Yang’s work with quantum materials honored by APS

Yang’s work with quantum materials honored by APS

Li Yang, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, conducted research with black phosphorus — a material with a thickness of just a few atomic layers — in a study that is hailed as a milestone of the past 50 years by the Physical Review B, an academic journal of the American Physical Society.
Looking skin deep at the growth of neutron stars

Looking skin deep at the growth of neutron stars

Researchers from physics and chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis leveraged data from nuclear scattering experiments to make stringent constraints on how neutrons and protons arrange themselves in the nucleus. Their predictions are tightly connected to how large neutron stars grow and what elements are likely synthesized in neutron star mergers.
Meteorite study suggests Earth may have always been wet

Meteorite study suggests Earth may have always been wet

A new study finds that Earth’s water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed — instead of that water being delivered by far-reaching comets or asteroids. The research co-authored by physicist Lionel Vacher in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis is published Aug. 28 in Science.
Henriksen lands CAREER grant to chase electron effects

Henriksen lands CAREER grant to chase electron effects

The behavior of electrons determines the fundamental properties of any material, such as its ability to conduct electricity. Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, takes advantage of strange-but-true qualities of graphene to search for correlated motion of electrons.
What a meteorite is teaching us about space history

What a meteorite is teaching us about space history

Presolar grains — tiny bits of solid interstellar material formed before the sun was born — are sometimes found in primitive meteorites. But a noble gas analysis from physicists in Arts & Sciences reveals evidence of presolar grains in part of a meteorite where they are not expected to be found.
Supersize me: Physicists awarded $3.3M for XL-Calibur telescope

Supersize me: Physicists awarded $3.3M for XL-Calibur telescope

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis will develop and deploy a new telescope designed to measure the linear polarization of X-rays arriving from distant neutron stars, black holes and other exotic celestial objects. The instrument will be flown on a minimum of two scientific balloon launches as early as summer 2021. The NASA-funded effort builds on promising results from a previous balloon-borne mission known as X-Calibur and is dubbed XL-Calibur.
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