Three scientists won the award for uncovering the molecular switch that regulates how cells behave when oxygen levels drop.
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Scientists observe a single quantum vibration under ordinary conditions
When a guitar string is plucked, it vibrates as any vibrating object would, rising and falling like a wave, as the laws of classical physics predict. But under the laws of quantum mechanics, which describe the way physics works at the atomic scale, vibrations should behave not only as waves, but also as particles. The same guitar string, when observed at a quantum level, should vibrate as individual units of energy known as phonons.
Now scientists at MIT and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have for the first time created and observed a single phonon in a common material at room temperature.
Until now, single phonons have only been observed at ultracold temperatures and in precisely engineered, microscopic materials that researchers must probe in a vacuum. In contrast, the team has created and observed single phonons in a piece of diamond sitting in open air at room temperature. The results, the researchers write in a paper published today in Physical Review X, “bring quantum behavior closer to our daily life.”
“There is a dichotomy between our daily experience of what a vibration is — a wave — and what quantum mechanics tells us it must be — a particle,” says Vivishek Sudhir, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “Our experiment, because it is conducted at very tangible conditions, breaks this tension between our daily experience and what physics tells us must be the case.”
The technique the team developed can now be used to probe other common materials for quantum vibrations. This may help researchers characterize the atomic processes in solar cells, as well as identify why certain materials are superconducting at high temperatures. From an engineering perspective, the team’s technique can be used to identify common phonon-carrying materials that may make ideal interconnects, or transmission lines, between the quantum computers of the future.
“What our work means is that we now have access to a much wider palette of systems to choose from,” says Sudhir, one of the paper’s lead authors.
Sudhir’s co-authors are Santiago Tarrago Velez, Kilian Seibold, Nils Kipfer, Mitchell Anderson, and Christophe Galland, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
“Democratizing quantum mechanics”
Phonons, the individual particles of vibration described by quantum mechanics, are also associated with heat. For instance, when a crystal, made from orderly lattices of interconnected atoms, is heated at one end, quantum mechanics predicts that heat travels through the crystal in the form of phonons, or individual vibrations of the bonds between molecules.
Single phonons have been extremely difficult to detect, mainly because of their sensitivity to heat. Phonons are susceptible to any thermal energy that is greater than their own. If phonons are inherently low in energy, then exposure to higher thermal energies could trigger a material’s phonons to excite en masse, making detection of a single photon a needle-in-a-haystack endeavor.
The first efforts to observe single phonons did so with materials specially engineered to harbor very few phonons, at relatively high energies. These researchers then submerged the materials in near-absolute-zero refrigerators Sudhir describes as “brutally, aggressively cold,” to ensure that the surrounding thermal energy was lower than the energy of the phonons in the material.
“If that’s the case, then the [phonon] vibration cannot borrow energy from the thermal environment to excite more than one phonon,” Sudhir explains.
The researchers then shot a pulse of photons (particles of light) into the material, hoping that one photon would interact with a single phonon. When that happens, the photon, in a process known as Raman scattering, should reflect back out at a different energy imparted to it by the interacting phonon. In this way, researchers were able to detect single phonons, though at ultracold temperatures, and in carefully engineered materials.
“What we’ve done here is to ask the question, how do you get rid of this complicated environment you’ve created around this object, and bring this quantum effect to our setting, to see it in more common materials,” Sudhir says. “It’s like democratizing quantum mechanics in some sense.”
One in a million
For the new study, the team looked to diamond as a test subject. In diamond, phonons naturally operate at high frequencies, of tens of terahertz — so high that, at room temperature, the energy of a single phonon is higher than the surrounding thermal energy.
“When this crystal of diamond sits at room temperature, phonon motion does not even exist, because there’s no energy at room temperature to excite anything,” Sudhir says.
Within this vibrationally quiet mix of phonons, the researchers aimed to excite just a single phonon. They sent high-frequency laser pulses, consisting of 100 million photons each, into the diamond — a crystal made up of carbon atoms — on the off chance that one of them would interact and reflect off a phonon. The team would then measure the decreased frequency of the photon involved in the collision — confirmation that it had indeed hit upon a phonon, though this operation wouldn’t be able to discern whether one or more phonons were excited in the process.
To decipher the number of phonons excited, the researchers sent a second laser pulse into the diamond, as the phonon’s energy gradually decayed. For each phonon excited by the first pulse, this second pulse can de-excite it, taking away that energy in the form of a new, higher-energy photon. If only one phonon was initially excited, then one new, higher-frequency photon should be created.
To confirm this, the researchers placed a semitransparent glass through which this new, higher-frequency photon would exit the diamond, along with two detectors on either side of the glass. Photons do not split, so if multiple phonons were excited then de-excited, the resulting photons should pass through the glass and scatter randomly into both detectors. If just one detector “clicks,” indicating the detection of a single photon, the team can be sure that that photon interacted with a single phonon.
“It’s a clever trick we play to make sure we are observing just one phonon,” Sudhir says.
The probability of a photon interacting with a phonon is about one in 10 billion. In their experiments, the researchers blasted the diamond with 80 million pulses per second — what Sudhir describes as a “train of millions of billions of photons” over several hours, in order to detect about 1 million photon-phonon interactions. In the end, they found, with statistical significance, that they were able to create and detect a single quantum of vibration.
“This is sort of an ambitious claim, and we have to be careful the science is rigorously done, with no room for reasonable doubt,” Sudhir says.
When sending in their second laser pulse to verify that single phonons were indeed being created, the researchers delayed this pulse, sending in into the diamond as the excited phonon was beginning to ebb in energy. In this way, they were able to glean the manner in which the phonon itself decayed.
“So, not only are we able to probe the birth of a single phonon, but also we’re able to probe its death,” Sudhir says. “Now we can say, ‘go use this technique to study how long it takes for a single phonon to die out in your material of choice.’ That number is very useful. If the time it takes to die is very long, then that material can support coherent phonons. If that’s the case, you can do interesting things with it, like thermal transport in solar cells, and interconnects between quantum computers.”
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Kanye West praises Republican Party for freeing slaves at Utah Sunday Service
Kanye West has created much buzz over the last 9 months for his soulful Sunday Service. He’s turned the gospel worship experience into a pop-up concert that fans have been able to attend for free in cities from Atlanta to Chicago, and most recently, Salt Lake City, Utah
West used the event to not only proclaim the name of Jesus Christ but also praise Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
—Churchgoer not here for Kanye Sunday Service: ‘Slaves worshiping’—
Not long after taking the stage, West ranted about the backlash he’s received over his pro-Trump comments. He reminded the crowd that it was the Republican Party and President Abraham Lincoln, who, ahem, abolished slavery in the United States, according to Complex.
“Abraham Lincoln was the Whig Party—that’s the Republican Party that freed the slaves. I ain’t never make a decision based only on my color. That’s a form of slavery — mental slavery. I ain’t drink from the white person fountain. … I ain’t playing with them. All these mind controllers, the media, all of these mind controllers. I find that wherever Christ is where I’ve got my mind at. We find that the love of Christ is where I’ve got my mind back,” West said.
West also informed his audience that social media is “designed to make you think slower.”
West, who hasn’t tweeted since New Year’s, also railed against social media: “Do not read comments on the Internet. These people don’t know you like that. Social media is designed to make you think slower. … They want to slow you down and control you” pic.twitter.com/1BGpA5prGt
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) October 5, 2019
He then touched on social justice and the state of incarcerated African-American’s in this country, highlighting how the system is broken in the U.S.
West touched on criminal justice reform. He talked about how people argue about music and sports then said, “there’s one in three African-Americans in jail in this country.” pic.twitter.com/9jefKUf4U5
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) October 5, 2019
The service in Salt Lake City comes a little over a week after West reported he was set to release a new album, Jesus Is King. The album was due out on Sept. 27, according to an Instagram post by his wife, Kim Kardashian.
Meanwhile, West has embarked on tours around the nation, giving fans last weekend in New York a preview his documentary, Jesus Is King, scheduled to debut Oct. 25 in IMAX theaters.
The post Kanye West praises Republican Party for freeing slaves at Utah Sunday Service appeared first on theGrio.
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Travis Scott fires back at ‘false’ cheating rumors
Travis Scott broke his silence and took to Instagram Friday to respond to cheating allegations after news broke about his split with Kylie Jenner.
Almost immediately after the split, his name was linked to Rojean Kar, and rumors began to circulate on the internet streets, according to PEOPLE.
–REPORTS: Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner SPLIT after 2 years of dating–
“It’s really affecting when u see false things said about u once again these false stories about me cheating are just simply not true. Focusing on life, music, and family at this moment is what’s real,” Scott wrote.
Not only did Scott speak up about the allegations but Rojean Kar, who goes by YungSweetRo on Instagram, also shut the rumors down on Thursday via her private Instagram account, according to E! News.
“None of these rumors are true, it’s just the internet creating a false narrative,” she reportedly wrote on her Instagram Story. “Please stop spreading lies & leave him, her & I alone because it’s affecting real lives. Thank you.”
A source told PEOPLE that “any rumors of cheating are totally and completely false.”
PEOPLE also confirmed on Tuesday that the couple decided to take a break from their two year long relationship.
“They are taking some time but not done. They still have some trust issues but their problems have stemmed more from the stress of their lifestyles,” a source told PEOPLE.
The 22-year-old also confirmed the breakup on Thursday saying, “Travis and I are on great terms. Our main focus right now is Stormi. Our friendship and our daughter is priority,” Jenner wrote on Twitter.
She also used this as a moment to debunk any rumors that she was seeing ex-boyfriend Tyga again.
“The internet makes everything 100 times more dramatic than what it really is. There was no ‘2am date with Tyga. You see me drop two of my friends off at a studio that he happened to be at,” she tweeted.
According to PEOPLE’s source while Jenner “is all about family life and really wants a second baby,” while 28-year-old Scott is focused on his music career.
—Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott break the internet with Playboy sneak peek—
“She still has trust issues with Travis. He hasn’t been giving her the commitment that she needs,” the source explained. “Travis isn’t ready to give her all that she wants.”
Scott also released a song on Thursday “Highest in the Room,” which seems to highlight his struggle with his relationship.
“I’m doing a show, I’ll be back soon/ That ain’t what she wanna hear,” he raps in the song.
The post Travis Scott fires back at ‘false’ cheating rumors appeared first on theGrio.
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Oprah, Beyoncé, more attend Tyler Perry star-studded gala for studio opening
Tyler Perry went from sleeping in his car, creating stage plays and movies, and has now opened his new massive film studio on Saturday.
The debut of the new Tyler Perry studios, now one of the largest in the country, took place in Atlanta with plenty of entertainment industry moguls, a red carpet, and a gala to commemorate the special moment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, Spike Lee, Cicely Tyson, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry, among others, attended the gala to celebrate the opening of the 330-acre studio that was once a Confederate army base, the report said.
— Tyler Perry officially unveils the first Black owned studio —
Beyoncé at the Tyler Perry Studios opening in Atlanta — Oct. 5th. 💛 pic.twitter.com/gIq84t5iWV
— BEYONCÉ LEGION (@BeyLegion) October 6, 2019
“I think it’s pivotal in everything that we’ve done, everything that we’re doing still, that we continue to try to motivate and inspire people,” Perry told The Associated Press on Saturday night as he greeted and shook hands with supporters.
Oprah, Perry’s close friend who also owns a studio, celebrated the the opening.
“He didn’t wait for other people to validate or to say you should go this way or that way. He said I’m going to create my own way and as we can see here, become a force for himself. I remember when he was thinking about buying this place and I said ‘You’d be crazy not to take it,” she told The AP.
Samuel L. Jackson pointed out Perry’s go-getter mentality as the driving force behind his new studio.
“This is more about Tyler the entrepreneur. The visionary. A guy who understands that ownership means that you can do what you want,” Jackson said.
— Tyler Perry dedicates star on Hollywood Walk of Fame to ‘the underdogs’ —
Tyler Perry unveiled his $250 million Atlanta studio last night! It is the only major film studio in the nation owned by an African American: https://t.co/RCXwbUh5Hu pic.twitter.com/a3orFH91vQ
— AJC (@ajc) October 6, 2019
Tyler Perry Studios will pay homage to seminal Black actors and actresses, with all 12 sound stages in the studio being named after someone who made a difference.
“He didn’t wait for other people to validate or to say you should go this way or that way. He said I’m going to create my own way and as we can see here, become a force for himself,” Winfrey said.
The post Oprah, Beyoncé, more attend Tyler Perry star-studded gala for studio opening appeared first on theGrio.
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Antonio Brown seeks $40 million from NFL in grievance claim
Antonio Brown may not be tied to an NFL team at the moment, but he still wants his money.
Brown wanted to be released from the Oakland Raiders, and his wish was granted. He was then picked up by the New England Patriots, which also released him, after accusations of sex assault were filed against him.
—Patriots release Antonio Brown after another accusation—
Now, Brown is looking to gain close to $40 million from the teams in unpaid salaries, fines, and voided guarantees, according to NFL Network Insider. The NFL Player’s Association has filed grievances against both teams on Brown’s behalf, the sports outlet writes.
Leading up to his dismissal from the Raiders, Brown faced disciplinary issues, including a blowout with the team’s general manager that led to about $215,000 in fines.
“He seeking a week of salary from when he requested to be released from Oakland — $860,294. He’s looking for payment of the guarantees for 2019 and 2020 — $29 million — plus his signing bonus of $1 million, which was divided into two workout bonuses,” according to the NFL Network.
The money from the Patriots Brown is requesting includes a $9 million signing bonus, $64,062 from his Week 1 salary, and the remaining $1.025 million of his guaranteed money, the outlet writes. He also signed a breach of contract grievance against the Patriots.
—Antonio Brown blasts Patriots, says he’s done with the NFL in Twitter rant—
The NFL report notes that recouping the total sum may be an uphill battle. The grievances aren’t Brown’s only legal battles. He also faces a civil lawsuit coming from claims of sexual assault. He was released by the Patriots in September after a second woman accused him of sexual misconduct.
In the first incident, he was accused of rape in a lawsuit by a former trainer. In the second, an artist alleged that he exposed himself when she was hired to paint a mural at his home. Brown denies the accusations.
The post Antonio Brown seeks $40 million from NFL in grievance claim appeared first on theGrio.
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Amber Guyger: Key witness in murder conviction slain outside home
A key witness in ex-Dallas officer Amber Guyger‘s murder conviction last week was slain Friday night outside his new apartment complex, about five miles away from where his then-neighbor Botham Jean was shot to death, according to various media reports.
Joshua Brown, who used to live in the same apartment complex as Guyger and Jean, was shot several times by an unknown assailant at his new place of residence, civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt tweeted on Saturday night.
—Amber Guyger: Protests erupt over light sentence—
I just spoke with Joshua Browns mother. She is devastated. We all are. Joshua Brown was key witness in the murder of Botham Jean that helped put Amber Guyger away. We need answers. pic.twitter.com/5BCdkVXoQ4
— S. Lee Merritt, Esq. (@MeritLaw) October 5, 2019
The incident occurred just days after Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the shooting death of killing of Jean, a 26-year-old accountant.
Brown was shot and killed as he exited his car at an apartment complex, which was not the same place where Guyger killed Jean after entering his apartment, The Washington Post reported.
Brown delivered key testimony that likely aided in Guyger’s conviction. He testified that he was returning home from an outing, when he heard two people meeting by surprise, according to The Times. He then heard two gunshots and immediately ran away. He told the court he did not hear commands like “hands.”
“His murder underscores the reality of the black experience in America,” Merritt wrote. “A former athlete turned entrepreneur — Brown lived in constant fear that he could be the next victim of gun violence, either state sanctioned or otherwise.”
Although it has been reported that Brown was the victim, the Dallas Police Department has not confirmed that Brown was the man murdered because the man found had no identification. An emailed statement from the department said officers had responded to reports of a shooting just after 10:30 p.m. at the Atera Apartments at 4606 Cedar Springs Rd.
—The Forgiveness Trap: Botham Jean’s family’s response to Amber Guyger triggers debate—
According to Merritt, Brown had moved to a new apartment after living at South Side Flats, where Guyger killed Jean in September 2018.
Brown’s body was found lying on the ground in the parking lot of the Atera apartment complex with multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics took him to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he later died of the fatal gunshot wounds, according to The Washington Post.
“Several witnesses heard several gunshots and observed a silver four-door sedan leaving the parking lot at a high rate of speed,” police said.
Brown attended the University of South Florida where he played football before returning home to the state of Texas where he began his own business in Dallas.
The post Amber Guyger: Key witness in murder conviction slain outside home appeared first on theGrio.
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