News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Research team at TU Graz discovers atomic-level processes which can provide new approaches to improving material properties.

With the help of computer simulations, particle physics researchers may be able to explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the Universe. The simulations offer a new way of examining conditions after the Big Bang, and could provide answers to some fundamental questions in particle physics.

Piece summarizes invited PPPL talks ranging from fusion to astrophysics at 60th APS-DPP annual meeting.

Most physicists believe that the structure of spacetime is formed in an unknown way in the vicinity of the Planck scale, i.e. at distances close to one trillionth of a trillionth of a metre. However, careful considerations undermine the unambiguity of this prediction. There are quite a few arguments in favour of the fact that the emergence of spacetime may occur as a result of processes taking place much 'closer' to our reality: at the level of quarks and their conglomerates.

Laser-based 'optical tweezers' could levitate uranium and plutonium particles, thus allowing the measurement of nuclear recoil during radioactive decay. This technique, proposed by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, provides a new method for conducting the radioactive particle analysis essential to nuclear forensics

Stanford researchers retooled an electron microscope to work with visible light and gas flow, making it possible to watch a photochemical reaction as it swept across a nanoparticle the size of a single cold virus.

The international scientific team developed a new method for measuring the response of crystals on the electric field. The results a collaborative research done at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) were published in the Journal of Applied Crystallography and appeared on the cover of the October issue.