Synopses for

Physics, sponsored by the American Physical Society, aims to "spotlight exceptional research." Synopses are short summaries of current publications, reminiscent of press releases, written by a journalist (in this case, me).

	Helicons in a Lab Plasma	May 21, 2015	A large plasma chamber explores the helical modes responsible for atmospheric "whistlers."
	Nanofiber Optical Memory	May 7, 2014	An atomic gas surrounding an optical fiber modulates and stores an optical signal traveling along the fiber.
	Spinning a Condensate with Light	November 12, 2014	A spiral pattern of illumination intensity can impart angular momentum to a Bose-Einstein condensate of exciton-polaritons.
	Quantum Fluctuations Affect a Row of Distant Ions	November 5, 2014	The interaction between ions is different in the quantum vacuum.
	Spooky Bidding	June 12, 2014	Sharing a quantum state could help bridge players improve their bids.
	Spins Move between Insulators	May 14, 2014	The spin alignment of NV centers in diamond can be changed by the magnetization of a nearby magnetic layer.
	An Undulator Made of Microwaves	April 23, 2014	A standing-wave pattern of microwaves can induce ultraviolet emission from an electron beam more flexibly way than the traditional serious of magnets.
	Enhanced Transmission of Light through a Random Medium	April 7, 2014	Imposing the right phase pattern across a laser spot can help it pass through a normally opaque material.
	A Single-Molecule Light-Emitting Diode	January 28, 2014	Researchers measure the light that a single polymer molecule emits when an electric current passes through it.
	Going with the Flow	November 12, 2013	Even slow flow can be measured by thermally "tagging" blood and tracking it photoacoustically.
	A Tripod of Light	October 29, 2013	An small reflective disk can be suspended by light pressure if it is used as the end mirror for three separate cavities, researchers calculated.
	A "Magic Frequency" for Atomic Spectroscopy	August 1, 2013	Choosing the right light frequency makes all magnetically split states absorb equally.
	Snell’s Law for Granular Materials	July 25, 2013	Solitons propagating through sand reflect and refract at an interface.
	A Distant Second	June 6, 2013	Linking an atomic transition line to a precision clock hundreds of miles away.
	Condensate in a Can	May 16, 2013	Building a more uniform Bose-Einstein condensate.
	Cracks in the Cornstarch	April 4, 2013	High-speed movies reveal how a cornstarch paste cracks like a solid.
	New Orbits for Three Bodies	March 14, 2013	Researchers find 13 new ways that three planets can orbit each other in a plane, in addition to the three that were previously known.
	A double power law powers brain	March 7, 2013	Including more long-distance connections increases the simulated speed of a brain model.
	Weighing Models of Neutron Stars	January 22, 2013	Plasma has a slight springiness that may change the way it flows.
	Cooling Neutral Atoms in Optical Tweezers	November 29, 2012	A single atom in a focused laser beam is cooled to its quantum ground state.
	Molecular Velcro	November 1, 2012	Particles can stick together when loops of DNA on their surfaces interlock, even whent the chains on different particles don't match.
	Tiny Tractor Beam	October 18, 2012	Experimentalists use carefully shaped light beams to pull one particle even as they push another.
	In search of sterile neutrinos	October 4, 2012	An experiment to look for new types of neutrinos that don't interact with anything at all.
	Time-Dependent Fields Improve Superlens Resolution	August 29, 2012	Rapidly decreasing electromagnetic fields can be focused by a negative-index "superlens" more sharply than steady ones, but only momentarily.
	Electrons in Graphene Beat the Heat	August 2, 2012	Researchers measure electrical noise at low temperatures to determine how electrons in graphene retain their heat, a critical issue for using the heating to detect light.
	Weak Measurement of Polarization by a Slit	July 5, 2012	Shining polarized light at a slit in a metal film creates surfaces waves that convey information about the original polarization without destroying it.
	Ranking Web Sites Quantum Mechanically	June 4, 2012	The PageRank algorithm used by Google to find the most-linked sites could be efficiently implemented on an "adiabatic" quantum computer.
	Using Topspin to Probe the Standard Model	May 24, 2012	The decay of the heaviest, "top" quark has the best shot at revealing physics beyond the standard model--but hasn't, so far.
	An Optical Analog of an Atom in a Quantized Field	April 20, 2012	The transfer of light between waveguides mimics the sloshing of energy between cavity modes and an atom that is strongly coupled to them,
	Survival of the Fitter	April 5, 2012	The frequent preference of stacked spheres for face-centered-cubic over the energetically equivalent hexagonal close packing could result from mechanical instability of the hexagonal form during growth.
	Nuclear Clocks	March 22, 2012	Clocks based on nuclear rather than atomic transistions could keep time to an accuracy of 1/20th of a second over the age of the universe.
	Biological Oscillations Improve Fidelity	March 8, 2012	An biological signal induce a more faithful reflection of its average when it is oscillating than when it is steady.
	Molecular Speed Bump	March 8, 2012	Researchers slow molecules by shining lasers at them.
	Optical Device is More Than 100% Efficient	February 27, 2012	Experiments confirm a 50-year old hypothesis that a device can emit more power than it consumes (and is thereby cooled).
	Tidal Disruption of a Star	February 7, 2012	The detection last year of a black hole snagging a passing start gives clues about the formation of astrophysical jets.
	Quantum Pairs Walking	January 5, 2012	Optical waveguides can simulate a random walk of different types of quantum particles.
	Pairing up to Detect Tiny Magnetic Fields	November 10, 2011	The spin of a single proton might be detected by coupling a diamond defect to a "spin amplifier."
	The simplest molecular anion	November 3, 2011	Physicists take a snapshot of the H2- ion by stripping the electrons and tracking the repulsion of the exposed protons.
	Tiny bubbles burn just fine	September 23, 2011	Bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen just a few hundred nanometers in diameter combust spontaneously.
	Star chime could reveal small black holes	September 8, 2011	If smallish black holes are left over from the first seconds of the universe, the could cause detectable vibrations in stars they pass through.
	Measuring how far vibrations travel	August 25, 2011	The heat flow from a small hot spot indicates the mean free path for phonons.
	Know when to fold 'em	August 11, 2011	Models suggest that the folding of the intestinal lining reflects forces between the continually replenished cells.
	Bringing nuclei together breaks quarks apart	July 28, 2011	More evidence for the quark-gluon plasma from the LHC.
	The DNA also collapses	June 16, 2011	A strong electric field oscillating at hundreds of hertz causes DNA to collapse, in contrast to the stretching seen at higher or lower frequencies.
	Steps toward a new quantum fluid	May 19, 2011	Researchers trap overlapping quantum fluids of atoms from two different columns of the periodic table.
	A light beam passes through it	May 12, 2011	Tailoring an array of waveguides lets light move through it without reflection.
	Do dark matter particles interact?	April 28, 2011	Finite-range interactions could affect small galaxies more than large galaxies and clusters.
	Time doesn't stand still	April 21, 2011	Dissecting the remaining limits on atomic clocks.
	A Tale of Two Nucleic Acids	March 10, 2011	The different double helices formed by RNA and DNA change their tendency to condense.
	Quantum simulation of an old paradox	February 11, 2011	Trapped ions emulate relativistic electrons entering a forbidden barrier

Last modified May 22, 2015 by Don Monroe