General neutron star structure revealed. Through extensive model calculations, physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt have reached general conclusions about the internal structure of neutron stars, where matter reaches enormous densities: depending on their mass, the stars can have a core that is either very stiff or very soft. The findings were published simultaneously in two articles today (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ac9b2a, DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ac8674). So far, little is known about the interior of neutron stars, those extremely compact objects…
A team of astronomers have found that planet formation in our young Solar System started much earlier than previously thought, with the building blocks of planets growing at the same time as their parent star. A study of some of the oldest stars in the Universe suggests that the building blocks of planets like Jupiter and Saturn begin to form while a young star is growing. It had been thought that planets only form once a star has reached…
The first result from an experiment at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams measures how long exotic nuclei can survive at the edge of stability. A new study led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has measured how long it takes for several kinds of exotic nuclei to decay. The paper, published today in Physical Review Letters, marks the first experimental result from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a DOE Office of Science…
Cosmological observations of the orbits of stars and galaxies enable clear conclusions to be drawn about the attractive gravitational forces that act between the celestial bodies. The astonishing finding: visible matter is far from sufficient for being able to explain the development or movements of galaxies. This suggests that there exists another, so far unknown, type of matter. Accordingly, in the year 1933, the Swiss physicist and astronomer Fritz Zwicky inferred the existence of what is known now as dark…
UTA physicists find new way to measure properties of a material’s surface layer. Physicists at The University of Texas at Arlington have developed a new technique that can measure the properties of the topmost atomic layer of materials without including information from the underlying layers. Researchers from the Positron Lab in the UTA Department of Physics utilized a process called auger-mediated positron sticking (AMPS) to develop a novel spectroscopic tool to measure the electronic structure of the surface of materials…
A Tohoku University researcher has increased the performance of a high-power electrodeless plasma thruster, moving us one step closer to deeper explorations into space. Innovations in terrestrial transportation technologies, such as cars, trains, and aircraft, have driven historical technologies and industries so far; now, a similar breakthrough is occurring in space thanks to electric propulsion technology. Electric propulsion is a technique utilizing electromagnetic fields to accelerate a propellant and to generate thrust that propels a spacecraft. Space agencies have pioneered…
Space scientists may need to rethink how gamma-ray bursts are formed after new research led by the University of Bath in the UK shows new-born supramassive stars, not black holes, are sometimes responsible for these huge extragalactic bursts of energy. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been detected by satellites orbiting Earth as luminous flashes of the most energetic gamma-ray radiation lasting milliseconds to hundreds of seconds. These catastrophic blasts occur in distant galaxies, billions of light years from Earth. A sub-type…
Physicists at ETH Zurich developed a versatile dual-comb laser that offers bright prospects for practical applications of optical delay scanning. Ultrafast laser technology has enabled a trove of methods for precision measurements. These include in particular a broad class of pulsed-laser experiments in which a sample is excited and, after a variable amount of time, the response is measured. In such studies, the delay between the two pulses should typically cover the range from femtoseconds to nanoseconds. In practice, scanning…
Heidelberg physicists demonstrate the coexistence of superfluids in ultracold atomic clouds. Two superfluids can exist at the same time in ultracold atomic clouds. Until now, their coexistence could not be observed experimentally. Now, however, physicists from Heidelberg University have demonstrated such a magnetic quantum fluid – it is fluid in two ways – in an atomic gas. Researchers led by Prof. Dr Markus Oberthaler have succeeded in preparing this state in clouds of ultracold rubidium atoms and to characterise it…
Using a new experimental method, physicists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg investigated the resonant two-photon ionisation of helium with improved spectral resolution and angular resolution. For this purpose, they utilised a reaction microscope in combination with a high-resolution extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) photon spectrometer developed at the Institute. The measurements have been performed at the Free Electron Laser in Hamburg (FLASH), a brilliant radiation source, delivering intense EUV laser flashes. This allows the events from each individual…
Model accounts for scarcity of planets with masses between super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. A new model that accounts for the interplay of forces acting on newborn planets can explain two puzzling observations that have cropped up repeatedly among the more than 3,800 planetary systems cataloged to date. One puzzle known as the “radius valley” refers to the rarity of exoplanets with a radius about 1.8 times that of Earth. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft observed planets of this size about 2-3 times less…
Physicists at Friedrich Schiller University Jena together with European colleagues find a solution for the controllable separation of the undesired bonding between nano-components. Physicists from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, together with colleagues from Düsseldorf, Gothenburg, Lyngby and Trieste have developed an ingenious solution for separating bonded nano-components. Their idea is to immerse the nano-components in a solvent near its critical point. In the experimental setup, they succeeded in separating the components in a controllable fashion by only changing the temperature…
Radiation damage to photovoltaics in orbit can be reduced by making the cells thinner. Most space satellites are powered by photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to electricity. Exposure to certain types of radiation present in orbit can damage the devices, degrading their performance and limiting their lifetime. In Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, scientists from the University of Cambridge proposed a radiation-tolerant photovoltaic cell design that features an ultrathin layer of light-absorbing material. When solar cells absorb light,…
Researchers prototype a new generation of quantum microscopy. While quantum computing seems like the big-ticket item among the developing technologies based on the behaviour of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level, another direction promises to open a new door for scientific research itself – quantum microscopy. With the advance of quantum technologies, new microscopy modalities are becoming possible – ones that can see electric currents, detect fluctuating magnetic fields, and even see single molecules on a surface….
Frontera, Stampede2 supercomputer simulations help reveal novel exciton. If you hold one wire mesh on top of another one and look through it, you’ll see a larger pattern called a moiré pattern formed by the overlapping grids of the two meshes, which depends on their relative twisted angle. Scientists developing new materials are actively studying moiré patterns in overlapping atomically thin materials — they produce intriguing electronic phenomena that includes unconventional superconductivity and ferromagnetism. Supercomputer simulations have helped scientists reveal in a bilayer…
Humans cause too much waste not only on Earth. Space debris is also becoming an ever greater problem. To make satellite systems more sustainable, they should be created in a modular system in the future so that individual components can be replaced, thus extending the service life of the satellites. To ensure a problem-free interface between the components, the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS has developed a transceiver that guarantees data transfer between the components. This was integrated into…
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