Department of Physics and Astronomy

Streaming jets of high-speed matter produce some of the most stunning objects seen in space. an experiment by French and American researchers using extremely high-powered lasers offers experimental verification of one proposed mechanism for creating them.

Riccardo Betti, professor of mechanical engineering and of physics and astronomy and assistant director for academic affairs at the Laborator for Laser Energetics, was named the inaugural Robert L. McCrory Professor.

How do spherical stars evolve to produce highly aspherical planetary nebulae? A Rochester professor and his undergraduate student have a new theory as to why.

Alice Quillen, professor of astronomy, and collaborators have created a mathematical model of what might be happening at the center of the Milky Way.

The new finding could help explore a fundamental question of science – why is the universe made up almost exclusively of matter, when matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts in the Big Bang?

Two hundred physics and optics researchers from 20 countries worldwide have come together at the University of Rochester this week for the Tenth Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics.

The Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) sensor is a new infrared-light detector to improve the performance and efficiency of the next generation of space-based asteroid-hunting telescopes.

An experiment to look for one of nature's most elusive subatomic particles is underway in a stainless steel tank nearly a mile underground beneath the Black Hills of South Dakota. And among the dozens of scientists involved in the research is physics Professor Frank Wolfs.

The Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded today for work in the field of quantum optics, an area of physics that was pioneered in large part at the University of Rochester.