Posts Tagged Department of Physics and Astronomy

A University researcher who predicted that laser pulses could generate ultrafast electrical currents in theory now believes he can explain exactly how and why actual experiments to create these currents have succeeded.

Does the universe contain planets with truly sustainable civilizations? Or does every civilization that may have arisen in the cosmos last only a few centuries before it falls to the climate change it triggers? Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank and his collaborators have developed a mathematical model to illustrate how a technologically advanced population and its planet might develop together, putting climate change in a cosmic context.

University Research Awards for 2018-19 have been awarded to 15 projects ranging from an analysis of the roles of prisons in the Rochester region, to a new approach to genome editing, to new initiatives for advanced materials for powerful lasers.

Four undergraduates and two graduate students have been selected to receive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, providing support for US students pursuing graduate degrees in STEM fields.

Imagine if, many millions of years ago, dinosaurs drove cars through cities of mile-high buildings. A preposterous idea, right? In a compelling thought experiment, professor of physics and astronomy Adam Frank and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Gavin Schmidt wonder how we would truly know if there were a past civilization so advanced that it left little or no trace of its impact on the planet.

Unlike typical observatories that are positioned on the ground or in space, the telescope Dan Watson is working on is situated in between — on a Boeing 747SP jet airliner.

Scientists at the HAWC Gamma Ray Observatory have ruled out two pulsars as the source of an unexpectedly large presence of positrons in our corner of the galaxy. Could they come from something more complex and exotic: dark matter?

Using the strange rules of quantum mechanics, researchers were able to put a quantum bit in a superposition of two different energy states at the same time in order to speed up the accurate measurement of frequencies.

Institutions including Cornell, Michigan, Princeton, and Stanford will join Rochester in developing an instrument to produce and study matter that exists under pressures far higher than either on or inside Earth.

For more than 50 years, the Kardashev scale has been the gold standard for classifying hypothetical “exo-civilizations” by their ability to harness energy. A team of researchers led by Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank have devised a new system that takes into account the impacts of that energy use.