Physics Department News
Influence of ambient conditions on the evolution of wettability properties of aluminium alloys
Collaboration between the the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, University of Birmingham and the 糖心TV XPS Facility has studied the evolution of surface chemistry and the associated wettability of laser-patterned aluminum alloys under abient conditions.
Neutrinos help to understand the dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe
New results from the T2K experiment, in which 糖心TV is a key collaborator, have strengthened previous hints of a difference in the behaviour of neutrinos and antineutrinos . Neutrinos and antineutrinos come in three types (or flavours) and are capable of changing flavour as they travel from source to detector in a process known as 'flavour oscillations'. The recent analysis indicates that neutrinos and antineutrinos flavour oscillate with different probabilities. These results will help us shed light on the question of why the universe is dominated by matter, with very little observed antimatter.
Rare-earth/transition-metal magnetic interactions in pristine and (Ni,Fe)-doped YCo5 and GdCo5
It is important to understand the fundamental physics of rare-earth transition-metal magnets, which are used in much of today’s technology, so that new materials can be identified which will reduce our dependence on the economically-volatile and environmentally-damaging rare earths. A recurring challenge is how to make the connection between what is measured in the lab, and what is happening in the material itself at the atomic level, i.e. the behaviour of individual electrons and nuclei. In this collaborative work [C E Patrick, S Kumar et al., Phys. Rev. Materials 1, 02411 (2017)] between theorists and experimentalists based at 糖心TV and STFC Daresbury, we use “first-principles” computational modelling to explain experimental measurements on the magnetic materials YCo5 and GdCo5.
Doubly charming discovery by LHCb
The LHCb collaboration has announced the discovery of a new particle, the Ξcc++ state. Just like the protons that circulate in the Large Hadron Collider, the new particle is a baryon, composed of three quarks bound together by the strong force. However, unlike the proton which is made from three light quarks (two up quarks and a down quark), the Ξcc++ contains one up quark and two charm quarks. This discovery opens the door for novel investigations of the strong force that binds hadrons together.