Browse Physics

Could thermal conditions have been enough to drive fast RNA replication in prebiotic liquids?

Changes in plant tissue geometry with humidity explain how some species bend and turn to disperse their seeds.

Variations in density in an ultracold gas reveal sound waves of quantum origin.

Symmetry considerations point to a universal mechanism responsible for superconductivity in the iron pnictides and iron chalcogenides.

Two groups use different approaches to realize artificial magnetic fields for atoms trapped in a one-dimensional optical lattice.

A process for making wavy tubes in a controlled way could lead to the predictable fabrication of complex shapes.

Simulations help to visualize the propagation of structural excitations, called phasons, that occur in quasicrystals.

Clues about the briefly liberated quarks and gluons in high-energy collisions lie in the relic hadrons they leave behind.

Single atoms deposited on an iron oxide surface provide a valuable model system for studying catalysis.

The decay of top quarks could reveal physics beyond the standard model, but so far shows nothing unusual.

Lanthanide atoms are offering the best opportunities to study the effects of strong dipolar interactions in a quantum gas.

Alternating layers of insulating materials form a rudimentary device that controls thermal currents.

The oscillations of a carbon nanotube can strongly affect the spin of an electron trapped on the tube, and the tube can also be affected by the spin, according to theory.

Piles of staples stand up to shaking better if the staple prongs have an intermediate length.

Pairs of donor atoms read out the energy levels in a silicon nanowire.

Theorists can now calculate the speed with which correlations travel in a chain of interacting atoms.

New functionalities might arise from rethinking the essential ingredients needed to build a heat-driven machine.

A generalization of one of the most famous experiments in quantum foundations provides a powerful new unifying concept.

Metallic glasses, new materials that are strong and durable, are not entirely disordered on the atomic scale but can have regions of near-crystalline order.

New techniques for storing and retrieving polarized photons improve the quantum memory capabilities of rare-earth-doped crystals.