"Worldline numerics applied to custom Casimir geometry generates unanticipated intersection with Alcubierre warp metric", https://epjc.epj.org/articles/epjc/abs/2021/07/10052_2021_Ar... (open access)

I'll take that with quite a few grains of salt until it's independently verified.

well that's, uhh, exciting. I'm used to reading articles like this to find the enormous disclaimer as to why the headline was bogus, but its just not there in this one.

Really cool if it reproduces and there's follow-up. Is there a less awful, more credible site with this story? That page was real gross.

From what I can read on that page, they created a small volume of space with specific materials and found physical signatures consistent with what an albcubierre drive would look like. This is just the first foray into what could be a long and fruitful scientific discussion... or CERN could send their experts and show that the experimentation was just mistaken (more likely).

No, they simulated a small volume and though the energy densities looked like what's needed in an Alcubierre drive, they haven't built anything. Honestly it's unclear if they've even validated their implementation against some existing measurements.

What applications for microscopic volumes of negative energy density might there be? Could we use these in MEMS devices to create novel types of sensors with them?

Very exciting if true but I've seen a lot of hype around Alcubierre drives that either are bogus or not reproducible.