To request a media interview, please reach out to School of Physics experts using our faculty directory, or contact Jess Hunt-Ralston, College of Sciences communications director. A list of faculty experts and research areas across the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech is also available to journalists upon request.
Brandon Pries is a graduate student in the School of Physics who researches computational astrophysics with Professor John Wise, using machine learning to study the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes in the early universe. Pries has also done extensive research with the NSF IceCube Collaboration. Pries recently shared a deep dive on neutrinos with astrobites, a daily literature journal (an "astro-ph reader's digest") supported by the AAS.
astrobites 2024-02-08T00:00:00-05:00Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) presented by Delta Air Lines, the city’s ultimate celebration of all things science and one of the largest of its kind in the country, returns March 9-23. All ages can experience more than 100 interactive and educational events. The Exploration Expo, a giant science bash in Piedmont Park, returns as the grand finale of the Festival. The Festival will kickstart with the Science and Engineering Day at Georgia Tech. An array of hands-on STEAM activities, exhibits, and demonstrations will feature robotics, brains, biology, space, art, nanotechnology, paper, computer science, wearable tech, bioengineering, chemical engineering, systems engineering, and more.
Atlanta Daily World 2024-01-29T00:00:00-05:00This story about three alumni from Ohio Northern University's School of Science, Technology, and Mathematics who are making a mark in the world of physics and mathematics include Matthew Golden, who is now a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Physics. Golden's research in the Extreme Astrophysics lab focuses on the interface of machine learning and physics.
Ohio Northern University 2024-01-22T00:00:00-05:00Silicon has long reigned as the material of choice for the microchips that power everything in the digital age, from AI to military drones. Silicon chips have been bumping against the limits of miniaturization for years, dividing chip makers on whether Moore’s law, the longstanding assumption that transistors will steadily get smaller and computers more powerful, is already dead. But the global semiconductor industry is still under just as much pressure to produce ever more powerful chips, and keep up the pace of technological progress. This month, researchers at Georgia Tech, led by Walter de Heer, Regents' Professor in the School of Physics, created the world’s first functional graphene-based semiconductor, marking what de Heer dubbed a “Wright brothers moment” for the next-generation materials that could make up the electronic devices of the future. (This research was also covered at Physics World, Tech Briefs, TechSpot, Freethink, McGill Daily, and Fudzilla.)
Politico 2024-01-16T00:00:00-05:00In the 21st century, there is a need to develop electronic devices that are both smaller and faster, whether for applications in the medical sector or robotics. Experts have been busy working on producing advanced materials for modern electronic devices to meet this demand. A significant milestone in this endeavor has been achieved by a team of researchers at Georgia Tech, who have successfully engineered the world's first functional semiconductor using graphene. "To me, this is like a Wright brothers moment," said Walter de Heer, Regents' Professor in the School of Physics, who led this development. Silicon, commonly used in semiconductors, is nearing its limits in the face of increased demand for quicker processing and smaller electronic devices. Graphene is a two-dimensional honeycomb-like structure formed by a single layer of carbon atoms organized in a hexagonal lattice. It is well-known for having strong electrical conductivity, mechanical strength, and flexibility. "It's an extremely robust material, one that can handle very large currents and can do so without heating up and falling apart," said de Heer. (This story was also covered at Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, Fox5 Atlanta, LiveScience, ScienceDaily, Semiconductor Engineering, Chemistry World, Global Times, ScienceX, The Print, New Scientist, Technology Networks, Tom's Hardware, South China Morning Post, AZO Nano, SystemTek, Gearrice, Connexionblog, Innovation News Network, EENews, Medriva, MintLounge, Engineering and Technology, Inceptive Mind, BNN Breaking, Cosmos Magazine, TechXplore, JagranJosh, ABPLive, ChinaDaily, WinBuzzer, and Sportskeeda. )
Interesting Engineering 2024-01-12T00:00:00-05:00Spring, summer, fall and winter – the seasons on Earth change every few months, around the same time every year. It’s easy to take this cycle for granted here on Earth, but not every planet has a regular change in seasons. So why does Earth have regular seasons when other planets don’t? Gongjie Li, assistant professor in the School of Physics, explains about axial tilts of planets, which have big implications for everything from seasons to glacier cycles, since that tilt can determine just how much sun a planet will get. The magnitude of that tilt can even determine whether a planet is habitable to life. (This article by Li was also reprinted in in IFL Science, Qrius, and the Longmont (Colorado) Leader.)
The Conversation 2024-01-10T00:00:00-05:00In the cosmos, the rhythm of seasons is a dance choreographed by the distinct axial tilt of each planet. The study of these celestial ballets has been the focus of astrophysicist Gongjie Li, assistant professor in the School of Physics. Funded by NASA, Li’s research delves into the reasons behind seasonal patterns, centering on the effects of a planet’s axial tilt or obliquity. Earth has an axis tilted about 23 degrees from vertical, a feature that triggers the varying intensity of sunlight across different hemispheres, resulting in changing seasons. Li articulates that planets ideally aligned axially with their orbit around the sun, assuming a circular orbit, wouldn’t bear witness to seasons due to a constant influx of sunlight.
BNN Breaking 2024-01-10T00:00:00-05:00Systems consisting of spheres rolling on elastic membranes have been used to introduce a core conceptual idea of general relativity: how curvature guides the movement of matter. However, such schemes cannot accurately represent relativistic dynamics in the laboratory because of the dominance of dissipation and external gravitational fields. A new study from School of Physics researchers demonstrates that an “active” object (a wheeled robot), which moves in a straight line on level ground and can alter its speed depending on the curvature of the deformable terrain it moves on, can exactly capture dynamics in curved relativistic spacetimes. The researchers' mapping and framework facilitate creation of a robophysical analog to a general relativistic system in the laboratory at low cost that can provide insights into active matter in deformable environments and robot exploration in complex landscapes. Researchers includes Hussain Gynai and Steven Tarr, graduate students; Emily Alicea-Muñoz, academic professional; Gongjie Li, assistant professor; and Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor.
Nature Scientific Reports 2023-12-07T00:00:00-05:00This roundup of some of the most unique excrement in the animal kingdom, showcasing the fascinating diversity of animal waste, includes a 2018 Georgia Tech study of how wombats manage to produce square-shaped feces. The study's authors include David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics. As it turns out, the elastic nature of the marsupial's intestinal walls is a key factor.
Interesting Engineering 2023-12-01T00:00:00-05:00Blimps are indeed part of this "Innovations" roundup, but it's the collaborative abilities of army ants that have led engineers from Northwestern University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology to speculate that the insects' behavioral principles and brains could one day be used to program swarms of robots. David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics), is quoted regarding his research on fire ant raft constructions during flooding, comparing the insects to neurons in one large brain.
Mastercard Newsroom 2023-11-30T00:00:00-05:00Ever wondered why your dog’s back-and-forth shaking is so effective at getting you soaked? Or how bugs, birds, and lizards can run across water—but we can’t? Or how about why cockroaches are so darn good at navigating in the dark? Those are just a few of the day-to-day mysteries answered in the new book How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls: Animal Movement and the Robots of the Future, by David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics. The book answers questions you probably won’t realize you even had, but they’re questions with serious answers that span the worlds of physics, fluid mechanics, and biology. Throughout the book, Hu demonstrates the extraordinary value day-to-day curiosity brings to science.
WNYC Science Friday 2023-11-27T00:00:00-05:00Georgia Tech scientists will soon have another way to search for neutrinos, those hard-to-detect, high-energy particles speeding through the cosmos that hold clues to massive particle accelerators in the universe—if researchers can find them. "The detection of a neutrino source or even a single neutrino at the highest energies is like finding a holy grail," says Nepomuk Otte, professor in the School of Physics. Otte is the principal investigator for the Trinity Demonstrator telescope that was recently built by his group and collaborators, and was designed to detect neutrinos after they get stopped within the Earth.
Science X 2023-11-18T00:00:00-05:00- ‹ previous
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Events
Fossil Friday
Come join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab every Friday for Fossil Fridays! Become a fossil hunter and help discover how vertebrate communities have changed through time.
Observatory Public Night
On the grounds between the Howey and Mason Buildings, several telescopes are typically set up for viewing, and visitors are invited to bring their own telescope, as well.
Observatory Public Night
On the grounds between the Howey and Mason Buildings, several telescopes are typically set up for viewing, and visitors are invited to bring their own telescope, as well.
Observatory Public Night
On the grounds between the Howey and Mason Buildings, several telescopes are typically set up for viewing, and visitors are invited to bring their own telescope, as well.
Observatory Public Night
On the grounds between the Howey and Mason Buildings, several telescopes are typically set up for viewing, and visitors are invited to bring their own telescope, as well.
Observatory Public Night
On the grounds between the Howey and Mason Buildings, several telescopes are typically set up for viewing, and visitors are invited to bring their own telescope, as well.
Observatory Public Night
On the grounds between the Howey and Mason Buildings, several telescopes are typically set up for viewing, and visitors are invited to bring their own telescope, as well.
Experts in the News
Despite the fact that Antarctica is extraordinarily difficult to get to, astronomers love it and have chosen it as the location for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. What could possibly make such a remote location so desirable for space science that it’s worth all that trouble?
In this article, scientists including Georgia Tech's Brandon Pries from the School of Physics explain why the South Pole is such a hotspot for astronomers. The answer? At the South Pole, you can best view neutrons and neutrinos in space.
Pries compares the benefits of the South Pole to the North Pole. “The North Pole is more difficult because ice coverage there fluctuates,” explains Pries. “There is a foundation of bedrock underneath Antarctica that serves as a solid base for the IceCube instruments.” This bedrock is also why Antarctica is home to the South Pole Telescope, a radio observatory that helped take the first ever photo of a black hole.
Popular Science 2024-09-05T00:00:00-04:00Georgia Tech researchers from the School of Physics including fifth-year PhD student Mengqi Huang and Assistant Professor Chunhui Rita Du are among the authors of a paper recently published in Nature Physics. Researchers from six universities and Oak Ridge National Laboratory showed that strong quantum fluctuations can stabilize an unconventional magnetic phase after destroying a more conventional one.
Nature Physics 2024-08-26T00:00:00-04:00Scientists have produced an image of the Milky Way not based on electromagnetic radiation - light - but on ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos. They detected high-energy neutrinos in pristine ice deep below Antarctica's surface, then traced their source back to locations in the Milky Way - the first time these particles have been observed arising from our galaxy.
The neutrinos were detected over a span of a decade at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at a U.S. scientific research station at the South Pole, using more than 5,000 sensors covering an area the size of a small mountain.
School of Physics Professor Ignacio Taboada is the spokesperson for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and provides a brief commentary on this new research:
"This observation is ground-breaking. It established the galaxy as a neutrino source. Every future work will refer to this observation," says Taboada.
Reuters 2024-07-29T00:00:00-04:00Groundbreaking research is shedding new light on how biofilms grow — using physics and mathematical models. Biofilms grow everywhere — from plaque on teeth, to medical devices, to the open ocean. But until now, it’s been difficult to study just what controls their growth. In a new study published in Nature Physics, researchers from the Yunker Lab in the School of Physics, including Lead Researcher Aawaz Pokhrel and Associate Professor Peter Yunker, leveraged physics to show that a biofilm’s geometry is the single most important factor in determining growth rate — more important than even the rate at which cells can reproduce. Since some research shows that 80% of infections in human bodies are caused by the bacteria in biofilms, understanding how colonies grow has important human health implications, potentially to help reduce their impact in medical settings or industrial processes. (This also appeared in Phys.org and Dental Review News.)
Nature Physics 2024-07-09T00:00:00-04:00Every few seconds, somewhere in the observable Universe, a massive star collapses and unleashes a supernova explosion. Physicists say Japan’s Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) observatory might now be collecting a steady trickle of neutrinos from those cataclysms — amounting to a few detections a year.
In an article published in Nature, School of Physics Professor Ignacio Taboada provides a brief commentary on this new research: "The data from Super-K are still too weak to claim a discovery, but the prospect of detecting the diffuse neutrinos is extremely exciting”, says Tabaoda, who is also the spokesperson for the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole. “Neutrinos would provide an independent measurement on the history of star formation in the Universe.”
Nature 2024-07-09T00:00:00-04:00Recent demonstrations of moiré magnetism, featuring exotic phases with noncollinear spin order in the twisted van der Waals (vdW) magnet chromium triiodide CrI3, have highlighted the potential of twist engineering of magnetic (vdW) materials. In this paper, researchers, including School of Physics assistant professors Hailong Wang and Chunhui Du, reported the observation of two distinct magnetic phase transitions with separate critical temperatures within a moiré supercell of small-angle twisted double trilayer CrI3.
Nature Communications 2024-07-08T00:00:00-04:00
