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Category: particle physics

Light can reshape atom-thin semiconductors for next-generation optical devices

Rice University researchers studying a class of atom-thin semiconductors known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have discovered that light can trigger a physical shift in their atomic lattice, creating a tunable way to adjust the materials’ behavior and properties.

The effect, observed in a TMD subtype named after the two-faced Roman god of transitions, Janus, could advance technologies that use light instead of electricity, from faster and cooler computer chips to ultrasensitive sensors and flexible optoelectronic devices.

“In , light can be reshaped to create new colors, faster pulses or optical switches that turn signals on and off,” said Kunyan Zhang, a Rice doctoral alumna who is a first author on a study documenting the effect. “Two-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, make it possible to build these optical tools on a very small scale.”

Physicists achieve high precision in measuring strontium atoms using rubidium neighbor

Having good neighbors can be very valuable—even in the atomic world. A team of Amsterdam physicists was able to determine an important property of strontium atoms, a highly useful element for modern applications in atomic clocks and quantum computers, to unprecedented precision. To achieve this, they made clever use of a nearby cloud of rubidium atoms. The results were published in the journal Physical Review Letters this week.

Strontium. It is perhaps not the most popularly known chemical element, but among a group of physicists it has a much better reputation—and rightfully so.

Strontium is one of six so-called alkaline earth metals, meaning that it shares properties with better-known cousins like magnesium, calcium and radium. Strontium atoms have 38 protons in their nucleus, and a varying number of neutrons—for the variations (or isotopes) of strontium that can be found in nature, either 46, 48, 49 or 50.

Scientists Unlock Secrets of the Building Blocks of the Universe

Scientists at Indiana University have made a major advance in understanding how the universe came to exist. Their success comes from a collaboration between two large international research teams studying neutrinos, the nearly massless particles that stream endlessly through space and matter while rarely interacting with anything around them. The findings, published in Nature, bring researchers closer to solving one of science’s most profound mysteries: why the universe is filled with matter, stars, planets, and life, rather than nothing at all.

This breakthrough arose from an unprecedented partnership between two world-leading neutrino experiments: NOvA in the United States and T2K in Japan. By combining their data, scientists are gaining new insight into the hidden behavior of neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts, potentially revealing why the early universe avoided self-destruction immediately after the Big Bang.

In each experiment, beams of neutrinos are generated using powerful particle accelerators and then observed after traveling vast distances underground. Detecting them is an enormous challenge; out of countless particles, only a few interact in a way that leaves measurable traces. Using sophisticated detectors and advanced computing tools, researchers reconstruct these rare interactions to understand how neutrinos change as they move through space.

Climate intervention may not be enough to save coffee, chocolate and wine

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that even advanced climate intervention strategies may not be enough to secure the future of wine grapes, coffee and cacao.

These crops are vital to many economies and provide livelihoods for farmers worldwide. However, they are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of . Rising temperatures and changing cause big variations in from year to year, meaning that farmers cannot rely on the stability of their harvest, and their produce is at risk.

The researchers specifically investigated Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as a way of mitigating climate change in the top grape, coffee and cacao growing regions of western Europe, South America and West Africa. SAI is a hypothetical solar geoengineering method that involves releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to cool Earth’s surface, mimicking the natural cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.

We could use neutrino detectors as giant particle colliders

There is a limit to how big we can build particle colliders on Earth, whether that is because of limited space or limited economics. Since size is equivalent to energy output for particle colliders, that also means there’s a limit to how energetic we can make them. And again, since high energies are required to test theories that go beyond the standard model (BSM) of particle physics, that means we will be limited in our ability to validate those theories until we build a collider big enough.

But a team of scientists led by Yang Bai at the University of Wisconsin thinks they might have a better idea—use already existing neutrino detectors as a large scale particle collider that can reach energies way beyond what the LHC is capable of. The findings are published on the arXiv preprint server.

Neutrinos are notorious for very weakly interacting with things—there are trillions of them passing through you as you read this sentence. However, put enough matter in their way and eventually a special few will run directly into a proton or electron. The resulting particle spray, which is typically going faster than light in whatever medium the neutrino hits, creates a light known as Cherenkov radiation. But really what causes the Cherenkov radiation are the particles created by what is essentially a giant particle .

How silver iodide triggers ice formation at the atomic level

No one can control the weather, but certain clouds can be deliberately triggered to release rain or snow. The process, known as cloud seeding, typically involves dispersing small silver iodide particles from aircraft into clouds. These particles act as seeds on which water molecules accumulate, forming ice crystals that grow and eventually become heavy enough to fall to the ground as rain or snow.

Until now, the microscopic details of this process have remained unclear. Using and , researchers at TU Wien have investigated how interacts with water at the .

Their findings, published in Science Advances, reveal that silver iodide exposes two fundamentally different surfaces, but only one of them promotes . The discovery deepens our understanding of how clouds form rain and snow and may guide the design of improved materials for inducing precipitation.

First observation of single top quark production with W and Z bosons

The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detect rare events on a daily basis, but some are exceptionally rare, such as this latest result from the CMS collaboration. For the first time, the collaboration has observed the production of a single top quark along with a W and a Z boson, an extremely rare process that happens only once every trillion proton collisions. Finding this event in the LHC data is like searching for a needle in a haystack the size of an Olympic stadium.

The creation of a top , a W boson and a Z boson, known as tWZ production, opens up a new window for understanding the fundamental forces of nature. By closely studying tWZ production, physicists can investigate how the top quark interacts with the electroweak force, which is carried by the W and Z bosons.

In addition, the top quark is the heaviest known fundamental particle, meaning that it has the strongest interaction with the Higgs field, so, studying the tWZ process could give us a deeper understanding of the Higgs mechanism. It could also point us to signs of new phenomena and physics beyond the Standard Model.

Physicist discusses the Higgs boson and whether it might change the fate of the universe

On July 4, 2012, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland announced with great fanfare that they had successfully detected the Higgs boson, the manifestation of the mechanism that gives some elementary particles their mass. The finding was a triumph of both the experimental skill required to definitively detect the particle, and the theoretical acumen of those who predicted its existence, recognized by the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Brown University researchers played key roles in both sides of the accomplishment. Experimentalists including David Cutts, Ulrich Heintz, Greg Landsberg and the late Meenakshi Narain made key contributions to the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the LHC credited with making the discovery. Years earlier, the late Gerald Guralnik was part of a group that made a theoretical prediction of the particle, which many scientists believe to be the most complete description of the Higgs mechanism.

The Higgs was the final missing piece in the standard model of —the theory that describes the basic building blocks of the universe. But its discovery was by no means a final destination for particle physics. Fundamental questions about the Higgs itself remain unanswered.

PFAS-free membrane with nanoscopic plugs enables cleaner, cheaper hydrogen production

Hydrogen is already an important source of energy. The $250 billion industry supports fertilizer production, steel manufacturing, oil refining, and dozens of other vital activities. While nearly all hydrogen produced today is created using carbon-intensive methods, researchers are racing to develop cheaper ways of producing hydrogen with a lower carbon footprint.

One of the most promising approaches is , a process that uses electricity to power a reactor—called an electrolyzer—to split water (H2O) molecules into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2).

Electrolyzers rely on a that blocks O2 and H2 molecules while allowing positively charged —called protons—to pass through.

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