Models capture how solar wind charge exchange events are observed. Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used numerical methods to model the variations observed in soft X-ray signals detected by X-ray satellites. They analyzed data from the Suzaku telescope and compared it with modeling of solar winds interacting with the most upper parts of our atmosphere. They succeeded in capturing how the signal varied with the orbital motion of the satellite, with implications for how predictions can be made for…
Boston College-led team develops new quantum sensor technique to image and understand the origin of photocurrent flow in Weyl semimetals. Quantum sensors can be used to reveal a surprising new mechanism for converting light into electricity in Weyl semimetals, Boston College Assistant Professor of Physics Brian Zhou and colleagues report in the journal Nature Physics. A number of modern technologies, such as cameras, fiber optic networks, and solar cells rely on the conversion of light into electrical signals. But with…
Nine millisecond pulsars, most of them in rare and sometimes unusual binary systems: that is the first result of a targeted survey with MeerKAT in South Africa. An international team with significant contributions from AEI (Hannover) und MPIfR (Bonn) selected 79 unidentified pulsar-like sources from observations of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and observed them at radio frequencies with MeerKAT. Using this tried-and-tested method with a next-generation telescope array has significant advantages over previous surveys. The team discovered nine rapidly…
By using ultrafast laser flashes, scientists at the University of Rostock in collaboration with researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart have generated and measured the shortest electron pulse to date. The electron pulse was created by using lasers to remove electrons from a tiny metal tip and lasted only 53 attoseconds, that is, 53 billionths of a billionth of a second. This study is setting a new speed record in man-made control of electric…
The structure of two-dimensional titanium oxide brakes-up at high temperatures by adding barium; instead of regular hexagons, rings of four, seven and ten atoms are created that order aperiodically. A team at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) made this discovery in colaboration with researchers from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Microstructure Physics, the Université Grenoble Alpes and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, USA), thereby solving the riddle of two-dimensional quasicrystal formation from metal oxides. Their findings…
New electron diffraction equipment is about to revolutionize how we understand crystal structures. A new centre based jointly at the University of Southampton and the University of Warwick will draw on expertise from two world class universities and become a game changer for chemical industries, including manufacturing, pharma and electronics. The National Electron Diffraction Facility, part of the National Crystallography Service (NCS), will be the first in the UK and the first national facility in the world. Using electrons, instead…
… can create unique two-dimensional (2D) periodic surface nanostructures: Scientists working on laser application at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics (RAP) have demonstrated that GHz burst mode femtosecond laser pulses can create unique two-dimensional (2D) laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) on silicon substrates. Previously, the team led by the researchers from the Advanced Laser Processing Research Team has reported that the GHz burst mode femtosecond laser pulses consisting of a series of trains of ultrashort laser pulses with a…
Researchers utilized the James Webb Space Telescope to look at primordial interstellar ices. An international team including Southwest Research Institute, Leiden University and NASA used observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to achieve the darkest ever view of a dense interstellar cloud. These observations have revealed the composition of a virtual treasure chest of ices from the early universe, providing new insights into the chemical processes of one of the coldest, darkest places in the universe as well…
Findings may point to a previously unknown influence of the strong force—and a way to measure its local fluctuations. Given the choice of three different “spin” orientations, certain particles emerging from collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), an atom smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, appear to have a preference. As described in a paper just published in Nature by RHIC’s STAR collaboration, the results reveal a preference in global spin alignment of particles called phi mesons….
Method offers approach to shift laser colors for applications in science, industry, and medicine. Lasers are intense beams of colored light. Depending on their color and other properties, they can scan your groceries, cut through metal, eradicate tumors, and even trigger nuclear fusion. But not every laser color is available with the right properties for a specific job. To fix that, scientists have found a variety of ways to convert one color of laser light into another. In a study just…
Scientists invented a new way of tracking electronic properties inside materials, and used it to visualize magnetic domains in a previously unseen way. Everyone knows that holding two magnets together will lead to one of two results: they stick together, or they push each other apart. From this perspective, magnetism seems simple, but scientists have struggled for decades to really understand how magnetism behaves on the smallest scales. On the near-atomic level, magnetism is made of many ever-shifting kingdoms—called magnetic…
A key aspect of the study was the deployment of density functional theory (DFT), a method derived from quantum mechanics and used in solid-state physics to resolve complex crystalline structures. Ordinary everyday ice, like the ice produced by a fridge, is known to scientists as hexagonal ice (ice Ih), and is not the only crystalline phase of water. More than 20 different phases are possible. One of them, called “superionic ice” or “ice XVIII”, is of particular interest, among other…
It’s not at every university that laser pulses powerful enough to burn paper and skin are sent blazing down a hallway. But that’s what happened in UMD’s Energy Research Facility, an unremarkable looking building on the northeast corner of campus. If you visit the utilitarian white and gray hall now, it seems like any other university hall—as long as you don’t peak behind a cork board and spot the metal plate covering a hole in the wall. But for a…
Researchers report a new, highly unusual, structured-light family of 3D topological solitons, the photonic hopfions, where the topological textures and topological numbers can be freely and independently tuned. We can frequently find in our daily lives a localized wave structure that maintains its shape upon propagation—picture a smoke ring flying in the air. Similar stable structures have been studied in various research fields and can be found in magnets, nuclear systems, and particle physics. In contrast to a ring of…
The quantum nature of objects visible to the naked eye is currently a much-discussed research question. A team led by Innsbruck physicist Gerhard Kirchmair has now demonstrated a new method in the laboratory that could make the quantum properties of macroscopic objects more accessible than before. With the method, the researchers were able to increase the efficiency of an established cooling method by an order of a magnitude. With optomechanical experiments, scientists are trying to explore the limits of the…
A novel experiment sheds new light on a possible mechanism that may seed magnetic fields for the galactic dynamo. The Science Plasma is matter that is so hot that the electrons are separated from atoms. The electrons float freely and the atoms become ions. This creates an ionized gas—plasma—that makes up nearly all of the visible universe. Recent research shows that magnetic fields can spontaneously emerge in a plasma. This can happen if the plasma has a temperature anisotropy—temperature that…
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