Particle accelerators may get a boost from oxygen

Whipping up world-class particle accelerator structures has long been a process akin to following a favorite recipe. Many of the best-performing samples are prepared using processes developed through trial and error over decades of experience. But recently, accelerator scientists have been boosting this empirical approach to science with more theoretical input. Now, their efforts are beginning to pay off.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3ush5qn

Extending our reach into the cosmos with new mirror coatings

Since the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)'s groundbreaking detection, in 2015, of gravitational waves produced by a pair of colliding black holes, the observatory, together with its European partner facility Virgo, has detected dozens of similar cosmic rumblings that send ripples through space and time.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/39RBn2O

Scientists recreate cosmic reactions to unlock astronomical mysteries

How do the chemical elements, the building blocks of our universe, get built? This question has been at the core of nuclear physics for the better part of a century.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3oePcRg

Technological breakthrough in energy-efficient particle accelerators

At Technische Universität Darmstadt, the world's first operation of a multi-turn superconducting linear accelerator with significant energy recovery succeeded. The experiment at the university's electron linear accelerator (S-DALINAC) proved that a substantial saving of accelerator power is possible.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3otRaO7

Creating order by mechanical deformation in dense active matter

Living or biological systems cannot be easily understood using the standard laws of physics, such as thermodynamics, as scientists would for gases, liquids or solids. Living systems are active, demonstrating fascinating properties such as adapting to their environment or repairing themselves. Exploring the questions posed by living systems using computer simulations, researchers at the University of Göttingen have now discovered a novel type of ordering effect generated and sustained by a simple mechanical deformation, specifically steady shear. The results were published in PNAS.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/39LX5oQ

Study demonstrates the robust storage of qubits in ultracold polar molecules

Molecules have a very intricate and rich structure, which allows them to rotate and vibrate freely. As a result, they have an almost limitless space in which computer scientists could encode quantum information. In addition to their vast internal space, molecules are capable of long-range interactions and could thus be entangled to other separate molecules.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3m1QwUY

'Back to basics' approach helps unravel new phase of matter

A new phase of matter, thought to be understandable only using quantum physics, can be studied with far simpler classical methods.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3zOYpln

A strategy to control phase selectivity in templated zeolite synthesis

Zeolites, groups of minerals comprising of hydrated aluminosilicates, are known to be highly promising materials for a number of applications. For instance, they can be used as catalysts, cation exchangers and molecular sieves.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2XEHRPP

Come on in, the water is superionic

The interiors of Uranus and Neptune each contain about 50 000 times the amount of water in Earth's oceans, and a form of water known as superionic water is believed to be stable at depths greater than about one-third of the radius of these ice giants.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3AD7DTh

Scientific formula calculates how to create more space for pedestrians in post-pandemic cities

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many cities are joining the trend towards providing more space for pedestrians. The current health crisis has put the spotlight on how we use public spaces and some towns and cities have extended pedestrian zones in order to facilitate social distancing and prevent contagion. Some roads have also been closed to traffic, but there was formerly no scientific method to help authorities make this kind of decision.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3Czqyie

Study unveils the minimum temperature for droplets levitating from smooth surfaces

The Leidenfrost effect is a well-known physical phenomenon first discovered in 1756. It occurs when a liquid is in the proximity of a surface that is significantly warmer than its boiling point. This produces an insulating vapor layer that prevents the liquid from quickly boiling. Due to this effect, a droplet would hover over the surface instead of physically touching it.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3zBd4Aw

An experimental loop for simulating nuclear reactors in space

Nuclear thermal propulsion, which uses heat from nuclear reactions as fuel, could be used one day in human spaceflight, possibly even for missions to Mars. Its development, however, poses a challenge. The materials used must be able to withstand high heat and bombardment of high-energy particles on a regular basis.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3AF12HR

Mimicking how water and wind create complex shapes in nature

Intricate natural formations like star-shaped sand dunes or arc-shaped rocks can appear so purposeful in form that it's easy to wonder whether someone has designed them. Scientists have long recognized that a particular combination of random and chaotic energy fields can, over a long period of time, give rise to these kinds of unique formations that dot our globe. Few, however, have succeeded in replicating these natural phenomena.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3lOXNr5

Using laser beam shaping to improve metal 3D printing

While laser-based 3D printing techniques have revolutionized the production of metal parts by greatly expanding design complexity, the laser beams traditionally used in metal printing have drawbacks that can lead to defects and poor mechanical performance.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3ktmha2

New optical 'transistor' speeds up computation up to 1,000 times, at lowest switching energy possible

An international research team led by Skoltech and IBM has created an extremely energy-efficient optical switch that could replace electronic transistors in a new generation of computers manipulating photons rather than electrons. In addition to direct power saving, the switch requires no cooling and is really fast: At 1 trillion operations per second, it is between 100 and 1,000 times faster than today's top-notch commercial transistors. The study comes out Wednesday in Nature.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3AAgCV0

New technique boosts cryo-electron microscopy clarity, safety

When scientists needed to visualize the structure of the spike protein, which coronaviruses use to infiltrate human cells, they turned to cryo-electron microscopy. One of the most powerful imaging tools in a researcher's arsenal, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) can visualize proteins, pathogens and sundry cell components almost down to their individual atoms.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3EDSoeZ

Carbon fibers electrical measurements pave way for lightning strike protection technologies

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite structures are serving an increasingly important role in aerospace, infrastructure, energy generation, and transportation. Yet, the electrical behavior of a composite is challenging to measure or predict because of the electrical conductivity of constituent carbon fibers and the composite's complex hierarchical microstructure.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3CvPyaa

Rock shape should be given greater consideration in rockfall risk assessments

The shape of rocks is a key factor in assessing rockfall hazard. This is the conclusion of a new study from the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research and ETH Zurich.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3kpwlka

Scientists develop the next generation of reservoir computing

A relatively new type of computing that mimics the way the human brain works was already transforming how scientists could tackle some of the most difficult information processing problems.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3nU0V7B

Fiber tracking method delivers important new insights into turbulence

Whether it's heart murmurs and pipeline transport of oil, or bumpy airplanes and the dispersal of pollutants, turbulence plays an important role in many everyday events. But despite being commonplace, scientists still don't fully understand the seemingly unpredictable behavior of the swirls and eddies in turbulent flows.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3nJbnPe

Effect of electrons with negative mass in novel semiconductor nanostructures

A large international research collaboration led by Dr. Kai-Qiang Lin and Professor John Lupton from the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics at the University of Regensburg has been able to measure the effect of electrons with negative mass in novel semiconductor nanostructures. The international team includes scientists from Berkeley and Yale (U.S.), Cambridge (England) and Tsukuba (Japan).

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3CoElZ8

New physics research reveals fresh complexities about electron behavior in materials

When electrons flow through a conductor—such as the copper wires in our phone chargers or the silicon chips in the circuit boards of our laptops—they collide with material impurities and with each other in a tiny atomic frenzy. Their interaction with impurities is well known.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3lpK61u

Scientists take a closer look inside the perfect fluid

Scientists have reported new clues to solving a cosmic conundrum: How the quark-gluon plasma—nature's perfect fluid—evolved into matter.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3nG1PED

How glacier tables are formed

A trio of researchers at the University of Lyon, has learned via lab experimentation how glacier tables are formed. Marceau Hénot, Nicolas Plihon and Nicolas Taberlet have published their findings in Physical Review Letters.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3lvgdNp

Have we detected dark energy? Scientists say it's a possibility

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and reported in the journal Physical Review D, suggests that some unexplained results from the XENON1T experiment in Italy may have been caused by dark energy, and not the dark matter the experiment was designed to detect.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2VHIyHq

Cylindrical phononic crystals sense physical, chemical properties of transported liquids

Phononic crystals are an innovative resonant platform for sensing and understanding the volumetric properties of liquids, attracting a growing interest from researchers.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2XnI61W

Algorithm finds personalized sound zones in cars for driver, passengers

Creating an individualized listening experience for each passenger has been an ambition for the auto industry for decades. The acoustically changing nature of the car cabin has hampered making such personalized sound zones (PSZs) a reality.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3hsKDyv

Using acoustics to conceal and simulate objects

When listening to music, we don't just hear the notes produced by the instruments, we are also immersed in its echoes from our surroundings. Sound waves bounce back off the walls and objects around us, forming a characteristic sound effect—a specific acoustic field. This explains why the same piece of music sounds different when played in an old church or a modern concrete building.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3EnC5mG

Study provides evidence for 'new physics'

Is the Standard Model of particle physics incorrect at key points? Recently there has been an increase in experimental observations that deviate from the predictions of this widely accepted physical theory. A current study by the University of Bonn now provides even stronger evidence for the existence of "new physics." The final version of the paper is now published in the journal Physics Letters B. Lead author Chien-Yeah Seng will present the results in mid-October at the fall meeting of the U.S. Physical Society.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2XeZPrM

Groundbreaking technique yields important new details on silicon, subatomic particles and possible 'fifth force'

Using a groundbreaking new technique at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an international collaboration led by NIST researchers has revealed previously unrecognized properties of technologically crucial silicon crystals and uncovered new information about an important subatomic particle and a long-theorized fifth force of nature.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3z8XNqN

What the world's most accurate clock can tell us about Earth and the cosmos

It would take 15 billion years for the clock that occupies Jun Ye's basement lab at the University of Colorado to lose a second—about how long the universe has existed.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3nj46Wi

Magnet milestones move distant nuclear fusion dream closer

Teams working on two continents have marked similar milestones in their respective efforts to tap an energy source key to the fight against climate change: They've each produced very impressive magnets.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3l7WoLV

Scientists see evidence of first-order phase change in nuclear matter

New evidence suggests that protons and neutrons go through a "first-order" phase transition—a kind of stop-and-go change in temperature—when they "melt." This is similar to how ice melts: Energy first increases the temperature, and then, during the transition, the temperature stays steady while the energy transforms a solid to a liquid. Only when all the molecules are liquid can the temperature increase again. With protons and neutrons, the melted state is a soup of quarks and gluons. Scientists studying this quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) see signs of this stop-and-go transition. The latest data, from low-energy collisions, adds new support for this pattern.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3DZS4ab

Artificial brain networks simulated with new quantum materials

Isaac Newton's groundbreaking scientific productivity while isolated from the spread of bubonic plague is legendary. University of California San Diego physicists can now claim a stake in the annals of pandemic-driven science.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3E7YLav

New laser-based microphone calibration system

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have conducted the first demonstration of a faster and more accurate way to calibrate certain kinds of microphones.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2YCQRWd

Walking with coffee is a little-understood feat of physics

Walking with coffee is something most of us do every day without considering the balancing act it requires. In fact, there's a lot of physics preventing the coffee from spilling over.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2WW1vqI

Researchers realize a spin field-effect transistor at room temperature

A crucial goal of spintronics research is to coherently manipulate electron spins at room temperature using electrical current. This is particularly valuable as it would enable the development of numerous devices, including spin field-effect transistors.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3DUbJIt

New opportunities for light-powered battery and fuel cell design

Automotive and other industries are hard at work improving the performance of rechargeable batteries and fuel cells. Now, researchers from Japan have made a discovery that will enable new possibilities for future environmental stability in this line of work.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3DRi0oq

Creating a non-radiating source of electromagnetism

An international team of researchers has developed a way to create non-radiating sources of electromagnetism. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes their technique and how well it worked when they tested a model based on their ideas.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3zQT1yZ

Physics model explains the overall shape of two rubble-pile asteroids

Scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and Rutgers University have used simple concepts from granular physics to explain the curious diamond shapes of two "near Earth" asteroids.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3DOxwkV

New theory for detecting light in the darkness of a vacuum

Black holes are regions of space-time with huge amounts of gravity. Scientists originally thought that nothing could escape the boundaries of these massive objects, including light.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3jMDF9i

Researchers obtain new results on knockout reactions at HIRFL-CSR

Researchers from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and their collaborators have systematically measured the knockout cross sections of neutron-rich carbon isotopes at the intermediate- to high-energy region by using the External Target Facility (ETF) of the Cooler Storage Ring (CSR) at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL).

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3jLsVYD

Researchers reveal a novel metal where electrons flow with fluid-like dynamics

A team of researchers from Boston College has created a new metallic specimen where the motion of electrons flows in the same way water flows in a pipe—fundamentally changing from particle-like to fluid-like dynamics, the team reports in Nature Communications.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3kSKohg

The first experimental realization of a dissipative time crystal

A time crystal is a unique and exotic phase of matter first predicted by the American physicist Frank Wilczek in 2012. Time crystals are temporal analogs of more conventional space crystals, as both are based on structures characterized by repeating patterns.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2VfRP9y

Photovoltaic perovskites can detect neutrons

A simple and cheap device for detecting neutrons has been developed by a team of EPFL researchers and their collaborators. The device, based on a special class of crystalline compounds called perovskites, could be used to quickly detect neutrons coming from radioactive materials, e.g. a nuclear reactor that has been damaged or that is being transported nefariously, the researchers say. The work is published in Scientific Reports.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/2WFwjMd

New molecular device has unprecedented reconfigurability reminiscent of brain plasticity

In a discovery published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers has described a novel molecular device with exceptional computing prowess.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3BpseKK

Diagnostic capability allows scientists to create X-ray movies

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are working on a new diagnostic capability that will provide, for the first time, the ability to make X-ray radiographic movies.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/38B1Cdn

Understanding how electrons drive chemical reactions

An Imperial-led team of international researchers has used a special X-ray probe to gain new insights into how electrons behave at the quantum level.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3BvDsgK

Aloof neutrons may actually 'talk' to one another briefly in new kind of symmetry

Even though neutrons love to partner with protons to make the nucleus of an atom, the particles have always been notorious for their reluctance to bind with each other. But according to a new proposed theory, these particles might communicate under certain circumstances, forming a new sort of 'unparticle'—which could offer evidence of a new kind of symmetry in physics.

from General Physics News - Science News, Physics News, Physics, Material Sciences, Science https://ift.tt/3yxPYdJ