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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...

Shoshany et al. define and analyze a new model of time travel paradoxes, which is fully compatible with all known physics; the model consists of a wormhole time machine in 3+1 spacetime dimensions, which can be either permanent (existing eternally) or temporary (activated only for a short time). Image credit: Genty.

Time Travel Necessarily Implies Existence of Multiple Histories, Physicists Say

Apr 27, 2022 by The Conversation

As often portrayed in science fiction, with a time machine, nothing is permanent anymore — you can always go back and change it. But is time travel...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Time Might Not Actually Exist, Researchers Say

Apr 22, 2022 by The Conversation

In a new book published by the Oxford University Press, Australian Catholic University’s Dr. Sam Baron and his colleagues provide the first systematic...

The classical signature of a top-quark pair produced in LHC collisions is four jets (yellow cones), one muon (red line, also detected by the CMS muon detectors as red boxes), and missing energy from a neutrino (pink arrow). Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Measure Mass of Top Quark

Apr 20, 2022 by News Staff

Physicists from the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have substantially improved the precision with which...

Hwang et al. studied the capillary-induced coalescence of swelling pasta; they observed that, as pasta is cooked (hence, swollen and softened), capillary action more easily deforms the noodle, and two pasta noodles can coalesce with the shorter stick length: (a) picture of spaghetti aglio e olio; capillary adhesion between the noodles is induced by olive oil seasoned with garlic and pepper; (b) pasta radial and axial growth over time at 100 degrees Celsius cooking due to hygroscopic swelling; radial strain grows up to 70% of its original and axial strain up to 40% of its original after 30 min of cooking (at 100 degrees Celsius); pasta cross section shows color-gradient before it is sufficiently cooked. Image credit: Hwang et al., doi: 10.1063/5.0083696.

New Math Model Describes Swelling, Elasticity and Adhesion of Pasta as It Cooks

Apr 15, 2022 by News Staff

In new research, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has documented how pasta — composed of starch granules —...

A thermophotovoltaic cell (size 1 x 1 cm) mounted on a heat sink designed to measure the TPV cell efficiency. Image credit: Felice Frankel.

Researchers Develop Highly Efficient Heat Engine

Apr 14, 2022 by News Staff

The newly-developed heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic cell that captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity...