• 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 Information Processing with Superconducting Circuits

Irfan Siddiqi, University of California, Berkeley
November 18, 2014

The quasiparticle concept is the foundation of our understanding of the dynamics of quantum many-body systems. It originated in the theory of metals, which have electron-like quasiparticles; but it is also useful in more exotic states like those found in fractional quantum Hall systems. However, modern materials abound in systems to which the quasiparticle picture does not apply, and developing their theoretical description remains one of the most important challenges in condensed matter physics. I will describe recent progress in understanding the dynamics of two systems without quasiparticles: the superfluid-insulator transition of ultracold atoms, and the `strange metal’ found in the high temperature superconductors. Some of this progress relies on holographic methods which map non-quasiparticle quantum systems to the dynamics of black hole horizons.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in the Physical Sciences Complex at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). On occasion, they are held in 1412 of the John S. Toll Physics Building; please note the schedule. If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

How Many Physicists Does it take to Discover a New Particle? Higgs Boson and Big Science

Sarah Eno, University of Maryland
November 25, 2014

On July 4, 2012, the CMS and ATLAS collaborations announced the discovery a new particle whose properties were consistent with those predicted for the long-sought Higgs boson. This discovery is both a triumph of the Standard Model of forces and particles developed during the middle of the last century, and of "Big Science", or science done in large, international collaborations using massive, elaborate, expensive detectors. In this talk, I'll give an overview of the significance of the Higgs particle to physics, but I'll also do my best to explain why (using the example of the CMS collaboration), the paper announcing this discovery had 2892 authors from 168 institutions.

I'll describe what it is like to work in such a large collaboration, the individual contributions to the Higgs result from the many authors, and the benefits to graduate and undergraduate students working in this environment.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in the Physical Sciences Complex at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). On occasion, they are held in 1412 of the John S. Toll Physics Building; please note the schedule. If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

Quenched Disorder and Vestigial Nematicity

Steve Kivelson, Stanford University
November 4, 2014

Intermediate phases with “vestigial order” occur when the spontaneously broken symmetries of a “fully ordered” groundstate are restored sequentially as a function of increasingly strong thermal or quantum fluctuations, or of increasing magnitude of quenched randomness. As an important example, incommensurate charge-density-wave short-range order (i.e. with a finite correlation length) and a sharp phase transition to a phase with long-range nematic order is shown to be natural in the presence of weak quenched disorder in systems which, in the absence of disorder, would have unidirectional (stripe) ordered ground states. Recent experiments probing charge order in the pseudo-gap regime of the hole-doped cuprate high-temperature superconductors and nematic order in the Fe based superconductors are interpreted in light of these results.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in the Physical Sciences Complex at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). On occasion, they are held in 1412 of the John S. Toll Physics Building; please note the schedule. If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

K-14 Math and Science Education: A Physicist Meets Reality

Bob Eisenstein, Sante Fe Alliance for Science
November 11, 2014

The Santa Fe Alliance for Science (SFAFS, www.sfafs.org) was founded in May, 2005 in order to provide assistance in K-14 math and science education in the greater Santa Fe area. It does this via extensive programs in (1) math and science tutoring at local high schools and the Santa Fe Community College; (2) science fair advising and judging; (3) its ”Santa Fe Science Cafe for Young Thinkers” series; and (4) a program of professional enrichment for K-12 math and science teachers. Well over 150 volunteer STEM professionals have contributed since our beginning. Participation by students, parents and teachers has increased dramatically over the years, leading to much more positive views of math and science, especially among elementary school students and teachers. Support from the community and from local school districts has been very strong. I will present a brief status report on SFAFS activities, discuss some of the lessons learned along the way and describe briefly some ideas for the future.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in the Physical Sciences Complex at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). On occasion, they are held in 1412 of the John S. Toll Physics Building; please note the schedule. If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.

Quantum Computing and the Entanglement Frontier

John Preskill, California Institute of Technology
October 21, 2014

The quantum laws governing atoms and other tiny objects seem to defy common sense, and information encoded in quantum systems has weird properties that baffle our feeble human minds. John Preskill will explain why he loves quantum entanglement, the elusive feature making quantum information fundamentally different from information in the macroscopic world. By exploiting quantum entanglement, quantum computers should be able to solve otherwise intractable problems, with far-reaching applications to cryptology, materials science, and medicine. Preskill is less weird than a quantum computer, and easier to understand.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in the Physical Sciences Complex at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). On occasion, they are held in 1412 of the John S. Toll Physics Building; please note the schedule. If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.