Science

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A Fiery Drama of Star Birth and Death

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Comet ISON: has this lonely traveller reached the end of its journey?

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An image of Comet ISON, captured by the Hubble Telescope

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A new simulatable model displaying exotic quantum phenomena: Scientists at MPQ develop a new model for realizing the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in lattice systems

It is fascinating how quantum mechanical behaviour of particles at smallest scales can give rise to strange properties that can be observed in the classical world. One example is the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect (FQH) that was discovered about 30 years ago in semiconductor devices. It is one of the most striking phenomena in condensed matter physics and has been thoroughly investigated. Nowadays experimental physicists are able to model effects occurring in condensed matter with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. This has sparked the interest in the question under which conditions the FQH could be observed in such systems. Now Anne Nielsen and co-workers from the Theory Division of Professor Ignacio Cirac at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics and at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid have developed a new lattice model which gives rise to FQH-like behaviour

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Illustration of the lattice model where each particle is either in a ‘spin up’ or a ‘spin down’ state.

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Antibacterial Nanocomposites Produced from Offset Lithography Inks

Experts from Iran Institute for Color Science and Technology used zinc oxide nanoparticles to produce an antibacterial nanocomposite from offset lithography inks which can be applied for lithography on various types of packaging of foodstuff, medications and cosmetics.

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Cluster takes a tilt at radio wave sources

A new study using ESA's Cluster mission has shown improved precision in determining the source of a radio emission produced by the Earth. The experiment involved tilting one of the four identical Cluster spacecraft to measure the electric field of this emission in three dimensions for the first time.

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Scientists Seek Other Scientists for Cosmology Problem

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Can you match each galaxy in the top row with its warped counterpart in the bottom row? For example, is the warped version of galaxy A in box D, E, or F?

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Do Black Holes Come in Size Medium?

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The magenta spots in this image show two black holes in the spiral galaxy called NGC 1313, or the Topsy Turvy galaxy. Both black holes belong to a class called ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. The magenta X-ray data come from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array, and are overlaid on a visible image from the Digitized Sky Survey.

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Diamond 'flaws' pave way for nanoscale MRI

By exploiting flaws in miniscule diamond fragments, researchers say they have achieved enough coherence of the magnetic moment inherent in these defects to harness their potential for precise quantum sensors in a material that is 'biocompatible'.

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This image shows nanodiamonds.

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Decay used to construct quantum information

Usually, when researchers work with quantum information, they do everything they can to prevent the information from decaying. Now researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have flipped things around and are exploiting the decay to create the so-called entanglement of atomic systems, which is the foundation for quantum information processing.

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This is an artist's impression of the experiment. Four ions are trapped on a line. The outer Magnesium ions (green) cools the system by emitting light. Lasers are used to prepare the inner Beryllium ions (red) in an entangled state where one can not understand the state of the particles individually but have to consider the two ions as a whole. As opposed to previous experiments also the latter process happens by the emission of light.

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Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Help Investigation of Cognitive Diseases

Iranian researchers from Islamic Azad University, Tehran Branch, in association with researchers from Institute of Biochemistry & Biophysics (IBB) of University of Tehran carried out in vitro an investigation into the changes in the structure of proteins inside brain cells and the interactions of the proteins using iron oxide nanoparticles.

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