Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: cosmology

Self-consistent model incorporates gas self-gravity effects to address accretion across cosmic scales

A research team led by Prof. Jiao Chengliang at the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators, has introduced a self-consistent model that addresses long-unresolved theoretical gaps in the study of self-gravitating spherical accretion. The study was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Accretion, the fundamental astrophysical process by which matter is drawn onto a central celestial object (such as a black hole or star), underpins our understanding of phenomena ranging from to black hole growth. For decades, the classical Bondi model—developed in the 1950s and still widely used today—has served as the backbone of research.

However, this foundational framework overlooks a critical factor: the self-gravity of the gas being accreted. This omission, the researchers note, can drastically alter flow structures and accretion rates in high-density astrophysical environments, limiting the model’s accuracy in key scenarios.

Two quantum computers with 20 qubits manage to simulate information scrambling

Four RIKEN researchers have used two small quantum computers to simulate quantum information scrambling, an important quantum-information process. This achievement illustrates a potential application of future quantum computers. The results are published in Physical Review Research.

Still in their infancy, quantum computers are only just beginning to be used for applications. But they promise to revolutionize computing when they become a mature technology.

One possible application for quantum computers is simulating the scrambling of quantum information—a key phenomenon that involves the spread of information in ranging from strange metals to .

New measurement station in Brazil: Quantum technology expands global network in search for dark matter

A highly sensitive quantum sensor from Jena has traveled nearly 9,000 kilometers: by truck to Hamburg, by ship across the Atlantic, and finally overland to Vassouras, Brazil.

At the campus of the Observatório Nacional, researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz-IPHT) in Jena, together with Brazilian partners, have installed a new measurement station. It is part of the worldwide GNOME project and is designed to help address one of the great unsolved questions in modern physics: the nature of .

Dark matter cannot be directly detected with conventional measurement methods. However, it demonstrably influences the motion of galaxies and the structure of the cosmos. Understanding its nature remains one of the central open problems in physics.

Exoplanets could be key to finding mysterious dark matter: Study

Dark matter could turn exoplanets into tiny black holes, shocking study reveals.

A study suggests that exoplanets could be used to search for dark matter — the elusive substance that makes up 85% of the universe’s matter.

Dark matter’s gravitational pull proves it exists, but we’ve never been able to directly find it.

Now, the University of California, Riverside, study proposes that exoplanets, especially large, gaseous ones like Jupiter, could act as natural laboratories for dark matter search.

X Particles Detected Inside LHC for the First Time Ever!

Physicists at the LHC have recently identified a collection of approximately one hundred “X particles” originating from the early moments of the Big Bang. These findings, which may lead to a deeper understanding of the universe, have been published in the Physical Review Letters journal.

Particle accelerators bring particles into high-speed collisions. The largest of these is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located near Geneva. The purpose of these experiments is to simulate aspects of the Big Bang and to examine how matter behaves under those conditions.

In recent years, these high-energy collisions have led to the discovery of several theorized particles. More recently, physicists have detected about a hundred short-lived “X particles,” so named due to their mysterious structures, amid billions of elementary particles.

What happened before the Big Bang? Computational method may provide answers

We’re often told it is “unscientific” or “meaningless” to ask what happened before the Big Bang. But a new paper by FQxI cosmologist Eugene Lim, of King’s College London, UK, and astrophysicists Katy Clough, of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Josu Aurrekoetxea, at Oxford University, UK, published in Living Reviews in Relativity, proposes a way forward: using complex computer simulations to numerically (rather than exactly) solve Einstein’s equations for gravity in extreme situations.

Astronomers probe the nature of a massive young stellar object

Astronomers from Argentina and Spain have performed near-infrared observations of a massive young stellar object known as MYSO G29.862−0.0044. The observational campaign sheds more light on the nature of this object and its unique morphology. The new findings are presented in a paper published August 13 on the arXiv preprint server.

Massive young stellar objects (MYSOs) are stars in the very early stage of formation and the progenitors of massive main-sequence stars. However, due to their short formation timescale (about 10,000–100,000 years) and the severe extinction by the surrounding gas and dust, observations of MYSOs remain challenging.

Located some 20,200 away, MYSO G29.862−0.0044 (YSO-G29 for short), is a massive young stellar object associated with the star-forming region G29.96–0.02. The object is likely embedded within a dense molecular core.

Accidental double zoom reveals millimeter waves around supermassive black hole

An international team of astronomers led by Matus Rybak (Leiden University, Netherlands) has proven, thanks to accidental double zoom, that millimeter radiation is generated close to the core of a supermassive black hole. Their findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and are available on the arXiv preprint server.

Deep beneath the French Alps, scientists hunt for dark matter

The mysterious substance called dark matter is intrinsically invisible. It cannot be directly observed—rather, its presence is inferred by its gravitational influence on the universe, such as binding galaxy clusters together and moving stars around their galaxy faster than they should.

/* */