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Category: physics – Page 2
Scientists discover elusive solar waves that could power the sun’s corona
Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in solar physics by providing the first direct evidence of small-scale torsional Alfvén waves in the sun’s corona—elusive magnetic waves that scientists have been searching for since the 1940s.
The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, was made using unprecedented observations from the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii.
The findings could finally explain one of the sun’s greatest mysteries—how its outer atmosphere, the corona, reaches temperatures of millions of degrees while its surface is only around 5,500°C.
Light reshapes ferroelectric thin films for wireless sensors and micro-devices
The potential of using low-energy light to shape ferroelectric thin films for micro devices is advancing with an international team of researchers most recently reporting success with “photostriction.”
Light-induced nonthermal deformation of materials, or photostriction, has the advantage of directly converting photon energy into mechanical motion, offering exciting possibilities for wireless, light-powered sensors and optomechanical devices, says Flinders University researcher Dr. Pankaj Sharma.
Since its discovery in the 1960s, scientists have explored photostriction in a wide range of materials—from semiconductors and oxides to ferroelectrics and polymers. However, many of these systems face challenges.
Physicists create the smallest pixel in the world (so far)
Smart glasses that display information directly in the field of vision are considered a key technology of the future—but until now, their use has often failed due to cumbersome technology. However, efficient light-emitting pixels are ruled out by classical optics if their size is reduced to the wavelength of the emitted light.
Now, physicists at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) have taken a decisive step toward luminous miniature displays and, with the help of optical antennas, have created the world’s smallest pixel to date.
A research group led by Professors Jens Pflaum and Bert Hecht was responsible for the work; the group has now published the results of their work in Science Advances.
Music of the Spheres and the Lessons of Pythagoras
I. Using simple mathematics, Pythagoras was able to describe the basis of almost all musical scales, including the pentatonic, the Western, the chromatic and the Arabic scales. This shows the power and excitement of science. For the first time, Pythagoras could answer the question, WHY? Why are these notes and scales special? The answer is that they are formed in a simple, systematic, and mathematical manner. Most importantly, Pythagoras showed that the notes are not random or arbitrary and that they could be understood on a deeper level.
II. Pythagorass discoveries bring up a deeper psychology question: scales were first developed by ear: we and the Neanderthals choose these particular notes before there was any understanding of mathematics or physics. The notes were chosen simply because they were pleasing to the ear. But, as it turns out, the scales also follow basic mathematical constructs. So the question is, what does this say about our likes and emotions? Is there a mathematical/physical basis to them, as well?
III. The power of spectroscopy. What Pythagoras did was look a physical system (the musical scale), found characteristic frequencies (pitches/notes) and found simple mathematical relationships between the frequencies (ratios of 3/2, for example). This process actually became a fundamental part of physics, and modern physics, in particular.
Scientists discover way to pause ultrafast melting in silicon using precisely timed laser pulses
A team of physicists has discovered a method to temporarily halt the ultrafast melting of silicon using a carefully timed sequence of laser pulses. This finding opens new possibilities for controlling material behavior under extreme conditions and could improve the accuracy of experiments that study how energy moves through solids.
The research, published in the journal Communications Physics, was led by Tobias Zier and David A. Strubbe of the University of California, Merced, in collaboration with Eeuwe S. Zijlstra and Martin E. Garcia from the University of Kassel in Germany. Their work focuses on how intense, ultrashort laser pulses affect the atomic structure of silicon—a material widely used in electronics and solar cells.
Using advanced computer simulations, the researchers showed that a single, high-energy laser pulse typically causes silicon to melt in a fraction of a trillionth of a second.
Scientists Finally Hear Black Holes Ring, Confirming Hawking’s Famous Prediction
Ten years after the first detection of gravitational waves, scientists have captured the clearest signal yet — and it confirms one of Stephen Hawking’s most famous predictions.
Using the upgraded LIGO detectors, researchers observed two black holes colliding over a billion light-years away, producing space-time ripples so precise they could “hear” the black holes ring like cosmic bells.
A new window on the universe.
Physicists unlock secrets of stellar alchemy, yielding new insights into gold’s cosmic origins
You can’t have gold until a nucleus decays. The specifics of that process have been hard to pin down, but UT’s nuclear physicists have published three discoveries in one paper explaining key details. The results can help scientists come up with new models to describe the stellar processes that give us heavy elements, as well as make better predictions about the expanding landscape of exotic nuclei.
The work is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Exotic roto-crystals can break into individual fragments then reassemble themselves
It sounds bizarre, but they exist: crystals made of rotating objects. Physicists from Aachen, Düsseldorf, Mainz and Wayne State (Detroit, U.S.) have jointly studied these exotic objects and their properties. They easily break into individual fragments, have odd grain boundaries and evidence defects that can be controlled in a targeted fashion.
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers outline how several new properties of such transverse interaction systems can be predicted by applying a comprehensive theory.
Transverse forces can occur in synthetic systems, such as in certain magnetic solids. They exist in systems of living organisms too, however. In an experiment observing a host of starfish embryos conducted at American university MIT, it was found that, through their swimming movements, the embryos influence each other in a manner leading them to rotate around one another.