Quantum technologies are currently maturing at a breath-taking pace. These technologies exploit principles of quantum mechanics in suitably engineered systems, with bright prospects such as boosting computational efficiencies or communication security well beyond what is possible with devices based on today's 'classical' technologies.

Entanglement is a quantum phenomenon where the properties of two or more particles become interconnected in such a way that one cannot assign a definite state to each individual particle anymore. Rather, we have to consider all particles at once that share a certain state. The entanglement of the particles ultimately determines the properties of a material.

Scientists have developed a new way to study the shapes of atomic nuclei and their internal building blocks. The method relies on modeling the production of certain particles from high-energy collisions of electrons with nuclear targets. Such collisions will take place at the future Electron Ion Collider (EIC). The findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

In the search for new particles and forces in nature, physicists are on the hunt for behaviors within atoms and molecules that are forbidden by the tried-and-true Standard Model of particle physics. Any deviations from this model could indicate what physicists affectionately refer to as "new physics."

Researchers from the University of Ottawa (uOttawa), in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science and Lancaster University, have observed a hidden quantum transition that can only be seen depending on how observers perform measurements.

High-energy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider are capable of producing a quark-gluon plasma. But are heavy atomic nuclei really necessary for its formation? And above all: how are secondary particles later born from this plasma? Further clues in the search for answers to these questions are provided by the latest analysis of collisions between protons and protons or ions, observed in the LHCb experiment.

When a negatively charged electron and a positively charged hole in a pair remain bound together following excitation by light, they produce states known as excitons. These states can influence the optical properties of materials, in turn enabling their use for developing various technologies.

There are different ideas about how quantum computers could be built. But they all have one thing in common: you use a quantum physical system—for example, individual atoms—and change their state by exposing them to very specific forces for a specific time. However, this means that in order to be able to rely on the quantum computing operation delivering the correct result, you need a clock that is as precise as possible.

True to form, a "strange metal" quantum material proved strangely quiet in recent quantum noise experiments at Rice University. Published this week in Science, the measurements of quantum charge fluctuations known as "shot noise" provide the first direct evidence that electricity seems to flow through strange metals in an unusual liquidlike form that cannot be readily explained in terms of quantized packets of charge known as quasiparticles.

Immanuel Bloch, Scientific Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Chairholder at the Ludwig Maximilian University, has been awarded the Stern Gerlach Medal by the German Physical Society. The award recognises his pioneering research on quantum simulations with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. Bloch's work has led to a new interdisciplinary field of quantum physics that combines many-body physics, quantum information science, and quantum optics. The award will be officially presented at the society's annual conference in March 2024.

In recent years, physicists have been trying to better understand how quantum information spreads in systems of interacting particles—a phenomenon often referred to as "scrambling." Scrambling in closed systems, physical systems that can only exchange energy with degrees of freedom within the system, is a characteristic feature of chaotic many-body quantum dynamics.

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in selectively exciting a molecule using a combination of two extreme-ultraviolet light sources and causing the molecule to dissociate while tracking it over time. This is another step towards specific quantum mechanical control of chemical reactions, which could enable new, previously unknown reaction channels.

Scientists at the University of Bristol, led by Professor Nigel Hussey, have discovered a rare phenomenon in purple bronze, a unique one-dimensional metal, that could be key to creating a 'perfect switch' in quantum devices. The material can flip between being an insulator and a superconductor, a versatility known as 'emergent symmetry'. This could offer an ideal On/Off switch in future quantum technology. The research, which began 13 years ago, was published in Science. The team included Dr Piotr Chudzinski, now a Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, and PhD students Xiaofeng Xu, Nick Wakeham, and Maarten Berben.

Writing in PRX Quantum, Nathan Goldman and Lucila Peralta Gavensky (Science Faculty, ULB) and their colleagues introduce a general framework for modifying and controlling the nature of nonlinearities in a broad class of physical systems, including optical devices and quantum atomic gases.

Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) is a cryptographic tool that allows for the verification of validity between mutually untrusted parties without disclosing additional information. Non-interactive zero-knowledge proof (NIZKP) is a variant of ZKP with the feature of not requiring multiple information exchanges. Therefore, NIZKP is widely used in the fields of digital signature, blockchain, and identity authentication.

Processing quantum information relies on interacting qubits—the basic building blocks of quantum information—to perform computational tasks. Scientists are searching for the optimal qubit platform that can perform operations more efficiently, accurately and as fast as possible.

As demand rises for increased data storage and faster-performing computers, researchers are creating a new generation of materials to meet consumers' expectations.

Quantum advantage is the milestone the field of quantum computing is fervently working toward, where a quantum computer can solve problems that are beyond the reach of the most powerful non-quantum, or classical, computers.

Researchers at the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Physics have superposed two light beams twisted in the clockwise direction to create anti-clockwise twists in the dark regions of the resultant superposition. The results of the research have been published in Optica. This discovery has implications for the study of light-matter interactions and represents a step towards the observation of a peculiar phenomenon known as a quantum backflow.