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Category: particle physics – Page 338

Powerful laser blast used to control lightning for the first time

“Although this research field has been very active for more than 20 years, this is the first field-result that experimentally demonstrates lightning guided by lasers,” the researchers wrote in the study. “This work paves the way for new atmospheric applications of ultrashort lasers and represents an important step forward in the development of a laser based lightning protection for airports, launchpads or large infrastructures.”

Lightning emerges when atmospheric static electricity, generated by the friction of ice clumps and rain in stormclouds, separates electrons from atoms. The negatively charged electrons then pool at the stormcloud’s base and attract positive charges from the ground. As electrons steadily accumulate, they begin to overcome the resistance of the air to their flow, ionizing the atmosphere below them as they approach the ground in multiple forking (and invisible) “leader” paths. When the first leader path makes contact with the ground, electrons hop to the earth from the point of contact, discharging from the bottom up in a flash of lightning (called the return stroke) that travels to the top of the cloud.

The problems with Helion Energy — a response to Real Engineering

I still like Helion… but not for a power plant. Instead, this is an interesting route to a fusion drive.

This is also a very good channel. It is worth watching his other fusion videos first.

A short humorous analysis of challenges with the fusion approach of Helion Energy.

00:00 — Introduction.
01:03 — Low reactivity.
02:55 — Neutrons.
05:33 — Bremsstrahlung.
06:17 — Diagnostics.
06:57 — Conclusion.

References.

Continue reading “The problems with Helion Energy — a response to Real Engineering” | >

Quantum Computing with Neutral Atoms

Why the recent surge in jaw-dropping announcements? Why are neutral atoms seeming to leapfrog other qubit modalities? Keep reading to find out.

The table below highlights the companies working to make Quantum Computers using neutral atoms as qubits:

And as an added feature I am writing this post to be “entangled” with the posts of Brian Siegelwax, a respected colleague and quantum algorithm designer. My focus will be on the hardware and corporate details about the companies involved, while Brian’s focus will be on actual implementation of the platforms and what it is like to program on their devices. Unfortunately, most of the systems created by the companies noted in this post are not yet available (other than QuEra’s), so I will update this post along with the applicable hot links to Brian’s companion articles, as they become available.

Scientists grow ‘perfect’ atom-thin materials on industrial silicon wafers

True to Moore’s Law, the number of transistors on a microchip has doubled every year since the 1960s. But this trajectory is predicted to soon plateau because silicon—the backbone of modern transistors—loses its electrical properties once devices made from this material dip below a certain size.

Enter 2D materials—delicate, two-dimensional sheets of perfect crystals that are as thin as a . At the scale of nanometers, 2D materials can conduct electrons far more efficiently than silicon. The search for next-generation transistor materials therefore has focused on 2D materials as potential successors to silicon.

But before the can transition to 2D materials, scientists have to first find a way to engineer the materials on industry-standard while preserving their perfect crystalline form. And MIT engineers may now have a solution.

New MIT method uses 2D materials to “catch up” with Moore’s Law

“This will change the paradigm of Moore’s Law.”

Moore’s Law predicted that the number of transistors on a microchip would double every year after 1960, though that rate would eventually hit a wall due to the fact silicone loses electrical properties past a certain size.

One possible solution comes in the form of 2D materials, also known as single-layer materials. These incredibly delicate two-dimensional sheets of perfect crystals are only a single atom thin. Crucially, at the nanometer scale, they can conduct electrons far more efficiently than silicon.

Lab develops new method for on-chip generation of single photon

As buzz grows ever louder over the future of quantum, researchers everywhere are working overtime to discover how best to unlock the promise of super-positioned, entangled, tunneling or otherwise ready-for-primetime quantum particles, the ability of which to occur in two states at once could vastly expand power and efficiency in many applications.

Developmentally, however, quantum devices today are “about where the computer was in the 1950s,” which it is to say, the very beginning. That’s according to Kamyar Parto, a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the UC Santa Barbara lab of Galan Moody, an expert in quantum photonics and an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Parto is co-lead author of a paper published in the journal Nano Letters, describing a key advance: the development of a kind of on-chip “factory” for producing a steady, fast stream of single photons, essential to enabling photonic-based quantum technologies.

The mechanism of cosmic magnetic fields explored in the laboratory

Plasma is matter that is so hot that the electrons are separated from atoms. The electrons float freely and the atoms become ions. This creates an ionized gas—plasma—that makes up nearly all of the visible universe. Recent research shows that magnetic fields can spontaneously emerge in a plasma. This can happen if the plasma has a temperature anisotropy—temperature that is different along different spatial directions.

This mechanism is known as the Weibel . It was predicted by theorist Eric Weibel more than six decades ago but only now has been unambiguously observed in the laboratory. New research, now published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that this process can convert a significant fraction of the energy stored in the temperature anisotropy into energy. It also finds that the Weibel instability could be a source of magnetic fields that permeate throughout the cosmos.

The matter in our is plasma state and it is magnetized. Magnetic fields at the micro-gauss level (about a millionth of the Earth’s magnetic fields) permeate the galaxies. These magnetic fields are thought to be amplified from weak seed fields by the spiral motion of the galaxies, known as the galactic dynamo. How the seed magnetic fields are created is a longstanding question in astrophysics.

The first experimental bosonic stimulation of atom-light scattering in an ultracold gas

Bosons, one of the two fundamental classes of particles, have been the focus of countless physics studies. When bosonic particles are transitioning into an already occupied final quantum state, the rate of this transition is enhanced by its so-called “occupation number,” an effect known as bosonic stimulation. The appearance of bosonic stimulation in light scattering processes was first predicted over three decades ago, yet directly observing it in experimental settings has so far proved challenging.

Researchers at the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms have recently observed bosonic enhanced in an ultracold gas for the first time. Their findings, published in Nature Physics, could open new exciting possibilities for the study of bosonic systems.

“For bosons, the transition rate into an already occupied quantum state is enhanced by its occupation number: the effect of bosonic stimulation,” Yu-Kun Lu, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.

Study finds active galactic nuclei are even more powerful than thought

Powered by supermassive black holes swallowing matter in the centers of galaxies, active galactic nuclei are the most powerful compact steady sources of energy in the universe. The brightest active galactic nuclei have long been known to far outshine the combined light of the billions of stars in their host galaxies.

A new study indicates that scientists have substantially underestimated the energy output of these objects by not recognizing the extent to which their light is dimmed by dust.

“When there are intervening small particles along our line of sight, this makes things behind them look dimmer. We see this at sunset on any clear day when the sun looks fainter,” said Martin Gaskell, a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.

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