• Research News

    Time Crystal Research Enters a New Phase

    Our world only exists thanks to the diverse properties of the many materials that make it up. The differences between all those materials result from more than just which atoms and molecules form them. A material’s properties also depend on how those basic building Read More
  • Research News

    Mysteriously Mundane Turbulence Revealed in 2D Superfluid

    Despite existing everywhere, the quantum world is a foreign place where many of the rules of daily life don’t apply. Quantum objects jump through solid walls; quantum entanglement connects the fates of particles no matter how far they are separated; and quantum objects may Read More
  • Research News

    A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle

    aOn March 24, 2025 at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference taking place in La Thuile, Italy, the LHCb collaboration at CERN reported a new milestone in our understanding of the subtle yet profound differences between matter and antimatter. In its analysis of large Read More
  • Research News

    Researchers Play a Microscopic Game of Darts with Melted Gold

    Sometimes, what seems like a fantastical or improbable chain of events is just another day at the office for a physicist. In a recent experiment by University of Maryland researchers at the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, a scene played out that would be right Read More
  • Research News

    IceCube Search for Extremely High-energy Neutrinos Contributes to Understanding of Cosmic Rays

    Neutrinos are chargeless, weakly interacting particles that are able to travel undeflected through the cosmos. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole searches for the sources of these astrophysical neutrinos in order to understand the origin of high-energy particles called cosmic rays and, Read More
  • Research News

    Twisted Light Gives Electrons a Spinning Kick

    It’s hard to tell when you’re catching some rays at the beach, but light packs a punch. Not only does a beam of light carry energy, it can also carry momentum. This includes linear momentum, which is what makes a speeding train hard to Read More
  • Research News

    Repurposing Qubit Tech to Explore Exotic Superconductivity

    Decades of quantum research are now being transformed into practical technologies, including the superconducting circuits that are being used in physics research and built into small quantum computers by companies like IBM and Google. The established knowledge and technical infrastructure are allowing researchers to harness quantum technologies in Read More
  • Research News

    New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction

    Quantum computers are potentially revolutionary devices and the basis of a growing industry. However, their technology isn’t standardized yet, and researchers are still studying the physics behind the diverse ways to build these quantum devices. Even the most basic building blocks of a quantum Read More
  • Research News

    HAWC Finds High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emissions from Microquasar V4641 Sagittarii

    A new study in Nature, “Ultra-high-energy gamma-ray bubble around microquasar V4641 Sgr,"   has  revealed a groundbreaking discovery by researchers from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory:  TeV gamma-ray emissions from V4641 Sagittarii (V4641 Sgr), a binary system composed of a black hole and a main sequence Read More
  • 1 Time Crystal Research Enters a New Phase
  • 2 Mysteriously Mundane Turbulence Revealed in 2D Superfluid
  • 3 A New Piece in the Matter–Antimatter Puzzle
  • 4 Researchers Play a Microscopic Game of Darts with Melted Gold
  • 5 IceCube Search for Extremely High-energy Neutrinos Contributes to Understanding of Cosmic Rays
  • 6 Twisted Light Gives Electrons a Spinning Kick
  • 7 Repurposing Qubit Tech to Explore Exotic Superconductivity
  • 8 New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction
  • 9 HAWC Finds High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emissions from Microquasar V4641 Sagittarii

Physics is Phun

Department News

  • World Quantum Day "Capital of Quantum" illustration by Valerie Morgan Happy Quantum Day! If that’s a salutation you’re unfamiliar with, this might not be the last time you encounter it. Celebrated every April 14, World Quantum Day seeks to boost understanding and appreciation of quantum science and technology. Read More
  • Breakthrough Prize Awarded to CERN Experiments On April 5, 2025, the CMS, LHCb, ALICE and ATLAS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN were honored with the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. The prize is awarded to the four collaborations, which unite thousands of researchers from more than 70 countries, and concerns Read More
  • Moille Awarded Distinguished Research Scientist Prize Associate Research Scientist Grégory Moille has received the Distinguished Research Scientist Prize from the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland. The award comes with a $5,000 prize and celebrates his research excellence.  “I'm deeply honored and grateful for this recognition,” Read More
  • Sclafani Cited for Dissertation Work Post-doctoral Associate Stephen Sclafani has been selected for the American Physical Society’s Ceclia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award, which recognizes doctoral thesis research in astrophysics and encourages effective written and oral presentation of research results.    Sclafani was cited for performing the first observation of diffuse high-energy neutrinos from Read More
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Upcoming Events

5 May
JQI Seminar - Michael Knap
Date Mon, May 5, 2025 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
5 May
EPT Seminar - Marius Kongsore, NYU
Mon, May 5, 2025 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
5 May
Biophysics Seminar: Evan Hart
Mon, May 5, 2025 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
6 May
QuICS Special Seminar: Michael Knap
Tue, May 6, 2025 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
7 May
HEP seminar
Wed, May 7, 2025 4:00 pm - 5:15 pm
8 May
RQS Seminar
Thu, May 8, 2025 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
8 May
Geometry and Physics RIT
Thu, May 8, 2025 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
9 May
Friday Quantum Seminar: Beini Gao
Fri, May 9, 2025 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
12 May
JQI Seminar - Shimon Kolkowitz
Mon, May 12, 2025 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Space as an Open Plasma Laboratory

Dennis Papadopoulos, University of Maryland
October 28, 2014

By the late 19th century engineers and experimental scientists knew the behavior of radio waves and understood how and at what frequencies they could transmit information over large distances. However the puzzling question was why the signals followed the curvature of the earth. It took more than 20 years to discover the “ionosphere” an “electrically active” region starting 100km above the earth that reflected the radio waves similar to a mirror returning to the ground. The importance of controlling the long-range propagation of radio waves for military and commercial purposes necessitated the understanding of the properties of the new medium, the ionosphere, and initiated a novel method of experimentation radio sounding: sending radio waves to the ionosphere and detecting the properties of the return signal (travel time, amplitude, direction and polarization). Radio sounding transformed atmospheric studies from passive observations to active “cause and effect” studies similar to laboratory experiments. It revealed that the ionosphere is a very unusual magnetized plasma medium with relatively low electron concentration and low dissipation, extending from 100 to 300 km above the ground. While initially radio sounding was performed with low power radio transmitters recently developed phased array transmitters with Effective Radiative Power (ERP) larger than 1 GW allowed frontier research in nonlinear plasma physics, geophysics and radio science with implications to space weather, Van Allen belts, GPS signals and magnetospheric probing. Following a historical introduction to the subject the presentation will focus on recent physics achievements, including:

• Creation of artificial ionization layers.

• Langmuir waves, parametric instabilities, electron acceleration and artificial aurora.

• Virtual antennas at ELF/VLF frequencies and their use in magnetospheric, ionospheric and underground probing.

• Artificial mirrors for frequencies in the GHz range.

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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in the Physical Sciences Complex at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.