• Research News

    Time Crystal Research Enters a New Phase

    Our world only exists thanks to the diverse properties of the many materials that make it up. The differences between all those materials result from more than just which atoms and molecules form them. A material’s properties also depend on how those basic building Read More
  • Research News

    Mysteriously Mundane Turbulence Revealed in 2D Superfluid

    Despite existing everywhere, the quantum world is a foreign place where many of the rules of daily life don’t apply. Quantum objects jump through solid walls; quantum entanglement connects the fates of particles no matter how far they are separated; and quantum objects may Read More
  • Research News

    A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle

    aOn March 24, 2025 at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference taking place in La Thuile, Italy, the LHCb collaboration at CERN reported a new milestone in our understanding of the subtle yet profound differences between matter and antimatter. In its analysis of large Read More
  • Research News

    Researchers Play a Microscopic Game of Darts with Melted Gold

    Sometimes, what seems like a fantastical or improbable chain of events is just another day at the office for a physicist. In a recent experiment by University of Maryland researchers at the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, a scene played out that would be right Read More
  • Research News

    IceCube Search for Extremely High-energy Neutrinos Contributes to Understanding of Cosmic Rays

    Neutrinos are chargeless, weakly interacting particles that are able to travel undeflected through the cosmos. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole searches for the sources of these astrophysical neutrinos in order to understand the origin of high-energy particles called cosmic rays and, Read More
  • Research News

    Twisted Light Gives Electrons a Spinning Kick

    It’s hard to tell when you’re catching some rays at the beach, but light packs a punch. Not only does a beam of light carry energy, it can also carry momentum. This includes linear momentum, which is what makes a speeding train hard to Read More
  • Research News

    Repurposing Qubit Tech to Explore Exotic Superconductivity

    Decades of quantum research are now being transformed into practical technologies, including the superconducting circuits that are being used in physics research and built into small quantum computers by companies like IBM and Google. The established knowledge and technical infrastructure are allowing researchers to harness quantum technologies in Read More
  • Research News

    New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction

    Quantum computers are potentially revolutionary devices and the basis of a growing industry. However, their technology isn’t standardized yet, and researchers are still studying the physics behind the diverse ways to build these quantum devices. Even the most basic building blocks of a quantum Read More
  • Research News

    HAWC Finds High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emissions from Microquasar V4641 Sagittarii

    A new study in Nature, “Ultra-high-energy gamma-ray bubble around microquasar V4641 Sgr,"   has  revealed a groundbreaking discovery by researchers from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory:  TeV gamma-ray emissions from V4641 Sagittarii (V4641 Sgr), a binary system composed of a black hole and a main sequence Read More
  • 1 Time Crystal Research Enters a New Phase
  • 2 Mysteriously Mundane Turbulence Revealed in 2D Superfluid
  • 3 A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle
  • 4 Researchers Play a Microscopic Game of Darts with Melted Gold
  • 5 IceCube Search for Extremely High-energy Neutrinos Contributes to Understanding of Cosmic Rays
  • 6 Twisted Light Gives Electrons a Spinning Kick
  • 7 Repurposing Qubit Tech to Explore Exotic Superconductivity
  • 8 New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction
  • 9 HAWC Finds High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emissions from Microquasar V4641 Sagittarii

Physics is Phun

Department News

  • World Quantum Day "Capital of Quantum" illustration by Valerie Morgan Happy Quantum Day! If that’s a salutation you’re unfamiliar with, this might not be the last time you encounter it. Celebrated every April 14, World Quantum Day seeks to boost understanding and appreciation of quantum science and technology. Read More
  • Breakthrough Prize Awarded to CERN Experiments On April 5, 2025, the CMS, LHCb, ALICE and ATLAS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN were honored with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. The prize is awarded to the four collaborations, which unite thousands of researchers from more than 70 countries, and concerns Read More
  • Moille Awarded Distinguished Research Scientist Prize Associate Research Scientist Grégory Moille has received the Distinguished Research Scientist Prize from the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland. The award comes with a $5,000 prize and celebrates his research excellence.  “I'm deeply honored and grateful for this recognition,” Read More
  • Sclafani Cited for Dissertation Work Post-doctoral Associate Stephen Sclafani has been selected for the American Physical Society’s Ceclia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award, which recognizes doctoral thesis research in astrophysics and encourages effective written and oral presentation of research results.    Sclafani was cited for performing the first observation of diffuse high-energy neutrinos from Read More
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Upcoming Events

5 May
JQI Seminar - Michael Knap
Date Mon, May 5, 2025 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
5 May
EPT Seminar - Marius Kongsore, NYU
Mon, May 5, 2025 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
5 May
Biophysics Seminar: Evan Hart
Mon, May 5, 2025 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
6 May
QuICS Special Seminar: Michael Knap
Tue, May 6, 2025 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
7 May
HEP seminar
Wed, May 7, 2025 4:00 pm - 5:15 pm
8 May
RQS Seminar
Thu, May 8, 2025 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
8 May
Geometry and Physics RIT
Thu, May 8, 2025 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
9 May
Friday Quantum Seminar: Beini Gao
Fri, May 9, 2025 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
12 May
JQI Seminar - Shimon Kolkowitz
Mon, May 12, 2025 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Quantum Simulation with Atoms, Ions and Molecules

Peter Zoller, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck
& Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

May 08, 2012

Quantum optical systems of cold atoms, ions and molecules provide one of the best ways to implement quantum simulation of many body systems. In this talk we will discuss some recent theoretical and experimental developments towards "open system" quantum simulation, where a many body system is coupled to an engineered environment. This provides a new scenarios to prepare entangled states in quantum information, and leads to a new non-equilibrium condensed matter physics of driven-dissipative systems. Specific examples to be discussed include an open system Rydberg quantum simulator, and a related experiment with trapped ions demonstrating preparation of GHZ states and dynamical quantum phase transitions. In addition, we briefly touch topics like Majorana fermions induced by dissipation, and dissipative d-wave pairing.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in Room 1410 at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

The Strangest Man: the life of Paul Dirac

Graham Farmelo
April 24, 2012

Paul Dirac, co-discover of quantum mechanics, was one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the twentieth century. Now often called "the theorist’s theorist," he is most famous for prediction of anti-matter on the basis of his relativistic equation for the electron. He is also well known for his extraordinary personality, especially his taciturnity, his rectilinear thought processes and his lack of empathy. In this talk, Graham Farmelo shall explore his work, his character and his posthumous productivity as perhaps the most influential of the pioneers of quantum physics.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in Room 1410 at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

Higgs Boson: On the Verge of Discovery

Andrey Korytov, University of Florida
March 6, 2012

The Higgs boson was conceived in 1960s with a very special purpose: in the standard model of elementary particles, it is via interactions with the Higgs boson field that particles can acquire masses without breaking the foundational principle of the gauge invariance. The Large Hadron Collider was designed to discover the Higgs boson or ascertain its non-existence. The former outcome will be seen as a triumph of the standard model, while the later result would be qualified as a revolution in the particle physics. I will briefly overview the standard model basics and the Higgs mechanism by which particles acquire masses, review the design and operation of the Large Hadron Collider and its experiments, and give insights into the recent very suggestive, and highly publicized, results that have been released by the LHC experiments in December.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in Room 1410 at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

Plasmonic Terahertz Waveguides

Daniel Mittleman, Rice University
April 3, 2012

Concentrating optical energy into an ultra-small spot beyond the diffraction limit has long been an interesting topic in photonics. For terahertz radiation, this challenge is of particular importance, to meet the growing interest in imaging and spectroscopy of materials with a size below the sub-millimeter scale of the free-space wavelength. One of the most exciting new approaches is to use subwavelength-sized plasmonic waveguides, based on the excitation of localized surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) on metallic surfaces. While most of the studies on plasmonic waveguides have been focused in the optical regime, subwavelength plasmonic waveguides in the THz spectral regime have also recently attracted a great deal of attention. Here, we discuss several terahertz waveguide structures in the context of plasmonic waveguiding, and show how this understanding can enable deep subwavelength confinement of broadband terahertz signals.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in Room 1410 at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

The First Neutral Atom Circuit Analogs to Basic Electric Circuit Elements

Wendell T. Hill III, Joint Quantum Institute
March 13, 2012

Atomtronics, a relatively new field of physics, seeks to re-engineer electronics where atoms are the basic carriers of information. Today, electronics only exploits the charge of the electron; it is becoming more and more clear, however, that simply utilizing the spin of the electron would enable novel ways to store information. Devices based on so-called spintronics have the potential to revolutionize electronics. The atom, having a more complex internal structure than the electron, makes the possibilities with atomtronics far richer than those with spintronics. Crossed laser beams, producing optical lattices, and lasers with exotic spatial distributions, such as higher order Laguerre-Gauss modes, provide a means for establishing optical dipole potentials that have lead to several cold atom-based analogs to electronics and condensed states of matter. Persistent currents in a ring, a close atom analog to a superconducting circuit, and even a Josephson junction are just two examples of circuit analogs that have been demonstrated. While these harmonic potentials have received the most attention, arbitrary, non-harmonic potentials would allow a host of new analogs to be constructed, including more basic electrical elements. Exploiting an adaptation of a generalized phase-contrast approach, we have generated high-quality two-dimensional (2D) optical patterns that are ideal for creating low-noise potentials for neutral atoms – free-space atom chips. The chip is composed of an etched “light substrate” – a 2D sheet of light that is either red or blue detuned from the atomic resonance. The substrate is etched by the spatially-shaped beam propagating in a direction orthogonal to the plane of the sheet, which can be either red detuned or blue detuned as well. In contrast to the more familiar material-based atom chips, free-space atom chips can possess potentials that are non-harmonic, have sharp walls and barriers that can even be modified on a timescale commensurate with the flow of an atomic BEC. We have taken the initial steps toward realizing these chips by creating RLC circuits, the resistance and inductance of which are equivalent to the Sharvin (ballistic) resistance in metals and the usually small kinetic inductance, respectively. Similarly, the capacitance is related to the imbalance between the number of atoms and the chemical potential between two points in the circuit. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an atomtronics circuit with analogs to basic elements of an electronic circuit and the first direct observation in real time of the flow of an ideal gas through a channel.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in Room 1410 at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.