Math enables custom arrangements of liquid 'nesting dolls'

While the mesmerizing blobs in a classic lava lamp may appear magical, the colorful shapes move in response to temperature-induced changes in density and surface tension. This process, known as liquid-liquid phase separation, is critical to many functions in living cells, and plays a part in making products like medicines and cosmetics.

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A new hybrid X-ray detector goes toe-to-toe with state-of-the-art rivals

A new hybrid X-ray detector developed by the University of Surrey outperforms commercial devices—and could lead to more accurate cancer therapy.

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In search for dark matter, new fountain design could become wellspring of answers

You can't see it. You can't feel it. But the substance scientists refer to as dark matter could account for five times as much "stuff" in the universe as the regular matter that forms everything from trees, trains and the air you breathe, to stars, planets and interstellar dust clouds.

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Unprecedented accuracy in quantum electrodynamics: Giant leap toward solving proton charge radius puzzle

Physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have tested quantum mechanics to a completely new level of precision using hydrogen spectroscopy, and in doing so they came much closer to solving the well-known proton charge radius puzzle.

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A hint of new physics in polarized radiation from the early universe

Using Planck data from the cosmic microwave background radiation, an international team of researchers has observed a hint of new physics. The team developed a new method to measure the polarization angle of the ancient light by calibrating it with dust emission from our own Milky Way. While the signal is not detected with enough precision to draw definite conclusions, it may suggest that dark matter or dark energy causes a violation of the so-called "parity symmetry."

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Neutrinos yield first experimental evidence of catalyzed fusion dominant in many stars

An international team of about 100 scientists of the Borexino Collaboration, including particle physicist Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, report in Nature this week detection of neutrinos from the sun, directly revealing for the first time that the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) fusion-cycle is at work in our sun.

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Minimal waste production is a fundamental law for animal locomotion

Is there a unifying principle underpinning animal locomotion in its rich diversity? A thermodynamic analysis performed by a Skoltech professor and his French collaborators at Université Paris Diderot, Université Paris Saclay, and the Muséum national d'Histoire Naturelle, shows why and how waste minimization prevails on efficiency or power maximization when it comes to free locomotion irrespective of the available mode and gaits. The research is published in the Physical Review Letters.

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Attosecond interferometry in time-energy domain

The space-momentum domain interferometer is a key technique in modern precision measurements, and has been widely used for applications that require superb spatial resolution in engineering metrology and astronomy. Extending such interferometric techniques to the time-energy domain is a significant complement to spatial domain measurements and is anticipated to provide time resolving capability for tracing ultrafast processes. However, such applications for high precision time domain measurement, especially state of the art attosecond time resolved measurement, is less explored despite its great significance.

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New physical picture leads to a precise finite-size scaling of (3+1)-dimensional O(n) critical system

Since the establishment of the renormalization group theory, it has been known that systems of critical phenomena typically possess an upper critical dimension dc (dc=4 for the O(n) model), such that in spatial dimensions at or higher than the dc, the thermodynamic behavior is governed by critical exponents taking mean-field values. In contrast to the simplicity of the thermodynamic behavior, the theory of finite-size scaling (FSS) for the d>dc O(n) model was surprisingly subtle and had remained the subject of ongoing debate till recently, when a two-length scaling ansatz for the two-point correlation function was conjectured, numerically confirmed, and partly supported by analytical calculations.

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Tracking and fighting fires on earth and beyond

Mechanical engineer Michael Gollner and his graduate student, Sriram Bharath Hariharan, from the University of California, Berkeley, recently traveled to NASA's John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. There, they dropped burning objects in a deep shaft and study how fire whirls form in microgravity. The Glenn Center hosts a Zero Gravity Research Facility, which includes an experimental drop tower that simulates the experience of being in space.

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Supersized wind turbines generate clean energy—and surprising physics

Twenty years ago, wind energy was mostly a niche industry that contributed less than 1% to the total electricity demand in the United States. Wind has since emerged as a serious contender in the race to develop clean, renewable energy sources that can sustain the grid and meet the ever-rising global energy demand. Last year, wind energy supplied 7% of domestic electricity demand, and across the country—both on and offshore—energy companies have been installing giant turbines that reach higher and wider than ever before.

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Flow physics could help forecasters predict extreme events

About 1,000 tornadoes strike the United States each year, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing about 60 people on average. Tracking data show that they're becoming increasingly common in the southeast, and less frequent in "Tornado Alley," which stretches across the Great Plains. Scientists lack a clear understanding of how tornadoes form, but a more urgent challenge is to develop more accurate prediction and warning systems. It requires a fine balance: Without warnings, people can't shelter, but if they experience too many false alarms, they'll become inured.

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How moving slower allows groups of bacteria to spread across surfaces

Scientists have found that bacterial groups spread more rapidly over surfaces when the individuals inside them move slowly, a discovery that may shed light on how bacteria spread within the body during infections.

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Social bacteria build shelters using the physics of fingerprints

Forest-dwelling bacteria known for forming slimy swarms that prey on other microbes can also cooperate to construct mushroom-like survival shelters known as fruiting bodies when food is scarce. Now a team at Princeton University has discovered the physics behind how these rod-shaped bacteria, which align in patterns like those on fingerprint whorls and liquid crystal displays, build the layers of these fruiting bodies. The study was published in Nature Physics.

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Biological pattern-forming systems characterized better through geometry than simulations

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich physicists have introduced a new method that allows biological pattern-forming systems to be systematically characterized with the aid of mathematical analysis. The trick lies in the use of geometry to characterize the dynamics.

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Accelerator makes cross-country trek to enable laser upgrade

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has shipped the final new section of accelerator that it has built for an upgrade of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). The section of accelerator, called a cryomodule, has begun a cross-country road trip to DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where it will be installed in LCLS-II, the world's brightest X-ray laser.

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Refining the picture of the Higgs boson

To explain the masses of electroweak bosons—the W and Z bosons—theorists in the 1960s postulated a mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. While this mathematical formalism is relatively simple, its cornerstone—the Higgs boson – remained undetected for almost 50 years.

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Searching for axion dark matter conversion signals in the magnetic fields around neutron stars

According to theoretical predictions, axion dark matter could be converted into radio frequency electromagnetic radiation when it approaches the strong magnetic fields that surround neutron stars. This radio signature, which would be characterized by an ultranarrow spectral peak at a frequency that depends on the mass of the axion dark matter particle in question, could be detected using high-precision astronomical instruments.

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'Search of a lifetime' for supersymmetric particles at CERN

A team of researchers at the University of Chicago recently embarked on the search of a lifetime—or rather, a search for the lifetime of long-lived supersymmetric particles.

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Q&A: Toward the next generation of computing devices

Ever noticed how our smartphones and computing devices become faster within short spans? You can thank Moore's law for that. Back in 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted that the processing power of computers would double about every two years, and incredibly this empirical rule-of-thumb has held on for over five decades.

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Building better diffusion models for active systems

In normal circumstances, particles will follow well-established random motions as they diffuse through liquids and gases. Yet in some types of system, this behavior can be disrupted—meaning the diffusion motions of particles are no longer influenced by the outcomes of chains of previous events. Through research published in EPJ E, Bernhard Mitterwallner, a Ph.D. student in the team of Roland Netz at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, has developed new theories detailing how these unusual dynamics can be reproduced in generalized mathematical models.

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Confirming simulated calculations with experiment results

Dr. Zi Yang Meng from the Division of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), is pursuing a new paradigm of quantum material research that combines theory, computation and experiment in a coherent manner. Recently, he teamed up with Dr. Wei LI from Beihang University, Professor Yang Qi from Fudan University, Professor Weiqiang YU from Renmin University and Professor Jinsheng Wen from Nanjing University to untangle the puzzle of Nobel Prize-winning theory Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) phase.

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Solving for nuclear structure in light nuclei

In nuclei, all the fundamental forces of nature are at play. The dense region at the center of an atom—where the protons and neutrons are found—is a place where scientists can test their understanding of the fundamental interactions of the smallest building blocks of matter in the universe.

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Surfaces help quantum switches

The quantum dynamics of hydrogen are central to many problems in nature, being strongly influenced by the environment in which a reaction takes place. In their contribution to PRL, members of the Lise Meitner Group at the MPSD address hydrogen transfer within a supported molecular switch, showing that the surface support can play a decisive role in the tunneling reaction.

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Topological mechanical metamaterials go beyond Newton's third law

A change in perspective can work wonders. This has been especially true with respect to the paradigms for explaining material properties using the concept of topology, "ideas that are currently revolutionizing condensed matter physics," according to Tel Aviv University researcher Roni Ilan. While topological physics first emerged in condensed matter physics, the ideas have now spread into many other areas, including optics and photonics, as well as acoustics and other mechanical systems, where things have been getting a little tricky.

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Entropy production gets a system update

Nature is not homogenous. Most of the universe is complex and composed of various subsystems—self-contained systems within a larger whole. Microscopic cells and their surroundings, for example, can be divided into many different subsystems: the ribosome, the cell wall, and the intracellular medium surrounding the cell.

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Going beyond the anti-laser may enable long-range wireless power transfer

Ever since Nikola Tesla spewed electricity in all directions with his coil back in 1891, scientists have been thinking up ways to send electrical power through the air. The dream is to charge your phone or laptop, or maybe even a healthcare device such as a pacemaker, without the need for wires and plugs. The tricky bit is getting the electricity to find its intended target, and getting that target to absorb the electricity instead of just reflect it back into the air—all preferably without endangering anyone along the way.

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Small finlets on owl feathers point the way to less aircraft noise

A recent research study conducted by City, University of London's Professor Christoph Bruecker and his team has revealed how micro-structured finlets on owl feathers enable silent flight and may show the way forward in reducing aircraft noise in future.

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Researchers describe fundamental processes behind movement of magnetic particles

The motion of magnetic particles as they pass through a magnetic field is called magnetophoresis. Until now, not much was known about the factors influencing these particles and their movement. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago describe several fundamental processes associated with the motion of magnetic particles through fluids as they are pulled by a magnetic field.

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Sensor experts invent supercool mini thermometer

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have invented a miniature thermometer with big potential applications such as monitoring the temperature of processor chips in superconductor-based quantum computers, which must stay cold to work properly.

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In a pandemic, migration away from dense cities more effective than closing borders

Pandemics are fueled, in part, by dense populations in large cities where networks of buildings, crowded sidewalks, and public transportation force people into tighter conditions. This contrasts with conditions in rural areas, where there is more space available per person.

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Time to rethink predicting pandemic infection rates?

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Joseph Lee McCauley, a physics professor at the University of Houston, was watching the daily data for six countries and wondered if infections were really growing exponentially. By extracting the doubling times from the data, he became convinced they were.

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Driver behavior influences traffic patterns as much as roadway design, study reports

Urban planners may soon have a new way to measure traffic congestion. By capturing the different routes by which vehicles can travel between locations, researchers have developed a new computer algorithm that helps quantify regions of congestion in urban areas and suggests ways around them.

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Making the best decision: Math shows diverse thinkers equal better results

Whether it is ants forming a trail or individuals crossing the street, the exchange of information is key in making everyday decisions. But new Florida State University research shows that the group decision-making process may work best when members process information a bit differently.

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Does the human brain resemble the Universe?

An astrophysicist at the University of Bologna and a neurosurgeon at the University of Verona compared the network of neuronal cells in the human brain with the cosmic network of galaxies... and surprising similarities emerged

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Understanding astrophysics with laser-accelerated protons

Bringing huge amounts of protons up to speed in the shortest distance in fractions of a second—that's what laser acceleration technology, greatly improved in recent years, can do. An international research team from the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the Helmholtz Institute Jena, a branch of GSI, in collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, U.S., has succeeded in using protons accelerated with the GSI high-power laser PHELIX to split other nuclei and to analyze them. The results have now been published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports and could provide new insights into astrophysical processes.

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Handles and holes in abstract spaces: How a material conducts electricity better

A sphere and a cube can be deformed into one another without cuts or stitches. A mug and a glass cannot because, to deform the first into the second, the handle needs to be broken. Topology is the branch of mathematics that formalizes this difference between mugs and glasses, extending it also to abstract spaces with many dimensions. A new theory developed by scientists at SISSA in Trieste has succeeded in establishing a new relationship between the presence or absence of 'handles' in the space of the arrangements of atoms and molecules that make up a material, and the propensity of the latter to conduct electricity. According to this theory, the insulating materials 'equipped with handles' can conduct electricity as well as metals, while retaining typical properties of insulators, such as transparency.

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Dark matter candidate could display stringy effects in the lab

A hypothetical particle that could solve one of the biggest puzzles in cosmology just got a little less mysterious. A RIKEN physicist and two colleagues have revealed the mathematical underpinnings that could explain how so-called axions might generate string-like entities that create a strange voltage in lab materials.

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Japan Nobel laureate Koshiba who found neutrinos dies at 94

Japanese astrophysicist Masatoshi Koshiba, a co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in physics for confirming the existence of elementary particles called neutrinos, has died. He was 94.

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In-plane antiferromagnets host a rich class of particle-like spin textures

Compared with the chiral spin textures in ferromagnets, their antiferromagnetic counterparts can be manipulated by spin currents with a more direct approach due to the absence of the skyrmion Hall effect, and much lower power consumption, as well. So far, most research has focused on isolated excitation in perpendicular antiferromagnetic spin systems, for example, skyrmion solitons. Meanwhile, the characteristics and the related physics of its in-plane analog, the bimeron, remain elusive.

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Researchers create MRI-like technique for imaging magnetic waves

A team of researchers from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Leiden University, Tohoku University and the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter has developed a new type of MRI scanner that can image waves in ultrathin magnets. Unlike electrical currents, these so-called spin waves produce little heat, making them promising signal carriers for future green ICT applications.

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New study outlines steps higher education should take to prepare a new quantum workforce

A new study outlines ways colleges and universities can update their curricula to prepare the workforce for a new wave of quantum technology jobs. Three researchers, including Rochester Institute of Technology Associate Professor Ben Zwickl, suggested steps that need to be taken in a new paper in Physical Review Physics Education Research after interviewing managers at more than 20 quantum technology companies across the U.S.

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Advanced atomic clock makes a better dark matter detector

JILA researchers have used a state-of-the-art atomic clock to narrow the search for elusive dark matter, an example of how continual improvements in clocks have value beyond timekeeping.

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New approach to circuit compression could deliver real-world quantum computers years ahead of schedule

A major technical challenge for any practical, real-world quantum computer comes from the need for a large number of physical qubits to deal with errors that accumulate during computation. Such quantum error correction is resource-intensive and computationally time-consuming. But researchers have found an effective software method that enables significant compression of quantum circuits, relaxing the demands placed on hardware development.

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Researchers make most precise measurements of deuterium fusing with a proton to form helium-3

A large team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Italy, the U.K and Hungary has carried out the most precise measurements yet of deuterium fusing with a proton to form helium-3. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their effort and how they believe it will contribute to better understanding the events that transpired during the first few minutes after the Big Bang.

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The first demonstration of phase-matching between an electron wave and a light wave

While researchers have conducted countless studies exploring the interaction between light waves and bound electron systems, the quantum interactions between free electrons and light have only recently become a topic of interest within the physics community. The observation of free electron-light interactions was facilitated by the discovery of a technique known as photon-induced near-field electron microscopy (PINEM).

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One step closer: Muon-to-electron-conversion program reaches milestone in construction of novel experiment

The construction of the Mu2e experiment at the Department of Energy's Fermilab has reached an important milestone. A crucial section of magnets for the experiment, including components from Italy, Japan and the United States, has passed the rigorous testing necessary to ensure that each individual magnet meets the performance required for the experiment.

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Observation of four-charm-quark structure

The strong interaction is one of the fundamental forces of nature, which binds quarks into hadrons such as the proton and the neutron, the building blocks of atoms. According to the quark model, hadrons can be formed by two or three quarks, called mesons and baryons respectively, and collectively referred to as conventional hadrons. The quark model also allows for the existence of so-called exotic hadrons, composed by four (tetraquarks), five (pentaquarks) or more quarks. A rich spectrum of exotic hadrons is expected just as for the conventional ones. However, no unambiguous signal of exotic hadrons was observed until 2003, when the X(3872) state was discovered by the Belle experiment. In the following years, a few more exotic states were discovered. The explanation of their properties requires the existence of four constituent quarks. Identification of pentaquark states is even more difficult, and the first candidates were observed by the LHCb experiment in 2015. All these known states contain at most two heavy quarks—the beauty or charm quark.

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New tractor beam has potential to tame lightning

Lightning never strikes twice, so the saying goes, but new technology may allow us to control where it hits the ground, reducing the risk of catastrophic bushfires.

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New research explores the thermodynamics of off-equilibrium systems

Almost all truly intriguing systems are ones that are far away from equilibrium—such as stars, planetary atmospheres, and even digital circuits. But, until now, systems far from thermal equilibrium couldn't be analyzed with conventional thermodynamics and statistical physics.

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Black hole or no black hole: On the outcome of neutron star collisions

A new study lead by GSI scientists and international colleagues investigates black-hole formation in neutron star mergers. Computer simulations show that the properties of dense nuclear matter play a crucial role, which directly links the astrophysical merger event to heavy-ion collision experiments at GSI and FAIR. These properties will be studied more precisely at the future FAIR facility. The results have now been published in Physical Review Letters. With the award of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for the theoretical description of black holes and for the discovery of a supermassive object at the center of our galaxy, the topic currently also receives a lot of attention.

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Physicists produce world's first neutron-rich, radioactive tantalum ions

An international team of scientists have unveiled the world's first production of a purified beam of neutron-rich, radioactive tantalum ions. This development could now allow for lab-based experiments on exploding stars helping scientists to answer long-held questions such as "where does gold come from?"

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Improving high-energy lithium-ion batteries with carbon filler

Lithium-ion batteries are the major rechargeable power source for many portable devices as well as electric vehicles, but their use is limited, because they do not provide high power output while simultaneously allowing reversible energy storage. Research reported in Applied Physics Reviews aims to offer a solution by showing how the inclusion of conductive fillers improves battery performance.

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Blue whirl flame structure revealed with supercomputers

Lightning struck a bourbon warehouse, setting fire to a cache of 800,000 gallons of liquor in the Bardstown countryside of Kentucky in 2003. Some of it spilled into a nearby creek, spawning a massive fire tornado, or 'bourbonado,' as reported locally.

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Antiferromagnets are suitable for dissipationless nanoelectronics, contrary to current theories

Sometimes combinations of different things produce effects that no one expects, such as when completely new properties appear that the two combined parts do not have on their own. Dr. Libor Šmejkal from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) found such an unexpected property: He combined antiferromagnetic substances with non-magnetic atoms and found that, contrary to the current doctrine, a Hall current occurs—which is not the case with either antiferromagnetic or non-magnetic substances individually.

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Electrified magnets: Researchers uncover a new way to handle data

The properties of synthesized magnets can be changed and controlled by charge currents as suggested by a study and simulations conducted by physicists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Central South University in China. In the journal Nature Communications, the team reports on how magnets and magnetic signals can be coupled more effectively and steered by electric fields. This could result in new, environmentally friendly concepts for efficient communication and data processing.

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Findings on short-range nuclear interactions will help scientists investigate neutron stars and heavy radioactive nuclei

Atoms in a gas can seem like partiers at a nanoscopic rave, with particles zipping around, pairing up, and flying off again in seemingly random fashion. And yet physicists have come up with formulas that predict this behavior, even when the atoms are extremely close together and can tug and pull on each other in complicated ways.

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Study sets the first germanium-based constraints on dark matter

Cosmological observations and measurements collected in the past suggest that ordinary matter, which includes stars, galaxies, the human body and countless other objects/living organisms, only makes up 20% of the total mass of the universe. The remaining mass has been theorized to consist of so-called dark matter, a type of matter that does not absorb, reflect or emit light and can thus only be indirectly observed through gravitational effects on its surrounding environment.

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NOvA turns its eyes to the skies

The NOvA experiment, best known for its measurements of neutrino oscillations using particle beams from Fermilab accelerators, has been turning its eyes to the skies, examining phenomena ranging from supernovae to magnetic monopoles. Thanks in large part to modern computing capabilities, researchers can collect and analyze data for these topics simultaneously, as well as for the primary neutrino program at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab, where it is based.

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Experiments at French particle accelerator probe the properties of supernovae

The action of neutrinos in supernovae is poorly understood. When the core of a massive star at the end of its life collapses on itself under the effect of gravity, the electrons in the atoms combine with the protons in their nuclei, producing protons along with neutrinos. The neutrinos produced in abundance then escape from the neutron star being formed at a speed even faster than light. So much so that 99% of the energy emitted by a supernova is in the form of neutrinos! The explosion characteristic of supernovae that follows this episode is "driven" by neutrinos.

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Anti-hacking based on the circular polarization direction of light

The Internet of Things (IoT) allowing smart phones, home appliances, drones and self-driving vehicles to exchange digital information in real time requires a powerful security solution, as it can have a direct impact on user safety and assets. A solution for IoT security that has been is a physical unclonable function (PUF) that can supplement software-based key security vulnerable to various attack or physical attack.

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Scientists and students publish blueprints for a cheaper single-molecule microscope

A team of scientists and students from the University of Sheffield has designed and built a specialist microscope, and shared the build instructions to help make this equipment available to many labs across the world.

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Scientists work to shed light on Standard Model of particle physics

As scientists await the highly anticipated initial results of the Muon g-2 experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, collaborating scientists from DOE's Argonne National Laboratory continue to employ and maintain the unique system that maps the magnetic field in the experiment with unprecedented precision.

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Physicists suggest mechanism responsible for the neutron drip line is related to deformation

A team of physicists affiliated with several institutions in Japan and one in Belgium has theorized that one of the mechanisms responsible for the neutron drip line is related to deformation. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their calculations regarding the contributions to binding energy for deformations in nuclei as part of an effort to better understand how many neutrons an atom can hold.

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Why solar axions cannot explain the observed XENON1T excess

For several decades, physicists and astrophysicists have theorized about the existence of dark matter in the universe. This elusive type of matter would be made up of particles that do not absorb, reflect or emit light, and that hence cannot be detected using conventional instruments for observing particles.

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Scientists generate realistic storm turbulence in the laboratory

Turbulence is an omnipresent phenomenon—and one of the great mysteries of physics. A research team from the University of Oldenburg in Germany has now succeeded in generating realistic storm turbulence in the wind tunnel of the Center for Wind Energy Research (ForWind).

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A transportable antiproton trap to unlock the secrets of antimatter

The BASE collaboration at CERN has bagged more than one first in antimatter research. For example, it made the first ever more precise measurement for antimatter than for matter, it kept antimatter stored for a record time of more than a year, and it conducted the first laboratory-based search for an interaction between antimatter and a candidate particle for dark matter called the axion. Now, the BASE team is developing a device that could take antimatter research to new heights—a transportable antiproton trap to carry antimatter produced at CERN's Antimatter Decelerator (AD) to another facility at CERN or elsewhere, for higher-precision antimatter measurements. These measurements could uncover differences between matter and antimatter.

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Squid jet propulsion can enhance design of underwater robots, vehicles

Squids and other cephalopods use a form of jet propulsion that is not well understood, especially when it comes to their hydrodynamics under turbulent flow conditions. Discovering their secrets can help create new designs for bioinspired underwater robots and vehicles that need to operate within this environment.

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A different view of COVID-19

Queen's University researcher Mona Kanso has developed a new and unique way of looking at viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. By sculpting the coronavirus particle from tiny beads, and then applying the laws of fluid physics to each and every bead, Kanso calculates the properties of the coronavirus from its shape. While the full potential of this new method is still being realized, researchers expect it will accelerate the path to developing a treatment and, eventually, finding a cure.

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Higgs boson probes for new phenomena

Physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are on the hunt for physics phenomena beyond the standard model. Some theories predict an as-yet undiscovered particle could be found in the form of a new resonance (a narrow peak) similar to the one that heralded the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.

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Team achieves first plasma on upgraded MAST, ready to test Super-X divertor

The team at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in South East England has notified the press that testing of plasma has begun on an upgrade to the Mega AMP Spherical Tokamak (MAST)—a new approach to creating a working fusion reactor. In their announcement, the team at CCFE noted that the plasma test has come after seven years of work upgrading the original MAST which has cost approximately £55m.

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Rotation of a molecule as an 'internal clock'

Using a new method, physicists at the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics have investigated the ultrafast fragmentation of hydrogen molecules in intense laser fields in detail. They used the rotation of the molecule triggered by a laser pulse as an 'internal clock' to measure the timing of the reaction that takes place in a second laser pulse in two steps. Such a 'rotational clock' is a general concept applicable to sequential fragmentation processes in other molecules.

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Researchers develop a high-power, portable terahertz laser

Researchers at MIT and the University of Waterloo have developed a high-power, portable version of a device called a quantum cascade laser, which can generate terahertz radiation outside of a laboratory setting. The laser could potentially be used in applications such as pinpointing skin cancer and detecting hidden explosives.

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GRETA, a 3-D gamma-ray detector, gets green light to move forward

The effort to construct GRETA (Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array), a cutting-edge spherical array of high-purity germanium crystals that will measure gamma-ray signals to reveal new details about the structure and inner workings of atomic nuclei, has received key approvals needed to proceed toward full build-out.

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