Contemporary Physics最新文献

{"title":"Space astrometry","authors":"Michael Perryman","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2275871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2275871","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractAstrometry, the measurement of accurate star positions and motions, was first carried out from space by the European Space Agency's Hipparcos mission in the 1990s. Today, it is undergoing a particularly dramatic advance with ESA's ongoing Gaia mission, launched in 2013. I explain why star positions are of such importance in astronomy, and outline the 2000-year history of the field. This illustrates the profound scientific insights that have been gained over the past centuries as measurement accuracies have advanced, as well as the technical and computational challenges involved. I explain the reasons why measurements from space became necessary in order to advance the field, and outline the measurement principles underpinning these two space mission. I conclude with a summary of the contents of the latest Gaia catalogue release, list some of the scientific highlights that have been revealed by Gaia so far and, in the process, demonstrate how these measurements are revolutionising our understanding of the origin, structure, and evolution of our Galaxy.Keywords: Astrometrystar positionsstar distancesstellar structuregalactic dynamicsHipparcosGaia AcknowledgmentsMy overview of the history of astrometry is based on my more extensive review from 2012 [Citation1], which in turn drew heavily on the researches of Allan Chapman [Citation2], David Goodman & Colin Russell [Citation3] and Alan Hirshfeld [Citation4]. The early history of the Hipparcos project is given in greater detail in my popular account of the mission, The Making of History's Greatest Star Map [Citation5]. From my retirement armchair, I express my appreciation to ESA and its advisory bodies for taking on these pioneering missions. I express my deep admiration for the engineering and management capabilities of European industry, with whom I worked closely for almost 30 years, exemplified by Matra Marconi Space (Toulouse, subsequently subsumed into Airbus Defence & Space), as industrial prime contractor for Hipparcos. Airbus Defence & Space (Toulouse) was also the prime contractor for Gaia. Finally, I express my thanks and admiration to the Gaia DPAC members, some 450 scientists across Europe, who are working together, and often under very great schedule pressures, to deliver this remarkable twenty-first century view of our Galaxy.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMichael PerrymanMichael Perryman joined the European Space Agency as a postdoctoral research fellow in 1980, after an undergraduate degree in theoretical physics at Cambridge, and a PhD in radio astronomy at the Cavendish Laboratory. He was appointed as ESA's project scientist for Hipparcos in 1981, and led the project until its completion in 1997, including the role of project manager after launch. He was one of the originators of the Gaia mission, and was its project scientist until his retirement from ESA in 2009. He was Professor ","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":" 38","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135243082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Superconductivity: the path of least resistance to the future","authors":"William J. Mercer, Yuri A. Pashkin","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2259654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2259654","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe accidental discovery of mercury's zero resistance at temperatures lower than 4.2 K which took place in 1911 by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in his laboratory at the University of Leiden, appeared to be one of the greatest breakthroughs of physics of all time. It has led to the creation of an entirely new field within physics called superconductivity; this attracted many of the finest minds in physics whose work in this area produced no less than six Nobel Prizes to date. Zero resistance, together with the expulsion of magnetic fields which was discovered many years later, are the two unique and intriguing properties of superconductors which puzzled scientists' brains for a proper theoretical explanation of the observed phenomena. However in 1935, the phenomenological theory proposed by Fritz and Heinz London (known as the London theory) was the first success in the field, which was followed in the 1950s by another phenomenological theory put forward by Vitaly Ginzburg and Lev Landau. Despite this, a satisfactory microscopic theory for superconductivity had to wait until 1957 when John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer proposed their theory, which was nicknamed the BCS theory in their honour. The more recent discovery of the cuprate high temperature superconductors (HTS) in 1986 gave a new momentum to the field and intensified the search for room temperature superconductors which continues to this day. While this quest is under way, and new theories of superconductivity are being developed, physicists, material scientists and engineers are using superconductors to establish new technologies and build machines, devices and tools with unprecedented properties. Today superconductors are widely used in healthcare, particle accelerators, ultrasensitive instrumentation and microwave engineering and they are being developed for use in many other areas as well. In this review, we will trace the history of superconductors and provide a brief overview into some of the recent applications of superconductivity.KEYWORDS: Zero electrical resistanceMeissner effectflux quantisationLondon theoryGinzburg–Landau theoryBCS theoryjosephson effecthigh-temperature superconductivitysuperconductive electronicsSQUIDsuperconducting qubit AcknowledgmentsThe authors are grateful to Prof. A. Stefanovska for the invitation to write this review and her encouragements during writing. Proof-reading of the manuscript by B. Mercer is gratefully acknowledged.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingYAP acknowledges partial support from the QSHS project ST/T006102/1 funded by STFC.Notes on contributorsWilliam J. MercerWilliam John Mercer was born in Preston, Lancashire; he attended Broughton High School and Runshaw College before going to Manchester University to study electrical and electronic engineering before changing to Lancaster University to study Natural Sciences. He w","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"77 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135475862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Physics behind music: an introduction <b>Physics behind music: an introduction</b> , by Bryan H. Suits, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2023, E-Book, ISBN 9781108953153. Scope: review. Level: general readership, non-specialists.","authors":"Stephen H. Ashworth","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2266878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2266878","url":null,"abstract":"\"Physics behind music: an introduction.\" Contemporary Physics, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), p. 1","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135934070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"High school and undergraduate physics practicals with 3D simulations, 1st edition <b>High school and undergraduate physics practicals with 3D simulations, 1st edition</b> , by Robert Lucas, UK, Taylor &amp; Francis Group, CRC Press, 2022, 246 pp., 148 illus., $64 (£39)(Paperback), ISBN: 978-1-032-19739-5, ISBN: 978-1-032-2029-0. Scope: monograph. Level: high school &amp; undergraduate students, lecturers, researchers.","authors":"M. Jamil","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2260341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2260341","url":null,"abstract":"\"High school and undergraduate physics practicals with 3D simulations, 1st edition.\" Contemporary Physics, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), p. 1","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"159 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135730551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Extremely Large Telescope","authors":"P. Padovani","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2266921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2266921","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractExtremely large telescopes (ELTs) are considered worldwide to be one of the highest priorities in ground-based astronomy. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is developing an ELT that will have a 39 m main mirror and will be the largest visible and infrared light telescope in the world. The ELT will be equipped with a lineup of cutting-edge instruments, designed to cover a wide range of scientific possibilities. The leap forwards with the ELT can lead to a paradigm shift in our perception of the Universe, much as Galileo's telescope did 400 years ago. We illustrate here the various components of the ELT, including the dome and main structure, the five mirrors, and the telescope systems. We then describe the ELT instrumentation and some of the astronomical topics it will address. We then conclude by examining the synergies with other astronomical facilities.Keywords: ELTextremely large telescopesscienceastronomytechnologytelescopessolar systemexoplanetsstarsblack holesgalaxiescosmologydark matterfundamental physics AcknowledgmentsMaking the ELT a reality is only being possible thanks to a collaboration between a large number of different people in an enormous variety of roles, ranging from scientists and engineers to project managers and technicians, at ESO and across the ESO member states. The key responsibilities of some of the team members are shown at https://elt.eso.org/about/team/. This paper would not have been possible without them. There are many contractors and institutions working for the ELT dealing with, e.g. the dome and the main structure, the five mirrors, the instruments, the roads, software writing, consultancy, etc. A complete list can be found here: https://elt.eso.org/about/industrial/. We thank Richard Ellis and Olivier Hainaut for many useful comments, Michael Meyer for producing Figure 8, and Alessandro Marconi and Valentina D'Odorico for providing us with Figure 11.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 https://elt.eso.org/2 https://giantmagellan.org/3 https://www.tmt.org4 This special material is not sensitive to thermal fluctuations thanks to its very low thermal expansion coefficient. This means that the form and the shape of the mirrors will not change significantly with temperature during observations. It is also extremely resistant, can be polished to the required finishing level, and has been used in telescope mirrors for decades.5 https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann19049/6 https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2017/7 https://www.skatelescope.org/the-ska-project/8 https://webb.nasa.gov/9 https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/euclid10 https://www.lsst.org/11 https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/plato12 https://www.cta-observatory.org/Additional informationNotes on contributorsPaolo PadovaniPaolo Padovani Paolo Padovani is Full Astronomer in the ELT Science office at ESO. After getting his PhD at the University of Padova, Italy, in 1989, he worked at the Space T","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135666554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The sky is for everyone: women astronomers in their own words <b>The sky is for everyone: women astronomers in their own words</b> , edited by Virginia Trimble and David A. Weintraub, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2022, E-Book, ISBN: 9780691207100. Scope: general interest. Level: general readership.","authors":"Gautam Gangopadhyay","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2264269","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2264269","url":null,"abstract":"\"The sky is for everyone: women astronomers in their own words.\" Contemporary Physics, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), p. 1","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135996125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Axions for amateurs","authors":"David J. E. Marsh","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2256085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2256085","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTAxions are an increasingly popular topic in theoretical physics, and are sparking a global experimental effort. In the following I review the motivations for the existence of axions, the theories underlying them, and the methods to search for them. The target audience is an interested amateur, physics undergraduate, or scientist in another field, and so I use no complicated mathematics or advanced theoretical topics, and instead use lots of analogies.KEYWORDS: Axionsdark matterhaloscopesuperradianceaxion electrodynamicsstrong cp problem AcknowledgmentsI am supported by an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship from the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (ST/T004037/1).Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Nomenclature/ notationThe gradient operator in three dimensions is ∇, and in this context × is the vector cross product. The speed of light is c, Planck's constant is h. Particle masses are quoted in units of electronvolts, eV, where 1 eV=1.78×10−36 kg, and an atom of hydrogen is approximately 109 eV. Particle physicists often used units where ℏ=c=1, and while I have tried my best to restore these factors, as well as those of ϵ0 and μ0, I cannot guarantee I caught every one.Notes1 For further reading on GR I recommend the introductory book by Schutz [Citation70] for practical purposes, while the ‘first track’ in Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler [Citation71] contains lots of thought experiments and intuition. For those keen to do research, I enjoy Carroll [Citation72].2 We focused on evidence for DM from the CMB because it is impossible to explain the CMB any other way. Modifying gravity doesn't work without also introducing new dark degrees of freedom, i.e. without introducing DM.3 The constant of proportionality can be estimated by dimensional analysis. An EDM has units charge times distance. The charge we have to play with is the quark charge, e/3, and the distance is the size of the neutron, 10−15 m. So we estimate the constant as the product of these numbers, about 3×10−14e m. The value of the neutron EDM computed using quantum field theory [Citation73] is d=5×10−14θe m: very close to our naive estimate.4 The name ‘axion’ is due to Frank Wilczek. It was Weinberg and Wilczek who, independently later in 1977 (published in 1978) [Citation74,Citation75] first realised that Peccei and Quinn's theory predicted the existence of a particle, and computed its mass. Wilczek coined the phrase ‘axion’ after the American detergent. The ‘axi’ comes from the left/right-handed necessity of the interaction between axions and quarks, which physicists call ‘axial’, while the ‘on’ just sounds like a particle name (think ‘boson’, ‘neutron’ etc.). The axion ‘cleans up the mess’ of the strong-CP problem. Weinberg's name for the particle was the ‘Higglet’, since it is a bit like a Higgs boson, only lighter.5 The actual computation requires a graduate course in quantum field theory. You can find it in these references [","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135853954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Statistical and thermal physics: with computer applications, 2nd edition <b>Statistical and thermal physics: with computer applications, 2nd edition</b> , by Harvey Gould and Jan Tobochnik, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2021, 528 pp., £75.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-069-1201-89-4. Scope: text book. Level: undergraduate.","authors":"Thomas Peters","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2259865","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2259865","url":null,"abstract":"\"Statistical and thermal physics: with computer applications, 2nd edition.\" Contemporary Physics, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), p. 1","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134975739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction to the mathematical physics of nonlinear waves, 2nd edition <b>Introduction to the mathematical physics of nonlinear waves, 2nd edition</b> , by Minoru Fujimoto, Bristol, UK, IOP Publishing, 2021, xv+165 pp., £75.00(hardback), ISBN: 978-0-7503-3757-1(hbk); 978-0-7503-3760-1(myPrint); 978-0-7503-3759-5(ebook); 978-0-7503-3758-8(mobi). Scope: textbook. Level: advanced undergraduate, graduate.","authors":"A. H. Harker","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2259862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2259862","url":null,"abstract":"\"Introduction to the mathematical physics of nonlinear waves, 2nd edition.\" Contemporary Physics, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), p. 1","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135738936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When things grow many. Complexity, universality and emergence in nature <b>When things grow many. Complexity, universality and emergence in nature</b> , by L. S. Schulman, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2022, 304 pp., £45 (hardback), ISBN: 9780198861881. Scope: monograph. Level: advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, early career researcher, researcher, specialist, scientist.","authors":"Miguel A. F. Sanjuán","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2259332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2259332","url":null,"abstract":"\"When things grow many. Complexity, universality and emergence in nature.\" Contemporary Physics, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136308731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}