New physical model reinforces planetary hypothesis. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Latvia have posited the first comprehensive physical explanation for the sun’s various activity cycles. It identifies vortex-shaped currents on the sun, known as Rossby waves, as mediators between the tidal influences of Venus, Earth as well as Jupiter and the sun’s magnetic activity. The researchers thus present a consistent model for solar cycles of different lengths – and another strong argument to support the…

Using observations by NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and many other facilities, two international teams of astronomers have discovered a planet between the sizes of Earth and Venus only 40 light-years away. Multiple factors make it a candidate well-suited for further study using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. TESS stares at a large swath of the sky for about a month at a time, tracking the brightness changes of tens of thousands of stars at intervals ranging from 20 seconds to 30…

Exploring uncharted territory in quantum devices. Many of today’s quantum devices rely on collections of qubits, also called spins. These quantum bits have only two energy levels, the ‘0’ and the ‘1’. However, spins in real devices also interact with light and vibrations known as bosons, greatly complicating calculations. In a new publication in Physical Review Letters, researchers in Amsterdam demonstrate a way to describe spin-boson systems and use this to efficiently configure quantum devices in a desired state. Quantum…

In the early 2010s, LightSquared, a multibillion-dollar startup promising to revolutionize cellular communications, declared bankruptcy. The company couldn’t figure out how to prevent its signals from interfering with those of GPS systems. Now, Penn Engineers have developed a new tool that could prevent such problems from ever happening again: an adjustable filter that can successfully prevent interference, even in higher-frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. “I hope it will enable the next generation of wireless communications,” says Troy Olsson, Associate Professor in…

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers have created the first topological quantum simulator device in the strong light-matter interaction regime that operates at room temperature. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have fabricated a device no wider than a human hair that will help physicists investigate the fundamental nature of matter and light. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, could also support the development of more efficient lasers, which are used in fields ranging from medicine to manufacturing. The device is…

A recent study reveals new details of the origins of the proton’s spin. Nuclear physicists have long been working to reveal how the proton gets its spin. Now, a new method that combines experimental data with state-of-the-art calculations has revealed a more detailed picture of spin contributions from the very glue that holds protons together. It also paves the way toward imaging the proton’s 3D structure. The work was led by Joseph Karpie, a postdoctoral associate in the Center for…

ispace, inc. (ispace), a global lunar exploration company, and the University of Leicester, have agreed to collaborate on approaches to lunar night survivability for future ispace lunar lander and rover missions. The University and ispace through ispace EUROPE S.A., have entered into a strategic consulting agreement to explore lunar night survivability utilizing Radioisotope Heater Units on the Series 3 lunar lander and rovers. The University was awarded funding under Phase I and Phase II of the UK International Bilateral Fund…

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed three galaxies that may be actively forming when the universe was only 400 to 600 million years old. Webb’s data shows these galaxies are surrounded by gas that the researchers suspect to be almost purely hydrogen and helium, the earliest elements to exist in the cosmos. Webb’s instruments are so sensitive that they were able to detect an unusual amount of dense gas surrounding these galaxies. This gas will…

Nonlinear light microscopy has revolutionized our ability to observe and understand complex biological processes. However, light can also damage living matter. Yet, the mechanism behind the irreversible perturbation of cellular processes by intense light remains poorly understood. To address this lacuna, the research groups of Hanieh Fattahi and Daniel Wehner at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin have joined forces to identify the conditions under which intense pulsed lasers can…

…could improve methods for heating fusion plasma. Both literally and figuratively, light pervades the world. It banishes darkness, conveys telecommunications signals between continents and makes visible the invisible, from faraway galaxies to the smallest bacterium. Light can also help heat the plasma within ring-shaped devices known as tokamaks as scientists worldwide strive to harness the fusion process to generate green electricity. Now, scientists have made discoveries about light particles known as photons that could aid the quest for fusion energy….

Lasers developed at the University of Rochester offer a new path for on-chip frequency comb generators. Light measurement devices called optical frequency combs have revolutionized metrology, spectroscopy, atomic clocks, and other applications. Yet challenges with developing frequency comb generators at a microchip scale have limited their use in everyday technologies such as handheld electronics. In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Rochester describe new microcomb lasers they have developed that overcome previous limitations and feature a simple design that could…

A study now published in Nature Communications brings remarkable insights into the enigmatic behavior of supercritical fluids, a hybrid state of matter occupying a unique space between liquids and gases, and arising in domains that go from the pharmaceutical industry to planetary science. The obtained results are at the limit of current experimental possibilities and could only be obtained in a high flux neutron source such as the ILL. A liquid or gaseous substance pushed beyond its critical point (i.e.,…

The European research consortium EUROfusion has had more than 100 fusion facilities in its member states independently assessed. The facilities of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) were consistently categorised in the best category ‘Indispensable’. How important are the European nuclear fusion research facilities on the way to a fusion power plant? An independent panel of experts investigated this question on behalf of the European consortium EUROfusion. Between autumn 2023 and spring 2024, the panel evaluated more than…

Researchers from the University of Innsbruck have unveiled a novel method to prepare quantum operations on a given quantum computer, using a machine learning generative model to find the appropriate sequence of quantum gates to execute a quantum operation. The study, recently published in Nature Machine Intelligence, marks a significant step forward in unleashing the full extent of quantum computing. Generative models like diffusion models are one of the most important recent developments in Machine Learning (ML), with models as…

From skill sets to an overall concept. At the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2024) in Yokohama, Japan, geriatronics researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) will present four new research projects – including work on gripping objects and new safety functionalities. For the first time, a generative AI model enables GARMI to perform telemedical applications, physiotherapy and nursing tasks on demand. Neural networks help GARMI to recognize and grasp objects precisely. For the first time, the assistance…

International research team cracks a hard physics problem. Strongly interacting systems play an important role in quantum physics and quantum chemistry. Stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo simulations are a proven method for investigating such systems. However, these methods reach their limits when so-called sign oscillations occur. This problem has now been solved by an international team of researchers from Germany, Turkey, the USA, China, South Korea and France using the new method of wavefunction matching. As an example, the…