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Puzzling asymmetries in B decays hint at deviations from the Standard Model

(Phys.org) -- In a recently published paper, the LHCb Collaboration has reported on a possible deviation from the Standard Model. Theorists are now working to calculate precisely this effect and to evaluate ...

Physics / General Physics

created 2 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Landmark calculation clears the way to answering how matter is formed

(Phys.org) -- An international collaboration of scientists, including Thomas Blum, associate professor of physics, is reporting in landmark detail the decay process of a subatomic particle called a kaon – ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 25, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (28) | comments 56 | with audio podcast

Is a classical electrodynamics law incompatible with special relativity?

(Phys.org) -- The laws of classical electromagnetism that were developed in the 19th century are the same laws that scientists use today. They include Maxwell’s four equations along with the Lorentz la ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (18) | comments 43 | with audio podcast feature

Lying in wait for WIMPs: Researchers seek to dramatically increase sensitivity of Large Underground Xenon detector

Although it's invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe. No one knows what it is, but most scientists would bet on weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

Physics / General Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (7) | comments 19 | with audio podcast

Sound increases the efficiency of boiling

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology achieved a 17-percent increase in boiling efficiency by using an acoustic field to enhance heat transfer. The acoustic field does this by efficiently removing vapor bubbles ...

Physics / Soft Matter

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 3

Hawaii lab turns laser-powered bubbles into microrobots

(Phys.org) -- A team of scientists from the University of Hawaii are working on microrobots created from bubbles of air in a saline solution. The bubbles take on their title of “robots” as a laser ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 2 | with audio podcast weblog

Good vibes: Coupling electron spin states and carbon nanotube vibrations

(Phys.org) -- An electron’s spin is separate from its motion, and is suitable for use in both highly-precise magnetic sensing as well as a qubit in quantum computing. Recently, scientists at the University ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast feature

Cloak of invisibility: Engineers use plasmonics to create an invisible photodetector

A team of engineers at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania has for the first time used "plasmonic cloaking" to create a device that can see without being seen - an invisible machine that detects light. It is the first ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (17) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Thousands of invisibility cloaks trap a rainbow

Many people anticipating the creation of an invisibility cloak might be surprised to learn that a group of American researchers has created 25 000 individual cloaks.

Physics / General Physics

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Reversible doping: Hydrogen flips switch on vanadium oxide

If you are not a condensed matter physicist, vanadium oxide (VO2) may be the coolest material you've never heard of. It's a metal. It's an insulator. It's a window coating and an optical switch. And thanks ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Excitons: Exotic particles, chilled and trapped, form giant matter wave

Physicists have trapped and cooled exotic particles called excitons so effectively that they condensed and cohered to form a giant matter wave.

Physics / General Physics

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

An unlikely route to ferroelectricity

(Phys.org) -- Ferroelectricity, which was first observed in the 1940s, is an interesting phenomenon involving the spontaneous (non-induced) formation of charge polarization (separation of charge) in certain ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created May 18, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

First Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium produced

Francesca Ferlaino’s research team at the University of Innsbruck is the first to successfully create a condensate of the exotic element erbium. The Innsbruck experimental physicists hold the world record ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Repulsive polaron: Austrian physicists realize elusive quasiparticles

(Phys.org) -- In quantum physics physical processes in condensed matter and other many-body systems can often be described with quasiparticles. In Innsbruck, for the first time Rudolf Grimm’s team of ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Efficient and tunable interface for quantum networks

(Phys.org) -- Quantum computers may someday revolutionize the information world. But in order for quantum computers at distant locations to communicate with one another, they have to be linked together in ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast