Photons

Scientists working on CERN’s Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment have published the latest data in their search for a long-lived exotic particle known as the dark photon.Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox ControllerDark photons (also called hidden photons) differ from regular photons—particles of light—in that they are thought to have mass, making them a prime candidate to explain dark matter. Dark matter is the catchall term to describe seemingly invisible stuff in space that has only been observed via its gravitational…

The Current13:00Turning deep space data into musicMusic can often transport you to another time and place. But now a Montreal composer is bringing listeners far out into the cosmos with a piece of music created from NASA's data on the Milky Way."At the end of the piece, especially … I'm focusing in on the black hole that's at the centre of the galaxy. And you get this feeling of stars spiralling toward the centre," said Sophie Kastner, composer of Where Parallel Lines Converge."I wanted to have all of these pingy, like,…

Scientists have demonstrated remarkable sensitivity in searching for hypothetical dark photons through the Dark SRF experiment. They used superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities to trap regular photons and investigate their transformation into dark photons. This study has created the most stringent limitation yet on the existence of dark photons within a specific mass range. (Artist’s concept.)The Dark SRF experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has achieved unprecedented sensitivity in the search…

Artistic rendering of the experimental device with the beam optical photons (red) entering and leaving the electro-optic crystal and resonating within its circular portion as well as the generated microwave photons (blue) leaving the device. Credit: Eli Krantz, Krantz NanoArtFor the very first time, researchers at ISTA entangled microwave and optical photons.Quantum computing holds the potential to tackle complex issues in fields like material science and cryptography, problems that will remain out of reach even for the…

Researchers at Caltech have utilized quantum entanglement to double the resolution of light microscopes. The new technique, called quantum microscopy by coincidence, involves the entanglement of photons, which act as biphotons with double the momentum of a single photon. This results in a shorter wavelength, allowing the microscope to achieve greater resolution without damaging the specimens being observed, such as living cells. The team built an optical apparatus that used a special crystal to convert photons into…

2D projection of the cosmic web as obtained from a supercomputer simulation. Credit: Dr. Ewald Puchwein and the Sherwood-Relics collaborationThe hypothetical new particles could potentially account for the observations made by the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph on the <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="<div class=glossaryItemTitle>Hubble Space Telescope</div><div class=glossaryItemBody>The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as Hubble or HST) is…

A ring of superconducting qubits can host “bound states” of microwave photons, where the photons tend to clump on neighboring qubit sites. Credit: Google Quantum AIUsing a quantum processor, researchers made microwave photons uncharacteristically sticky. After coaxing them to clump together into bound states, they discovered that these photon clusters survived in a regime where they were expected to dissolve into their usual, solitary states. As the finding was first made on a quantum processor, it marks the growing role…

A team of scientists has announced a surprising discovery - that they were able to create matter out of nothing. The experiment was carried out in January 2022, in which strong electric fields were created in a simple laboratory leveraging the unique properties of grapheme, which enabled the creation of particle-antiparticle pair from nothing at all, according to a report in Big Think. However, it is to be noted that according to laws of physics, there is no truly empty space. Even in the absence of particles, there are…

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute have developed a way to produce a web of quantum entangled photons using a far more simple setup than usual. The key is a precisely patterned surface 100 times thinner than paper, which could replace a roomful of optical equipment.Quantum entanglement is the bizarre-sounding phenomenon where two particles can become so entwined together that manipulating one will instantly affect its partner, no matter how far apart they may be. This forms the basis…

A new method for entwining the fates of fragments of light has overcome some serious obstacles on the road to photon-based quantum computing.Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany have successfully entangled 14 photons into a state considered optimal for qubits, more than doubling previous attempts – while also improving on their efficiency.Unlike the 'bits' of binary code behind more conventional forms of computing technology, qubits exist in a state of probability called a superposition,…