News: 2022

Aided by sophisticated computational tools, the MICCoM team led by Prof. Giulia Galli reaped a harvest of pivotal discoveries that should pave the way for new quantum devices, like greatly improved control over the formation of vacancies in silicon carbide used for realizing qubits in quantum devices.

Astronomers including Asst. Prof. Alex Ji are one step closer to revealing dark matter enveloping our Milky Way galaxy, thanks to a new map of twelve streams of stars orbiting within our galactic halo. Using doppler calculations, the scientists measured the speeds of stars and their chemical compositions, telling us where they were born.

Professor Cheng Chin of the Department of Physics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the James Franck Institute has received the ’21–’22 Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award, a Divisional honor that provides $100,000 for intellectually exciting and innovative research ventures that enable new research directions. Professor Chin is a pioneer in using ultracold atoms to study the quantum phenomena that underlie the behavior of other particles in the universe.

Professor Hsiao-Wen Chen and Professor Emeritus Richard Kron in the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics have been named 2022 American Astronomical Society Fellows.

In this installment of the UChicago News Explainer series, the question of how the Earth and moon formed is answered—as well as the questions of when, what they looked like, and how we know.

Asst. Prof. Alex Ji, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, comments on the potential of the massive James Webb Telescope that launched on Christmas day and will be able to peer back 13.5 billion years. The successor to Hubble, it could help answer some of humanity’s biggest questions.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to find extremely energetic particles from outer space with the PUEO Antarctic balloon mission, teach students how to design, build and calibrate their own devices in the creative machines class, and assemble global experts to discuss internet equity and access.