Latest Quantum field theory Stories

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Time's quantum arrow has a preferred direction, new analysis shows Time marches relentlessly forward for you and me; watch a movie in reverse, and you’ll quickly see something is amiss. But from the point of view of a single, isolated particle, the passage of time looks the same in either direction. For instance, a movie of two particles scattering off of each other would look just as sensible in reverse – a concept known as time reversal...

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With headlines proclaiming the discovery of the Higgs boson—the so-called God particle—particle physics has captured the imagination of the world, particularly among those who dwell on the nature of the cosmos. But this is only one puzzle seemingly solved in a universe of mysteries. In a recent paper in Physical Review Letters, Dartmouth physicists delve into another enigmatic particle. Majorana is a name whose very mention evokes a veil of mystery. On one level, it refers to a...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online After years of theories and speculation, the Higgs boson particle discovery was announced on July 4, or was it? Several caveats swirled around the somewhat anti-climactic announcement, and almost a month later many scientists familiar with the CERN project are still reluctant to definitively say what they found was the so-called ‘God Particle’. A new report by the Atlas team working at the Large Hadron Collider that cited a "5.9...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Now that the ‘God Particle’ has been discovered, is it time to pack up CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and move on to other projects? Not so fast, say physicists who are looking to upgrade the 4-year-old particle accelerator. CERN’s governing body has just approved plans that would shut down the LHC for two years while it gets a $1.9 billion upgrade. The improvements would theoretically increase the power of the LHC’s...

A Kansas State University-led quantum mechanics study has discovered a new bound state in atoms that may help scientists better understand matter and its composition. The yet-unnamed bound state, which the physicists simply refer to as "our state" in their study, applies to three identical atoms loosely bound together -- a behavior called three-body bound states in quantum mechanics. In this state, three atoms can stick together in a group but two cannot. Additionally, in some cases, the...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Scientists have determined that previously undetected particles could be seen as they accumulate around black holes. Vienna University of Technology scientists have discovered a method to prove the existence of hypothetical "axions," which are particles with a very low mass. “The existence of axions is not proven, but it is considered to be quite likely”, Daniel Grumiller, a researcher on the project, said in a press release. Grumiller, along with...

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Physicists show standard ‘quasiparticle’ theory breaks down at ‘quantum critical point’ A new study this week finds that “quantum critical points” in exotic electronic materials can act much like polarizing “hot button issues” in an election. Reporting in Nature, researchers from Rice University, two Max Planck Institutes in Dresden, Germany, and UCLA find that on either side of a quantum critical point, electrons fall into line and behave as traditionally expected, but at...

After a search that has lasted roughly three-quarters of a century, researchers believe they have at long last discovered evidence of an elusive particle that could be its own anti-particle. The existence of the particle, which is known as the Majorana fermion, was first predicted some 75 years ago, according to BBC News Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos. Now, a team of Dutch scientists believe that they have created an electronic device small enough to test for the Majorana, and they...