Breakthrough could point the way towards new quantum technology. University of Chicago physicists have invented a “quantum flute” that, like the Pied Piper, can coerce particles of light to move together in a way that’s never been seen before. Described in two studies published in Physical Review Letters and Nature Physics, the breakthrough could point the way towards realizing quantum memories or new forms of error correction in quantum computers, and observing quantum phenomena that cannot be seen in nature. Assoc. Prof. David Schuster’s…
Measuring the shape of intense bursts of terahertz light paves the way for future accelerator technologies. The Science Researchers have developed a new technique to better measure special “terahertz” light. This light travels in waves longer than the infrared light that is beyond what the human eye perceives. The new sampling technique preserves the correlations between position and time in a pulse of terahertz light. The technique allows researchers to measure the shape of terahertz “light bullets,” focused flashes of…
Comets are fossils from the ancient times and from the depths of our Solar System, and they are relics from the formation of the sun, planets, and moons. A team led by chemist Dr. Nora Hänni of the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, Department of Space Research and Planetary Sciences, has now succeeded for the first time in identifying a whole series of complex organic molecules at a comet as they report in a study published end of…
Star with the shortest orbital period around black hole discovered. A newly discovered star only takes four years to travel around the black hole at the centre of our galaxy / publication in ‘The Astrophysical Journal’. Researchers at the University of Cologne and Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) have discovered the fastest known star, which travels around a black hole in record time. The star, S4716, orbits Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the centre of our Milky Way,…
Nature in the wrong direction. Physicists observed a strange new type of behaviour in a magnetic material when it’s heated up. The magnetic spins ‘freeze’ into a static pattern when the temperature rises, a phenomenon that normally occurs when the temperature decreases. They publish their findings in Nature Physics on July 4th. The researchers discovered the phenomenon in the material neodymium, an element that they described several years ago as a ‘self-induced spin glass’. Spin glasses are typically alloys where…
Joint project involving experimental and theoretical physicists and coordinated by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is providing greater insight into the pinning effects of skyrmions. We know hurricanes mainly from worldwide weather phenomena, but they have started to occur more frequently also in Europe. However, when researchers use an optical Kerr microscope to zoom in on thin films of magnetic material, they see something related happening in the microcosm, given the right conditions: a sort of micro-scale magnetic hurricane. Physicists call…
Laser light can radically change the properties of solid materials, making them superconducting or magnetic within millionths of a billionth of a second. The intense light causes fundamental, immediate changes in a solid by ‘shaking’ its atomic lattice structure and moving electrons about. But what exactly is happening at that elementary level? How do those atoms and electrons actually move? Now a theory team at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg has found…
After three years: ATLAS detector more powerful than ever – with major contributions from Mainz University. Tomorrow (on July 5th) protons are expected once again colliding with each other at speeds close to that of light in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, also giving physicists of the PRISMA⁺ Cluster of Excellence of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz something to celebrate. Over the last three years, they have made important contributions to the upgrade of the ATLAS detector, ensuring that…
Researchers improve widely used simulation method for high-performance computing clusters. Although most fundamental mathematical equations that describe electronic structures are long known, they are too complex to be solved in practice. This has hampered progress in physics, chemistry and the material sciences. Thanks to modern high-performance computing clusters and the establishment of the simulation method density functional theory (DFT), researchers were able to change this situation. However, even with these tools the modelled processes are in many cases still drastically…
A concept developed by University of Arizona aerospace experts and a NASA planetary scientist takes inspiration from albatross flight to learn more about the Red Planet’s atmosphere and geology. Eight active spacecraft, including three operated by NASA, orbit Mars, gathering imagery of the planet’s surface at a resolution of about 1 foot per pixel. Three rovers traverse the ground, mapping small areas of the planet with greater precision. But what lies in the hundreds of kilometers between the rovers and…
Professor Ben Mazin talks superconductors, exoplanets and dance clubs as he explains advances in sensor technology. It may seem like technology advances year after year, as if by magic. But behind every incremental improvement and breakthrough revolution is a team of scientists and engineers hard at work. UC Santa Barbara Professor Ben Mazin is developing precision optical sensors for telescopes and observatories. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, he and his team improved the spectra resolution of their…
On the 50th anniversary of the discovery of a close connection between star formation in galaxies and their infrared and radio radiation, researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have now deciphered the underlying physics. To this end, they used novel computer simulations of galaxy formation with a complete modelling of cosmic rays. To understand the formation and evolution of galaxies like our Milky Way, it is of particular importance to know the amount of newly formed stars…
New simulation also shows gamma ray bursts are 10 times rarer than previously thought. A Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists has developed the first-ever full 3D simulation of an entire evolution of a jet formed by a collapsing star, or a “collapsar.” Because these jets generate gamma ray bursts (GRBs) — the most energetic and luminous events in the universe since the Big Bang — the simulations have shed light on these peculiar, intense bursts of light. Their new findings…
Sensing with levitated nanoparticles has so far been limited by the precision of position measurements. Now, researchers at the University of Innsbruck led by Tracy Northup, have demonstrated a new method for optical interferometry in which light scattered by a particle is reflected by a mirror. This opens up new possibilities for using levitated particles as sensors, in particular, in quantum regimes. Levitated nanoparticles are promising tools for sensing ultra-weak forces of biological, chemical or mechanical origin and even for…
Equivalent total oxidation potential of a plasma-activated medium has implications for cancer treatments. Chinese researchers may have found a new approach to treat cancer by using a plasma treatment to induce apoptosis, the death of cancer cells, without any obvious side effect to normal cells. The catch is that while a plasma-activated medium (PAM) can be treated as a drug, there is always a dose-effect relationship. And within the plasma community, many researchers are defining the plasma dose as either…
Liquid water is an important prerequisite for life to develop on a planet. As researchers from the University of Bern, the University of Zurich and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS report in a new study, liquid water could also exist for billions of years on planets that are very different from Earth. This calls our currently Earth-centred idea of potentially habitable planets into question. Life on Earth began in the oceans. In the search for life…
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