College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences

Making ferromagnets ready for ultra-fast communication and computation technology

An international team led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has made a significant breakthrough in how to enable and exploit ultra-fast spin behavior in ferromagnets. The research, published in Physical Review Letters and highlighted as an editors’ suggestion, paves the way for ultra-high frequency applications.

Summer Physics Academy brings back an alumna to campus

Alumna Christina Manzano wore a different hat three weeks ago at UC Riverside when she attended the weeklong Summer Physics Academy organized by the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Manzano, a former graduate student of Gabriela Canalizo, a professor of physics and astronomy, now teaches college freshmen and sophomores at Mt. San Jacinto College, a...

With spin centers, quantum computing takes a step forward

Quantum computing, which uses the laws of quantum mechanics, can solve pressing problems in a broad range of fields, from medicine to machine learning, that are too complex for classical computers. Quantum simulators are devices made of interacting quantum units that can be programmed to simulate complex models of the physical world. Scientists can then...

How did a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way come to be?

Crater 2, located approximately 380,000 light years from Earth, is one of the largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. Extremely cold and with slow-moving stars, Crater 2 has low surface brightness. How this galaxy originated remains unclear.
Ken Barish

Ken Barish is named chair of UCR Academic Senate

Ken Barish has been elected chair of the UC Riverside Academic Senate. His two-year term begins on Sept. 1. Barish succeeds Sang Hee-Lee, who has been chair the past two years. In the role of chair, Barish will preside over the three Academic Senate meetings each year, act as its spokesperson, oversee administrative duties, and...

Physicists gain hands-on experience using cyclotron at UC Davis

Recently, a team of UC Riverside physicists led an experimental campaign at UC Davis, where they worked on a cyclotron, an apparatus that accelerates charged particles. The team, led by Barak Schmookler, an assistant project scientist in the lab of Miguel Arratia, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, bombarded photosensors with proton beams from...

Graduate students win Dissertation Completion Fellowship Awards

Graduate students Wayne Water Vigil Jr. and Giulia Alboreggia have each won a Dissertation Completion Fellowship Award. The award, given by the UCR Graduate Division, is given to doctoral students for up to two quarters. Wayne Vigil, Jr. Wayne Vigil, Jr. Vigil Jr. and Alboreggia are the first two graduates with doctoral degrees from the...

The UC Riverside Physics and Astronomy Department Presents: Frontiers of Cosmology Lecture

Please use this link to register for the event: https://forms.gle/ngZkKgTQuPUvYBvo6 FREE visitor parking is available in parking lot 6, use this link to register your license plate: https://www.offstreet.io/location/8O58863G Click the link to view the map; parking lot 6 is indicated by a red balloon: https://www.google.com/maps/place/33.9698125%2C-117.3275625

Honoring Barry Barish with a day rich in physics

The College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, or CNAS, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Riverside hosted a celebration on April 30 to honor Nobel laureate Barry Barish. Barish, a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy, received a National Medal of Science from President Joe Biden last year.

Physicists solve puzzle about ancient galaxy found by Webb telescope

Last September, the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, discovered JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current age. Surprisingly, an Einstein ring is associated with this galaxy. That’s because JWST-ER1g acts as a lens and bends light from a distant source, which then appears as...

Gift to UCR results in new undergraduate fellowship

Aiden Wilkin, a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCR, has received a $3,000 fellowship made possible by a donation to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The fellowship will support Wilkin’s research with Jonathan Richardson, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, helping him to continue working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, experimental...

How the SARS-CoV-2 virus acquires its spherical shape

For centuries, coronaviruses have triggered health crises and economic challenges, with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that spreads COVID-19, being a recent example. One small protein in SARS-CoV-2, the Membrane protein, or M protein, is the most abundant and plays a crucial role in how the virus acquires its spherical structure. Nonetheless, this protein’s properties are not...

Physics research puts UCR on landscape of particle manipulation

A research team co-led by Boerge Hemmerling at the University of California, Riverside, has succeeded in confining free electrons in a special trap originally designed to trap atomic ions.

Reaching for the stars

Observational astronomy — the branch of astronomy concerned with recording data about the observable universe — just got more exciting for physics majors at UC Riverside. For the first time, the Department of Physics and Astronomy offered a course titled “Techniques of Observational Astronomy” that gave students the tools needed to plan, obtain, and analyze...

Bringing virtual reality to nuclear and particle physics

Virtual reality, or VR, is not just for fun-filled video games and other visual entertainment. This technology, involving a computer-generated environment with objects that seem real, has found many scientific and educational applications as well.

Supercomputer enables illustration of large-scale structure of universe

Distant quasars — massive celestial objects that emit large amounts of energy — make the brightest light in the universe. Using quasar light data, the National Science Foundation-funded Frontera supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, or TACC, helped UC Riverside astronomer Simeon Bird develop PRIYA, the largest suite of hydrodynamic simulations made for simulating...

New dark matter theory explains two puzzles in astrophysics

Thought to make up 85% of matter in the universe, dark matter is nonluminous and its nature is not well understood. While normal matter absorbs, reflects, and emits light, dark matter cannot be seen directly, making it harder to detect. A theory called “self-interacting dark matter,” or SIDM, proposes that dark matter particles self-interact through...

Physics graduate student wins merit award at national lab

Xilin Liang, a graduate student working with Kenneth Barish, a professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, has been awarded a RHIC & AGS merit award by Brookhaven National Laboratory for his “contributions to the STAR forward calorimeter and simulations for the EIC.”

Milky Way-like galaxy found in the early universe

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team, including astronomer Alexander de la Vega of the University of California, Riverside, has discovered the most distant barred spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way that has been observed to date.

UCR physicist awarded National Medal of Science

Physicist Barry C. Barish, a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Joe Biden at a ceremony held at the White House today. Established in 1959 by the U.S. Congress, the National Medal of Science is the highest recognition the nation can bestow on...
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