Browse Physics

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

Measurement of a rare-meson decay is an experimental achievement worth celebrating, but so far, no new physics beyond the standard model is indicated.

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.

The near-uniform leaf size of the tallest trees is set by the requirements of their vascular network.

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.

A zero refractive index at optical frequencies, as demonstrated in a new nanoscale waveguide, enables opportunities for better control and enhancement of light propagation in waveguides, as well as development of photonic nanocircuits.

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.

A proposed design for a cylindrical shell with unusual magnetic properties offers a way to concentrate magnetic field energy.

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.

Applied science is taking off in New York, and physics skills are in demand.

An array of bar magnets that rotate on hinges serves as a model of a magnetic material.

Confirmation that interacting magnetic plasma waves can generate “daughter” waves of a higher frequency supports the current picture of how turbulence leads to heat in astrophysical plasma.

A new cosmological theory tackles the description of the earliest era of the Universe, a period inaccessible by current models.

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.

Glitches in the rotation of pulsars cannot be explained by the conventional model of superfluid neutrons beneath the star’s crust.