The ALPACA measuring device is aligning with red and green lasers. Credit: Laszlo Horvath / PPPL Creating heat from fusion reactions requires carefully manipulating the properties of plasma, the electrically charged fourth state of matter that makes up 99% of the visible universe. Now, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics … Read more
A temperature gradient is applied to a CrSBr thin film to measure its thermoelectric response. Credit: Alessandra Canetta Thermoelectric systems are a green and sustainable way to harvest energy from any form of heat that would otherwise be wasted. At the core of this energy conversion process is the so-called Seebeck effect, which describes the … Read more
The PDS 70 system as seen by JWST’s interferometry mode and after extensive data processing. A yellow star marks the location of PDS 70, with PDS 70 bic also shown. The JWST shows infrared emissions from the disc. Credit: Blakely et al, archiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2404.13032 JWST is flexing its muscles with its interferometry mode. … Read more
This article is part of Adam Frank’s series on Quantum Bayesianism, or QBism. Here are the links to parts 1, 2 and 3. Quantum mechanics is both our most powerful and strangest scientific theory. It is powerful because it offers exquisite control over the nanoworld of molecular, atomic, and subatomic phenomena. It’s strange because even … Read more
New ALICE subdetectors, Forward Calorimeter (left) and Inner Tracking System 3 components (right). Credit: ALICE Collaboration Two detector upgrades to ALICE, the heavy ion physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), have recently been approved for installation during the LHC’s next long stop, which will take place from 2026 to 2028. The first is … Read more
New research led by the University of California, Irvine addresses a fundamental debate in astrophysics: Must invisible dark matter exist to explain how the Universe works the way it does, or can physicists explain how things work based solely on in the matter that we can directly? observe? Dark photons are hypothetical dark sector particles … Read more
Although we can’t see it, we live in a quantized world where the light that illuminates our days is made up of tiny bundles of energy, and the atoms that make up matter are similarly divided into discrete bands of energy. Like coins in a slot machine, dropping the right quanta of light on an … Read more
Galaxy cluster, left, with a visible dark matter ring, right. Credits: NASA, ESA, MJ Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University) Dark matter explorations are advancing with new experimental techniques designed to detect axions, leveraging advanced technology and interdisciplinary collaboration to uncover the secrets of this elusive component of the cosmos. A ghost haunts our … Read more