Aiden Wilkin, a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCR, has received a $3,000 fellowship made possible by a donation to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The fellowship will support Wilkin’s research with Jonathan Richardson, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, helping him to continue working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, experimental...
For centuries, coronaviruses have triggered health crises and economic challenges, with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that spreads COVID-19, being a recent example. One small protein in SARS-CoV-2, the Membrane protein, or M protein, is the most abundant and plays a crucial role in how the virus acquires its spherical structure. Nonetheless, this protein’s properties are not...
A research team co-led by Boerge Hemmerling at the University of California, Riverside, has succeeded in confining free electrons in a special trap originally designed to trap atomic ions.
Observational astronomy — the branch of astronomy concerned with recording data about the observable universe — just got more exciting for physics majors at UC Riverside. For the first time, the Department of Physics and Astronomy offered a course titled “Techniques of Observational Astronomy” that gave students the tools needed to plan, obtain, and analyze...
Virtual reality, or VR, is not just for fun-filled video games and other visual entertainment. This technology, involving a computer-generated environment with objects that seem real, has found many scientific and educational applications as well.
Distant quasars — massive celestial objects that emit large amounts of energy — make the brightest light in the universe. Using quasar light data, the National Science Foundation-funded Frontera supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, or TACC, helped UC Riverside astronomer Simeon Bird develop PRIYA, the largest suite of hydrodynamic simulations made for simulating...
Thought to make up 85% of matter in the universe, dark matter is nonluminous and its nature is not well understood. While normal matter absorbs, reflects, and emits light, dark matter cannot be seen directly, making it harder to detect. A theory called “self-interacting dark matter,” or SIDM, proposes that dark matter particles self-interact through...
Xilin Liang, a graduate student working with Kenneth Barish, a professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, has been awarded a RHIC & AGS merit award by Brookhaven National Laboratory for his “contributions to the STAR forward calorimeter and simulations for the EIC.”
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team, including astronomer Alexander de la Vega of the University of California, Riverside, has discovered the most distant barred spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way that has been observed to date.
Physicist Barry C. Barish, a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Joe Biden at a ceremony held at the White House today. Established in 1959 by the U.S. Congress, the National Medal of Science is the highest recognition the nation can bestow on...
A study showing how electrons flow around sharp bends, such as those found in integrated circuits, has the potential to improve how these circuits, commonly used in electronic and optoelectronic devices, are designed.
UC Riverside physics students Sean Preins and Peter Carney were awarded prizes at an international conference that took place 25-31 July at the University of Warsaw in Poland. The pair won two of only three prizes given at the 2023 Electron-Ion Collider User Group meeting.
Bahram Mobasher, a distinguished professor of observational astronomy at UC Riverside, has received a grant of $425,000 from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to develop a mentoring partnership with the University of Hawaii. As principal investigator of the three-year grant, Mobasher will serve as director of the California-Hawaii Astrophysics Mentoring Partnership, or CHAMP, that...
UC Riverside has received a $633,000 grant from the National Science Foundation through its Major Research Instrumentation Program to support the acquisition of a cryogen-free magnetometer used to research low-dimensional magnetic and superconducting materials. Such materials have applications in nanodevices, superconducting qubits, magnetic sensors, and memory devices.
Completed in 2002, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, uses high-power laser beams over a 4-kilometer distance to measure passing gravitational waves — ripples in space that travel at the speed of light — generated by the collisions of distant black holes and neutron stars. Enter now Cosmic Explorer, the United States’ next-generation gravitational...
With a touch of the screen, new interactive video technology at UC Riverside’s XCITE Center for Teaching and Learning allows students to explore countless learning opportunities. The giant 27-foot diagonal screen occupies a central location in front of couches and desks at the center, located at Tomás Rivera Library. The Immersive Design for Educational Advancement...
More than 50 physics graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from UCR and universities across the nation are attending the conference this year. They were selected based on their interest in the NNPSS and recommendation letters from their advisors to support their participation.
Physicist Barry C. Barish, a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of gravitational waves, has been elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. Founded in 1764 as a private literary society to promote the...
Ten UC Riverside staff members were honored by UCR Staff Assembly as part of its annual Outstanding Staff Awards recognizing those who go above and beyond their duties. The awards were presented at a Monday, June 5 ceremony at the Barn Stable. The awards recognize staff members for excellence in their work, commitment to the...
How do living systems establish themselves and work so well? This is a question UC Riverside physicists Nathaniel M. Gabor and Jed Kistner-Morris, as well as scholarly writing expert Benjamin W. Stewart explore in an article they published in this month’s issue of Physics Today, a magazine of the American Institute of Physics.
