News

Grandi in one of the final phases of XENONnT Time Projection Chamber assembly. The next generation detector is expected to feature an active volume from 5 to 10 times larger.

Researchers have big ideas for the potential of quantum technology which all depend on a major technological feat: being able to build and control systems of quantum particles, which are among the smallest objects in the universe.
That goal is now a step closer with the publication of a new method by University of Chicago scientists. Published April 28 in Nature, the paper shows how to bring multiple molecules at once into a single quantum state.

Scientists planning future particle accelerators and synchrotron light sources strive for tighter, more powerful electron beams. But as beams get narrower, it becomes harder to measure important properties. Now, Ihar Lobach of the University of Chicago and colleagues have demonstrated a new way to measure a beam’s vertical emittance more precisely than existing methods.

See also from Fermilab

The award, inaugurated this year and recognizing curiosity-driven basic research in chemistry and physics, supports the investigators’ research with $2 million over five years to their respective universities. Irvine, who researches fundamental problems in fluid dynamics and condensed matter, is one of two scientists chosen.

Prof. Emeritus Roger Hildebrand, who worked on the Manhattan Project as an undergraduate before conducting pioneering work in particle physics and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, died Jan. 21. He was 98.

NASA has chosen four small-scale astrophysics missions for further concept development in a new program called Pioneers. 

PUEO is a balloon mission designed to launch from Antarctica that will detect signals from ultra-high energy neutrinos. The principal investigator is Abigail Vieregg of the University of Chicago.

Michel Fruchart has been named one of four recipients of the 2020-2021 Suzuki Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, which recognizes outstanding postdoctoral researchers. He was nominated by his supervisor, Vincenzo Vitelli, and will be recieve a $10,000 prize.

A team of researchers at the University of Chicago recently embarked on the search of a lifetime—or rather, a search for the lifetime of long-lived supersymmetric particles, proposed particles that could explain quirks of the universe.

The Department of Physics will be launching a pilot tutoring program beginning the second week of the quarter. The program, which is funded by the College Innovation Fund, will focus on fundamental math and physics skills needed for introductory physics.

The University of Chicago will present honorary degrees to six distinguished scholars at next year’s Convocation ceremony. Charles L. Kane, a theoretical physicist who received a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Chicago in 1985 and who is known for his work characterizing quantum electronic states of matter, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Argonne physicist searches for new uses for X-ray lasers and ways to support junior scientists.

photo credit Kenneth Johnson

General and Physics GRE not accepted for 2020 UChicago Physics graduate school applications.

Curiosity: The Making of a Scientist is offering an online sneak peek of its pilot episode.
The pilot of the new documentary series that takes viewers into the lives and labs of scientists follows former University of Chicago Department of Physics graduate student Nathan Earnest-Noble as he researches quantum computing in the lab of Associate Professor David Schuster.
 

The XENON1T detector, tucked into an Italian mountainside to search for signs of a mysterious substance in the universe called dark matter, has picked up a new bump in the data that cannot be explained by current models.
On June 17, Evan Shockley, graduate student in the group of Professor Grandi, presented the results of a new analysis of XENON1T data searching for anomalies in the electron recoil channels.

Graduate student Daine Danielson has been awarded the 2020 Hertz Foundation Fellowship, which supports five years of graduate research as well as lifelong professional support, including mentoring and networking within a connected, influential community of Hertz Scholars. Danielson's research explores the phenomenology of fundamental particles and fields, developing novel applications toward nuclear security and nonproliferation, and deepening our understanding of the natural world.