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Researchers at JILA and the Â鶹ӰԺ have developed an innovative platform that combines machine learning with atom interferometry to create a universal quantum sensor. This system uses programmable atom-optic "gates" to reconfigure a single device via software for various precision measurements, such as acceleration, rotation, and gravity gradients, without the need for hardware changes.

Researchers at JILA, led by Ana Maria Rey, developed a new protocol for teleporting quantum information in collective spin states of ions within a two-dimensional crystal. This involves entangling ion groups through phonon modes and using measurements to transfer quantum states. The protocol, successfully simulated with up to 300 ions, shows potential for quantum networks and distributed quantum sensing.

Understanding how molecules interact with ions is a cornerstone of chemistry, with applications from pollution detection and cleanup to drug delivery. In a series of new studies led by JILA Fellow and Â鶹ӰԺ chemistry professor Mathias Weber, researchers explored how a specific ion receptor called octamethyl calix[4]pyrrole (omC4P) binds to different anions, such as fluoride or nitrate. These findings provide fundamental insights about molecular binding that could help advance fields such as environmental science and synthetic chemistry.

With the recent launch of NASA's Europa Clipper, science takes a bold step closer to answering one of its most profound questions: could the building blocks for life exist beyond Earth? Aboard the spacecraft is the Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA), a cutting-edge instrument designed to analyze tiny particles ejected from Europa's icy surface. These particles could provide crucial insights into the moon's hidden ocean and its potential to support life.

At the heart of this revolutionary instrument lies a critical component developed by LASP (the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) with assistance from JILA’s W.M. Keck Lab: an iridium-coated titanium target that makes the high-precision analysis of cosmic dust possible. While LASP designed and built the instrument, their collaboration with JILA highlights the abilities of the Â鶹ӰԺ’s institutes to tackle complex scientific and engineering challenges, advancing our understanding of the solar system and pushing the boundaries of exploration.

For decades, atomic clocks have been the pinnacle of precision timekeeping, enabling GPS navigation, cutting-edge physics research, and tests of fundamental theories. But researchers at JILA, led by JILA and NIST Fellow and Â鶹ӰԺ physics professor Jun Ye, in collaboration with the Technical University of Vienna, are pushing beyond atomic transitions to something potentially even more stable: a nuclear clock. This clock could revolutionize timekeeping by using a uniquely low-energy transition within the nucleus of a thorium-229 atom. This transition is less sensitive to environmental disturbances than modern atomic clocks and has been proposed for tests of fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model.

​A team of physicists at the Â鶹ӰԺ and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a groundbreaking laser-based device capable of analyzing gas samples to identify a vast array of molecules at extremely low concentrations, down to parts per trillion. Their findings were recently published in Nature.

Researchers led by JILA and NIST Fellows and Â鶹ӰԺ physics professors Jun Ye and Ana Maria Rey—in collaboration with scientists at the Leibnitz University in Hanover, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Innsbruck—proposed practical protocols to explore the effects of relativity, such as the gravitational redshift, on quantum entanglement and interactions in an optical atomic clock. Their work revealed that the interplay between gravitational effects and quantum interactions can lead to unexpected phenomena, such as atomic synchronization and quantum entanglement among particles.

In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, JILA Fellow and Â鶹ӰԺ physics professor Cindy Regal, along with former JILA Associate Fellow Jose D’Incao (currently an assistant professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston) and their teams developed new experimental and theoretical techniques for studying the rates at which light-assisted collisions occur in the presence of small atomic energy splittings. Their results rely upon optical tweezers—focused lasers capable of trapping individual atoms—that the team used to isolate and study the products of individual pairs of atoms.

JILA postdoctoral researcher Prasun Dhang, and JILA Fellows and Â鶹ӰԺ Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences professors Mitch Begelman and Jason Dexter, turned to advanced computer simulations to model black holes surrounded by thin, highly magnetized accretion disks, to uncover the underlying physics that drives these enigmatic systems. Their findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, offer crucial insights into the complex physics around black holes and could redefine how we understand their role in shaping galaxies.

Researchers at the Â鶹ӰԺ have developed a novel method to measure magnetic field orientations using atoms as minuscule compasses. The research, a collaboration between JILA Fellow and CU Â鶹ӰԺ physics professor Cindy Regal and Svenja Knappe, a research professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, was recently published as the cover article in the journal Optica.