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Archive for the ‘particle physics’ category: Page 369

Jun 15, 2020

Green glow detected on the Red Planet

Posted by in categories: particle physics, satellites

A similar glow is sometimes seen by astronauts on the space station when they look to the Earth’s limb.

The glow comes from oxygen atoms when they’re excited by sunlight.

The phenomenon has long been predicted to occur on other planets, but the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) — a joint European-Russian satellite at Mars — is the first to make the observation beyond Earth.

Jun 15, 2020

Mars Exhibits ‘Green Glow’ in Atmosphere, Just Like Earth

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

The European Space Agency (ESA) has just announced that its ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has identified a long-suspected “green glow” around Mars. The green glow is due to the interaction of sunlight with atoms and molecules in Mars’ atmosphere. To date, we’ve only observed the phenomenon around one other planet: Earth. Now, the scientists who’ve discovered the Red Planet’s green glow say it could help us better understand the planet’s atmosphere. And how to land safely on its surface.

An artist’s illustration of the green glow around Mars. ESA

Futurism reported on the finding, which was outlined in a paper recently published in the journal, Nature. According to the paper, this discovery marks the first time scientists have observed the “day glow” and “night glow” that generate the “green line” around Earth around Mars. Or any other planet. The discovery also stands as long sought-after confirmatory evidence of predictions regarding the Martian atmosphere, which date back 40 years.

Jun 13, 2020

Rare quadruplet ‘top quarks’ created at world’s largest atom smasher

Posted by in category: particle physics

The world’s largest atom smasher has “given birth” to a set of four ultraheavy particles — called top quarks.

The formation of these chubby-but-tiny quadruplets, at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, has long been predicted by the Standard Model, the prevailing physics theory that governs subatomic interactions. But new physics theories suggest they could be created much more often than the Standard Model predicts. Finding more of such foursomes is the first step in testing those theories. The new findings were announced at the LHCP 2020 Conference.

Jun 12, 2020

Exotic fifth state of matter made on the International Space Station

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

An instrument on board the International Space Station contains one of the coldest places in the universe, and researchers have used it to create a cloud of frozen atoms.

Jun 11, 2020

Physicists perform the most detailed simulation of the Universe yet

Posted by in categories: cosmology, evolution, particle physics, singularity

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How did the universe evolve from a point of singularity, known as the Big Bang, into a massive structure whose boundaries seem limitless? New clues and insight into the evolution of the universe have recently been provided by an international team of physicists, who performed the most detailed large-scale simulation of the universe to date.

The researchers made their own universe in a box — a cube of space spanning more than 230 million light-years across. Previous cosmological simulations were either very detailed but spanned a small volume or less detailed across large volumes. The new simulation, known as TNG50, managed to combine the best of two worlds, producing a large-scale replica of the cosmos while, at the same time, allowing for unprecedented computational resolution.

Continue reading “Physicists perform the most detailed simulation of the Universe yet” »

Jun 11, 2020

Extremely brilliant giga-electron-volt gamma rays from a two-stage laser-plasma accelerator

Posted by in categories: engineering, particle physics, space

Laser-wakefield accelerators have led to the development of compact, ultrashort X-ray or gamma-ray sources to deliver peak brilliance, similar to conventional synchrotron sources. However, such sources are withheld by low efficiencies and limited to 107–8 photons per shot in the kiloelectron volt (KeV) to megaelectron volt (MeV) range. In a new report now published on Science Advances, Xing-Long Zhu and a research team in physics and astronomy in China and the U.K., presented a new approach to efficiently produce collimated, ultrabright gamma (γ)-ray beams. The resulting photon energies were tunable for up to gigaelectron volts by focussing a multi-petawatt laser pulse into a 2-stage wakefield accelerator. The high-intensity laser allowed them to efficiently generate a multi-gigaelectron volt electron beam with a high density and charge during the first stage of the experiment. The laser and electron beams entered a high-density plasma region in the second stage thereafter. Using numerical simulations, they demonstrated the production of more than 1012 gamma ray photons per shot with energy conversion efficiency above 10 percent for photons above 1 megaelectron volt (MeV) and achieved a peak brilliance above 1026 photons S-1 mm-2 mrad-2 per 0.1 percent bandwidth at 1 MeV. This research outcome will offer new avenues in both fundamental and applied physics and engineering.

Bright sources of high-energy gamma rays are versatile for broad areas of applications, including fundamental research in astrophysics, particle and nuclear physics, as well as high-resolution imaging. Researchers can improve such applications with compact gamma ray sources with low divergence, short pulse duration, high energy, and high peak brilliance. While widely used synchrotrons and X-ray free electron lasers (XFELS) can deliver X-ray pulses with peak brilliance, they are limited to low photon energies. The size and cost of such research structures can also limit their regular applications. Researchers have therefore rapidly developed compact laser-wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) in the past two decades to offer a radically different approach to drive the acceleration and radiation of high-energy particles on a much smaller scale. Continuous advancements in the field of ultrahigh-power laser technology will enable brilliant high-energy gamma sources.

Jun 11, 2020

Quantum ‘fifth state of matter’ observed in space for first time

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Paris (AFP) — Scientists have observed the fifth state of matter in space for the first time, offering unprecedented insight that could help solve some of the quantum universe’s most intractable conundrums, research showed Thursday.

Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) — the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein and Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose almost a century ago — are formed when atoms of certain elements are cooled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin, minus 273.15 Celsius).

At this point, the atoms become a single entity with quantum properties, wherein each particle also functions as a wave of matter.

Jun 10, 2020

Why We Should Really Put a Particle Accelerator on the Moon

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space travel

In the March 1988 issue of Popular Mechanics, the legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote an article describing his vision for humanity’s return to the moon.

Jun 8, 2020

Physicists think they’ve figured out a way to save Schrödinger’s cat

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

The famous cat-in-a-box thought experiment by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is an illustration of one of the defining characteristics of quantum mechanics — the unpredictable behaviour of particles at the quantum level.

It makes working with quantum systems incredibly difficult; but what if we could make quantum predictions? A team of physicists believes it’s possible.

In a study published last year, they demonstrated their ability to predict something called a quantum jump, and even reverse the process after it’s started.

Jun 7, 2020

Attosecond physics: Quantum brakes in molecules

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Physicists have measured the flight times of electrons emitted from a specific atom in a molecule upon excitation with laser light. This has enabled them to measure the influence of the molecule itself on the kinetics of emission.

Photoemission — the release of electrons in response to excitation by light — is one of the most fundamental processes in the microcosm. The kinetic energy of the emitted electron is characteristic for the atom concerned, and depends on the wavelength of the light employed. But how long does the process take? And does it always take the same amount of time, irrespective of whether the electron is emitted from an individual atom or from an atom that is part of a molecule? An international team of researchers led by laser physicists in the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (LAP) at LMU Munich and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching has now probed the influence of the molecule on photoemission time.

The theoretical description of photoemission in 1905 by Albert Einstein marked a breakthrough in quantum physics, and the details of the process are of continuing interest in the world of science and beyond. How the motions of an elementary quantum particle such as the electron are affected within a molecular environment has a significant bearing on our understanding of the process of photoemission and the forces that hold molecules together.