Lifeboat Foundation

The discovery of the quantum tunneling (QT) effect—the transmission of particles through a high potential barrier—was one of the most impressive achievements of quantum mechanics made in the 1920s. Responding to the contemporary challenges, I introduce a deep neural network (DNN) architecture that processes information using the effect of QT. I demonstrate the ability of QT-DNN to recognize optical illusions like a human. Tasking QT-DNN to simulate human perception of the Necker cube and Rubin’s vase, I provide arguments in favor of the superiority of QT-based activation functions over the activation functions optimized for modern applications in machine vision, also showing that, at the fundamental level, QT-DNN is closely related to biology-inspired DNNs and models based on the principles of quantum information processing.

The standard model of fundamental particles and interactions has now been in place for about a half-century. It has successfully passed experimental test after experimental test at particle accelerators. However, many of the model’s features are poorly understood, and it is now clear that standard-model particles only compose about 5% of the observed energy density of the Universe. This situation naturally encourages researchers to look for new particles and interactions that fall outside this model. One way to perform this search is to prepare a gas of polarized atoms and to look for changes in this polarization that might come from new physics. Haowen Su from the University of Science and Technology of China and colleagues have used two separated samples of polarized xenon gas to probe spin-dependent interactions [1] (Fig. 1). The results place constraints on axions—a candidate for dark matter—in a theoretically favored mass range called the axion window.

Searches for new spin-dependent interactions have exploded over the past decade. Special relativity and quantum mechanics tightly constrain the mathematical form for such interactions, with the main adjustable parameters being the coupling strength and the spatial range. Since the form of these interactions is generic across many models, it is possible to conduct experimental searches for new interaction signatures, even in the absence of a specific theory for beyond-standard-model physics.

Imperial researchers have proposed a new way to directly probe quantum entanglement, the effect that led to the puzzling concept of “spooky action at a distance,” where previously grouped particles’ quantum states cannot be described independently of each other. The research has been accepted for publication in Physical Review X.

Graphene is a simple material containing only a single layer of carbon atoms, but when two sheets of it are stacked together and offset at a slight angle, this twisted bilayer material produces numerous intriguing effects, notably superconductivity.

Fine tuning an experimental setup improved a detector’s sensitivity to neutrinos and perhaps eventually dark matter—two difficult-to-measure forms of matter which hold great importance for understanding particle physics and experimental cosmology. The University-of-Michigan-led study is published in Physical Review D.

Nuclear physics theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated that complex calculations run on supercomputers can accurately predict the distribution of electric charges in mesons, particles made of a quark and an antiquark. Scientists are keen to learn more about mesons—and the whole class of particles made of quarks, collectively known as hadrons—in high-energy experiments at the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a particle collider being built at Brookhaven Lab.

Since the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, there has been ongoing research there into Higgs bosons and a search for traces of physics beyond the existing model of elementary particles. Scientists working at the ATLAS detector have combined both goals: with the latest analysis it has been possible to expand our knowledge of the interactions of Higgs bosons with each other, and stronger constraints on the phenomena of “new physics” have been found.

In a breakthrough, scientists confirmed superfluid properties in supersolids by observing quantized vortices. Using precision techniques, the team stirred a rotating supersolid, revealing unique vortex dynamics and offering new insights into the coexistence of solid and fluid characteristics. This discovery paves the way for studying exotic quantum matter and has implications for astrophysical phenomena.

Supersolids: A Quantum Paradox

Matter that behaves like both a solid and a superfluid at the same time might sound impossible. But more than 50 years ago, physicists predicted that quantum mechanics could allow such a state. In this unique state, collections of particles exhibit properties that seem contradictory. Francesca Ferlaino from the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck and the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences explains, “It is a bit like Schrödinger’s cat, which is both alive and dead, a supersolid is both rigid and liquid.”

First indications of the neutrino fog—an important background for dark matter searches—from the PandaX & XENON collaborations Letters: https://go.aps.org/3AwVxQG & https://go.aps.org/3YSjX0l