Scientists have overcome a major hurdle facing quantum computing: how to protect quantum information from degradation by the environment while simultaneously performing computation in a solid-state quantum system. The research, reported in a recent issue of Nature, opens the door to robust quantum computation with solid-state devices and using quantum technologies for magnetic measurements with…
New work suggests constructing novel particle opens the door to taming the mysteries of quantum tunnelling.
Scientists have built a quantum computer in a diamond, the first of its kind to include protection against “decoherence” — noise that prevents the computer from functioning properly. The demonstration shows the viability of solid-state quantum computers, which – unlike earlier gas- and liquid-state systems – may represent the future of quantum computing because they…
Though scientists have suspected for a while that a giant black hole lurks at the center of our galaxy, they still can’t say for sure it’s the explanation for the strange behavior observed there. Now researchers are closer than ever to being able to image this region and probe the physics at work – potentially…
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is operating again after its winter break. At the beginning of April, opposing stable beams of protons were smashed into each other at four observation positions. The total collision energy in these bunches of sub-atomic particles was eight trillion electron volts – a world record. Scientists expect the big boost…
One of the most famous experiments in quantum physics, which first showed how particles can bizarrely behave like waves, has now been carried out on the largest molecules ever. Researchers have sent molecules containing either 58 or 114 atoms through the so-called “double-slit experiment,” showing that they cause an interference pattern that can only be…
Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum physics are expected to merge at the Planck-scale of extremely high energies and on very short distances. At this scale, new phenomena could arise. However, the Planck-scale is so remote from current experimental capabilities that tests of quantum gravity are widely believed to be nearly impossible. Now an international…
Anyone who bet against Einstein better get out their wallet. That’s because those supposedly faster-than-light particles that shook up the world of physics last September are now looking a lot slower. A second experiment deep in an Italian mountain timed these subatomic particles, called neutrinos, traveling at precisely the speed of light and no faster,…
Late last year, scientists with the OPERA collaboration in Gran Sasso, Italy reported an incredible finding: neutrinos that appeared to be moving faster than the speed of light. In February, the OPERA researchers found a couple small problems with their experimental set-up, calling into question the original faster-than-light neutrino result. The event highlighted the difficulty…
More scientists are getting closer in the search for the “God particle” of physics that would help explain the fundamentals of the universe, but they haven’t found it yet. In the hunt for the Higgs boson, which is key to understanding why matter has mass, two teams of physicists using results from a now-closed American…