A high-intensity accelerator beam is formed of trillions of particles that race at lightning speeds down a system of powerful magnets and high-energy superconductors. Calculating the physics of the beam is so complex that not even the fastest supercomputers can keep up.
The cosmic microwave background, or CMB, is the electromagnetic echo of the Big Bang, radiation that has been traveling through space and time since the very first atoms were born 380000 years after our universe began. Mapping minuscule variations in the CMB tells scientists about how our universe came to be and what it’s made of.
To capture the ancient, cold light from the CMB, researchers use specialized telescopes equipped with ultrasensitive cameras for detecting millimeter-wavelength signals. The next-generation cameras will contain up to 100000 superconducting detectors. Fermilab scientist and University of Chicago Associate Professor Jeff McMahon and his team have developed a new type of metamaterials-based antireflection coating for the silicon lenses used in these cameras.
“There are at least half a dozen projects that would not be possible without these,” McMahon said.
Energy researchers have been reaching for the stars for decades in their attempt to artificially recreate a stable fusion energy reactor. If successful, such a reactor would revolutionize the world’s energy supply overnight, providing low-radioactivity, zero-carbon, high-yield power – but to date, it has proved extraordinarily challenging to stabilize. Now, scientists are leveraging supercomputing power from two national labs to help fine-tune elements of fusion reactor designs for test runs.
In experimental fusion reactors, magnetic, donut-shaped devices called “tokamaks” are used to keep the plasma contained: in a sort of high-stakes game of Operation, if the plasma touches the sides of the reactor, the reaction falters and the reactor itself could be severely damaged. Meanwhile, a divertor funnels excess heat from the vacuum.
In France, scientists are building the world’s largest fusion reactor: a 500-megawatt experiment called ITER that is scheduled to begin trial operation in 2025. The researchers here were interested in estimating ITER’s heat-load width: that is, the area along the divertor that can withstand extraordinarily hot particles repeatedly bombarding it.
Like the Universe’s tiniest matryoshka dolls, atoms are typically modelled as particles within particles – a nuclei built of protons and neutrons, which in turn contain trios of fundamental particles called quarks.
The path to dark matter and other fundamental enigmas may be through a warped extra dimension, according to a new study that proposes a new theory of the universe.
Why so late, little neutrino?
Astronomers spot two highly delayed signals from two different black holes tearing apart stars in their vicinity.
O.,.o Could make a semi renewable fusion reactor or propulsion system.
Atoms of antihydrogen are affected by the Lamb shift, which results from transient particles appearing and disappearing.
Circa 2020
Neutrinos from a long-theorized nuclear fusion reaction in the sun have been definitively observed, confirming the process that powers many stars.
A team of researchers at Universität Stuttgart has developed an ion-optics-based quantum microscope that is capable of creating images of individual atoms. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group explains how they built their microscope and how well it worked when tested.
A ghostly particle that smashed into Antarctica in 2019 has been traced back to a black hole tearing apart a star while acting like a giant cosmic particle accelerator, a new study finds.
