Latest Quantum phases Stories

Forget solid, liquid, and gas: there are in fact more than 500 phases of matter. In a major paper in today's issue of Science, Perimeter Faculty member Xiao-Gang Wen reveals a modern reclassification of all of them. Condensed matter physics – the branch of physics responsible for discovering and describing most of these phases – has traditionally classified phases by the way their fundamental building blocks – usually atoms – are arranged. The key is something called symmetry....

If quantum computers are ever going to perform all those expected feats of code-breaking and number crunching, then their component qubits---tiny ephemeral quantum cells held in a superposition of internal states---will have to be protected from intervention by the outside world. In other words, decoherence, the loss of the qubits’ quantum integrity, has to be postponed. Now theoretical physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and the University of Maryland have done an important...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Theoretical Physics made a huge leap from concept to reality yesterday thanks to collaboration between an international team of scientists and researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The team has proposed the experimental design of a space-time crystal that is based on an electric-field ion trap and the Coulomb repulsion of particles that carry the...

Realization of a new type of magnetic phase in devices opens the door to electronics based on topologically non-trivial materials A team of researchers at RIKEN and the University of Tokyo has demonstrated a new material that promises to eliminate loss in electrical power transmission. The surprise is that their methodology for solving this classic energy problem is based upon the first realization of a highly exotic type of magnetic semiconductor first theorized less than a decade ago - a...

Direct Imaging by Berkeley Lab Researchers Confirms the Importance of Electron-Electron Interactions in Graphene Perhaps no other material is generating as much excitement in the electronics world as graphene, sheets of pure carbon just one atom thick through which electrons can race at nearly the speed of light – 100 times faster than they move through silicon. Superthin, superstrong, superflexible and superfast as an electrical conductor, graphene has been touted as a potential wonder...

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...

Iron-based high-temp superconductors show unexpected electronic asymmetry Japanese and U.S. physicists are offering new details this week in the journal Nature regarding intriguing similarities between the quirky electronic properties of a new iron-based high-temperature superconductor (HTS) and its copper-based cousins. While investigating a recently discovered iron-based HTS, the researchers found that its electronic properties were different in the horizontal and vertical directions....

Berkeley Lab researchers and their colleagues demonstrate unique new materials for innovative electronic and magnetic applications Strange new materials experimentally identified just a few years ago are now driving research in condensed-matter physics around the world. First theorized and then discovered by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and their colleagues in other institutions, these “strong 3-D topological...

Findings support magnetic pairing theory that could lead to new improved superconductors By measuring how strongly electrons are bound together to form Cooper pairs in an iron-based superconductor, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cornell University, St. Andrews University, and collaborators provide direct evidence supporting theories in which magnetism holds the key to this material's ability to carry current with no resistance. Because...

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...