The Art of Physics
Creativity is a vital part of scientific enquiry. From capturing the wonder of the distant Universe to developing experiments to trap individual atoms for quantum computation, physics research requires deep specialist knowledge, as well as thinking about things we know in radically different ways.
This project celebrates this meeting of art and science. Each image is an eye-catching snapshot of the research taking place in the School of Physics. Some of the images are from the real world, some show simulations, and others are more traditional artworks.
Currently, we have images from the sub-disciplines of astronomy, medical physics, and photonics. As we expand the project, each of the major research cohorts for Physics will be represented.
The project is designed to feel like a gallery, where visitors can learn about the research we do. You are very welcome to visit the main hallway in Physics Building A28 and enjoy our story of physics research.
Visitors can find the artworks at Physics Building A28, Ground Floor (Level 2).
A map is available here(pdf 265kb).
The artwork
Spiral binary star orbit
Apep and the Spiral Binary Star Orbit (left), taken with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, shows the elegant dust plume surrounding the star system Apep.
Discovered by a University of Sydney team who christened the system after the demonic enemy of Egyptian Sun god Ra; Evoking a star embattled within Apep's serpentine coils.
Spiral Binary Star Orbit (right), a stunning spiral nebula, glowing hot in infrared light, originates from startlingly simple mathematics: a pure cone, arising from astrophysical shock, wrapped into a spiral by a binary star orbit.
We see an exquisite match between the real image and this simple model in this side-by-side comparison.
For more information visit Scientific American.
Ultrapure single-crystalline gold nanoflake
This nanoflake of ultrapure single-crystalline gold was grown via a chemical process and transferred onto a suitable substrate for application in plasmonic nanostructures.
Plasmonic is a coherent oscillation of the “free” electrons in a metal. Specific nanoscale structures made with metals like gold can enhance molecular sensing, like detection of biomolecules that indicate early cancer or on-chip DNA sequencing.
The same plasmonic nanostructures could be utilised in other applications like green hydrogen production by splitting water in oxygen and hydrogen via coupling sunlight to the plasmonic nanostructure.
Each dot in the array corresponds to a single gold atom, perfectly at equal distance from the adjacent atoms, which forms a crystal lattice structure. This nanoflake is 3 μm wide (about 17 times smaller than a human hair) and less than 17 nm thick (about 3,000 times smaller than a human hair).
The high crystal quality of this gold chip would supply the optimal and most efficient material for fabricating ideal plasmonic nanostructures which could efficiently enhance interaction between light and materials, like biomolecules or water in the examples described above.
The electron tree
These enchanting images were created by high energy electrons colliding with a block of Perspex.
The electrons were produced by a linear accelerator, once used to treat cancer.
These images represent the instantaneous discharge of electric current, producing an intricate fusion of primary and secondary electrons.
They provide a visual representation of the mathematical models we build to accurately predict the radiation dose we deliver to our patients.
Within the University of Sydney, alongside our partner hospitals, medical physicists embark on a myriad of research ventures involving these linear accelerators. Our goal is to conceive ingenious methods to precisely target tumours whilst sparing the healthy cells that surround the cancer.
Detecting structure in diverse scientific signals
Complex patterns are hidden in the signals we observe from the world, from chaotic fluctuations of light measured from distant stars to the subtle variations in the periodicity of heart beats in congestive heart failure patients.
Scientists have developed thousands of methods to quantify structure in such data to, for example, better identify particular types of distant stars or more accurately diagnose heart disease.
This image represents a unification of both scientific data and methods, illustrating the result of applying 7182 analysis methods, the columns (from the 'hctsa' library developed by Ben Fulcher) to 1000 diverse signal rows.
The rows include birdsong audio recordings, electrocardiograms, rainfall, astrophysical light curves, as well as numerically simulated chaotic and stochastic processes.
The color scale ranges from low (blue) to high (red) values, revealing visual patterns that reflect commonalities between the data and analysis methods studied across different scientific disciplines.
FLASH
Elaine Sadler
Lead Researcher
Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are known as the world’s first astronomers. This painting is part of a series commissioned by CSIRO to highlight the ongoing story of astronomy in Australia.
Each painting in the series expresses and expands upon a research project taking place with the ASKAP radio telescope, located on Wajarri Yamaji Country. For FLASH, Boddington engaged with the research, as well as her own knowledge and experiences growing up on Country under a southern sky, to produce the work. Her colours and dots explore how gases move through galaxies and between the stars.
We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamaji as the Traditional Owners and native title holders of Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site.
The First Large Absorption Survey in HI
FLASH (the First Large Absorption Survey in HI) is a large wide-area survey using CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope.
The FLASH team uses ASKAP to search for the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen (HI) in absorption against background radio sources. Neutral hydrogen gas is the raw material from which new generations of stars are born in our own and other galaxies, and it holds the key to understanding how galaxies change and grow over cosmic time.
Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, the remote ASKAP site on Wajarri Yamaji land in Western Australia, is free from much terrestrial radio noise that would otherwise swamp these faint radio signals. As a result, FLASH detects and studies neutral hydrogen gas in galaxies as distant as several billion light years from Earth.
VAST
Tara Murphy
Lead Researcher
Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are known as the world’s first astronomers. This painting is part of a series commissioned by CSIRO to highlight the ongoing story of astronomy in Australia.
Each painting in the series expresses and expands upon a research project taking place with the ASKAP radio telescope, located on Wajarri Yamaji Country. For VAST, Tenille engaged with the research, as well as her own knowledge and experiences growing up on Country under a southern sky, to inform her art. The streaked colours and staid dots give an unsettling physicality to the work, which illustrates the unexpected nature of the Universe and signals that there is much still to explore.
We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamaji as the Traditional Owners and native title holders of Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site.
Extreme events: The ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients survey
When astronomical objects change rapidly, they give us insight into physics in extreme conditions that can’t be replicated on Earth.
With the ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) survey, we use CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope, to investigate the sky at radio wavelengths, looking for highly variable and transient sources on timescales as short as 5 seconds.
VAST enables the discovery and investigation of transient phenomena from the local to the cosmological including flaring stars, intermittent pulsars, magnetars, extreme scattering events, radio supernovae and the orphan afterglows of gamma-ray bursts.
Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, the remote ASKAP site on Wajarri Yamaji land in Western Australia, is free from much terrestrial radio noise that would otherwise swamp these faint radio signals. As a result, VAST is probing the dynamic radio sky in a way that hasn’t been possible before.
For more information please visit Vast Survey
Laser-driven light-sail
Boris Kuhlmey
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
3D, digital photo manipulation, 2023
This is an artist’s impression of a laser-driven light-sail in its acceleration phase.
Such light-sails could reach up to 20 percent of the speed of light, reaching our nearest neighbour Proxima Centauri within twenty years. This would allow us to send tiny, microchip sized, probes to explore the potential for life on the planet Proxima B.
In a light-sail, light from an extremely powerful laser is reflected back, imparting the momentum needed for acceleration.
Researchers in the School of Physics are working on using the Doppler effect to enhance the stability of the sail within the beam – illustrated here by the shifting colour in the focal spot of the sail.
The Tippe Top
Micheal Wheatland
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
Digital photography, Jayne Ion, 2023
The tippe top is a spinning top with a round base and a short stem. When spun on
a flat surface, the tippe top spontaneously inverts itself, so that it ends up spinning
on its stem.
This sequence of images (which run from left to right in time) show a tippe top
flipping.
In this process the top raises its centre of mass, in the absence of a net upwards
force.
Surprising examples of rotational dynamics like this challenge our intuition, and
make us think more deeply about our understanding of fundamental mechanics
and dynamics.
Hence the modelling and understanding of unusual rotational systems make ideal
undergraduate student research projects.
Gravitational Microlensing
Geraint Lewis
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
Computer Simulation, 2023
If you glance into a swimming pool on a sunny day, you will see sunlight dancing on the pool floor. This everchanging pattern is due to the water's surface, focusing the sunlight into bright spots.
But what if stars, planets, and black holes replaced the water’s surface, their gravity acting to focus the light?
The image is a computer simulation of this gravitational lensing, with yellow being regions of focusing.
The larger pattern is due to the gravitational lensing by stars, with the finer features formed by planets and black holes orbiting amongst them.
Astronomers us this microlensing to reveal the tiny hearts of quasars, some of the most powerful objects in the universe.
Laser Cavities for Quantum Science
Robert Wolf and Ting Rei Tan
Lead Researchers, School of Physics
Digital Photography by Jayne Ion, 2023
The Quantum Control Laboratory (QCL) is interested in the intersection of control engineering with experimental quantum information, quantum sensing, and precision metrology.
Our team focuses on developing quantum technologies based on trapped atomic ions and specialised high-precision microwave and laser systems.
We currently operate the highest-performance quantum computer in the southern hemisphere and have demonstrated world-leading performance in quantum-logic error rates and coherent lifetimes.
Blue image
Cavity-enhanced second harmonic generation of 235nm ultraviolet light from 470nm visible (blue) light for photoionisation of beryllium atoms.
Red Image
Cavity-enhanced second harmonic generation of 313nm ultraviolet light from 626nm visible (red) light for laser cooling and manipulation of beryllium ion qubits in the QCL Penning trap.
The Eyes of a Detector
Theresa Fruth
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
Digital Photography by Matt Kapust, Sanford Underground Research Facility, 2023
This photograph shows part of a photomultiplier tube (light detector) array behind a thin wire mesh.
These photomultiplier tubes are the eyes of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, looking to detect faint light signals from the rare interaction of dark matter particles.
LZ is trying to solve the long-standing mystery of the nature of dark matter.
The experiment is filled with 7 tonnes of liquid xenon, which would emit light when a dark matter particle scatters off a xenon nucleus.
Unfortunately, radiation from the environment can cause very similar signals. That's why the experiment is well shielded, 1.5 km under the Earth's surface in an old goldmine in South Dakota, US.
Who knows, maybe one day, the photomultiplier tubes in this picture will spot the first evidence of a dark matter particle interacting in the detector
Silicon Photonic Chip
Bridging Light and Sound for Microwave Signal Processing
Ben Eggleton
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
Digital Photography by Dr Alvaro Casas Bedoya, 2023
Our research group does a wide range of fundamental and applied research on some of the most exciting topics in photonic sciences, including optical physics and optoelectronic integration.
In the image, an integrated photonic chip is wire-bonded to a printed circuit board with an Australian two-dollar coin placed for scale reference. The micron-sized metal wires are serving their purpose for electronic-photonics interactions.
The chip, fabricated at an international foundry, contains micron-sized modulators, photodetectors, and heaters. This chip is made of silicon and used for microwave signal processing and telecommunications signal filtering.
The Integrated circuits were designed and photographed by Dr Alvaro Casas Bedoya, Associate Director, Integrated Photonics Sensing Group, Jericho Smart Sensing Lab and Eggleton Research Group.
Probing Inside stars using asteroseismology
Tim Bedding
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
Artwork by Dr Courtney Crawford, 2023
Asteroseismology is the study of stellar oscillations (or “starquakes”) and can be used to study the internal properties of stars.
The images show oscillations measured in nine different stars, which range in size from red giants (top row) down to the Sun (bottom right), and are based on observations from NASA’s Kepler, TESS and SOHO missions.
The highlighted regions correspond to oscillation modes inside the star, where each mode is a standing sound wave, and similar modes are aligned in vertical ridges.
Studying the oscillations of a star can reveal its size, internal rotation and age, which are all very difficult to measure by conventional methods.
The ionization state of gas in galaxies
Scott Croom
Lead Researcher, School of Physics
Digitally Generated image, 2024
Gas in galaxies can be excited and ionized by different physical processes. By
comparing the emission of the gas from different elements we can characterize the
nature of the ionization.
Each small, approximately circular, image shows a map of the ratio of nitrogen to
hydrogen emission across an individual galaxy.
Weaker nitrogen (bluer colours) is from gas that has been ionized by massive hot young stars.
Green colours show stronger nitrogen due to more heavy elements in the gas, but with the ionization still from young stars.
Red colours (strongest nitrogen) show regions where the gas is ionized by
radiation from a disk around a super-massive black hole, or from shocks as gas is driven out of a galaxy at high velocity.
From left to right we show galaxies with increasing mass.
Data is taken from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph
(SAMI), developed and lead by the University of Sydney and used on the Anglo-
Australian Telescope. This instrument takes a spectrum at many different locations across each galaxy to allow us to study their internal structure.