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An experiment that uses optical tweezers to transport atoms gently enough to preserve their quantum states might prepare the ground for a 'moving head' for quantum computers based on cold neutral atoms.
The efficient transmission of intense laser light through a plasma while minimizing instabilities represents a critical challenge to the development of laser fusion. Simulations and experiments of unprecedented scale suggest the future is bright.
The study of the critical state of matter has brought us concepts such as universality and power laws. Looking at mixtures of complex molecules could help us to understand the transition from non-critical to critical behaviour.
Vortex structures have revealed a lot about the nature of three-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensates. They play an even bigger part in two-dimensional cold atomic gases and drive a fundamentally different phase transition.
Quantum mechanics can simulate a classical system evolving in (and towards) thermal equilibrium. This finding adds a further ingredient to the story of what problems a computer — classical or quantum — could possibly master.
Biological cells respond actively to the physical properties of their surroundings as well as to external mechanical forces — a coupling that is captured in a model of a cell as a contractile dipole, and shown to drive cell re-orientation.
Relativistic electrons in the outer Van Allen belt wreak havoc with satellites in geosynchronous orbit, but how they reach such high energies has been unclear. New data identify gyro-resonant wave–particle interactions as the culprit.
Weather is a familiar phenomenon on Earth, but it's quite unexpected on a star, in particular when the clouds consist of heavy elements. Let's talk about the weather.
Proof that the delicate 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state survives constriction within a quantum point contact paves the way to realizing an experimental platform for exploring the bizarre world of non-abelian particle statistics.
Magnetic domains in a thin film grow in a jerky manner as avalanches of spins flip their directions. At low temperatures, the measured distribution of avalanche sizes agrees with one theory; at high temperatures, with another.
An efficient way to transport electron spins from a ferromagnet into silicon essentially makes silicon magnetic, and provides an exciting step towards integration of magnetism and mainstream semiconductor electronics.
Can we ever know what happened before the Big Bang? It may have been only a stage in the existence of our Universe rather than its beginning, but analysis suggests the Big Bang is a barrier beyond which we may never see with clarity.
Computational condensed-matter physics acquires a novel compass in the search for unknown stable structures. This global phase-space search algorithm demonstrates its power in solving the complex high-pressure phases of hydrogen.
Owing to difficulties in directly detecting them, the number of extremely obscured black holes in the universe is unknown. Measurements of the cosmic X-ray background shed light on this mystery.
