Department of Physics

Stevens physicist Igor Pikovski’s paper on quantum gravity particle detection was far and away the most-downloaded of the year in physics in Nature Communications, one of the world’s leading science journals, the publication announced March 5. The paper appeared atop the journal's "Top 25 Physics Articles of 2024" recap.

Pikovski’s paper “Detecting single gravitons with quantum sensing,” co-authored with graduate students Germain Tobar and Thomas Beitel and postdoctoral researcher Sreenath Manikandan, was accessed approximately 34,000 times worldwide in 2024, 25% more than the journal’s next-most popular physics paper.

The revolutionary paper proposes a theoretical method for capturing graviton absorption events, using quantum sensing technologies that are now within the reach of science. Pikovski’s group proposes a super-cooled detector bar of beryllium or a similar metal, interacting with one of the periodic gravitational waves that occurs after a large neutron-star collision in space and passes through the Earth.

"It’s a big honor that our paper is of interest to the broad physics community," said Pikovski. "Graviton detection was thought impossible, but now I hope that our result will open new opportunities for fundamental physics where we can test quantum gravity in the lab."

The original paper appeared in Nature Communications in August 2024 [Vol. 15, No. 7229]

Stevens' Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of Yuping Huang as Viola W. and Elbert C. Brinning Chair in Physics for a five-year term, effective March 1, 2025. This appointment recognizes Huang’s excellence in scholarly activities and quality of teaching, as well as significant contributions to Stevens and his field of expertise.

Since joining Stevens in fall 2014, Huang has established and led a large portfolio of cutting-edge research in quantum science and technology. He has advised approximately 40 Ph.D. students, of which 17 have graduated, and secured more than 20 federally sponsored projects, for a total of $33 million in funding support. He continues to serve as director of the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (CQSE) at Stevens, focusing on increasing the center’s collaborative efforts and strengthening its reputation in the field.

Professors Yuping Huang (Physics) and Henry Du (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science) have been tapped by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join a multi-university effort to detect and degrade PFA and PFO chemicals in new ways that could cost less — and require far less energy consumption.

PFAS and PFOS ("forever chemicals") are harmful compounds incorporated in industrial and consumer products that have infiltrated food and water supplies, posing serious threats to human health. Some of these chemicals can persist for decades or more in the environment, and studies suggest they may cause or exacerbate cancer, liver damage, fertility issues and a host of other health conditions.

Stevens’ role will be to leverage technologies from its quantum and materials science labs to co-develop innovative detection platforms and novel filtering systems with the partner universities’ teams.

The group’s proposed SENSE-PFAS system will include a suite of technologies. Specially designed and functionalized silver nanoparticles provide sites for robust adsorption and sensitive detection of PFAS chemicals.

Once detected, the next challenge will be to render PFAS safer for disposal. Certain graphene- and iron-based nanocompounds, printed into super-thin layers of sheets, have recently demonstrated to help degrade PFAS into fluoride, acetate and other less harmful substances by breaking apart the PFAS chemicals’ strong carbon-fluorine bonds through catalytic reactions.

Igor Pikovski, an assistant professor in Stevens’ Department of Physics, has conceived how to detect gravitons – the hypothetical particle thought to carry the force of gravity. The detection of gravitons has so far been considered impossible. His team recently received notoriety for their progress toward devising such an experiment in Quanta Magazine.

The article, titled “It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All,” features Pikovski and global opinion about his proposed experiment. Pikovski’s idea was to look for the emission or absorption of single gravitons by monitoring how energy changes in discrete steps in large resonators, such as a 15-kilogram bar of beryllium. When cooling it to its minimum possible temperature, a passing gravitational wave will interact with the device, and deposit energy in this process. A quantized event caused by the gravitational wave is witnessed when exactly one quanta of energy, with discrete energy given by Einstein’s formula E=hf, is absorbed and confirmed. Pikovski’s research also shows that quantum sensing of energy is essential, and that known gravitational wave sources, such as from neutron-star-mergers, could produce the needed single-graviton events.

“It’s a very original proposal and well thought-out,” said Frank Wilczek, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at MIT.

Read the eye-opening article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/it-might-be-possible-to-detect-gravitons-after-all-20241030/

The original publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51420-8