Lifeboat Foundation

What is the heaviest element in the universe? Are there infinitely many elements? Where and how could superheavy elements be created naturally?

The heaviest abundant element known to exist is uranium, with 92 protons (the atomic number “Z”). But scientists have succeeded in synthesizing superheavy elements up to oganesson, with a Z of 118. Immediately before it are livermorium, with 116 protons and tennessine, which has 117.

All have short half-lives—the amount of time for half of an assembly of the element’s atoms to decay—usually less than a second and some as short as a microsecond. Creating and detecting such elements is not easy and requires powerful particle accelerators and elaborate measurements.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab have developed a new type of optical memory that stores data by transferring light from rare-earth element atoms embedded in a solid material to nearby quantum defects. They published their study in Physical Review Research.

This finding, achieved independently by a team at Pennsylvania State University published in the same journal, holds immense potential for the development of nanophotonic devices.

Manipulating the flow of light in materials at small scales is crucial for creating efficient nanophotonic chips, the building blocks for future optical devices. In the realm of electronics, scientists can control the movement of electrons using magnetic fields.

The Lorentz force, exerted by the magnetic field, dictates the electron’s trajectory. However, this approach is inapplicable to photons – the fundamental particles of light – as they lack an electrical charge.

“Dark matter searches are currently one of the hot topics in the high energy physics community. We look for weakly interacting particles in a number of different facilities ranging from accelerator experiments to tabletop laboratory setups,” Alina Kleimenova and Stefan Ghinescu, part of the NA62 Collaboration, told Phys.org.

“While LHC experiments rely on the high collision energy, smashing protons at about 14 trillion electron volts, NA62, being a fixed-target experiment, focuses on the high intensity approach with a quintillion (10¹⁸) of protons on target per year. This intensity creates a unique opportunity to probe various rare processes and beyond Standard Model scenarios.”

Dark photons, also referred to as A’, are among the hypothetical particles beyond the Standard Model whose existence could be probed by the NA62 detector. These particles could act as mediators between known visible matter and dark matter.

Heating a plasma for fusion research requires megawatts of power. One approach that research tokamaks use to achieve the necessary power input is neutral beam injection (NBI). With NBI, fast neutral particles are generated in a device called a beam source and then injected into the plasma.

Researchers have developed a new detector that analyzes antineutrinos emitted by nuclear reactors to monitor their activities from great distances.

This technology, which utilizes the phenomena of Cherenkov radiation, could revolutionize how we ensure reactors are not producing material for nuclear weapons, despite challenges from other environmental antineutrinos.

Nuclear Fission and Antimatter Monitoring.

A cornerstone of the US fusion research program, the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, has accomplished a major achievement. The nuclear fusion facility has completed its 200,000th experimental cycle.

“While completing 200,000 shots is impressive in its own right, this achievement is far more than a mere number,” said Dr Richard Buttery, Director of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility.

Nuclear fusion has long been hailed as the “holy grail” of clean energy. It is the process of nuclear fusion itself that powers the sun and stars. Unlike nuclear fission, which splits atoms and generates radioactive waste, fusion involves combining lighter atoms to form heavier ones.

Considering the future: What Voyager 2 has in store

According to Miller (2024), even though this instrument has been deactivated, engineers anticipate that Voyager 2 will have at least one operable instrument for exploration through the 2030s. The spacecraft continues to operate and transmit data. NASA is also hoping that the spacecraft continues to provide valid information about the interstellar medium too.

The seamless continuation of activities was made possible by the confirmation that the instrument was operating normally. In 2018, it was confirmed that Voyager 2 had crossed the heliosphere’s border and entered interstellar space thanks in large part to the plasma science instrument. Significant changes in atoms, particles, and magnetic fields that are detectable by the instruments of the Voyager probes define this barrier.

The hypothetical tachyon particle could potentially send messages backward in time if it exists.