Physics TOP news

Diamond is more than a dazzling gem—the extremely hard form of carbon makes up the pellet that encases fuel for inertial confinement fusion, and scientists believe it rains down deep inside ice giant planets like Neptune and Uranus. In both cases, the material experiences enormous pressures. Until now, experiments and simulations have disagreed about how it actually behaves under those conditions.

The dual black hole system, dubbed LID-1166, is the first close-separation pair of its kind confirmed this early in the universe. The discovery could help to explain how the earliest black holes grew so large, so fast.

A popular myth about black holes is that they act like giant cosmic vacuum cleaners, sucking in everything around them. But Wladimir Lyra's research found a new mechanism around supermassive black holes that is more like a cosmic nursery, giving birth to planets more massive than Jupiter.

New framework includes 10 parameters that can be used to evaluate the viability of fusion The post Researchers propose ‘economic Q’ metric for judging fusion power plant viability appeared first on Physics World.

For the first time, researchers showed that solar light can be used to generate quantum-entangled photon pairs. The proof-of-principle demonstration challenges the long-held scientific belief that lasers provide the only suitable light source for producing entangled photons. In photonic quantum technologies, the high optical coherence of lasers is viewed as essential to generating quantum correlations through spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). Natural sunlight is incoherent. Also, lasers are seen as the only light sources capable of delivering the optical power densities needed to drive nonlinear optical processes efficiently. Sunlight is much less intense than laser light. Despite the perceived drawbacks of solar...

Researchers build a new memory device following a single-electron storage breakthrough. It could make transferring data faster and more energy-efficient.

Rice University physicist Guido Pagano and his team use a trapped-ion quantum simulator, which involves manipulating an ion crystal trapped in

Discovery could support the development of safer and more efficient hydrogen storage media The post Crystal symmetry controls hydrogen’s quantum tunnelling appeared first on Physics World.

Altermagnetism is a new, third type of magnetism of great interest for spin-transport applications like computer memory. If properly harnessed, it could combine the benefits of the two existing types of magnetism, ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, ultimately reducing or eliminating heat during information transfer and increasing the ability to miniaturize next-generation technologies. Rice University's Pengcheng Dai recently published a paper in Physical Review X describing the first successful efforts to put a proposed altermagnetic material into a single magnetic-domain state, allowing the research team to characterize the material's intrinsic magnetic structure.

An international team of scientists has used machine learning to identify seven rare quasar candidates, according to a

Author(s): Sophia ChenResearchers propose a new way to evaluate the performance of quantum memory devices, which will be key components in a future quantum Internet. [Physics 19, s101] Published Wed Aug 12, 2026

NASA has debunked the viral 'Project Anchor' conspiracy, which falsely claimed Earth would lose gravity for seven seconds. The agency explained the scientific impossibility of such an event.

There is a question that often comes up at every public talk I do, and I have never had a good answer to it—well, not an entirely confident one. What's inside a black hole? The textbook reply is a singularity. Cross the event horizon, and everything falls inward to a point of infinite density where our equations return nonsense. It isn't so much an answer as an admission that we've run out of physics.

The latest news and headlines from Yahoo! News. Get breaking news stories and in-depth coverage with videos and photos.

For more than two decades, the quasar PHL 1811 has been considered the prototype of a rare class of "intrinsically X-ray weak" quasars, thought to produce unusually little X-ray radiation. But in 2024, the Einstein Probe spacecraft caught the object in a bright X-ray flare. In a new study, astronomers combined that observation with more than 20 years of archival data to revisit the mystery. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 28.

First glimpsed as “little red dots” in deep-space images from the James Webb Space Telescope, these giant, gas-shrouded black holes are full of surprises

A distant black hole star is providing strong evidence that these objects lie at the hearts of the mysterious little red dots found shortly after the Big Bang by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Little red dots have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in James Webb Space Telescope (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.

Some black holes roaming the Universe today may actually be older than the Big Bang. A new cosmic “bounce” model suggests the Universe expanded from an earlier contracting phase, allowing ancient black holes to survive the transition as cosmic fossils. These relics could potentially explain dark matter and why surprisingly massive objects appeared so early in cosmic history.

Physicists have found a new way to peer inside one of matter’s most elusive quantum states: the Wigner crystal, where electrons stop behaving like independent particles and organize into a crystal-like pattern. By shining light on an atomically thin material cooled close to absolute zero, researchers uncovered optical signals that reveal not just where the electrons are, but how they move together.

The math, which combines chaos, quantum theory, and infinitely complex fractal structures, has been called a “foundational result.” The post Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals first appeared on Quanta Magazine

An international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics has identified three actively accreting supermassive black holes in the galaxy J0148-4214. Matter is falling into the black holes from accretion disks surrounding them.

Quantum advantage refers to the point at which a quantum computer solves a clearly defined task faster or more efficiently than any classical computer—or makes it solvable in the first place. For many practical applications, this has not yet been demonstrated. Research therefore relies heavily on theoretical models and simulations to explore where and under what conditions such an advantage may realistically be achieved in the future.

This dying star appears to have a face of gas and a mane of space dust

New images from the James Webb telescope show a galaxy with a trio of supermassive black holes. Two of them appear to be locked in a tight tango.

New images from the James Webb telescope show a galaxy with a trio of supermassive black holes. Two of them appear to be locked in a tight tango.

New images from the James Webb telescope show a galaxy with a trio of supermassive black holes. Two of them appear to be locked in a tight tango.

New research explores how a material’s unusual topological behaviour is connected to the way quantum states are shared between different parts of its lattice The post When topology meets entanglement appeared first on Physics World.

The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) detector network comprises three centers across the globe. The United States hosts twin Laser Interferometer

New images from the James Webb telescope show a galaxy with a trio of supermassive black holes. Two of them appear to be locked in a tight tango.

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonA key property of superconductors called superfluid stiffness can now be measured in a wide range of 2D systems. [Physics 19, s103] Published Tue Aug 11, 2026

Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a device that enables them to control the flow of

The latest news and headlines from Yahoo! News. Get breaking news stories and in-depth coverage with videos and photos.

A University of Kansas physicist played a leading role in a CERN study showing that two rival explanations for how gluons behave inside atomic nuclei can now be experimentally distinguished.

Ask what lies inside a black hole and the honest answer has always been a bit of a shrug and something about a singularity, a point where density becomes infinite and physics stops being able to tell you anything at all. It is the most unsatisfying answer in astrophysics, second only perhaps to what happened before the Big Bang. Now two theorists in China have produced a solution in which something else sits inside the horizon entirely, a neutron star, whole and intact, twelve kilometres across, its interior perfectly well behaved and apparently defying the laws of physics.

When certain atoms are irradiated with laser light, they can produce a very different kind of laser light: laser pulses with extremely high frequencies in the X-ray range. These laser pulses, which helped achieve record-breaking results at TU Wien in the 1990s, were the subject of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered that dust and water can form and survive surprisingly close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The observations reveal that the evolved star IRS 3 continues to enrich its surroundings with newly formed material despite the intense radiation environment around Sagittarius A*.

The Eddington experiment used a solar eclipse to prove Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity

Correcting heat-induced distortions in interferometer mirrors will dramatically increase the sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors The post Thermal imaging technique helps overcome a major problem for gravitational-wave astronomy appeared first on Physics World.

Hundreds of Venus-like planets could soon help determine why some worlds become sweltering greenhouse hellscapes while others remain

Highly sensitive light sensors are needed in fields such as quantum communication, medical technology, and autonomous driving. Researchers

With the end of the Space Age and the winding down of the Cold War, scientists again returned to the question of interstellar flight. Having failed to realize a working concept that could be realized in the near term, more exotic ideas began to be considered, reflecting further breakthroughs in theoretical physics.

Every electronic and optoelectronic device generates heat, and today that heat is managed almost entirely from the outside. Heatsinks, fans, cold plates and refrigerators are bulky exterior measures bolted onto a chip or package after the fact. They treat heat as a single averaged quantity to be removed in bulk, even though the heat is actually produced locally, component by component, deep inside the circuitry.

In January 2024, physicists at TU Dortmund University demonstrated a continuous time crystal in a semiconductor whose oscillations remained stable for hours. In a new study published in Nature Communications, Professor Alex Greilich and his team show that many such time crystals can form in the same material and synchronize their electron-nuclear spin oscillations.

Over the last decade, researchers have developed two-dimensional materials with fascinating quantum effects that could be harnessed for next-generation technologies.

Skyrmions—essentially magnetic vortices—represent a promising approach in spintronics; in the future, they could serve as components in storage media or computers, potentially complementing established CMOS technologies. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now visualized the interaction of antiferromagnetic skyrmions for the first time and shown that antiferromagnetic skyrmions move reproducibly along straight trajectories aligned with the driving electric current.

Biofilms—bacterial communities encased in a sticky, polymer-rich matrix—can be difficult to treat because that matrix slows antibiotics and drug-carrying particles. With help from salt, though, Yale researchers have found a way to steer these particles into some biofilms and even deform the biofilm itself in certain cases. The study is published in Soft Matter.

Netflix has cancelled the US spin-off of Squid Game due to scheduling conflicts and shifting priorities, despite previous plans to expand the series internationally.

Hundreds of Venus-like planets could soon help determine why some worlds become sweltering greenhouse hellscapes while others remain capable of supporting life. But before answering that question, scientists first need to know how fast those planets are spinning.

Heat flows from hot objects to cold objects – or does it? Although unidirectional heat flow is a natural consequence of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy must either increase or stay the same, an international team has experimentally demonstrated that a quantum mechanism can reverse this flow of heat while remaining […] The post Quantum principle allows heat to flow from cold to hot appeared first on Physics World.

Recent technological advances have enabled the development of increasingly sophisticated, sharper displays for electronic devices. Many modern displays use light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, tiny semiconductor-based components that emit light when an electrical current passes through them.

From schools of fish and flocks of birds to microscopic synthetic particles, many systems in nature and the laboratory consist of individual units or agents that move by consuming energy. These systems are known as active matter because their components continuously use energy to generate motion, either individually or through interactions with their environment.

Composing some 85% of the universe's total mass, dark matter betrays its presence only through gravity, unlike ordinary matter. Yet through new research published in Physical Review D, a team led by David Dunsky of New York University has proposed a new way to hunt for the elusive substance. Their approach involves searching for the decay of dark matter particles into gravitons: the hypothetical particles thought to carry the force of gravity itself.

Chemists have developed a catalyst that breaks a long-standing rule governing which molecules receive electrons during chemical reactions. By releasing electrons directly into solution, the technique could unlock reactions—and potentially useful new molecules—that were previously out of reach.

In a new Nature Physics study, researchers accelerated electrons to more than twice the energy predicted by the traditional dephasing limit for laser-plasma accelerators operating over the same distance. This was made possible by a specially engineered laser pulse called a flying focus, which counteracts a longstanding limitation known as "dephasing."

With many fan-favorite Autobots and Decepticons bumped off in the opening act, this was not the big-screen romp '80s kids were expecting.

Scientists have created the first quantum material that can sort and transport different quantum states of light at room temperature, potentially removing the need for bulky, ultra-cold refrigeration systems. Built from a gold film carved with hundreds of microscopic structures, the ultrathin “metacrystal” acts like a filter that directs different kinds of quantum light along separate paths while preserving the information they carry.

From reaching for a cup of coffee to tying your shoelaces, gravity shapes nearly all human movement. So how do our bodies react when that familiar force begins to change? Texas A&M University researchers are exploring the answer through a multiphase project supported by NASA.

Scientists have generated quantum entanglement directly from sunlight, potentially offering a lower-energy alternative to the lasers normally used in quantum technology. Their outdoor experiment produced entangled photons with about 94% similarity to an ideal state. The result could pave the way for simpler quantum satellites, secure communications, and more energy-efficient quantum computing.

Author(s): Philip BallTwo research teams have run small-scale demonstrations of voting protocols that could ensure election security using the principles of quantum mechanics. [Physics 19, 113] Published Fri Aug 07, 2026

Using light to process quantum information is one of the most promising approaches to building future quantum computers. Light particles, known as photons, are excellent carriers of quantum information, but their lack of natural interactions has created a major challenge for researchers seeking to build systems capable of performing a full range of computations.

In Goethe's ballad "Erlkönig," immortalized in Schubert's fevered 1815 setting, a dying boy riding through the night sees a spectral king beckoning from the darkness. His father calms him: "Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif"—my son, it is only a wisp of fog. In the poem, the father's reassurance proves tragically wrong. In the quantum world, however, his words acquire an uncanny new meaning.

The James Webb Space Telescope's strange "little red dots" may be evolving into spiral galaxies.

A tall glass of ice water isn't just a thirst quencher; it's also an everyday example of coexisting phases. Water can exist simultaneously in both liquid and solid phases. As it turns out, this phase duality can also exist in more exotic quantum materials, in ways that are far more complicated to tease apart.

Author(s): Pedro F. Gil, Weiping Li, Julianne Stratton, Alan A. Kaptanoglu, and Eve V. StensonRecasting fusion coil design as a highly nonconvex equality-constrained optimization problem with an augmented Lagrangian method leads to a class of stellarator coils that exhibit enhanced physics performance and meet essential design requirements. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 065101] Published Fri Aug 07, 2026

A global constellation of neutrino detectors is creating a never-before-seen view of the radioactive elements that power Earth’s tectonic heat engine. The post Neutrinos From Deep Inside Earth Provide a New Picture of the Mantle first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Artificial intelligence is radically changing how researchers in some disciplines work The post AI model helps physics Nobel laureate out of a decade-old mathematical jam appeared first on Physics World.

Choosing a software development partner is a high-stakes decision, and businesses rely on verified evidence to make it.

The startup Atomiq One aims to boost the development of quantum technologies. Christian Hölzl, a postdoc at the

Three years after a team of Caltech scientists showed that pairs of entangled photons could double the resolution of a light microscope, the same lab has figured out a way to double down on that improvement. They have now achieved a fourfold resolution boost compared to a classical microscope, using a new optical design that sends one of the entangled photons through the microscope's optics three times rather than just once.

Many material properties depend on how electrons are arranged inside a material. Their distribution determines, for example, whether a material conducts electricity or displays magnetic behavior. Understanding how electrons organize themselves at the atomic scale is therefore one of the major challenges in materials science. Now, a team led by researchers at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) has developed a new technique that, for the first time, reveals how electrons are organized inside materials with an unprecedented level of detail.

A new study analyzing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spectra of more than 1,400 galaxies suggests a surprisingly small group of "leaky" galaxies was responsible for cosmic reionization. The paper outlining this work was posted to the arXiv preprint server on July 24.

At the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil, the BESIII Collaboration report that, after 15 years of sustained research, it identified the dominant constituent of the X(2370) as a pseudoscalar glueball with spin-parity quantum numbers of 0⁻⁺.

Quantum errors are a normal part of quantum computing because fragile physical qubits (the tiny components storing data) can easily break down because of environmental noise, like heat, stray signals or microscopic vibrations. Typical fixes involve vast amounts of extra hardware qubits, which make computers larger, more expensive and harder to build.

A proof-of-principle experiment used concentrated sunlight to produce entangled photons

One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease is the accumulation of a peptide in the brain known as amyloid beta. A new study published in Nature Communications on July 22 has uncovered the atomic structure of the peptide in its harmful form.

Astronomers may have just confirmed one of the quirkiest aspects of quantum mechanics: that seemingly empty space can alter the behavior of light. This phenomenon, called "vacuum birefringence," was first predicted nearly 90 years ago by Werner Heisenberg, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. He suggested that even a perfect vacuum should be teeming with "virtual particles" that rapidly pop in and out of existence.