Physics & Astronomy News
LSU Physics Students Sweep National Medical Physics Slam Competition
At the 2026 AAPM (American Association of Physicists in Medicine) Annual Meeting, LSU students demonstrated that skill on a national stage, claiming the top two spots in the national Medical Physics Slam. The annual science communication competition challenges graduate students and early-career physicists to distill years of complex thesis research into a compelling three-to-five-minute presentation for a general audience.
PhD Alumnus Kevin Becker Receives 2025 LSU Distinguished Dissertation Award in STEM
The LSU Alumni Association 2025 Distinguished Dissertation Award in Science, Engineering and Technology has been awarded to Kevin Becker, a 2025 PhD alumnus in physics who conducted research in the LSU theoretical nuclear physics group under the mentorship of Associate Professor Kristina Launey. This highly competitive award recognizes truly exceptional doctoral students across the university whose research and writing demonstrate superior scholarship.
A New Image of the Milky Way May Help Reveal Hidden Worlds
A newly released image from ESA's Euclid mission provides the most detailed visible-light view of the Milky Way's center ever captured. LSU researchers Matthew Penny and Himanshu Verma are helping use the data to support NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, improving astronomers' ability to detect, confirm, and measure the masses of exoplanets through gravitational microlensing.
Former LSU Faculty Member Elected President of International Society of Loop Quantum Gravity
Kristina Giesel, a former LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy faculty member and longtime research collaborator, has been elected president of the International Society of Loop Quantum Gravity. Her election reflects both her scientific achievements and LSU's sustained role in advancing research at the intersection of quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology.
The Physics Community that Met Online Before Online Meetings Existed
Long before Zoom transformed scientific collaboration, LSU physicist Jorge Pullin, Hearne Chair of Theoretical Physics in the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy, was looking for a way to connect researchers scattered across the globe.
Before Dawn in Baton Rouge, LSU Team Captures Space Images of Artemis II in Action
As Artemis II hurtled through space away from Earth, a group of LSU students and faculty led by Eric Borowski, a graduate student of Physics & Astronomy in LSU's College of Science, watched in awe and wonder from Baton Rouge.
LSU Mourns the Loss of World-Renowned Physicist Robert F. O'Connell
The LSU community lost one of its internationally respected faculty members when LSU Boyd Professor Emeritus Robert F. O'Connell passed away on March 24, 2026.
Black Hole Eats Star: NASA Missions Discover Record-Setting Blast
LSU Astrophysicist Shares Insight into the Record-Breaking Cosmic Burst He Helped Detect Astronomers have been poring over a flood of data from NASA satellites and other facilities as they try to work out what was responsible for an extraordinary cosmic outburst discovered on July 2.
Ultrashort laser pulses catch a snapshot of a "molecular handshake"
Liquids and solutions are complex environments – think, for example, of sugar dissolving in water, where each sugar molecule becomes surrounded by a restless crowd of water molecules. Inside living cells, the picture is even more complex: tiny liquid droplets carry proteins or RNA and help organize the cell’s chemistry. Despite their importance, liquid environments are notoriously difficult to study at the level of individual molecules and electrons. The core challenge is that liquids lack a fixed structure, and the ultrafast interactions between solute and solvent—where chemistry actually happens—have remained largely invisible to scientists.
MicroBooNE Finds No Evidence for a Sterile Neutrino
Scientists on the MicroBooNE experiment further ruled out the possibility of one sterile neutrino as an explanation for results from previous experiments. In the latest MicroBooNE result, the collaboration used one detector and two beams to study neutrino behavior, ruling out the single sterile neutrino model with 95% certainty.
LSU Scientists Map Breast Density to Improve Early Detection and Reduce Cancer Screening Risks
Higher breast density can increase cancer risk and make tumors harder to spot on a mammogram. But mammograms today describe density using broad categories that rely on a radiologist’s estimate.
Jeffery C. Blackmon Elected to Chair-Line of APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Jeffery C. Blackmon, Russell B. Long Professor and Chair of LSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been elected to the Chair-line of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP). Prof. Blackmon will serve on the DNP Executive Committee as vice chair beginning in 2026, chair-elect in 2027, chair in 2028, and past chair in 2029. In these roles, he will work with fellow Executive Committee members to organize annual scientific meetings and lead committees that guide the DNP's programs and initiatives.
LSU's Quantum Materials Research as core partner of Fermilab's SQMS Center funded with $125 million to shape the future of quantum information science
James A. Sauls leads LSU's contributions to quantum research with a focus on superconducting materials and systems in which quantum effects govern the macroscopic behavior of technology platforms for quantum computers and detectors.
LSU PhD Candidate Phong Dang selected as a 2025 Quad Fellow
The Institute of International Education (IIE) Quad Fellowship announced that LSU PhD candidate Phong Dang is one of 37 students selected as a 2025 Quad Fellow. Now in its third year, the Quad Fellowship supports exceptional master's and doctoral students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the United States and, for the first time, in Japan.
Manipulating quantum material by engineering non-classical states of light
Interactions (or forces) between particles are mediated by the so-called force carriers, like photons mediating electromagnetic interactions between charges. New theoretical research predicts that when force carriers are prepared in a non-classical state (i.e. a configuration which is not allowed by classical mechanics), the two particles interact in a fundamentally new way.
Pinpointing Magnetic Mysteries and Mechanisms in a Layered Perovskite
Researchers revealed how electrons with different spins behave in distinct layers of a three-layer magnetic material, helping to explain its unusual magnetic behavior. The results deepen the field’s understanding of how magnetism emerges in layered materials, which are important for future magnetic technologies and quantum electronic devices.
Hunter Meyer Awarded Dr. Charles M. Smith Scholarship
LSU's Medical Physics and Health Physics Program has announced Hunter Meyer as the 2025 recipient of the prestigious Charles M. Smith Superior Graduate Student Scholarship. Established from the estate of the late Dr. Charles M. Smith of Sulphur, Louisiana, the scholarship represents Dr. Smith's commitment to significantly enhance medical physics education and research programs by supporting graduate students to ensure a continued pipeline of highly qualified medical physicists.
LSU Astrophysicists Receive Prestigious European Physical Society Award
Louisiana State University Astrophysicists Eric Burns and Michela Negro have been awarded a 2025 Giuseppe and Vanna Cocconi Prize by the European Physical Society as part of the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT) science teams, for revolutionizing the field of gamma-ray astronomy and for laying the foundations of modern multi-messenger astrophysics. This top prize in high-energy physics was formally presented at the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics, held in Marseille, France, last week.
Super-resolution X-ray Technique Reveals Atomic Insights with Unprecedented Detail
New method promises enhanced understanding of chemical reactions and material properties.
Detection of the Most Massive Black Hole Merger to Date
LSU physicists work to improve astrophysical sensitivity of LIGO detectors for advanced discoveries.