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This is an artistic view of the decay of a quantum-mechanical monopole into a Dirac monopole. Image credit: Heikka Valja.

Physicists Experimentally Observe Decay of Quantum Monopole

May 18, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of physicists from Finland and the United States has made the first experimental observations of the dynamics of isolated monopoles...

Hubble view of the galaxy cluster Abell 1689. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / J. Blakeslee, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory / H. Ford, JHU.

Space-Time is Constantly Moving, Physicists Say

May 15, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia, Canada, has tackled the question ‘what causes...

Quantitative measurements of the C═O***H–C bond: (A) schematic drawing of the hydrogen bonding measurement on trifluorantheno[3.3.3]propellane with a CO-functionalized tip; right shows the AFM image. Scale bar - 300 pm; (B) 2D frequency shift map; (C) calculated force and (D) potentials. Inset shows the same area with a wider contrast. The z origin was set at the position of the hydrogen atom. Measurement parameters: A = 60 pm and V = 0 mV. Image credit: Kawai et al, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1603258.

Physicists Directly Observe Hydrogen Bonds in Single Molecule

May 15, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, physicists have succeeded in observing and studying in detail the hydrogen bonds in a single molecule. Quantitative measurements of...

Photo of the centimeter-sized silicon chip, which has two parallel superconducting oscillators and the quantum-circuit refrigerators connected to them. Image credit: Kuan Yen Tan / Aalto University.

Researchers Invent Nanoscale ‘Refrigerator’ for Quantum Computers

May 9, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University in Finland has invented a quantum-circuit refrigerator, which can reduce...

Researchers Manipulate Liquids Using Only Visible Light

Apr 25, 2017 by News Staff

A novel system developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could make it possible to control the way a liquid moves over...

Physicists Create Fluid with ‘Negative Mass’

Apr 18, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of physicists from the United States, Japan, and China has created a fluid with negative mass, which is exactly what it sounds like....

In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Image credit: NASA / Sonoma State University / Aurore Simonnet.

Research Challenges Our Understanding of Quantum Theory

Mar 29, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, has discovered a new mechanism involved in the generation of paired photons. In this...

Entanglement across a spherical boundary: a container of superfluid helium-4 is bipartitioned into a sphere of helium atoms A (green) and its complement A- (blue). The entanglement between A and A- is dominated by an area law, scaling with area of the bounding surface. Image credit: C.M. Herdman et al, doi: 10.1038/nphys4075.

Sphere of Superfluid Helium Behaves Like Black Hole, Physicists Say

Mar 23, 2017 by News Staff

A team of physicists from the Universities of Vermont and Waterloo has discovered that a sphere of cold helium atoms follows a bizarre law of physics —...

An experiment proposed by Dr. Donald Chang aims at resolving divergence between special relativity and standard model of cosmology. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / J. Blakeslee, NRC Herzberg, DAO / H. Ford, JHU.

Is There a Resting Frame in Universe?

Mar 23, 2017 by News Staff

Physics is sometimes closer to philosophy when it comes to understanding the Universe. Dr. Donald Chang, a physicist at the Hong Kong University of Science...

The magnetism of the holmium atom can be changed or read by flowing current through the STM tip. Image credit: Fabian D. Natterer et al.

Researchers Make Single-Atom Memory from Holmium

Mar 9, 2017 by News Staff

According to a research team led by scientists from IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, and the Institute of Basic Science in Seoul, South...

Artist’s concept of a magneto-optical trap and atom chip to be used by NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory aboard the International Space Station. CAL will provide an opportunity to study ultra-cold quantum gases in the microgravity environment of the space station -- a frontier in scientific research that is expected to reveal interesting and novel quantum phenomena. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory to Create ‘Coolest Spot in Universe’

Mar 8, 2017 by News Staff

This summer, a suite of instruments called the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) will fly to the International Space Station (ISS), where it will utilize the...

Illustration of a supersolid state, in which the properties of a frictionless fluid and a crystalline state coincide. Image credit: Julian Léonard, ETH Zurich.

Supersolid: Physicists Create New State of Matter

Mar 4, 2017 by News Staff

Two teams of physicists have independently created a mysterious new state of matter. The state is known as a supersolid and it combines the properties...

According to Antusch et al, oscillons produced a characteristic peak in the otherwise broad spectrum of gravitational waves. Image credit: University of Basel.

Oscillons, Gravitational Wave Factories in Very Early Universe

Feb 15, 2017 by News Staff

A team of theoretical physicists at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has found that in the very early Universe, so-called oscillons — strong...

Photo of metallic hydrogen at a pressure of 495 GPa; the sample is non-transmitting and is observed in reflected light; the central region is clearly more reflective than the surrounding metallic rhenium gasket; the sample dimensions are approximately 8-10 microns with thickness 1.2 microns. Image credit: Ranga P. Dias & Isaac F. Silvera, doi: 10.1126/science.aal1579.

Physicists Produce World’s First Sample of Metallic Hydrogen

Jan 30, 2017 by News Staff

A duo of physicists at Harvard University has succeeded in creating a metallic modification of hydrogen. The research is published in the journal Science. Photo...

Following a blueprint created by N.Y. Yao et al, University of Maryland physicists made the first time crystal using a one-dimensional chain of ytterbium ions; each ion behaves like an electron spin and exhibits long-range interactions indicated by the arrows. Image credit: J. Zhang et al.

Physicists Unveil ‘Time Crystals’

Jan 27, 2017 by News Staff

Thanks to a breakthrough by a research team led by University of California Berkeley physicist Norman Yao, time crystals are now a reality. Following a...

Top: schematic of the Penning trap set-up used in CERN’s BASE experiment; a cloud of antiprotons is stored in the reservoir trap (RT), which supplies single particles to the co-magnetometer trap (CT) and the analysis trap (AT) when required; the CT is used for continuous magnetic field measurements; the AT is the trap with the strong superimposed magnetic bottle, which is used to measure the cyclotron frequency and the Larmor frequency. All traps are equipped with radio-frequency excitation electronics and highly sensitive superconducting detection systems. Bottom: results of the six g-factor measurements carried out during CERN’s 2015/2016 accelerator shutdown between February 20 and March 5, 2016; based on this set of measurements H. Nagahama et al extract gp/2=2.7928465(23), as indicated by the red line; the green lines show the 95% confidence level error, the blue line represents the currently accepted value of the proton g-factor gp/2=2.792847350(9); the error bars of the individual measurements are based on the uncertainties of the individual frequency measurements, which are dominated by the random walk in the magnetron mode. Image credit: H. Nagahama et al, doi: 10.1038/ncomms14084.

Physicists Precisely Measure Magnetic Moment of Antiproton

Jan 22, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of physicists led by RIKEN researcher Stefan Ulmer has found that the magnetic moment of the antiproton is extremely close to that...

Bhattacharya et al have discovered a way to confine the behavior of electrons by using extremely high magnetic fields. Image credit: Argonne National Laboratory.

Researchers: Electrons ‘Puddle’ under High Magnetic Fields

Jan 5, 2017 by News Staff

A team of materials scientists and physicists from the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the National...

Picture of the distribution of the genetic information in an E. coli cell. Image credit: University of Bielefeld.

Optical ‘Tractor Beam’ Traps Biological Cells

Dec 28, 2016 by News Staff

Physicists in Germany have developed a novel technique for trapping biological cells with a laser beam. Using this technique, the researchers obtained...

The next leap second will be inserted on December 31, 2016. This will be the 27th leap second added since their adoption in 1972. Image credit: National Physical Laboratory.

2016 Gets Longer with Extra Second Added to New Year Countdown

Dec 23, 2016 by News Staff

This New Year’s countdown will be one second longer as the National Physical Laboratory — the UK’s national measurement institute and the birthplace...