Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Princeton University have theoretically predicted a new class of insulating phases of matter in crystalline materials, pinpointed where they might be found in nature, and in the process generalized the fundamental quantum theory of Berry phases in solid state systems. What’s more, these insulators generate electric quadrupole or octupole moments—which can be thought of roughly as very specific electric fields—that are quantized. Quantized observables are a gold standard in condensed matter research, because experimental results that measure these observables have to, in principle, exactly match theoretical predictions—leaving no wiggle room for doubt, even in highly complex systems.

The research, which is the combined effort of graduate student Wladimir Benalcazar and Associate Professor of Physics Taylor Hughes of the Institute for Condensed Matter Theory at the U. of I., and Professor of Physics B. Andrei Bernevig of Princeton, is published in the July 7, 2017 issue of the journal Science.

Developing a superconducting computer that would perform computations at high speed without heat dissipation has been the goal of several research and development initiatives since the 1950s. Such a computer would require a fraction of the energy current supercomputers consume, and would be many times faster and more powerful. Despite promising advances in this direction over the last 65 years, substantial obstacles remain, including in developing miniaturized low-dissipation memory.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new nanoscale memory cell that holds tremendous promise for successful integration with superconducting processors. The new technology, created by Professor of Physics Alexey Bezryadin and graduate student Andrew Murphy, in collaboration with Dmitri Averin, a professor of theoretical physics at State University of New York at Stony Brook, provides stable memory at a smaller size than other proposed memory devices.

As NASA prepares for this evening’s launch of the NICER space astronomy mission, Emeritus Professor of Physics Fred Lamb of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is at the Kennedy Space Center, as a member of three of the mission’s Science Working Groups. The launch from the world-famous Pad 39A is scheduled for 5:55 P.M. EST.

Lamb, who continues to hold a post-retirement research appointment at Physics Illinois, is a world-recognized expert on the U.S. ground-based missile defense system. He served as co-chair of the American Physical Society’s Study Group on Boost-Phase Intercept for National Missile Defense, which published its report in July 2003. He has been fielding questions from the media on Tuesday's successful interception of an interncontinental ballistic missile during the latest test of its ground-based intercept system, as reported by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

Tuesday's ground-based interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California just after 3:30 p.m. EST. A little more than one hour later, the Pentagon confirmed it had successfully collided with an ICBM-class target over the Pacific Ocean, which had been launched from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 4,200 miles away.

In this Q&A, Lamb briefly turns his attention away from the pending NICER launch to answer a few questions on the current status of the U.S. Ground-Based Missile Defense System.