The Physics Times

2022-03-04 00:23:03 #PhysicsNEWS
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Dark energy: Neutron stars will tell us if it's only an illusion
A huge amount of mysterious dark energy is necessary to explain cosmological phenomena, such as the accelerated expansion of the Universe, using Einstein's theory. But what if dark energy was just an illusion and general relativity itself had to be modified? A new SISSA study, published in Physical Review Letters, offers a new approach to answer this question. Thanks to huge computational and mathematical effort, scientists produced the first simulation ever of merging binary neutron stars in theories beyond general relativity that reproduce a dark-energy like behavior on cosmological scales. This allows the comparison of Einstein's theory and modified versions of it, and, with sufficiently accurate data, may solve the dark energy mystery.
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2022-02-08 20:13:25 #PhysicsNEWS
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Using the universe's coldest material to measure the world's tiniest magnetic fields
Magnetometers measure the direction, strength or relative changes of magnetic fields, at a specific point in space and time. Employed in many research areas, magnetometers can help doctors to see the brain through medical imaging, or archaeologists to reveal underground treasures without excavating the ground.
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2022-02-06 20:10:21 #PhysicsNEWS
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Scientists discover a surprising structural change in metal oxide at low temperature
When water boils, it converts into another phase, steam. Such transitions are commonplace in nature and frequently studied in scientific laboratories.
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2022-02-01 13:23:21 #PhysicsNEWS
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Scientists uncover how the shape of melting ice depends on water temperature
A team of mathematicians and physicists has discovered how ice formations are shaped by external forces, such as water temperature. Its newly published research may offer another means for gauging factors that cause ice to melt.
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2022-01-31 08:10:37 #PhysicsNEWS
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Crunching multiverse to solve two physics puzzles at once
The discovery of the Higgs boson was a landmark in the history of physics. It explained something fundamental: how elementary particles that have mass get their masses. But it also marked something no less fundamental: the beginning of an era of measuring in detail the particle's properties and finding out what they might reveal about the nature of the universe.
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2022-01-30 11:48:15 #PhysicsNEWS
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Studying cosmic expansion using methods from many-body physics
It is almost always assumed in cosmological calculations that there is a even distribution of matter in the universe. This is because the calculations would be much too complicated if the position of every single star were to be included. In reality, the universe is not uniform: in some places there are stars and planets, in others there is just a void. Physicists Michael te Vrugt and Prof. Raphael Wittkowski from the Institute of Theoretical Physics and the Center for Soft Nanoscience (SoN) at the University of Münster have, together with physicist Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder from the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), developed a new model for this problem. Their starting point was the Mori-Zwanzig formalism, a method for describing systems consisting of a large number of particles with a small number of measurands. The results of the study have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
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2022-01-28 10:58:09 #PhysicsNEWS
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When light loses symmetry, it can hold particles
Optical tweezers use light to immobilize microscopic particles as small as a single atom in 3D space. The basic principle behind optical tweezers is the momentum transfer between light and the object being held. Analogous to the water pushing on a dam that blocks the stream, light pushes onto and attracts objects that make the light bend. This so-called optical force can be designed to point to a certain point in space, where a particle will be held. In fact, the optical trapping technique has so far won two Nobel Prizes, one in 1997 for holding and cooling down single atoms, a second in 2018 for offering biologists a tool to study single biomolecules such as DNA and proteins.
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2022-01-24 17:06:43 #PhysicsNEWS
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First detection of exotic 'X' particles in quark-gluon plasma
In the first millionths of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a roiling, trillion-degree plasma of quarks and gluons—elementary particles that briefly glommed together in countless combinations before cooling and settling into more stable configurations to make the neutrons and protons of ordinary matter.
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2022-01-20 23:08:23 #PhysicsNEWS
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Study finds that black hole inner horizons can be charged or discharged
Black holes are intriguing and widely studied cosmic bodies with extremely high tidal forces, from which even light is unable to escape. While many studies predicted the existence of black holes, which have also recently been detected, many questions about these cosmic bodies remain unanswered.
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2022-01-17 11:40:33 #PhysicsNEWS
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Using time dilation to measure curvature of space-time
A team of researchers working at Stanford University has used time dilation in an atomic fountain to measure the curvature of space-time. In their study, reported in the journal Science, the group used the fountain as an interferometer to measure atomic wave packet changes that corresponded to phase shifts. Albert Roura,with the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Quantum Technologies published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work by the team in California.
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