news 2013

When soup is heated, it starts to boil. When time and space are heated, an expanding universe can emerge, without requiring anything like a "Big Bang". This phase transition between a boring empty space and an expanding universe containing mass has now been mathematically described by a research team at the Vienna University of Technology, together with colleagues from Harvard, the MIT and Edinburgh.

In magneto-electric materials, electric and magnetic vibrations can be coupled to "electromagnons". High hopes are placed on this technology, a breakthrough could now be achieved at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien).

An international team of researchers led by Ralf Tappert, University of Innsbruck, reconstructed the composition of the Earth's atmosphere of the last 220 million years by analyzing modern and fossil plant resins. The results suggest that atmospheric oxygen was considerably lower in the Earth's geological past than previously assumed.

An international team of researchers led by Ralf Tappert, University of Innsbruck, reconstructed the composition of the Earth's atmosphere of the last 220 million years by analyzing modern and fossil plant resins. The results suggest that atmospheric oxygen was considerably lower in the Earth's geological past than previously assumed.

Many of us have mixed feelings when remembering painful lessons in German or Latin grammar in school. Languages feature a large number of complex rules and patterns: using them correctly makes the difference between something which "sounds good", and something which does not. However, cognitive biologists at the University of Vienna have shown that sensitivity to very simple structural and melodic patterns does not require much learning, or even being human: South American squirrel monkeys can do it, too.

Quantum physicists at the University of Vienna founded the start-up "Crystalline Mirror Solutions" (CMS), which focuses on the manufacturing of high-performance mirrors for optical precision measurement. The company by Garrett Cole and Markus Aspelmeyer is a spin-off of ongoing quantum research within the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ).

"Chimpanzees of a feather sit together": Friendships are based on homophily in personality Like humans, many animals have close and stable friendships. However, until now, it has been unclear what makes particular individuals bond. Cognitive Biologists of the University of Vienna, Austria, and the University of Zurich, Switzerland, explored that chimpanzees choose their friends as to be similar in personality.

A team of scientists in Innsbruck, Austria, made an important step toward distributed quantum computing with cavities linking remote atom-based registers. They demonstrated precise control of the coupling of each of two trapped ions to the mode of an optical resonator. A key goal in quantum computing is the demonstration of a quantum network, that is, a framework for distribution and remote processing of quantum information.

A quantum computer can solve tasks where a classical computer fails. The question how one can, nevertheless, verify the reliability of a quantum computer was recently answered in an experiment at the University of Vienna. The conclusions are published in the reputed scientific. The harnessing of quantum phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, holds great promise for constructing future supercomputers using quantum technology.

Researchers in Vienna shed light on the interplay of a worm's inner clocks For a long time, molecular chronobiology has almost exclusively focused on circadian rhythms that are driven by the changes of day and night and hence follow the daily cycle of the sun. However, especially in the sea, the cradle of evolution, organisms set their pace also according to the moon.

At the Vienna University of Technology, a new class of thermoelectric materials has been discovered. Due to a surprising physical effect they can be used to create electricity more efficiently. A lot of energy is wasted when machines turn hot, unnecessarily heating up their environment. Some of this thermal energy could be harvested using thermoelectric materials; they create electric current when they are used to bridge hot and cold objects.

Researchers in Vienna develop new imaging technique to study the function of entire nervous systems Scientists at the Campus Vienna Biocenter (Austria) have found a way to overcome some of the limitations of light microscopy. Applying the new technique, they can record the activity of a worm's brain with high temporal and spatial resolution, ultimately linking brain anatomy to brain function.

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology manage to study the physics that connect the classical the quantum world. How does a classical temperature form in the quantum world? An experiment at the Vienna University of Technology has directly observed the emergence and the spreading of a temperature in a quantum system.

An international team of researchers at Vienna University of Technology in Austria and at Princeton University in the USA has confirmed theoretically-predicted interactions between single oxygen molecules and crystalline titanium dioxide. The results, which could be of importance for a variety of applications, have been published in the current.

As an international team of researchers under major cooperation of the Universitiy of Innsbruck reports, extreme weather events play an important part in the global carbon balance. Their They resume a self-reinforcing effect between extreme weather events and climate change. Photo: Michael Bahn and his research group carry out field experiments in the Tyrolean Stubaital: They simulate drought periods on defined areas.

For quantum physicists, entangling quantum systems is one of their every day tools. Entanglement is a key resource for upcoming quantum computers and simulators. Now, physicists in Innsbruck/Austria and Geneva/Switzerland realized a new, reliable method to verify entanglement in the laboratory using a minimal number of assumptions about the system and measuring devices.

How do you know that the cookies are still there although they have been placed out of your sight into the drawer? How do you know when and where a car that has driven into a tunnel will reappear? The ability to represent and to track the trajectory of objects, which are temporally out of sight, is highly important in many aspects but is also cognitively demanding.

The duplication of cellular contents and their distribution to two daughter cells during cell division are amongst the most fundamental features of all life on earth.

An international collaboration of scientists in Austria and the US demonstrate a novel "crystalline coating" technique for producing low-loss mirrors. This technology will further accelerate progress in the development of narrow-linewidth lasers. The work appears this week in an advanced online publication of Nature Photonics.

Greenhouse gases emitted today will cause sea level to rise for centuries to come. Each degree of global warming is likely to raise sea level by more than 2 meters in the future, a study now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows. While thermal expansion of the ocean and melting mountain glaciers are the most important factors causing sea-level change today, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will be the dominant contributors within the next two millennia, according to the findings.