When Dirac meets frustrated magnetism

The fields of condensed matter physics and materials science are intimately linked because new physics is often discovered in materials with special arrangements of atoms. Crystals, which have repeating units of atoms in space, can have special patterns which result in exotic physical properties. Particularly exciting are materials which host multiple types of exotic properties because they give scientists the opportunity to study how those properties interact with and influence each other. The combinations can give rise to unexpected phenomena and fuel years of basic and technological research.

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Shock waves might offer the jolt needed to reach Mars

Applying shockwaves can improve conditions for fluid mixing in supersonic combustion engines, paving the way for flights at speeds five times faster than the speed of sound.

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Long-standing tension in the Standard Model addressed

The best-known particle in the lepton family is the electron, a key building block of matter and central to our understanding of electricity. But the electron is not an only child. It has two heavier siblings, the muon and the tau lepton, and together they are known as the three lepton flavors. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the only difference between the siblings should be their mass: the muon is about 200 times heavier than the electron, and the tau-lepton is about 17 times heavier than the muon. It is a remarkable feature of the Standard Model that each flavor is equally likely to interact with a W boson, which results from the so-called lepton flavor universality. Lepton flavor universality has been probed in different processes and energy regimes to high precision.

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Team proposes new integrated power-exhaust control solution for fusion reactor steady-state operation

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) team has proposed a new integrated control solution to tackle key problems in divertor power exhaust for the steady state operation of tokamak fusion reactor.

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Cosmic tango between the very small and the very large

While Einstein's theory of general relativity can explain a large array of fascinating astrophysical and cosmological phenomena, some aspects of the properties of the universe at the largest-scales remain a mystery. A new study using loop quantum cosmology—a theory that uses quantum mechanics to extend gravitational physics beyond Einstein's theory of general relativity—accounts for two major mysteries. While the differences in the theories occur at the tiniest of scales—much smaller than even a proton—they have consequences at the largest of accessible scales in the universe. The study, which appears online July 29 in the journal Physical Review Letters, also provides new predictions about the universe that future satellite missions could test.

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CERN experiment reports first evidence for ultra-rare process that could lead to new physics

Scientists at CERN have reported on their first significant evidence for a process predicted by theory, paving the way for searches for evidence of new physics in particle processes that could explain dark matter and other mysteries of the universe.

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Quest advances to recreate sun's energy on earth

Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth.

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Black phosphorus future in 3-D analysis, molecular fingerprinting

Many compact systems using mid-infrared technology continue to face compatibility issues when integrating with conventional electronics. Black phosphorus has garnered attention for overcoming these challenges thanks to a wide variety of uses in photonic circuits.

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How microscopic scallops wander

All microscopic objects, from enzymes to paint particles, are jittering constantly, bombarded by solvent particles: this is called Brownian motion. How does this motion change when the object is flexible instead of rigid? Ruben Verweij, Pepijn Moerman, and colleagues published the first measurements in Physical Review Research.

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Argonne breaks ground on new state-of-the-art beamlines for the Advanced Photon Source

The two new beamlines will be constructed as part of a comprehensive upgrade of the APS, enhancing its capabilities and maintaining its status as a world-leading facility for X-ray science.

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New 'super light source' should allow fascinating insights into atoms

The 'Gamma Factory initiative'—an international team of scientists—is currently exploring a novel research tool: They propose to develop a source of high-intensity gamma rays using the existing accelerator facilities at CERN. To do this, specialized ion beams will be circulated in the SPS and LHC storage rings, which will then be excited using laser beams so that they emit photons. In the selected configuration, the energies of the photons will be within the gamma radiation range of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is of particular interest in connection with spectroscopic analysis of atomic nuclei. Furthermore, the gamma rays will be designed to have a very high intensity, several orders of magnitude higher than those of systems currently in operation. In the latest issue of the journal Annalen der Physik, the researchers claim that a 'Gamma Factory' constructed in this way will enable not only breakthroughs in spectroscopy but also novel ways of testing fundamental symmetries of nature.

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Ultracold mystery solved: Researchers crack a molecular disappearing act

In a famous parable, three blind men encounter an elephant for the first time. Each touches a part—the trunk, ear, or side—and concludes the creature is a thick snake, fan, or wall. This elephant, said Kang-Kuen Ni, is like the quantum world. Scientists can only explore a cell of this vast, unknown creature at a time. Now, Ni has revealed a few more to explore.

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Study confirms hairpin vortices in supersonic turbulence

The turbulence that occurs in the low-pressure region behind a rocket traveling at supersonic speeds is complex and not well understood. In the first experimental study of its kind, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign helped close the knowledge gap for these flows by proving the existence of hairpin vortices in a supersonic separated flow.

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Probing the properties of a 2-D fermi gas

When a new physical system is created or uncovered, researchers generally study it in depth to unveil its distinctive properties and characteristics. For example, they might try to determine how the system reacts when it is disturbed, and in what ways this disturbance typically propagates through it.

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Physicists celebrate Japan collider record

University of Cincinnati physicists celebrated a new world record as part of a research team working on a Japanese particle collider.

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Exotic neutrinos will be difficult to ferret out

An international team tracking 'new physics' neutrinos has checked the data of all the relevant experiments associated with neutrino detections against Standard Model extensions proposed by theorists. The latest analysis, the first with such comprehensive coverage, shows the scale of challenges facing right-handed neutrino seekers, but also brings a spark of hope.

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Researchers observe new, very short-lived neptunium isotope

In a recent study, researchers at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators reported the first discovery of 222Np, a new very short-lived neptunium (Np) isotope, and validated the N = 126 shell effect in Np isotopes.

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New nuclear magnetic resonance method enables monitoring of chemical reactions in metal containers

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is employed in a wide range of applications. In chemistry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is in standard use for the purposes of analysis, while in the medical field, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to see structures and metabolism in the body. Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM), working in collaboration with visiting researchers from Novosibirsk in Russia, have developed a new method of observing chemical reactions.

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Chasing particles with tiny electric charges

All known elementary particles have electric charges that are integer multiples of a third of the electron charge. But some theories predict the existence of "millicharged" elementary particles that would have a charge much smaller that the electron charge and could account for the elusive dark matter that fills the universe. An international team of researchers has now reported the first search at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—and more generally at any hadron collider—for elementary particles with charges smaller than a tenth of the electron charge.

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Tracking particles containing charm quarks offers insight into how quarks combine

Nuclear physicists are trying to understand how particles called quarks and gluons combine to form hadrons, composite particles made of two or three quarks. To study this process, called hadronization, a team of nuclear physicists used the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider—a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory—to measure the relative abundance of certain two- and three-quark hadrons created in energetic collisions of gold nuclei. The collisions momentarily "melt" the boundaries between the individual protons and neutrons that make up the gold nuclei so scientists can study how their inner building blocks, the quarks and gluons, recombine.

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Scientists investigate radiolabeling of calcium carbonate particles in vivo

Сalcium carbonate particles are among the most promising bioactive compounds. However, before their use for drug delivery, their toxicity should be established, as well as their distribution inside laboratory animals. A team of investigators from ITMO University's Department of Physics and Engineering and Russian Scientific Center of Radiology and Surgical Technologies has developed novel approaches to load calcium carbonate particles with model radionuclides and studied the biodistribution of these particles on rats using positron emission tomography (PET). They found that the size of the particles influences the specific organ accumulation in vivo. The results of this study are published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

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Fermilab achieves 14.5-tesla field for accelerator magnet, setting new world record

The Fermilab magnet team has done it again. After setting a world record for an accelerator magnet in 2019, they have broken it a year later.

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Scientists have discovered a new physical paradox

Researchers from the Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) have discovered and theoretically explained a new physical effect: amplitude of mechanical vibrations can grow without external influence. The scientific group offered their explanation on how to eliminate the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou paradox.

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Scientists demonstrate a new experiment in the search for theorized 'neutrinoless' proc

Nuclear physicists affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) played a leading role in analyzing data for a demonstration experiment that has achieved record precision for a specialized detector material.

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Cosmic cataclysm allows precise test of general relativity

In 2019, the MAGIC telescopes detected the first Gamma Ray Burst at very high energies. This was the most intense gamma-radiation ever obtained from such a cosmic object. But the GRB data have more to offer: with further analyses, the MAGIC scientists could now confirm that the speed of light is constant in vacuum—and not dependent on energy. So, like many other tests, GRB data also corroborate Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The study has now been published in Physical Review Letters.

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The darkness at the end of the tunnel

The Cage, as the elevator is called, leaves at exactly 7:30 a.m. Latecomers are out of luck.

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CERN: The first accelerators are back in action

The CERN Control Centre is back in shift work mode, with walls of screens showing the status of the beams, and coffee flowing freely day and night. On Friday, 3 July, the Long Shutdown 2 accelerator coordination team handed over the key of the PS Booster to the accelerator operators. Linac 4 and the PS Booster thus become the first two accelerators to be recommissioned, 18 months after the start of LS2.

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CERN: physicists report the discovery of unique new particle

The LHCb collaboration at CERN has announced the discovery of a new exotic particle: a so-called "tetraquark". The paper by more than 800 authors is yet to be evaluated by other scientists in a process called "peer review", but has been presented at a seminar. It also meets the usual statistical threshold for claiming the discovery of a new particle.

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Scientists dive deep into hidden world of quantum states

A research team led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has developed a technique that could lead to new electronic materials that surpass the limitations imposed by Moore's Law, which predicted in 1975 that the number of transistors packed into a tiny silicon-based computer chip would double every two years. Their findings were reported in the journal Nature Communications.

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Calculating the true pressure required to propel penguin feces

A pair of researchers, one with Kochi University, the other Katsurahama Aquarium, both in Japan, has refined the estimate of the amount of pressure required by an Adélie penguin to shoot its feces a necessary distance. Hiroyuki Tajima and Fumiya Fujisawa have written a paper describing their new calculations and what it could mean for zookeepers.

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Researchers apply the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory to cosmology

The anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence, also referred to as gauge/gravity duality, hypothesizes the existence of a relationship between two types of physics theories, namely gravity theories in AdS spacetimes and CFTs. Over the past few decades, gauge/gravity duality constructs have been applied in a wide range of scientific research fields. For instance, some researchers tried to use AdS/CFT to advance the development of a full quantum theory of gravity.

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Learning more about particle collisions with machine learning

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland became famous around the world in 2012 with the detection of the Higgs boson. The observation marked a crucial confirmation of the Standard Model of particle physics, which organizes the subatomic particles into groups similar to elements in the periodic table from chemistry.

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Generator developed for harvesting energy from droplets

Scientists of the University of Twente and South China Normal University designed an electrical generator that can harvest energy from impacting droplets and other sources of mechanical energy. Their paper recently appeared in Advanced Materials.

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Shock-dissipating fractal cubes could forge high-tech armor

Tiny, 3-D printed cubes of plastic, with intricate fractal voids built into them, have proven to be effective at dissipating shockwaves, potentially leading to new types of lightweight armor and structural materials effective against explosions and impacts.

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Cooling mechanism increases solar energy harvesting for self-powered outdoor sensors

Sensors placed in the environment spend long periods of time outdoors through all weather conditions, and they must continuously power themselves in order to collect data. Many, like photovoltaic cells, use the sun to produce electricity, but powering outdoor sensors at night is a challenge.

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Excitation of robust materials

In physics, they are currently the subject of intensive research; in electronics, they could enable completely new functions. So-called topological materials are characterised by special electronic properties, which are also very robust against external perturbations. This material group also includes tungsten ditelluride. In this material, such a topologically protected state can be "broken up" using special laser pulses within a few trillionths of a second ("picoseconds") and thus change its properties. This could be a key requirement for realizing extremely fast, optoelectronic switches. For the first time physicists at Kiel University (CAU), in cooperation with researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (MPI-CPfS) in Dresden, Tsinghua University in Beijing and Shanghai Tech University, have been able to observe changes to the electronic properties of this material in experiments in real-time. Using laser pulses, they put the atoms in a sample of tungsten ditelluride into a state of controlled excitation, and were able to follow the resulting changes in the electronic properties "live" with high-precision measurements. They published their results recently in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

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Researchers develop novel approach to modeling yet-unconfirmed rare nuclear process

Researchers from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Laboratory at Michigan State University (MSU) have taken a major step toward a theoretical first-principles description of neutrinoless double-beta decay. Observing this yet-unconfirmed rare nuclear process would have important implications for particle physics and cosmology. Theoretical simulations are essential to planning and evaluating proposed experiments. The research team presented their results in an article recently published in Physical Review Letters.

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Behind the dead-water phenomenon

What makes ships mysteriously slow down or even stop as they travel, even though their engines are working properly? This was first observed in 1893 and was described experimentally in 1904 without all the secrets of this 'dead water' being understood. An interdisciplinary team from the CNRS and the University of Poitiers has explained this phenomenon for the first time: the speed changes in ships trapped in dead water are due to waves that act like an undulating conveyor belt on which the boats move back and forth. This work was published in PNAS on July 6, 2020.

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Researchers study effects of cellular crowding on the cell's transport system

As many diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, have been linked to the defective functioning of motor proteins in cell transport systems, understanding the intricacies of how motor proteins work in their native crowded cell environments is essential to understanding what goes wrong when they function incorrectly. Molecular motors are specialized proteins that bind to a variety of organelles, referred to as cell cargo, and transport them along microtubule filaments (structural proteins commonly referred to as the highway of the cell). Motor proteins often work in groups, binding to one cargo and inching together along the filament's path in the cell.

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Flashes bright when squeezed tight: How single-celled organisms light up the oceans

Research explains how a unicellular marine organism generates light as a response to mechanical stimulation, lighting up breaking waves at night.

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New breakthrough in 'spintronics' could boost high speed data technology

Scientists have made a pivotal breakthrough in the important, emerging field of spintronics—which could lead to a new high speed energy efficient data technology.

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Spintronics: Faster data processing through ultrashort electric pulses

Physicists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Lanzhou University in China developed a simple concept that could significantly improve magnetic-based data processing. Using ultrashort electric pulses in the terahertz range, data can be written, read and erased very quickly. This would make data processing faster, more compact and energy efficient. The researchers confirmed their theory by running complex simulations, and the results were published in the journal NPG Asia Materials.

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A path to new nanofluidic devices applying spintronics technology

Researchers in the ERATO Saitoh Spin Quantum Rectification Project in the JST Strategic Basic Research Programs have elucidated the mechanism of the hydrodynamic power generation using spin currents in micrometer-scale channels, finding that power generation efficiency improves drastically as the size of the flow is made smaller.

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Thermophones offer new route to radically simplify array design, research shows

Scientists have pioneered a new technique to produce arrays of sound produced entirely by heat.

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Researchers observe branched flow of light for the first time

A team of researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has observed branched flow of light for the very first time. The findings are published in Nature and are featured on the cover of the July 2, 2020 issue.

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Energy-saving servers: Data storage 2.0

Whether it's sending the grandparents a few pictures of the kids, streaming a movie or music, or surfing the Internet for hours, the volume of data our society generates is increasing all the time. But this comes at a price, since storing data consumes huge amounts of energy. Assuming that data volumes continue to grow in future, the related energy consumption will also increase by several orders of magnitude. For example, it is predicted that energy consumption in the IT sector will rise to ten petawatt-hours, or ten trillion kilowatt-hours, by 2030. This would be equivalent to around half of the electricity produced worldwide.

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Investigating the interplay between axions and dark photons in the early universe

Axions and dark photons are two of the most promising types of particles for unveiling new physics. The axion scalar field explains the absence of an electric dipole moment for the neutron, while the dark photon resembles regular photons responsible for electromagnetism, but it is massive and much more weakly coupled.

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Multi-focal Fibonacci sieve advances single-shot multi-planar wavefront measurement

Wavefront measurement has various applications in high power amplifiers, adaptive optical system, and phase microscopy. Among methods for high-precision wavefront measurement, the coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) is a technique that employs iterative algorithms to reconstruct the phase and amplitude information of the test object from its diffraction intensities. However, it requires multiple exposures of intensity images via mechanical and electrical scanning. Although some researchers have used a random phase mask to modulate the wavefront of the laser beam to simultaneously capture required images, the setup cannot be used for X-rays.

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Exotic never before seen particle discovered at CERN

The Large Hadron Collider Beauty (LHCb) project has observed an exotic particle made up of four charm quarks for the first time.

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