Physics

Jul 10th, 2020 - Two charm quarks, two anti-charms make for a massive tetraquark. The quark model was an intellectual revolution for physics. Physicists were faced with an ever-growing zoo of unstable particles that didn't seem to have a role in the Universe around us. Quarks explained all that through an (at least superficially) simple set of rules that built all of these particles through combinations of two or three quarks. While that general outline seems simple, the rules by which particles called "gluons" hold the quarks together in particles are fiendishly complex, and we don't always know their ... [Read More]

Jul 9th, 2020 - In topological materials, electrons can display behavior that is fundamentally different from that in 'conventional' matter, and the magnitude of many such 'exotic' phenomena is directly proportional to an entity known as the Chern number. New experiments establish for the first time that the theoretically predicted maximum Chern number can be reached -- and controlled -- in a real material. In topological materials, electrons can display behaviour that is fundamentally different from that in 'conventional' matter, and the magnitude of many such 'exotic' phenomena is directly proportional to ... [Read More]

Jul 8th, 2020 - A team of physicists and chemists has produced the first porous graphene ribbons in which specific carbon atoms in the crystal lattice are replaced with nitrogen atoms. These ribbons have semiconducting properties that make them attractive for applications in electronics and quantum computing, as reported by researchers from the Universities of Basel, Bern, Lancaster and Warwick in the Journal of the American Chemical Society . Graphene consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure . The material is of interest not only in basic research but also for various ... [Read More]