Feature Channels: Particle Physics

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Researchers from West Virginia University have received $1.34 million to develop machine-learning software for the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Researchers from the University of Portsmouth have made vital contributions to the observations of four new gravitational waves, which were announced this weekend (1 December).

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A new detection of supersoft X-ray emissions that are clearly not powered by fusion is showing scientists that fusion is not the only way such emissions occur, according to a study published today (Dec. 3) in the journal Nature Astronomy.

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Why does quantum mechanics work so well for microscopic objects, yet macroscopic objects are described by ‘classical physics’? This question has bothered physicists since the development of quantum theory more than a 100 years ago. Researchers of Delft University of Technology and the University of Vienna have now devised a macroscopic system that exhibits entanglement between mechanical phonons and optical photons. They tested the entanglement using a Bell test, one of the most convincing and important tests to show a system behaves non-classically.

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HANOVER, N.H. - November 29, 2018 - A new theory based on the physics of cloud formation and neutron scattering could help animators create more lifelike movies, according to a Dartmouth-led study. Software developed using the technique focuses on how light interacts with microscopic particles to develop computer-generated images.

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Fabrication of the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope-prime (CCAT-p), a powerful telescope capable of mapping the sky at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths, has now begun, marking a major milestone in the project. The 6-meter aperture telescope will be installed near the top of Cerro Chajnantor, a peak in Chile’s Atacama Desert. CCAT-p will provide insights into “cosmic dawn” – when the first stars were born after the Big Bang – as well as how stars and galaxies form and the dark-energy-driven expansion of the universe.

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HANOVER, N.H. - November 29, 2018 - A new theory based on the physics of cloud formation and neutron scattering could help animators create more lifelike movies, according to a Dartmouth-led study. Software developed using the technique focuses on how light interacts with microscopic particles to develop computer-generated images.

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The University of Illinois at Chicago has received a $1.1 million, five-year grant from NASA’s Astrobiology Institute to identify biosignatures of life on Titan — Saturn’s largest moon — from either currently living or long-extinct life. Titan’s ocean, which sits below a thick ice layer, is believed to have conditions favorable to life.

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The Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has broken a new record by ending its first neutron production cycle at its design power level of 1.4 megawatts.

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Leah Broussard, a physicist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has so much fun exploring the neutron that she alternates between calling it her “laboratory” and “playground” for understanding the universe.

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A planet discovered by a team co-led by Ohio State University astronomers spent this week crushing other planets in an international, intergalactic competition known as the ExoCup.

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The Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has named Dr. Brett McGuire of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) the recipient of its 2019 Early Career Award.

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Two undergraduate researchers will join Geneseo planetary geologist Nick Warner at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Nov. 26 in Pasadena, Calif., for the scheduled 3 p.m. ET landing of InSight, NASA’s latest mission to Mars. The team will work for several weeks to characterize the area around the lander and make recommendations to NASA engineers on where to place the sensitive geological instruments that will explore the planet's crust, mantle and core.

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Forget those shepherding moons. Gravity and the odd shapes of asteroid Chariklo and dwarf planet Haumea – small objects deep in our solar system – can be credited for forming and maintaining their own rings, according new research in Nature Astronomy.

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An international team of scientists has discovered a new, massive star system—one that also challenges existing theories of how large stars eventually die.   

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November 16 marks the premiere of a unique film and musical experience inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope’s famous Deep Field image. It represents a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Grammy award-winning American composer and conductor Eric Whitacre, producers Music Productions, multi award-winning artists 59 Productions, and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of our Universe features a variety of Hubble’s stunning imagery and includes 11 computer-generated visualizations of far-flung galaxies, nebulas, and star clusters developed by STScI. The film is available on YouTube and will be shared with the world through screenings and live performances around the globe.

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Stuart Henderson, director of the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, has been appointed the Governor's Distinguished CEBAF professor at Old Dominion University. The position is supported by the Commonwealth of Virginia and is named for the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, which is the main research facility located at Jefferson Lab.

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The most luminous galaxy in the universe has been caught in the act of stripping away nearly half the mass from at least three of its smaller neighbors.

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It's not every day you get to observe a gamma-ray binary system. In fact, it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience comparable to seeing Halley's Comet or a solar eclipse. Here's what a UD team saw.

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Astronomers may have finally uncovered the long-sought progenitor to a specific type of exploding star by sifting through NASA Hubble Space Telescope archival data. The supernova, called a Type Ic, is thought to detonate after its massive star has shed or been stripped of its outer layers of hydrogen and helium.

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When rains fell on the arid Atacama Desert, it was reasonable to expect floral blooms to follow. Instead, the water brought death. An international team of planetary astrobiologists has found that after encountering never-before-seen rainfall three years ago at the arid core of Peru’s Atacama Desert, the heavy precipitation wiped out most of the microbes that had lived there.

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Led by Northern Arizona University astronomy professor David Trilling, the group determined ’Oumuamua's general size, which was too small to be seen by the telescope, as well as finding it may be 10 times more reflective than comets in the solar system.

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Young stars, like young children, are messy eaters, swallowing most of the material falling onto them but spitting the rest out. The gas a newborn star fails to eat gets ejected outward at supersonic speeds, creating shock waves that heat the interstellar medium and cause it to glow in infrared light. NASA’s Webb telescope will examine stellar outflows and shocks to learn more about how stars like our sun form.

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Invited Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory talks at 60th American Physical Society-Department of Plasma Physics annual meeting.

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The Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility now has a few more fellows on campus. The American Physical Society, a professional membership society that works on behalf of the physics community, recently announced its list of 2018 fellowships.

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Deep inside the dusty, messy cores of merging galaxies are pairs of black holes feasting on material and moving closer to coalescence. Near-infrared images by the Hubble and Keck telescopes are giving astronomers their best glimpse yet of this process.

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A whiff of plasma, when combined with a nanosized catalyst, can cause chemical reactions to proceed faster, more selectively, at lower temperatures, or at lower voltages than without plasma. Using computer modeling, researchers investigated the interactions between plasmas and metal catalysts embedded into ceramic beads in a packed bed reactor. They discovered that together, the metals, beads and gas create plasma that intensifies electric fields and locally heats the catalyst, which can then accelerate reactions. They will present at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.

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ALMA observations of Abell 2597 show the first clear and compelling evidence for the simultaneous infalling and outflow of gas driven by a supermassive black hole.

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Astrophysicists have long wondered how cosmic magnetic fields fields are produced, sustained, and magnified. PPPL scientists have shown that plasma turbulence might be responsible, providing a possible answer to what has been called one of the most important unsolved problems in plasma astrophysics.

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Astronomers have found what could be one of the universe’s oldest stars, a body almost entirely made of materials spewed from the Big Bang.

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Scientists are working to dramatically speed up the development of fusion energy in an effort to deliver power to the electric grid soon enough to help mitigate impacts of climate change. The arrival of a breakthrough technology

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The Plasma Sciences Expo—planned as the biggest celebration of plasma physics in the country—presents teachers, students and the public with a free opportunity to explore what scientists call “the fourth state of matter.”

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We all know microwaves are good for cooking popcorn, but scientists have recently shown they can also prevent dangerous waves in plasmas and help produce clean, nearly limitless energy with fusion.

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As you walk away from a campfire on a cool autumn night, you quickly feel colder. The same thing happens in outer space. As it spins, the sun continuously flings hot material into space, out to the furthest reaches of our solar system.

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The cosmos is a void dotted with stars and an ever-increasing number of newly-observed planets beyond our solar system. Yet, how these stars and planets formed out of clouds of interstellar dust and gas remains mysterious.

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Scientists have produced an extremely bright spot of light that can travel at any speed—including faster than the speed of light. Researchers have found a way to use this concept, called “flying focus,” to move an intense laser focal point over long distances at any speed. Their technique includes capturing some of the fastest movies ever recorded.

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New insights have been gained about stellar winds, streams of high-speed charged particles called plasma that blow through interstellar space. These winds, created by eruptions from stars or stellar explosions, carry with them strong magnetic fields which can interact with or effect other magnetic fields

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Imagine building a machine so advanced and precise you need a supercomputer to help design it. That’s exactly what scientists and engineers in Germany did when building the Wendelstein 7-X experiment.

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Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe.

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Imagine looking under your couch and instead of finding fluffy dust bunnies, you see the dust is arranged in straight lines—you might wonder what caused this order.

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This afternoon, TRIUMF welcomed on-site The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, for a special visit and announcement about public investments into medical isotope research and innovation infrastructure.

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Envision a yellow submarine on a rocket to Europa as a future culmination in the search for extraterrestrial life. A new $7 million NASA Astrobiology grant is fueling an alliance of oceanic astrobiology researchers who will unify their focus to probe oceans on our solar system neighbors for signs of life.

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A natural “battery” of briny liquids and volcanic minerals may have produced Mars’ organic carbon, according to new analysis of three Martian meteorites by a team including researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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In independent studies reported in Science and Nature, scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University report two important advances: They measured collective vibrations of electrons for the first time and showed how collective interactions of the electrons with other factors appear to boost superconductivity.

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Like a fly that wanders into a flashlight’s beam, a young star’s planet-forming disk is casting a giant shadow, nicknamed the “Bat Shadow.” Hubble’s near-infrared vision captured the shadow of the disk of this fledgling star, which resides nearly 1,300 light-years away in a stellar nursery called the Serpens Nebula. In this Hubble image, the shadow spans approximately 200 times the length of our solar system. It is visible in the upper right portion of the picture. The young star and its disk likely resemble what the solar system looked like when it was only 1 or 2 million years old.

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Argonne celebrates National Cat Day by highlighting the scientific prowess of the laboratory’s CATS — Collaborative Access Teams, that is. These teams rely on hard X-ray beams generated by the Advanced Photon Source to investigate materials that are difficult to observe and measure.

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How do you create the largest 3D map of the universe? It’s as easy as teaching 5,000 robots how to “dance.” DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, is an experiment that will target millions of distant galaxies by automatically swiveling fiber-optic positioners to point at them and gather their light. In creating this detailed map, scientists hope to learn more about dark energy, which is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.

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In the search for more secure communications technologies designed to prevent hacking, a team of Stony Brook University researchers created a technology that uses quantum memory applications at room temperatures to securely store and transfer information.

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The Hubble telescope has photographed the “Ghost Nebula,” which has eerie, semitransparent flowing veils of gas and dust. The creepy-looking nebula is located 550 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia.