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A team of engineers, physicists, and data scientists from Princeton University and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have used artificial intelligence (AI) to predict—and then avoid—the formation of a specific type of plasma instability in magnetic confinement fusion tokamaks. The researchers built and trained a model using past experimental data from operations at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, Calif., before proving through real-time experiments that their model could forecast so-called tearing mode instabilities up to 300 milliseconds in advance—enough time for an AI controller to adjust operating parameters and avoid a tear in the plasma that could potentially end the fusion reaction.

Some excellent food for thought face_with_colon_three

We now have everything we need to build a physics engine with infinite precision.

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Dr Freese has also made the case for a Dark Big Bang that could have given rise to dark matter independently of normal matter in the days after the Big Bang. The traditional model of the universe says that matter and dark matter were produced at the same time. The earliest evidence of dark matter, however, only appears later in the early evolution of the universe, when cosmic structure starts to form.

One explanation for this is that matter and dark matter did not, in fact, appear together, but that dark matter entered the universe in a second cataclysmic release of energy from the vacuum—the Dark Big Bang—as much as a month after the traditional Big Bang. The model that Dr Freese and her co-author Martin Winkler explored would explain why dark matter might be completely decoupled from traditional matter and it also naturally produces SIDM candidates. If there was such a Dark Big Bang, it would have left a clear signature—a pattern in the frequencies of the gravitational waves that hum across the universe—that could be picked up by future gravitational-wave detectors.

One of the greatest problems in modern physics is to reconcile the enormous difference between the energy carried by random fluctuations in the vacuum of space, and the dark energy driving the universe’s expansion.

Through new research published in The European Physical Journal Plus, researchers led by Enrico Calloni at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, have unveiled a prototype for an ultra-precise beam balance instrument, which they hope could be used to measure the interaction between these vacuum fluctuations and gravitational fields. With some further improvements, the instrument could eventually enable researchers to shed new light on the enigmatic origins of dark energy.

Inside a vacuum, electromagnetic waves are constantly emerging and disappearing through random fluctuations, so that even though the space doesn’t contain any matter, it still carries a certain amount of energy. Through their research, Calloni’s team aimed to measure the influence of these fluctuations using a state-of-the-art beam balance.

The thermal hall effect (THE) is a physical phenomenon characterized by tiny transverse temperature differences occurring in a material when a thermal current passes through it and a perpendicular magnetic field is applied to it. This effect has been observed in a growing number of insulators, yet its underlying physics remains poorly understood.

Researchers at Université de Sherbrooke in Canada have been trying to identify the mechanism behind this effect in different materials. Their most recent paper, published in Nature Physics, specifically examined this effect in the antiferromagnetic insulator strontium iridium oxide (Sr₂IrO₄).

“Our current research activity on the THE in insulators started with our discovery of a large THE in cuprate superconductors,” Louis Taillefer, co-author of the paper, told Phys.org.

Scientists have revealed why some white dwarfs mysteriously stop cooling—changing ideas on just how old stars really are and what happens to them when they die.

White dwarf stars are universally believed to be ‘dead stars’ that continuously cool down over time. However, in 2019, data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia satellite discovered a population of white dwarf stars that have stopped cooling for more than eight billion years. This suggested that some white dwarfs can generate significant extra energy, at odds with the classical ‘dead star’ picture, and astronomers initially were not sure how this could happen.

Today, new research published in Nature, led by Dr. Antoine Bédard from the University of Warwick and Dr. Simon Blouin from the University of Victoria (Canada), unveils the mechanism behind this baffling observation.

European astronomers have conducted very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations of a radio jet structure in a powerful quasar known as PKS 2215+020. The collected VLBI data provide important insights into the properties of this jet, suggesting that PKS 2215+020 is a blazar. The findings were presented February 17 in the Universe journal.

Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) are active galactic nuclei (AGN) of very high luminosity, emitting electromagnetic radiation observable in radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths.

They are among the brightest and most distant objects in the known universe, and serve as fundamental tools for numerous studies in astrophysics as well as cosmology. For instance, quasars have been used to investigate the large-scale structure of the universe and the era of reionization. They also improve our understanding of the dynamics of supermassive black holes and the intergalactic medium.

Robots and cameras of the future could be made of liquid crystals, thanks to a new discovery that significantly expands the potential of the chemicals already common in computer displays and digital watches.

The findings, a simple and inexpensive way to manipulate the molecular properties of liquid crystals with light exposure, are now published in Advanced Materials.

“Using our method, any lab with a microscope and a set of lenses can arrange the liquid crystal alignment in any pattern they’d want,” said author Alvin Modin, a doctoral researcher studying physics at Johns Hopkins. “Industrial labs and manufacturers could probably adopt the method in a day.”

In a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers from the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences depicted a complete physical image of the anomalous heating in the upper atmosphere of the sun (the solar corona and the solar chromosphere).

The enigma of the corona’s anomalous heating stands as one of the eight challenges in modern astronomy. Similarly, the anomalous heating of the chromosphere continues to baffle solar physicists.

Observations gleaned from large telescopes and satellites have revealed potential magnetic activities that could be the cause of this heating. Theoretical research has proposed various heating modes, yet none have been definitively proven to be the cause. As it stands, our understanding of how the sun’s upper atmosphere is heated remains incomplete.