Lifeboat Foundation

The way that electrons paired as composite particles or arranged in lines interact with each other within a semiconductor provides new design opportunities for electronics, according to recent findings in Nature Communications.

What this means for semiconductor components, such as those that send information throughout electronic devices, is not yet clear, but hydrostatic pressure can be used to tune the interaction so that electrons paired as composite particles switch between paired, or “superconductor-like,” and lined-up, or “nematic,” phases. Forcing these phases to interact also suggests that they can influence each other’s properties, like stability – opening up possibilities for manipulation in electronic devices and quantum computing.

“You can literally have hundreds of different phases of electrons organizing themselves in different ways in a semiconductor,” said Gábor Csáthy, Purdue professor of physics and astronomy. “We found that two in particular can actually talk to each other in the presence of hydrostatic pressure.”

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By jan mcharg, texas A&M university college of engineering

A new technology combining a laser beam and a particle beam for interstellar propulsion could pave the way for space exploration into the vast corners of our universe. This is the focus of PROCSIMA, a new research proposal by Dr. Chris Limbach and Dr. Ken Hara, assistant professors in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University.

NASA has chosen the proposal “PROCSIMA: Diffractionless Beam Propulsion for Breakthrough Interstellar Missions,” for the 2018 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) phase 1 study. PROCSIMA stands for Photon-paRticle Optically Coupled Soliton Interstellar Mission Accelerator, and is meant to evoke the idea that interstellar travel is not so far away.

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Scientists have determined the minimum amount of crew members needed for a 6,300-year journey to Proxima b.

A team of French scientists have recently published a new study detailing everything that would be needed if humans were to one day make the long interstellar journey to Proxima Centauri to start a new life and civilization. The research went to great lengths to determine the correct amount of people that would ensure a successful voyage to Proxima b.

The study was conducted by particle physicist Dr. Camille Beluffi and Dr. Frederic Marin from the Astronomical Observatory of Strasbourg and marks the second study conducted on such an interstellar journey to Proxima b, as ScienceAlert reported.

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Collider will be far more sensitive to anomalies that could lead to entirely new theories of the universe.

Ian Sample

In a renewed attempt at a grand unified theory of brain function, physicists now argue that brains optimize performance by staying near — though not exactly at — the critical point between two phases.

This ancient interstellar dust formed the Earth and the solar system.

Particles collected from Earth’s upper atmosphere, originally deposited by comets, are older than our Solar System, scientists say – and these fine bits of interstellar dust could teach us about how planets and stars form from the very beginning.

These cosmic particles have lived through at least 4.6 billion years and travelled across incredible distances, according to the new research into their chemical composition.

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Neutrinos are so tiny and inconspicuous that physicists believed for a long time they had no mass. Now, a massive device that scientists say will determine the mass of neutrinos has begun operation in Karlsruhe.

What is the exact mass of the three known kinds of neutrinos? Any answers? No? Well, don’t worry, because nobody knows. Not yet. Electron, muon and tau neutrinos are simply too difficult to grasp for scientists.

What would it say about the fundamental structure of the universe?

Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have made a major new detection of the famous Higgs boson, this time catching details on a rare interaction with one of the heaviest fundamental particles known to physics — the top quark.

The brief mingling of these incredibly rare encounters has provided physicists with important information on the nature of mass, and whether there is more to physics than the existing model predicts.

Continue reading “The LHC Has Detected The Higgs Boson Again, This Time With a Massive Twist” »

The Higgs boson appeared again at the world’s largest atom smasher — this time, alongside a top quark and an antitop quark, the heaviest known fundamental particles. And this new discovery could help scientists better understand why fundamental particles have the mass they do.

When scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) first confirmed the Higgs’ existence back in 2013, it was a big deal. As Live Science reported at the time, the discovery filled in the last missing piece of the Standard Model of physics, which explains the behavior of tiny subatomic particles. It also confirmed physicists’ basic assumptions about how the universe works. But simply finding the Higgs didn’t answer every question scientists have about how the Higgs behaves. This new observation starts to fill in the gaps.

As the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the scientific organization that operates the LHC, explained in a statement, one of the most significant mysteries in particle physics is the major mass differences between fermions, the particles that make up matter. An electron, for example, is a bit less than one three-millionth the mass of a top quark. Researchers believe that the Higgs boson, with its role (as Live Science previously explained) in giving rise to mass in the universe, could be the key to that mystery. [Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson ].

Continue reading “The Higgs Boson Has a New Friend” »