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Physicists working on a type of fusion reactor called a stellarator are getting closer to actually harnessing the power of nuclear fusion. According to a new paper, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Germany is now capable of containing heat that reaches temperatures twice as high as those found in the core of the Sun. This means physicists have been able to reduce heat loss - a major step forward in stellarator technology. "It's really exciting news for fusion that this design has been successful," said physicist Novimir Pablant of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). "It clearly shows that this...

Water is the most abundant yet least understood liquid in nature. It exhibits many strange behaviors that scientists still struggle to explain. While most liquids get denser as they get colder, water is most dense at 39 degrees Fahrenheit, just above its freezing point. This is why ice floats to the top of a drinking glass and lakes freeze from the surface down, allowing marine life to survive cold winters. Water also has an unusually high surface tension, allowing insects to walk on its surface, and a large capacity to store heat, keeping ocean temperatures stable.Now, a team that includes...

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have linked together, or “entangled,” the mechanical motion and electronic properties of a tiny blue crystal, giving it a quantum edge in measuring electric fields with record sensitivity that may enhance understanding of the universe. The quantum sensor consists of 150 beryllium ions (electrically charged atoms) confined in a magnetic field, so they self-arrange into a flat 2D crystal just 200 millionths of a meter in diameter. Quantum sensors such as this have the potential to detect signals from dark matter — a mysterious substance that might turn out to...

When X-rays are irradiated onto tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles, the iodine releases electrons that break DNA and kill the cancer cells. Credit: Mindy Takamiya/Kyoto University iCeMS Researchers have found a way to enhance radiation therapy using novel iodine nanoparticles. Cancer cell death is triggered within three days when X-rays are shone onto tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles. The iodine releases electrons that break the tumor’s DNA, leading to cell death. The findings, by scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) and colleagues in Japan and the US, were published in the journal Scientific Reports. “Exposing a...

Visualization of the blue short-wavelength and red long-wavelength bursts. (Joeri van Leeuwen) After taking new radio observations, astronomers have ruled out a leading explanation for the cyclic nature of a particularly curious repeating space signal. The signal in question is FRB 20180916B, which repeats with a 16.35-day periodicity. According to existing models, this could result from interactions between closely orbiting stars; however, the new detections - which include fast radio burst (FRB) observations at the lowest frequencies yet - do not make sense for such a binary system. "Strong stellar winds from the companion of the fast radio burst source...

The five-decade-old paradox — long thought key to linking quantum theory with Einstein’s theory of gravity — is falling to a new generation of thinkers. Netta Engelhardt is leading the way. =============================================================================== In 1974, Stephen Hawking calculated that black holes’ secrets die with them. Random quantum jitter on the spherical outer boundary, or “event horizon,” of a black hole will cause the hole to radiate particles and slowly shrink to nothing. Any record of the star whose violent contraction formed the black hole — and whatever else got swallowed up after — then seemed to be permanently lost. Hawking’s calculation...

Black holes are great at sucking up matter. So great, in fact, that not even light can escape their grasp (hence the name). But given their talent for consumption, why don't black holes just keep expanding and expanding and simply swallow the Universe? In 2018, one of the world's top physicists came up with a dazzling explanation. Conveniently, the idea could also unite the two biggest theories in all of physics. The researcher behind this explanation is none other than Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind, also known as one of the fathers of string theory. He gave his two cents...

Random twists of place: How quiet is quantum space-time at the Planck scale?February 12, 2021 | Craig Hogan Fermilab scientists have been conducting experiments to look for quantum fluctuations of space and time at the smallest scale imaginable according to known physics. At this limit, the Planck length, our classical notions of space and time break down.Imagine the ratio of the size of the universe compared to a speck of dust. That’s about how big the speck of dust is compared to the Planck length, 10-33 centimeters. The Planck time is how long it takes light to travel that distance.Quantum...

In 1934, Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, theorized a strange kind of matter — a crystal made from electrons. The idea was simple; proving it wasn’t. Physicists tried many tricks over eight decades to nudge electrons into forming these so-called Wigner crystals, with limited success. In June, however, two independent groups of physicists reported in Nature the most direct experimental observations of Wigner crystals yet. “Wigner crystallization is such an old idea,” said Brian Skinner, a physicist at Ohio State University who was not involved with the work. “To see it so cleanly was really nice.” To make...

Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer. A time crystal flips back and forth between two states without burning energy. Maylee for Quanta Magazine Natalie Wolchover Senior Writer/Editor July 30, 2021 VIEW PDF/PRINT MODE condensed matter physicscrystalsphase transitionsphysicsquantum computingAll topics Watch and Learn In a preprint posted online Thursday night, researchers at Google in collaboration with physicists at Stanford, Princeton and other universities say that they have used Google’s quantum computer to demonstrate a genuine “time crystal.” In...

Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another ================================================================================= Your desk is made up of individual, distinct atoms, but from far away its surface appears smooth. This simple idea is at the core of all our models of the physical world. We can describe what’s happening overall without getting bogged down in the complicated interactions between every atom and electron. So when a new theoretical state of matter was discovered whose microscopic features stubbornly persist at all scales, many physicists refused to believe in its existence....

LENR Solution of the Cosmological Lithium Problem # V.I.Vysotskii1 , M.V.Vysotskyy1 , Sergio Bartalucci2 1 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine 2 http://ikkem.com/iccf23/orppt/ICCF23-OA-10%20Vysotskii.pdf INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, 00044 Italy # E-mail: vivysotskii@gmail.com, Volodymyrska Str. 64, Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine The basis of modern cosmology is the Big Bang theory. The validity of this theory is based on three main facts: a) the redshift of spectral lines of distant stars; b) the presence of cosmic microwave background radiation; c) the theory of primary Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) of light H2 , He3 , He4 , Li6 and...

Experimental setup. As a beam of beryllium comes in from the left, the deuteron Trojan horse intercepts it at the target and delivers its neutron soldier. This allows the decay products of the beryllium and neutron reactions to be captured by a curved array of six detectors on the right. Credit: Hayakawa et al. There is a significant discrepancy between theoretical and observed amounts of lithium in our universe. This is known as the cosmological lithium problem, and it has plagued cosmologists for decades. Now, researchers have reduced this discrepancy by around 10%, thanks to a new experiment on...

Credit: Public Domain The cosmogony Eureka, which Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) published the year before his death, anticipates modern science and cosmology.1 It describes a process that is now popularly known as the ‘Big Bang’ and the expanding universe. But it also contains ideas about the unity of space and time, the mathematical equality of matter and energy, the velocity of light and a rudimentary concept of relativity, black holes (including one at the center of our Milky Way), a "pulsating" universe that renews itself eternally, and other universes in other dimensions with different laws of nature. Contrary to the...

Superconductors are highly desirable, especially when it comes to reducing energy consumption. They show quantum properties on the scale of ordinary items. This makes them exciting candidates for building computers that use quantum physics. However, qubits, the elementary units of quantum computers, are extremely sensitive. When contact electromagnetic fields, heat, and collisions with air molecules, qubits lose their quantum properties. The addition of more resilient qubits using topological superconductors can protect qubits from losing their properties. In a new study, scientists led by Kent and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have reported about the discovery of a new rare topological...

A new electrode that could free up 20% more light from organic light-emitting diodes has been developed at the University of Michigan. It could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops, or make next-gen televisions and displays much more energy efficient. The approach prevents light from being trapped in the light-emitting part of an OLED, enabling OLEDs to maintain brightness while using less power. In addition, the electrode is easy to fit into existing processes for making OLED displays and light fixtures. "With our approach, you can do it all in the same vacuum chamber," said L. Jay...

This cut-away rendering of the MIT nuclear battery concept shows important components such as the instrumentation and control module, the reactor, and the power module. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology ===================================================================================== We may be on the brink of a new paradigm for nuclear power, a group of nuclear specialists suggested recently in The Bridge, the journal of the National Academy of Engineering. Much as large, expensive, and centralized computers gave way to the widely distributed PCs of today, a new generation of relatively tiny and inexpensive factory-built reactors, designed for autonomous plug-and-play operation similar to plugging in an oversized battery,...

Artist’s impression of cosmic filaments: huge bridges of galaxies and dark matter connect clusters of galaxies to each other. Galaxies are funneled on corkscrew like orbits towards and into large clusters that sit at their ends. Their light appears blue-shifted when they move towards us, and red-shifted when they move away. Credit: AIP/ A. Khalatyan/ J. Fohlmeister ==================================================================================== By mapping the motion of galaxies in huge filaments that connect the cosmic web, astronomers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), in collaboration with scientists in China and Estonia, have found that these long tendrils of galaxies spin on the...

The Universe is a large place, and there are a lot of large things in it. Not just galaxies, but groupings of galaxies, and the cosmic web that connects them all together. Scientists have just discovered what appears to be one of these groupings, and it could have serious implications for our understanding of the evolution of the Universe. It's an almost-symmetrical arc of galaxies at a distance of 9.2 billion light-years away, and, at 3.3 billion light-years across, it's one of the biggest structures ever identified. Astronomers are calling it the Giant Arc, and, if confirmed, it joins a...

Hiromitsu Takeuchi, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University, and a researcher at the Nambu Yoichiro Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (NITEP), has theoretically identified the nature of a mysterious topological defect produced by the recently discovered non-equilibrium time evolution of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB). Since the SSB realized in this system is like the SSB that has been known to occur in isotropic superconductors and superfluid 4He, it was expected to produce topological defects with vortex-like properties in the fluid, called quantum vortices. However, the topological defect observed in this experiment has a structure...