Category Archives: Quantum Physics

The Internet of Things (IoT) is actively shaping both the industrial and consumer worlds, and by 2023, consumers, companies, and governments will install 40 billion IoT devices globally.

Smart tech finds its way to every business and consumer domain there isfrom retail to healthcare, from finances to logisticsand a missed opportunity strategically employed by a competitor can easily qualify as a long-term failure for companies who dont innovate.

Moreover, the 2020s challenges just confirmed the need to secure all four components of the IoT Model: Sensors, Networks (Communications), Analytics (Cloud), and Applications.

One of the top candidates to help in securing IoT is Quantum Computing, while the idea of convergence of IoT and Quantum Computing is not a new topic, it was discussed in many works of literature and covered by various researchers, but nothing is close to practical applications so far. Quantum Computing is not ready yet, it is years away from deployment on a commercial scale.

To understand the complexity of this kind of convergence, first, you need to recognize the security issues of IoT, second, comprehend the complicated nature of Quantum Computing.

IoT systems diverse security issues include:

Classical computing relies, at its ultimate level, on principles expressed by a branch of math called Boolean algebra. Data must be processed in an exclusive binary state at any point in time or bits. While the time that each transistor or capacitor need be either in 0 or 1 before switching states is now measurable in billionths of a second, there is still a limit as to how quickly these devices can be made to switch state. As we progress to smaller and faster circuits, we begin to reach the physical limits of materials and the threshold for classical laws of physics to apply. Beyond this, the quantum world takes over.

In a quantum computer, several elemental particles such as electrons or photons can be used with either their charge or polarization acting as a representation of 0 and/or 1. Each of these particles is known as a quantum bit, or qubit, the nature and behavior of these particles form the basis of quantum computing.

The two most relevant aspects of quantum physics are the principles of superposition and entanglement.

Taken together, quantum superposition and entanglement create an enormously enhanced computing power. Where a 2-bit register in an ordinary computer can store only one of four binary configurations (00, 01, 10, or 11) at any given time, a 2-qubit register in a quantum computer can store all four numbers simultaneously, because each qubit represents two values. If more qubits are added, the increased capacity is expanded exponentially.

One of the most exciting avenues that researchers, armed with qubits, are exploring, is communications security.

Quantum security leads us to the concept ofquantum cryptographywhich uses physics to develop a cryptosystem completely secure against being compromised without the knowledge of the sender or the receiver of the messages.

Essentially, quantum cryptography is based on the usage of individual particles/waves of light (photon) and their intrinsic quantum properties to develop an unbreakable cryptosystem (because it is impossible to measure the quantum state of any system without disturbing that system).

Quantum cryptography uses photons to transmit a key. Once the key is transmitted, coding, and encoding using the normal secret-key method can take place. But how does a photon become a key? How do you attach information to a photon's spin?

This is where binary code comes into play. Each type of a photon's spin represents one piece of information -- usually a 1 or a 0, for binary code. This code uses strings of 1s and 0s to create a coherent message. For example, 11100100110 could correspond with h-e-l-l-o. So a binary code can be assigned to each photon -- for example, a photon that has a vertical spin ( | ) can be assigned a 1.

Regular, non-quantum encryption can work in a variety of ways but, generally, a message is scrambled and can only be unscrambled using a secret key. The trick is to make sure that whomever youre trying to hide your communication from doesnt get their hands on your secret key. But such encryption techniques have their vulnerabilities. Certain products called weak keys happen to be easier to factor than others. Also, Moores Law continually ups the processing power of our computers. Even more importantly, mathematicians are constantly developing new algorithms that allow for easier factorization of the secret key.

Quantum cryptography avoids all these issues. Here, the key is encrypted into a series of photons that get passed between two parties trying to share secret information. Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle dictates that an adversary cant look at these photons without changing or destroying them.

With its capabilities, quantum computing can help address the challenges and issues that hamper the growth of IoT. Some of these capabilities are:

Quantum computing is still in its development stage with tech giants such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft putting in resources to build powerful quantum computers. While they were able to build machines containing more and more qubits, for example, Google announced in 2019 they achieved Quantum Supremacy, the challenge is to get these qubits to operate smoothly and with less error. But with the technology being very promising, continuous research and development are expected until such time that it reaches widespread practical applications for both consumers and businesses.

IoT is expanding as we depend on our digital devices more every day. Furthermore, WFH (Work From Home) concept resulted from COVID-19 lockdowns accelerated the deployment of many IoT devices and shorten the learning curves of using such devices. When IoT converges with Quantum Computing under Quantum IoT or QIoT, that will push other technologies to use Quantum Computing and add Quantum or Q to their products and services labels, we will see more adoption of Quantum hardware and software applications in addition to Quantum services like QSaaS, QIaaS, and QPaaS as parts of Quantum Cloud and QAI (Quantum Artificial Intelligence) to mention few examples.

A version of this article first appeared onIEEE-IoT.

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The Convergence of Internet of Things and Quantum Computing - BBN Times

By Charles Foster

[This is a review of The Flip: Who you really are, and why it matters, by Jeffrey J. Kripal. Penguin, 2020]

A few years ago I dislocated my shoulder. I went off to hospital, and breathed nitrous oxide while they tried to put it back. Something very strange yet very common happened. I rose out of my body, and looked down at it. I could see the nurses centre parting and the top of my own bald head. I was aware of the pain in the shoulder, and regretted it, but it wasnt really my business.

My mind was hovering over the skull that encased my brain, and so it seemed ludicrous to say that mind and brain were identical. The experience ousted my residual materialism. Out went Aristotle: in came Plato. This change was a flip, as Kripal describes such events in this exhilarating, bold, timely, and profoundly important book.

Personal experience of this kind often produces tectonic philosophical conversions in professional philosophers and scientists. Mere reflection rarely does. This observation itself is likely to elicit howls of derision from the materialists. For them, to intrude oneself into an inquiry is necessarily to invalidate it. And of course the humanities are supremely to be mocked, for they are all to do with subjectivity.

This derision has a dated, desperate feel about it. Its the last gasp of a fundamentalism thats on the way out. In assessing the results of scientific experimentation one simply cant ignore the consciousness of the observer. The idea that one can goes back to Descartes, who split reality into two realms the mental and the material. Eighteenth century science, without any evidence whatever for the split, and ignoring an immense amount of evidence for its absence, then ignored the mental domain, and proceeded on the assumption that all that there was (or all that mattered) was a mechanical reality, unaffected by observation, and devoid of consciousness. The rules governing the operation of the machine were clear. Newton and others had defined them.

Thats where most scientists stand today at least in public, and if they want to get and keep tenure, and be published in the good journals. Newton has been joined on the pedestal by Darwin. Together they are omniscient.

There are some impressive things on the cv of post-eighteenth century science. It has made many cool gadgets, and some vindicated predictions. But its reputation depends on looking only at its successes, and ignoring the failures. Its easy to draw a neat straight line on a graph if you delete all the outliers.

Everyone knows that quantum mechanics and relativity are discordant with classical mechanics, but the significance of the discordance is not widely appreciated. Newton, after all, continues to calculate fairly accurately the momentum of car crashes and the orbits of planets.

The real significance of the difference lies in the role that each accords to the effect of the observer, and accordingly in the degree of certainty with which each says assertions about the natural world can be made. These issues were the subject of a famous debate between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein. Einstein (despite his authorship of relativity) advocated the traditional view, inherited from Newtonian mechanics and embodied in the swaggering self-confidence of nineteenth-century science, that physics would eventually describe perfectly the weave of the world. This is the (essentially religious) belief thats voiced whenever one of sciences shortcomings is mentioned. Take consciousness, for instance. There has been no progress whatever in saying what it is, or in suggesting how it might be an emergent property of matter. Just give us time, comes the response. Our existing principles will do the job.

Youve misunderstood physics, Bohr told Einstein. Uncertainty doesnt denote an incomplete theory: it is part of the very structure of reality. Heisenberg had noted that there was no such thing as an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist independently of whether we observe them

We now know that Bohr and Heisenberg were right, and Einstein was wrong at least in relation to fundamental particles. Relationship, and consequential indeterminacy, are basic constituents of the universe. Once particles have interrelated, their internal states correlate with one another, however widely separated in time or space the particles may be. Since all particles began life at or near the same place, at or near the same time, perhaps we can talk sensibly about the universe as one organism, each cell affecting the other. Many mystics many quantum physicists amongst them have spoken of the interconnection of things in terms of Mind.

There is obviously a relationship between brain and mind: between matter and consciousness. If a lorry rolls over my head it will affect my consciousness in some way. Mind, as Kripal puts it, is mattered. But this does not begin to exclude the possibility that matter is minded. William James put it beautifully: Human consciousness is a function of the brain, but function is not the same thing as production. Function can also denote transmission. A prism reflects light, but the light is not produced by the prism itself. Perhaps brains are like transmitters or receivers of mind. Perhaps they act like valves or filters, restricting the flow into us of data from an extravagantly minded world. It would make sense of much human experience not least the dramatic new perspectives (out of body experiences and near death experiences among them) that we get when the valve is compromised. Subjects who have had out of body experiences often report that they have had a 360 degree view of their own body. It sounds suspiciously as if theyve added another dimension to their perception; as if the brains usual and convenient (but mathematically nave) insistence on three spatial dimensions has been temporarily trumped.

The general materialistic framework of the sciences at the moment is not wrong, writes Kripal. It is simply half right. His book is a brilliantly successful attempt to demonstrate what might be added to our understanding of the universe and ourselves if we took seriously the insights of ordinary and extraordinary human experience. Those insights chime perfectly with Bohr and Heisenberg, and they suggest strongly that mindedness is fundamental to the cosmos, not some tangential, accidental, or recent emergent property of matter. They may indeed go further than that, and entail the conclusion that matter is an expression of some kind of cosmic Mind.

The equations of quantum physics are, for Kripal, a thrilling new genre of mystical literature. In the quantum world, matter is congealed energy, the division between space and time is illusory, and dark energy constitutes most of the universe. You can go seamlessly from those observations to the Tibetan Book of the Dead or the accounts of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

Where does all this leave the humanities? If the best books on consciousness are written by physicists, does anyone who doesnt understand partial differential equations have anything to offer? Yes, says Kripal and this may be the main legacy of The Flip. The best defence advocates are those who acknowledge their clients shortcomings, and Kripal is merciless. Why, he asks, should anyone listen respectfully to a discipline whose central arguments often boil down to the claim that the only truth to have is that there is no truth? Quite right. But there is hope for non-scientific writers. The humanities, after all, have had consciousness as the, or a, central concern for thousands of years. And now their special subject is the main focus of research in the worlds best funded laboratories. Kripal proposes that we reimagine the humanities as the study of consciousness coded in culture. (Original emphasis). Thats a high calling.

An era can be considered over when its basic illusions have been exhausted, wrote Arthur Miller. The illusion of the adequacy of materialism as an explanation for the nature of the world is exhausted, and a new era of real science is surely about to begin an era in which all the available evidence is taken into account, and accordingly one that recognises that (in Kripals words) mind is an irreducible dimension or substrate of the natural world, indeed of the whole cosmos, and in which science and the humanities play a synergistic role in expounding the nature of that substrate. Kripals book will be seen as one of the foundational texts of that new synergy.

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Who You Really Are And Why It Matters | Practical Ethics - Practical Ethics

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By MICHAEL JOHN UGLO

In the infinite past, today and in the future of time infinity, one thing for certain is that everything relates to everything else. This was the affirmation made in the scholarly world of science and the top discovery and establishment which gains insights from all angles, corners and manners of scientific and mathematical critiques.The one principle gaining utmost insight in the history of science is the Principle of Relativity. Everything relates to everything else as a colloquial discourse to lead our discussion and inquiry and discovery in this lecture. Wow, how that was a remark as it seems cool enough isnt it.There are two principle with a ten-year lag of discovery by the famous brilliant scientist who once lived on the planet by the name of Albert Einstein a Jewish German naturalized citizen of United States of America. The first principle formulated was the Principle of Special Relativity in 1905 and the General Principle of Relativity in 1915.Spacetime and energy mass gravitation curvature.

The Principle of Relativity as conveniently referred on the scene of the field of physics revolutionised this area of study. It gives rigour and tenacity to make physics an acclaimed field in an erudite discipline and its application is so vast in technology in human history. It hence accomplished a menacing four dimensions in three tensors (3-D) and the time as an integral component as being the fourth dimension (4-D) all in space and time.Tensors are vectors that emanate from just one vector with size (magnitude) and direction which gives the tree dimensions (3-D) and if you add time it gives the fourth dimension. Vectors are simply quantities with a magnitude (size) and direction. Thus, for any event that happens in space, the application of relativity comes into mind for an automatic computation. This has a relevance in computer software applications in relation to the relativity principle in physics to do with the use of resources of time and space in computer engineering.

Relativity Science, Gravity and TechnologyThe Special Relativity Principle simply states that any object will be moving at a constant speed when not subjected to any force from outside or external force.That is given substance with the use of the terms inertial frame of reference. That means one can apply the nature of the mass and speed of the object using Isaac Newtons laws of motion as wellas the principles of the Special relativity. In generality, it can be asserted that in Special Relativity Principle, the principle works in the absence of gravity. That is, gravity is not considered in calculating the magnitude of any travelling object in a state of constant motion. This principle is proven with the fact that light or the visible light is not affected by any inherent nor neither external force at all. Hence, all objects are travelling to reach the ultimatum of the speed of light, which is approximately 300,000 km per second.When we look at the other record setting principle of relativity, it is the General Principle of Relativity. This principle was formulated subsequent to the Special Relativity Principle after a ten-year period owing to careful thought and study by the genus himself Albert Einstein. This time, this principle includes gravity at its epicentre. It gives the stature to gravitation as we now know and apply. The principle crafts the field and presence of gravity in the universe as we refer to the vastness of space of galaxies and black bodies with their interactions. It gives grounding to the movement of the astronomical and celestial bodies and formations such as gamma streams and formations with emissions of cosmic radiations and those predictions are made with very high accuracy in reference with gravitation.The one idea is the space and time in the realm of space. Gravity comes about as a result of mass and energy creating an impact of a warping on a surface of space and measured in space as a curvature with a an eigen grid. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors can be derived from there as in tensor and vector calculations for three dimensions (3D) and four dimensions (4D) calculations when factoring in time. Further mathematics in spacetime calculations can be with exponential functions with trigonometric functions for circular both in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions of sine and cosine values. This can include Euler functions as a requirement to derive complex numbers that can bring to completion calculations in space for meteoric and celestial calculations to determine precision of galactic events.

The General relativity also explains the bending of light in spacetime due to gravity. That is a combination of mass and energy exerting a force effecting as a curvature created in space and time. This is known as the spacetime curvature which equals to the gravity of that substance of mass and energy. This we generally term gravity in a non-scientific manner as an invisible force is staying in the middle of the earth and pulling everything downward all the time.

Application of Special Relativity and Spacetime Curvature of Energy and MatterAll activities taking place in the cosmological and astrophysical realm in the universe are all predicted with very high accuracy as explained by the General Relativity Principle.For instance, satellites transmissions as a relay from activities on the planet earth to a receiver Global Positioning System (GPS) station on earth involve the relativistic principle in accommodating the spacetime delay in transmissions. From the different satellite transmissions, each spacetime parameters of curvature are calculated correct to a billionth of a second for exact identification of locations. If the relativistic effects are not taken on board, then the GPS will not be very reliable as it is today. For instance, if the tracking device tells you that you are 0.9km away from the target, then after a day you will be 10km away from that destination. That is the information you are getting from a satellite that travels 10km per hour noting its speed not as fast as the speed of light. You can see the stretch and curvature effect of space and time in the GPS application and or the grid point reconnaissance.Albert Einstein also gave the formula for the General relativity that explains the nature of gravitation and light as the independent wave particle as photon into the future of the blackholes and blackbodies and also from black holes and blackbodies back into the present and into the past. This is a milestone achievement form him (Albert Einstein). This formula can be used to determine any astrophysical event like the big bang theory that brought all of the universe into existence.

Encyclopedia Britannica 2012 quoted as saying that In Einsteins theory, space-time geodesics define the deflection of light and the orbits of planets. As the American theoretical physicistJohn Wheelerput it, matter tells space-time how to curve, and space-time tells matter how to move. The difference seen here is a difference in thoughts that Isaac Newton regarded gravity as a force while the special relativity has it that it is a space and time curvature called spacetime on matter and energy in space that impacts the warping on the geometry of the grid of time and space that generates the gravity. This can be articulated for elaboration with normal calculations in geodesics.The application of relativistic effects can be seen in the working of the power generators. Magnets exert a force over a coil of wire can cause electrons to move or moving coil of wire over magnets can cause electrons to move. The frame of reference as in the special relativity is not a matter of regard. As seen here is that you can either move a coil of over a magnetic field or you can either move a magnetic field over a coil of wire to produce electric current in power generators.Another application is in the electromagnets. When a direct current flows it seems like the wire is neutral with all positive and negative charges balanced. However, it you put a second wire close to it then it shows a relativistic effect particularly when the flow of the current or electrons are in opposite directions because of the spacetime and closely spaced warping will seem for the electrons to be overcrowded and get attracted to the more positively charged wire creating the electromagnetic field.The next area of relativistic application is in the golden colour of gold. Gold is a very heavy metal and its electrons are densely packed with vey high momentum of electrons. It is all the same with its outer electrons and so it absorbs all shorter wave and bigger energy sized waves in the spectral colours of blue and violet and only longer waves like yellow, red or orange spectral colours are emitted because they have a long wave length. This is due to the relativistic effect of time and space with bending of the light rays throughout the curvature.Further still, another heavy metal is the mercury. It is a liquid metal because its bonds are weak. The relativistic effect of the spacetime and momentum of mass and energy of this huge atomic mass accumulates enough energy through the space and time stretch and warping that causes the bonds to melt at low temperature and appear as a liquid.Another application is seen in the electron pixel formation of images from the back of an old TV screen. When a magnet monitors the speed of the electron to travel approximately at 30% the speed of light to create the florescence for picture formations on the TV screen.

Future Relativity trends in TechnologyIt is a real matter of the subject of the 21st century physics and beyond. The macroscopic study of cosmology and the heavens in relation to the space and time concept with gravitation. On a microscopic level the previous prestigious finding about quantum physics and mechanics holds to do with the Hilbert spaces with relativity in time and space and the Plancks equation and constant which gives the resting magnitude of a mass of an electron which stands at 0.1094 x 19-34. This is an area for huge research that physicists need to establish for a unity and grounding relativism that unites classical physics with quantum mechanics and the Principle of relativity.My prayer for PNG is to come to be with God without Fear, Shame and Guilt (FSG). Know that FSG holds us away from God. A quote from 24th January, 2021 sermon by Fr. John Glynn from Sunday service at Sacred Heart Parish, NCD, PNG.

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The relativity principle of physics in technology - The National

Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity profoundly changed our thinking about fundamental concepts in physics, such as space and time. But it also left us with some deep mysteries.

One was black holes, which were only unequivocally detected over the past few years. Another was "wormholes" bridges connecting different points in spacetime, in theory providing shortcuts for space travellers.

Wormholes are still in the realm of the imagination. But some scientists think we will soon be able to find them, too. Over the past few months, several new studies have suggested intriguing ways forward.

Black holes and wormholes are special types of solutions to Einstein's equations, arising when the structure of spacetime is strongly bent by gravity. For example, when matter is extremely dense, the fabric of spacetime can become so curved that not even light can escape. This is a black hole.

As the theory allows the fabric of spacetime to be stretched and bent, one can imagine all sorts of possible configurations.

In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen described how two sheets of spacetime can be joined together, creating a bridge between two universes. This is one kind of wormhole and since then many others have been imagined.

Some wormholes may be "traversable", meaning humans may be able to travel through them. For that though, they would need to be sufficiently large and kept open against the force of gravity, which tries to close them. To push spacetime outward in this way would require huge amounts of "negative energy".

Sounds like sci-fi? We know that negative energy exists, small amounts have already been produced in the lab. We also know that negative energy is behind the Universe's accelerated expansion.

So nature may have found a way to make wormholes.

How can we ever prove that wormholes exist? In a new paper, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Society, Russian astronomers suggest they may exist at the centre of some very bright galaxies, and propose some observations to find them.

This is based on what would happen if matter coming out of one side of the wormhole collided with matter that was falling in. The calculations show that the crash would result in a spectacular display of gamma rays that we could try to observe with telescopes.

This radiation could be the key to differentiating between a wormhole and a black hole, previously assumed to be indistinguishable from the outside. But black holes should produce fewer gamma rays and eject them in a jet, while radiation produced via a wormhole would be confined to a giant sphere.

Although the kind of wormhole considered in this study is traversable, it would not make for a pleasant trip. Because it would be so close to the centre of an active galaxy, the high temperatures would burn everything to a crisp.

But this wouldn't be the case for all wormholes, such as those further from the galactic centre.

The idea that galaxies can harbour wormholes at their centres is not new. Take the case of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. This was discovered by painstakingly tracking of the orbits of the stars near the black hole, a major achievement which was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.

But one recent paper has suggested this gravitational pull may instead be caused by a wormhole.

Unlike a black hole, a wormhole may "leak" some gravity from the objects located on the other side. This spooky gravitational action would add a tiny kick to the motions of stars near the galactic centre. According to this study, the specific effect should be measurable in observations in the near future, once the sensitivity of our instruments gets a little bit more advanced.

Coincidentally, yet another recent study has reported the discovery of some "odd radio circles" in the sky. These circles are strange because they are enormous and yet not associated with any visible object. For now, they defy any conventional explanation, so wormholes have been advanced as a possible cause.

Wormholes hold a strong grip on our collective imagination. In a way, they are a delightful form of escapism. Unlike black holes which are a bit frightening as they trap everything that ventures in, wormholes may allow us to travel to faraway places faster than the speed of light.

They may in fact even be time machines, providing a way to travel backwards as suggested by the late Stephen Hawking in his final book.

Wormholes also crop up in quantum physics, which rules the world of atoms and particles. According to quantum mechanics, particles can pop out of empty space, only to disappear a moment later.

This has been seen in countless experiments. And if particles can be created, why not wormholes?

Physicists believe wormholes may have formed in the early Universe from a foam of quantum particles popping in and out of existence. Some of these "primordial wormholes" may still be around today.

Recent experiments on "quantum teleportation" a "disembodied" transfer of quantum information from one location to another have turned out to work in an eerily similar way to two black holes connected through a wormhole.

These experiments appear to solve the "quantum information paradox", which suggests physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole. But they also reveal a deep connection between the notoriously incompatible theories of quantum physics and gravity with wormholes being relevant to both which may be instrumental in the construction of a "theory of everything".

The fact that wormholes play a role in these fascinating developments is unlikely to go unnoticed. We may not have seen them, but they could certainly be out there. They may even help us understand some of the deepest cosmic mysteries, such as whether our Universe is the only one.

Andreea Font, Senior Lecturer of Astrophysics, Liverpool John Moores University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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If Wormholes Are Lurking in Our Universe, This Is How We Could Find Them - ScienceAlert

By definition metals and insulators are very different but now Princeton physicists have accidentally discovered an unexpected quantum behavior in an insulator that was thought to be unique to metals. The find suggests a brand new type of quantum particle, which the team calls a neutral fermion.

Basically speaking, metals conduct electricity and insulators dont. On the molecular level, that comes down to how freely electrons can move through the materials in metals, electrons are very mobile, while insulators obviously have high resistance that prevents them moving much.

As a side effect of this, metals can exhibit a phenomenon known as quantum oscillations. When exposed to a magnetic field at very low temperatures, electrons can shift into a quantum state that causes the materials resistivity to oscillate. This doesnt happen in insulators, however, since their electrons dont move very well.

Or at least that was the conventional thinking for the better part of a century. In the new study, the Princeton researchers accidentally discovered quantum oscillations in an insulator for the first time.

The team was working with tungsten ditelluride, which behaves like a metal in bulk but becomes an insulator when its shaved down into a two-dimensional form like graphene. While measuring the resistivity of the monolayer material under a magnetic field, they found that it began to oscillate.

This came as a complete surprise, says Sanfeng Wu, senior author of the study. We asked ourselves, Whats going on here? We dont fully understand it yet.

The phenomenon cant be explained by current theories, but the researchers have put forward their own hypothesis. They say it may not be the electrons themselves that are oscillating. Rather, the strong interactions might be creating create new quantum particles that exhibit the observed effect.

Since insulators block charged particles, like electrons, from moving freely, these new particles would have to have a neutral charge. These hypothetical neutral fermions could then exhibit the observed quantum oscillations.

If our interpretations are correct, we are seeing a fundamentally new form of quantum matter, says Wu. We are now imagining a wholly new quantum world hidden in insulators. Its possible that we simply missed identifying them over the last several decades.

The team says that more work will need to be done to verify if neutral fermions do exist, or if theres some other explanation for the observed oddities.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

Source: Princeton University

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New quantum particle may have been accidentally discovered - New Atlas

The University of Birmingham is a key partner in three quantum technology projects awarded funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The funding is part of a 31 million investment to demonstrate how quantum technologies could solve some of the greatest mysteries in fundamental physics.

The projects are supported through the Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics programme, delivered by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of UKRIs Strategic Priorities Fund.

This is a new programme which aims to demonstrate how the application of quantum technologies will advance the understanding of fundamental physics questions. It is supported by the Quantum Technology Hubs comprising the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme

The three projects awarded funding are:

Searching for variations of fundamental constants of nature

QSNET is a multi-disciplinary consortium which aims to search for spatial and temporal variations of fundamental constants of nature, using a network of quantum clocks. Led by Dr Giovanni Barontini, from the University of Birmingham, and partnered with the National Physical Laboratory; Imperial College London; University of Sussex; Max Planck Institut fuer Kernphysik; Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt; Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica; University of Delaware; University of Tokyo and the Observatoire de Paris. The project, which has received 3.7 million in funding, is also linked to three of the Quantum Technology Hubs in the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme.

QSNET proposes to build a national network of advanced atomic, molecular and highly-charged ion clocks. The network will achieve unprecedented sensitivities in testing variations of the fine structure constant and the electron-to-proton mass ratio. These are two of the parameters of the Standard Model of particle physics, which is the pillar of our understanding of the Universe, but that famously fails to describe 95% of its content: the so-called dark matter and dark energy. QSNET will test the fundamental assumption that the constants of the Standard Model are immutable, as this could be the key in solving the dark matter/dark energy enigma.

Investigating dark matter and detecting gravitational waves

The Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network (AION) is a consortium project comprising Imperial College London, Kings College London, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the University of Liverpool and the University of Birmingham.

This interdisciplinary team of academics will develop the science and technology to build and reap the scientific rewards from the first large-scale atom interferometer in the UK. This programme of research will enable a ground-breaking search for ultra-light dark matter and pave the way for the exploration of gravitational waves in a previously inaccessible frequency range, opening a new window on the mergers of massive black holes and novel physics in the early universe.

The University of Birmingham team, led by Dr Michael Holynski, Prof Kai Bongs, Dr Mehdi Langlois, Dr Samuel Lellouch, Sam Hedges and Dr Yeshpal Singh will bring their atom interferometry expertise to AION and focus on realising new levels of large momentum transfer to enable the exquisite sensitivity required to achieve the scientific goals of the project, while also providing leadership on the realisation of economic impact.

The AION project, which has been awarded 7.2 million in funding, will be linked to the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme through the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, led by the University of Birmingham, and project work will be undertaken at the Hubs Technology Transfer Centre. This will be an opportunity for matter-wave interferometry and strontium optical clocks technology to be developed with industry through to commercialisation.

Quantum-enhanced interferometry for new physics

The Quantum Interferometry (QI) collaboration aims to search for dark matter and for quantum aspects of space-time with quantum technologies. The international QI consortium, led by Cardiff, includes the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Strathclyde, and Warwick in the UK, MIT, Caltech, NIST, and Fermilab in the US, DESY and AEI Hannover in Germany.

QI will build four table-top experiments (two of them in Birmingham) to search for dark matter in the galactic halo, improve 100-m scale ALPS light-shining-through-the-wall experiment at DESY with novel single photon detectors, search for quantisation of space-time, and test models of semiclassical gravity. These experiments will allow us to explore new parameter spaces of photon dark matter interaction, and seek answers to the long-standing research question: How can gravity be united with the other fundamental forces?

The project is linked to two UK National Quantum Hubs and will apply state-of-the-art technologies, including optical cavities, quantum states of light, transition-edge sensors, and extreme-performance optical coatings, to a broad class of fundamental physics problems. Dr Vincent Boyer, Dr Haixing Miao and Dr Denis Martynov will be leading the 4 million-funded project from the University of Birmingham.Visit QI Labs for more information.

Professor Kai Bongs, Principal Investigator at the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, led by the University of Birmingham, says: The UK Governments investment in these projects enables us to draw together experts in quantum physics research to explore some of the key mysteries of our universe. These projects will allow us to build on the momentum already generated through the Quantum Technology Hubs and build a pipeline feeding novel technologies into the future multi-bn Quantum Technology economy.

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said:As we build back better from the pandemic, its critical that we throw our weight behind new transformative technologies, such as quantum, that could help to unearth new scientific discoveries and cement the UKs status as a science superpower.

Todays funding will enable Birminghams most ambitious quantum researchers to use the precision of atomic clocks to help solve important unanswered questions about our universe, such as detecting dark matter and understanding the 95% of unaccounted energy content of the universe.

Announcing the awards, Professor Mark Thomson, Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, said: "STFC is proud to support these projects that utilise cutting-edge quantum technologies for novel and exciting research into fundamental physics.

Majorscientific discoveries often arise from the application of new technologies and techniques. With the application of emerging quantum technologies, I believe we have an opportunity to change the way we search for answers to some of the biggest mysteries of the universe.These include exploring what dark matter is made of, finding the absolute mass of neutrinos and establishing how quantum mechanics fits with Einsteins theory of relativity.

I believe strongly that this exciting new research programme will enable the UK to take the lead in a new way of exploring profound questions in fundamental physics.

For media enquiries please contact Beck Lockwood, Press Office, University of Birmingham, tel: +44 (0)781 3343348.

About the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing

The UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing (led by the University of Birmingham) brings together experts from Physics and Engineering from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Imperial, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Sussex, NPL, the British Geological Survey and over 70 industry partners. The Hub has over 100 projects, valued at approximately 100 million, and has 17 patent applications.

The UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing is part of the National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP), which was established in 2014 and has EPSRC, IUK, STFC, MOD, NPL, BEIS, and GCHQ as partners. Four Quantum Technology Hubs were set up at the outset, each focussing on specific application areas with anticipated societal and economic impact. The Commercialising Quantum Technologies Challenge (funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund) is part of the NQTP and was launched to accelerate the development of quantum enabled products and services, removing barriers to productivity and competitiveness. The NQTP is set to invest 1B of public and private sector funds over its ten-year lifetime.

About the University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the worlds top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries.

About the Strategic Priorities Fund

The Strategic Priorities Fund is an 830 million investment in multi- and interdisciplinary research across 34 themes.It is funded through the governments National Productivity Investment Fund and managed by UK Research and Innovation.

The fund aims to:

About the National Quantum Technologies Programme

The National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP) was established in 2014 by the partners (EPSRC, STFC, IUK, Dstl, MoD, NPL, BEIS, GCHQ, NCSC2) to make the UK a global leader in the development and commercialisation of quantum technologies. World class research and dynamic innovation, as the Governments R&D Roadmap stresses, are part of an interconnected system. The NQTPs achievements to-date have been enabled by the coherent approach which brings this interconnected system together. NQTP has ambition to grow and evolve research and technology development activities within the programme to continue to ensure that the UK has a balanced portfolio, is flexible and open, so that promising quantum technologies continue to emerge.

The NQTP is set to invest 1billion of public and private sector funds over its ten-year lifetime.

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Exploring the unanswered questions of our universe with quantum technologies - University of Birmingham

Albert Einsteins theory of general relativity profoundly changed our thinking about fundamental concepts in physics, such as space and time. But it also left us with some deep mysteries. One was black holes, which were only unequivocally detected over the past few years. Another was wormholes bridges connecting different points in spacetime, in theory providing shortcuts for space travellers.

Wormholes are still in the realm of the imagination. But some scientists think we will soon be able to find them, too. Over the past few months, several new studies have suggested intriguing ways forward.

Black holes and wormholes are special types of solutions to Einsteins equations, arising when the structure of spacetime is strongly bent by gravity. For example, when matter is extremely dense, the fabric of spacetime can become so curved that not even light can escape. This is a black hole.

As the theory allows the fabric of spacetime to be stretched and bent, one can imagine all sorts of possible configurations. In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen described how two sheets of spacetime can be joined together, creating a bridge between two universes. This is one kind of wormhole and since then many others have been imagined.

Some wormholes may be traversable, meaning humans may be able to travel through them. For that though, they would need to be sufficiently large and kept open against the force of gravity, which tries to close them. To push spacetime outward in this way would require huge amounts of negative energy.

Sounds like sci-fi? We know that negative energy exists, small amounts have already been produced in the lab. We also know that negative energy is behind the universes accelerated expansion. So nature may have found a way to make wormholes.

How can we ever prove that wormholes exist? In a new paper, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Society, Russian astronomers suggest they may exist at the centre of some very bright galaxies, and propose some observations to find them. This is based on what would happen if matter coming out of one side of the wormhole collided with matter that was falling in. The calculations show that the crash would result in a spectacular display of gamma rays that we could try to observe with telescopes.

This radiation could be the key to differentiating between a wormhole and a black hole, previously assumed to be indistinguishable from the outside. But black holes should produce fewer gamma rays and eject them in a jet, while radiation produced via a wormhole would be confined to a giant sphere. Although the kind of wormhole considered in this study is traversable, it would not make for a pleasant trip. Because it would be so close to the centre of an active galaxy, the high temperatures would burn everything to a crisp. But this wouldnt be the case for all wormholes, such as those further from the galactic centre.

The idea that galaxies can harbour wormholes at their centres is not new. Take the case of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. This was discovered by painstakingly tracking of the orbits of the stars near the black hole, a major achievement which was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. But one recent paper has suggested this gravitational pull may instead be caused by a wormhole.

Unlike a black hole, a wormhole may leak some gravity from the objects located on the other side. This spooky gravitational action would add a tiny kick to the motions of stars near the galactic centre. According to this study, the specific effect should be measurable in observations in the near future, once the sensitivity of our instruments gets a little bit more advanced.

Coincidentally, yet another recent study has reported the discovery of some odd radio circles in the sky. These circles are strange because they are enormous and yet not associated with any visible object. For now, they defy any conventional explanation, so wormholes have been advanced as a possible cause.

Wormholes hold a strong grip on our collective imagination. In a way, they are a delightful form of escapism. Unlike black holes which are a bit frightening as they trap everything that ventures in, wormholes may allow us to travel to faraway places faster than the speed of light. They may in fact even be time machines, providing a way to travel backwards as suggested by the late Stephen Hawking in his final book.

Wormholes also crop up in quantum physics, which rules the world of atoms and particles. According to quantum mechanics, particles can pop out of empty space, only to disappear a moment later. This has been seen in countless experiments. And if particles can be created, why not wormholes? Physicists believe wormholes may have formed in the early universe from a foam of quantum particles popping in and out of existence. Some of these primordial wormholes may still be around today.

Recent experiments on quantum teleportation a disembodied transfer of quantum information from one location to another have turned out to work in an eerily similar way to two black holes connected through a wormhole. These experiments appear to solve the quantum information paradox, which suggests physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole. But they also reveal a deep connection between the notoriously incompatible theories of quantum physics and gravity with wormholes being relevant to both which may be instrumental in the construction of a theory of everything.

The fact that wormholes play a role in these fascinating developments is unlikely to go unnoticed. We may not have seen them, but they could certainly be out there. They may even help us understand some of the deepest cosmic mysteries, such as whether our universe is the only one.

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Wormholes may be lurking in the universe and new studies are proposing ways of finding them - The Conversation UK

In a surprising discovery, Princeton physicists have observed an unexpected quantum behavior in an insulator made from a material called tungsten ditelluride. This phenomenon, known as quantum oscillation, is typically observed in metals rather than insulators, and its discovery offers new insights into our understanding of the quantum world. The findings also hint at the existence of an entirely new type of quantum particle.

The discovery challenges a long-held distinction between metals and insulators, because in the established quantum theory of materials, insulators were not thought to be able to experience quantum oscillations.

If our interpretations are correct, we are seeing a fundamentally new form of quantum matter, said Sanfeng Wu, assistant professor of physics at Princeton University and the senior author of a recent paper in Nature detailing this new discovery. We are now imagining a wholly new quantum world hidden in insulators. Its possible that we simply missed identifying them over the last several decades.

The observation of quantum oscillations has long been considered a hallmark of the difference between metals and insulators. In metals, electrons are highly mobile, and resistivity the resistance to electrical conduction is weak. Nearly a century ago, researchers observed that a magnetic field, coupled with very low temperatures, can cause electrons to shift from a classical state to a quantum state, causing oscillations in the metals resistivity. In insulators, by contrast, electrons cannot move and the materials have very high resistivity, so quantum oscillations of this sort are not expected to occur, no matter the strength of magnetic field applied.

The discovery was made when the researchers were studying a material called tungsten ditelluride, which they made into a two-dimensional material. They prepared the material by using standard scotch tape to increasingly exfoliate, or shave, the layers down to what is called a monolayer a single atom-thin layer. Thick tungsten ditelluride behaves like a metal. But once it is converted to a monolayer, it becomes a very strong insulator.

This material has a lot of special quantum properties, Wu said.

The researchers then set about measuring the resistivity of the monolayer tungsten ditelluride under magnetic fields. To their surprise, the resistivity of the insulator, despite being quite large, began to oscillate as the magnetic field was increased, indicating the shift into a quantum state. In effect, the material a very strong insulator was exhibiting the most remarkable quantum property of a metal.

This came as a complete surprise, Wu said. We asked ourselves, Whats going on here? We dont fully understand it yet.

Wu noted that there are no current theories to explain this phenomenon.

Nonetheless, Wu and his colleagues have put forward a provocative hypothesis a form of quantum matter that is neutrally charged. Because of very strong interactions, the electrons are organizing themselves to produce this new kind of quantum matter, Wu said.

But it is ultimately no longer the electrons that are oscillating, said Wu. Instead, the researchers believe that new particles, which they have dubbed neutral fermions, are born out of these strongly interacting electrons and are responsible for creating this highly remarkable quantum effect.

Fermions are a category of quantum particles that include electrons. In quantum materials, charged fermions can be negatively charged electrons or positively charged holes that are responsible for the electrical conduction. Namely, if the material is an electrical insulator, these charged fermions cant move freely. However, particles that are neutral that is, neither negatively nor positively charged are theoretically possible to be present and mobile in an insulator.

Our experimental results conflict with all existing theories based on charged fermions, said Pengjie Wang, co-first author on the paper and postdoctoral research associate, but could be explained in the presence of charge-neutral fermions.

The Princeton team plans further investigation into the quantum properties of tungsten ditelluride. They are particularly interested in discovering whether their hypothesis about the existence of a new quantum particle is valid.

This is only the starting point, Wu said. If were correct, future researchers will find other insulators with this surprising quantum property.

Despite the newness of the research and the tentative interpretation of the results, Wu speculated about how this phenomenon could be put to practical use.

Its possible that neutral fermions could be used in the future for encoding information that would be useful in quantum computing, he said. In the meantime, though, were still in the very early stages of understanding quantum phenomena like this, so fundamental discoveries have to be made.

Reference: Landau quantization and highly mobile fermions in an insulator by Pengjie Wang, Guo Yu, Yanyu Jia, Michael Onyszczak, F. Alexandre Cevallos, Shiming Lei, Sebastian Klemenz, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Robert J. Cava, Leslie M. Schoop and Sanfeng Wu, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03084-9

In addition to Wu and Wang, the team included co-first authors Guo Yu, a graduate student in electrical engineering, and Yanyu Jia, a graduate student in physics. Other key Princeton contributors were Leslie Schoop, assistant professor of chemistry; Robert Cava, the Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry; Michael Onyszczak, a physics graduate student; and three former postdoctoral research associates: Shiming Lei, Sebastian Klemenz and F. Alexandre Cevallos, who is also a 2018 Princeton Ph.D. alumnus. Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi of the National Institute for Material Science in Japan also contributed.

Landau quantization and highly mobile fermions in an insulator, by Pengjie Wang, Guo Yu, Yanyu Jia, Michael Onyszczak, F. Alexandre Cevallos, Shiming Lei, Sebastian Klemenz, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Robert J. Cava, Leslie M. Schoop, and Sanfeng Wu, was published Jan. 4 in the journal Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03084-9).

This work was primarily supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Princeton University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (DMR-1420541 and DMR-2011750) and a CAREER award (DMR-1942942). Early measurements were performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by an NSF Cooperative Agreement (DMR-1644779), and the State of Florida. Additional support came from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (JPMXP0112101001), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences KAKENHI program (JP20H00354) and the Japan Science and Technology Agencys CREST program (JPMJCR15F3). Further support came from the U.S. Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative on Topological Insulators (W911NF1210461), the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation through a Beckman Young Investigator grant, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF9064).

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Surprising Discovery of Unexpected Quantum Behavior in Insulators Suggests Existence of Entirely New Type of Particle - SciTechDaily

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is investing 31 million into seven projects to show how quantum technologies could solve some of the greatest mysteries of the universe such as dark matter and black holes.

A project led by the University of Nottingham aims to provide insights to the physics of the early universe and black holes that cannot be tested in a laboratory.

The team will use quantum simulators to simulate the conditions of the early universe and black holes with sufficient accuracy to confirm some of Einsteins predictions on general relativity.

A team led by Royal Holloway, University of London, will develop new quantum sensors which can be used to search for dark matter.

The projects are supported through the Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics programme, delivered by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of UKRIs Strategic Priorities Fund. The programme is part of the National Quantum Technologies Programme.

STFC is proud to support these projects that utilise cutting-edge quantum technologies for novel and exciting research into fundamental physics.

Major scientific discoveries often arise from the application of new technologies and techniques. With the application of emerging quantum technologies, I believe we have an opportunity to change the way we search for answers to some of the biggest mysteries of the universe.

These include exploring what dark matter is made of, finding the absolute mass of neutrinos and establishing how quantum mechanics fits with Einsteins theory of relativity.

I believe strongly that this exciting new research programme will enable the UK to take the lead in a new way of exploring profound questions in fundamental physics.

The National Quantum Technologies Programme has successfully accelerated the first wave of quantum technologies to a maturity where they can be used to make advances in both fundamental science and industrial applications.

The investments UKRI is making through the Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics programme allows us to bring together the expertise of EPSRC and STFC to apply the latest advances in quantum science and technology to explore, and answer, long-standing research questions in fundamental physics.

This is a hugely exciting programme and we look forward to delivering these projects and funding further work in this area as well as exploring opportunities for exploiting quantum technologies with other UKRI partners.

As we build back better from the pandemic, its critical that we throw our weight behind new transformative technologies that could help to unearth new scientific discoveries and cement the UKs status as a science superpower.

Todays funding will enable some of the UKs most ambitious quantum researchers to develop state of art technologies that could help us solve important unanswered questions about our universe, from proving Einsteins theory of relativity to understanding the mysterious behaviour of black holes.

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New quantum technology projects to solve mysteries of the universe - Open Access Government

A collaboration of scientists from across the UK are working on a new project to detect hidden particles, the discovery of which could open up a new frontier in fundamental physics.

The project, Quantum Sensing for the Hidden Sector (QSHS), is led by scientists at the University of Sheffield and involves the Universities of Cambridge, Lancaster, Liverpool, Oxford, Royal Holloway and University College London and the National Physical Laboratory.

Funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), as part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the project is the best supported and largest UK effort in hidden sector physics to date, and involves scientists from a range of disciplines within physics.

QSHS aims to solve some of the most fundamental mysteries in modern physics using new technologies being developed for the rapidly expanding field of quantum measurement science.

Working with the Axion Dark Matter Experiment (ADMX) collaboration in the US, but also developing pioneering quantum electronics and novel experiment designs in the UK. The group aims to shed new light on the particles of the hidden sector which could provide new insights into fundamental mysteries, most importantly the dark matter problem, which is the observation that galaxies and the observable Universe are heavier than their observed constituents - stars, planets, dust and gas.

The extra matter making up the difference could be made up wholly or partly of ultra-light particles, so-called hidden sector particles that have so far evaded detection. The signatures of these particles are signals so faint that the world's most sensitive measurement devices will be developed by our team for the search.

It's high risk, high reward science. You might see nothing or you might on the other hand make a massive discovery. Nobody knows which, but the discovery of hidden sector particles would open up a completely new frontier in fundamental physics.

Professor Ed Daw

Professor of dark matter and gravitational wave physics at the University of Sheffield

Professor Ed Daw, Professor of dark matter and gravitational wave physics at the University of Sheffield, and principal investigator for the project, said: Hidden sector particles, if they exist, may be the so-far unidentified dark matter, and may in addition solve important outstanding problems with the theory that we have developed governing quarks and the atomic nucleus. The hidden sector may even provide critical insights into the inflationary phase thought to occur very shortly after the big bang.

It's high risk, high reward science. You might see nothing or you might on the other hand make a massive discovery. Nobody knows which, but the discovery of hidden sector particles would open up a completely new frontier in fundamental physics. It would be like the invention of the particle beam accelerator, a whole new way of doing science.

Hidden sector particles may play other significant roles in physics, including in early Universe cosmology and the evolution of the Universe in the moments after it came into existence. We are excited to be embarking on this journey of discovery, and we hope the British public will share in this excitement as we start this research project.

The discovery of hidden sector particle dark matter would be a momentous event in fundamental physics. The dark matter problem is now over 50 years old, but in addition a new set of light particles would be bound to solve some of the persistent problems with the standard model of particle physics.

Professor Stafford Withington, Co-Investigator and Senior Project Scientist on QSHS from the University of Cambridge, said: In recent years, the UK has invested heavily in establishing the laboratory infrastructure needed to develop a new generation of ultra-low-noise electronics and associated control systems. The new electronics operate in a fundamentally different way to the conventional electronics with which we are all familiar. It exploits the mysterious behaviour of quantum mechanics to yield sensitivities that are limited only by the fluctuations inherent in the fundamental nature of space-time. The electronic devices are based on a range of superconducting materials, and work at temperatures of around 10mK, where thermal fluctuations are essentially eliminated.

The team will develop this technology to a high level of sophistication, and deploy it to search for the lowest-mass particles detected to date. These particles are predicted to exist theoretically, but have not yet been discovered experimentally. Our ability to probe the particulate nature of the physical world with sensitivities that push at the limits imposed by quantum uncertainty will open up a new frontier in physics.

This new window will allow physicists to to explore the nature of physical reality at the most fundamental level, and it is extremely exciting that the UK will be playing a major international role in this new generation of science.

The detection of these hidden particles requires technology of unprecedented sensitivity. The team are aiming to develop new and world-leading devices which could also be applied to make critical progress in other areas of physics such as quantum computing and quantum systems engineering.

The UK research team will form a collaboration with the US based ADMX collaboration, who operate the most sensitive detector for a particular variety of hidden sector particle, the axion.

The full QSHS team consists of The University of Sheffield (lead institution, principal investigator Prof. E Daw), University of Cambridge (co-I and senior project scientist Prof. Stafford Withington), Lancaster University (co-Is Prof. Yuri Pashkin, Dr. Ian Bailey, Dr. Ed Laird) The University of Liverpool (co-I DR. Ed Hardy), The National Physical Laboratory (co-Is Prof. Ling Hao, Prof. John Gallop), University of Oxford (co-Is Dr. Peter Leek, Prof. Gianluca Gregori, Prof. John March-Russell, Prof. Subir Sarkar, Dr. Boon-Kok Tan) , Royal Holloway - University of London (co-Is . Prof. Phil Meeson, Dr. Stephen West), and University College London (co-I Dr. Ed Romans).

With almost 29,000 of the brightest students from over 140 countries, learning alongside over 1,200 of the best academics from across the globe, the University of Sheffield is one of the worlds leading universities.

A member of the UKs prestigious Russell Group of leading research-led institutions, Sheffield offers world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines.

Unified by the power of discovery and understanding, staff and students at the university are committed to finding new ways to transform the world we live in.

Sheffield is the only university to feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For 2018 and for the last eight years has been ranked in the top five UK universities for Student Satisfaction by Times Higher Education.

Sheffield has six Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and its alumni go on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence all over the world, making significant contributions in their chosen fields.

Global research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.

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University of Sheffield to lead multi-million pound project which could open up a new frontier in physics - University of Sheffield News