atoms

After previously studying the phenomena of two sound waves in quantum liquids, scientists have now observed sound moving at two different speeds in a quantum gas.If you were somehow immersed in the three-dimensional gas used for this study, you would hear every sound twice: each individual sound carried by two different sound waves moving at two different speeds.  This is an important development in the field of superfluidity – fluids with no viscosity that can flow without any loss of energy.Remarkably, the behavior…

Scientists have figured out how to make platinum more affordable as a catalyst: turn it into a low-temperature liquid.It's been known for centuries that noble metals like platinum, gold, ruthenium, and palladium make excellent catalysts for chemical reactions, because they help break the chemical bonds between atoms more efficiently than other metals.  But noble metals are rare and expensive, so large-scale industrial manufacturers generally opt for cheaper, less effective alternatives like iron. (Iron is used as a…

Physicists have just taken an amazing step towards quantum devices that sound like something out of science fiction.For the first time, isolated groups of particles behaving like bizarre states of matter known as time crystals have been linked into a single, evolving system that could be incredibly useful in quantum computing.  Following the first observation of the interaction between two time crystals, detailed in a paper two years ago, this is the next step towards potentially harnessing time crystals for practical…

A new warp speed experiment may provide an indirect verification of physicist Stephen Hawking's black hole prediction. According to the new idea, scientists can capture a glimpse of the ethereal quantum glow that envelops things travelling at close to the speed of light by coaxing an atom to become invisible. The glow effect, also known as the Unruh effect, appears to fill the space around speeding objects with a swarm of virtual particles, bathing those in a warm glow. Because the effect is so closely related to the…

Once hailed as a source of electricity that would be too cheap to meter, atomic power has come a long way since the 1950s – mostly downhill. Far from being cost-free, nuclear-generated electricity is today more expensive than power produced by coal, gas, wind or solar plants while sites storing spent uranium and irradiated equipment litter the globe, a deadly radioactive legacy that will endure for hundreds of thousands of years. For good measure, most analysts now accept that the spread of atomic energy played a crucial…

By Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM), Nagoya University May 28, 2022A new synthesis method creates a belt-shaped molecular nanocarbon with a twisted Möbius band topology, i.e., a Möbius carbon nanobelt. Credit: Issey TakahashiScientists have constructed the first belt-shaped molecular nanocarbon with a twisted Möbius band topology—a Möbius carbon nanobelt—that paves the way for the development of nanocarbon materials with complex topological structures.Obtaining structurally uniform nanocarbons—ideally as…

Scientists at a laboratory in England have shattered the record for the amount of energy produced during a controlled, sustained fusion reaction.The production of 59 megajoules of energy over five seconds at the Joint European Torus – or JET – experiment in England has been called "a breakthrough" by some news outlets and caused quite a lot of excitement among physicists.  But a common line regarding fusion electricity production is that it is "always 20 years away."We are a nuclear physicist and a nuclear engineer who…

The world's largest particle collider is getting ready to smash atoms harder than ever before.Following a three-year break of scheduled maintenance, upgrades, and pandemic delays, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is preparing to power up for its third, and most powerful yet, experimental period.  If all initial tests and checks starting this month go well, scientists will begin experiments in June and slowly ramp up to full power by the end of July, experts told Live Science.The new run could finally reveal the…

The definition of a second, the most fundamental unit of time in our current measurement system, hasn't been updated in more than 70 years (give or take some billionths of a second).  But in the next decade or so, that could change: Ultraprecise atomic optical clocks that rely on visible light are on track to set the new definition of a second.These newer versions of the atomic clock are, in theory at least, much more precise than the gold-standard cesium clock, which measures a second based on the oscillation of cesium …