News
EPJ E - Too cool to follow the law
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Study suggests viscous materials do not follow standard laws below a sub-melting point threshold.
So-called glass-formers are a class of highly viscous liquid materials that have the consistency of honey and turn into brittle glass once cooled to sufficiently low temperatures. Zhen Chen and his colleagues from Arizona State University, USA, have elucidated the behaviour of these materials as they are on the verge of turning into glass in an article just published in EPJE.
EPJ B - Telling the tale of the wealth tail
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Models designed to represent taxation and wealth redistribution could be adjusted to reflect a target level of wealth distribution.
A mathematical physicist and her colleague, both from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, are just published a study in EPJB on a family of taxation and wealth redistribution models. The findings could lead to numerical simulations of potential wealth distribution scenarios playing out over the long term and could be used for policy decision making.
EPJ B - Turbulences at a standstill
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- Published on 10 August 2012
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
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- Published on 10 August 2012
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
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- 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
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- Published on 10 August 2012
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.
