Physics News

One of the largest collaborations in science has officially come to an end with the release of its final scientific papers this summer.

Thirty-three research projects at the University of Toronto, spanning fields from artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing to cancer detection and neurodegeneration, are set to benefit from more than $9.5 million in federal funding that will support research infrastructure needs and expenses. Among them are U of T Physics faculty, Miriam Diamond and Nikolina Ilic.

How long does it take to do the apparently impossible? Knowing might unlock better quantum computers and a deeper understanding of physics.

When asked how he developed an interest in physics, Faculty of Arts & Science alumnus Julius Lindsay laughs. “I was — am— a big Star Trek and Star Wars nerd,” he says. “I’ve always been interested in math and science, but Grade 8 was a watershed year for me.”

The Loudon-Hines Gold Medal and Scholarship in Physics was established in 2018 through the generosity of two anonymous donors. The 2019-2020 recipient is: Celina Pasiecznik

In a paper published in the journal Nature earlier this year, a team of physicists reported the best evidence yet for an asymmetry between neutrinos and anti-neutrinos that could explain our matter-dominated universe.

The Physics Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program has been renamed as the “Natalia Krasnopolskaia Memorial Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship” to honour Lecturer Natalia Krasnopolskaia (July 16, 1955 - January 30, 2020).

Image made by graduate student Sreekar Voleti highlighted in Physical Review B.

In collaboration with Dr. Harlow’s “Physics of Music” class, the Physics Department hosted the Cornell University Chorus in March 2019 for a public concert and informal physics event called the Science and Art of Song, facilitated by Dr. Sealfon.

Emeritus Professor John Martin, former professor Hiro Tanaka (now at Stanford) and his senior UofT PhD student Trevor Towstego are among the nearly 500 authors of a Nature paper from the T2K experiment published today, which presents results giving the strongest constraint yet on the so-called CP phase governing the breaking of symmetry between matter and antimatter in neutrino oscillations

Mr Wonjune Choi and his Ph.D. supervisor Prof Yong Baek Kim proposed a new two-dimensional non-linear spectroscopy method for unambiguous detection of fractionalized particles in quantum spin liquids.

In a recent published article in Nature Communication, a team of researchers from University of Tokyo and University of Toronto led by Prof Yong Baek Kim reported the discovery of a novel quantum ground state in theoretical models designed for the so-called Kitaev magnets in external magnetic field.

Magnetic solids derive their properties from the magnetic dipole moment of the electrons in the crystal. However, when many electrons interact, they can lead to new types of ordering arising from higher-rank multipole moments.

More than a dozen physicists at Xanadu have links with the Department of Physics. Some are former graduate students, undergraduate students, or postdoctoral fellows. Others are current graduate students involved in Xanadu’s research. And Professor John Sipe is one of the company’s technical advisors.

TCCON is a network of ground-based Fourier Transform Spectrometers that record the spectra of the sun in the near-infrared. Data from the spectra measure the abundance of gases such as CO2, CH4, N2O, HF, CO, H2O, and HDO in the atmosphere.

The Canadian Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CCUWiP) is an annual conference that has been running since 2014. This year, it was hosted here at the University of Toronto from January 17-19, gathering participants from all over Canada. With 130 registered delegates, the conference bustled with physics undergraduates of all genders participating in the various panels, lectures, and workshops offered.

Professor Morris was featured on the CBC on Jan 28, 2020 for building an outdoor icicle machine in the backyard of artist Ron Wild.

Department of Physics Professor Steinberg was interviewed by Macleans magazine this month.

In a theory-experiment collaboration, Professor Thomas Scaffidi and colleagues observed for the first time a completely new regime of transport in which the electrons behave like a viscous fluid, flowing down the wire. The story was also featured in a News and Views in Nature.

Professor Emeritus James R. Drummond is a member of the Terra satellite team which received the 2019 William T. Pecora Team Award in early October.

On October 1st, former and current Cray Inc. Fellows gathered at the Faculty Club to celebrate more than ten years of fellowships at U of T.

The groups of Professor Hoi-Kwong Lo (U of T Physics and ECE) and Professor Li Qian (ECE) collaborated on an experiment on Long-Haul Quantum Key Distribution. This work was featured in Physical Review Letters and was selected as the editor's suggestion!

U of T Physics Professor and Chair of the Department Kimberly Strong among 11 University of Toronto researchers named fellows of the prestigious Royal Society of Canada – considered a major achievement for scholars in this country.

Professor YB Kim's group theoretically propose that magnetostriction provides a powerful and novel tool to directly detect higher-order multipolar symmetry breaking. The paper was published today in Nature Communications.