Astronomers have carried out the biggest ever computer simulations from the Big Bang to the present day to investigate how the Universe evolved. The FLAMINGO simulations calculate the evolution of all the components of the Universe – ordinary matter, like stars and planets, dark matter and dark energy – based on the laws of physics. As the simulations progress, virtual galaxies and galaxy clusters emerge in precise detail. The team behind FLAMINGO, from Durham University, UK, Leiden University, the Netherlands,…
Researchers achieve a landmark in quantum squeezing. In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, made history when it made the first direct detection of gravitational waves, or ripples in space and time, produced by a pair of colliding black holes. Since then, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded LIGO and its sister detector in Europe, Virgo, have detected gravitational waves from dozens of mergers between black holes as well as from collisions between a related class of stellar…
Researchers from the University of Southampton, together with colleagues from the universities of Cambridge and Barcelona, have shown it’s theoretically possible for black holes to exist in perfectly balanced pairs – held in equilibrium by a cosmological force – mimicking a single black hole. Black holes are massive astronomical objects that have such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape. They are incredibly dense. A black hole could pack the mass of the Earth into a…
Integrated THz emitter for precise rotating target detection. Researchers integrate terahertz vortex beam emission to advance radar target detection technology. You may not realize it, but the Doppler effect is everywhere in our lives, from tracking the speed of cars with radar to locating satellites in the sky. It’s all about how waves change their frequency when a source (like a radar signal) and a detector are in motion relative to each other. However, traditional radar systems hit a roadblock…
Narrow jet stream near Jupiter’s equator has winds traveling 320 miles per hour. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, never-before-seen feature in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The high-speed jet stream, which spans more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide, sits over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks. The discovery of this jet is giving insights into how the layers of Jupiter’s famously turbulent atmosphere interact with each other, and how Webb is uniquely capable of tracking those features….
Quantum sensors make microscale NMR spectroscopy possible. The development of tumors begins with miniscule changes within the body’s cells; ion diffusion at the smallest scales is decisive in the performance of batteries. Until now the resolution of conventional imaging methods has not been high enough to represent these processes in detail. A research team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed diamond quantum sensors which can be used to improve resolution in magnetic imaging. Robin Allert (left)…
Whenever light interacts with matter, light appears to slow down. This is not a new observation and standard wave mechanics can describe most of these daily phenomena. For example, when light is incident on an interface, the standard wave equation is satisfied on both sides. To analytically solve such a problem, one would first find what the wave looks like at either side of the interface, and then employ electromagnetic boundary conditions to link the two sides together. This is…
The seemingly physics-defying properties of quasiparticles could be harnessed for applications ranging from non-destructive imaging to computer-chip manufacturing. An international team of scientists is rethinking the basic principles of radiation physics with the aim of creating super-bright light sources. In a new study published in Nature Photonics, researchers from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Portugal, the University of Rochester, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée in France proposed ways to use quasiparticles to create light…
An international team has spotted a remote blast of cosmic radio waves lasting less than a millisecond. This ‘fast radio burst’ (FRB) is the most distant ever detected. Its source was pinned down by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in a galaxy so far away that its light took eight billion years to reach us. The FRB is also one of the most energetic ever observed; in a tiny fraction of a second it released the…
FAU team of researchers succeed for the first time in accelerating electrons using a nano device. Particle accelerators are crucial tools in a wide variety of areas in industry, research and the medical sector. The space these machines require ranges from a few square meters to large research centers. Using lasers to accelerate electrons within a photonic nanostructure constitutes a microscopic alternative with the potential of generating significantly lower costs and making devices considerably less bulky. Until now, no substantial…
An advanced new three-dimensional (3D) computer simulation of the light emitted following a merger of two neutron stars has produced a similar sequence of spectroscopic features to an observed kilonova. “The unprecedented agreement between our simulations and the observation of kilonova AT2017gfo indicates that we understand broadly what has taken place in the explosion and aftermath,” says Luke Shingles, scientist at GSI/FAIR and the leading author of the publication in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters”. Recent observations that combine both gravitational…
Physicists boost microscopes beyond limits. New technique could be used in medical diagnostics and advanced manufacturing. Ever since Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered the world of bacteria through a microscope in the late seventeenth century, humans have tried to look deeper into the world of the infinitesimally small. There are, however, physical limits to how closely we can examine an object using traditional optical methods. This is known as the ‘diffraction limit’ and is determined by the fact that light manifests…
From now on, four new locations will enrich the activities of the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt. Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Helmholtz Institute Jena, Bielefeld University and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) join the thirty research institutions that bring their research on the fascinating world of particle physics to the public under the leadership of TU Dresden. Connecting research institutes, schools and places of learning to foster young talent in STEM fields and communicating about particle physics in an exciting and understandable way – this…
Tailored electron pulses for improved electron microscopy. Electron microscopes provide unique vistas of nanoscale structures, but their resolution is limited by the mutual repulsion of electrons. Researchers in Göttingen have now succeeded in precisely measuring the influence of these interactions. They discovered an “energetic fingerprint” in which the distribution of the electrons’ velocities is characteristic of their respective numbers. This finding has enabled the team to develop a method that could increase the performance of established electron microscopes and open…
The amount of power a microswimmer needs to move can now be determined more easily. Scientists from the department Living Matter Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) developed a general theorem to calculate the minimal energy required for propulsion. These insights allow a profound understanding for practical applications, such as targeted transport of molecules and substrates. One of the most important properties of a vehicle, be it a car, a plane or a ship, is…
Core components for the upcoming MESA experiment MAGIX have arrived in Mainz. One of the key projects of the Mainz Cluster of Excellence PRISMA+ is the construction of the new energy-recovering particle accelerator MESA, which will enable experiments with unprecedented precision in the future. One of these experiments is called MAGIX – a sophisticated spectrometer setup with which scientists hope to answer some of the most fundamental questions in modern physics: How big is the proton, really? Can we find…
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