News & Events

Latest News

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New, Third Type of Supernova Observed

An international team including UC Davis astronomers has observed the first example of a new type of supernova. The discovery, confirming a prediction made four decades ago, could lead to new insights into the life and death of stars.

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Opportunity Fellowship Fund Enters Last Week of Phase I Fundraising

According to our unofficial total of gifts and pledges to the Opportunity Fellowship Fund we need just over $20K more to reach our goal of raising $200K from department members by the July 1 deadline. Will we make it? It’s an exciting cliff hanger. Stay tuned.

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Dr. Brian Lemaux to Join Gemini-N Staff, NASA Grant, and New Departmental Post-docs

Dr. Brian Lemaux, an Associate Project Scientist in the department, as well as a UCD Physics & Astronomy Ph.D. graduate, has accepted a permanent position on the scientific staff of the Gemini-N telescope in Hilo, Hawai’i. Gemini-N, along with its Chilean twin Gemini-S, are among the largest and most productive telescopes in the world.

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Opportunity Fellowship Update

Gifts and pledges in response to the Opportunity Fellowship fundraising campaign have come from 12 undergrads, 44 grad students, 1 staff member, 1 researcher, 24 faculty members, 2 emeritii faculty, 1 external advisory board member and 1 alumnus.

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A new type of superconductor

A team of three faculty groups in the Department of Physics and Astronomy joined their expertise to study a new type of superconductor in which the Cooper pairs have a s-wave spin-triplet symmetry.

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Spatial Map of Magnetization with Sagnac-Interferometry-Based Microscopy

Professor Zhu and Professor Taufour recently demonstrated a Sagnac-interferometry-based magneto-optical microscope for imaging magnetic domains of novel crystalline materials at low temperature.

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Uranium Compound Achieves Record Anomalous Nernst Conductivity

It was recently discovered that the anomalous Nernst effect is dramatically amplified in magnetic Weyl semimetals.

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Release of the UCD Physics & Astronomy Climate Survey Results

The results of the inaugural UCD Physics & Astronomy Climate Survey were released on April 20th, 2021! This survey was a joint venture between the departmental climate survey committee, departmental leadership, the UCD Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), the UCD Office of Budget and Institutional Analysis (BIA), and the entire department community.