News

EPJ A – Validating Aspects of the Strong-Coupling Regime of QCD

EPJ A – Validating Aspects of the Strong-Coupling Regime of QCD

A key to our understanding of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) in the strong regime is our ability to reproduce the hadronic excitation spectrum. Up to now, and due to their limited predictive power, quark models forecast of this spectrum at high excitation energies is unsatisfactory and is dubbed ``the missing resonances problem”. To explore the high excitation energies in the hadron spectrum production or scattering of heavier mesons from a nucleon target is essential.

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Jean-Marc Di Meglio becomes Editor in Chief of EPJ E

We are very pleased to announce that Jean-Marc Di Meglio, Physics Professor at the University Paris Diderot, has been appointed Editor in Chief of EPJ E, with the special title of Commissioning Editor in Chief. From 1981 to 1994 he worked in the laboratory of Pierre-Gilles de Gennes at College de France, and was Professor at the University of Strasbourg from 1994 to 2002 The European Physical Journal E has benefitted from his editorial talent and vast expertise since 2007, when he joined the Editorial Board of the journal. Professor Di Meglio's work ranges from soap films to bubbles, polymers, colloids and vesicles. His latest interest is in biomechanics. Professor Di Meglio will work alongside Editors in Chief Daan Frenkel and Frank Julicher. We wish him a great experience in his new role.

EPJ D - Reshaping Quantum Light

EPJ D - Reshaping Quantum Light

A photon is not a point: its wavepacket stretches out in space. In the classical limit, this spatial profile is governed by Maxwell's equations, and reshaping it has been a goal in optics since Galileo's invention of the telescope. In this paper, Morizur and his colleagues describe a new Unitary Programmable Mode Converter, a device capable of changing the spatial shape of quantum light at will without introducing loss in the beam.

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EPJ B – Au and Cu as building blocks of high-density memory devices

Gold and copper atoms adsorbed on a NaCl surface behave as isolated atoms and complex electronic interactions with the surface are negligible. A study by a group of Brazilian researchers uses first-principles simulations to measure the electronic and magnetic properties of gold and copper atoms adsorbed on NaCl(001) surfaces, as well as the modifications in these properties upon charge injection.

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EPJ E - How the fruit fly got its spots

EPJ E - How the fruit fly got its spots

The eye of the Drosophila (fruit fly) is characterized by a neat hexagonal patterns, a fascinating system to study pattern formation in biology. A recent paper published in EPJ E proposes a new mechanism to explain the emergence of this pattern.

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EPJ to announce Open Access plans in the course of 2011

In order to foster and accelerate the development of full Open Access publishing in the physical sciences, as well as to coordinate better with the successful existing hybrid physics journals portfolio, Springer's STM division and BioMed Central have agreed to transfer and integrate PhysMath Central into a new initiative of the European Physical Journal (EPJ), EPJ.Open. EPJ.Open is a series of new, fully Open Access Physics journals to complement the existing portfolio of EPJ titles.

EPJ, a collection of well known physics journals jointly published by Springer, EDP Sciences and the Italian Physical Society (SIF) will announce its plans for full open access publishing in the course of 2011.

This development will benefit the Physics community due to the combined strength of Springer Science - with its strong global presence and long history of physics publishing - and BioMed Central - who operate a portfolio of over 200 open access journals and have demonstrated the ability to develop and sustain large scale Open Access operations.

Kari Dalnoki-Veress wins Rutherford Memorial Medal

Professor Kari Dalnoki-Veress of McMaster University, Canada, Associate Editor of EPJ E, has been awarded the 2010 Rutherford Memorial Medal of the Royal Society of Canada for outstanding research in Physics.

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EPJ B – A step up in the game of electron-ion dynamics simulations

EPJ B – A step up in the game of electron-ion dynamics simulations

A Colloquium paper by McEniry et al. published in EPJ B surveys the theory and applications of a new family of computational methods, namely Correlated Electron-Ion Dynamics, which enable the simultaneous evaluation of the electronic current, along with the current-induced forces and subsequent motion of the nuclei.

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EPJ H - Foundations of Quantum Statistical Physics Revisited

There is a divide, in quantum statistical physics, between the "ensemblists" who regard thermal equilibrium as a property of an ensemble (or a mixed state) and the "individualists" who regard thermal equilibrium as a property of an individual system (in a pure state). A long forgotten concept of equilibrium put forward by John von Neumann in 1929 is reanalyzed and shown to be influenced by both approaches, yet to be mainly based on the individualist view - a view that has gained ground recently.

EPJ D - Ions that love DNA to bits

Ions that love DNA to bits

Low energy carbon ions have been directed to small DNA strand. The results provide new information of the mechanisms of DNA damage during ion beam therapy, also called hadron therapy.

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