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...
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 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...
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 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...
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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.
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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.
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...
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...
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.”
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.
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...
A study showing how electrons flow around sharp bends, such as those found in integrated circuits, has the potential to improve how these circuits, commonly used in electronic and optoelectronic devices, are designed.
UC Riverside physics students Sean Preins and Peter Carney were awarded prizes at an international conference that took place 25-31 July at the University of Warsaw in Poland. The pair won two of only three prizes given at the 2023 Electron-Ion Collider User Group meeting.
