Imagine a road with two lanes in each direction. One lane is for slow cars, and the other is for fast ones. For electrons moving along a quantum wire, researchers in Cambridge and Frankfurt have discovered that there are also two ‘lanes’, but electrons can take both at the same time! Current in a wire is carried by the flow of electrons. When the wire is very narrow (one-dimensional, 1D) then electrons cannot overtake each other, as they strongly repel…

Using a newly developed technique, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg have measured the very small difference in the magnetic properties of two isotopes of highly charged neon in an ion trap with previously inaccessible accuracy. Comparison with equally extremely precise theoretical calculations of this difference allows a record-level test of quantum electrodynamics (QED). The agreement of the results is an impressive confirmation of the standard model of physics, allowing conclusions regarding the properties…

Sterile neutrino, physics fundamentals among interpretations of anomalous results. New scientific results confirm an anomaly seen in previous experiments, which may point to an as-yet-unconfirmed new elementary particle, the sterile neutrino, or indicate the need for a new interpretation of an aspect of standard model physics, such as the neutrino cross section, first measured 60 years ago. Los Alamos National Laboratory is the lead American institution collaborating on the Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST) experiment, results of which were…

University of Arizona astronomers have identified five examples of a new class of stellar system. They’re not quite galaxies and only exist in isolation. The new stellar systems contain only young, blue stars, which are distributed in an irregular pattern and seem to exist in surprising isolation from any potential parent galaxy. The stellar systems – which astronomers say appear through a telescope as “blue blobs” and are about the size of tiny dwarf galaxies – are located within the…

Boosting light power revolutionizes communications and autopilots. Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are devices that can provide gain to the optical signal power in optical fibers, often used in long-distance communication fiber optic cables and fiber-based lasers. Invented in the 1980s, EDFAs are arguably one of the most important inventions, and have profoundly impacted our information society enabling signals to be routed across the Atlantic and replacing electrical repeaters. What is interesting about erbium ions in optical communications is that they…

EuroHPC JU, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, has selected Forschungszentrum Jülich – a partner in Germany’s Gauss Centre for Supercomputing – to operate the first next-generation European supercomputer. The computer, which will bear the name JUPITER (short for “Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research”), will be installed as of 2023 in a specially designed building on the campus of Forschungszentrum Jülich. It is intended that the system will be operated by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre…

Ultrafast light-driven control of magnetization on the nanometer length scale is key to achieve competitive bit sizes in next generation data storage technology. Researchers at Max Born Institute in Berlin and of the large scale facility Elettra in Trieste, Italy, have successfully demonstrated the ultrafast emergence of all-optical switching by generating a nanometer scale grating by interference of two pulses in the extreme ultraviolet spectral range. The physics of optically driven magnetization dynamics on the femtosecond time scale has become…

Samples from the Moon’s Oceanus Procellarum, an ancient mare basalt whose name translates to “Ocean of Storms,” may be able to calm at least one scientific squall: the source of lunar water. China’s lunar lander Chang’E-5 delivered the first real-time, on-site definitive confirmation of water signal in the basalt’s rocks and soil via on-board spectral analysis in 2020. The finding was validated through laboratory analysis of samples the lander returned in 2021. Now, the Chang’E-5 team has determined where the…

An international group of nuclear scientists has restricted the neutrino mass with a new level of sensitivity. The Science Neutrinos are the most abundant particles that have mass in the universe, but that mass is so small that scientists have not been able to measure it. To obtain that measurement, an international scientific collaboration designed and constructed the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment in Germany. KATRIN uses tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, for neutrino mass experiments. Tritium decays to a helium nucleus, an electron, and…

Event provides new evidence that traveling stars can form binary systems. From a zoomed out, distant view, star-forming cloud L483 appears normal. But when a Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists zoomed in closer and closer, things became weirder and weirder. As the researchers peered closer into the cloud, they noticed that its magnetic field was curiously twisted. And then — as they examined a newborn star within the cloud — they spotted a hidden star, tucked behind it. “It’s the…

Collaborative research published in Nature Electronics shows promise of probabilistic computers. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has created a crisis in computing and a significant need for more hardware that is both energy-efficient and scalable. A key step in both AI and ML is making decisions based on incomplete data, the best approach for which is to output a probability for each possible answer. Current classical computers are not able to do that in an…

Scientists from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo fabricated three-dimensional vertically formed field-effect transistors to produce high-density data storage devices by ferroelectric gate insulator and atomic-layer-deposited oxide semiconductor channel. Furthermore, by using antiferroelectric instead of ferroelectric, they found that only a tiny net charge was required to erase data, which leads to more efficient write operations. This work may allow for new even smaller and more eco-friendly data-storage memory. While consumer flash drives already boast huge…

Identical light particles (photons) are important for many technologies that are based on quantum physics. A team of researchers from Basel and Bochum has now produced identical photons with different quantum dots – an important step towards applications such as tap-proof communications and the quantum internet. Many technologies that make use of quantum effects are based on exactly equal photons. Producing such photons, however, is extremely difficult. Not only do they need to have precisely the same wavelength (colour), but…

Have you ever noticed when moving furniture that heavy objects are easier to move if you rotate them at the same time as you push? Many people intuitively do this right. An international research team from Konstanz (Germany), Trieste and Milan (Italy) has now investigated this phenomenon – the reduction in static friction caused by simultaneous rotation – on the microscopic scale. In their recent study in Physical Review X, the researchers found that the reduction in static friction of…

OHIO researchers start by finding new carbon solid. As the world’s appetite for carbon-based materials like graphite increases, Ohio University researchers presented evidence this week for a new carbon solid they named “amorphous graphite.” Physicist David Drabold and engineer Jason Trembly started with the question, “Can we make graphite from coal?” “Graphite is an important carbon material with many uses. A burgeoning application for graphite is for battery anodes in lithium-ion batteries, and it is crucial for the electric vehicle…

While the national census is only just beginning in Germany, the first evaluation of our galactic neighborhood as part of the ongoing census has now been completed with the assistance of researchers at TU Dresden. The data acquired for this survey as part of the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission will be released to the public during a celebratory event on June 13, 2022, at 12:00°pm CEST. Since 2014, the Gaia satellite has been surveying the galaxies at a distance…