Primordial Black Holes and the Search for Dark Matter from the Multiverse

. Baby universes branching off of our universe shortly after the Big Bang appear to us as black holes. (Credit:Kavli IPMU)

Astronomers are studying black holes that could have formed in the early universe, before stars and galaxies were born. Such primordial black holes (PBHs) could account for all or part of dark matter, be responsible for some of the observed gravitational waves signals, and seed supermassive black holes found in the center of our Galaxy and other galaxies.

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) is home to many interdisciplinary projects which benefit from the synergy of a wide range of expertise available at the institute...

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Brain Imaging predicts PTSD after brain injury

This shows the outline of a brain in a woman's head
Together, the findings suggest that a “brain reserve,” or higher cortical volumes, may provide some resilience against PTSD. Image is in the public domain

Brain volume measurement may provide early biomarker. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex psychiatric disorder brought on by physical and/or psychological trauma. How its symptoms, including anxiety, depression and cognitive disturbances arise remains incompletely understood and unpredictable. Treatments and outcomes could potentially be improved if doctors could better predict who would develop PTSD. Now, researchers using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have found potential brain biomarkers of PTSD in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience a...

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Fermilab and partners achieve sustained, high-fidelity Quantum Teleportation

Cords and cables and scientific equipment on a metal surface in a lab
In a demonstration of high-fidelity quantum teleportation at the Fermilab Quantum Network, fiber-optic cables connect off-the-shelf devices (shown above), as well as state-of-the-art R&D devices.
Photo courtesy of Fermilab

A viable quantum internet—a network in which information stored in qubits is shared over long distances through entanglement—would transform the fields of data storage, precision sensing and computing, ushering in a new era of communication.

This month, scientists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory—a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory affiliated with the University of Chicago—along with partners at five institutions took a significant step in the direction of realizing a quantum internet.

In a paper published in PRX Quantum, the team pre...

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New Supercluster discovered by Astronomers

New supercluster discovered by astronomers
Color image of the galaxy density map at redshift of 0.36 from eROSITA’s Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC). White circles mark the location of the eight galaxy clusters forming the new supercluster. Credit: Ghirardini et al., 2020.

By analyzing the data from the eROSITA Final Equatorial Depth Survey (eFEDS), an international team of astronomers has detected a new supercluster. The newly found structure consists of eight galaxy clusters. The discovery is reported in a paper published December 21 on the arXiv pre-print server.

Containing various structures with a range of masses, from massive and dense clusters of galaxies to low-density bridges, filaments and sheets of matter, superclusters are among the largest structures in the known universe...

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