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(PhysOrg.com) -- As early communications systems using quantum cryptography become commercially available, physicists have been investigating new types of security attacks in an effort to defend against them. In a recent study, researchers have identified and demonstrated a new, highly effective way to eavesdrop on a quantum key distribution (QKD) system that involves blinding the receiver’s detector during the "dead time" of single-photon detectors.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering School have demonstrated that light can travel on an artificial material without leaving a trace under certain conditions, technology that would have many applications from the military to telecommunications.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

A designer metamaterial has shown it can engineer emitted "blackbody" radiation with an efficiency beyond the natural limits imposed by the material's temperature, a team of researchers led by Boston College physicist Willie Padilla report in the current edition of Physical Review Letters.

High-resolution computer simulations prepared by a team of scientists from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw (FUW), the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam made it possible to trace the evolution of large clouds of dark and normal matter that fill the Universe. The results confirm earlier assumptions regarding the basic features of dark matter, especially its distribution on cosmological scales.

A team of scientists studying the parent compound of a cuprate (copper-oxide) superconductor has discovered a link between two different states, or phases, of that matter - and written a mathematical theory to describe the relationship.

The first of the major summer conferences for particle physics opens today in Grenoble. All of the Large Hadron Collider experiments will be presenting results, and a press conference is scheduled for Monday 25 July.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have fabricated a fluidic antenna that can change its shape, and therefore the frequency at which it resonates, in response to pressure in a controlled and predictable manner. Shape-changing antennas like this one could be used as sensors, as well as offer new routes of fabricating stimuli-responsive electronics that change their function on demand.

At the heart of most celestial objects is a dynamo. The Earth's dynamo, spun to life in the molten metal core of our planet, generates a magnetic field that helps us find north and, perhaps more critically, shields us from solar winds that would otherwise singe our planet.

A collection of atoms in the basement of Small Hall is a million times colder than outer space. It’s one of the coldest spots in the universe, but it’s not cold enough.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the observation of a new particle, the neutral Xi-sub-b (Ξb0). This particle contains three quarks: a strange quark, an up quark and a bottom quark (s-u-b). While its existence was predicted by the Standard Model, the observation of the neutral Xi-sub-b is significant because it strengthens our understanding of how quarks form matter

Esses are everywhere. From economic trends, population growth, the spread of cancer, or the adoption of new technology, certain patterns inevitably seem to emerge. A new technology, for example, begins with slow acceptance, followed by explosive growth, only to level off before "hitting the wall."

Scientists have taken the next major step toward quantum computing, which will use quantum mechanics to revolutionize the way information is processed.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A violation of one of the oldest empirical laws of physics has been observed by scientists at the University of Bristol.

The electromagnetic force has gotten a little stronger, gravity a little weaker, and the size of the smallest "quantum" of energy is now known a little better. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has posted the latest internationally recommended values of the fundamental constants of nature.