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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scientists uncover a photosynthetic puzzle

(Phys.org) -- Quantum physics and plant biology seem like two branches of science that could not be more different, but surprisingly they may in fact be intimately tied.

Physics / General Physics

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0

The neutrinophone: It's not for you. (But it is cool)

First of all, the neutrinophone isn’t really a phone. It has the potential to be used for communication across immense distances—including into outer space—but even Jeff Nelson says the neutrinophone’s ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0

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

Scientists take a giant step forward in understanding plutonium

Plutonium is the most complex element in the periodic table, yet it is also one of the most poorly understood ones. But now a well-known scientific technique, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Photonics: Beam me up

'Tractor beams' of light that pull objects towards them are no longer science fiction. Haifeng Wang at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute and co-workers have now demonstrated how a tractor beam can in fact be realized on a ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

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