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.
Bright radiation emitted by neighboring galaxies likely fueled the rapid growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe, a new study shows. John Wise, an associate professor in the School of Physics, is a co-author of the study.
GradIO 2017-03-18T00:00:00-04:00More than ten years ago, astronomers made a discovery that has puzzled them ever since – supermassive black holes appeared to have popped up soon after the start of the Universe. It is thought to take billions of years for supermassive black holes to form, but at least 20 of them were spotted at the dawn of the Universe, just 800 million years after the Big Bang. A team of researchers from Dublin City University, Columbia University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Helsinki, have now used computer simulations to attempt to solve the mystery. The results say a black hole can grow quickly if the galaxy it is in stops forming stars....To stop stars forming, there has to be a bright galaxy nearby, emitting radiation that can split molecular hydrogen into atomic hydrogen. This prevents stars in the galaxy from forming from the molecular hydrogen...."The nearby galaxy can't be too close, or too far away, and like the Goldilocks principle, too hot or too cold," said co-author John Wise, from Georgia Tech. The researchers published their findings in Nature Astronomy. John Wise is an associate professor in the School of Physics.
in solidarity 2017-03-13T00:00:00-04:00New research clarifies how toroidal droplets—which initially take the shape of a donut—evolve into spherical droplets by collapsing into themselves or breaking up into smaller droplets. Work with droplets has implications for the life sciences, and could improve industrial processes....“Surface tension drives the evolution of the droplets,” says Alexandros Fragkopoulos, a PhD candidate at Georgia Institute of Technology. “Fluids tend to minimize their surface area for a given volume because that minimizes the energy required to have an interface between different fluids. Spherical shapes minimize that energy, and as a result, toroidal droplets want to evolve to become spherical. We’re studying how that transition occurs."...The impetus for the experimental work was inconsistencies between theoretical predictions and computer simulation of toroidal droplet transitions. What the researchers found tends to back up the simulation results. “However, the earlier theoretical work was essential in guiding the theory efforts and in illustrating what the problem was in order to correctly describe the experimental results,” says Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, in whose lab the research took place. Alexandros Fragkopoulos is a graduate teaching assistant in the School of Physics, where Alberto Fernandez-Nieves is an associate professor.
reconfigurable transceivers 2017-03-13T00:00:00-04:00Supermassive black holes sit at the center of nearly every massive galaxy situated in the universe. Scientists don’t know how supermassive black holes form, but a new paper in the journal Nature Astronomy, illustrates a theory crazy enough to perhaps work. The running hypothesis is that black holes are born out of the collapse of a star, which can eventually suck up enough mass that they grow into supermassive black holes (SBHs). That process is thought to take billions of years, but scientists have already catalogued some SBHs that date back to 13.8 billion years in age — also the age of the universe. This would mean that some SBHs, if not all, form much more quickly than scientists originally suspected...If a huge nearby galaxy could pump enough radiation into a smaller galaxy that already hosted a black hole, the radiation could split molecular hydrogen into atomic hydrogen, stopping the galaxy from forming new stars and ultimately forcing it to collapse under the gravitational pressure of the black hole. Thus, the black hole would suck up that mass and quickly become an SBH...“The nearby galaxy can’t be too close, or too far away, and like the Goldilocks principle, too hot or too cold,” said John Wise, co-author of the study and associate astrophysics professor at Georgia Tech. Wise is an associate professor in the School of Physics.
Murder Mystery 2017-03-13T00:00:00-04:00It’s no secret that supermassive black holes are heartless beasts: These objects of immense gravity that let nothing, not even light escape, have fascinated astronomers since the early 20th century. While it’s believed that so-called supermassive black holes lurk at the center of most galaxies, including our own, there’s still much we don’t know about how they formed, or why, except to remind us of our own mortality. But new research from an international team of scientists might have some answers to at least one of the critical questions -- namely, how supermassive black holes, which range in size from millions to billions of solar masses, apparently formed very quickly in the early universe. Using computer simulations, the researchers found that these giants can grow incredibly fast if they can suck the life (read: radiation) out of a nearby galaxy, disabling their host galaxy’s ability to create stars...The researchers found that the neighboring galaxy supplying the radiation had to be a certain size and distance away from the black hole’s host galaxy -- though these cosmic energy sources could be smaller and closer galaxies than other studies estimated. “The nearby galaxy can’t be too close, or too far away, and like the Goldilocks principle, too hot or too cold,” study co-author John Wise, an associate astrophysics professor at Georgia Tech, said. Wise is an associate professor in the School of Physics.
faculty spotlight 2017-03-13T00:00:00-04:00
You never know when a frog playing an electronic game will lead to an experiment on the physics of saliva....Alexis C. Noel, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, and her supervisor, David L. Hu, were watching a viral YouTube video in which a frog is attacking the screen of a smartphone running an ant-smashing game. It appears to be winning. They started wondering how — in reality — frog tongues stick to insects so quickly when they shoot out to grab them, and decided it was a phenomenon worth studying. David Hu is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and of biology, as well as an adjunct associate professor of physics, at Georgia Tech.
Extension of Self 2017-02-06T00:00:00-05:00Georgia Tech researchers explain how frogs maintain their grip on their prey during the speedy attacks with their prehensile tongues. The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, was conducted by mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Alexis Noel under the guidance of David Hu, a professor of mechanical engineering and of biology and an adjunct professor of physics.
cohort 2017-02-01T00:00:00-05:00It's not every day that a diving vacation paves the way for a possible technological innovation, much less one that involves earwax. Yet, that's precisely what happened for Alexis Noel. The mechanical engineering PhD candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology described her scuba diving trip, her boyfriend’s subsequent water-clogged ear, and the culprit—earwax—that kept the water trapped behind his eardrum to her professor, David Hu. In no time, the two were engaged in detailed discussions about the sticky substance. Then it hit: What more can be learned from earwax? David Hu is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and of biological sciences and an adjunct associate professor of physics at Georgia Tech.
Pranav Kulkarni 2017-01-25T00:00:00-05:00Students and alumni are noted for their strides in science, technology and entrepreneurship. Among them is School of Physics Ph.D. candidate Karan Jani.
Georgia Tech Lands Seven Yellow Jackets on 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 2017-01-13T00:00:00-05:00Atlanta Magazine talks to School of Physics Professor and Director of the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Deirdre Shoemaker and School of Physics Associate Professor Laura Cadonati, who were part of the international team that confirmed in February 2016 the existence of gravitational waves. These elusive cosmic phenomena were first predicted a century ago by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Laura Czyzewski 2016-09-01T00:00:00-04:00- ‹ previous
- 23 of 24
- next ›
