Thermodynamics articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study reports the creation of a model thermodynamic engine that is fuelled by the energy difference resulting from changing the statistics of a quantum gas from bosonic to fermionic.

    • Jennifer Koch
    • , Keerthy Menon
    •  & Artur Widera

  • Article |

    Systematic alteration of HIV-1 TAR RNA and quantitative determination of its propensity to bind to the Tat protein establish a key role role for a rare and short-lived RNA state in Tat-dependent transactivation in cells.

    • Megan L. Ken
    • , Rohit Roy
    •  & Hashim M. Al-Hashimi

  • Article |

    Tracking the formation of cubic ice (ice Ic) using transmission electron microscopy and low-dose imaging shows preferential nucleation of ice Ic at low-temperature interfaces and two types of stacking disorder.

    • Xudan Huang
    • , Lifen Wang
    •  & Xuedong Bai

  • Article |

    Bubbles of ultracold atoms have been created, observed and characterized at the NASA Cold Atom Lab onboard the International Space Station, made possible by the microgravity environment of the laboratory.

    • R. A. Carollo
    • , D. C. Aveline
    •  & N. Lundblad

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A method that uses a combination of optical trapping, fluorescence microscopy and microfluidics to analyse the internal structure of chromosomes shows that there is a distinct nonlinear stiffening of the chromosome in response to tension.

    • Anna E. C. Meijering
    • , Kata Sarlós
    •  & Gijs J. L. Wuite

  • Article |

    A colloidal system is used to demonstrate the Mpemba effect and obtain the parameters responsible for its anomalous relaxation dynamics, which are manipulated to achieve exponentially faster cooling than typical.

    • Avinash Kumar
    •  & John Bechhoefer

  • Letter |

    By engineering entropy-tuning changes into distal sites of a bacterial adenylate kinase, an allosteric tuning mechanism based on protein dynamics is revealed.

    • Harry G. Saavedra
    • , James O. Wrabl
    •  & Vincent J. Hilser

  • Letter |

    Stacking-disordered ice crystallites are shown to have an ice nucleation rate much higher than predicted by classical nucleation theory, which needs to be taken into account in cloud modelling.

    • Laura Lupi
    • , Arpa Hudait
    •  & Valeria Molinero

  • Article |

    An artificial composite of the super-ionic conductor RbAg4I5 and the electronic conductor graphite exhibits extremely fast diffusion of silver ions at the interface between the two materials, generating both silver-excess and silver-deficient sites.

    • Chia-Chin Chen
    • , Lijun Fu
    •  & Joachim Maier

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    The growth of nucleated organic particles has been investigated in controlled laboratory experiments under atmospheric conditions; initial growth is driven by organic vapours of extremely low volatility, and accelerated by more abundant vapours of slightly higher volatility, leading to markedly different modelled concentrations of atmospheric cloud condensation nuclei when this growth mechanism is taken into account.

    • Jasmin Tröstl
    • , Wayne K. Chuang
    •  & Urs Baltensperger

  • Letter |

    Two flexible metal-organic frameworks are presented as solid adsorbents for methane that undergo reversible phase transitions at specific methane pressures, enabling greater storage capacities of usable methane than have been achieved previously, while also providing internal heat management of the system.

    • Jarad A. Mason
    • , Julia Oktawiec
    •  & Jeffrey R. Long

  • Letter |

    A technique of NMR thermometry that relies on the inverse relationship between NMR linewidths and temperature can be used to map non-invasively the gas temperatures inside catalytic reactors, offering unprecedented capabilities for testing the approximations used in reactor modelling.

    • Nanette N. Jarenwattananon
    • , Stefan Glöggler
    •  & Louis-S. Bouchard

  • News & Views |

    Quantum correlations have long been recognized as an informational resource for quantum communication and computation. It now seems that they can also do physical work. See Letter p.61

    • Patrick Hayden

  • Letter |

    The superconducting phase of a superconductor is often one of several competing types of electronic order, including antiferromagnetism and charge density waves. For some superconductors, the superconducting transition temperature can be maximized by forcing the critical temperature of the competing order down to zero. Now, a related effect has been identified in a high-temperature superconductor, with the application of pressure yielding a striking two-step increase in the transition temperature.

    • Xiao-Jia Chen
    • , Viktor V. Struzhkin
    •  & Russell J. Hemley

  • Letter |

    In principle, it is possible to simulate some astrophysical phenomena inside the highly controlled environment of an atomic physics laboratory: previous work on the thermodynamics of a two-component Fermi gas (a system suited for such studies) led to thermodynamic quantities averaged over the trap. Now a general experimental method is reported that yields the equation of state of a uniform gas, providing new physical insights and enabling a detailed comparison with existing theories.

    • S. Nascimbène
    • , N. Navon
    •  & C. Salomon

  • News & Views |

    The finding that the normal phase of an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms in the strongly interacting regime is close to a Fermi liquid isn't quite what theorists expected for these systems.

    • Yong-il Shin

  • Letter |

    For the first billion years or so of the Earth's history, there may have been whole-mantle convection, but after this period differentiation of the Earth's mantle has been controlled by solid-state convection. Many trace elements — known as 'incompatible elements' — preferentially partition into low-density melts and are concentrated into the crust, but half of these incompatible elements should be hidden in the Earth's interior. It is now suggested that a by-product of whole-mantle convection is deep and hot melting, resulting in the generation of dense liquids that sank into the lower mantle.

    • Cin-Ty A. Lee
    • , Peter Luffi
    •  & John Hernlund

  • News & Views |

    The thermal process known as Joule heating, which often plagues electronic devices, has been turned to good use: making devices that can produce sound as well as reproduce music and speech.

    • Rama Venkatasubramanian

  • News & Views |

    The use of magnetic fields to assemble particles into membranes provides a powerful tool for exploring the physics of self-assembly and a practical method for synthesizing functional materials.

    • Jack F. Douglas

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