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Crystal structure and magnetism in rare-earth langasite: (a) the distorted Kagome lattice of the rare-earth ions in R3Ga5SiO14; about 1.5% of the rare-earth sites (orange) are occupied by the holmium ions; the unit cell is shown by thin solid lines; (b) experimental and theoretical magnetization curves of HoxLa3−xGa5SiO14 (x = 0.043) in external magnetic fields parallel to three crystallographic axes and at T = 5 K. Symbols - experiment, solid lines - model accounting for a ground Ho3+ quasidoublet and a Van-Vleck contribution of excited crystal-field states. The inset shows the local magnetic moments of Ho-ions in the saturation regime. Image credit: Weymann et al, doi: 10.1038/s41535-020-00263-9.

New Type of Magnetoelectric Effect Discovered

Sep 15, 2020 by News Staff

Even small changes in the direction of the magnetic field can switch the electrical properties of a paramagnetic rare-earth material — the holmium-doped...

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this image of NGC 1052-DF2 on November 16, 2017. Image credit: NASA / ESA / P. van Dokkum, Yale University.

Self-Interacting Dark Matter Helps Explain Formation of Dark-Matter-Deficient Galaxies

Sep 10, 2020 by News Staff

The so-called self-interacting dark matter theory helps explain why NGC 1052-DF2 and NGC 1052-DF4, a pair of ultra-diffuse galaxies located approximately...

An artist’s impression of binary black holes about to collide. Image credit: Mark Myers, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Australian National University.

Astronomers Witness Birth of Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

Sep 2, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the twin LIGO detectors located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and the Virgo detector located near Pisa, Italy, have...

Earth’s internal structure: dense solid metallic core, viscous metallic outer core, mantle and silicate based crust. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Inner Core is Around 1.15 Billion Years Old, Study Shows

Aug 26, 2020 by News Staff

The inner core of our planet is between 1 and 1.3 billion years old, according to new research led by the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Institution...

Experimental set-up. Quartz-glass sample container cylinder is filled partially with superfluid 3He-B, leaving a free surface of the superfluid approximately 3 mm above the centre of the surrounding coil system. The space above the free surface is vacuum due to the vanishing vapor pressure of 3He at sub-millikelvin temperatures. Magnons can be trapped in this configuration in two separate locations, in the bulk (colored blue) and touching the free surface (colored red). Transverse NMR coils are used both for RF pumping of magnons into the BECs, and for recording the induced signal from the coherently precessing magnetization M (light yellow arrow). The amplitude of the recorded signal is proportional to βM, the tipping angle of M, and its frequency corresponds to the precession frequency of the condensate. The condensates are trapped by the combined effect of the distribution of the orbital anisotropy axis of the superfluid (green arrows) via spin-orbit coupling, and a minimum of the external magnetic field created using a pinch coil (magenta wire loop). The external field H is oriented along the z axis of the sample container. Image credit: Autti et al, doi: 10.1038/s41563-020-0780-y.

Physicists Observe Quantum Time Crystals Interacting with Each Other

Aug 18, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of physicists has studied the controlled interaction of two spatially separated time crystals. Experimental set-up. Quartz-glass...

Error-correcting Schrödinger’s cats. Image credit: Michael S. Helfenbein.

Physicists Develop Error-Correcting Schrödinger’s Cat

Aug 14, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the Department of Physics and the Department of Applied Physics at Yale University, the Paul Scherrer Institute and Inria Paris have developed...

Stable blue whirl observed in an experiment. Image credit: H. Xiao, University of Science and Technology of China.

Structure of Mysterious Blue Whirl Revealed

Aug 14, 2020 by News Staff

The blue whirl consists of three different flame structures that swirl together into one otherworldly blue ring, according to new research. Stable blue...

A 2018 ATLAS event display consistent with the production of a pair of W bosons from two photons, where the W bosons decay into a muon and an electron (visible in the detector) and neutrinos (not detected). The muon path (red line) and electron path (yellow line) are shown. The electron deposits its energy in the electromagnetic calorimeter (yellow blocks). The many particles reconstructed in the Inner Detector are shown in orange. Top left corner shows that these particles do not originate from the same interaction and are thus attributed to additional proton-proton interactions. Image credit: ATLAS Collaboration / CERN.

Photon Collisions Produce Pairs of Weak-Force Carriers

Aug 11, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have observed production of W bosons, elementary particles...

Candidate event displays of a Higgs boson decaying into two muons as recorded by CMS (left) and ATLAS (right). Image credit: CERN.

Higgs Boson Seen Decaying to Two Muons

Aug 6, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) and CMS (Compact-Muon-Solenoid) collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have reported strong...

X(6900), a tetraquark particle composed of two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Discover Four-Charm-Quark Particle

Jul 3, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from CERN’s LHCb Collaboration have discovered a new tetraquark particle, named X(6900), composed of two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks. X(6900),...

Branched flow pattern shown on top of the interference color pattern generated by weak white light, making it possible to observe the potential landscape together with the branched flow. Image credit: Patsyk et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2376-8.

Physicists Observe Branched Flow of Light

Jul 3, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Central Florida have experimentally observed optical branched flow in...

An artist’s rendition of a mystery compact object in ‘mass gap’ found by LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors. Image credit: LIGO / Caltech / MIT / R. Hurt, IPAC.

GW190814 Sheds Light on Mass Gap between Neutron Stars and Black Holes

Jun 25, 2020 by News Staff

The gravitational-wave signal GW190814, detected on August 14, 2019 by NSF’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo...

The world’s smallest molecular motor consists of a single acetylene rotor anchored to a chiral atomic cluster provided by a palladium-gallium surface that acts as a stator. Image credit: Empa.

Researchers Develop World’s Smallest Molecular Motor

Jun 24, 2020 by News Staff

A molecular motor developed by a team of researchers from Switzerland consists of just 16 atoms. The world’s smallest molecular motor consists of a single...

Photons emitted near rotating black holes encode quantum information that can be measured by actual quantum information technology. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Physicists Verify Half-Century-Old Theory about Rotating Black Holes

Jun 24, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the University of Glasgow and the University of Arizona have experimentally verified a half-century-old theory that began as speculation...

Physicists Create New Isotope of Mendelevium

Jun 24, 2020 by News Staff

In an experiment performed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 88-inch cyclotron, a team of physicists successfully created a new isotope of the...

Event display of a candidate four-top-quark event, where two of the top quarks decay leptonically -- one with a resulting muon (red) and one with an electron (green) -- and two top quarks decay hadronically (green and yellow rectangles). The jets -- b-tagged jets -- are shown as yellow (blue) cones. Image credit: ATLAS Collaboration / CERN.

Physicists Find Strong Evidence of Four-Top Quark Production

Jun 18, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS Collaboration CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have uncovered strong evidence of the production of four top quarks. This rare process...

Cosmic rays striking Venus’ atmosphere eject neutrons that gradually fly into space. As neutrons move to higher altitudes, more time passes, and more neutrons radioactively decay. MESSENGER counted the number of neutrons seen at various altitudes, allowing researchers to home in on where neutron numbers start falling off. Using models, researchers can then estimate the neutron lifetime. Image credit: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

NASA’s MESSENGER Mission Carries Out Space-Based Measurements of Neutron’s Lifetime

Jun 12, 2020 by News Staff

Using data acquired in 2007 and 2008 during flybys of Venus and Mercury by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, researchers found the neutron lifetime to be...

View of a new phase of liquid crystal as seen under the microscope. Image credit: Chen et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2002290117.

Researchers Confirm Existence of Elusive Phase of Liquid Crystals

Jun 11, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Utah has confirmed the existence of a ferroelectric nematic phase of...

Collision event recorded by ATLAS. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Search for Rare Decays of Higgs Boson

Jun 10, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from CERN’s ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) and CMS (Compact-Muon-Solenoid) collaborations presented their latest results at the 2020 Large...