In September 2020, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration, a large team of scientists working at different universities worldwide, announced that they had detected most massive gravitational wave binary signal observed to date, which they called GW190521. In a paper published...
Physics
Researchers unveil issues with nuclear theory, observe no magic behavior at N=32 in charge radii of potassium isotopes
Measuring the size of atomic nuclei has sometimes been useful to probe aspects of nucleon-nucleon interaction and the bulk properties of nuclear matter. The charge radius of atomic nuclei, which can be extracted using laser spectroscopy techniques, is sensitive to...
Theoretical interpretations of the pulsar timing data recently released by NANOGrav
The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a gravitational-wave detector that monitors areas in the vicinity of Earth using a network of pulsars (i.e., clock-like stars). At the end of 2020, the NANOGrav collaboration gathered...
Researchers observe stationary Hawking radiation in an analog black hole
Black holes are regions in space where gravity is very strong—so strong that nothing that enters them can escape, including light. Theoretical predictions suggest that there is a radius surrounding black holes known as the event horizon. Once something passes the...
Researchers gather numerical evidence of quantum chaos in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model
Over the past few years, many physicists worldwide have conducted research investigating chaos in quantum systems composed of strongly interacting particles, also known as many-body chaos. The study of many-body chaos has broadened the current understanding of quantum...
The direct observation of the Pauli principle
The Pauli exclusion principle is a law of quantum mechanics introduced by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli, which offers valuable insight about the structure of matter. More specifically, the Pauli principle states that two or more identical fermions cannot...
Researchers demonstrate the potential of a new quantum material for creating two spintronic technologies
Over the past decade or so, physicists and engineers have been trying to identify new materials that could enable the development of electronic devices that are faster, smaller and more robust. This has become increasingly crucial, as existing technologies are made of...
The first observation of a marginal Fermi glass
For several years, the condensed-matter physics community has been trying to gain a better understanding of material systems made up of strongly interacting particles. Interestingly, many metals can be described as systems with effectively weakly interacting...
Long-distance and secure quantum key distribution (QKD) over a free-space channel
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a technique that enables secure communications between devices using a cryptographic protocol that is partly based on quantum mechanics. This communication method ultimately allows two parties to encrypt and decrypt messages they send...
A realistic model of the ITER tokamak magnetic fusion device
Tokamaks, devices that use magnetic fields to confine plasma into torus-shaped chamber, could play a crucial role in the development of highly performing nuclear fusion reactors. The ITER tokamak, which is set to be the largest nuclear tokamak in the world, is...