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Category: space – Page 10

Highly charged muonic ions observed in gas-phase experiment for first time

An international team of researchers, including members from the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), has directly observed “highly charged muonic ions,” a completely new class of exotic atomic systems, in a gas-phase experiment for the first time. The study was published online on June 16 in Physical Review Letters.

The observation highlights the capabilities of advanced superconducting transition-edge-sensor (TES) microcalorimeters in revealing previously inaccessible atomic phenomena.

Normal atoms consist of a nucleus and bound electrons and are electrically neutral. However, when many electrons are removed, the atom becomes highly charged. These charged atoms, known as highly charged ions, are valuable tools for research across various fields, including fundamental physics, nuclear fusion, surface science, and astronomy.

‘The models were right’: Astronomers find ‘missing’ matter linking four galaxy clusters

Astronomers have discovered a huge filament of hot gas bridging four galaxy clusters. At 10 times as massive as our galaxy, the thread could contain some of the universe’s ‘missing’ matter, addressing a decades-long mystery.

By measuring gases around young stars, astronomers unlock major clues to planet formation

An international team of scientists led by astronomers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison has produced the most accurate measurement of the gases swirling around young stars and how their mass changes over time. The discovery joins many pieces of a puzzle that may reveal which kinds of planets form—rocky Earth-types, gas giants like Jupiter, or balls of ice in the Neptune mold—as star systems mature.

Dramatic stretch in quantum materials confirms 100-year-old prediction

Research from the University of St Andrews has set a new benchmark for the precision with which researchers can explore fundamental physics in quantum materials. The work has implications extending from materials science to advanced computing, as well as confirming a nearly 100-year-old prediction.

The researchers explored magnetoelastic coupling, which is the change in the size or shape of a material when exposed to a . It is usually a small effect, but one that has technological consequences.

A team from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews has now discovered that this effect is remarkably large in a case where one wouldn’t have expected it—in a transition metal oxide. Oxides are a containing at least one and one other element in its chemical formula. High-temperature superconductors are one of the most prominent examples of a transition metal oxide.

Is our universe the ultimate computer?

Whether we are simply characters in an advanced virtual world is a much-debated theory, challenging previous thinking about the universe and our existence.

The possibility that the entire universe is informational in nature and resembles a computational process is a popular theory among a number of well-known figures, including Elon Musk. The thinking comes from within a branch of science known as information physics, which suggests physical reality is actually made up of structured information.

In an article published in AIP Advances and included in the journal’s “Editor’s Picks,” a physicist from the University of Portsmouth, Dr. Melvin Vopson, presents findings which indicate that gravity or is the result of a computational process within the universe.

Crystal melting and the glass transition obey the same physical law

The melting of crystals is the process by which an increase in temperature induces the disruption of the ordered crystalline lattice, leading to the disordered structure and highly fluctuating dynamic behavior of liquids. At the glass transition, where an amorphous solid (a glass) turns into a liquid, there is no obvious change in structure, and only the dynamics of the atoms change, going from strongly localized dynamics in space (in the glass state) to the highly fluctuating (diffusive) dynamics in the liquid.

The search for the atomic-scale mechanism of 3D crystal melting has a long history in physics, and famous physicists such as Max Born, Neville Mott and Frederick Lindemann proposed different ways to look at it. I have always had the impression that we still do not understand the melting of 3D crystals, which is a highly complicated cooperative process involving nonlinearly coupled dynamics of a huge number of atoms. This complexity I always found very fascinating.

Comparatively, the melting of 2D solids, mediated by dislocations-unbinding, is much better understood, and the theory that describes it led to the 2017 Nobel prize in physics for Kosterlitz and Thouless.