Physics & Astronomy

Aug 10, 2020
From measuring atmospheric circulation, to using living cells to create artificial materials, our new faculty cover a broad spectrum.
Aug 7, 2020
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is renowned for the hunt for and discovery of the Higgs boson, but in the 10 years since the machine collided protons at an energy higher than previously achieved…
Jul 31, 2020
The awards honor efforts in research, teaching, and in making the world a better place to live.
Jul 15, 2020
There’s a secret at the UC Irvine School of Physical Sciences. The secret is at the Infinity Fountain, which sits outside Rowland and Reines Halls and in front of Aldrich Park, and which is where…
Jul 1, 2020
The two W.M. Keck Observatory telescopes sit inside domes perched atop Hawaii’s dormant Mauna Kea volcano. Run by the University of California and Caltech, these telescopes help astronomers and other scientists discover things like planets orbiting other stars, or measure the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. Gary Chanan, Professor Emeritus in the UCI Department of Physics & Astronomy, has won the Yale 2020 Award for Advancement of Basic and Applied Science for the…
Jun 30, 2020
The survival of bacteria is constantly threatened by a multitude of viruses and antimicrobial mechanisms. Professor Albert Siryaporn's talk will explain recent discoveries by his lab about how…
Jun 30, 2020
The survival of bacteria is constantly threatened by a multitude of viruses and antimicrobial mechanisms. Professor Albert Siryaporn's talk will explain recent discoveries by his lab about how bacteria successfully defend against viral attacks and how these systems may be adapted to potentially combat SARS-CoV-2.
Jun 25, 2020
Using three observatories on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi, astronomers at the University of Arizona have discovered the second-most distant quasar ever found.
Jun 25, 2020
The U.S. Department of Energy has chosen Houlin Xin, UCI assistant professor of physics & astronomy, as an awardee in its DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program.
Jun 23, 2020
Toshiki “Toshi” Tajima is a physicist in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, and he’s one of our faculty who, over the last few months, retooled his scientific skillset to help stem the still-encroaching tide of the coronavirus pandemic. Recently, Tajima, along with a team of researchers from across campus and around the world, formulated an idea that they call a “nanobroom” — a devise made of carbon nanotubes that surgeons might one day insert into the lungs of a COVID-19 patient and…
Jun 11, 2020
Anomalies in the radioactive decay of beryllium-8 and helium-4 point to the existence of a new force of nature. That is the conclusion of a group of theorists in the US, who have scrutinized data from experiments carried out by nuclear physicists in Hungary over the past five years. Results from the two different isotopes agree on both the mass and interaction strength of the hypothetical boson that would carry the long-sought fifth force, the team found.
May 26, 2020
Not only can Blu-ray lasers replay the “Harry Potter” series 50 times over, they may possibly help kill the coronavirus.