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Category: particle physics – Page 48

New analysis supports Einstein’s relativity and narrows neutrino mass ranges, hinting at evolving dark energy.

Gravity, the fundamental force sculpting the universe, has shaped tiny variations in matter from the early cosmos into the vast networks of galaxies we see today. Using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), scientists have traced the evolution of these cosmic structures over the past 11 billion years. This research represents the most precise large-scale test of gravity ever conducted, offering unprecedented insights into the universe’s formation and behavior.

Introduction to DESI and its global impact.

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Researchers have developed a new computational method to explore the neutron matter inside neutron stars at densities higher than previously studied.

This method provides insights into the behavior of neutrinos during supernova explosions, enhancing the accuracy of simulations and potentially improving our understanding of such cosmic events.

Advances in Neutron Matter Simulation.

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For the first time, scientists have observed a collection of particles, also known as a quasiparticle, that’s massless when moving one direction but has mass in the other direction. The quasiparticle, called a semi-Dirac fermion, was first theorized 16 years ago, but was only recently spotted inside a crystal of semi-metal material called ZrSiS. The observation of the quasiparticle opens the door to future advances in a range of emerging technologies from batteries to sensors, according to the researchers.

The team, led by scientists at Penn State and Columbia University, recently published their discovery in the journal Physical Review X.

“This was totally unexpected,” said Yinming Shao, assistant professor of physics at Penn State and lead author on the paper. “We weren’t even looking for a semi-Dirac fermion when we started working with this material, but we were seeing signatures we didn’t understand—and it turns out we had made the first observation of these wild quasiparticles that sometimes move like they have mass and sometimes move like they have none.”

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Researchers at the University of Reading and University College London have developed a new artificial intelligence model that can predict how atoms arrange themselves in crystal structures. Called CrystaLLM, the technology works similarly to AI chatbots, by learning the “language” of crystals by studying millions of existing crystal structures. It could lead to faster discovery of new materials for everything from solar panels to computer chips.

Read Full Story.

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Nuclear theorists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have successfully employed a new theoretical approach to calculate the Collins-Soper kernel, a quantity that describes how the distribution of quarks’ transverse momentum inside a proton changes with the collision energy.

The research is published in the journal Physical Review D.

The new calculation precisely matches model-based reconstructions from particle collision data. It is particularly effective for quarks with low transverse momenta, where earlier methods fell short.

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The universe is a stage filled with extreme phenomena, where temperatures and energies reach unimaginable levels. In this context, there are objects such as supernova remnants, pulsars, and active galactic nuclei that generate charged particles and gamma rays with energies far exceeding those involved in nuclear processes like fusion within stars. These particles, as direct witnesses of extreme cosmic processes, offer key insights into the workings of the universe.

Gamma rays, for instance, have the ability to traverse space without being altered, providing direct information about their sources of origin. However, charged particles, known as cosmic rays, face a more complex journey. When interacting with the omnipresent magnetic fields of the cosmos, these particles are deflected and lose part of their energy, especially high-energy electrons and positrons, referred to as cosmic-ray electrons (CRe). With energies surpassing one teraelectronvolt (TeV)—a thousand times more than visible light— these particles gradually fade away, complicating the identification of their point of origin.

Detecting high-energy particles such as CRe is a monumental task. Space instruments, with their limited detection areas, fail to capture sufficient particles at these extreme energies. On the other hand, ground-based observatories face an additional challenge: distinguishing particle cascades triggered by cosmic-ray electrons from the far more frequent ones generated by protons and heavier cosmic-ray nuclei.

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It was 1,229 CE in the monastery of St Sabas, near Jerusalem, and a monk named Johannes Myronas was in need of some parchment. He had evidently been tasked with creating a copy of the Euchologion – an important book of prayer and worship directions for Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches.

The problem was, parchment was expensive and hard to come by. Recycling was the name of the game, and Johannes had just the thing: a 200-year-old manuscript filled with old math notes that nobody was all that interested in anymore. Compared with the Holy Word, there was no contest: he pulled it apart, scraped the old text off, and used the pages for the new book – a technique known as palimpsesting.

You probably know where this is going. In creating his Euchologion, Johannes had – presumably unwittingly – destroyed one of the most valuable relics of Archimedes’s work. Not just some notebook or single treatise, even: the manuscript now known as “Codex C” contained multiple works from the ancient polymath, some of which now exist nowhere else in the world.

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The larger challenge for hydrogen is sourcing it from green suppliers. Electrolyzers are used to harvest green hydrogen by splitting water into its component atoms. For the hydrogen to be green it has to either come from natural-occurring sources which are rare or from producing it using renewable energy generated by hydro, solar, onshore, and offshore wind turbines. Building an electrolyzer infrastructure would be key to creating hydrogen-powered vehicles for long-distance travel with quick refuelling turnarounds. The trucking industry is likely the best candidate for the use of this fuel and technology.

Making ICE-Powered Vehicles More Efficient.

About 99% of global transportation today runs on ICE with 95% of the energy coming from liquid fuels made from petroleum. Experts at Yanmar Replacements Parts, a diesel engine aftermarket supplier, state that, “while hydrogen-powered and electric vehicles will be on the rise, ICEs will continue to remain the norm and will be for the foreseeable future.” That’s why companies are reluctant to abandon ICE to make the technology more compatible to lower carbon emissions. By choosing different materials during manufacturing, automotive companies believe that production emissions can be abated by 66%.

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In a groundbreaking development, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, have made a remarkable leap in understanding the fundamental forces of nature. For the first time, they have observed quantum entanglement between top quarks—the heaviest elementary particles—at unprecedented energy levels. This discovery not only pushes the boundaries of particle physics but also opens the door to new possibilities in the quest to understand the universe.

At the heart of this discovery is quantum entanglement, one of the most puzzling and fascinating phenomena in the realm of quantum mechanics. Entanglement occurs when two or more particles become linked in such a way that the state of one particle instantaneously influences the state of another, regardless of the distance between them. This defies our classical understanding of the world, where objects should only interact when they are physically close to one another.

Imagine you have two particles, each spinning in a specific direction. Normally, if one particle changes its state, the other should remain unaffected. But with quantum entanglement, a change in the spin or state of one particle immediately alters the other, even if they are light-years apart. It’s as if the particles are communicating across vast distances without any delay.

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