NEWSROOM

Scientists have developed a new X-ray laser approach that generates the shortest pulses of high-energy X-rays to date, clocking in at 60-100 attoseconds (quintillionths of a second). By using a powerful laser to stimulate inner shell electrons—those closest to an atomic nucleus—this fast and powerful technique captures detailed movements of electrons, enabling the study of quantum-scale phenomena previously thought unobservable.

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have conducted a theoretical analysis demonstrating how a “topological quantum battery”—an innovative device that leverages the topological properties of photonic waveguides and quantum effects of two-level atoms—could be efficiently designed.

Using advanced computational modelling, a research team led by the University of Oxford has achieved the first-ever real-time, three-dimensional simulations of how intense laser beams alter the ‘quantum vacuum’—a state once assumed to be empty, but which quantum physics predicts is full of virtual electron-positron pairs.

In hyper-entanglement, two characteristics of a particle pair are correlated. As a simple analogy, this would be like a set of twins separated at birth having both the same names and same types of cars: The two traits are correlated between the twins. In the new study, Endres and his team were able to hyper-entangle pairs of atoms such that their individual states of motion and their individual electronic states—their internal energy levels—were correlated among the atoms.

The work is set to open new avenues for the study of the exotic physics arising from the interplay of interactions and a magnetic field. This includes, for example, microscopic studies of the fractional quantum Hall effect and its properties such as anyonic excitations, long-range entanglement and topological order. These phenomena offer the potential to deepen our understanding of fundamental quantum physics while also paving the way for practical applications, for example i

An exact expression for a key process needed in many quantum technologies has been derived by a RIKEN mathematical physicist and a collaborator. This could help to guide advances in quantum technologies.