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Category: particle physics – Page 309

“The final theory of nature must be octonionic,” observed Michael Atiyah, a British mathematician who united mathematics and physics during the 1960s in a way not seen since the days of Isaac Newton.

“Octonions are to physics what the Sirens were to Ulysses,” Pierre Ramond, a particle physicist and string theorist at the University of Florida, said to Natalie Walchover for Quanta.

Many physicists and mathematicians over the decades suspected that the peculiar panoply of forces and particles that comprise reality spring logically from the properties of eight-dimensional numbers called “octonions.” Proof surfaced in 1,898, writes Walchover in Quanta, that the reals, complex numbers, quaternions and octonions are the only kinds of numbers that can be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided.

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This is because cosmic rays consist of electrically charged particles, meaning as they journey billions of light-years from their source to Earth, they are repeatedly deflected by the magnetic fields of galaxies, making their sources impossible to spot.

Related: High-Energy ‘Ghost Particle’ Traced to Distant Galaxy in Astronomy Breakthrough

Some of the processes and events that launch cosmic rays also blast out astrophysical neutrinos, and these ‘ghost-like’ particles could be used as ‘messengers’ to solve this puzzle, a team of astrophysicists believes.

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City College of New York physicist Pouyan Ghaemi and his research team are claiming significant progress in using quantum computers to study and predict how the state of a large number of interacting quantum particles evolves over time. This was done by developing a quantum algorithm that they run on an IBM quantum computer. “To the best of our knowledge, such particular quantum algorithm which can simulate how interacting quantum particles evolve over time has not been implemented before,” said Ghaemi, associate professor in CCNY’s Division of Science.

Entitled “Probing geometric excitations of fractional quantum Hall states on quantum computers,” the study appears in the journal of Physical Review Letters.

“Quantum mechanics is known to be the underlying mechanism governing the properties of elementary particles such as electrons,” said Ghaemi. “But unfortunately there is no easy way to use equations of quantum mechanics when we want to study the properties of large number of electrons that are also exerting force on each other due to their .”

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New research shows a direct interaction between dark matter particles and those that make up ordinary matter.

A new paper, published in the *Astronomy and Astrophysics* journal, discovered unexpected characteristics for the elusive dark matter that likely goes against our best theory of the universe — the Lambda-Cold Dark Matter model.

What is dark matter?

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Staff Scientist Daniele Filippetto working on the High Repetition-Rate Electron Scattering Apparatus. (Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab)

– By Will Ferguson

Scientists have developed a new machine-learning platform that makes the algorithms that control particle beams and lasers smarter than ever before. Their work could help lead to the development of new and improved particle accelerators that will help scientists unlock the secrets of the subatomic world.

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Successful assembly was the result of a collaboration among three institutions in three countries.

Cryomodules are essential components for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s accelerator complex upgrade, known as the Proton Improvement Plan II, or PIP-II.

PIP-II features a brand-new, 800-million-electronvolt leading-edge superconducting radio-frequency linear accelerator, or linac for short, that will enable Fermilab to produce more than 1 megawatt of beam power, 60% higher than current capabilities. To achieve this groundbreaking feat, the linac will be made up of cryomodules, which are vessels containing niobium cavities.

The first particle accelerator on U.S. soil built with significant contributions from international partners, PIP-II will receive three assembled cryomodules from partners at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the United Kingdom and nine assembled cryomodules from Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, or CEA, in France.

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A new study shows that nickel oxide superconductors, which conduct electricity with no loss at higher temperatures than conventional superconductors do, contain a type of quantum matter called charge density waves, or CDWs, that can accompany superconductivity.

The presence of CDWs shows that these recently discovered , also known as nickelates, are capable of forming correlated states— electron soups that can host a variety of quantum phases, including superconductivity, researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University reported in Nature Physics today.

“Unlike in any other superconductor we know about, CDWs appear even before we dope the material by replacing some atoms with others to change the number of electrons that are free to move around,” said Wei-Sheng Lee, a SLAC lead scientist and investigator with the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES) who led the study.

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This week our guest academic philosopher, Susan Schneider, who is the founding director for the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University, as well as the author of the 2019 book, Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind. In this episode we focus heavily on Susan’s thoughts, hopes, and concerns surrounding the current conversations regarding artificial intelligence. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, the philosophical and ethical questions that AI presents in general, the feasibility of mind uploading and machine consciousness, the ways we may end up outsourcing our decision making to machines, how we might merge with machines, and how these potential tech futures might impact identity and sense of self. You can learn more about Susan at schneiderwebsite.com, and find out how to get involved with her work at fau.edu/future-mind ** Host: Steven Parton — LinkedIn / Twitter Music by: Amine el Filali.

41 MINS

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When Dong-Fang Deng and her students make feed for the fish they raise at UWM’s School of Freshwater Sciences, they often use ground fishmeal—dried fish parts from fisheries or wild catch—as the protein source.

It’s possible to find microplastics in commercial fish food, she said, because the that end up in fishmeal consume some of the microplastics that litter the waters they live in. But after Deng actually spotted tiny plastic beads in pre-ground fishmeal, it prompted a question.

“We wondered, ” If the fish eat the microplastics, could the particles accumulate inside their bodies?’” said Deng, professor of freshwater sciences who researches the role of diet in , or aquaculture.

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