Physics News | Sci.News

Proton is a subatomic particle found in the nucleus of every atom. This artist’s impression shows a proton and a neutron. Image credit: Joanna Griffin / Jefferson Lab / Penn State.

Physicists Precisely Measure Electric Polarizability of Proton

Oct 19, 2022 by News Staff

Though widely thought to be a fluke when seen in earlier measurements, the new, more precise measurement has confirmed the presence of the anomaly and...

An artist’s impression of a light hypernucleus. Image credit: Keiko Murano / RIKEN.

CERN Physicists Measure Properties of Hypernuclei

Sep 22, 2022 by News Staff

Physicists from the ALICE Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have precisely measured two properties of hypernuclei that may exist in the cores...

An artist’s impression of the MICROSCOPE satellite. Image credit: CNES / David Ducros.

MICROSCOPE Space Mission Confirms Equivalence Principle with Unprecedented Accuracy

Sep 15, 2022 by News Staff

The final results from CNES’ MICROSCOPE (MICROSatellite with Compensated drag for the Observation of the Principle of Equivalence) space mission —...

Kapil et al. describe the phase behavior of monolayer-confined water by calculating its pressure-temperature phase diagram: (a-g) the pressure-temperature phase diagram of monolayer water was calculated using an machine learning potential that delivers first-principles accuracy; the solid and dashed lines indicate first-order and continuous phase transitions, respectively; the gray regions indicate the statistical uncertainty for solid-solid phase transitions and, for the other transitions, the uncertainties arising from studying a finite number of thermodynamic states; the diagonally hatched area indicates the region in which square and flat-rhombic phases are near degenerate; diagrams of the hexagonal (a), pentagonal (b), square (c), flat-rhombic (d), hexatic (e), superionic (f) and liquid (g) phases are shown with oxygen atoms in red, hydrogen atoms in gray and hydrogen bonds shown by blue lines. Image credit: Kapil et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05036-x.

Monolayer-Confined Water Acts Like Neither Liquid Nor Solid, Scientists Say

Sep 14, 2022 by News Staff

Water in a one-molecule layer acts like neither a liquid nor a solid, and becomes highly conductive at high pressures, according to a new paper published...

Characterization of the liquid-liquid phase transition in colloidal (top) and molecular water (bottom) by identifying links and knots. LDL - low-density liquid; HDL - high-density liquid. Image credit: Neophytou et al., doi: 10.1038/s41567-022-01698-6.

New Research Sheds More Light on Liquid-Liquid Phase Transition in Deeply Supercooled Water

Aug 22, 2022 by News Staff

The new evidence represents a significant step forward in confirming the idea of a liquid-liquid phase transition first proposed in 1992. Characterization...

The strong force is the fundamental force that binds smaller particles called quarks into larger particles called protons and neutrons. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

Physicists Determine Strong Force Coupling at Largest Distances Yet

Aug 4, 2022 by News Staff

The strong force, also referred to as the strong nuclear force, is one of the four basic forces in nature, along with gravity, the electromagnetic force,...

Clark et al. show that a double graphene liquid cell makes it possible to monitor with atomic resolution the dynamics of platinum adatoms on the monolayer in an aqueous salt solution. Image credit: Clark et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05130-0.

Physicists Capture Images of Single Atoms ‘Swimming’ in Liquid

Jul 28, 2022 by News Staff

Using a transmission electron microscope and a double graphene liquid cell, physicists at the UK’s National Graphene Institute have monitored the dynamics...

Dark photons are hypothetical dark sector particles proposed as a force carrier similar to the photon of electromagnetism but potentially connected to dark matter. Image credit: University of Adelaide.

Physicists Searching for Hypothetical Dark Photons

Jul 11, 2022 by News Staff

Dark photons are hypothetical particles that could account for observations that cannot be explained by the Standard Model of particle physics. Dark photons...

Zuber et al. observed a new type of molecular ion based on the interaction between a neutral Rydberg atom and a charged ion with a bond length of several micrometers. Image credit: Zuber et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04577-5.

Physicists Observe New Type of Molecular Bond

Jul 7, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Rydberg atoms — atoms with a highly excited electron — can form unusual types of molecular bonds. These bonds differ from the well-known ionic...

Electron vortices could be leveraged for next-gen low-power electronics. Image credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT.

Physicists Directly Observe Vortices in Electron Fluid

Jul 6, 2022 by News Staff

An international team of physicists has observed electrons flowing in vortices — a hallmark of fluid flow that theorists predicted electrons should...

The strange pentaquark PΛψs(4338)0, illustrated here as a pair of standard hadrons loosely bound in a molecule-like structure, is made up of a charm quark and a charm antiquark and an up, a down and a strange quark. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Discover Three New Exotic Particles

Jul 5, 2022 by News Staff

Physicists from the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced today the observation of a strange...

In 2012, physicists from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN announced the discovery of a new boson looking very much like the Higgs boson. Image credit: Daniel Dominguez / CERN.

CERN Physicists Release Most Up-To-Date Results on Higgs Boson’s Properties

Jul 4, 2022 by News Staff

On July 4, 2012, physicists from the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced the observation of a Higgs boson at a mass...

Gonzalez et al. report an improved measurement of the free neutron lifetime. Image credit: Tomislav Jakupec.

Neutron Lifetime Anomaly Remains Unsolved, Physicists Say

Jun 29, 2022 by News Staff

To measure the lifetime of a free neutron, physicists take two approaches that should arrive at the same answer: one traps neutrons in a magnetic bottle...

SEM image of the carbon crystals in the Chelyabinsk meteoritic dust. Image credit: Taskaev et al., doi: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02768-7.

Scientists Find Exotic Carbon Microcrystals in Chelyabinsk Meteoritic Dust

Jun 28, 2022 by Natali Anderson

When a space body enters Earth’s atmosphere, its surface is exposed to high pressure and temperatures. The airflow tears off small droplets from the...

ATLAS (left) and CMS (right) candidate events for a Higgs boson decaying into a pair of tau leptons. Image credit: CERN.

Physicists Search for Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry in Higgs Boson-Tau Lepton Interactions

Jun 27, 2022 by News Staff

Symmetries make the world go round, but so do asymmetries. A case in point is an asymmetry known as charge-parity asymmetry, which is required to explain...

Schematic illustration of the quasi-elastic reaction investigated by Duer et al. Top: quasi-elastic scattering of the helium-4 (4He) core from a helium-8 (8He) projectile off a proton target in the laboratory frame. The length of the arrows represents the momentum per nucleon (the velocity) of the incoming and outgoing particles. Zbeam is the beam axis. Bottom: the equivalent p-4He elastic scattering in their center-of-mass frame, where we consider reactions at backward angles close to 180°. In this frame, the momentum of the proton balances that of 4He, Pp=−P4He, that is, the proton is four times faster than 4He. Image credit: Duer et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04827-6.

Physicists Observe Elusive Four-Neutron System: Tetraneutron

Jun 23, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Physicists using the Superconducting Analyzer for Multi-particles from Radio Isotope Beams (SAMURAI) in Japan have experimentally observed a resonance-like...

Scientists Synthesize Crystalline Gamma-Graphyne

May 23, 2022 by News Staff

Graphynes are two-dimensional carbon allotropes similar to the wonder material graphene that is optically transparent and mechanically flexible, and yet...

A charm quark (c) in a parton shower loses energy by emitting radiation in the form of gluons (g). The shower displays a dead cone of suppressed radiation around the quark for angles smaller than the ratio of the quark’s mass (m) and energy (E). The energy decreases at each stage of the shower. Image credit: Daniel Dominguez / CERN.

CERN Physicists Directly Observe Fundamental Phenomenon in Quantum Chromodynamics

May 19, 2022 by News Staff

In particle collider experiments, elementary particle interactions with large momentum transfer produce quarks and gluons (known as partons) whose evolution...

Han et al. developed an ultra-thin loudspeaker that can turn any rigid surface into a high-quality, active audio source. Image credit: Felice Frankel.

Ultra-Thin, Lightweight Loudspeaker Created

Apr 27, 2022 by News Staff

The flexible, thin-film loudspeaker, developed by MIT researchers, weighs only 2 g, is 120 microns thick, and can generate high-quality sound no matter...