https://phys.org/physics-news/physics/ en-us The latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. Four decades after the 1986 nuclear disaster, researchers at Leibniz University Hannover and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) examined six tiny, highly radioactive fragments that were released from the destroyed reactor in Ukraine in the wake of the incident. Analyses show that these "hot particles" are far more stable than had previously been assumed. The findings could allow for more precise assessments of the health risks posed by such radioactive particles. The paper is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chernobyl-particles-reveal-unexpectedly-stable.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:20:05 EDT news710509501 Black holes, despite their extreme nature, are described by surprisingly few basic parameters: their mass, charge and spin. Two black holes may have formed for completely different reasons and passed through very different histories, yet still end up in the same final state. John Wheeler summarized this idea with the famous phrase "black holes have no hair." https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-hole-disturbance-hawking.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:00:01 EDT news710416753 Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos, tiny cosmic particles that scientists believe offer clues to how the universe evolved. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-francis-halzen-nobel-prize-physics.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:12:06 EDT news710485847 Even the most chaotic quantum systems keep a permanent mark of their own past—a "quantum birthmark"—that never fades. Researchers from Tampere University, Harvard University and TU Dresden discovered the feature in their recent study. Their findings shed new light on the elusive relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. Looking ahead, these quantum birthmarks, along with related phenomena known as "scars," could eventually be harnessed to power next-generation nanoelectronics. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum.html General Physics Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:00:13 EDT news710425290 Many complex quantum systems rapidly lose the recognizable patterns of their initial states as their components interact. To describe patterns of regular and chaotic motion in specific systems, physicists can construct a mathematical map called an effective phase space. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-uncover-recurrent-patterns-chaotic.html General Physics Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:04 EDT news709981266 In recent experiments involving hydrogels and water droplets, researchers have proposed that exposure to visible light could make water evaporate faster without heating it. However, direct evidence that light acts on water itself has proven elusive. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-visible-evaporation-rigorous.html General Physics Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:40:01 EDT news710151999 Imagine a proton catching a wave and surfing it to gain speed. While the imagery may seem wild, the premise of laser-driven ion acceleration has promise as an alternative to conventional accelerators. However, the ultrathin targets used to drive this increase in ion energy are vulnerable to the weak prepulse that precedes the main high-intensity laser pulse, meaning an adaptation in the process is necessary. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-protons-energy-pulse-lasers.html General Physics Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:20:08 EDT news710151602 Many systems in nature can settle into several different stable states, with the final state depending on their starting conditions. However, the boundaries separating these states are often far more complicated than they first appear. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hidden-funnels-complex-stable-states.html General Physics Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:20:19 EDT news709976676 Muons are constantly being created as cosmic rays collide with molecules in Earth's upper atmosphere. With their ability to penetrate far into dense, solid materials, these cosmic muons are often used to image the insides of objects that are otherwise hidden from view. However, the flow of these natural particles is far too slow for the technique to become both fast and reliable in practical settings. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-laser-muons-images-dense.html General Physics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news709897836 Boats passing over smooth water form a pair of diffusion wakes behind them veering off at a certain angle. Turbulence occurs along the line directly behind the boat, but the two diffusion waves are at a theoretical angle of 19.5° from the same line, for deep, ideally smooth water. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-years-jet-diffusion-quark-gluon.html General Physics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:40:07 EDT news709805374 Researchers at the DarkSide collaboration have unveiled results from a seven-year experiment that tested whether dark matter particles could exist as composites of smaller, elementary particles. While the search turned up no direct evidence of this "ultraheavy nuclear" dark matter, results from the DarkSide-50 detector could lay the groundwork for future experiments, helping physicists work out whether dark matter has an internal structure. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-darkside-detector-nuclear-dark.html General Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:30:01 EDT news709811061 When light or sound bounces around inside an oddly shaped room, its reflections can quickly become difficult to predict. But new research led by scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) shows that waves can behave very differently when they travel through a special class of materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-chaos-oddly-cavity.html General Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news709561441 An electron's charge is normally fixed, like a coin you can't break into pieces. But if electrons are cooled close to absolute zero and trapped in a two-dimensional layer under a powerful magnetic field, they organize into a collective state of "quasiparticles" that seem to hold only a fraction of an electron's charge. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rare-quantum-state-reveals-particles.html General Physics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:00:08 EDT news709544881 A simplified cosmological model suggests that decoherence can suppress quantum tunneling, effectively locking fields into the vacuum state they have reached. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cosmic-lockdown-environment-isolate-quantum.html General Physics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:01 EDT news709483741 Strike a bell, and it rings with a pitch and a fading that tell you about the bell: its size, its shape, the metal it is made of. Black holes ring too. When two merge, the newborn black hole shivers and sheds gravitational waves in a brief, dying chord, and since 2015, gravitational-wave detectors have been listening. The notes of that chord, which physicists call quasinormal modes, depend only on the black hole's mass and spin and on the law of gravity itself. Change the law, and the chord changes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-higher-dimensional-black-holes-exact.html General Physics Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:20:04 EDT news709463984 Behind every secure online transaction or encrypted message lies a string of completely unpredictable numbers. A team of physicists has now proposed a theoretical way around a long-standing roadblock, opening the door to next-generation security chips that protect everyday data without slowing performance. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-material-blueprint-generation-microchip.html General Physics Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:10:01 EDT news709479661 When water drains from a bathtub, a whirlpool often forms above the drain, and its narrow core can start to wobble and twist. For almost 150 years, physicists have predicted that these wobbles can become turbulent, passing energy from large ripples down to ever smaller ones. Until now, however, this "Kelvin-wave turbulence" had never been seen directly in an experiment. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-whirlpool-tank-reveals-turbulence.html General Physics Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:20:09 EDT news709460308 A researcher from Sejong University has used a new theory of gravity proposed by Erik Verlinde to predict the observed central surface density of dark matter. The study was published in Physics of the Dark Universe on Sept. 20. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-central-surface-density-dark-theory.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 17:40:07 EDT news709396350 Take a second and turn it into trillions of moments. Measure each one. That's how precisely an atomic clock at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) keeps time—and with record-setting accuracy, according to results published in Nature on Sept. 23. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-world-accurate-atomic-clock.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:20:03 EDT news709393861 A research team led by faculty at the Duke Quantum Center (DQC) has observed string-breaking dynamics related to particle-antiparticle formation on a quantum simulator, among the first such observations in quantum physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-device-simulates.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 09:40:01 EDT news709372313 Unlike electric charge, as far as we know all mass is positive, and positive masses attract one another. Could negative mass exist, and if so, what would be the ramifications? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-negative-mass.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 09:20:12 EDT news709372229 A pigeon turning its head might seem an unlikely electricity generator. Yet one proposed explanation for the bird's magnetic sense depends on exactly that: Turning through Earth's magnetic field would produce tiny electrical signals inside its ears. However, a theoretical study suggests that this miniature generator cannot supply directional information fast enough to work as a compass. The problem is electrical noise produced within the proposed sensor itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-pigeons-ear-compass-noise-problem.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 06:00:01 EDT news709357238 A new study led by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that living matter violates previously known physical principles of symmetry when cellular flows form and break down collective patterns. The research, published in Nature Physics, challenges conventional liquid-crystal physics by showing that moving single-celled bacteria and human respiratory cells spontaneously break mirror symmetry, moving in curved, irreversible spiral paths. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-swarming-bacteria-tissue-cells-defies.html General Physics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:40:05 EDT news709313101 Scientists using the STAR detector to study particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have found an intriguing dip in their data in a relatively unexplored region of the nuclear phase diagram—a map of how nuclear matter behaves under various conditions of temperature and density. The dip appears in data tracking collision-by-collision variations in the momenta of particles emerging from collisions between gold nuclei at RHIC, near RHIC's lowest collision energies. These collisions create the highest-density nuclear matter and may indicate that something interesting is happening in that dense region of the phase diagram. The findings are described in a paper just published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rhic-reveal-intriguing-dip-momentum.html General Physics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:40:08 EDT news709310101 Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have extended the search for evidence of microscopic black holes produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The formation of these tiny, fleeting objects at the LHC represents one way theorists have sought to resolve anomalies in our understanding of the basic structure of spacetime, while the method used to look for them demonstrates a new way of searching for new particles. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-quantum-black-holes-lhc.html General Physics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:20:07 EDT news708954181 Magnetic reconnection is a process that occurs when the magnetic fields of a conductive plasma quickly rearrange and release massive amounts of stored magnetic energy. It is widely thought to be the underlying mechanism behind cosmic events such as solar flares and substorms in Earth's magnetosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-laser-recreate-solar-flare-physics.html General Physics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:40:01 EDT news708949682 Somewhere between the microscopic realm of elementary particles and the macroscopic world of human beings, something strange happens: The rules of quantum physics, which work so exquisitely for tiny atoms, seem to lose their grip as objects grow larger. Pondering where and how this shift from small-scale quantum fuzziness to everyday sharp certainty happens gives rise to thought-experiment oddities like Schrödinger's famous dead-and-alive cat. The process by which quantum phenomena like superposition—the paradoxical affliction of Schrödinger's cat—fade into the classical reality we experience is known as decoherence. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-schrdinger-cat-underground-gravity-quantum.html General Physics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 15:00:11 EDT news708864241 Dark matter is one of the oldest open problems in physics. It makes up most of the matter in the universe and shapes how galaxies form and move, yet no one has ever directly detected it. Physicists have proposed dozens of candidates to explain it: exotic new particles, black holes formed moments after the Big Bang and more. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-dark-natural-physicist.html General Physics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:10:01 EDT news708856482 In March 2026, scientists succeeded in transporting antiprotons by road for the first time in a purpose-built trap loaded on a truck. The BASE collaboration, which realized this experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva under the lead of Professor Dr Stefan Ulmer and Dr Christian Smorra from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), now presents its findings and experiences from this pioneering experiment in the journal Nature. Among other things, they report that it was possible to store antiprotons in a mobile transport vessel for more than a month for the first time ever. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-mobile-antiprotons-road-month-world.html General Physics Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:30:06 EDT news708792361 When it rains, traveling waves appear on steep asphalt pavement, slowly making their way down the slope. Because these so-called "roll waves" propagate without deforming and are typically characterized by abrupt discontinuities, they play an important role in hydraulic engineering. Understanding unsteady flows like roll waves is crucial for the design, management and safety of hydraulic structures such as dam spillway chutes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-emerge-uniform-destabilizes-steep-slopes.html General Physics Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:00:06 EDT news708783841