The explosions that blew apart the universe’s first stars are shrouded in mystery. These energetic blasts are inherently difficult to recreate in computer simulations, even using modern computing power. “It’s one of the hardest physics problems out there,” says Alexander Ji, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif. Furthermore, he notes that researchers still lack an answer to a simple question: What types of stars do—and do not—explode?
For all science has learned about black holes in the last decade, researchers had only really estabished two different sizes for these celestial phenomena — stellar, or five to 50 times greater than the size of our sun, and supermassive, or a million times greater than our nearby star. Nothing had been found in-between. New research from a team including current and former Georgia Tech scientists could shed new light on intermediate-size black holes.
A new study from Georgia Tech astrophysicists Billy Quarles and Gongjie Li may have you seeing double — as in twin suns hovering over an alien exoplanet landscape. The researchers placed a (theoretical) duplicate of Earth inside so-called binary, or two-star, systems, and ran simulations on planetary axis tilts.
Many things about the animal world fascinate David Hu. He's won awards and gained attention for his studies on everything from mammal urination and defecation, to this research involving fire ants and how they build rafts out of their bodies when floodwaters rise. Hu, an associate professor in the Schools of Biological Sciences and Physics, and his team found different fluid behaviors, such as vortexes, could change the size of the fire ant raft in several ways.
Simon Sponberg is back to experimenting with some of his favorite subjects: Hawkmoths. The School of Physics and School of Biological Sciences assistant professor, who studies the neuromechanics of animal movement, has tethered the large moths to video game joysticks in earlier studies to find out how the insects track targets. Now he's gathering data about just how fast the moths decide on which muscles to use as they hover near flowers.
The famous Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the site of many astronomical accomplishments, including the discovery of the whirling stars known as pulsars, collapsed in early December. Georgia Tech scientists John Wise and Emily Alicea-Munoz, both with the School of Physics, shared their special memories of Arecibo for Puerto Rican television. (Note: the television feature is in Spanish.)
That's the title of a recently-published biography written by Andrew Zangwill, professor in the School of Physics. Nobel Prize-winner Philip Anderson was considered one of the most influential physicists of the late 20th century, helping to put condensed matter physics on the scientific map. Zangwill also presented a 73-minute virtual lecture on his findings on Anderson in October 2020.
For the graduate students and researchers coming to the United States from other countries, the opportunity to study at Georgia Tech is invaluable. But for the spouses who come along with them, it can be a lonely struggle. This feature on the Georgia Tech International Spouses' Group, which provides support for wives and husbands of Institute scientists, features a couple working in the lab of Flavio Fenton, professor in the School of Physics.
