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A tiny, tunable well of light, and a string theorist's toolbox
September 21, 2009Promising photonic devices, and theorists attempt to determine whether particle physics and string theory can be reconciled
A Tiny, Tunable Well of Light
Photonics, the science of using photons to carry information, promises to continue improving a wide variety of technologies, from computing to high-speed communication. Now an international team of researchers from the UK, Taiwan, and Spain have discovered a compact way to produce infrared light, by firing electrons through a miniscule tunnel in a stack of gold and silica layers. The tiny, tunable light source could be the predecessor of a new component for light-based chips. The device is outlined in Physical Review Letters and highlighted with a Synopsis in the September 21, 2009 issue of Physics (physics.aps.org).
A new toolkit of equations will help theorists determine whether a promising agreement between particle physics and string theory is fact or fancy. The research is reported in Physical Review Letters and accompanied by a Viewpoint in the September 21, 2009 issue of Physics.
Physicists long for a single theory to describe the universe, but so far can't shoehorn Einstein's gravity and quantum mechanics into one elegant mathematical box. In 1997, a physicist named Juan Maldacena raised hopes of unification by proposing that the four-dimensional kingdom of a specific quantum theory was merely the border of a five-dimensional spacetime ruled by string theory. The possible harmony tantalized string theorists, but eluded proof, because the two theories were almost impossible to compare.
Now Nikolay Gromov, Vladimir Kazakov, and Pedro Vieira have assembled a hefty toolbox of equations to help the thwarted string theorists tackle the question. With these tools in hand, theorists can measure the predictions of string theory against a slew of the quantum theory's results with unprecedented ease, placing them closer to finding out if Maldacena's idea is rock solid or the stuff of dreams.
American Physical Society
String Theory Current Events and String Theory News RSSVanquishing infinity
Quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity are both extremely accurate theories of how the universe works, but all attempts to combine the two into a unified theory have ended in failure.
NIST super-sensors to measure 'signature' of inflationary universe
What happened in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang?
Next Stop: The Fourth Dimension
How did the universe come to be? What is it made of? What is mass? Can science prove that there are other dimensions?
Physicists and engineers search for new dimension
The universe as we currently know it is made up of three dimensions of space and one of time, but researchers in the Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech are exploring the possibility of an extra dimension.
Stanford researchers hear the sound of quantum drums
Forty years ago, mathematician Mark Kac asked the theoretical question, "Can one hear the shape of a drum?"
Racing Ahead at the Speed of Light
Imagine trying to catch up to something moving close to the speed of light - the fastest anything can move - and sending ahead information in time to make mid-path flight corrections. Impossible? Not quite.
Texas A&M researchers examine Einstein's theories on the universe
Einstein's self-proclaimed "biggest blunder" - his postulation of a cosmological constant (a force that opposes gravity and keeps the universe from collapsing) - may not be such a blunder after all, according to the research of an international team of scientists that includes two Texas A&M University researchers.
Princeton physicists connect string theory with established physics
String theory, simultaneously one of the most promising and controversial ideas in modern physics, may be more capable of helping probe the inner workings of subatomic particles than was previously thought, according to a team of Princeton University scientists.
Researchers master one of the largest, most complicated mathematical structures
Ever since 1887, when Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie discovered the mathematical group called E8, researchers have been trying to understand the extraordinarily complex object described by a numerical matrix of more than 400,000 rows and columns.
Nobel laureate Burton Richter to speak about future of particle physics
Particle physics is about to transform our thinking once again. Experiments of the last 15 years suggest new forms of matter, new forces of nature and perhaps even new dimensions of space and time. Pinning down the new ideas will require more data from larger and more expensive machines-at a time when funding is more difficult than ever to secure.
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