Photon's life cycle 'watched' in full

Superconducting mirrors made of copper covered by a thin layer of niobium. These mirrors are able to store microwave photons up to one-tenth of a second (Image: Michel Brune)

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The reason physicists are so excited about the LHC, though, is that the kind of supersymmetry that best solves the problem with the Higgs will become visible at the higher energies the LHC will explore.

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A team of physicists has directly observed a reverse shock wave of light in a specially tailored structure known as a left-handed metamaterial. Although it was first predicted over forty years ago, this is the first unambiguous experimental demonstration of the effect.

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Astronomers have used a high-energy burst of light from a distant galaxy to test the fabric of space and time. The work is the best test yet of attempts to create a 'theory of everything'. More Articles

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A new method for combining six photons together results in a highly robust qubit capable of transporting quantum information over long distances.

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The world seems to be putting itself together piece by piece on this damp gray morning along the coast of Maine.

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While the effort to detect gravitational waves is ongoing, the researchers have now used the LIGO apparatus to observe the oscillations of a 2.7 kg pendulum mode at a level close to its quantum ground state.

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What is time? No, really, what is it? A dimension of space-time, says relativity, but is it physical? Or just mental? Why does it seem to move forward and not back? Does the universe acknowledge the arrow of time that we experience? How big is time? Does our notion of "now" h …

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Using a technique called Pixel-lensing, a group of astronomers in Italy may have detected a planet orbiting another star. But this planet is unique among the 300-plus exoplanets discovered so far, as it and its parent star are in another galaxy. More Articles

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"Zipper structures break new ground on coupling photonics with micromechanics, and can impact the way we measure motion, even into the quantum realm," More Articles

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...people today carry around pocket-sized music players capable of holding thousands of songs, thanks to the discovery 20 years ago of a phenomenon known as the "giant magnetoresistance effect," which made it possible to pack more data onto smaller and smaller hard drives.

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Previous experiments have entangled the internal properties of particles, such as spin states, but this is the first time scientists have entangled the particles' pattern of motion. More Articles

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The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light. More Articles

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A tentative first step towards an era of clean, almost limitless energy will take place today with the opening of a giant facility designed to recreate the power of the stars in an oversized warehouse in California.

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The lamp's filament is just 100 atoms wide. It is made from a single carbon nanotube. When lit, the itty bitty bulb can be seen with the unaided eye as a point of light, the scientists say. More Articles

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Nobody's above the law. But tiny clusters of colliding atoms may duck below the second law of thermodynamics. In simulations, researchers in Japan found that in rare cases, tiny clusters of atoms ricochet off each other faster than their approaching speeds. More Articles

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..the universe underwent an unimaginably brief but enormous growth spurt immediately after birth. The baby cosmos ballooned from one billionth of a trillionth of a hydrogen atom's diameter to that of a soccer ball within just 10-35 seconds...

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A new approach to trapping rainbows could lead to a form of computing that uses many different colours of light at once to convey information, according to an international research team. More Articles

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However hard you stare, you would still miss it. Researchers have found a way to generate the shortest-ever flash of light - 80 attoseconds (billionths of a billionth of a second) long.

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Faster-than-light particles, or "tachyons", may be fundamentally impossible, according to two mathematical physicists. If they're right, their new theory would also imply that time – seemingly one of the most fundamental facets of nature – is no more than a mirage.

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Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, in Livermore, CA, have created the first carbon-nanotube devices that can detect the entire visible spectrum of light.

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Research led by the University of Warwick has found a way to use doughnut shaped by-products of quantum dots to slow and even freeze light, opening up a wide range of possibilities from reliable and effective light-based computing to the possibility of "slow glass."

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d/t

.:⋅⋅⋅ SPACE ⋅⋅⋅:. Why is time so hard to comprehend? Should it be easier to comprehend than space?

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Look out, Harry Potter: researchers have advanced the study of cloaking—rendering objects invisible by forcing light waves to act as if the objects weren't there.

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the physicists suggest using a pulsed magnetic field to spatially separate the particles' wave functions.

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DVD teaches autistic children how to recognize emotions like happiness, anger and sadness through the exploits of vehicles including a train, a ferry, and a cable car.

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