{"id":28490,"date":"2016-07-30T13:48:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T20:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/researchers-apply-quantum-theory-and-einsteins-special-relativity-to-plasma-physics-issues"},"modified":"2017-04-26T12:59:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T19:59:44","slug":"researchers-apply-quantum-theory-and-einsteins-special-relativity-to-plasma-physics-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/researchers-apply-quantum-theory-and-einsteins-special-relativity-to-plasma-physics-issues","title":{"rendered":"Researchers apply quantum theory and Einstein\u2019s special relativity to plasma physics issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-apply-quantum-theory-and-einsteins-special-relativity-to-plasma-physics-issues.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Among the intriguing issues in plasma physics are those surrounding X-ray pulsars\u2014collapsed stars that orbit around a cosmic companion and beam light at regular intervals, like lighthouses in the sky. Physicists want to know the strength of the magnetic field and density of the plasma that surrounds these pulsars, which can be millions of times greater than the density of plasma in stars like the sun.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have developed a theory of <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/plasma\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">plasma<\/a> waves that can infer these properties in greater detail than in standard approaches. The new research analyzes the plasma surrounding the pulsar by coupling Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity with <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/quantum+mechanics\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">quantum mechanics<\/a>, which describes the motion of subatomic particles such as the atomic nuclei\u2014or ions\u2014and electrons in plasma. Supporting this work is the DOE Office of Science.<\/p>\n<p><b>Quantum field theory<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The key insight comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/quantum+field+theory\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">quantum field theory<\/a>, which describes charged particles that are relativistic, meaning that they travel at near the speed of light. \u201cQuantum theory can describe certain details of the propagation of waves in plasma,\u201d said Yuan Shi, a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics and lead author of a paper published July 29 in the journal <i>Physical Review A<\/i>. Understanding the interactions behind the propagation can then reveal the composition of the plasma.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2016-07-quantum-theory-einstein-special-relativity.html\">http:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2016&#45;07-quantum-theory-einstein-special-relativity.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among the intriguing issues in plasma physics are those surrounding X-ray pulsars\u2014collapsed stars that orbit around a cosmic companion and beam light at regular intervals, like lighthouses in the sky. Physicists want to know the strength of the magnetic field and density of the plasma that surrounds these pulsars, which can be millions of times [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28490"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56254,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28490\/revisions\/56254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}