Physics News

Signs of Exotic ‘Quantum Spin Liquid’ Observed in Unexpected Material

Due to the local terbium environment in TbInO3, a honeycomb lattice of terbium spins emerges in the crystal structure upon cooling. Image credit: Clark et al, doi: 10.1038/s41567-018-0407-2.
Jan 24, 2019 by News Staff

The perovskite-related metal oxide TbInO3 exhibits an exotic state of matter called quantum spin liquid, according to a team of researchers from the University of Liverpool and McMaster University. Due to the local terbium environment in TbInO3, a honeycomb lattice of terbium spins emerges in the crystal structure upon cooling. Image credit: Clark et al, doi: 10.1038/s41567-018-0407-2. The quantum spin liquid state was theoretically proposed by the...

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Reconstruction of the Draupner wave. Image credit: McAllister et al, doi: 10.1017/jfm.2018.886.

Researchers Recreate Famous Draupner Freak Wave in Lab for First Time

Jan 23, 2019 by News Staff

Freak waves are so called because of their unexpectedly large size relative to the population of smaller waves in which they occur. The 84-foot- (25.6...

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

Spacetime Geometry near Rotating Black Holes Acts Like Quantum Computer, Physicist Says

Jan 15, 2019 by News Staff

According to a theoretical paper published in the Annals of Physics, by Dr. Ovidiu Racorean from the General Direction of Information Technology in Bucharest,...

Langin et al created the world’s first laser-cooled neutral plasma. Image credit: Brandon Martin / Rice University.

Physicists Create World’s First Laser-Cooled Neutral Plasma

Jan 7, 2019 by News Staff

Plasmas are naturally formed at high temperatures, such as those reached in the interiors of stars. Neutral plasmas consist of equal numbers of positive...

Banerjee et al propose a new model with dark energy and our Universe riding on an expanding bubble in an extra dimension. Image credit: Suvendu Giri.

Universe May Be Riding on Expanding Bubble in Extra Dimension

Dec 28, 2018 by News Staff

A team of theoretical physicists at Uppsala University, Sweden, has devised a new model for our Universe — one that may solve the mystery of dark...

Blyth et al analyzed the gamma rays emitted during the NPDGamma Experiment and found parity-violating asymmetry, which is a specific change in behavior in the force between a neutron and a proton. They measured a 30 parts per billion preference for gamma rays to be emitted antiparallel to the neutron spin when neutrons are captured by protons in liquid hydrogen. After observing that more gammas go down than up, the experiment resolved for the first time a mirror-asymmetric component or handedness of the weak force. Image credit: Andy Sproles / Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy.

Experimental Physicists Measure Weak Force between Protons and Neutrons in Atom’s Nucleus

Dec 27, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the NPDGamma Experiment at the DoE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have measured the weak interaction between protons and neutrons...

An artist’s depiction of loop quantum gravity effects in a black hole. The bottom half of the image depicts the black hole which, according to general relativity, traps everything including light. Loop quantum gravity overcomes this tremendous pull and liberates everything shown in the top half of image, thus solving the fundamental problem of black hole singularity. Image credit: A. Corichi & J.P. Ruiz.

Loop Quantum Gravity Theory Could Answer Fundamental Questions about Black Holes

Dec 26, 2018 by News Staff

Loop quantum gravity is a theory that uses quantum mechanics to extend gravitational physics beyond Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Previous...

Visualization of an expanding drop of quark-gluon plasma. Image credit: Javier Orjuela Koop, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Physicists Create Quark-Gluon Plasma Droplets

Dec 12, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the PHENIX Collaboration have created droplets of a liquid-like state of matter called quark-gluon plasma, forming three distinct shapes...

The current, widely recognized model of the Universe, called LambdaCDM, tells us nothing about what dark matter and dark energy are like physically. We only know about them because of the gravitational effects they have on other, observable matter. Dr. Farnes’ model offers a new explanation. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. Livio / Hubble 20th Anniversary Team, STScI.

Negative-Mass Dark Fluid: Astonishing New Theory Could Explain Universe’s Missing 95%

Dec 5, 2018 by News Staff

The standard cosmological model known as LambdaCDM can only explain 5% of the observable Universe. The remaining 95% is famously made up almost entirely...

The collision of two black holes is seen in this still from a computer simulation. Image credit: SXS.

Physicists Detect Four New Gravitational Waves

Dec 4, 2018 by News Staff

The twin LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and the Virgo...

Left: average of known decay properties assigned to 288Mc and its daughters. Right: details of decay chains detected at the FIONA focal plane. Unobserved decays within each decay chain are indicated as ‘unobserved’ and are assumed to have been emitted out of the open end of the detector array. The x position of decays observed in the focal-plane detector is also given. Image credit: Gates et al, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.222501.

Physicists Measure Mass Numbers of Nihonium and Moscovium

Dec 3, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists using the FIONA (For the Identification Of Nuclide A) device at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 88-inch...

A replica of the prototype of the kilogram at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, France. Image credit: Japs / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Scientists Redefine Four Basic Metric Units: Kilogram, Ampere, Kelvin and Mole

Nov 20, 2018 by News Staff

After decades of groundbreaking laboratory work, the world’s scientific and technical community came together on November 16, 2018, to redefine kilogram...

Using electron tomography, Pellenq et al probed a sample of kerogen to determine its internal structure. At left, the sample as seen from the outside, and at right, the detailed 3D image of its internal pore structure. Image credit: Pellenq et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1808402115.

Researchers Finally Decode Internal Structure of Kerogen

Nov 14, 2018 by News Staff

Kerogen is a waxy, insoluble organic substance dispersed in sedimentary rocks and is the precursor of oil and gas. In a new study, published in the Proceedings...

Turnbull et al synthesized a single crystal of ι–N2 in a diamond anvil cell from ε–N2 at 65 GPa and 477 degrees Celsius. Image credit: Turnbull et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07074-4.

Physicists Solve Structure of Unusually Complex Form of Nitrogen

Nov 13, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of experimental physicists has for the first time determined the structure of ι-N2, a crystallized version of nitrogen. Turnbull...

Atomic chamber in which tractor beams were created. Image credit: Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing.

Physicists Create Tractor Beam for Atoms

Nov 2, 2018 by News Staff

Rather than sucking space ships into a space-station, a tractor beam created by University of Adelaide researcher Ashby Hilton and his colleagues pulls...

Electrons Are Perfectly Spherical, New Measurements Confirm

Oct 18, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the Advanced Cold Molecule Electron Electric Dipole Moment (ACME) Collaboration have examined the shape of an electron’s charge with...

An event from the first xenon-xenon collision at the Large Hadron Collider at 5.44 TeV registered by ALICE; a colored track (blue) corresponds to the trajectory of a charged particle produced in a single collision. Image credit: ALICE Collaboration.

Universe’s Beginning was Fluid, Physicists Say

Oct 17, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) Collaboration at CERN have gained new insights into the properties of the quark-gluon plasma,...

The LHCb magnet. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Discover Two New Particles

Oct 1, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment have found two never-before-seen particles, as well as hints of another new particle,...

Neutron stars are the smallest, densest stars in the Universe. True to their name, neutron stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons. Duer et al suggest that some properties of neutron stars may be influenced not only by their multitude of densely packed neutrons, but also by a substantially smaller fraction of protons -- positively charged particles that make up just 5% of a neutron star. This is an illustration of a neutron star. Image credit: Casey Reed, Penn State University.

Nuclear Pasta: Exotic Substance in Neutron Stars’ Crust May Be Universe’s Strongest Material

Sep 19, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers from McGill University, California Institute of Technology and Indiana University has calculated the strength of nuclear...

Nakamura et al record highest magnetic field ever achieved indoors. Image credit: Windell Oskay / CC BY 2.0.

Japanese Physicists Generate Strongest Magnetic Field Ever Achieved Indoors

Sep 18, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the Institute for Solid State Physics at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have recorded the largest magnetic field ever generated indoors...

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