Browse Physics

A new scheme exploiting the orbital rather than the spin degree of freedom allows for studying the Kondo effect without disturbing it.

Lasers produce a beam of neutrons intense enough for practical experiments, extending the reach of neutron sources to small-scale laboratories.

The H.E.S.S. Collaboration has put bounds on the flux of very-high-energy gamma rays that could be produced by annihilations of dark matter particles.

A precise mass measurement of an exotic zinc isotope gives new insight into the composition of the crust of neutron stars, the possible birthplace of heavy elements.

Experiments show how the ripples in corrugated dirt roads can form and grow.

Theoretical calculations describe the behavior of a large quantum circuit by taking advantage of certain symmetrical relationships between superconducting elements.

Contrary to the common view, the gravitational lensing from cosmic voids causes a brightening—not a dimming—of background objects, according to new calculations.

Two different mechanisms give a protein its required flexibility.

Adding impurities to a topological superfluid—a predicted state of matter believed to host Majorana particles—may be the best way to prove it exists.

A torus of trapped cold atoms could be used as a rotation sensor.

Manganese defects in zinc oxide have been identified as a class of electrically controllable qubits.

Experiments explain how DNA strands can be captured at their extremities by nanoscale pores.

Previously observed convection in granular materials is now shown to be driven in part by the force of gravity, according to new microgravity experiments.

Muon capture experiments provide a rare opportunity to measure the effects of quark interactions in the proton.

Radiative heat transfer usually increases at shorter separation distances, but new calculations describe micron-scale cases where less heat is exchanged as two objects approach.

Relativistic electrons passing through a laser-produced plasma map out magnetic fields that move at nearly the speed of light.

Light stored in a Bose-Einstein condensate can be manipulated with light to create an optical AND gate.

Flagella on the surface of a multicellular alga can beat in an unexpectedly synchronized fashion.

Cosmic gamma-ray bursts turn out to be polarized, which rules out the breaking of a fundamental symmetry down to the lowest limits ever observed.

Finding the most energetically favorable crystal structure of closed-shell atoms is a long-standing problem where experiment and theory don’t agree, but a study of argon nanoclusters is providing new insight into the discrepancy.