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Thursday, 21 March 2013

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Discovery by massive, internationally funded ALMA observatory in Chile called a 'game-changer' for astronomy

This is an artist's impression of one of the South Pole Telescope-discovered sources based on observation by ALMA and Hubble Space Telescope. The massive central galaxy (in blue, seen by HST) bends the light of a more distant, submillimeter-bright galaxy, forming a ring-like image of the background galaxy which is observed by ALMA (red).
Distant, dust-filled galaxies were bursting with newborn stars much earlier in cosmic history than previously thought, according to newly published research. So-called "starburst galaxies" produce stars at the equivalent of a thousand new suns per year. Now, astronomers have found starbursts that were churning out stars when the universe was just a billion years old. "I find that pretty amazing," said Joaquin Vieira, a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology and leader of the study. "These aren't normal galaxies. These galaxies [reveal star formation] at an extraordinary rate, when the universe was very young. I don't think anyone expected us to find galaxies like this so early in the history of the universe." An international team of astronomers,…
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Northrop Grumman, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Expand Cync Program to Drive Innovation in Cyber Technology

Northrop Grumman and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Research Park Corporation (bwtech@UMBC) have expanded the Cync program, a cybersecurity technology incubator initiative, to include three additional companies, among them the program's first international cyber provider. iWebGate of Perth, Australia, joins DB Networks of San Diego and Light Point Security of Baltimore as the latest companies to participate in Cync. The Northrop Grumman Cync Program is a partnership between Northrop Grumman and bwtech@UMBC, aimed at commercializing technology to help provide protection from a growing range of cyber threats. The program builds on bwtech@UMBC's successful business-incubation framework by offering a "scholarship program" for companies with the most promising cybersecurity ideas. "As the cyber threat continues to evolve, we need to…
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New NIST Microscope Measures Nanomagnet Property Vital to ‘Spintronics’

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new microscope able to view and measure an important but elusive property of the nanoscale magnets used in an advanced, experimental form of digital memory. The new instrument already has demonstrated its utility with initial results that suggest how to limit power consumption in future computer memories. NIST’s heterodyne magneto-optic microwave microscope, or H-MOMM, can measure collective dynamics of the electrons’ spins—the basic phenomenon behind magnetism—in individual magnets as small as 100 nanometers in diameter. Nanomagnets are central components of low-power, high-speed “spintronic” computer memory, which might soon replace conventional random-access memory. Spintronics relies on electrons behaving like bar magnets, pointing in different directions to manipulate and…
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Building the Massive Simulation Sets Essential to Planck Results

From left, Reijo Keskitalo, Aaron Collier, Julian Borrill, and Ted Kisner of the Computational Cosmology Center with some of the many thousands of simulations for Planck Full Focal Plane 6. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt)
Using NERSC supercomputers, Berkeley Lab scientists generate thousands of simulations to analyze the flood of data from the Planck mission To make the most precise measurement yet of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the remnant radiation from the big bang – the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Planck satellite mission has been collecting trillions of observations of the sky since the summer of 2009. On March 21, 2013, ESA and NASA, a major partner in Planck, will release preliminary cosmology results based on Planck’s first 15 months of data. The results have required the intense creative efforts of a large international collaboration, with significant participation by the U.S. Planck Team based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Strength in data…
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'Metasurfaces' to usher in new optical technologies

This schematic view of a nanoantenna array (A), at left, is an example of new plasmonic metasurfaces that are promising for various advances, including a possible "hyperlens" that could make optical microscopes 10 times more powerful. At right (B) is a "hyperbolic metasurface," a tiny metallic grating for enhancing "quantum emitters," which could make possible future quantum information systems far more powerful than today's computers.
New optical technologies using "metasurfaces" capable of the ultra-efficient control of light are nearing commercialization, with potential applications including advanced solar cells, computers, telecommunications, sensors and microscopes.The metasurfaces could make possible "planar photonics" devices and optical switches small enough to be integrated into computer chips for information processing and telecommunications, said Alexander Kildishev, associate research professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University."I think we know enough at this point that we can realistically start to develop prototypes of devices for some applications," he said.The promise of metasurfaces is described in an article appearing Friday (March 15) in the journal Science. The article was co-authored by Kildishev; Alexandra Boltasseva, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Vladimir…
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