News: 2021

On Nov. 4, the National Academy of Sciences released its Astro2020 decadal survey, "Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s," which outlines a strategy and vision for a decade of transformative science at the frontiers of astronomy and astrophysics. Several University of Chicago projects were endorsed by the report and will lead the field for the next decade and beyond.

Astro2020 ranked the US Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP) as the top frontier project for ground-based observatories, recommending federal support for the final construction stages of the Giant Magellan Telescope. The recommendation detailed that building an extremely large telescope “is absolutely essential if the United States is to maintain a position as a leader in ground-based astronomy.”

Prof. David Awschalom discusses the quantum revolution on WBEZ 91.5 FM Chicago prior to the opening of the fourth annual Chicago Quantum Summit.

Laura Gagliardi, the Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been elected Foreign Member of the Italian National Academy, called Academia Nazionale Dei Lincei. This is an august body of scholars, whose Vice-President is Giorgio Parisi, recipient of the recent Nobel in physics.

Asst. Prof. Blase Ur, Department of Computer Science, discusses the meaning of the ‘metaverse’ on WTTW, in light of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranding his company as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the 'metaverse.'

Laura Gagliardi, the Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor in chemistry, and a team of scientists developed a device to extract water out of air. The breakthrough can work even in dry climates like deserts, and could have implications for water shortages associated with climate change.

Prof. David Schuster, Department of Physics, comments on why demonstrating quantum error correction is a necessity for building useful quantum computers.

An international team of scientists using the Gemini Observatory telescope in Chile has found a way to measure the amount of both water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a planet in another solar system, roughly 340 light years away.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to create materials that can move and block heat, use a massive accelerator to analyze dust from an asteroid, and build wearable devices for signing ASL and playing piano.

On Nov. 4, the fourth annual Chicago Quantum Summit will bring together academic, government, and industry leaders to discuss how the field can strengthen and expand the quantum ecosystem, on local and global scales.

Four complementary analyses released by the international MicroBooNE collaboration at Fermi National Laboratory show the same thing: no sign of the theoretical particle known as the sterile neutrino. Instead, the results align with the Standard Model of Particle Physics prediction: there are only three kinds of neutrinos.

Two members of the Physical Sciences Division are among those who will be honored in the American Physical Society’s Spring 2022 Prizes and Awards. IMSI Director Phillip (Bo) Hammer was recognized as part of the TEAM-UP Task Force for the 2022 Excellence in Physics Education Award. Prof. Giulia Galli of molecular engineering and chemistry was recognized with the 2022 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics.

Vitali Prakapenka, Research Professor with Center for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS), GSECARS, is among a group of beamline scientists who have seen a new state of matter at high temperature and pressure called superionic ice. With the help of several powerful tools, they have found a way to reliably create, sustain, and examine the ice, which will inform new understandings of planetary formation.

Chemistry professor and director of the new QuBBE initiative, Greg Engel, explains the convergence between the sensitivity that is possible with quantum measurement and the absolute need in biology to understand things on exactly these scales, a combination that makes quantum biosensing the frontier of biological measurements.

Researchers at the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and institutions in Japan, Korea, and Hungary published a blueprint for a class of materials that is quickly emerging as an important player in quantum science: crystals with defects.