In a study appearing in Review of Scientific Instruments, UC Davis researchers report a refined NMR method for investigating condensed matter materials, improving the sensitivity of the method by roughly 1,000 times.
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.
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise? For UC Davis philosopher Elaine Landry, this thought experiment is one way to think about what mathematicians and physicists assume is real when they solve problems.
Some, she said, believe that numbers, vectors and other abstract objects in mathematics are real in the sense that they really do exist out in the world. Others claim that these so-called objects are just ideas and don’t really exist at all.
For her landmark work in the development and application of shock physics techniques to explain the origin and evolution of planetary systems, Stewart has been selected as an American Physical Society Fellow, a prestigious honor that no more than half of one percent of the society’s membership (excluding student members) are nominated for each year.
This week, Manuel Calderón de la Barca Sánchez returned to his alma mater in Mexico to host screenings of ‘Secrets of the Universe,’ an IMAX film that explores the formation of the universe through the eyes of Aggie researchers. Calderón de la Barca Sánchez, a UC Davis physics professor, hopes the film will inspire students to pursue STEM education and careers.
How did the universe become so good at hiding quantum physics?
In two new papers appearing in Physical Review Research, UC Davis and Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers introduce a new model to explain the phenomenon of decoherence, when a system’s behavior shifts from being explainable by quantum mechanics to being explainable by classical mechanics. The new model divorces the arrow of time from the go-to theoretical tool for understanding decoherence: the
Caldeira-Leggett model.
