Universal Quantum Phenomenon Found in Superconductors

November 21, 2018

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A ubiquitous quantum phenomenon has been detected in a large class of superconducting materials, fueling a growing belief among physicists that an unknown organizing principle governs the collective behavior of particles and determines how they spread energy and information. Understanding this organizing principle could be a key into “quantum strangeness at its deepest level,” said Subir Sachdev, a theorist at Harvard University who was not involved with the new experiments. The findings, reported today inNature Physicsby a team working at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada and the National Laboratory for Intense Magnetic Fields (LNCMI) in France, indicate that electrons inside a variety of ceramic crystals called “cuprates” seem to dissipate energy as quickly as possible, apparently bumping up against a fundamental quantum speed limit.

And past studies, especially a 2013 paper in Science, found that other exotic superconducting compounds — strontium ruthenates, pnictides, tetramethyltetrathiafulvalenes and more — also burn energy at what appears to be a maximum allowed rate.

Source: quantamagazine.org

Muons: the little-known particles helping to probe the impenetrable

The muon is going mainstream. The particle, a heavy version of the electron that rains down on every square centimetre of Earth, is little known outside particle physics — and last year it helped archaeologists to make a stunning discovery of a previously unknown chamber in Egypt’s Great Pyramid1. Volcanologists and nuclear engineers are also finding new uses for the same technique, called muography, which harnesses muons to probe the innards of dense structures.

Evidence Found for a New Fundamental Particle

An experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago has detected far more electron neutrinos than predicted — a possible harbinger of a revolutionary new elementary particle called the sterile neutrino, though many physicists remain skeptical. Inside the MiniBooNE tank, photodetectors capture the light created when a neutrino interacts with an atomic nucleus. Physicists are both thrilled and baffled by a new report from a neutrino experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago.

Universal Quantum Phenomenon Found in Superconductors

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