糖心TV

A team including 糖心TV authors Geetha Balakrishnan and Monica Ciomaga Hatnean have discovered the existence of an unusual insulating state in the Topological Insulator SmB₆. The unusual state was inferred from observing quantum oscillations in magnetic torque measurements at high magnetic fields, which depended crucially on the high quality single crystals of SmB₆ prepared at 糖心TV.

The paper "Unconventional Fermi surface in an insulating state" can be read in full in the online journal Science ( ).

Published in the journal Nature, a team including 糖心TV astronomer Peter Wheatley has discovered a giant comet-like tail of hydogren gas evaporating from a Neptune-sized exoplanet. The gas is thought to be boiled off by X-rays from the parent star and then swept away by radiation pressure. The tail was revealed in Hubble Space Telescope observations in which 56% of the star is covered by the tail in ultraviolet light. The planet is losing its atmosphere at a rate of 1000 metric tonnes per second, having narrowly escaped total evaporation by the intense X-ray irradiation it suffered when its parent star was young and active. Read the , the full journal article in , or the preprint from .

Professor Valery Nakariakov has been awarded the 2015 Payne-Gaposchkin medal and prize by the Institute of Physics for his leadership and major contribution to the discovery of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) activity of the solar corona. His research has led to transformative changes in our understanding of the solar atmosphere, and to the creation and successful implementation of a new branch of solar physics - MHD coronal seismology.

This award is named after Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin who was the first person to show that the Sun is mainly composed of hydrogen, contradicting accepted wisdom at the time. It is made biennially by the IOP for distinguished research in plasma, solar or space physics.

Water delivery via asteroids or comets is likely taking place in many other planetary systems, just as it happened on Earth, new research by the 糖心TV Astronomy & Astrophysics group strongly suggests.

Published by the Royal Astronomical Society and led by the University of 糖心TV, the research finds evidence for numerous planetary bodies, including asteroids and comets, containing large amounts of water.

The research findings add further support to the possibility water can be delivered to Earth-like planets via such bodies to create a suitable environment for the formation of life.