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Volume 4 Issue 1, January 2008

String theory involves more dimensions than we can see, but our Universe may be restricted to a three-dimensional 'brane' embedded in a higher-dimensional space – an explanation that is convenient yet impossible to test. Branes break a symmetry in a way similar to superfluid 3He, in which the atoms pair up and form a ground-state condensate. Could the interaction of two interfaces within 3He mimic a collision of two branes – say a brane-antibrane pair that some believe led to the Big Bang? Such a collision would leave certain topological defects behind, which is indeed what D. Ian Bradley and co-workers have observed in 3He. [Letter p46]; [News & Views p11]

Volume 4 Issue 1

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Editorial

  • The Kavli Foundation will award its first prizes in 2008, as two new Kavli Institutes set about making their mark in China.

    Editorial

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Commentary

  • Only long-term commitment can ensure that quantum information science eventually fulfils its promise of revolutionizing information-based societies.

    • Tommaso Calarco
    • Philippe Grangier
    • Peter Zoller
    Commentary
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Thesis

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Books & Arts

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Research Highlights

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News & Views

  • A surprising and fascinating interplay may be emerging between string theory and condensed-matter physics.

    • Cliff Burgess
    News & Views

  • Ab initio computer simulations of a shocked cluster of nitromethane molecules provide a glimpse of the evolution of the molecular and electronic structure of an explosive undergoing detonation.

    • Gotthard Seifert
    News & Views

  • In a polaron, an electron and the lattice distortion that it induces in a crystal form a 'quasiparticle'. But a strong electric field can displace the two constituents with respect to each other, giving a glimpse at the polaron's internal dynamics.

    • Richard D. Averitt
    News & Views

  • For high-temperature superconductors, results from more refined experiments on better-quality samples are issuing fresh challenges to theorists. It could be that a new state of matter is at play, with unconventional excitations.

    • Didier Poilblanc
    News & Views

  • The 'spin-transfer torque effect' could provide a powerful means of controlling the orientation of spins with electric currents rather than magnetic fields in future spintronic devices. Quantitative measurements of this effect represent an important next step.

    • Maxim Tsoi
    News & Views
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Erratum

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Letter

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Article

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Corrigendum

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Futures

  • There's no such thing as a free lunch.

    • Robert Billing
    Futures
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