Category Physics

It was one of the “missing pieces” in the Theoretical Physics of Materials puzzle and researchers have finally found it. The study will allow scientists to simulate this phenomenon numerically in extreme temperature and pressure conditions, eg those existing inside planets, or for materials, such as covalent glasses or liquids, to which current methods do not apply.

Although well known and extensively studied, so far it has never been given a theoretical description taking into account both the behaviour of atoms – regulated by the laws of classical mechanics – and the behaviour of electrons, which instead follows the laws of quantum mechanics...

This highly shocked zircon, from the Vredefort Dome in South Africa, shows thin, red bands that are a hallmark of meteorite impact. Photo: Aaron Cavosie

A study of zircons from a gigantic meteorite impact in South Africa casts doubt on the methods used to date lunar impacts. Durable crystals zircons are used to date some of the earliest and most dramatic cataclysms of the solar system. One is the super-duty collision that ejected material from Earth to form the moon roughly 50 million years after Earth formed. Another is the late heavy bombardment, a wave of impacts that may have created hellish surface conditions on the young Earth, about 4 billion years ago.

Both events are widely accepted but unproven, so geoscientists are eager for more details and better dates...

Proposed 15 yrs ago, the bounded L2 curvature conjecture has finally been proved by a group of 3 researchers at the Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions (CNRS / UPMC / Université Paris Diderot) and Princeton University. It provides a potentially minimal framework in which it is possible to solve the Einstein equations, which in turn could be a critical step toward the proof of major conjectures, such as Penrose’s cosmic censorship conjectures. This work has appeared in Inventiones Mathematicae Oct14

Even though this yr marks its 100th anniversary, Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity still holds its share of mysteries. This theory of gravitation stipulates that matter curves spacetime in proportion to the mass of the object...

Berkeley Lab researchers have experimentally confirmed strong in-plane anisotropy in thermal conductivity along the zigzag (ZZ) and armchair (AC) directions of single-crystal black phosphorous nanoribbons. Credit: Junqiao Wu, Berkeley Lab

Researchers have confirmed single-crystal black phosphorous nanoribbons display a strong in-plane anisotropy in thermal conductivity, up to a factor of 2, along the zigzag and armchair directions of single-crystal black phosphorus nanoribbons. An experimental revelation that should facilitate the future application of this highly promising material to electronic, optoelectronic and thermoelectric devices.

“Imagine the lattice of black phosphorus as a 2D network of balls connected with springs, in which the network is softer along one direction of the plan...