Ferromagnetic materials have a self-generating magnetic field, ferroelectric materials generate their own electrical field. Although electric and magnetic fields are related, physics tells us that they are very different classes of material. Now the discovery of a complex electrical ‘vortex’-like pattern that mirrors its magnetic counterpart suggests that they could actually be two sides of…

Observations with the continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) reveal previously unseen details in a jet of material ejected from the core of a galaxy seen as it was when the universe was only about 7% of its current age. In this image, the brightest radio emission comes from the galaxy’s core, at bottom right.…

A new technique may sift out universe’s very first gravitational waves. Identifying primordial ripples would be key to understanding conditions of the early universe. Primordial gravitational waves, produced nearly 13.8 billion years ago, still echo through the universe today. But they are drowned out by the crackle of gravitational waves produced by more recent events,…

A research team has shed new night on the massive star and its neutron star companion, which are thought to be at the core of the gamma-ray binary system LS 5039. Including former graduate student Hiroki Yoneda, Senior Scientist Kazuo Makishima and Principal Investigator Tadayuki Takahashi at the Kavli IMPU, the team also suggest that…

Not a moonshot: Astronomers explore possibility of lunar observatory to better understand fundamental physics, astronomy and cosmology. «By tapping into the natural conditions on the moon, we showed that one of the most challenging spectrum of gravitational waves can be measured better from the lunar surface, which so far seems impossible from Earth or space,»…

Black holes with masses equivalent to millions of suns do put a brake on the birth of new stars, say astronomers. Using machine learning and three state of the art simulations to back up results from a large sky survey, the researchers resolve a 20-year long debate on the formation of stars. Star formation in…

Small modeling errors may accumulate faster than previously expected when physicists combine multiple gravitational wave events (such as colliding black holes) to test Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, suggest researchers. «Testing general relativity with catalogs of gravitational wave events is a very new area of research,» says Christopher J. Moore, a lecturer at the…

The researchers Juan A. Fernandez-Ontiveros, of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Rome and Teo Munoz-Darias, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), have written an article in which they describe the different states of activity of a large sample of supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies. Black holes range in…

Researchers demonstrate a way to improve quantum key distribution over fiber networks. This new approach supports the deployment of a technology known as quantum key distribution (QKD). Transmitted over fibre networks, it uses signals sent in particles of light known as photons. Detection of individual photons creates encryption keys for secure communication. Data encrypted with…

New research has shown that future gravitational wave detections from space will be capable of finding new fundamental fields and potentially shed new light on unexplained aspects of the Universe. Professor Thomas Sotiriou from the University of Nottingham’s Centre of Gravity and Andrea Maselli, researcher at GSSI and INFN associate, together with researchers from SISSA,…