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Physics and Matter News - July 2009 Archives
 | A particle gun tested at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source and soon to be installed at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source fires liquid droplets less than a millionth of a meter in diameter, hundreds of thousands of times a second or faster. The sample jet sends the droplets across a tightly focused X-ray beam in single file, each droplet so small it contains only a single protein or virus. ...> Full Article |
The tubes that power X-ray machines are shrinking, improving the clarity and detail of their Superman-like vision. A team of nanomaterial scientists, medical physicists, and cancer biologists at the University of North Carolina has developed new lower-cost X-ray tubes packed with sharp-tipped carbon nanotubes for cancer research and treatment.
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Having outlasted all expectations of its service life, the original mercury target of the Spallation Neutron Source, the US Department of Energy Office of Science's record-setting neutron science facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is being replaced for the first time.
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 | Scientists at Rice University and North Carolina State University have found a method of attaching molecules to semiconducting silicon that may help manufacturers reach beyond the current limits of Moore's Law as they make microprocessors both smaller and more powerful. ...> Full Article |
 | The largest parity violations ever measured in an atom ...> Full Article |
 | In comparison to classical physics, quantum physics predicts that the properties of a quantum mechanical system depend on the measurement context, i.e., whether other system measurements are carried out. A team of physicists from Innsbruck, Austria, led by Christian Roos and Rainer Blatt, have for the first time proven in a comprehensive experiment that it is not possible to explain quantum phenomena in non-contextual terms. The scientists report on their findings in the current issue of Nature. ...> Full Article |
 | Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor at the University of California Berkeley, lead a study in which it was determined that the interactions of light and matter with spacetime, as predicted by general relativity, can be studied using the new breed of artificial optical materials that feature extraordinary abilities to bend light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. ...> Full Article |
 | A key step toward the design of quantum information networks and a report on the controllable formation of quantum turbulence in an ultra-cold atom gas are among the advances described in forthcoming papers in Physical Review Letters ...> Full Article |
 | An astrophysics experiment in America has demonstrated how fundamental research in one subject area can have a profound effect on work in another as the instruments used for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory pave the way for quantum experiments on a macroscopic scale. ...> Full Article |
 | A team of Yale University researchers has discovered a "repulsive" light force that can be used to control components on silicon microchips, meaning future nanodevices could be controlled by light rather than electricity. ...> Full Article |
 | Superconductivity appears to rely on very different mechanisms in two varieties of iron-based superconductors. ...> Full Article |
 | Bonn physicists take first step towards super-fast search algorithms for quantum computers ...> Full Article |
Just about any road with a loose surface -- sand or gravel or snow -- develops ripples that make driving a very shaky experience. A team of physicists from Canada, France and the United Kingdom have recreated this "washboard" phenomenon in the lab with surprising results: ripples appear even when the springy suspension of the car and the rolling shape of the wheel are eliminated. The discovery may smooth the way to designing improved suspension systems that eliminate the bumpy ride.
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 | Physicists at UAB describe how to make objects invisible at very low frequency light with magnetic field shielding dc metamaterials ...> Full Article |
 | Physicists at NIST have overcome a hurdle in quantum computer development, having devised a viable way to manipulate a single "bit" in a quantum processor without disturbing the information stored in its neighbors. The approach, which makes novel use of polarized light to create "effective" magnetic fields, could bring the long-sought computers a step closer to reality. ...> Full Article |
 | String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been made that have not been lived up to. Leiden theoretical physicists have now for the first time used string theory to describe a physical phenomenon. Their discovery has been reported in Science. ...> Full Article |
Researchers from across Europe have united to build the largest quantum key distribution network ever built. The efforts of 41 research and industrial organizations were realized as secure, quantum encrypted information was sent over an eight node, mesh network.
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 | A novel ion trap demonstrated at NIST could usher in a new generation of applications, because the device holds promise as a stylus for sensing very small forces or for an interface for efficient transfer of individual light particles for quantum communications. ...> Full Article |
 | A tiny grid pattern has led materials scientists at NIST and the Institute of Solid State Physics in Russia to an unexpected finding -- the surprisingly strong and long-range effects of certain electromagnetic nanostructures used in data storage. ...> Full Article |
Electronic devices of the future could be smaller, faster, more powerful and consume less energy because of a discovery by researchers at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
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A new calculation clarifies the complicated relationship between protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus and offers a fascinating resolution of the famous NuTeV Anomaly. The calculation, published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 26, was carried out by a collaboration of researchers from the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Tokai University and the University of Washington.
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At a recent physics seminar at the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Fermilab physicist Pat Lukens of the CDF experiment announced the observation of a new particle, the Omega-sub-b (Ωb). The particle contains three quarks, two strange quarks and a bottom quark (s-s-b). It is an exotic relative of the much more common proton, and has about six times the proton's mass.
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