Researchers discover that soap film on bubbles is cooler than the air around it

A team of researchers at Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, has discovered that the film that makes up ordinary soap bubbles is cooler than the surrounding air. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes experiments they conducted with soap bubbles.

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Modeling the collective movement of bacteria to better understand the formation of troublesome biofilms

Biofilms form when microorganisms such as certain types of bacteria adhere to the surface of objects in a moist environment and begin to reproduce resulting in the excretion of a slimy glue-like substance.

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Study lays foundation for producing germanium-68/gallium-68 generator

Researchers at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have conducted a study on the separation route of germanium-68 and successfully prepared a germanium-68/gallium-68 generator.

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sPHENIX assembly update: Magnet mapped, detectors prepared

Physicists, engineers, and technicians at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are rounding out the year with key developments to a house-sized particle detector that will begin capturing collision snapshots for the first time next spring.

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New technique reveals changing shapes of magnetic noise in space and time

Electromagnetic noise poses a major problem for communications, prompting wireless carriers to invest heavily in technologies to overcome it. But for a team of scientists exploring the atomic realm, measuring tiny fluctuations in noise could hold the key to discovery.

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Three time dimensions, one space dimension: Relativity of superluminal observers in 1+3 spacetime

How would our world be viewed by observers moving faster than light in a vacuum? Such a picture would be clearly different from what we encounter every day. "We should expect to see not only phenomena that happen spontaneously, without a deterministic cause, but also particles traveling simultaneously along multiple paths," argue theorists from universities in Warsaw and Oxford.

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Large Hadron Collider ATLAS moves into top gear for Run 3

After over three years of upgrade and maintenance work, the Large Hadron Collider began its third period of operation (Run 3) in July 2022. Since then, the world's most powerful particle accelerator has been colliding protons at a record-breaking energy of 13.6 TeV. The ATLAS collaboration has just released its first measurements of these record collisions, studying data collected in the first half of August 2022.

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CERN presents new measurements of rare decays that provide a high-precision test of lepton flavor universality

Today the international LHCb collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented new measurements of rare particle transformations, or decays, that provide one of the highest-precision tests yet of a key property of the Standard Model of particle physics, known as lepton flavor universality.

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Stresses and hydrodynamics: Scientists uncover new organizing principles of the genome

A team of scientists has uncovered the physical principles—a series of forces and hydrodynamic flows—that help ensure the proper functioning of life's blueprint. Its discovery provides new insights into the genome while potentially offering a new means to spot genomic aberrations linked to developmental disorders and human diseases.

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What triggers flow fluctuations in heavy-ion collision debris?

Scientists in the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—an atom smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory—have published a comprehensive analysis aimed at determining which factors most influence fluctuations in the flow of particles from heavy ion collisions. The results, published in Physical Review Letters, will help the scientists zero in on key properties of a unique form of matter that mimics the early universe.

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The Donnan potential, revealed at last

The Donnan electric potential arises from an imbalance of charges at the interface of a charged membrane and a liquid, and for more than a century it has stubbornly eluded direct measurement. Many researchers have even written off such a measurement as impossible.

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Computer code accurately predicts the disintegration of droplets in turbulent flows

New computer simulations can go where experiments reach their limits. Scientists from the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen have developed a computer code that enables accurate predictions of the disintegration of droplets in turbulent flows.

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Deblurring can reveal 3D features of heavy-ion collisions

When the nuclei of atoms are about to collide in an experiment, their centers never perfectly align along the direction of relative motion. This leads to collisions with complex three-dimensional geometry. Emissions from the dense hot region of nuclear matter form patterns during a collision.

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Using machine learning to better understand how water behaves

Water has puzzled scientists for decades. For the last 30 years or so, they have theorized that when cooled down to a very low temperature like -100C, water might be able to separate into two liquid phases of different densities. Like oil and water, these phases don't mix and may help explain some of water's other strange behavior, like how it becomes less dense as it cools.

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Christmas-colored droplets hint at solutions for fog harvesting

When two water droplets merge on an inclined super-hydrophilic wire, their movement speed increases.

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Hot salt, clean energy: How artificial intelligence can enhance advanced nuclear reactors

Technology developed at Argonne can help narrow the field of candidates for molten salts, a new study demonstrates.

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Nuclear fusion: how scientists can turn latest breakthrough into a new clean power source

Researchers in the US have finally fulfilled an objective that was set decades ago: the achievement of "ignition"—getting more energy out than you put in—using nuclear fusion.

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It's colossal: Creating the world's largest dilution refrigerator

Fermilab is known for its massive experiments, and Colossus will fit right in. Researchers from the Fermilab-hosted Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center need lots of room at cold temperatures to achieve their goal of building a state-of-the-art quantum computer.

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Rosin powder can help maintain more constant friction when pitching a baseball

In baseball, even the smallest detail can tip the scales in favor of the batter or the pitcher. A recent publication has highlighted how rosin powder helps maintain a more constant friction when pitching, something that could bring about a fairer playing field in Major League Baseball.

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Could axion decay underlie excess cosmic optical background?

The cosmic optical background (COB) is the visible light emitted by all sources outside of the Milky Way. This faint glow of light, which can only be observed using very precise and sophisticated telescopes, could help astrophysics to learn more about the origins of the universe and what lies beyond our galaxy.

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Particles of light may create fluid flow, data-theory comparison suggests

A new computational analysis by theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Wayne State University supports the idea that photons (a.k.a. particles of light) colliding with heavy ions can create a fluid of "strongly interacting" particles. In a paper just published in Physical Review Letters, they show that calculations describing such a system match up with data collected by the ATLAS detector at Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

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Studying spinning-induced scattering of sound to create next-generation acoustic devices using new phonon modes

Interactions between a spinning object and soundwaves could help develop high-precision tools, such as tweezers that control the motion and position of submillimeter objects by manipulating acoustic waves, a KAUST-led international team suggests.

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Light can be used to control molecular handedness

In a recent study, researchers at Freie Universität Berlin, the DESY research center in Hamburg, Kiel University, and Kansas State University have shown how light can turn a planar molecule into a chiral molecule with just one particular handedness, providing a solution to the long-standing problem of absolute asymmetric synthesis. This new process could be particularly useful in chemically synthesizing compounds.

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Scientists discover strongest-ever isospin mixing in beta decay

Scientists from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and their collaborators have discovered the strongest isospin mixing ever observed in β-decay experiments, presenting a direct challenge to the understanding of nuclear force. The results were published in Physical Review Letters as an Editors' Suggestion on Dec. 8.

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Revealing the complexities of the magnetization reversal mechanism with topological data analysis

Spintronic devices and their operation are governed by the microstructures of magnetic domains. These magnetic domain structures undergo complex, drastic changes when an external magnetic field is applied to the system. The resulting fine structures are not reproducible, and it is challenging to quantify the complexity of magnetic domain structures.

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A numerical protocol to estimate local entropy production

In physics, equilibrium is a state in which a system's motion and internal energy do not change over time. Videos of systems in equilibrium would look exactly the same if they were watched in their normal chronological progression or backwards. This symmetry means that a system has an entropy production rate equal to zero.

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Scientists find new hints that dark matter could be made up of dark photons

Dark matter could be made up of ultralight dark photons that heated up our universe: this is a new scenario proposed in a study recently published in Physical Review Letters. This hypothesis, the authors say, is in excellent agreement with observations made by the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph (COS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope, which takes measurements of the "cosmic web", the complex and tenuous network of filaments that fills the space between galaxies.

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New approaches to the mystery of why ice is slippery

In contact with a solid the surface of ice melts, forming a lubricant layer which is self-perpetuating, as greater weight and slippage are applied to it. This cooperative phenomenon makes the ice more slippery and more likely to cause skating or car accidents, according to international research led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

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How to rebuild an atomic clock

Atomic clocks are crucial for everyday living as they help our telecommunications, electrical power grids, GPS systems, transportation, and other processes around the world keep precise time. Some of these clocks use lasers and special resonator cavities to measure time intervals. They are some of the most accurate clocks in the world and the most fragile.

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In new studies, researchers explore novel ways to hunt dark matter

For decades, astronomers and physicists have been trying to solve one of the deepest mysteries about the cosmos: An estimated 85% of its mass is missing. Numerous astronomical observations indicate that the visible mass in the universe is not nearly enough to hold galaxies together and account for how matter clumps. Some kind of invisible, unknown type of subatomic particle, dubbed dark matter, must provide the extra gravitational glue.

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A new computational system streamlines the design of fluidic devices

Combustion engines, propellers, and hydraulic pumps are examples of fluidic devices—instruments that utilize fluids to perform certain functions, such as generating power or transporting water.

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Research explains basics of aerosol formation at the vocal folds

Very small exhaled droplets, so-called aerosol particles, play an important role in the airborne transmission of pathogens such as the coronavirus. Researchers in the field of fluid mechanics used a model to investigate how exactly the small droplets are formed in the larynx when speaking or singing. The team now reports its results in the current issue of Physics of Fluids. The findings can now help to develop targeted measures to stop chains of infection.

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Physicists discover new transfermium isotope lawrencium-251

Physicists have recently synthesized a new transfermium isotope lawrencium-251 and studied the α decay of lawrencium-253 in more detail. This is the first new lawrencium isotope synthesized directly over the past two decades and it is also the first new isotope synthesized using the Argonne Gas-Filled Analyzer (AGFA) at the Argonne National Laboratory. The study has been published in Physical Review C.

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How far has nuclear fusion power come? We could be at a turning point for the technology

Our society faces the grand challenge of providing sustainable, secure and affordable means of generating energy, while trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to net zero around 2050.

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Study explores the possibility that dark photons might be a heat source for intergalactic gas

Gas clouds across the universe are known to absorb the light produced by distant massive celestial objects, known as quasars. This light manifests as the so-called Lyman alpha forest, a dense structure composed of absorption lines that can be observed using spectroscopy tools.

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Tiny underwater sand dunes may shed light on larger terrestrial and Martian formations

The English poet William Blake famously implored readers to "see the world in a grain of sand." In the journal Physics of Fluids, scientists from the University of Campinas, in Brazil, and the University of California, Los Angeles, have been doing just that—studying the "granular" dynamics of how crescent-shaped sand dunes are formed.

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Improving precision of pressure determination in nanosecond X-ray diffraction experiments

X-ray diffraction measurements under laser-driven dynamic compression allow researchers to investigate the atomic structure of matter at hundreds of thousands of atmospheres of pressure and temperatures of thousands of degrees, with broad implications for condensed matter physics, planetary science and astronomy.

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3D printing can help produce valuable radiopharmaceuticals

Without accurate diagnostics, it is difficult to talk about effective treatment of patients, especially in the case of cancer. Today, as much as 80% of diagnostic procedures using radiopharmaceuticals require the use of molybdenum-99. In the future, the production efficiency of this valuable radioisotope can be increased using uranium targets prepared by spatial printing.

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World Cup: This year's special Al Rihla ball has the aerodynamics of a champion, according to a sports physicist

As with every World Cup, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar the players will be using a new ball. The last thing competitors want is for the most important piece of equipment in the most important tournament in the world's most popular sport to behave in unexpected ways, so a lot of work goes into making sure that every new World Cup ball feels familiar to players.

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Why does lightning zigzag? At last, an answer to the mystery

Everyone has seen lightning and marveled at its power. But despite its frequency—about 8.6 million lightning strikes occur worldwide every day—why lightning proceeds in a series of steps from the thundercloud to the earth below has remained a mystery.

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Making sense of coercivity in magnetic materials with machine learning

Soft magnetic materials, i.e., materials that can be easily magnetized and demagnetized, play an essential role in transformers, generators, and motors. The ability of a magnetic material to resist an external magnetic field without changing its magnetization is known as "coercivity," a property closely linked to the energy loss. In applications such as electric cars, low-coercivity materials are highly desirable to achieve higher energy efficiency.

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Researchers demonstrate light-induced locomotion in a nonliquid environment and report a new type of liquid-like motion

Motion is everywhere in living systems and is necessary for mechanical functions in artificial systems, such as robots and machines. Functional mechanical structures that can change volume and shape in response to external stimuli (such as light, heat, electricity, humidity, and chemistry) have a wide range of application prospects in the field of biomechanics and bionic robots. They have attracted immense research interest, particularly at micro- and nanoscales.

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Nuclear popcorn: Heavy nucleus changes shapes at different energies

A new paper sheds light on the nature of atomic nuclei. The study is published in the journal Physical Review C.

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Physicists observe wormhole dynamics using a quantum computer

Scientists have, for the first time, developed a quantum experiment that allows them to study the dynamics, or behavior, of a special kind of theoretical wormhole. The experiment has not created an actual wormhole (a rupture in space and time), rather it allows researchers to probe connections between theoretical wormholes and quantum physics, a prediction of so-called quantum gravity. Quantum gravity refers to a set of theories that seek to connect gravity with quantum physics, two fundamental and well-studied descriptions of nature that appear inherently incompatible with each other.

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The Kibble-Zurek mechanism for nonequilibrium phase transitions

The Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism, confirmed experimentally only for equilibrium phase transitions, is also applicable for non-equilibrium phase transitions, as is now shown by Tokyo Tech researchers in a new study. The KZ mechanism is characterized by the formation of topological defects during continuous phase transition away from the adiabatic limit. This breakthrough finding could open the doors to investigation of the mechanism for other nonequilibrium phase transitions.

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Microscopic chains that mimic DNA

Circular polycatenanes are chains that can move and change shape: they twist, stretch and wrap around themselves. Three physicists of the European Eutopia Cost network, coordinated by UniTrento, have dedicated themselves to the study of these structures.

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New research unearths obscure and contradictory heat transfer behaviors

UCLA researchers and their colleagues have discovered a new physics principle governing how heat transfers through materials, and the finding contradicts the conventional wisdom that heat always moves faster as pressure increases.

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Physicist identifies how electron crystals melt

The mysterious changes in phases of matter—from solid to liquid and back again—have fascinated Eun-Ah Kim since she was in lower elementary school in South Korea. Without cold drinking water readily available, on hot days the children would bring bottles of frozen water to school.

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Synchronizing chaos through a narrow slice of the spectrum

The abstract notion that the whole can be found in each part of something has for long fascinated thinkers engaged in all walks of philosophy and experimental science, from Immanuel Kant on the essence of time to David Bohm on the notion of order, and from the self-similarity of fractal structures to the defining properties of holograms.

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First lead-ion collisions in the Large Hadron Collider at record energy

On Friday, November 18, a test using collisions of lead ions was carried out in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and provided an opportunity for the experiments to validate the new detectors and new data-processing systems ahead of next year's lead-lead physics run.

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Using machine learning to infer rules for designing complex mechanical metamaterials

Mechanical metamaterials are sophisticated artificial structures with mechanical properties that are driven by their structure, rather than their composition. While these structures have proved to be very promising for the development of new technologies designing them can be both challenging and time-consuming.

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Physicists strike gold, solving 50-year lightning mystery

The chances of being struck by lightning are less than one in a million, but those odds shortened considerably this month when more than 4.2 million lightning strikes were recorded in every Australian state and territory over the weekend of 12-13 November.

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How to test whether we're living in a computer simulation

Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. Why do the physical laws and constants take the very specific values that allow stars, planets and ultimately life to develop? The expansive force of the universe, dark energy, for example, is much weaker than theory suggests it should be—allowing matter to clump together rather than being ripped apart.

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The interplay between epidemics, prevention information, and mass media

When an epidemic strikes, more than just infections spread. As cases mount, information about the disease, how to spot it, and how to prevent it propagates rapidly among people in affected areas as well. Relatively little is known, however, about the interplay between the course of epidemics and this diffusion of information to the public.

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Researchers propose design theory for high-homogeneity multilayer Halbach magnet

Portable magnetic resonance (MR) systems have become a hot research topic for low-field MR systems in recent years thanks to the research and development of high homogeneity multilayer Halbach magnets. However, due to the imperfect design theory, current magnet design methods mostly adopt approximate calculation or finite element simulation, which have problems such as low calculation accuracy and time-consuming simulation optimization.

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Researchers report new technique to measure the fine structure constant

The fine structure constant is one of the most important natural constants of all. At TU Wien, a remarkable way of measuring it has been found—it shows up as a rotation angle.

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Connectivity of 3D structures in tissues provides metrics for organ development

Organs in the human body have complex networks of fluid-filled tubes and loops. They come in different shapes, and their three-dimensional structures are differently connected to each other, depending on the organ. During the development of an embryo, organs develop their shape and tissue architecture out of a simple group of cells. It has been challenging to understand how shape and the complex tissue network arise during organ development.

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Global timekeepers vote to scrap leap second by 2035

Scientists and government representatives meeting at a conference in France voted on Friday to scrap leap seconds by 2035, the organization responsible for global timekeeping said.

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Physics study shows that sheep flocks alternate their leader and achieve collective intelligence

The collective motion of animals in a group is a fascinating topic of research for many scientists. Understanding these collective behaviors can sometimes inspire the development of strategies for promoting positive social change, as well as technologies that emulate nature.

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High-power electrostatic actuators to realize artificial muscles

Electrostatic actuators are simple and lightweight devices that emulate human muscles. However, their usage has primarily been restricted to moving small devices since they need high voltages to generate significant forces. Now, however, it may be possible to use electrostatic actuators in artificial muscles thanks to research from Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) that makes use of ferroelectric materials to create an electrostatic actuator that can generate a strong force at a low driving voltage.

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Powerful linear accelerator begins smashing atoms—how it could reveal rare forms of matter

Just a few hundred feet from where we are sitting is a large metal chamber devoid of air and draped with the wires needed to control the instruments inside. A beam of particles passes through the interior of the chamber silently at around half the speed of light until it smashes into a solid piece of material, resulting in a burst of rare isotopes.

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A bench-top Kibble balance to perform ultrasonic power measurements

In 2019, the International System of Units (SI) was redefined in terms of constants that relate to the natural world. This assures the future stability of the SI and opens the opportunity for the use of new technologies, including quantum technologies, to implement the new definitions. This ever-improving accuracy needs to be enabled by stable measurement standards underpinned by agreed definitions of measurement units.

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Recent searches for light fermionic dark matter by the PandaX-4T collaboration

Teams of astrophysicists worldwide are trying to observe different possible types of dark matter (DM), hypothetical matter in the universe that does not emit, absorb or reflect light and would thus be very difficult to detect. Fermionic DM, however, which would be made of fermions, has so far been primarily explored theoretically.

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Advances in spectroscopy: Physicists find new way to measure properties of a material's surface layer

Physicists at The University of Texas at Arlington have developed a new technique that can measure the properties of the topmost atomic layer of materials without including information from the underlying layers.

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Synthetic black holes radiate like real ones

Research led by the University of Amsterdam has demonstrated that elusive radiation coming from black holes can be studied by mimicking it in the lab.

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Researchers reveal secret of ultra-slow motion of pine cones

In a study recently published in Nature Materials, Prof. Wang Shutao from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Prof. Liu Huan from Beihang University revealed the secret of ultra-slow motion of pine cones and developed mimicking actuators enabling unperceivable motion.

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'One of the greatest damn mysteries of physics': The most precise astronomical test of electromagnetism yet

There's an awkward, irksome problem with our understanding of nature's laws which physicists have been trying to explain for decades. It's about electromagnetism, the law of how atoms and light interact, which explains everything from why you don't fall through the floor to why the sky is blue.

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Truly chiral phonons observed in three-dimensional materials for the first time

Chirality is the breaking of reflection and inversion symmetries. Simply put, it is when an object's mirror images cannot be superimposed over each other. A common example are your two hands—while mirror images of each other, they can never overlap. Chirality appears at all levels in nature and is ubiquitous.

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Physical theory describes movements of micro-hairs

They are only very simple structures, but without them we could not survive: Countless tiny hairs (cilia) are found on the outer wall of some cells, for example in our lungs or in our brain. When these micrometer-sized hairs coordinate their movement and produce wave-like movements together, they can cause currents on a microscale and thus pump fluid from one place to another. Paramecia—unicellular organisms with numerous cilia—also use such effects to move around.

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First 'Run 3' physics result from the Large Hadron Collider's compact muon solenoid

On July 5, the LHC roared to life for its third run after three years of continual improvements to the machine as well as to the experiments' detectors and analysis tools, and immediately reached a record energy of 13.6 TeV. Just three weeks later, the compact muon solenoid (CMS) collaboration was ready for its physics data-taking period.

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Exploring the surface melting of colloidal glass

In 1842, the famous British researcher Michael Faraday made an amazing observation by chance: A thin layer of water forms on the surface of ice, even though it is well below zero degrees. The temperature is below the melting point of ice, yet the surface of the ice has melted. This liquid layer on ice crystals is also why snowballs stick together.

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Information carrying could be improved through hopfions

The knot theory originates in Lord Kevin's model proposed in 1867 that atoms are made of vortex rings or knots. Although the hypothesis was proved incorrect, the knot theory has since then proliferated in both mathematics and physics. One peculiar category of knots—the torus knots—are disjointed and linked closed loops, nesting to construct complete ring tori. Physicists find the torus knot a suitable candidate for building hopfions—three-dimensional (3D) topological states that resemble particle-like objects.

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Physicists shed new light on unanswered questions about glass-liquid transition

Glasses are peculiar materials exhibiting excellent and well-known properties, but also some phenomena that are still not fully understood, even though they have been studied for more than a century. In particular, researchers have not yet reached a complete description of the glass formation process, upon cooling a liquid, and the converse transition of glass to a more stable state—called supercooled liquid—when it is heated up.

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Despite conflict Russia sends France giant magnet for nuclear fusion project

Russia on Tuesday dispatched one of six giant magnets needed for the ITER nuclear fusion program in France, one of the last international scientific projects Moscow participates in despite the Ukraine conflict.

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Researchers collaborate to better understand the weak nuclear force

The weak nuclear force is currently not entirely understood, despite being one of the four fundamental forces of nature. In a pair of Physical Review Letters articles, a multi-institutional team, including theorists and experimentalists from Louisiana State University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory and other institutions worked closely together to test physics beyond the "Standard Model" through high-precision measurements of nuclear beta decay.

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Capturing and analyzing subtle combination tones produced by violins

When two musical notes are played simultaneously, the human ear can perceive weak additional tones called combination tones. These subjective tones result from the nonlinearity of the inner ear and are attributed to the amplification mechanism of the cochlea. Subjective tones are perceived with different intensities by different individuals. While less perceivable, objective combination tones are also generated by some musical instruments. Because these tones are present in the air, they can be detected by sensitive microphones, measured, and recorded.

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As dense as it gets: New model for matter in neutron star collisions

With the exception of black holes, neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe. As their name suggests, neutron stars are mainly made of neutrons. However, our knowledge about the matter produced during the collision of two neutron stars is still limited. Scientists from Goethe University Frankfurt and the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics in Pohang have developed a model that gives insights about matter under such extreme conditions.

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How do neutrons interact with reactor materials?

Many applications rely on global theoretical models of how neutrons interact with nuclei over a wide range of incident neutron energies. These applications range from energy production to homeland security to medical treatments. Scientists develop these models by comparing calculations with experimental data. Excellent agreement between data and theory indicates that the interaction between the neutron and the material is well understood. This process helps scientists gain confidence in their understanding of the nuclear force, and it helps engineers develop safer and more efficient reactors and scanners.

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Enzymatic reactions: Researchers reveal a regulatory mechanism by which life controls and organizes itself

Inside cells, molecular droplets form defined compartments for chemical reactions. Not only sticky interactions between molecules, but also dynamic reactions can form such droplets, as was found by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) and the University of Oxford. They revealed a new regulatory mechanism by which life controls and organizes itself.

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'Kagome' metallic crystal adds new spin to electronics

A multinational team of researchers, co-led by a City University of Hong Kong (CityU) physicist, has found that a novel metallic crystal displays unusual electronic behavior on its surface, thanks to the crystal's unique atomic structure. Their findings open up the possibility of using this material to develop faster and smaller microelectronic devices.

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Scientists discover exotic quantum state at room temperature

For the first time, physicists have observed novel quantum effects in a topological insulator at room temperature. This breakthrough, published as the cover article of the October issue of Nature Materials, came when Princeton scientists explored a topological material based on the element bismuth.

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Spintronics: A new tool at BESSY II for chirality investigations

Information on complex magnetic structures is crucial to understand and develop spintronic materials. Now, a new instrument named ALICE II is available at BESSY II. It allows magnetic X-ray scattering in reciprocal space using a new large area detector. A team at HZB and Technical University Munich has demonstrated the performance of ALICE II by analyzing helical and conical magnetic states of an archetypal single crystal skyrmion host. ALICE II is now available for guest users at BESSY II.

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Controlled bouncing, evaporation and transport of droplets on a liquid-repellent surface

The research team from Hunan University has proposed a facile and industrially applicable method to fabricate an extreme wettability surface on an Al-based superhydrophobic surface by a composite process of electrochemical mask etching and micro-milling, and achieved the controlled evaporation, directional bouncing and transport of droplets on this surface over a wide temperature range for the first time.

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Robotic insect toys build undergraduate research skills in physics

Although the sudden switch to remote and hybrid learning was seen as an enormous challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic, academic and commercial interest in creative online lab class development has since skyrocketed.

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Physicists discover new isotope actinium-204

A research team at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with their collaborators, have recently synthesized a new isotope, actinium-204, which is the lightest actinium isotope so far discovered and the fourth actinium isotope beyond the proton-drip line. The study has been published in Physics Letters B.

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Study reveals a broken symmetry in the roughness of elastic interfaces

A large class of problems in non-equilibrium statistical physics deal with driven dynamics of elastic interfaces in random media. Examples include stress-driven propagation of crack fronts in disordered solids, motion of domain walls driven by applied magnetic fields in disordered ferromagnets, and dynamics of fluid fronts invading a porous medium—for example, when coffee spilled on the table is absorbed by the tablecloth.

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Emerging technologies to improve thermometry reliability

In a recent paper co-authored by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Research Council of Canada and Graham Machin, National Physical Laboratory Senior Fellow, the research team presented an overview of emerging thermometry technologies. Although some of these are in an early stage of development, they have the potential to provide reliable (and indeed traceable) temperatures in the measurement setting. The research was published in Measurement Science and Technology.

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Like an invisible pair of tweezers, sound waves can levitate tiny objects in the air

While DIY acoustic levitation kits can be found online, the technique has important applications for research and industry including manipulating sensitive material such as biological cells.

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New research suggests our brains use quantum computation

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin believe our brains could use quantum computation. Their discovery comes after they adapted an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings.

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Modifying water's structure as a low-energy method for removing pollutants

Fresh water is a finite resource vulnerable to contamination.

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Ultra-precise quantum thermometer to measure temperatures of space and time

An international team of scientists including experts from the University of Adelaide has designed a quantum thermometer to measure the ultra-cold temperatures of space and time predicted by Einstein and the laws of quantum mechanics.

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Machine learning takes hold in nuclear physics

Scientists have begun turning to new tools offered by machine learning to help save time and money. In the past several years, nuclear physics has seen a flurry of machine learning projects come online, with many papers published on the subject. Now, 18 authors from 11 institutions summarize this explosion of artificial intelligence-aided work in "Machine Learning in Nuclear Physics," a paper recently published in Reviews of Modern Physics.

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Physicists revisit and analyze the claims made by a 'sexist' senior scientist

The year was 2018 and physicist Fariba Karimi remembers feeling appalled and disgusted by the remarks made by a prominent male scientist during a presentation at CERN, the European nuclear research center in Geneva. "It was just unbelievable," recalls Karimi, who leads a team in computational social science at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH).

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Physicists probe 'astonishing' morphing properties of honeycomb-like material

A series of buzzing, bee-like "loop-currents" could explain a recently discovered, never-before-seen phenomenon in a type of quantum material. The findings from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder may one day help engineers to develop new kinds of devices, such as quantum sensors or the quantum equivalent of computer memory storage devices.

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When making a detour is faster: Optimizing navigation for microswimmers

Whereas the shortest way between two points is a straight connection, it might not be the most efficient path to follow. Complex currents often affect the motion of microswimmers and make it difficult for them to reach their destination. At the same time, making use of these currents to navigate as fast as possible is a certain evolutionary advantage.

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The secret of swing, addressed in the lab

Jazz must swing—jazz musicians agree on that. However, even 100 years after the beginnings of jazz, it is still unclear what exactly constitutes the swing feel. With a sophisticated experiment and data analyses on more than 450 well-known jazz solos, physicists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) together with psychologists from the University of Göttingen have unraveled a secret of swing.

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80-year-old mystery in static electricity finally solved

Historically, contact electrification (CE) was humanity's first and only source of electricity up until around the 18th century, yet its true nature is still elusive. Today it is considered a core component of technologies such as laser printers, LCD production processes, electrostatic painting, and separation of plastics for recycling as well as a major industrial hazard (damage to electronic systems, explosions in coal mines, fires in chemical plants, etc.) due to electrostatic discharges (ESD) accompanying CE. In a vacuum, ESDs of a simple adhesive tape are so powerful that they generate enough X-rays to take an X-ray image of a finger.

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Nobel physics winner wanted to topple quantum theory he vindicated

American physicist John Clauser won the 2022 Nobel Prize for a groundbreaking experiment vindicating quantum mechanics—a fundamental theory governing the subatomic world that is today the foundation for an emerging class of ultra-powerful computers.

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Quantum entanglement: the 'spooky' science behind physics Nobel

This year's physics Nobel prize was awarded Tuesday to three men for their work on a phenomenon called quantum entanglement, which is so bizarre and unlikely that Albert Einstein was skeptical, famously calling it "spooky".

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The Nobel winners who helped prove quantum 'spooky action'

Physicists Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger developed experimental tools that helped prove quantum entanglement—a phenomenon Albert Einstein famously dismissed as "spooky action at a distance"—is real, paving the way for its use in powerful computers.

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Nobel panel to announce winner of physics prize

The winner, or winners, of the Nobel Prize in physics will be announced Tuesday at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

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How stiff is the proton?

The proton is a composite particle made up of fundamental building blocks of quarks and gluons. These components and their interactions determine the proton's structure, including its electrical charges and currents. This structure deforms when exposed to external electric and magnetic (EM) fields, a phenomenon known as polarizability. The EM polarizabilities are a measure of the stiffness against the deformation induced by EM fields. By measuring the EM polarizabilities, scientists learn about the internal structure of the proton.

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Elastic nozzles could create more stable liquid jets

Until now, little attention has been paid to the flow of liquid through deformable elastic nozzles. New research published in The European Physical Journal Special Topics introduces the concept of passively-deforming nozzles, and shows that softer nozzle materials can produce more stable jets across a wide range of flow rates. The research team was led by Andrew Dickerson at the University of Tennessee, U.S.

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Paper by team claiming to have achieved superconductivity at room temperature retracted

Editors at the journal Nature have retracted a paper by a team that claimed to have achieved superconductivity at room temperature. Published in 2020, the paper described work by a combined team from the University of Rochester and the University of Nevada, announcing that they had reached superconductivity at room temperature with a material made of sulfur, carbon and hydrogen under extreme pressure.

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Extreme nonlinear wave group dynamics in directional wave states

Understanding the unpredictable behaviors of ocean waves can be a matter of survival for seafarers. Deep-water wave groups have been known to be unstable and become rogue, causing unsuspecting boats to tip over.

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Exploring a new algorithm for reconstructing particles

A team of researchers from CERN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Staffordshire University have implemented a new algorithm for reconstructing particles at the Large Hadron Collider.

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LHCf continues to investigate cosmic rays

LHCf has completed its first data-taking period during LHC Run 3, taking advantage of the record 13.6 TeV collision energy. This coincides with the machine's record fill time of 57 hours.

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Physicists find way to control detonation wave in promising new type of engine

Skoltech researchers have theoretically predicted synchronization—a kind of self-regulation—in detonation waves. The discovery could help tame this inherently chaotic process so as to stabilize combustion in a rotating detonation engine. This refers to an experimental device potentially conserving vast amounts of fuel compared with conventional rocket and ship engines. The study came out in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

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Review of noble-gas spin amplification via spin-exchange collisions

This study was led by Prof. Xinhua Peng and Prof. Min Jiang who have been devoted to developing spin-based quantum technologies for the detection of weak magnetic fields for many years.

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Fermi's ground-breaking figure: How the radial wave function transformed physics

One way to better understand an atom is to shoot a particle at it and infer the atom's properties based on how the particle bounces off it. In the mid-1930s, the physicist Enrico Fermi showed that one measurable number—the scattering length—illuminated everything that could be known about an electron scattering off an atom, or a neutron scattering off a nucleus.

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Artificial intelligence reduces a 100,000-equation quantum physics problem to only four equations

Using artificial intelligence, physicists have compressed a daunting quantum problem that until now required 100,000 equations into a bite-size task of as few as four equations—all without sacrificing accuracy. The work, published in the September 23 issue of Physical Review Letters, could revolutionize how scientists investigate systems containing many interacting electrons. Moreover, if scalable to other problems, the approach could potentially aid in the design of materials with sought-after properties such as superconductivity or utility for clean energy generation.

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Playing wind instruments spreads more viruses than breathing, but less than speaking or singing

The riskiest instrument is the voice, at least when it comes to spreading viruses such as SARS-CoV2. Compared to breathing quietly, during singing or speaking infected people release more than 500 times particles into the air, which can contain viruses.

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Detailed insight into friction: How objects start to slide

Chemists and physicists at the University of Amsterdam shed light on a crucial aspect of friction: how things begin to slide. Using fluorescence microscopy and dedicated fluorescent molecules, they are able to pinpoint how and when the friction at the contact between two objects is overcome and sliding starts to occur. They report on the details of this important transition from static to dynamic friction in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

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Traditional computers can solve some quantum problems

There has been a lot of buzz about quantum computers and for good reason. The futuristic computers are designed to mimic what happens in nature at microscopic scales, which means they have the power to better understand the quantum realm and speed up the discovery of new materials, including pharmaceuticals, environmentally friendly chemicals, and more. However, experts say viable quantum computers are still a decade away or more. What are researchers to do in the meantime?

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Constraining the nucleon size with relativistic nuclear collisions

It may be hard to imagine that the debris of violent heavy ion collisions—which dissolve the boundaries of protons and neutrons and produce thousands of new particles—can be used to gain detailed insight into the properties of nucleons. However, new advances in experimental methods along with improved theoretical modeling have made it possible. Based on a state-of-the-art model for the colliding nuclei and the hydrodynamic evolution of the quark-gluon plasma produced in the collision, a recent Physical Review Letters study demonstrates that specific observables are strongly sensitive to the size of the protons and neutrons inside the colliding nuclei.

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New insight into the particle interactions that may take place at the hearts of neutron stars

The international ALICE collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has just released the most precise measurements to date of two properties of a hypernucleus that may exist in the cores of neutron stars.

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Under pressure: Solid matter takes on new behavior

Investigating how solid matter behaves at enormous pressures, such as those found in the deep interiors of giant planets, is a great experimental challenge. To help address that challenge, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers and collaborators took a deep dive in understanding these extreme pressures.

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Picotesla magnetometry of microwave fields with diamond sensors

Microwave field sensors are important in practice for a variety of applications across astronomy and communication engineering. The nitrogen vacancy center in diamond allows magnetometric sensitivity, stability and compatibility with ambient conditions. Despite that, the existing nitrogen vacancy center-based magnetometers have limited sensitivity in the microwave band.

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Reverse-engineering the brain to decode input signals from output neuron firing

The brain is an extremely complex organ whose exact functioning remains difficult to understand. On average, the human brain contains 100 billion neurons that fire upon receiving input signals from multiple sensory organs. But, what is truly remarkable about our brain is the synchronization of this neural firing when triggered by a common input. Put simply, common inputs can generate a collective response in neurons that are not only spatially separated but also have different firing characteristics.

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Feeling out of equilibrium in a dual geometric world: A novel theory for nonlinear dissipative phenomena

Losing energy is rarely a good thing, but now, researchers in Japan have shown how to extend the applicability of thermodynamics to systems that are not in equilibrium. By encoding the energy dissipation relationships in a geometric way, they were able to cast the physical constraints in a generalized geometric space. This work may significantly improve our understanding of chemical reaction networks, including those that underlie the metabolism and growth of living organisms.

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Researchers use purified liquid xenon to search for mysterious dark matter particles

Sitting a mile below ground in an abandoned gold mine in South Dakota is a gigantic cylinder holding 10 tons of purified liquid xenon closely watched by more than 250 scientists around the world. That tank of xenon is the heart of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, an effort to detect dark matter—the mysterious invisible substance that makes up 85% of the matter in the universe.

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MICROSCOPE mission presents most precise test of general relativity's Weak Equivalence Principle

In new studies published in Physical Review Letters and a special issue of Classical and Quantum Gravity on September 14, a team of researchers present the most precise test yet of the Weak Equivalence Principle, a key component of the theory of general relativity. The report describes the final results from the MICROSCOPE mission, which tested the principle by measuring accelerations of free-falling objects in a satellite orbiting Earth. The team found that the accelerations of pairs of objects differed by no more than about one part in 1015 ruling out any violations of the Weak Equivalence Principle or deviations from the current understanding of general relativity at that level.

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Transfer of a domain pattern between magnetization and electric-polarization space achieved for the first-time

Translation of information from one state into another is key to our society. The general purpose of this information transfer is making information accessible, easier to process and to store.

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3D shaping of microscopic membranes that underlie cellular processes

Cell membranes transition seamlessly between distinct 3D configurations. It is a remarkable feature that is essential for several biological phenomena such as cell division, cell mobility, transport of nutrients into cells, and viral infections. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and their collaborators have recently devised an experiment that sheds light on the mechanism by which such processes might occur in real time.

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The thermodynamics of life taking shape

Revealing the scientific laws that govern our world is often considered the "holy grail" by scientists, as such discoveries have wide-ranging implications. In an exciting development from Japan, scientists have shown how to use geometric representations to encode the laws of thermodynamics, and apply these representations to obtain generalized predictions. This work may significantly improve our understanding of the theoretical limits that apply within chemistry and biology.

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When curved materials flatten, simple geometry can predict the wrinkle patterns that emerge

An object that's intrinsically flat, say a piece of paper, can be shaped into a cylinder without stretching or tearing it. The same isn't true, however, for something intrinsically curved like a contact lens. When compressed between two flat surfaces or laid on water, curved objects will flatten, but with wrinkles that form as they buckle.

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Innovative liquid-lithium charge stripper boosts accelerator performance

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) accelerates heavy-ion beams at beam power up to 400 kilowatts into a target to create rare isotopes for scientific research. A charge stripper plays an essential role in this process. It strips additional electrons from the charged-particle beam to accelerate it more efficiently.

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Unraveling a mystery surrounding cosmic matter

Early in its history, shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with equal amounts of matter and "antimatter"—particles that are matter counterparts but with opposite charge. But then, as space expanded, the universe cooled. Today's universe is full of galaxies and stars that are made of matter. Where did the antimatter go, and how did matter come to dominate the universe? This cosmic origin of matter continues to puzzle scientists.

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Science uncovers the secret to superb shots in soccer

Soccer, also known as football, is the most popular sport in 57 countries, and its players are among the most highly paid athletes in the world; therefore, every shot is valuable. Knowing how to adjust foot orientation and swing when kicking the ball can help players understand how to improve their shots on goal, giving them a competitive edge.

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New practical method of producing Airy beams could enhance ultrasound

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis recently invented a technique for generating ultrasound waves that can self-bend, like the rainbow.

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Key advance in physics research could help enable super-efficient electrical power

Today, an international team of researchers led by Séamus Davis, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and University College Cork, has announced results that reveal the atomic mechanism behind high-temperature superconductors. The findings are published in PNAS.

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Robust and realistic general method for dealing with wind-driven phenomena

By adapting a flow-following physical framework to the statistical modeling of large spatio–temporal datasets, KAUST researchers have developed a more robust and realistic general method for dealing with wind-driven phenomena. The approach promises to greatly improve the accuracy of pollutant dispersion prediction by incorporating more physically realistic processes into geostatistical modeling.

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Evidence of excitonic insulators in moiré superlattices

Excitons are quasiparticles that are formed in insulators or semiconductors when an electron is promoted to a higher energy band, leaving a positively charged hole behind.

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A fresh look at metals reveals a 'strange' similarity

Our theoretical understanding of the way in which metals conduct electricity is incomplete. The current taxonomy appears to be too blurry and contains too many exceptions to be convincing. This is the conclusion that materials scientists from the University of Groningen reached after thoroughly examining the recent literature on metals. They analyzed more than 30 metals and show that a simple formula can provide a classification of metals in a more systematic manner. Their analysis was published in Physical Review B on 29 August.

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Artificial breathing system reveals alveoli function in lungs

Alveoli are the basic functional units of the human respiratory system, acting as tiny air sacs that exchange gases. Air inhaled through the mouth and nose flows into the lungs through the branched structure of the bronchial tubes, and the alveoli appear in the deep sections of this network.

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Physicists discover new rule for orbital formation in chemical reactions

Squeaky, cloudy or spherical—electron orbitals show where and how electrons move around atomic nuclei and molecules. In modern chemistry and physics, they have proven to be a useful model for quantum mechanical description and prediction of chemical reactions. Only if the orbitals match in space and energy can they be combined—this is what happens when two substances react with each other chemically. In addition, there is another condition that must be met, as researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the University of Graz have now discovered: The course of chemical reactions also appears to be dependent on the orbital distribution in momentum space. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Physicists develop a linear response theory for open systems having exceptional points

Linear analysis plays a central role in science and engineering. Even when dealing with nonlinear systems, understanding the linear response is often crucial for gaining insight into the underlying complex dynamics. In recent years, there has been a great interest in studying open systems that exchange energy with a surrounding reservoir. In particular, it has been demonstrated that open systems whose spectra exhibit non-Hermitian singularities called exceptional points can demonstrate a host of intriguing effects with potential applications in building new lasers and sensors.

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New theory for detection of terahertz electromagnetic waves gives hope for advances in IT and medicine

Detecting electromagnetic waves in the terahertz frequency range remains a challenging problem. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, together with physicists from the University of Augsburg, have recently discovered a new physical effect which could change that. In a new study, the scientists are now developing a theory explaining the mechanism behind it. Their findings make it possible to construct small, inexpensive, and highly sensitive terahertz detectors. These could be used, for example, in medical diagnostics, for contactless security checks, or for faster wireless data transmission. The results of the new theory have been published in the journal Physical Review B.

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Less risk, less costs: Portable spectroscopy devices could soon become real

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an analytical tool with a wide range of applications, including the magnetic resonance imaging that is used for diagnostic purposes in medicine. However, NMR often requires powerful magnetic fields to be generated, which limits the scope of its use.

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SU(N) matter is about 3 billion times colder than deep space

Japanese and U.S. physicists have used atoms about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space to open a portal to an unexplored realm of quantum magnetism.

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Using magnetic and electric fields to emulate black hole and stellar accretion disks

A team of researchers at the Sorbonne University of Paris reports a new way to emulate black hole and stellar accretion disks. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes using magnetic and electric fields to create a rotating disk made of liquid metal to emulate the behavior of material surrounding black holes and stars, which leads to the development of accretion disks.

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Shape of coronavirus affects its transmission, study finds

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, images of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, have been seared in our minds. But the way we picture the virus, typically as a sphere with spikes, is not strictly accurate. Microscope images of infected tissues have revealed that coronavirus particles are actually ellipsoidal, displaying a wide variety of squashed and elongated shapes.

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Preparing for a more powerful particle accelerator

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is back in action after a three-year scheduled technical shutdown period. Experts circulated beam in the powerful particle accelerator at the end of April, and Run 3 physics started in early July at the highest collision energy ever achieved.

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Brain bubbles: Researchers describe the dynamics of cavitation in soft porous material

A tiny bubble popping within a liquid seems more fanciful than traumatic. But millions of popping vapor bubbles can cause significant damage to rigid structures like boat propellers or bridge supports. Can you imagine the damage such bubbles could do to soft human tissues like the brain? During head impacts and concussions, vapor bubbles form and violently collapse, creating damage to human tissue. Purdue University fluid mechanics researchers are now one step closer to understanding these phenomena.

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Strength of results consistency and agreement for overtone line intensities across labs examined

Researchers from the Institute of Physics at the Nicolaus Copernicus University participated in research into the intensities of the overtone lines. Teams from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany also conducted their measurements. Theoretical calculations were carried out by a group from the University College London.

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Low-cost disease diagnosis by mapping heart sounds

Aortic valve stenosis occurs when the aortic valve narrows, constricting blood flow from the heart through the artery and to the entire body. In severe cases, it can lead to heart failure. Identifying the condition can be difficult in remote areas because it requires sophisticated technology, and diagnoses at early stages are challenging to obtain.

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Physicists uncover new dynamical framework for turbulence

Turbulence plays a key role in our daily lives, making for bumpy plane rides, affecting weather and climate, limiting the fuel efficiency of the cars we drive, and impacting clean energy technologies. Yet, scientists and engineers have puzzled at ways to predict and alter turbulent fluid flows, and it has long remained one of the most challenging problems in science and engineering.

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Probing high-energy neutrinos associated with a blazar

Studying a high-energy neutrino that was observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole and that is believed to be intergalactic in origin has yielded some intriguing "new physics" beyond the Standard Model

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Chaotic circuit exhibits unprecedented equilibrium properties

Mathematical derivations have unveiled a chaotic, memristor-based circuit in which different oscillating phases can co-exist along six possible lines.

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Physics meets biology: How bacteria synchronize to build complex structures

Bacteria collaborate and coordinate collectively as they form a shared structure called a biofilm, such as the dental plaque on our teeth or the microbiome associated with our gut. This self-organization in multiple complex layers—despite variations of cellular properties at individual level—requires that the living systems share common, yet precise time, which has now been uncovered by physicists from the University of Luxembourg.

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Extended tests with levitated force sensor fail to find evidence of fifth force

A team of researchers from Nanjing University, working with two colleagues from the University of Science and Technology of China, has conducted new tests of the chameleon theory and report a failure to find any evidence of a fifth force. They have published their paper in the journal Nature Physics.

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Using math proofs, experiments and simulations to show how a material wrinkles when flattened

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Syracuse University and the University of Pennsylvania, has developed a means for showing how a certain piece of material wrinkles after it has been flattened. In their paper published in the journal Nature Physics, the group describes experiments they conducted with tiny pieces of plastic.

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Black hole-inspired thermal trapping with graded heat-conduction metadevices

Jiping Huang's group (Department of physics, Fudan University) and Cheng-Wei Qiu's group (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore) collaborated to complete this study published in National Science Review. They found a new mechanism to generate asymmetric temperature profiles without dynamic modulation. Specifically, graded thermal conductivities could induce the imitated advection in pure and passive conduction, which has a similar temperature field effect to the realistic advection. With the imitated advection, heat could spontaneously converge to the center like black holes.

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Our atom-moving laser sculpts matter into weird new shapes—new research

Getting atoms to do what you want isn't easy—but it's at the heart of a lot of groundbreaking research in physics.

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Measuring currents in the heart at millimeter resolution with a diamond quantum sensor

Heart problems, such as tachycardia and fibrillation, arise mainly from imperfections in the way electric currents propagate through the heart. Unfortunately, it is difficult for doctors to study these imperfections since measuring these currents involves highly invasive procedures and exposure to X-ray radiation.

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Researchers unfold elegant equations to explain the enigma of expanding origami

Most materials—from rubber bands to steel beams—thin out as they are stretched, but engineers can use origami's interlocking ridges and precise folds to reverse this tendency and build devices that grow wider as they are pulled apart.

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Scientists fine-tune 'tweezers of sound' for contactless manipulation of objects

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have successfully enhanced technology to lift small particles using sound waves. Their "acoustic tweezers" could lift things from reflective surfaces without physical contact, but stability remained an issue. Now, using an adaptive algorithm to fine-tune how the tweezers are controlled, they have drastically improved how stably the particles can be lifted. With further miniaturization, this technology could be deployed in a vast range of environments, including space.

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Sandcastle engineering: A geotechnical engineer explains how water, air and sand create solid structures

If you want to understand why some sandcastles are tall and have intricate structures while others are nearly shapeless lumps of sand, it helps to have a background in geotechnical engineering.

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Scientists are unraveling the mystery of the arrow of time

The flow of time from the past to the future is a central feature of how we experience the world. But precisely how this phenomenon, known as the arrow of time, arises from the microscopic interactions among particles and cells is a mystery—one that researchers at the CUNY Graduate Center Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences (ITS) are helping to unravel with the publication of a new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters. The findings could have important implications in a variety of disciplines, including physics, neuroscience, and biology.

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Experts go all in when CEBAF is in trouble

For decades, physicists and researchers from around the globe have flocked to the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility to unlock the subatomic mysteries of how the universe works.

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Scientists identify liquid-like atoms in densely packed solid glasses

Metallic glass is an important advanced alloy, holding promise for broad engineering applications. It appears as a solid form in many aspects, with beautiful metal appearance, exceeding elasticity, high strength, and a densely packed atomic structure.

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New evidence that water separates into two different liquids at low temperatures

A new kind of "phase transition" in water was first proposed 30 years ago in a study by researchers from Boston University. Because the transition has been predicted to occur at supercooled conditions, however, confirming its existence has been a challenge. That's because at these low temperatures, water really does not want to be a liquid, instead it wants to rapidly become ice. Because of its hidden status, much is still unknown about this liquid-liquid phase transition, unlike the everyday examples of phase transitions in water between a solid or vapor phase and a liquid phase.

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How do we know that time exists?

The alarm goes off in the morning. You catch your morning train to the office. You take a lunch break. You catch your evening train back. You go for an hour's run. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Repeat. Birthdays are celebrated, deaths commemorated. New countries are born, empires rise and fall. The whole of human existence is bound to the passing of time.

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Complex patterns: Building a bridge from the large to the small

For many processes important for life such as cell division, cell migration, and the development of organs, the spatially and temporally correct formation of biological patterns is essential. To understand these processes, the principal task consists not in explaining how patterns form out of a homogeneous initial condition, but in explaining how simple patterns change into increasingly complex ones. Illuminating the mechanisms of this complex self-organization on various spatial and temporal scales is a key challenge for science.

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Team investigates collective actuation of an elastic network of 'mini-robots'

The physics of collective motion has been well-studied for the last thirty years. Until now, scientists have focused on the study of "fluid" movements, such as those of flocks of birds or schools of fish. Now, using an ingenious experimental device, researchers from the Gulliver laboratory (ESPCI Paris-PSL / CNRS) have revealed the possibility of collective movements in elastic solid structures. Their work sheds light on the mechanism and parameters that control this so-called "collective actuation." This work is published in the journal Nature Physics.

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Turning to the laws of physics to study how cells move

Scientists have long been concerned with trying to understand how cells move, for example in pursuit of new ways to control the spread of cancer. The field of biology continues to illuminate the infinitely complex processes by which collections of cells communicate, adapt, and organize along biochemical pathways.

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New model describes puffs, slugs and the role of randomness in transitional turbulence

Mention the word "turbulence" and you might conjure up images of bumpy flights, stormy weather, and choppy ocean or river currents. For many, turbulence is a fact of daily life, yet it is also one of the most poorly understood physical phenomena. In particular, the point at which a fluid's motion transitions from smooth and predictable flow (known as "laminar") to random and unpredictable (known as "turbulence")—the so-called laminar-turbulent transition—continues to puzzle scientists since Osborne Reynolds first experimentally studied it in pipes in 1883.

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A fluid interaction inspires a breakthrough in fluid dynamics

It's a little-known fact that tiny particles like blood cells drift sideways when moving past a rough surface, but this quirk has drawn much attention from researchers solving industrial problems.

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Big splash: Scientists present a new model for predicting droplet splashing behavior on solid surfaces

The study of liquid droplets and their behavior upon impingement is of major importance in many fields, including agriculture, engineering, and medicine. Droplet behavior prediction has use in spray painting and pesticide sprays, inkjet technology for printing, and aerosol generation during rainfall. A deeper understanding of this phenomenon is, therefore, imperative not only for advancing our knowledge of fluid physics but also technology.

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Capturing high pressures in diamond capsules

Preservation of the high-pressure states of materials at ambient conditions is a long-sought-after goal for fundamental research and practical applications.

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Analysis of air flows emitted by performers from the MET highlight COVID-19 risks

A combined team of researchers from Princeton University and the University of Montpellier analyzed the COVID-19 infection risk for singers and musicians performing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The paper is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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Wobbling droplets in space confirm late professor's theory

At a time when astronomers around the world are reveling in new views of the distant cosmos, an experiment on the International Space Station has given Cornell researchers fresh insight into something a little closer to home: water.

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Do wind instruments disperse COVID aerosol droplets?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many live musical events and festivals were postponed and even canceled to protect musicians and audience members. When they started performing again, many groups resorted to performing with remote or limited crowds. They also adapted their repertoire to promote pieces featuring strings and made significant changes in the number of musicians and their positions in the auditorium.

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A simple way of sculpting matter into complex shapes

A new method for shaping matter into complex shapes, with the use of 'twisted' light, has been demonstrated in research at the University of Strathclyde.

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Matter at extreme conditions of very high temperature and pressure turns out to be remarkably simple and universal

Scientists at Queen Mary University of London have made two discoveries about the behavior of "supercritical matter"—matter at the critical point where the differences between liquids and gases seemingly disappear.

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A step towards quantum gravity

In Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity arises when a massive object distorts the fabric of spacetime the way a ball sinks into a piece of stretched cloth. Solving Einstein's equations by using quantities that apply across all space and time coordinates could enable physicists to eventually find their "white whale": a quantum theory of gravity.

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China claims new world record for strongest steady magnetic field

On August 12, the hybrid magnet of the Steady High Magnetic Field Facility (SHMFF) in Hefei, China, produced a steady field of 45.22 tesla (T), the highest steady magnetic field by a working magnet in the world.

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A new method boosts wind farms' energy output, without new equipment

Virtually all wind turbines, which produce more than 5 percent of the world's electricity, are controlled as if they were individual, free-standing units. In fact, the vast majority are part of larger wind farm installations involving dozens or even hundreds of turbines, whose wakes can affect each other.

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Ultracold atoms dressed by light simulate gauge theories

Our modern understanding of the physical world is based on gauge theories: mathematical models from theoretical physics that describe the interactions between elementary particles (such as electrons or quarks) and explain quantum mechanically three of the fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces. The fourth fundamental force, gravity, is described by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which, while not yet understood in the quantum regime, is also a gauge theory. Gauge theories can also be used to explain the exotic quantum behavior of electrons in certain materials or the error correction codes that future quantum computers will need to work reliably, and are the workhorse of modern physics.

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In simulation of how water freezes, artificial intelligence breaks the ice

A team based at Princeton University has accurately simulated the initial steps of ice formation by applying artificial intelligence (AI) to solving equations that govern the quantum behavior of individual atoms and molecules.

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Graphite changes to hexagonal diamond in picoseconds

The graphite-diamond phase transition is of particular interest for fundamental reasons and a wide range of applications.

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Robotic motion in curved space defies standard laws of physics

When humans, animals, and machines move throughout the world, they always push against something, whether it's the ground, air, or water. Until recently, physicists believed this to be a constant, following the law of conservation momentum. Now, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have proven the opposite—when bodies exist in curved spaces, it turns out that they can in fact move without pushing against something.

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Do 'bouncing universes' have a beginning?

In trying to understand the nature of the cosmos, some theorists propose that the universe expands and contracts in endless cycles.

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Putting a new spin on the football spiral

Only a handful of researchers have studied why an American football flies in such a unique trajectory, rifling through the air with remarkable precision, but also swerving, wobbling, and even tumbling as it barrels downfield. Now, ballistics experts at Stevens Institute of Technology have, for the first time, applied their understanding of artillery shells to explain this unique movement, creating the most precise model to date of the flight of a spiraling football.

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In search of universal laws of diffusion with resetting

The manner in which animals penetrate a neighborhood searching for food shows similarities to the movements of liquid particles in plant capillaries or gas molecules near an absorbing wall. These phenomena—and many others in nature—can be thought of as processes called anomalous diffusion with resetting. Recent research suggests that they have properties of a very universal nature.

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Optimizing SWAP networks for quantum computing

A research partnership at the Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Chicago-based Super.tech (acquired by ColdQuanta in May 2022) demonstrated how to optimize the execution of the ZZ SWAP network protocol, important to quantum computing. The team also introduced a new technique for quantum error mitigation that will improve the network protocol's implementation in quantum processors. The experimental data was published this July in Physical Review Research, adding more pathways in the near term to implement quantum algorithms using gate-based quantum computing.

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Unlocking the recipe for designer magnetic particles for next generation computing technologies

Traditional computing is increasingly being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to achieve pattern recognition capabilities across many domains, including healthcare, manufacturing and personal computing. The increasing complexity of "neural networks" required for AI capabilities causes an exponential rise in energy consumption. In the face of ever-shrinking energy budgets, there is a growing need for data processing at the collection point, known as the edge, especially for real-time applications.

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Testing shows photoemission orbital tomography can detect sigma orbitals

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Germany and Austria reports that it is possible to use photoemission orbital tomography to detect σ orbitals. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes modifying one aspect of photoemission orbital tomography to make σ orbitals visible.

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Even scientists can't keep up with all the newly discovered particles. Our new naming scheme could help

Physicists at Cern have discovered a plethora of new exotic particles being created in the collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider over the past few years. So many have been found in fact, that our collaboration (LHCb), which has discovered 59 out of 66 recent particles, has come up with a new naming scheme to help us impose some order on the growing particle zoo

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Using a supercomputer to find the best way to mix two fluids

A pair of researchers, one with the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research, the other with Imperial College, has found more efficient ways to mix two fluids using simulations run on a supercomputer. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Fluids, Maximilian Eggl and Peter Schmid describe the factors they took into account in creating their simulations and the strategies they found that worked the best.

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New materials research sees transformations at an atomic level

When manufacturing techniques turn metals, ceramics or composites into a technologically useful form, understanding the mechanism of the phase transformation process is essential to shape the behavior of those high-performance materials. Seeing those transformations in real time is difficult, however.

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When particles move: A deep dive into the relationship between cohesion and erosion

Landslides are one striking example of erosion. When the bonds that hold particles of dirt and rock together are overwhelmed by a force—often in the form of water—sufficient to pull the rock and soil apart, that same force breaks the bonds with other rock and soil that hold them in place. Another type of erosion involves using a small air jet to remove dust from a surface. When the force of the turbulent air is strong enough to break the bonds that hold the individual dust particles, or grains, together and cause them to stick to the surface, that's erosion, too.

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The strength of the strong force

Much ado was made about the Higgs boson when this elusive particle was discovered in 2012. Though it was touted as giving ordinary matter mass, interactions with the Higgs field only generate about 1 percent of ordinary mass. The other 99 percent comes from phenomena associated with the strong force, the fundamental force that binds smaller particles called quarks into larger particles called protons and neutrons that comprise the nucleus of the atoms of ordinary matter.

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Automating neutron experiments with AI

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are developing a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence device for neutron scattering called Hyperspectral Computed Tomography, or HyperCT. The fully automated, AI-driven platform can rotate a sample in almost any direction, eliminating the need for human intervention and significantly reducing lengthy experiment times.

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Improving measurements of the kilogram

Until 2018, the SI unit of mass, the kilogram, was defined as the mass of a real object: the International Prototype Kilogram, kept in a secure facility in the outskirts of Paris. On November 16, 2018, the kilogram was given a new, internationally-accepted definition, based on three defining constants: the speed of light, the Planck constant, and the hyperfine transition frequency of cesium. One of the methods to measure a mass based on the new definition is a device named the Kibble balance.

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Scientists reveal distribution of dark matter around galaxies 12 billion years ago

A collaboration led by scientists at Nagoya University in Japan has investigated the nature of dark matter surrounding galaxies seen as they were 12 billion years ago, billions of years further back in time than ever before. Their findings, published in Physical Review Letters, offer the tantalizing possibility that the fundamental rules of cosmology may differ when examining the early history of our universe.

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AI tackles the challenge of materials structure prediction

Researchers have designed a machine learning method that can predict the structure of new materials with five times the efficiency of the current standard, removing a key roadblock in developing advanced materials for applications such as energy storage and photovoltaics.

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Magnetic quantum material broadens platform for probing next-gen information technologies

Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron scattering to determine whether a specific material's atomic structure could host a novel state of matter called a spiral spin liquid. By tracking tiny magnetic moments known as "spins" on the honeycomb lattice of a layered iron trichloride magnet, the team found the first 2D system to host a spiral spin liquid.

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Femtosecond laser bionic fabrication enabling bubble manipulation

The manipulation and use of gas in water have broad applications in energy utilization, chemical manufacturing, environmental protection, agricultural breeding, microfluidic chips, and health care. The possibility of driving underwater bubbles to move directionally and continuously over a given distance via unique gradient geometries has been successfully archived, opening room for more research on this exciting topic. In many cases, however, the gradient geometry is microscope and unsuitable for transporting gas at microscope level because most microscale gradient structures provide the insufficient driving force. This makes underwater self-transportation of bubbles and gases at the microscopic level a big challenge.

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Roboticists discover alternative physics

Energy, mass, velocity. These three variables make up Einstein's iconic equation E=MC2. But how did Einstein know about these concepts in the first place? A precursor step to understanding physics is identifying relevant variables. Without the concept of energy, mass, and velocity, not even Einstein could discover relativity. But can such variables be discovered automatically? Doing so could greatly accelerate scientific discovery.

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Researchers develop novel 3D atomic force microscopy probes

A team of researchers from NYU Abu Dhabi's Advanced Microfluidics and Microdevices Laboratory (AMMLab) have developed new kind of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) probes in true three-dimensional shapes they call 3DTIPs. AFM technology allows scientists to observe, measure, and manipulate samples and micro and nanoscale entities with unprecedented precision. The new 3DTIPs, which are manufactured using a single-step 3D printing process, can be utilized for a wider variety of applications—and potential observations and discoveries—than standard, more limited silicon-based probes that are considered state-of-the-art in our current time.

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This Australian experiment is on the hunt for an elusive particle that could help unlock the mystery of dark matter

Australian scientists are making strides towards solving one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: the nature of invisible "dark matter."

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Imaging the brain with ultrasound waves

Both ultrasound for medical imaging and seismology for imaging the Earth's interior measure the propagation of waves through matter. For example, when seismic waves encounter material differences in the Earth's interior, such as between different rock formations, they are reflected and refracted at their interfaces. As a result, the speed of the waves changes. If researchers measure these waves at the surface, they can draw conclusions about the structure of the Earth's interior, as well as the composition of the rocks and their material properties such as density, pressure or temperature.

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