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Novel Technique Dramatically Reduces Number of Witnesses to Detect Entanglement

How many witnesses do you need to put particles on trial in a quantum court? Researchers at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) and the Data Storage Institute (DSI) in Singapore have demonstrated a technique that dramatically reduces the number. Their work is described in a 21 October paper in Physical Review Letters.

30 Oct 2014

GG Tau-A Binary Star System Contains 'Wheel in a Wheel' of Dust and Gas

A research group led by Anne Dutrey from the Laboratory of Astrophysics of Bordeaux, France, and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) observed the distribution of dust and gas in a binary star system called GG Tau-A. It was recently discovered that one of GG Tau-A's components is itself a double star. This object is only a few million years old and lies approximately 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

30 Oct 2014

Lithium Coatings Applied to Walls of Fusion Facilities Could Improve Plasma Performance

For magnetic fusion energy to fuel future power plants, scientists must find ways to control the interactions that take place between the volatile edge of the plasma and the walls that surround it in fusion facilities. Such interactions can profoundly affect conditions at the superhot core of the plasma in ways that include kicking up impurities that cool down the core and halt fusion reactions.

29 Oct 2014

Beaming Microwaves into Center of Fusion Plasma Can Help Control the Density

Recent fusion experiments on the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics (San Diego) and the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT (Cambridge, Massachusetts), show that beaming microwaves into the center of the plasma can be used to control the density in the center of the plasma, where a fusion reactor would produce most of its power. Several megawatts of microwaves mimic the way fusion reactions would supply heat to plasma electrons to keep the "fusion burn" going.

29 Oct 2014

Powerful Lasers Recreate Gigantic Cosmic Plasma Tsunami

Researchers are finding ways to understand some of the mysteries of space without leaving earth. Using high-intensity lasers at the University of Rochester's OMEGA EP Facility focused on targets smaller than a pencil's eraser, they conducted experiments to create colliding jets of plasma knotted by plasma filaments and self-generated magnetic fields, reaching pressures a billion times higher than seen on earth.

29 Oct 2014

Lithium Injections Can Transiently Double Temperature and Pressure at Edge of the Plasma

Experiments on the DIII-D tokamak that General Atomics operates for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have demonstrated the ability of lithium injections to transiently double the temperature and pressure at the edge of the plasma and delay the onset of instabilities and other transients. Researchers conducted the experiments using a lithium- injection device developed at the DOE's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

29 Oct 2014

New Type of Flexibly Designed Microscopic Trap for Atoms

A solution to one of the key challenges in the development of quantum technologies has been proposed by University of Sussex physicists.

29 Oct 2014

Profound Strangeness of Quantum Mechanics Put Inside a Helium Bubble

New research by physicists from Brown University puts the profound strangeness of quantum mechanics in a nutshell — or, more accurately, in a helium bubble.

29 Oct 2014

Turbulence in Galaxy Clusters May Prevent Hot Gas from Cooling

The same phenomenon that causes a bumpy airplane ride, turbulence, may be the solution to a long-standing mystery about stars’ birth, or the absence of it, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

28 Oct 2014

Additional Ultra-Bright Pulsars Could Now Be Found

Recently, a team of astronomers reported discovering a pulsating star that appears to shine with the energy of 10 million suns. The find, which was announced in Nature, is the brightest pulsar – a type of rotating neutron star that emits a bright beam of energy that regularly sweeps past Earth like a lighthouse beam – ever seen.

28 Oct 2014