News

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative is sending a group of four small satellites, called CubeSats, to the International Space Station as ELaNa 51 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites). These small payloads have been developed by NASA and universities and will be deployed from low Earth orbit.

Dr. Tansu Daylan’s research program seeks to better understand the particle nature of dark matter and how exoplanets form, evolve, migrate, and potentially support life.

Arts & Sciences scholars are teaming up with researchers across WashU to develop new tools to probe the fundamental forces that shape our world.

Scientists at Washington University and a St. Louis startup, Impossible Sensing, have received a $3 million grant from NASA to develop a new sensor for future missions to the moon.

WashU Scientists Plan for Trip South of St. Louis to View the Total Solar Eclipse at Public Event

Jeff Gillis- Davis Research Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University joins Tom and Megan in the KMOX studio discussing Wash U scientists developing tech for lunar research and NASA grant to help with it.

“Cosmochemistry is the study of space stuff, the actual materials that make up planets, stars, satellites, comets, and asteroids,” Dr. Ryan Ogliore, who is an associate professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis, tells Universe Today. “

Dr. Tansu Daylan, Assistant Professor of Physics, presented on exoplanets and their transits as part of the Saturday Science Lecture series leading up to the April 8 eclipse on Saturday, Mar. 2.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are developing a prototype for an instrument for a future moon mission with support from a nearly $3 million grant from NASA.

Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Francesc Ferrer, Associate Professor of Physics, presented “The Eclipse That Made Einstein World-Famous” as part of the Saturday Science Lecture series leading up to the April 8 eclipse on Saturday, Feb. 24.

Kun Wang and Ryan Ogliore recently delivered presentations during an outreach event held at two high schools in Illinois

The Microanalysis Society has awarded the Macres Award for the Best Instrumentation/Software Paper to the paper Paul Carpenter presented at the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2023 meeting.

Charlie Fallon, class of 2025, has been awarded the Baines Family Planetary Sciences Scholarship this year.

After four years with the instrument encased in snow, the SuperTIGER "Rescue Rangers" were finally able to send it home this year.

NASA’s Stardust mission to Comet Wild 2 has revealed its secrets very slowly. They’re finally coming together, however, and the results are showing that the outer Solar System in its early days was not the simple place previously thought. How one comet came to have dust from widely separated parts of the early Solar System remains unanswered, however.

The Department of Physics and the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences participated in the Graduate School and Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Fair held on January 7, 2024, during the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in New Orleans.

Ryan Ogliore in the Department of Physics presents the latest findings from the first-ever mission to collect samples from a comet.

Sleep helps restore the brain’s operating system to a critical state, according to new findings from WashU researchers in biology and physics.

Professor Daylan has been teaching a brand new course this semester called Planets and Life in the Universe. The class focuses on planetary astrophysics, and in particular, exoplanets. While much of the course consisted of standard lectures, the last few classes were different. At the end of the semester, Daylan planned a special activity he called, "ExoCup@WashU."

Tansu Daylan, assistant professor of physics and fellow of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a two-year, $300K grant from NASA on it's upcoming Roman Space Telescope.

Relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are some of the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe.

With only two neutrons to its seven protons, Nitrogen-9 represents the first known case of a nucleus that decays by emitting five protons from its ground state. Robert Charity, a research professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, described the new light isotope of nitrogen in a new paper published in Physical Review Letters.

As biologists learn more about how microbial communities work together, a major goal is understanding how their composition determines function. What combination of strains and species makes the best team for breaking down pollutants, for example, or fighting off infections? For years, scientists attempted to crack this problem with calculations about how microbial species interact with each other, but the nearly endless potential combinations of microbes in each community render these calculations nearly impossible.

The muon is a subatomic particle that resembles an electron but is 200 times heavier.

A team of researchers including physics professor Kater Murch has found a shortcut to establishing a baffling phenomenon of quantum physics.

Amateur astronomers and professionals alike are discovering that it is increasingly difficult to find night sky viewing areas. According to a recent study, 80% of Americans and one-third of the planet’s population can no longer see the Milky Way from their homes because of light pollution.

Michael Bouchard, PhD ’19, is playing a critical role in the Mars Sample Return campaign being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency that seeks to collect rocks from the red planet and carry them back to Earth.

Research supported by the Center for Quantum Leaps advances the field of quantum simulation using an atomic-level quantum system.

Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, Research Professor of Physics and Fellow of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has authored an article recently for The Conversation.

Physicists will create computer simulations for a full-spectrum understanding of cosmic phenomena.

Yajie Yuan, an assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was selected for the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Electrodynamics of Compact Sources.

Erik Henriksen, an associate professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is part of a team that was awarded funding from the National Science Foundation’s Quantum Sensing Challenges for Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems program.

WashU is a leading partner in NASA research, from the first Moon missions to future journeys probing the distant reaches of the cosmos.

This fall, 10 new researchers and instructors join six natural science departments and programs in Arts & Sciences. Welcome to our incoming faculty!

“AI is driven by data,” Wessel says. “When I started in neuroscience, we could attach one electrode to the brain at a time; today, we can attach thousands. This gives neuroscientists a huge amount of data — and allows us to compare activity inside the brain with what’s happening inside AI models.”

Sohee Chun was recently awarded one of NASA’s prestigious FINESST grants to support her Ph.D. work.

NASA has selected 14 U.S.-based researchers to join the Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite (ULTRASAT) science team.

Researchers in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis received $1.5 million from NASA to fund a new flight of XL-Calibur, a balloon-borne telescope built to examine the most extreme objects in the universe. XL-Calibur will be launched from Esrange Space Center in Sweden, north of the Arctic Circle, in May 2024.

The foundry gives the wider research community access to Lincoln Laboratory’s expertise in fabricating quantum circuits.

Alex Chen has accepted our offer to join our tenure track faculty as an assistant professor of physics, effective July 1, 2023.

As part of the Center for Quantum Leaps, Chong Zu and colleagues study the quantum power of atomic flaws.

As part of the Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures, faculty members across Arts & Sciences are working together to decode the relationship between technology and the mind.

Sheng Ran has won a prestigious National Science Foundation award for a project investigating new quantum materials, research with potential applications for next-generation electronics.

Tansu Daylan, an incoming assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was selected by NASA to develop an open-science curriculum for enhanced reproducibility and equity in exoplanet research.

World Quantum Day is April 14! Learn about WashU’s new Center for Quantum Leaps, an Arts & Sciences initiative that aims to harness the power of quantum mechanics and transdisciplinary research to decipher some of the universe’s greatest puzzles.

A new camera making use of quantum technologies could reveal the origin of mysterious radiation.

Anders Carlsson takes a mathematical approach to envision an optimal solar-powered grid.

Zohar Nussinov helped find an elegant solution to a beguiling physics puzzle.

Brian Rauch and his team are working on big science questions: Where does the matter that makes the world come from, and how did that happen? Rauch’s journey will lead to outer space. In March, he and his team made their first steps toward a cooperative agreement with NASA with their TIGERISS project.

Arts & Sciences researchers recently won awards from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, NASA, NSF, and others.

As part of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan, faculty fellows lead a ground-up effort to identify life and career literacies embedded in Arts & Sciences courses. Early adopters will soon be invited to participate.

Arthur Holly Compton, WashU’s ninth chancellor, conducted X-ray scattering experiments in 1922 that demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation. At the time, the idea that light had both wave and particle properties was not easily accepted. His discovery stimulated the development of quantum mechanics and was recognized with the Nobel Prize in 1927.

Four physicists from Washington University in St. Louis were allocated supercomputer access to complete high-impact computational science projects in 2023 through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program.

Some of the brightest objects in the sky are called blazars. They consist of a supermassive black hole feeding off material swirling around it in a disk, which can create two powerful jets perpendicular to the disk on each side. A blazar is especially bright because one of its powerful jets of high-speed particles points straight at Earth. For decades, scientists have wondered: How do particles in these jets get accelerated to such high energies?

Nine multiyear clusters and five yearlong programmatic grants bring together faculty across all seven schools to collaborate on new transdisciplinary research.

Seed grant for development of new radiopharmaceuticals selected as an A&S Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures

Researchers’ recent observations of a stellar-mass black hole called Cygnus X-1 reveal new details about the configuration of extremely hot matter in the region immediately surrounding the black hole.

Last month, Arts & Sciences researchers received awards from the Moore Foundation, Leakey Foundation, and National Institutes of Health.

Each will receive $1.25 million for quantum physics experiments

Graduate students working on the balloon-borne XL-Calibur mission, led by Henric Krawczynski, encountered numerous obstacles and gained valuable experience during the highly sensitive instrument's first launch and flight.

Last month, Arts & Sciences researchers received awards from NASA, the National Institutes of Health, Templeton Religion Trust, and others.

The First Look Fair offered faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to learn about the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan in action.

Astronomer Carl Sagan put it best: “We’re made of star stuff.” The atoms that make up the chemicals of our bodies didn’t originate on Earth; they came from deep space. The big bang created hydrogen, helium, and a little bit of lithium, but heavier atoms – the ones essential for life – came from processes related to stars.

NASA selects WashU’s experiment concept to probe origins of elements

Arts & Sciences researchers recently won awards from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and others.

Last month, Arts & Sciences researchers received awards from NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and others.

The formation of our solar system was a messy affair. Most of the material that existed before its formation — material formed around other, long-dead stars — was vaporized, then recondensed into new materials. But some grains of that material, formed before the sun’s birth, still persist.

Last month, Arts & Sciences researchers received awards from NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and others.

‘Coarse-graining’ can help scientists understand complex microbial ecosystems, theory suggests

Astronomers have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the center of most galaxies.

Physicist Alex Meshik won a NASA grant to support improving instrumentation and refining analytical techniques in preparation for high precision isotopic analyses of asteroid samples.

The fundamental building blocks of a quantum computer are quantum bits, or qubits. Some of the most common examples of qubits are based on the different energy states of single electrons.

Earlier this spring, Arts & Sciences launched a new internal grant program, “Seeding Projects for Enabling Excellence & Distinction” (SPEED), with the goal of spurring novel and impactful research, scholarship, and creative practice initiatives led by tenure-track and research faculty.

Arts & Sciences researchers recently won grants and honors from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Association for Psychological Science.

McDonnell Center Postdoctoral Fellow, Zoltán Váci, shares his research quest

Quantum mechanics entails clearly defined units and rules, so it isn’t really disordered. However, there is a sense of disorder that has to do with the complexity of quantum mechanics – and that’s actually really important for how we can apply it.

Since 2020, six faculty members in Arts & Sciences have won prestigious NSF CAREER Awards. The NSF’s CAREER Award program supports junior faculty who model the role of teacher-scholar through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research.

Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis are helping to recover gases from a container of lunar soil that astronauts collected and sealed under vacuum on the surface of the Moon in 1972. The effort is part of NASA’s Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) initiative.

Discovery offers new opportunity to test, refine models of nuclear structure

After 50 years, scientists will get a chance to study lunar gases collected during Apollo 17 mission.

Senior Abdullah Kuziez has received the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which provides American students the opportunity to earn an advanced degree in the United Kingdom.

A new chapter in astronomy is unfolding as astrophysicists launch the first dedicated X-ray polarimetry missions into space.

Researchers in Arts & Sciences recently received awards from the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and the National Science Foundation.

Dean Hu’s initiative infuses new talent and novel approaches across disciplines. In addition to seven hires who arrived earlier this year, 12 scholars plan to join Arts & Sciences in 2022 as part of the initiative.

Deanna Barch, Jonathan Losos, Richard Vierstra, and Li Yang, all professors in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, have been named to the Institute for Scientific Information’s list of Highly Cited Researchers for 2021.

This research builds off a previous study Joglekar did with Murch’s group, where they created the first parity-time (PT) symmetric quantum system using a superconducting circuit also known as qubit. Such systems are described by complex energies instead of the traditional quantum systems that have purely real energy levels.

This month, researchers in Arts & Sciences received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Packard Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.

Nan Liu, research assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is first author of a new study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that analyzes a diverse set of presolar grains with the goal of realizing their true stellar origins.

WashU physicists recently completed construction on XL-Calibur, a new balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of high-energy X-rays.

A team led by physicists at Washington University in St. Louis received a four-year $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative project to identify new quantum materials, which could lead to technological innovations.

Researchers in A&S are poised to explore fundamental questions about electronic structures and quantum phenomena.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that bacteria could learn from the past to predict the future.

This year, departments spanning the natural sciences and mathematics welcomed new faculty to their ranks.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis reveals that neurons in the visual cortex — the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli — change their responses to the same stimulus over time.

This month, researchers in Arts & Sciences received awards from the NIH, NASA, and the NSF.

Physicist Kenneth Kelton received a NASA grant to study fundamental fluid processes on the International Space Station.

Cells are the basic units of structure and function in all forms of life on Earth, from humans and animals to yeasts and bacteria. But a cell itself is made up of even smaller working pieces called organelles. Understanding how a cell commits resources to building new parts — and eventually divides into two cells — is the focus of a new grant for physicist Shankar Mukherji of Washington University in St. Louis.

Researchers use unusual meteorite to gain insight into our solar system’s past, present

Brian Rauch, research assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, co-authored a recent study in Physical Review Letters (PRL) suggesting that carbon, oxygen and hydrogen cosmic rays travel through the galaxy toward Earth in a similar way, but, surprisingly, that iron arrives at Earth differently.

In 2019, NASA selected nine teams to study pieces of the Moon that have been carefully stored untouched for nearly 50 years.

James H. Buckley, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a $4.9 million award from NASA to build a demonstration version of a large satellite experiment for gamma-ray astronomy research.

With NASA's latest balloon technology, Johanna Nagy is looking 13 billion years into the past to precisely measure the polarization of the microwave sky.

Maria Piarulli, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is a recipient of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program funding.

The Astrophysics Research and Analysis (APRA) program selected a proposal from Henric Krawczynski and Johanna Nagy for funding through NASA.

Michael W. Friedlander, professor emeritus of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Thursday, April 29, 2021, in St. Louis. He was 92.

In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in the galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told.

A highly anticipated measurement strengthens the case that muons behave unexpectedly

Faculty Focus: Jeff Gillis-Davis

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis reported the first observations of a new form of fluorine, the isotope 13F, described March 30 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Fourth-year physics doctoral student Lindsey Lisalda's story is about not giving up, setting and achieving goals, and breaking through barriers.

In 2020, so much about what we know to be normal came to a grinding halt for the Washington University in St. Louis community. One week in March, we’re looking ahead to a spring “break,” and then suddenly it’s a hiatus turned into a couple of months that’s turned into a way of life. A sea change, that no one really saw coming. Yet the work of the university went on — and goes on as the pandemic spills into 2021. How? Because of all of us.

The H. C. Urey Award is bestowed annually by the society for outstanding contributions advancing geochemistry over a career.

The ambitious hiring initiative will recruit interdisciplinary scholars with expertise in digital, spatial, and data sciences.

Physicists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered how to locally add electrical charge to an atomically thin graphene device by layering flakes of another thin material, alpha-RuCl3, on top of it.

Faculty Focus: Jim Mertens

Gravitational waves probe Exotic Matter inside Neutron Stars

Using a distant galaxy as a magnifying glass, physicists in Arts & Sciences will use X-ray emissions to gain insight into a supermassive black hole.

In nuclei, all the fundamental forces of nature are at play. The dense region at the center of an atom — where the protons and neutrons are found — is a place where scientists can test their understanding of the fundamental interactions of the smallest building blocks of matter in the universe.

Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, research associate professor of physics, won a $213,461 grant from NASA for a project titled “Investigation of Lunar Regolith Chemistry by X-ray Absorption and Emission Spectroscopy.”

In this Q&A, Katharina Lodders and Nan Liu describe their award-winning work in planetary sciences and meteoritics.

Li Yang, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, conducted research with black phosphorus — a material with a thickness of just a few atomic layers — in a study hailed as a milestone of the past 50 years by the Physical Review B (PRB), an academic journal of the American Physical Society (APS).

Johanna Nagy recently joined the Department of Physics as an assistant professor. She was also named a Fellow of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.

Antarctica. Vast white mystery. The snow an endless slick of white, broken only by gray rocks on the coast and blue-shadowed glaciers. How do researchers in Antarctica endure it?

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics, won a $51,811 grant from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for a project titled, "Distinguishing between Circumbinary and Interstellar Medium Dust Signatures in GX5-1."

Physicist Ryan Ogliore’s lab works to gain insight into something no longer observable: the formation and evolution of the early solar system.

Professor James Buckley has been elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) by the APS Council of Representatives upon the recommendation of the APS Division of Astrophysics (DAP). The number of APS Fellows elected each year is limited to no more than one half of one percent of the membership. It is a prestigious recognition of outstanding contributions to physics. Jim was recognized for his "foundational work in the development of the dark matter (DM) annihilation technique in search of the particle nature of DM, for study of gamma rays from active galaxies and supernovae, and for designing high-speed electronics and data acquisition systems for gamma-ray telescopes.”

New predictions are tightly connected to how large neutron stars grow and what elements are likely synthesized in neutron star mergers.

Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award by the National Science Foundation. His grant, expected to total $850,000 over the next five years, is for research that explores many-particle interactions in graphene and other single-atom-thick materials.

The special issue celebrates Floss’s extraordinary career and lasting importance to former students and collaborators.

Research Assistant Professor Nan Liu has been been named as the 2021 recipient of The Meteoritical Society's Nier Prize.

Saori Pastore will be the Principal Investigator of a DOE Office of Science grant studying "Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of Lepton-Nucleus Interactions."

Researchers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a cosmological mystery.

Prof. Erik Henriksen has received an NSF CAREER award. This highly competitive grant is a wonderful recognition of his pioneering research in condensed matter and materials physics.

Bhupal Dev, assistant professor of physics, was awarded $35,000 by the Fermi Research Alliance for a project on the phenomenology of neutrino non-standard interactions with matter.

Professor Emeritus Carl Bender created the field of PT symmetry in physics with his graduate student, Stefan Boettcher, in 1998.

Sheng Ran joined the Department of Physics on July 1, 2020 as an Assistant Professor. His research aims to understand exotic states of quantum materials using techniques of bulk crystal synthesis, electric and thermal transport measurements under extreme temperature, pressure and magnetic fields, and neutron and high energy X-ray scattering. 

The formation of our solar system was a messy affair. Most of the material that existed before its formation — material formed around other, long-dead stars — was vaporized, then recondensed into new materials. But some grains of that material, formed before the sun’s birth, still persist.

Experimental research groups in Arts & Sciences share how they have adapted to the shift to remote operations.

Li Yang will be promoted from Associate Professor to Full Professor, effective July 1st.

Mikhail Tikhonov uses tools inspired by theoretical physics to re-examine some of the fundamental assumptions of biology.

An Ohio particle accelerator will test an alternative idea of how the universe’s carbon came to be.

The Iranian-American Physicist (IrAP) Network Group announced that Mahdi Naghiloo, PhD 2019, is the winner of the 2020 Biruni Award.

Associate Professor Francesc Ferrer has been chosen as one of the Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review journals.

Professor Emeritus James S. Schilling has been chosen as one of the Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review journals.

Despite posing a danger to technology on Earth, little is known about what causes huge coronal mass ejections

Certain extremely rare decays seem to be happening more often than expected

Where do neutrinos get their mass from? It's a mystery, one of the most baffling in the Standard Model of particle physics. But a team of physicists think they know how to solve it.

With ‘Zee burst,’ physicists propose new resonance beyond the standard model

Brian Rauch, research assistant professor of physics, received support from NASA for two projects.

Research Assistant Professor Nan Liu has been awarded a NASA grant to study the "Isotopic Characterization of Presolar Supernova Grains: Constraints on Dust Formation and Nucleosynthesis in Type II Supernovae."

A team of Washington University in St. Louis scientists at McMurdo Station, Antarctica successfully launched its SuperTIGER (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) instrument, which is used to study the origin of cosmic rays.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis will develop and deploy a new telescope designed to measure the linear polarization of X-rays arriving from distant neutron stars, black holes and other exotic celestial objects.

The experimental nuclear reactions and structure group, an effort that bridges chemistry and physics here at WashU and for whom the PI's are Professors Robert Charity and Lee Sobotka, recently received word that they have been approved for another 3-year grant cycle.

The Earth’s moon contains ice, but scientists don’t know much about where the water came from. As the moon formed, water could have come from Earth’s volcanoes in the form of gas. It could have been brought there by comets and meteorites. Or, it may have traveled to the lunar surface via solar wind that interacted with minerals on the moon to create water.

Space explorers could someday use the moon to mine for elements needed to make rocket fuel on the moon, making it a launchpad to other worlds.

Six faculty members of Washington University in St. Louis, including Mairin Hynes, senior lecturer in physics in Arts & Sciences, have been honored with 2019 Emerson Electric Co. “Excellence in Teaching” awards.

The Washington University space researchers piled out of the car and surveyed the sprawling field in front of them. It was covered in a thin layer of snow and dotted by cow pies. But it also had, just maybe, a few meteorites hidden in its acres.

$7 million research effort enhances prospects for future human space exploration

Nobel laureate Kip Thorne will visit WashU to deliver a public talk on Thursday, Nov. 7

Space on Tap is a special presentation of The Academy of Science – St. Louis and the NASA JPL Solar System Ambassadors Program in partnership with 4204 Main Street Brewing Co. Banquet and Events, Taproom, and Distribution Center. Ryan Ogliore, Assistant Professor of Physics, is one of the featured speakers.

If you work up from first principles, much of what we understand about the Universe and how it works is through symmetries. If a transformation is symmetric, the properties of a system can be retained if the system is transformed. A research team from the Washington University in St. Louis has shown for one of the first times a new type of symmetry in quantum systems. This experiment may lead to further advancements in physics, especially in the realm of quantum computing.

What if energy could be the square root of a negative number?

Criticality is a hallmark of normally functioning neural networks in the intact brain

Brian Rauch, research assistant professor in the Department of Physics, received $25,000 from NASA to support his work on ultra-high energy particle astrophysics with ANITA-V.

The Department of Physics added a new astrophysics major this year, in addition to the pre-existing astrophysics minor.

Prof. Henric Krawczynski has been appointed to the Wayman Crow Professorship in Physics.

The Center for Quantum Sensors (CQS) was awarded a Quantum Leap Challenge Institute (QLCI) conceptualization grant from the National Science Foundation.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics, is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration that was awarded the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award recognizes the team’s achievement of making the first image of a supermassive black hole, “taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes.”

Antarctica can be a double-edged sword for astronomers: conditions there are some of the best in the world for observing the heavens, but the harshness of the place can be hard on equipment.

A half-century after astronauts first stepped foot on the moon, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis continue to learn more about the history of the Earth's satellite, informing our understanding of our solar system and beyond.

Even in the strange world of open quantum systems, the arrow of time points steadily forward — most of the time.

Manel Errando has accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Physics.

Hacking into brain signals may be more straightforward than once thought.

The VERITAS high energy gamma-ray observatory in Southern Arizona.

Professor Ken Kelton's recent paper was chosen as an Editor's Pick.

The new Center for Quantum Sensors aims to harness the power of quantum mechanics to detect and decipher some of the universe's greatest mysteries.

As the school year comes to a close, six faculty members entering full retirement reflect on favorite moments and noteworthy achievements from their careers in Arts & Sciences. Congratulations to all faculty entering full and phased retirement!

Manel Errando was selected as the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award in Science

Manel Errando, research scientist and lecturer in the Department of Physics, received a $363,000 award from NASA in support of developing thin-film polymer actuators for high-resolution X-ray optics.

Professor Emeritus Cliff Will has been awarded the 2019 Albert Einstein Medal by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern, Switzerland for his “important contributions to General Relativity, in particular including the Post-Newtonian expansions of approximate solutions of the Einstein field equations and their confrontation with experiments.” The award will be formally conferred at a ceremony on June 6 in Bern.

Michael Nowak was awarded grants from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/CalTech.

Physicists in Arts & Sciences are unraveling the nature of elusive “two-dimensional” materials with an eye toward harnessing them for society’s benefit.

“SuperTIGER may launch any day now, and X-Calibur will be flight-ready right after them,” said Henric Krawczynski, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences. While they wait for launch from Antarctica, the team is eating well, skiing and seal watching. Follow their blog to see how the missions featuring WashU technology fare.

Student-Led Physical Sciences Organization is Honored with Award from the National Office of the Society of Physics Students as an Outstanding Chapter

Carl Bender, Konneker Distinguished Professor of Physics Emeritus, has received a Humboldt Research Award.

Olga Pravdivtseva, research associate professor of physics, received a three-year, $1,192,000 grant from NASA to support research on I-Xe dating of alteration in CK and CV carbonaceous chondrites.

It’s going to be a sunny, cold summer this December for scientists headed to Antarctica. McMurdo Station, the continent’s bustling metropolis of roughly 1,000 residents, will be home to researchers hoping to understand more about some of the most exotic phenomena in the universe – neutron stars and black holes.

Professor Bhupal Dev was recently interviewed and quoted in an article on LiveScience.

James Buckley, a professor in the Department of Physics, received a three-year, $962,000 grant from NASA to support the development of a novel imaging calorimeter for gamma ray and cosmic ray studies.

Over thousands of years, by trial and error, humankind has learned how to produce superior materials for different types of processing. Physicist Ken Kelton talks about materials through the ages.

Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics, received a $406,000 National Science Foundation grant toward a project titled "Pursuit of quantum spin liquids in exfoliated anti-ferromagnetic insulators." Henriksen was also awarded $69,000 from Zyvex Labs to collaborate on the development of atomically precise fabrication and contactless measurement technology.

A cross-disciplinary team of chemists and physicists from Washington University in St. Louis is building a better computer chip to improve detection and surveillance for the illegal transport of nuclear materials at U.S. borders.

Kater Murch, Associate Professor of Physics, and colleagues find quantum ‘Maxwell’s Demon’ may give up information to extract work

Professor Krawczynski's article on testing Einstein's predictions for rotating black holes is an Editor's Choice for the August 2018 issue of General Relativity and Gravitation

Professor Henric Krawczynski's group and an international team of scientists and engineers are preparing the X-Calibur telescope for a stratospheric balloon flight launched from McMurdo (Antarctic) in December 2018.

Professor Martin Israel received the Dean’s Medal this spring. He discusses his background and career in this video profile from Arts & Sciences.

Alex Meshik, research professor in physics in Arts & Sciences, received a $1.1 million award from NASA in support of a project titled “Analyses and interpretations of noble gases delivered by Genesis and Stardust missions – Phase 2.”

New particle accelerators will probe how charged particles assume a new identity, or change ‘flavor,’ theorists say

Ryan Ogliore, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, received a $147,000 grant from NASA in support of a project titled “Investigating nearby supernovae through analyses of ancient and contemporary stardust.”

On the fifth Monday of each semester, a new source of productive procrastination becomes available: Course Listings go up on WebStac.

The Dean’s Medal honors a friend whose dedication and support have been exceptional and whose leadership, advice, and inspiration have served to place Arts & Sciences at the heart of one of the world’s premier universities.

"...your research ranks among the top 1% most cited works in your field and during its year of publication, earning the mark of exceptional impact. It is truly an honor to recognize researchers like you for your dedication and focus to expanding the sphere of human knowledge..."

Graphene has generated a lot of excitement in the materials-science research community because of its potential applications in batteries, solar energy cells, touch screens and more.

He plans to work with other physics faculty to help them incorporate this approach. He also is broadening his use of flipped classrooms to include it in advanced-level classes and in the lab.

How they made their analysis and reached this predictive framework is part of their decade-long pursuit as well.

“It’s reminiscent of the magic tricks that involve a ball placed under one of two cups and the cups are shuffled around — except this time, the ball can be under both cups at the same time,

What seems like luck is probably a lack of knowledge—and an incredibly exciting opportunity. The data generated by the booming field of microbiome research contains many hints that our familiar assumptions might in fact be wrong at the scale of microbial life. Microbiology might well be at the brink of revolutionizing how we think about living matter

Researchers at Washington University are using a 6,000-pound device called SuperTIGER. It converts cosmic rays into light and allows scientists to study the elements they contain. Bob Binns, a professor of physics who has been working on the SuperTIGER project since 1993, wants to test a theory about where cosmic rays come from.

Physicist Mark Alford first encountered this experiment, called the Bell test or the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment, in the form of pages of equations and, taking pity on students everywhere, has found a way to describe it that more of us can understand. Here, he explains the logic behind a famous experiment designed to tell whether quantum mechanics is spooky or nonspooky.

One sign of the weirdness of glass is that the transition from liquid to a glass is much fuzzier than the transition from liquid to crystalline solid.

The quantum Zeno effect was named by analogy with the arrow paradox conceived by the Greek philosopher Zeno: At any given instant of time, an arrow in flight is motionless; how then can it move? Similarly, if an atom could be continually measured to see if it is still in its initial state, it would always be found to be in that state.

On the other hand, experimental psychologists who have studied the decision behavior of people in such situations as the fussy suitor problem have shown that people tend to stop searching too soon

Each year, the academy seeks nominations of outstanding women and men in science, engineering and technology who are known worldwide for their scientific contributions to research, industry and quality of life. Those recognized also have a record of excellence in communicating with the public or mentoring colleagues.

If a neutron star were any denser, it would collapse into a black hole and disappear, Alford says. “It’s the next to last stop on the line.”

How does Bender know which problem to pick, which problems might yield when pushed in this way? “You can smell it,” he said

Prof. James G. Miller was named the recipient of the 2016 Rayleigh Award at the International Ultrasonics Symposium held this year in Tours, France.

Washington University Professors Krawczynski and Kislat are leading a campaign to launch the 8-m focal length X-ray telescope X-Calibur on a stratospheric balloon flight

This manner of detection turns everything upside down, he said. All that a photon detector can tell you about spontaneous emission is whether an atom is in its excited state or its ground state. But the interferometer catches the atom diffusing through a quantum “state space” made up of all the possible combinations, or superpositions, of its two energy states.

In fall 2014, Henric Krawczynski will use an instrument called X-Calibur to study two "beautifully bright" black holes visible from Earth's northern hemisphere.