News

EPJ B - Turbulences at a standstill

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

Energy flowing from large-scale to small-scale places may be prevented from flowing freely in specific conditions.

For theoretical physicist Dima Shepelyansky from the CNRS-University of Toulouse, France, devising models of chaos and turbulence is his bread and butter. In a recent study published in EPJB, he presents an exception he found in a model of turbulence, indicating that there are energy flows from large to small scale in confined space. Indeed, under a specific energy threshold, there are no energy flows, similar to the way electron currents and energy spreading are stopped in disordered solids.

EPJ D - Disentangling information from photons

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

Study describes greater chances of accessing more reliable information on applications in quantum computing and cryptography.

Theoretical physicist Filippo Miatto and colleagues from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, have found a new method of reliably assessing the information contained in photon pairs used for applications in cryptography and quantum computing. The findings, published in EPJD, are so robust that they enable access to the information even when the measurements on photon pairs are imperfect.

EPJ E – Turbulent convection at the core of fluid dynamics

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

Buoyant convection of a fluid subjected to thermal differences is a classical problem in fluid dynamics. Its importance is compounded by its relevance to many natural and technological phenomena. For example, in the Earth atmosphere, the study of thermal convection allows us to do weather forecasts and, on larger time and length-scales, climate calculations. In the oceans, where there are differences in temperature and salinity, turbulent convection drives deep-water currents. Geology and astrophysics are other areas where thermal convection has great impact.

EPJ E – Graphical abstracts now required in EPJ E

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

We are pleased to inform the readers and authors of EPJ E that from now on articles published in EPJ E will feature a graphical abstract. While it is not meant to provide specific results, this element will serve the purpose of conveying visually the gist of the article, along with the title. Authors may use an item already present in the manuscript or a purpose-made graphic. The use of color is strongly encouraged. Images previously published under the copyright of other publishers cannot be considered.

EPJ Plus – Determination of a time shift in the OPERA setup using high-energy horizontal muons in the LVD and OPERA detectors

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

Distribution of the ?t = tLVD - t*OPERA for corrected events. All the events of each year are grouped into one single point with the exception of 2008, which is subdivided into three periods.

The halls of the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory (LNGS) were built in the 1980s based on the design of A. Zichichi and oriented towards CERN for experiments on neutrino beams. In 2006, the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso (CNGS) beam was ready and the search could start for tau-neutrino appearances in the muon-neutrino beam produced at CERN. The OPERA detector was designed and built for this purpose.

EPJ E - Giraffes are living proof that cells’ pressure matters

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

brain tumour — © bourbon numérik/Fotolia.com

A model that describes dividing cells within human tissues from the perspective of physicists could help further the understanding of cancer growth.

Physicists from the Curie Institute, France, explored the relative impact of the mechanical pressure induced by dividing cells in biological tissues. This approach complements traditional studies on genetic and biochemical signalling mechanisms to explain experimental observations of how biological tissues evolve. This work, recently published in EPJE, could have significant implications for the understanding of cancer growth.

EPJ Plus – The “inertia of heat” concept revisited

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

What is the general relativistic version of the Navier-Stokes-Fourier dissipative hydrodynamics? Surprisingly, no satisfactory answer to this question is known today. Eckart's early solution [Eckart, Phys. Rev. 58, 919 (1940)], is considered outdated on many grounds: the instability of its equilibrium states, ill-posed initial-value formulation, inconsistency with linear irreversible thermodynamics, etc. Although alternative theories have been proposed recently, none appears to have won the consensus.

EPJ B has a new Editor in Chief to handle theory and simulations in condensed matter

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

Angel Rubio new EPJ B Editor in Chief to handle theory and simulations in condensed matter

From July 2012 Angel Rubio succeeds Luciano Colombo as Editor in Chief of EPJ B for the part of condensed matter theory and modeling. Professor Rubio is the head of the NanoBio spectroscopy group at the Universidad del País Vasco in Spain and leader of the theoretical spectroscopy group at the Fritz Haber Institut in Berlin. His group collaborates with many other experimental and theoretical research groups, as well as groups from industry. He has contributed with a large number of publications to the development of novel theoretical tools to investigate the electronic response of solids, nanostructures, biomolecules and hybrid materials to external electromagnetic fields. He has numerous honors and awards to his name which he garnered throughout his academic career.

EPJ A - Existence of neutron-rich superheavy element 116 confirmed

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

The synthesis of a superheavy element with the proton number Z=116 has been studied at the velocity filter SHIP of GSI in Darmstadt using a ⁴⁸Ca beam on radioactive ²⁴⁸Cm targets. At excitation energies of the compound nuclei of 40.9 MeV, four decay chains were measured, which were assigned to the isotope 292116 produced in 4n channel, and one chain, which was assigned to ²⁹³116 produced in 3n channel. All chains are terminated by spontaneous fission decays of either ²⁷⁷Hs or ²⁸⁴Cn isotopes on the shoreline of the neutron-rich superheavy island.

EPJ Data Science - Countering crowd control collapse

Details: Published on 10 August 2012

Understanding crowd dynamics can prevent disaster at cultural or sports events.

Physicists investigating a recent crowd disaster in Germany found that one of the key causes was that at some point the crowd dynamics turned turbulent, akin to behaviour found in unstable fluid flows. The study, led by Dirk Helbing from the Risk Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is published in EPJ Data Science.