Physicists at Bielefeld University and the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW Dresden) have developed a method to control atomically thin semiconductors using ultrashort light pulses. The study, published in Nature Communications, could pave the way for components that are controlled at unprecedented speeds directly by light—ushering in a new generation of optoelectronic devices.
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A team of astronomers from Rhodes University and elsewhere have investigated a sample of 104 quasars detected with the MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration (MIGHTEE) survey. The new study, published July 16 on the pre-print server arXiv, could help us advance our knowledge about quasars and their properties.
Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs), are among the brightest and most distant objects in the known universe, and serve as fundamental tools for numerous studies in astrophysics as well as cosmology.
In general, they are active galactic nuclei (AGN) of very high luminosity, emitting electromagnetic radiation observable in radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are now widely used worldwide to tackle various real-world tasks, including filming videos for various purposes, monitoring crops or other environments from above, assessing disaster zones, and conducting military operations. Despite their widespread use, most existing drones either need to be fully or partly operated by human agents.
In addition, many drones are unable to navigate cluttered, crowded or unknown environments without colliding with nearby objects. Those that can navigate these environments typically rely on expensive or bulky components, such as advanced sensors, graphics processing units (GPUs) or wireless communication systems.
Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University have recently introduced a new insect-inspired approach that could enable teams of multiple drones to autonomously navigate complex environments while moving at high speed. Their proposed approach, introduced in a paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence, relies on both a deep learning algorithm and core physics principles.
Radioactive decay is a fundamental process in nature by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. Studying nuclear decay modes is crucial for understanding properties of atomic nuclei. In particular, exotic decay modes like proton emission provide essential spectroscopic tools for probing the structure of nuclei far from the valley of stability—the region containing stable nuclei on the nuclear chart.
Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disk with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disk spiral.
“We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time,” says Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, and lead author of this study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The potential planet-in-the-making was detected around the star HD 135344B, within a disk of gas and dust around it called a protoplanetary disk. The budding planet is estimated to be twice the size of Jupiter and as far from its host star as Neptune is from the sun. It has been observed shaping its surroundings within the protoplanetary disk as it grows into a fully formed planet.
That implies the radio wave blasts of CHIME J1634+44 are being generated in a way that is unique for this dead star.
What is also weird about these pulses is the fact that they arrive in pairs, but only when the dead star in the CHIME J1634+44 binary has spun several times without emitting a burst.
“The time between pulse pairs seems to follow a choreographed pattern,” team member and ASTRON astronomer Harish Vedantham said in a statement. “We think the pattern holds crucial information about how the companion triggers the white dwarf to emit radio waves.