Department of Physics and Astronomy Content

LZ Experiment Sets New Record in Search for Dark Matter

Andy Fell — August 26, 2024 - 3:43pm

Figuring out the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), have narrowed down possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

Physicist Receives $1.25 Million Grant to Investigate Superconductivity

Andy Fell — August 22, 2024 - 2:09pm

51�ԹϺ�� Davis physicist Inna Vishik is among the third annual cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Vishik, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, joins 18 other researchers nationwide who will each receive a five-year, $1.25 million grant to pursue new research goals and explore uncharted, innovative ideas.

Physicists Measure the Very, Very, Very Small

Andy Fell — June 04, 2024 - 10:38am

51�ԹϺ�� Davis physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, recently completed a measurement that sets an upper limit on the size of one of the smallest particles known, the tau lepton.

Superconductivity: Hype versus Reality

Andy Fell — May 24, 2024 - 10:54am

In the summer of 2023, videos of a small chunk of material hovering over a magnet swept across the internet with the claim that a team of researchers had discovered a substance, LK-99, that is an electrical superconductor at room temperature.

Superconductors can conduct electricity with zero resistance, opening up whole fields of technology from levitating trains to ultra-efficient electrical grids. But so far, superconductivity has only been discovered at extremely low temperatures.

New Thinking About the Multiverse

Andy Fell — May 15, 2024 - 11:39am

The concept of the multiverse, multiple versions of the same world existing side by side, is widespread in movies and television. In the real world, theoretical physicists are still grappling with the mathematics of multiple worlds. A new paper by physicists at 51�ԹϺ�� Davis takes a fresh look at the quantum math of multiple worlds, implying that there may be more possibilities than we imagine.

Students Build, Install Dark Matter Detector at CERN

Andy Fell — May 01, 2024 - 11:54am

A dark matter detector designed and built by 51�ԹϺ�� Davis undergraduate and graduate students is now undergoing trials at CERN. The device, a demonstration prototype for an experiment called FORMOSA, is currently installed in the forward region of the ATLAS detector, part of the Large Hadron Collider.

Physicists Expand Equation of State for Fermi-Hubbard Model

Andy Fell — March 15, 2024 - 2:42pm

When studying complex materials, condensed matter physicists often harness the Fermi-Hubbard model to explore a material’s electric, magnetic and superconductive properties. But the model isn’t without limitations. Historically, its theoretical and experimental applications have been limited to atoms with electrons that exist in two possible states.

Hydrophone Array Enables First 3D Recordings of Whale Songs

Andy Fell — February 08, 2024 - 11:36am

The world of whales is an acoustic one. Beneath the water’s surface, visibility is limited. Chirps, clicks, bellows and the like are the language of cetaceans. But what’s being communicated with these utterances is still largely a mystery, one that scientists are eager to unravel.

Simulations Explain Abundance of Bright Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn

Andy Fell — October 03, 2023 - 12:41pm

When researchers glimpsed the first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), humanity’s largest and most powerful space telescope, they noticed something peculiar. A large number of bright galaxies deep in the universe formed during a period called “Cosmic Dawn,” when the first stars and galaxies formed within 500 million years after the Big Bang.

‘Oppenheimer’ and 51�ԹϺ�� Davis

Andy Fell — August 07, 2023 - 10:51am

Early in the movie Oppenheimer, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) visits the Berkeley laboratory where Ernest Lawrence is building a particle accelerator to study nuclear physics. The scene reminded me that the giant magnets from one of those accelerators later came to 51�ԹϺ�� Davis, forming the core of the cyclotron at the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory on campus. It is one of several links between Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project and 51�ԹϺ�� Davis.