Page 33 - Corresponding Editor News Today

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics honors research on complex systems that undergo significant fluctuations, including glasses and Earth’s climate.

An Optical System Defies Conventional Band Theory June 10, 2021• Physics 14, s70 Squeezed wave functions reshape an open quantum system’s bulk-boundary properties and generate a new class of parity-time symmetry. L. Xiao L. Xiao × Quantum systems that obey parity-time symmetry exhibit “exceptional points” within their parameter space. In quantum optical systems, these are points where a light beam’s energy gains and losses are perfectly balanced, leading to rich critical phe...

An Efficient Way to Predict Water’s Phases June 9, 2021• ab initio calculations but at a much smaller computational cost. L. Zhang L. Zhang × Given its familiarity, water is a surprisingly tricky substance to simulate. In addition to having liquid and gas phases, water adopts at least 14 distinct solid configurations—in both molecular and ionic forms—depending on the temperature and pressure. This complex phase space makes water an ideal testbed for theoretical models that pr...

Theorists have shown that patterned surfaces can transform the emission from a hot object into a polarized, focused light beam.

Astronomers have identified spiral arm features in a galaxy from the early Universe, suggesting that these arms can develop more rapidly than some theories predict.

Experiment Casts Doubt on Potential Dark Matter Find May 27, 2021• Physics 14, s71 The DAMA/LIBRA experiment’s potential dark matter detection went unconfirmed for 20 years. Now, a similar experiment offers evidence against the result. F. J. Mena/University of Zaragoza F. J. Mena/University of Zaragoza × For about two decades, physicists have been tantalized by results from the DAMA/LIBRA experiment in Italy, which hint at the detection of dark matter particles. Now, a team at the U...

New analysis of nuclear reaction data finds holes in a theory about the first stars.

Researchers suppress measurement fluctuations of microwaves in a cavity to below that of vacuum.

Light Pulses Change Speed in a Plasma May 19, 2021• Physics 14, s60 Interactions between two laser beams in a plasma allow for precise control over the light’s velocity. sakkmesterke/stock.adobe.com × Light has a strict speed limit, but under certain conditions, this boundary can be broken for individual pulses of light. So far, light has been made to travel above its speed limit in media including atomic gases and optical fibers. Clément Goyon from Lawrence Livermore National Labo...

A Mott Meter Physics 14, s58 A new experimental method based on adsorption can indicate whether a material is a Mott insulator or a common insulator. J. Lee J. Lee × Mott insulators are not your ordinary insulators. These materials have unfilled orbitals, which would normally make them conductors, but electron-electron interactions prevent current flow. Distinguishing a Mott insulator from an ordinary (trivial) insulator has typically relied on theoretical calculations of the band structure....