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Physics and Matter News - February 2010 Archives
 | Virginia Tech Engineering Science and Mechanics Professor Hassan Aref, and his colleague Johan Roenby at the Technical University of Denmark shed new light on the chaotic motion of a solid body moving through a fluid. They claim to have discovered two basic mechanisms that lead to chaotic motion of the body as it interacts with its vortex wake. The work may lead to better understanding and control of real body-vortex interactions. ...> Full Article |
 | Brown University physicist Vesna Mitrovic and colleagues at Brown and in France have discovered magnetic waves that fluctuate when exposed to certain conditions in a superconducting material. The discovery may help scientists understand more fully the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity at the quantum level. Results are published in Physical Review Letters. ...> Full Article |
 | For nearly half a century, scientists have been trying to figure out how to build a cost-effective and reasonably sized X-ray laser that could, among other things, provide super high-resolution imaging. And for the past two decades, University of Colorado at Boulder physics professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn have been inching closer to that goal. ...> Full Article |
 | Physicists have taken major step forward in the development of practical phonon lasers, which emit sound in much the same way that optical lasers emit light. The development should lead to new, high-resolution imaging devices and medical applications. Just as optical lasers have been incorporated into countless, ubiquitous devices, a phonon laser is likely to be critical to a host of as yet unimaginable applications. ...> Full Article |
 | Queen's University Professor Wolfgang Rau is among a group of 60 scientists involved in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment whose latest findings are published in the latest edition of Science magazine. Professor Rau says the project is among the top two or three most important experiments on this subject in the world. ...> Full Article |
 | Using an atom interferometer, UC Berkeley scientists have tested one of the foundations of Einstein's general theory of relativity: that time slows down in a gravitational field. Their experiment proves that Einstein was correct with 10,000 times more precision than previous experiments. They achieve this precision by comparing the interference between matter waves separated by 4/1000 inch. ...> Full Article |
Two University of Colorado at Boulder physicists are part of a collaborative team working with the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York that have created the hottest temperature matter ever measured in the universe -- 7.2 trillion degrees Fahrenheit.
...> Full Article
 | Max Planck physicists have developed an experiment to investigate the random motion of quantum particles. ...> Full Article |
A team of physicists at the University of Calgary is able to mount up to two photons on top of one another to construct a variety of quantum states of light.
...> Full Article
 | Recent analyses from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory establish that collisions of gold ions traveling at nearly the speed of light have created matter at a temperature of about 4 trillion degrees Celsius -- higher than the temperature needed to melt protons and neutrons into a plasma of quarks and gluons. Details of the findings will be published in Physical Review Letters. ...> Full Article |
Recent international studies of math and science education suggest that students in the United States are falling further behind their foreign counterparts.
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Physicists may have glimpsed a particle that is a leading candidate for mysterious dark matter but say conclusive evidence remains elusive.
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 | Physicists at JILA have for the first time observed chemical reactions near absolute zero, demonstrating that chemistry is possible at ultralow temperatures and that reaction rates can be controlled using quantum mechanics, the peculiar rules of submicroscopic physics. ...> Full Article |
 | A collaboration between the University of Chicago and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory aims to improve the efficiency of superconducting radio frequency cavities made of niobium to accelerate beams of subatomic particles in the next generation of high-energy physics experiments. The result could be accelerators powerful enough to open new frontiers in physics without the need for a massive increase in size. The project has $1.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. ...> Full Article |
 | The nucleus of one form of carbon is much larger and more stable than expected. ...> Full Article |
 | Princeton University's Jason Petta has demonstrated a method that alters the properties of a lone electron without disturbing the trillions of electrons in its immediate surroundings. The feat is essential to the development of future varieties of superfast computers with near-limitless capacities for data. ...> Full Article |
 | Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have built an enhanced version of an experimental atomic clock based on a single aluminum atom that is now the world's most precise clock, more than twice as precise as the previous pacesetter based on a mercury atom. The new aluminum clock would neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years, according to measurements to be reported in Physical Review Letters.
...> Full Article |
 | MIT researchers have demonstrated the first laser built from germanium that can emit wavelengths of light useful for optical communications. It's also the first germanium laser to operate at room temperature. Unlike the materials typically used in lasers, germanium is easy to incorporate into existing processes for manufacturing silicon chips. So the result could prove an important step toward computers that move data -- and maybe even perform calculations -- using light instead of electricity. ...> Full Article |
A team of University of Toronto chemists have made a major contribution to the emerging field of quantum biology, observing quantum mechanics at work in photosynthesis in marine algae.
...> Full Article
 | Neutron scattering experiments performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory give strong evidence that, if superconductivity is related to a material's magnetic properties, the same mechanisms are behind both copper-based high-temperature superconductors and the newly discovered iron-based superconductors. ...> Full Article |
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