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NASA’s Roman to Search for Signs of Dark Matter Clumps
Some of the finest, smallest details in the universe – the gaps between elongated groups of stars – may soon help astronomers reveal dark matter in greater detail than ever before. After NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches, by May 2027, researchers will use its images to explore what exists between looping tendrils of stars that are pulled from globular clusters. Specifically, they will focus on the tidal streams from globular clusters that orbit our neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Their aim is to pinpoint a greater number of examples of these tidal streams, examine gaps between the stars, and ideally determine concrete properties of dark matter.
Globular cluster streams are like ribbons fluttering in the cosmos, both leading and trailing the globular clusters where they originated along their orbits. Their lengths in our Milky Way galaxy vary wildly. Very short stellar streams are relatively young, while those that completely wrap around a galaxy may be almost as old as the universe. A stream that is fully wrapped around the Andromeda galaxy could be more than 300,000 light-years long but less than 3,000 light-years wide.
With Roman, astronomers will be able to search nearby galaxies for globular cluster stellar streams for the first time. Roman’s Wide Field Instrument has 18 detectors that will produce images 200 times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope’s near-infrared camera – at a slightly greater resolution.
Researchers find evidence of long-lived valley states in bilayer graphene quantum dots
In quantum computing, the question as to what physical system and which degrees of freedom within that system may be used to encode quantum bits of information—qubits, in short—is at the heart of many research projects carried out in physics and engineering laboratories.
Superconducting qubits, spin qubits, and qubits encoded in the motion of trapped ions are already widely recognized as prime candidates for future practical applications of quantum computers; other systems need to be better understood and thus offer a stimulating ground for fundamental investigation.
Rebekka Garreis, Chuyao Tong, Wister Huang, and their colleagues in the group of Professors Klaus Ensslin and Thomas Ihn from the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich have been looking into bilayer graphene (BLG) quantum dots, known as a potential platform for spin qubits, to find out if another degree of freedom of BLG can be used to encode quantum information.
The Theory of Stupidity by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Moral Defect with Dire Consequences
Stupidity, as defined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is a moral defect and willful refusal to engage in critical thinking, and it can spread like a contagion, leading to dire consequences for society.
Questions to inspire discussion.
How does Dietrich Bonhoeffer define stupidity?
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer defines stupidity as a moral defect and willful refusal to engage in critical thinking.
Patriot is developing DDR5 RAM sticks that will run at 6400 speed and higher, no matter what the CPU can take
No funny stuff going on, just a good ol’ fashioned client memory clock driver chip. Lovely.
A Large Optical-Diode Effect at Telecom Frequencies
At low temperatures, crystals of lithium nickel phosphate transmit short-wavelength infrared light much more strongly in one direction than in the other.
“Fictitious” Magnetic Fields for Atomic Magnetometers
Researchers have achieved dual-axis magnetic-field detection using an atomic magnetometer architecture with only optical instruments.
Searching for New Physics in the Neutron Looking Glass
Researchers have demonstrated a mirror-based neutron interferometer that should be more sensitive to beyond-standard-model particle interactions than previous instruments.
Some theories of beyond-standard-model physics predict that neutrons passing close to an atomic nucleus will experience exotic interactions with the particles in that nucleus. To try to spot these interactions, physicists use a neutron interferometer, a device that splits and then recombines a neutron beam. If a currently unknown particle interaction affects one branch of the split beam as it passes through a material, the signature should show up in the interference pattern that forms when the two beams come back together. Takuhiro Fujiie at Nagoya University, Japan, and colleagues have now demonstrated a new neutron interferometer that promises greater sensitivity to beyond-standard-model physics [1].
In a conventional neutron interferometer, components made of crystalline silicon manipulate the neutron beam. Such interferometers only work for neutron beams that have wavelengths between 0.19 and 0.44 nm because of the spacings between crystalline silicon’s atoms. In the new instrument, neutron mirrors composed of alternating layers of nickel and titanium manipulate the neutron beam. The spacing of the layers determines the wavelength reflected and can be tuned to make mirrors that work for a wider range of neutron-beam wavelengths—including longer wavelengths that offer greater measurement sensitivity.