On September 25, 2013 the 2nd International Cosmic Day took place: an international event on astroparticle physics, targeted at high-school students. The International Cosmic Day was initiated by DESY and Netzwerk Teilchenwelt in Germany as well as by Fermilab with its student outreach project QuarkNet in the U.S. On that day, students from all over the world have measured particles that are produced in space and that carry information about the structure and origin of the universe to us.
The group of Xiao Hu (WPI-MANA PI), Qi-Feng Liang (MANA Research Associate) and Long-Hua Wu (NIMS Junior Researcher) has designed successfully a class of new topological materials, which, at the optimal condition, can transport zero-resistance edge current even above room temperature due to the large spin-orbit coupling. This quantized current is fully spin polarized and can be inverted by electric field, and therefore is useful for spintronics.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded $20 million to fund a new Science and Technology Center, the Center for Integrated Quantum Materials. During the next five years, the multi-institution center will support science and education programs that explore the unique electronic behavior of quantum materials.
Astronomers have uncovered the strange case of a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform from a radio pulsar into an X-ray pulsar and back again. This star's capricious behavior appears to be fueled by a nearby companion star and may give new insights into the birth of millisecond pulsars.
A new instrument called ArTeMiS has been successfully installed on APEX — the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. APEX is a 12-metre diameter telescope located high in the Atacama Desert, which operates at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum — providing a valuable tool for astronomers to peer further into the Universe. The new camera has already delivered a spectacularly detailed view of the Cat’s Paw Nebula.
Ana Maria Rey, a former UMD graduate student who did her thesis work with Charles Clark, was named a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Rey, a native of Colombia, is currently a JILA fellow and University of Colorado professor.
Harvard and MIT scientists are challenging the conventional wisdom about light, and they didn't need to go to a galaxy far, far away to do it.
For astrophysicists, the interplay of hydrogen — the most common molecule in the universe — and the vast clouds of dust that fill the voids of interstellar space has been an intractable puzzle of stellar evolution.
The building shell of the FLASH II experimental hall is finished. On 25 September, DESY, building firms and architects celebrated the completion of the roof of the experimental hall with a traditional topping out ceremony.
Most materials show one function, for example, a material can be a metal, a semiconductor, or an insulator. Metals such as copper are used as conducting wires with only low resistance and energy loss. Superconductors are metals which can conduct current even without any resistance, although only far below room temperature.
Scientists have broken new ground in the study of deep earthquakes, a poorly understood phenomenon that occurs when tectonics drive the oceanic crust under continental plates.
Magnetic molecules are regarded as promising functional units for the future of information processing. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Jülich and Aachen were the first to produce particularly robust magnetic molecules that enable a direct electrical readout of magnetic information.
A University of Alabama in Huntsville graduate student and a recent UAH doctoral graduate are exploring surprising data from Voyager 1's crossing of the heliopause into the interstellar medium of our galaxy.
The densest galaxy in the nearby part of the Universe may have been found. Packed with an extraordinary number of stars, this unusual galaxy is providing astronomers with clues to its intriguing past and how it fits into the galactic evolutionary chain.
Using low-frequency laser pulses, a team of researchers has carried out the first measurements that reveal the detailed characteristics of a unique kind of magnetism found in a mineral called herbertsmithite.
By David L. Chandler
24 Sep 2013