A group of international researchers have discovered an important barrier that prevents quantum machine learning from being trained – too much quantum entanglement. Quantum machine learning studies the advantages of quantum computers for Artificial Intelligence (AI). The hope is that in the future quantum neural networks will be able to combine the strengths of quantum computation and traditional neural networks, however, recent theory research points to potential difficulties. Machine learning requires the algorithms to learn from the data in a…

An international research team with participation from Mainz and Darmstadt measures neutron form factors with previously unattained precision. All known atomic nuclei and therefore almost all visible matter consists of protons and neutrons, yet many of the properties of these omnipresent natural building blocks remain unknown. As an uncharged particle, the neutron in particular resists many types of measurement and 90 years after its discovery there are still many unanswered questions regarding its size and lifetime, among other things. The…

A great deal of information constantly flows into our brains via the eyes. Scientists can measure the resulting brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The precise measurement of eye movements during an MRI scan can tell scientists a great deal about our thoughts, memories and current goals, but also about diseases of the brain. Researchers from the MPI CBS in Leipzig and the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim have now developed software that uses artificial intelligence to…

Computer scientists develop new test approach. How do industrial control systems react to disturbances? To analyze the reaction to a particular type of disturbance, caused by computational errors, Saarbrücken computer science professor Martina Maggio, in collaboration with researchers from Lund University in Sweden, has developed a new approach which outperforms previous testing methods. Their new approach can reveal that a control system may not be as robust as it was assumed to be, based on previous benchmarks. For their work,…

Experiments drive electrons to multi-GeV energies in an all-optical laser-driven accelerator. Charged particle accelerators have been a central tool of basic physics research for almost a hundred years, perhaps most famously as “atom smashers” for understanding the elementary constituents of the universe. As accelerators have progressed to ever higher energies to probe ever smaller constituents, they have grown to enormous size: the Large Hadron Collider is a remarkable 27 kilometers in circumference. Recently, however, researchers at the University of Maryland…

Discoveries reveal an escape route for high-energy electrons that can lead to thermal quenches. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory have uncovered a key process behind a major challenge called thermal quenches, the rapid heat loss in hot plasmas that can occur in doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion devices. Such quenches are sudden drops of electron heat in the plasma that fuels fusion reactions, drops that can create damaging disruptions inside…

A temporal change in the titania surface chemical state during the UV light irradiation is not observable through conventional methods such as regular FTIR or Raman spectroscopy. Therefore, a team led by Professor Hiromasa Nishikiori of Shinshu University’s RISM observed this reaction through time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. The team noted the monoanion transformation to the dianion (deprotonated species) of fluorescein “in the excited states” where the proton transfers from the fluorescein dye to the titania surface during the UV irradiation, which…

Theory and experiments developed at Michigan State use ‘mirror nuclei’ to probe fundamental physics of atoms and neutron stars. About 20 years ago, Michigan State University’s B. Alex Brown had an idea to reveal insights about a fundamental but enigmatic force at work in some of the most extreme environments in the universe. These environments include an atom’s nucleus and celestial bodies known as neutron stars, both of which are among the densest objects known to humanity. For comparison, matching…

Laser emission demonstrated at room temperature: semiconductors consisting of three atomic layers could form the basis for innovative lasers. An international team of researchers led by physicists from the University of Oldenburg presented their findings in the journal Nature Communications. In an article published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, an international team led by Oldenburg physicists Dr. Hangyon Shan, Prof. Dr Christian Schneider and Dr. Carlos Anton-Solanas reports that crystals consisting of just three atomic layers can emit laser-like…

NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, formed after the death of a Sun-like star. The medium-sized star would have expelled its outer layers of gas into space as it died, leaving behind a white-dwarf core. A halo of glowing gas over 4.5 light-years across surrounds the nebula’s brighter inner ring. Many round or nearly round planetary nebulae display these halo structures, and astronomers have been investigating how they evolve. NGC 2438 was one of the nebulae studied, and researchers found…

Scientists experimentally reconstruct Bloch wavefunction for the first time. Lightspeed is the fastest velocity in the universe. Except when it isn’t. Anyone who’s seen a prism split white light into a rainbow has witnessed how material properties can influence the behavior of quantum objects: in this case, the speed at which light propagates. Electrons also behave differently in materials than they do in free space, and understanding how is critical for scientists studying material properties and engineers looking to develop…

Theorists at The University of Texas at Dallas, along with colleagues in Germany, have for the first time observed a rare phenomenon called the quantum anomalous Hall effect in a very simple material. Previous experiments have detected it only in complex or delicate materials. Dr. Fan Zhang, associate professor of physics in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, is an author of a study published on Oct. 6 in the journal Nature that demonstrates the exotic behavior in bilayer graphene, which is a naturally…

…top ranked by Decadal Survey. The 2020 Decadal Survey for Astronomy and Astrophysics has recommended a new series of three Great Observatories — or space-based telescopes — as a top national priority for the future of space astrophysics. The Lynx X-Ray Observatory is included as part of this vision. Dozens of scientists and engineers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian teamed with colleagues around the world to define the observatory’s scientific objectives, conceptualize its design and work on key technologies. Known as the Decadal…

Computer modelling explains black hole observations. Further confirmation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is located 55 million light years away from Earth in the Virgo constellation. It is a giant galaxy with 12,000 globular clusters, making the Milky Way’s 200 globular clusters appear modest in comparison. A black hole of six and a half billion sun masses is harboured at the centre of M87. It is the first black hole for which an image…

NRAO project ranked as important new initiative. The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey (Astro2020) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has published its report and the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) received high priority for new ground-based observatories to be constructed during the coming decade. The report, in which ngVLA shared second ranking among ground-based projects, was the culmination of a lengthy process aimed at developing a comprehensive research strategy and vision for a decade of transformative science…

An international research team from the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat-Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter has demonstrated a completely novel state of matter in a metal. It is created by the combination of four electrons-until now, only electron pairs were known. This discovery could lead to a new type of superconductivity, an entirely new research direction, and revolutionary technologies such as quantum sensors. The results have now been published in the journal Nature Physics. Dissipationless electric energy transport–also known as…