EPJ Plus Focus Point Issue: Focus Point on Environmental and Multiplicity Effects on Planet Formation

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Published on 30 August 2023

Guest Editors: Giuseppe Lodato and Carlo Felice Manara

Star formation does not take place in isolation, and young stars are subject to different kind of interactions with their natal environment. Dynamical encounters with other young stars and photoevaporation of the protostellar disc due to the intense UV field of neighbouring stars are just a couple of examples of how the environment affects star formation. Since planets are born during the star formation process, such effects may naturally affect also planet formation itself. The aim of this focus point is to define the state of the art of our knowledge in this particular field and to provide a few highlights of interesting new research avenues to pursue.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 24 October 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Focus Point Issue: Advances in Cryogenic Detectors for Dark Matter, Neutrino Physics, and Astrophysics

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Published on 28 July 2023

Guest Editor: Luca Pattavina

The papers included in this Focus Point collection offer a glimpse of the very broad range of applications of low-temperature detectors. This class of detectors has seen in recent years a boost in its performance and in the achieved background levels. Nowadays, cryogenic detectors are considered a leading technology in the investigation of the fundamental properties of the most abundant particles in the Universe: neutrinos and Dark Matter, and their applications reach out to nuclear, particle, and astroparticle physics. The papers included in the collection cover the most recent technological progress of low-temperature detectors, from different perspectives (e.g. computational approach, material development). The research groups that contributed to this collection show the range of methods available to tackle the latest experimental challenges of the community.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 27 September 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Focus Point Issue: Breakthrough Optics- and Complex Systems-based Technologies of Modulation of Drainage and Clearing Functions of the Brain

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Published on 13 March 2023

Guest Editors: Jürgen Kurths, Thomas Penzel, Valery Tuchin, Teemu Myllylä, Ruikang Wang, Oxana Semyachkina-Glushkovskaya

The treatment of brain diseases during sleep is a pioneering trend in modern medicine. This is due to new discoveries in the science of lymphatic "vessels-vacuums" that clean the brain during deep sleep. Today, sleep is considered as a novel biomarker and a promising therapeutic target for brain diseases associated with the drainage system injuries and the blood-brain barrier (BBB) leakage, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, depression, brain trauma and intracranial hemorrhages. This issue presents multi-disciplinary approaches, including nonlinear signal processing analysis, maсhine learning technologies, modeling of the brain drainage system, optical methods, brave and innovative ideas and very promising experimental and clinical results focusing on the study of therapeutic and diagnostic properties of sleep as well as the development of novel strategies for the modulation of restorative sleep functions.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 13 May 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Highlight - Better simulations of neutron scattering

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Published on 07 March 2023

A new simulation approach named eTLE aims to improve the precision of a primary tool for estimating neutron behaviours in 3D space. This study examines the approach in detail – validating its reliability in predicting the scattering of neutrons in crystalline media.

Tripoli-4® is a tool used by researchers to simulate the behaviours of interacting neutrons in 3D space. Recently, researchers developed a new ‘next-event estimator’ (NEE) for Tripoli-4®. Named eTLE, this approach aims to increase Tripoli-4®’s precision using Monte Carlo simulations: a class of algorithms which solve problems by repeatedly estimating the characteristics of a whole population of neutrons, by selecting random groups of individuals. Through new research published in EPJ Plus, a team led by Henri Hutinet at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission implement and validate eTLE’s reliability for the first time.

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EPJ Plus Focus Point on Tensions in Cosmology from Early to Late Universe: The Value of the Hubble Constant and the Question of Dark Energy

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Published on 03 March 2023

Guest editors: S. Capozziello, V.G. Gurzadyan

The papers included in this Focus Point collection are devoted to one of the hot topics in modern cosmology - the Hubble constant tension – claimed as a discrepancy between the descriptions of the early and late Universe. A broad range of topics are involved in the Hubble tension issue, from the sophisticated methods of observational data analysis up to dark energy models dealing with modifications of the standard cosmological model and related to the extensions of the General Relativity. The papers included in the collection are authored by known experts and groups, and reflect the diversity of approaches, both, aiming in solving the tension improving measurements and datasets and in searching for new physics capable of addressing the problem.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 3 May 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Highlight - Building a computer with a single atom

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Published on 15 February 2023

New research opens the horizons regarding what a “computer” can be and how small a computational unit can get

Considering a “computer” as anything that processes information by taking an input and producing an output leads to the obvious questions, what kind of objects could perform computations? And how small can a computer be? As transistors approach the limit of miniaturisation, these questions are more than mere curiosities, their answers could form the basis of a new computing paradigm.

In a new paper in EPJ Plus by Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, researcher Gerard McCaul, and his co-authors demonstrate that even one of the more basic constituents of matter — atoms — can act as a reservoir for computing where all input-output processing is optical.

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EPJ Plus Focus Point on Memristive Chaotic Circuits and Systems

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Published on 24 January 2023

Guest Editors: Qiang Lai, Xiao-Wen Zhao & Jacques Kengne

The memristor was theoretically postulated by Chua in 1971 and physically realized by the HP Labs team in 2008. Its unique nonlinear features actively promote the generation of chaos and other interesting dynamical behavior and sets new challenges in applications. This topical issue aims to collect some new ideas, methods, and recent results so as to shed some light on the future research directions concerning the design, analysis, and novel applications of related chaotic systems. Overall it makes a timely and valuable contribution to broadly advancing science and technology using memristors and memristive circuits.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 18 March 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Highlight - Citizen Science: From the cosmos to the classroom

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Published on 18 January 2023

An extensive network of cosmic ray detectors allows high school students in Italy to contribute to cutting-edge particle physics research

Citizen science projects offer the general public, or segments of that public such as school students, an opportunity to take part in scientific research. The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project in Italy is a cooperation between particle physicists studying cosmic rays and school students, and their teachers, throughout the country.

This has the twin aims of bringing cosmic ray research into schools and setting up a country-wide ‘open laboratory’ of particle detectors. One of the lead researchers from the EEE Project consortium, Silvia Pisano of the Italian Centro Fermi and Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of INFN, Rome, Italy, has summarised the results from about 20 years of this project in a new paper in EPJ Plus.

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EPJ Plus Focus Point on Uncertainty Quantification of Modelling and Simulation in Physics and Related Areas: From Theoretical to Computational Techniques

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Published on 16 January 2023

Guest Editors: Juan Carlos Cortés, Tomás Caraballo, Carla M.A. Pinto

The main goal of this topical article collection is to present new advances on theoretical and computational techniques for uncertainty quantification of modelling and simulation in relevant problems appearing in physics sciences. Many important laws in Physics are formulated by means of equations -mainly differential equations- whose input data is set after experimental measurements, therefore containing uncertainties. Apart from this fact, there often are model parameters whose nature is not known deterministically but randomly because of ignorance and inherent complexity of the physical phenomenon under study. This approach motivates the necessity of treating classical equations in Physics by considering uncertainties in their formulations. This approach is currently a cutting-edge topic whose rigorous analysis requires to masterly combine Physics, Probability and Computing, not just to solve exact or numerically the corresponding equations but also to correctly estimate model parameters, perform accurate simulations and interpret the results.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 16 March 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.

EPJ Plus Focus Point High-Energy Accelerators: Advances, Challenges, and Applications

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Published on 16 January 2023

Guest Editors: R. B. Appleby, A. Bazzani, M. Giovannozzi & E. Levichev

In this Focus point issue we look at the frontiers of beam dynamics in particle accelerators. These machines are unique scientific tools that provide focused high-density beams of sub-atomic particles such as electrons, protons or ions, at energies unparalleled in any other areas of laboratory-based science. They have been applied to vast range of problems in the last century or so, with circular colliders playing a special role in discovering new particles and new physics, with energy and particle collision rates of several orders of magnitude higher than those of pioneer colliders in the early 1960s. This Focus Point issue covers the field of particle beam physics, with a loose classification into the categories of advances in the field, challenges, and broader applications. This includes exciting topics such as non-linear beam dynamics, the Large Hadron Collider, the SuperKEKB, and the Future Circular Collider, the physics that occurs when two beams collide and some papers on the future advances of the field. We hope this issue is both exciting and inspiring for our community, and of interest beyond our community as well.

All articles are available here and are freely accessible until 16 March 2023. For further information, read the Editorial.