Feature Channels: Particle Physics

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The lab of Uli Wiesner at Cornell University, has joined scientists pursuing the structure, and atom arrangement of quasicrystals.

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Calculations of a subatomic particle called the sigma provide insight into the communication between subatomic particles deep inside the heart of matter.

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Ameren Missouri and Saint Louis University are partners on an innovative weather forecasting system called Quantum Weather that provides detailed severe weather information to improve energy restoration for customers during storms.

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An advanced particle accelerator designed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory could reduce the cost and increase the versatility of facilities for physics research and cancer treatment.

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Ty Robinson talks about what eclipses demonstrate about the movement of exoplanets and touches on how alien life may fit into this celestial event.

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Within the study of fluid dynamics, the effect of curved, convex or compliant surfaces on the dynamics of impacting drops is still relatively unknown, despite its extreme relevance to modern-day applications, such as 3-D ink-jet printing and the delivery of pesticides on leaves. Researchers in the United Kingdom have now detailed these effects by investigating the impact of water droplets on spherical soft surfaces. They present their research in this week’s Physics of Fluids.

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After more than a year of operation at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the world’s smallest neutrino detector has found a big fingerprint of the elusive, electrically neutral particles that interact only weakly with matter.

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Many exoplanets to be found by coming high-powered telescopes will probably be tidally locked — with one side permanently facing their host star — according to new research by astronomer Rory Barnes of the University of Washington.

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SLAC is helping to build and test one of the biggest and most sensitive detectors ever designed to catch a WIMP – the LUX-ZEPLIN or LZ detector.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab and Purdue University developed new theories and 3-D simulations to explain what’s at work in the mysterious jets of energy and matter beaming from the center of galaxies at nearly the speed of light.

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Investigators at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new sensor array-based instrument that offers ultra-low noise detection of small amounts of energy for a number of applications. The new device allows for the collection of data from many more detectors than was previously possible.

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Americans will be treated to a spectacular total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 in an approximately 70-mile-wide zone stretching from the Northwest to the Southeast. In New Jersey, a partial eclipse will begin at about 1:20 p.m., peak at about 2:45 p.m. and end shortly before 4 p.m. that day. The moon will block about 70 percent of the sun at the state’s northern border to 80 percent in Cape May, according to Carlton “Tad” Pryor, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

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In quantum mechanics particles can behave as waves and take many paths through an experiment, even when a classical marble could only take one of them at any time. However, it requires only combinations of pairs of paths, rather than three or more, to determine the probability for a particle to arrive somewhere. This principle is a consequence of Born’s rule, a cornerstone of quantum physics and any measured violation of it might hint at new physics. Now, researchers at the Universities of Vienna and Tel Aviv have addressed this question for the first time explicitly using the wave interference of large molecules behind various combinations of single, double, and triple slits. The analysis – published in the Journal ‘Science Advances’ – confirms the formalism of established quantum physics for massive particles.

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Applying the principle of mediocrity to the Drake equation, a probabilistic estimate of the number of intelligent species in the universe, leads to the conclusion that technological species go extinct early in their development.

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Kansas State University physicist Chris Sorensen offers tips to safely watch the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, both inside and outside the path of totality.

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A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has made major strides recently in the study and manipulation of light. The team's most recent discovery of the sensing capability of microresonators could have impacts in the creation of biomedical devices, electronics and biohazard detection devices.

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Alexandra Cramer, William & Mary, has always been interested in science, especially astronomy. In high school she discovered that the best foundation for pursuing a career in astronomy was through physics. That drive and interest in physics has led to her selection as the latest recipient of the Jefferson Science Associates Minority/Female Undergraduate Research Assistantship at Jefferson Lab.

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The moon’s magnetic field lasted 1 billion to 2.5 billion years longer than once thought – a finding with important implications for habitability on other moons and planets throughout the universe, a Rutgers University-New Brunswick professor says.

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Astronomers present new radar image of the moon.

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Most of the nuclear reactions that drive the nucleosynthesis of the elements in our universe occur in very extreme stellar plasma conditions. This intense environment found in the deep interiors of stars has made it nearly impossible for scientists to perform nuclear measurements in these conditions – until now. In a unique cross-disciplinary collaboration between the fields of plasma physics, nuclear astrophysics and laser fusion, a team of researchers including scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Ohio University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), describe experiments performed in conditions like those of stellar interiors. The team’s findings were published today by Nature Physics.

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After conducting a cosmic inventory of sorts to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes, astronomers from the University of California, Irvine have concluded that there are probably tens of millions of the enigmatic, dark objects in the Milky Way – far more than expected.

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After more than a year of operation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the COHERENT experiment, using the world’s smallest neutrino detector, has found a big fingerprint of the elusive, electrically neutral particles that interact only weakly with matter.

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Astrophysicists have a fairly accurate understanding of how the universe ages: That’s the conclusion of new results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a large international science collaboration, including researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, that put models of cosmic structure formation and evolution to the most precise test yet.

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Scientists have created the most accurate map of the structure of dark matter in the Universe, supporting the theory that dark energy and dark matter make up most of the Universe.

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Dark Energy Survey scientists have unveiled the most accurate measurement ever made of the present large-scale structure of the universe. These measurements of the amount and “clumpiness” (or distribution) of dark matter in the present-day cosmos were made with a precision that, for the first time, rivals that of inferences from the early universe by the European Space Agency’s orbiting Planck observatory

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Scientists have discovered the strongest evidence to date for a stratosphere on a planet outside our solar system. The exoplanet WASP-121b results obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope are published in the journal Nature.

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Scientists at Berkeley Lab have developed new computer models to explore what happens when a black hole joins with a neutron star – the superdense remnant of an exploded star.

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Flux-closure domain structures are microscopic topological phenomena found in ferroelectric thin films that feature distinct electric polarization properties. These closed-loop domains have garnered attention among researchers studying new ferroelectric devices, and in the development of thin films for such devices, researchers have thought that contact with commonly used oxide electrodes limits FCD formation. However, a group of researchers in China has shown otherwise. They report their work in this week’s Applied Physics Letters.

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Los Alamos National Laboratory has produced the first known material capable of single-photon emission at room temperature and at telecommunications wavelengths.

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Some of the world’s tiniest crystals are known as “artificial atoms” because they can organize themselves into structures that look like molecules, including “superlattices” that are potential building blocks for novel materials. Now scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have made the first observation of these nanocrystals rapidly forming superlattices while they are themselves still growing.

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University of Iowa astronomers have located quasars inside four dusty starburst galaxies. The observations a role for quasars in how these types of galaxies, where huge numbers of stars are created, ceased making stars.

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In a first-of-its-kind analysis, Northwestern University astrophysicists have discovered that up to half of the matter in our Milky Way galaxy may come from distant galaxies. As a result, each one of us may be made in part from extragalactic matter. Using supercomputer simulations, the researchers found an unexpected mode for how galaxies acquired matter: intergalactic transfer. Supernova explosions eject copious amounts of gas from galaxies, causing atoms to be transported from one galaxy to another via powerful galactic winds.

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New maps of dark matter dynamics in the Universe have been produced by a team of international cosmologists.

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Several Kansas State University scientists are involved in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE, a large international collaboration that is detecting and studying neutrinos to understand dark matter, black holes and the origins of the universe.

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A new era in international particle physics research officially began July 21 with a unique groundbreaking held a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. Dignitaries, scientists and engineers from around the world marked the start of construction of a massive international experiment that could change our understanding of the universe. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) will house the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which will be built and operated by roughly 1,000 scientists and engineers from 30 countries.

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Scientists have used data from the intergalactic medium — the vast, largely empty space between galaxies — to narrow down what dark matter could be.

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In a unique groundbreaking ceremony held this afternoon at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, a group of dignitaries, scientists and engineers from around the world marked the start of construction of a massive international experiment that could change our understanding of the universe. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) will house the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), which will be built and operated by a group of roughly 1,000 scientists and engineers from 30 countries.

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Over the next decade, 800,000 tons of rock will be excavated from the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, to accommodate a particle detector filled with 70,000 tons of liquid argon cooled to -300 degrees Fahrenheit to study neutrinos beamed from Fermilab in Illinois. It’s called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

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Skyrmions are a kind of nanomagnet, comprised of a spin-correlated ensemble of electrons acting as a topological magnet on certain microscopic surfaces. The precise properties, like spin orientation, of such nanomagnets can store information. But how might you go about moving or manipulating these nanomagnets at will to store the data you want? New research demonstrates such read/write ability using bursts of electrons, encoding topological energy structures robustly enough for potential data storage applications. The researchers report their work this week in Applied Physics Letters.

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In a unique groundbreaking ceremony July 21 at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, S.D., an international group of dignitaries, scientists and engineers will mark the start of construction of a massive experiment that could change our understanding of the universe.

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Feature describes first laboratory generation of high-energy shock waves.

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University of Arkansas physicists define new limits in optomechanical cooling to better help understand the quantum state

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