Powerful winds from supermassive black holes may explain why some of the universe’s largest galaxies stopped making as many stars as expected.
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A Tiny Chemical Trick Could Lead to Much More Powerful Computer Chips
A new plasma chemistry breakthrough could help manufacturers build the next generation of smaller, faster, and more powerful computer chips.
Fractional Fermi Sea: Physicists Discover a New Phase of Matter Beyond Established Theory
Scientists have engineered a never-before-seen quantum state, uncovering a new phase of matter with hidden order beyond conventional theory.
Researchers have shown that an unusual quantum state known as a “fractional Fermi sea” can be deliberately created, opening the door to a previously unknown phase of matter. The work, published in Physical Review Letters, was carried out by the Nägerl group together with theoretical collaborator Alvise Bastianello of the CNRS and Université Paris-Dauphine. The study provides the theoretical foundation for recent experimental work led by Hans-Christoph Nägerl’s group in the Department of Experimental Physics.
Creating a New Quantum State.
X-pinch plasma achieves radial proton acceleration for crisp imaging
Plasma pinches: From pursuits of nuclear fusion to an attractive point source of accelerated protons for proton radiography.
Protons accelerated in a radial direction were discovered and used for the first time from pinch plasmas—current-carrying plasma columns compressed by their own magnetic field—according to a study led by the Czech Technical University in Prague and University of Michigan Engineering.
The researchers accelerated protons to 3 mega electron volts (MeV) on relatively small-scale devices operating at a 400-kiloampere (kA) peak current. This expands access to proton radiography, a technique for imaging the ultra-fast evolution of electric and magnetic fields in plasma, once limited to sophisticated, expensive and often massive laser facilities like the OMEGA and OMEGA-EP laser systems at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics.
