles can precisely slice DNA and create longer “sticky ends,” helping genetic fragments join up to five times more efficiently than conventional methods. The breakthrough could eventually simplify the construction of large DNA sequences for gene therapies, cancer vaccines, engineered drugs, and advanced crops.

New research shows that chemical reactions in an ultracold quantum gas can generate entanglement and transfer phase information from atoms to molecules The post Quantum effects in chemical reactions appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers at the University of Oldenburg's Institute of Physics are working on techniques for precision control of electric fields of light, which allow the dynamics of individual electrons to be manipulated in experiments. Now a team from the Attosecond Microscopy research group, led by Dr. Jan Vogelsang, has taken a decisive step toward this goal.

To commercialize quantum computing, manufacturers need high-quality superconducting materials for microchips, but they also require a reliable, sustainable nanofabrication process. Tantalum is a corrosion-resistant metal that meets the first criterion but not the second. That's because it has to be deposited on a substrate at temperatures that typically exceed 400°C (752°F)—too hot for many semiconductor foundries' current tools.

Astronomers have uncovered a previously underexplored population of faint, rapidly fading remnant radio galaxies, offering new insights into what happens after supermassive black holes stop powering their enormous radio jets.

Quantum communication promises many advantages over today's standard technologies, including absolutely secure transmission of large amounts of data. However, it requires single photons—and generating them is very difficult. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST) have developed a new method that overcomes the problems of previous approaches.

Astronomers know that evolved AGB stars shed their outer layers, contributing to the makeup of the interstellar medium. But new JWST observations show this can happen even near a supermassive black hole, where powerful radiation could obliterate molecules.

In the global race to build bigger and better quantum computers, researchers have taken a step forward. A new machine called Helios is radically different from other quantum computers.

Optical fibers are already the backbone of global communication systems. Recently, however, physicists have started to explore how their functionality could be boosted further by conveying information via entangled quantum particles—potentially enabling instantaneous exchanges of information across vast distances. Such a system could eventually be the basis of a future 'quantum internet,' offering a level of security and computing power beyond anything possible today.

Gravitational wave astronomy has seen plenty of improvements since the original signal was captured in 2015. Despite that, it remains an engineering challenge to actually create the detectors needed for the precise measurements that gravitational waves require. A new NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant is funding a concept from a team led by Paul Stankus at Brookhaven National Laboratory that could potentially solve some of those engineering problems - by using quantum mechanics.

Of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Callisto is the one that gets the least attention. Io is constantly being resurfaced by volcanoes. Europa has a giant liquid water ocean. And Ganymede has its own magnetic field that interacts with its parent planet in weird ways. Callisto, by comparison, seems sedate, with its ancient, crater-saturated surface seemingly frozen in time. But new data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows that even this most benign of the Big Four moons is more active than previously realized.

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Quantum sensors, devices that collect measurements by exploiting quantum-mechanical phenomena, could potentially detect extremely weak magnetic, gravitational and electromagnetic signals with greater sensitivity than classical sensors. Some quantum sensors leverage entanglement, a phenomenon that prompts distant particles to become so strongly linked that the physical state of one particle dictates the state of the others.

Einstein’s abandoned cosmological constant made a spectacular comeback when astronomers discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. It now sits at the heart of our best cosmological model—a model that works extraordinarily well, yet may still be wrong.

Research in the International Journal of Business Information Systems discusses a sector-specific framework to help telecommunications companies assess how effectively they use big data.

Black holes aren't just engines of inexorable destruction. They're complex regions of space and time, and under the right conditions, giant planets can form in their AGN disks.

What is heat, and what is useful work if a machine consists only of an atom and light particles? In modern quantum technologies, this kind of question connects thermodynamics with quantum physics. Researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, have developed a theoretical approach that can reconcile both theories.

Physicists at the University of Twente have improved the standard test for the quality of individual particles of light. By letting three photons interfere at the same time instead of two, they draw more information from every measurement. Their experiment outperforms even a perfect, noise-free run of the old method. The work appeared in Physical Review Letters.

Little red dots have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in JWST data from the Universe’s deep past. Their ‘powering engines’ might resemble a newly discovered phenomenon dubbed a “black hole star”—an early, rapidly growing black hole wrapped in dense gas. This object, described in a study published today in Nature by researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and international collaborators, may help explain how billion-solar-mass black holes formed so soon after the Big Bang.

New results from the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) suggest that gluons, the glue-like particles that hold quarks together inside protons, play a central role in the conservation of baryon number—an essential part of a particle's quantum identity.

Researchers at Monash University have predicted a new type of quantum matter that challenges decades of thinking about how ultracold particles behave. The paper, "Quantum droplets in a resonant Bose-Fermi mixture," is published in Physical Review Letters.

An electron is supposed to be indivisible. It carries one fundamental unit of electric charge, and every electron is exactly the same. But under extreme conditions, large numbers of electrons act together and give rise to new quantum objects called quasiparticles. These act as if they carry only a fraction of an electron's charge, making them one of the strangest phenomena in modern physics.

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Astronomers have discovered the first confirmed dual active galactic nucleus in a Green Pea galaxy, revealing two supermassive black holes growing at the same time inside a compact, intensely star-forming system. X-ray observations with Chandra resolved two actively accreting black holes, while Keck spectroscopy confirmed that both belong to the same merging galaxy. The paper outlining the research was submitted to the arXiv preprint server on July 20.

It’s been 37 years since scientists first demonstrated the ability to move single atoms, suggesting the possibility of

A study has been published in Nature Communications that identifies an unusual regime of quantum oscillations in a three-dimensional topological insulator. The results show that, when subjected to temperatures near absolute zero and extreme magnetic fields, electrons in the material zirconium pentatelluride (ZrTe₅) exhibit behavior that deviates from the pattern predicted by conventional theory.

New classical simulation technique makes it practical to benchmark large-scale logical magic-state preparation protocols under realistic noise conditions The post Shortcut for simulating logical magic states could accelerate the design of fault-tolerant quantum computers appeared first on Physics World.

Astronomers have discovered that the jet of a distant blazar has been gravitationally lensed by an unseen source of dark matter. Led by Silke Britzen at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, the team's results could prove especially important for observations of cosmic neutrinos, which are likely produced in abundance alongside a broad spectrum of electromagnetic waves in blazar jets.

Time-reversal symmetry is an exotic behavior found in systems whose internal physics looks different when running forward versus backward in time. For some time, physicists have searched for this behavior in systems with almost no overall magnetization. Such phases are highly prized for spintronics, where information is carried using the quantum spins of electrons.

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Astronomers have linked an X-ray flash discovered by the Einstein Probe to a known type of supernova with unusual features that point to the birth of an ultra-dense, rapidly spinning magnetar. The paper outlining this finding was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 22.