physics

Breakthrough has applications in data storage, energy conversion, quantum computing

Astronomers at UCI and Texas A&M University have obtained the most detailed view yet of an inner cold gas disk around a distant supermassive black hole. Studying the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 3258 with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array – a powerful radio telescope array in the high desert of northern Chile – the scientists […]

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, UCI astronomers have identified a galaxy with an unexpectedly high amount of dark matter at its core. Descended from a family of galaxies called “red nuggets” that formed relatively soon after the Big Bang but were stalled in their growth about 10 billion years ago, Markarian 1216 has […]

Noted cosmologist is currently chair of Department of Physics & Astronomy

Physicist joins 34 other UCI faculty members in the prestigious organization

FASER detector will seek clues pointing to hidden matter in the universe

The ammonia you use to clean and disinfect your kitchen floor starts off as nitrogen, a gas that makes up almost 80 percent of Earth’s atmosphere. But the conversion requires the breaking of a strong triple-chemical bond in a high-heat, high-pressure industrial process. UCI physicist Huolin Xin worked with his colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory […]

Gregory Benford, science fiction author and professor emeritus of physics & astronomy at UCI, is the 2019 winner of the Heinlein Award, bestowed for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space. The award is in recognition of Benford’s body of work, including 32 novels – among […]

Huolin Xin, UCI assistant professor of physics & astronomy, has been awarded $2.5 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to advance research in next-generation lithium-ion batteries. His project is one of 42 supported by an $80 million fund for promising vehicle technologies to enable more affordable mobility, strengthen domestic energy security, reduce our dependence […]

Physicists from the University of California, Irvine have discovered a new way to control magnets at the nanometer scale by electric current. This breakthrough, detailed in a paper published today in Nature Nanotechnology, may pave the way for the next generation of energy-efficient computers and data centers. “There is growing interest in using magnetic nanoparticles […]